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.