‘And just for a change it’s snowing,’ grumbled Cato as he looked up into the first flurry descending from the night sky. A cold wind was blowing in from the sea and brought a swirling mass of white flakes down on the men of the Fourth Cohort as they lay hidden in and around the ruined settlement. The clear weather of the last few days had left the ground dry and the snow began to settle at once, speckling the dark cloaks and shields of the legionaries as they shivered in silence.

‘Won’t last long, Optio,’ Figulus whispered. ‘Look there!’ He indicated a clear patch of sky to one side of the dark looming clouds. Stars, and the dim crescent of a half-moon, glimmered faintly in an almost black sky.

It seemed a long time since night had fallen, and the tense anticipation of the men sharpened their senses as they waited for the raiders to fall into the trap. The Sixth Century was concealed in the ruins around the centre of the settlement. Peering over the waist-high stonework of a hut, Cato could not see any of the other men of the century but their presence was palpable. As was the presence of the dead piled up in the well close by. The image of the dead boy came unbidden into Cato’s mind and his bitter appetite to exact a terrible revenge on the Druids and their followers was given a new edge.

‘Where the hell are those bloody British bastards?’ he muttered, then immediately clenched his jaw, furious with himself for displaying his impatience in front of his men. With the exception of Figulus, they had sat in silence, according to their orders. Most of them were seasoned veterans who had been posted to the Second Legion the previous autumn to bring the unit up to strength. Vespasian’s unit had suffered grievous losses in the early battles of the campaign and had been fortunate enough to have first pick of the replacements from the reserves shipped in from Gaul.

‘Want me to go and look, sir?’ Figulus asked.

‘No!’ snapped Cato. ‘Sit still, damn you. Not another sound.’

‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.’

As the recruit shuffled off a short distance, Cato shook his head in despair. Left to his own devices that idiot would wreck the hurriedly laid plans of Centurion Hortensius. In the short time before the enemy column came within sight of the settlement, two centuries had been deployed in the settlement itself, the other four hidden in the defensive ditch, ready to close the circle that would snare the raiders. The cavalry scouts were concealed along the fringes of a nearby wood and had been detailed to emerge as soon as the signal to attack was given. They would then watch for and chase down any of the Britons that managed to escape from the settlement. Not that Cato intended to give them much chance of that.