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through the hubbub of shouted orders, muted conversation and braying. Cato listened attentively and recognised the signal summoning unit commanders to headquarters. He turned back into his tent and pulled on and laced up a leather jerkin with its protective strips that covered his shoulders and dropped from his waist to his thighs. He slung his sword strap over his shoulder and snatched up his woollen cape. It would be dark by the time he returned to his tent and he knew these valleys well enough to know how cold they became at night, even in what passed for a summer in Britannia. Stepping out of his tent, Cato fastened the pin at his shoulder and adjusted his cloak as he waited for Macro to stride up from his tent line. Then the two of them set off through the camp towards headquarters.

CHAPTER FOUR
    ‘N ow that we’re all here, I can begin.’ General Ostorius glanced at Cato and Macro pointedly before he looked over the faces of the officers seated on camp stools and benches in front of him. The last to arrive, Cato and Macro sat at the back, on the end of a bench, amongst the other auxiliary unit commanders. Cato was the youngest by some years and most of the other prefects had hair flecked with grey, or had already lost much of it. Some were scarred, like Cato, whose face was bisected by a jagged white line from a sword cut he had received in Egypt. In front of them sat the senior officers of the two legions in Ostorius’s column, the Fourteenth and Twentieth: the centurions commanding the cohorts, the junior tribunes and the broad-stripers who were destined to lead their own legions provided they showed the necessary potential, and lastly the two legates, veterans who had each been entrusted with command of one of the empire’s elite fighting formations.
    General Ostorius stood facing his officers, a thin, wiry aristocrat of advanced years, his face deeply creased and fringed with cropped white hair. He had a reputation as a tough and experienced officer with a sound grasp of strategy, but to Cato he looked frail and worn-down. His judgement was questionable too. Before Cato and Macro had returned to the province, the general had provoked an uprising by the tribesmen of the Iceni. He had been preparing for a campaign against the Silures and the Ordovices and to ensure the security of the rest of the province he had ordered the Iceni to lay down their arms.
    It had been a tactless move, causing grave offence to the warrior caste of the tribe who had been prepared to fight rather than give up their weapons. The ensuing revolt had been easily crushed, but it had delayed the campaign and bought Caratacus much needed time to organise his new allies. It had also humiliated the Iceni and their allies, and those tribes now regarded the Romans with thinly veiled hostility. That was the kind of wound to the pride that would fester in the hearts of the native tribesmen, Cato reflected. He doubted that it would be the last time the Iceni defied Rome. The final battle of the brief revolt had been won by tribal levies commanded by Roman officers. The divisions between the British tribes did far more to undermine the cause of those who opposed Rome than the swords of the legions. As long as the largest tribes continued to nurture their age-old rivalries, Rome would win the day. But if they ever united, then Cato feared that the Emperor’s soldiers would be swept from the island amid a tide of carnage and humiliation.
    Ostorius raised a hand and addressed his officers.
    ‘Gentlemen, as you know, we have been pursuing Caratacus through these wretched mountains for over a month now. Our cavalrymen have been doing their best to keep in contact with the enemy, but the terrain favours him rather than us. Too many choke points where the Silurian rearguard can turn and hold us off while the main body of their army escapes. So far we have remained in touch with the enemy. But the mists of the last few days have enabled Caratacus to give