Read Centurion for Free Online Page A

orderlies to prepare the body for a funeral.’
    As they waited for the legionaries to reach a safe distance Cato edged closer to his commander and spoke softly. ‘Not a good situation. Last thing we need is for the men to enter a campaign with bad blood between them and the boys from the Tenth.’
    ‘Too right,’ Macro grumbled. ‘And now that our man’s dead, there’s no future for Crispus either.’
    ‘What’ll happen to him?’
    ‘Knifing a fellow soldier?’ Macro shook his head wearily. ‘No doubt about it. He’ll be condemned to death. And I doubt that Crispus’ execution will be the end of it.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘You know what soldiers are like for bearing a grudge. It’s bad enough when the men belong to the same unit. But this will lead to a feud between the Second Illyrian and the Tenth, mark my words.’ Macro gave a deep sigh. ‘And now I’ll have to write up a bloody report for the governor and see him first thing in the morning. I’d better be off. Give me a moment, then get our lads moving.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘I’ll see you later, Cato.’
    As Macro strode off down the street Cato stared at the body at his feet. The campaign had not even begun and already they’d lost two men. Worse, if Macro was right, the damage done by a single drunken brawl would fester in the hearts of the men. Just when they needed every ounce of their wits about them if they were to defeat the Parthians.

CHAPTER THREE
    The body of the auxiliary had been placed on a bier and carried to the pyre by his comrades just before dawn. The pyre had been constructed a short distance from the camp gates. The dead soldier’s century had mounted the honour guard, but almost every man of the cohort had been there to bear witness. Macro had noted their sullen, vengeful mood while he gave a brief oration for Menathus and then lit the pyre. The men watched the flames catch the oil-drenched wood and then crackle into life, sending up a swirling vortex of smoke and sparks into the clear sky. Then, as the pyre began to collapse in on itself, Macro nodded to Cato to give the order to return to camp and the men turned away quietly and marched off.
    ‘Not in the happiest of moods, I think,’ Cato muttered.
    ‘No.You’d better find them something to do. Keep ‘em occupied while I see Longinus.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Macro said tersely. ‘You’re the smart one. You decide.’
    Cato glanced at his companion in surprise but kept his mouth shut. He knew that Macro had spent the whole night dealing with the report and the preparations for the funeral, on top of the previous day’s drinking, and his black mood was inevitable. So Cato simply nodded.
    ‘Weapons drill. With training swords. That should wear them out.’
    A few hours with the double-weighted swords and wicker shields would exhaust even the strongest of men and a thin smile flickered across Macro’s expression.
    ‘See to it.’
    Cato saluted and turned to follow the men heading in through the main gate. Macro watched him for a moment, wondering when Cato would fully master the drill technique that Macro had taken so many years to become familiar with. Where Macro could shout instructions, and not a little invective, loud enough to be heard across the parade ground for hours at a stretch, Cato had not yet developed his lungs to the same degree and tended to come across as more of a schoolteacher than the front-line centurion he had proved himself to be. A few more years under his belt, Macro reflected, and the young man would carry it off as naturally as any other officer. Until then? Macro sighed. Until then, Cato would just have to keep proving himself worthy of the rank that so few men of his age had ever risen to.
    Macro turned towards the gates of Antioch. The governor had commandeered one of the finest houses in the city as his headquarters. No rudely constructed praetorium for Cassius Longinus, then. Nor the relative discomfort of a suite of