Cato hurried through the brittle remains of the burned-out buildings where only the stoutest timbers and blackened stone walls still stood. He heard Macro calling out orders, and made for his centurion’s voice. Emerging between the walls of two of the more substantial buildings arranged around the heart of Noviomagus, he caught sight of Macro, and a few of his men, standing beside what looked like a covered well, about ten feet across. A waist-high stone parapet encircled it and the whole was covered with a conical hide roof. Strangely, the roof had been left intact by the raiders, apparently the one thing they had not tried to destroy.

‘Sir!’ Cato called out as he ran towards them. Macro looked up from the well, a distracted expression on his face. Seeing Cato, he stiffened his posture and strode to meet him.

‘Found anything?’

‘Yes, sir!’ Cato could not restrain his nervous excitement as he made his report. ‘There’s a pit filled with spoils near the main gate. They must be intending to come back this way. Sir, we might have a chance to spring a trap on them!’

Macro nodded solemnly, apparently unmoved by the prospect of ambushing the raiders. ‘I see,’ he said.

Cato’s impulse to run on about his discovery was stilled by the peculiar deadness in the face of his superior.

‘What’s the matter, sir?’

Macro swallowed. ‘Did you find any bodies?’

‘Bodies? No, sir. None. It’s a funny thing.’

‘Yes.’ Macro pursed his lips and jabbed a thumb towards the well. ‘Then I guess they must all be in there.’

When The Eagle Hunts

Chapter Ten

In the failing light Centurion Hortensisus formed a dull silhouette, almost devoid of detail as he leaned his hands on the stonework and peered into the well. Macro and his men hung back, keeping as far from any lingering spirits of the dead as possible. Diomedes sat alone, his back against the blackened stonework of a ruined building. His head was bowed, face buried in his arms, body wracked with grief.

‘He’s taking it a bit hard,’ muttered Figulus.