‘Optio, if I have to step in and discipline your men for you again I swear it’ll be you I beat senseless and leave for the enemy. How do you think it looks to the other men if you bloody go and act like his nursemaid? Before you know it, they’ll all be dropping like flies and whining that they’re too tired. You’ve got to make ‘em too terrified to even think of resting. Do that and you can save their lives. But if you piss around like I just saw you do, every straggler the enemy slaughters will be down to you. Got it?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I fucking hope so, sunshine. Because if there’s one thing —’

‘Enemy in sight!’ a distant voice called out, and from beyond the head of the cohort one of the horsemen from the cavalry squadron was galloping down the line, looking for Hortensius. The beast slewed to a halt in front of the centurion. To the side, on the track, the men of the cohort continued to march past as no order to halt had been given, but the horseman’s cry had raised every head and the men looked around for sign of the enemy.

‘Where?’

‘Ahead, across the track, sir.’ The cavalry scout pointed up the track to where it curved round a low forested hill. The rest of the squadron, tiny dark figures set against the snowy landscape, were forming up in a line at the point where the track began to bend round the hill.

‘How many?’

‘Hundreds, sir. And they’ve got chariots and some heavy infantry.’

‘I see.’ Hortensius nodded, and bellowed the order to halt the cohort. He turned back towards the scout. ‘Tell your decurion to keep them under observation. Let me know the moment they make a move.’

The scout saluted, wheeled his horse round and pounded back towards the distant figures of the squadron, hooves spraying snow into the faces of the infantry as he passed.

Hortensius cupped his hands. ‘Officers! To me!’

‘Not much light left,’ Cato muttered, gazing anxiously at the sky.

Macro nodded but kept his eyes on the thick line of enemy warriors barring the track ahead where it passed through a narrow vale. Unusually for the Britons, these men stood still and silent, heavy infantry drawn up in the centre, light infantry to each side and a small force of chariots on each flank. Well over a thousand men, he estimated. Set against the four hundred and fifty effectives of the Fourth Cohort the odds did not look good. The cavalry squadron was no longer with them; Hortensius had ordered them to slip round the enemy and make best speed to the legion’s headquarters and beg the legate to send out a relief column. The legion was nearly twenty miles distant but the scouts should reach them during the night, if all went well.