When the Eagle Hunts

Cato lowered his sword, muttering, 'I can't do this.'

'You have to,' Lady Pomponia hissed over the head of her son. 'Take him, now!'

'No!' the boy screamed, and he locked his hands tightly about her arm. 'I won't leave you, Mummy! Please, Mummy, please don't make me go!'

Above the boy's crying, Cato heard another sound: faint shouts from the direction of the hill fort. The Druid who had escaped the ambush must have reached his comrades. There was very little time.

'I won't do it,' Cato said firmly. 'I promise I will find another way'

'What other way?' Lady Pomponia wailed, finally losing her patrician self-control. 'They're going to burn me alive!'

'No they're not. I swear it. On my life. I will set you free. I swear it.'

Lady Pomponia shook her head hopelessly.

'Now, hand me your son.'

'No!' the boy screamed, squirming away from Cato.

'The Druids come!' Prasutagus shouted, and all of them could hear the distant drumming of hooves.

'Take the girl and go!' Cato ordered Boudica.

'Go where?'

Cato thought quickly, mentally reconstructing the lie of the land from his memory of the day's travel.

'That wood we passed four, maybe five miles back. Head there. Now!'

Boudica nodded, grasped the arm of the girl and headed into the trees where she untied their horses. Cato called Prasutagus over and indicated Macro's still form.

'You take him. Follow Boudica.'

The Iceni warrior nodded, and lifted Macro easily into his arms.

'Gently!'

'Trust me, Roman.' Prasutagus looked once at Cato, then turned and headed towards the horses with his burden, leaving Cato standing alone at the back of the wagon.

Lady Pomponia grasped her son by the wrists. 'Aelius, you must go now. Be a good boy. Do what I say. I'll be all right. But you must go.'

'I shan't,' sobbed the little boy. 'I won't leave you, Mummy!'

'You have to.' She forced his wrists away from her and towards Cato. Aelius struggled frantically to break her grip. Cato took hold of his middle and pulled him gently out of the wagon. His mother watched with tears in her eyes, knowing she would never see her small son again. Aelius wailed and writhed in Cato's grip. A little way off, hooves pounded on wood as the Druids reached the trestle bridge. Boudica and Prasutagus were waiting, mounted, by the edge of the trees. The girl sat mute and silent in front of Boudica. Prasutagus, with one hand firmly holding the centurion's body, held out the reins of the last horse and Cato thrust the boy up on its back before he swung into the saddle, himself.

'Go!' he ordered the others, and they set off along the track away from the hill fort. Cato took one last look at the wagon, consumed with guilt and despair, and then dug his heels in.

As the horse jolted into a trot, Aelius wriggled free and slipped from Cato's grasp. He rolled away from the horse, stood up and ran back to the wagon as fast as his little legs could carry him.

'Mummy!'

'Aelius! No! Go back! For pity's sake!'

'Aelius!' Cato shouted. 'Come here!'

But it was no use. The boy reached the wagon, scrambled up and hurled himself into the arms of his sobbing mother. For an instant Cato turned his horse towards the wagon, but he could see movement down the track beyond it.

He cursed, then jerked the reins and galloped his horse after Boudica and Prasutagus.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Cato felt more wretched than he had ever felt in his entire life. The four of them, and the girl, Julia, were sitting deep in a wood they had passed earlier that day. Night had fallen when they had found the crumbling remains of an old silver mine and stopped in the diggings to rest and let their blown horses recover from their double burden. Julia was crying softly to herself. Macro lay under his and Cato's cloaks, still unconscious, his breath shallow and rasping.

The Druids had tried to track them down, fanning out across the countryside and calling to each other every time they thought they saw something. Twice they heard the sounds of pursuit, distant cries muffled by the trees, but nothing for some hours now. Even so, they kept quiet.

The young optio was in torment over the fate of Lady Pomponia and her son. The Druids had taken too many lives in recent months, and Cato would not let them have these last two. Yet how could he possibly honour his vow to rescue them? Lady Pomponia and Aelius were even now imprisoned in that vast hill fort, with its massive ramparts, high palisade and watchful garrison. Their rescue was the kind of deed that only mythic heroes could carry out successfully, and Cato's bitter self-analysis was that he was too weak and scared to have even the remotest chance of carrying it off. Had Macro not been injured, he might have felt more optimistic. What little Macro lacked in foresight and strategic initiative he more than made up for with courage and strength. The worse the odds, the more determined the centurion became to overcome them. That was the key quality of the man who had become his friend and mentor, and Cato knew it was precisely that quality he lacked. Now, more than ever, he needed Macro at his side, but the centurion lay at his feet, on the verge of death, it seemed. The wound would have killed a weaker man outright, but Macro's thick skull and physical resilience were keeping him on this side of the Styx, but only just.

'What now?' Boudica whispered. 'We must decide.'

'I know,' Cato replied irritably. 'I'm thinking.'

'Thinking's not good enough. We have to do something. He's not going to live long without proper attention.'

The emotion in her voice was barely hidden, and reminded Cato of her personal interest in Macro. He coughed to clear his throat and ease the emotion in his own voice.

'I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking.'

Boudica laughed briefly. 'That's my boy! Now then, let's talk. We have to get Macro back to the legion if he's to stand any chance of surviving. We need to get the girl out of here too.'

'We can't all go back. The horses aren't up to it. In any case, I need to be here, close to the hill fort, where I can keep an eye on things and see if there's any chance to rescue Lady Pomponia and the boy.'

'What can you do alone?' Boudica asked wearily. 'Nothing. That's what. We've done our best, Cato. We came very close to doing what we set out to do. It didn't work out. That's all there is to it. No point in throwing your life away.' She laid a hand on his shoulder. 'Really. That's how it is. No one could have done more.'

'Maybe not,' he agreed reluctantly. 'But it's not over yet.'

'What can you do now? Be honest.'

'I don't know… I don't know. But I'm not giving up. I gave my word.'

For a moment Boudica stared at the barely visible features of the optio's face.

'Cato

'What?'

'Be careful,' Boudica said softly. 'Promise me that at least.'

'I can't.'

'Very well. But you should know that I'd consider the world a poorer place without you in it. Don't go ahead of your time.'

'Who says this isn't my time?' Cato replied in a grim tone. 'And this isn't the moment to philosophise about it.'

Boudica regarded him with a sad, resigned expression.

'We'll tie Macro to one of the horses,' Cato went on. 'You and the girl take the other two. Leave the forest on the opposite side we came in from – that should keep you clear of the Druids. Go east, and don't stop until you reach Atrebate territory. If Prasutagus is right, that should take you no more than a day. Get back to the legion as soon as possible and tell Vespasian everything. Tell him I'm still here with Prasutagus and that we'll try to rescue Lady Pomponia if there's a chance.'

'What then?'

'Then? I imagine Vespasian will have some instructions for me. Prasutagus and I will use this forest as our base. If there's any message for us, it's to come here. You'd better make a mental map of the route on your way back so Vespasian's man can find us.'

'If there's a message, I'll bring it.'