Prasutagus stood the first watch, while the others ate and tried to sleep, huddled in their cloaks in the cold air of early spring. Macro, as usual, fell into a deep slumber almost as soon as he had curled up under his cloak. But Cato’s mind was restless, tormented by Diomedes’s terrible fate and the prospect of what lay ahead, and he fidgeted and fretted. When he could take no more, he threw back his cloak and stood up. He added some wood to the glowing embers of the fire and helped himself to one of the air-dried strips of beef in his saddlebag. The meat was as hard as wood and could only be swallowed after a great deal of chewing. Which suited Cato, who needed something to occupy him. He was on his second strip of dried beef when Boudica joined him in front of the fire. They had risked a small fire, concealed by the crumbling walls of an abandoned farm. The thatch roof had fallen in and now lazy flames licked around the remains of the roofing timber Cato had chopped to bits for fuel.

‘We might catch them up,’ she answered him. ‘Your centurion thinks we will.’

‘And what happens if we do?’ Cato said quietly, with a quick glance towards the bundled form of his snoring centurion. ‘What will three men be able to achieve against who knows how many Druids? There’ll be some kind of bodyguard as well. It’ll be suicide.’

‘Don’t always look for the dark side of a situation,’ Boudica chided him. ‘There’s four of us, not three. And Prasutagus is worth any ten Durotrigan warriors that ever lived. From what I know of your centurion, he’s a pretty formidable fighter as well. The Druids will have their work cut out with those two. I have my bow with me, and even my small hunting arrows can kill a man if I’m lucky. Which leaves you. How good are you in a fight, Cato?’

‘I can handle myself.’ Cato opened his cloak and tapped his fingers on the phalerae he had been awarded for saving Macro’s life in a skirmish over a year earlier. ‘I didn’t get these for record-keeping.’

‘I’m sure you didn’t. I meant no disrespect, Cato. I’m just trying to work out our chances against the Druids and, well, you don’t have the build or the look of a killer about you.’

Cato gave her a thin smile. ‘I try not to look like a killer, actually. I don’t find it aesthetically pleasing.’