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Simon Scarrow

Britannia

CHAPTER ONE

October, AD 52

‘What do you think?’ Prefect Cato asked as he stared down the slope towards the fortified settlement sprawling along the floor of the valley. While it was not nearly so formidable as the vast hill forts he had seen in the southern lands of Britannia, the Deceanglian tribesmen had constructed their defences well. The settlement had been built on raised ground close to the river that flowed swiftly through the valley. A deep ditch surrounded a turf rampart topped with a sturdy palisade. There was a fortified gateway at each end of the settlement where sentries kept watch up and down the valley. Cato estimated that there must be several hundred round huts within the defences. There were many animals penned in there as well, together with what looked like a cluster of tents – the covers of the stone-lined grain pits used by the natives.

Lying next to the young officer was Centurion Macro, his lined face crinkling as he squinted into the late-afternoon sunlight flooding the valley, giving a burnished glow to the stubbled fields and the dark-green boughs of the pine trees covering the slopes either side of the settlement. Both men had taken off their helmets and left them with the small patrol waiting on the other side of the ridge. The same men who had reported the unusual activity at the village the day before. With their dull brown cloaks and their cautious approach to the vantage point through the stunted trees covering the hill, Cato and Macro had avoided being seen by the enemy as they took stock of the Deceanglian warriors’ preparations.

Macro, a tough veteran, pursed his lips briefly. ‘Looks clear enough to me. They’ve gathered in men from the outlying villages. See that mob by the horse lines? Right by that stock of spears and shields.

Ten denarii gets you one; that ain’t no hunting party. ’ He paused and made a quick estimate of the enemy’s strength. ‘Can’t be more than five or six hundred of them. No immediate danger to us. ’

Cato nodded. It was true. The fort they had been posted to ten miles to the east was well positioned and garrisoned by the two units under his command: Macro’s cohort of legionaries from the Fourteenth, and his own part-mounted auxiliary cohort. The Blood Crows, as they were known, thanks to the design on their banner, had once been a cavalry unit. The recent campaigns in the mountains of the west of the province had caused the loss of many of the army’s horses. The training depot at Luntum had been working hard to supply remounts, but there were far too few to satisfy the needs of the army. As a result, half the men of Cato’s cohort now served as infantry, and the unit had been posted, along with Macro’s men, to one of the outposts tasked with protecting the frontier of Emperor Claudius’s new province. A fresh draft of replacement troops had filled out the ranks of both units and brought them nearly up to the strength with which they had started the campaign against the mountain tribes. With over four hundred legionaries together with as many auxiliary troops, they were in no danger from the war party gathering in the settlement.