‘Now, hand me your son.’

‘No!’ the boy screamed, squirming away from Cato.

‘The Druids come!’ Prasutagus shouted, and all of them could hear the distant drumming of hooves.

‘Take the girl and go!’ Cato ordered Boudica.

‘Go where?’

Cato thought quickly, mentally reconstructing the lie of the land from his memory of the day’s travel.

‘That wood we passed four, maybe five miles back. Head there. Now!’

Boudica nodded, grasped the arm of the girl and headed into the trees where she untied their horses. Cato called Prasutagus over and indicated Macro’s still form.

‘You take him. Follow Boudica.’

The Iceni warrior nodded, and lifted Macro easily into his arms.

‘Gently!’

‘Trust me, Roman.’ Prasutagus looked once at Cato, then turned and headed towards the horses with his burden, leaving Cato standing alone at the back of the wagon.

Lady Pomponia grasped her son by the wrists. ‘Aelius, you must go now. Be a good boy. Do what I say. I’ll be all right. But you must go.’

‘I shan’t,’ sobbed the little boy. ‘I won’t leave you, Mummy!’

‘You have to.’ She forced his wrists away from her and towards Cato. Aelius struggled frantically to break her grip. Cato took hold of his middle and pulled him gently out of the wagon. His mother watched with tears in her eyes, knowing she would never see her small son again. Aelius wailed and writhed in Cato’s grip. A little way off, hooves pounded on wood as the Druids reached the trestle bridge. Boudica and Prasutagus were waiting, mounted, by the edge of the trees. The girl sat mute and silent in front of Boudica. Prasutagus, with one hand firmly holding the centurion’s body, held out the reins of the last horse and Cato thrust the boy up on its back before he swung into the saddle, himself.

‘Go!’ he ordered the others, and they set off along the track away from the hill fort. Cato took one last look at the wagon, consumed with guilt and despair, and then dug his heels in.

As the horse jolted into a trot, Aelius wriggled free and slipped from Cato’s grasp. He rolled away from the horse, stood up and ran back to the wagon as fast as his little legs could carry him.

‘Mummy!’

‘Aelius! No! Go back! For pity’s sake!’

‘Aelius!’ Cato shouted. ‘Come here!’

But it was no use. The boy reached the wagon, scrambled up and hurled himself into the arms of his sobbing mother. For an instant Cato turned his horse towards the wagon, but he could see movement down the track beyond it.

He cursed, then jerked the reins and galloped his horse after Boudica and Prasutagus.

When The Eagle Hunts

Chapter Twenty-Nine