The Eagles Conquest

Chapter Forty-One

Far from the pageant of the Emperor's arrival Cato was doing the rounds of the fort assigned to his half of the century. Five hundred paces further along the ridge was the fort manned by Macro and the other forty men. The line of outposts formed a perimeter to the main army camp, a mile away down by the river and the ridge gave good views over the countryside north of the Tamesis. In daylight no British force would be able to approach undetected and the small garrisons would have ample time to fall back on the main army, if necessary.

At night, however, the situation was very different and the sentries' eyes and ears strained to identify every suspicious noise and shift of shadow beyond the turf walls. With the arrival of the Emperor the sentries were more jumpy than usual and Cato had ordered the night watches to be relived every time the signal trumpets down in the main camp sounded the hour. Better that than have the men exhausted the next day, or making sightings of the enemy based on an overheated imagination.

Cato climbed the rough wooden steps to the sentry walk and made his way along the fort's straight sides, ensuring that every man was alert and had not forgotten the challenge and password. Words were quietly exchanged as each man made his report and as usual there were no signs of enemy activity. Finally Cato climbed the watchtower with its wicker side and front guards. Forty feet above the ground he pulled himself through the opening at the back and saluted the man watching the northern approaches.

'All quiet?'

'Nothing to report, Optio.'

Cato nodded, and leaned against the broad timber post at the rear of the tower, looking back down the slope to the main camp delineated by a mass of brilliant orange pinpricks from torches and fires. Beyond lay the narrow lines of torches that marked out the bridge stretching across the silver-grey loom of the Tamesis, tailing off into the night in a broad sweep. On the far bank glittered the outline of the camp where the Emperor, his followers and reinforcements now slept. And somewhere amongst them slept Lavinia. His heart lifted at the thought of her. 'Bet those bastards over there are living it up.'

'I suppose so,' Cato replied, sharing every sentry's innate suspicion that the fun only ever began once they were on watch. The thought of Lavinia enjoying the high life of the imperial court a scant two miles away filled him with anxiety and jealousy. While his duty kept him from her in this benighted little outpost, others could be wooing her. An image of the flashy young aristocrats of the imperial court filled him with dread, and with an impulsive thump of the wicker side guard he tore his mind away from Lavinia and forced himself to think about more immediate concerns. Some hours had passed since he had last left the fort to check on the picket line. That would keep him occupied, and keep Lavinia from preying on his thoughts.

'Carry on,' he muttered at the sentry and swung himself back onto the ladder to descend into the gloom of the fort. No time had been wasted on constructing permanent shelters, and the off-duty men slumbered and snored on the ground, preferring to risk the irritation of insect bites rather than suffer the stifling air inside their leather tents. Cato picked his way along the inside of the turf wall until he reached the fort's only gate. A quick order to the section leader responsible for the eight men on standby had the bar removed and one of the panels swung inwards. He headed off into the night, keeping in line with the dark mass of Macro's fort. Behind him the gate clattered back into place.

Outside the reassuring turf walls, the night was alive with a sense of imminent danger and Cato felt a cold thrill of tension tickle its way up his spine. Looking back he could see the dim outline of the palisade already too far off for comfort and his hand slid down to the pommel of his sword as he strode quietly through the tall grass. A hundred paces on, Cato slowed down in anticipation of the first challenge and sure enough a voice hissed out of the darkness from close at hand and a dark shape rose from the grass.

'Stand and be recognised!'

'Blues triumphant,' Cato replied quietly. Using his favourite chariot team for a password was not perhaps very original, but it was easy to recall.

'Pass, friend,' the sentry responded sourly, slinking back into cover.

Clearly a devotee of a rival team, Cato realised as he crept on. At least the man was alert. This post was the most dangerous on the sentry roster and any man who fell asleep out here was asking to have his throat cut by a British scout. And the scouts were out there all right. Caratacus may have pulled his main force back, but the British commander knew the value of good intelligence and kept probing the Roman lines under the cover of darkness. There had been more than one vicious skirmish fought in the dead of night over recent weeks.

A hundred paces further on Cato began looking for the next sentry.

Crouching low he slowed to a creeping step and picked his way forward to where the man should be. No challenge greeted him and Cato quickly looked up to check that he was still in line with the ramparts of his fort and those of Macro. He was, near enough, and there was the crushed grass where the sentry had been squatting. But no sign of the man. Cato wondered if he should call out. Just as he was about to, the terrible thought that something had happened to the sentry jumped into his mind. Supposing the man had been discovered by a British scout and killed? Supposing the scout was still close by? Cato went for the handle of his sword and slowly drew it from its scabbard, wincing at the metallic rasp of its passage.

'Keep still, Optio,' a voice whispered so softly he might have mistaken it for a breeze rustling the grass, had the air not been so still. Cato's blood froze at the sound and then he felt anger rising up inside him. This wasn't a proper challenge. What the bloody hell was the man playing at?

'Over here, Optio. Stay low.'

'What's going on?' Cato whispered back.

'We've got company.'

Cato slipped down onto his hands and knees and eased his way through the grass in the direction of the sentry's voice. The sentry, Scaurus, was one of the replacements, a man with a good record, Cato recalled. There he was, dark form squatting on his haunches, javelin held down out of sight. No shield to burden him if he needed to sprint back to the fort. Cato crept to his side.

'What is it?'

Scaurus didn't reply for a moment, and remained quite still, head fixed in one direction, down the slope towards enemy territory. He raised his arm and pointed into the shadows of some tall shrubs growing halfway up the slope. 'There!'

Cato followed his direction but saw only stillness. He shook his head.

'Can't see anything.'

'Don't look, listen.'

The optio tilted an ear towards the shrubs and tried to distinguish any noise that ought not to be there. A single bird whose call he could not recognise sang a melancholy refrain over and over again, and a hunting owl briefly added its mellow hooting before it abruptly fell silent.

Cato gave up. Whatever was out there had either gone or more likely, had 'Imply been the product of Scaurus' imagination. He made a mental note to ensure that Scaurus was given only tower duties from now on. At that moment something snorted down in the shrubs. A horse.

'Hear that?' said Scaurus.

'Yes.'

'Want me to go down and look?'

'No. We wait here. See who it is.'

It might be a Roman scout, lost on patrol and unaware how near he had wandered to his own lines. So they waited, stiftly poised, heightened,cnses straining for further sign of the intruder. The owl called out again, louder this time, and Cato was about to curse it when there was a disturbance down the slope, and a dark shape detached itself from the shrubs: a man leading a horse. He drew the animal up the slope, almost in line with Cato and Scaurus, so that he must pass within ten feet of them. The horseman came on, carefully picking his way in case the ground,'ontained any obstacles that might trip him up and attract unwanted attention. The footfall of the horse was much more obvious, a dull scuffing clomp as it followed its rider, oblivious of the need for secrecy. When the rider was no more than twenty feet away, Cato nudged Scaurus and whispered, 'Now.'

The sentry leaped to his feet, javelin arm raised and moving smoothly back into the throwing position as he called out his challenge. Cato moved out to one side, sword drawn, ready to fight.

'Stand still and be recognised!'

The rider jumped back with a cry of alarm, causing the horse to shy off to one side with a frightened whinny. The moment of shock passed in an instant and before either Cato or Scaurus could react, the rider had thrown himself onto his mount and was kicking it with his heels.

'Don't let him get away!' Cato screamed.

There was a blur of movement and a sickening thunk. The rider cried out and for a moment reeled in his saddle. Then he folded to one side and, head first, rolled off his horse. The beast reared up, nearly toppling back onto its rider, before twisting to one side at the last moment and galloping back down the slope and into the night. The grass rustled briefly as Cato and Scaurus sprinted over to the rider. He lay on his back gasping for breath, the shaft of the javelin embedded in his stomach. He cried out a few words in a strange tongue before he passed out.

'Want me to finish him off, Optio?' asked Scaurus as he braced his foot on the man's chest and pulled out the javelin with a wet sucking noise.

Vitellius was about to make another owl call when he heard the sentry's challenge. Instantly he flattened himself into the grass, heart pounding as he tried to hear what was going on.

'Don't let him get away!'

A sharp cry of pain splintered through the dark night, then came the sound of hooves pounding swiftly into the distance, until only low voices and moaning could be heard. More heartbeats passed before he risked raising his head above the grass for a quick glance. Swiftly scanning left and right he caught sight of the dark mass of two men bent over something they were carrying towards the nearest fort.

There was no doubt about it then: Nisus had been caught trying to cross back over the Roman lines. Vitellius bit back on the oath that nearly sprang to his lips and thumped the ground angrily, Bloody fool! He cursed himself. Bloody stupid fool. He should never have used the Carthaginian; the man was a surgeon, not trained in the arts of espionage. But there had been no one else he could use, he reflected, He had had to make do with an amateur and tonight's catastrophe was the result. It seemed that Nisus had fallen into Roman hands alive. What if the man could be interrogated before he died? And die he would, if not from his injuries then from the stoning he would receive for deserting his unit in the face of the enemy. If Nisus was made to talk then he, Vitellius, would surely be implicated.

The situation was extremely dangerous. Best get back to the camp before he was missed. He desperately needed time to think, time to find a strategy to deal with this predicament.

Crouching low, Vitellius turned down the slope towards the twinkling fires of the army. He had told that dull-witted optio of the Ninth on the gate that he was making an external inspection of the rampart. That would have taken plenty of time, more than enough for him to make his way to the ridge and meet Nisus at the point they had arranged several days earlier.

Now there was no knowing how Caratacus had responded to his plan.

No way of knowing at all, unless he could get to Nisus and speak to him before he died. It was rotteen luck. No he corrected himself, it was rotten planning. He had to blame himself. He should never have used Nisus. and he should never have picked this meeting point. Most officers didn't place pickets between the forts during the night. Trust him to pick the section of the front line guarded by a thorough officer.

Having given the password, Vitellius was re-admitted through the gate. He nodded his thanks to the watch optio and reassured him that the perimeter defences were in excellent order. Slinking back through the lines of tents, Vitellius made his way to his quarters and collapsed on his camp bed fully dressed. He might sleep later, but now he must give thought to the grim situation Nisus' capture had placed him in. That the surgeon would have to be silenced was in no doubt. If the sentry hadn't seen to it already, he himself would. Then he must recover Caratacus' reply from Nisus before the body was searched too thoroughly. Even the best codes could be broken in a matter of days, and the simplicity of the code they had agreed on would be deciphered the moment anyone recognised what they were looking at. If that happened, he could only hope that the message did not include any detail that implicated him directly. If one whiff of his complicity reached the all-smelling nose of Narcissus, he would be quietly, and painfully, executed.

It was a dangerous game that he played. Roman politics had always been dangerous, and the higher one rose, the greater the risks one had to take. That excited Vitellius. Not to the point where he might be careless. He had far too much respect for the intelligence of the other players to ever underestimate them. Fortunately many of his rivals did not return the compliment; they were the kind of people whose intelligence was fatally blighted by their arrogance. Like Cicero, they required regular acknowledgement of their powerful intellects, and it was in those incremental moments of weakness that their ultimate fall was assured. Vitellius had broken this rule just once and then only to persuade Vespasian that the consequences of exposing him would be far more calamitous for the legate than for him. Even so, he still felt he had said too much and vowed never again to say one word more than was necessary.

Vitellius took pride in the fact that he had quickly learned never to subscribe to someone else's cause. The very notion of a 'secret organisation' was an oxymoron; there was an almost exponential increase in the possibility of betrayal or exposure every time such an organisation recruited a new member. No, it was far safer to work alone; towards a specific end, with no obligations to causes or comrades. Isolation from such groups was his strength and their weakness,as his present scheme proved

But it was now a common assumption amongst the senior officers that the Roman weapons they had discovered in the hands of the Britons must have been supplied by the Liberators. Clearly these traitors had assumed that the Britons would hurl the invaders back into the sea and that such scary catastrophe must lead to the fall of Claudius. In the ensuing chaos, the Liberators saw themselves emerging as the champions of the new republic. Had the invasion failed, no one would have been more delighted than Vitellius. If the political system could be kept unstable enough, he would have time to develop his political position. One day. when he was quite sure the moment was ripe, he would seize power for himself.

Now the Liberators' latest perceived treachery meant that their name would be blackened back in Rome. From the lowliest squat in the slums of the Subura to the wealthiest dinner tables of the Janiculan, the Liberators would be cursed in the harshest possible terms. Vitellius was working to add to their damnation with the plot to kill Claudius. It would have been impossible to carry it through alone, but the careful cultivation Nisus' deep-rooted resentment of Rome had borne fruit. Caratacus had proved to be an enthusiastic ally when the possibility was broached via the message carried by the prisoner Vitellius had helped to escape. Any political disorder in Rome that caused the invaders to withdraw from Britain was worth the stigma of being involved in an assassination.

Vitellius found himself warming to Caratacus. He had never met the British leader in person, but the quality of the man's mind was evident in his arrangements for the plot. Despite having the terrible disadvantage of coming from a warrior culture which valued a man's honour above all else, Caratacus was admirably pragmatic. He would be making a stand against Claudius before Camulodunum. That was a certainty. To allow the capital to fall without a single sword being raised in its defence would demoralise any will to resist in the other tribes of the island. The defiant posture would have to be maintained, even at the cost of yet another defeat. There was always the possibility, however unlikely, that the battle could be won, or at least a Roman victory could be made so Pyrrhic that it held up the invasion.

If the coming battle ended in another defeat for the Britons, then the assassination could be attempted at the subsequent surrender of the tribes taken by the Emperor in person. Caratacus had managed to persuade one of his followers to accept the suicidal duty of wielding the blade. It only remained for Vitellius to see to it that the man was provided with a knife after being searched prior to his presentation to the Emperor. But without the message Nisus had been carrying, Vitellius would not know the identity of the assassin. Without that knowledge, there could be no attempt on the Emperor's life.

Whether the assassination of Claudius succeeded or not, the blame would be attached to the Liberators. It might well be a British knife that plunged into the Emperor's heart but those investigating the plot would be sure to find some way of implicating the Liberators, particularly if they were encouraged to do so.

Vitellius suddenly sat upright on his camp bed, angry with himself.

There was no point in thinking about the pleasures the future had to offer when at any moment his complicity in the plot could be revealed by Nisus. Equally, there was little he could do about it until Nisus, or news of Nisus, was brought into the main camp. Then he could justify his attendance on the man by acting the concerned friend. In the meantime, he admonished himself, he must be calm. He must not give the appearance of being fretful lest anyone who saw him remembered it when giving evidence to any investigation that might take place if the worst happened. Better to think about something more pleasing.

It was then that he recalled having seen Flavia amongst the imperial entourage. Behind Vespasian's wife had stood that terribly attractive slave girl he had once had a fling with when the Second had been stationed in Germania. Even that lecherous old dotard Claudius had noticed her. As he recalled her features, Vitellius smiled at the prospect of renewing their relationship.