The small column stepped out down the track towards the distant safety of the last evacuation ship, the centurion marching at their side, keeping an anxious watch on the mist that swallowed up the track behind them. The volley of javelins did not delay the Britons for long and soon the sound of hooves closed in on them again, slower and more cautious this time.

The centurion heard a thud and one of his men gasped in pain. He turned to see an arrow shaft protruding from the back of the rearmost legionary. Fighting for breath as his lungs filled with blood, the man fell to his knees and toppled forward.

'At the trot!'

The belts and harnesses of the legionaries jingled as they quickened the pace and tried to increase the distance between themselves and their invisible pursuers. More arrows whirred out of the mist, fired blindly at the Romans. Still, some found their mark and one by one the column shrank in size as men fell on the track and lay, swords drawn, grimly waiting for the end. By the time the centurion reached the final rise, where the marsh gave way to sand and pebble, only four men remained with him. The faint sound of the seashore was the music of hope to their ears and a slight September breeze worked to thin the mist ahead of them.

All at once the path ahead was clear. Two hundred paces away across the shingle, a small boat waited in the surf. A little way out to sea a trireme lay at anchor in a gentle swell and, far out towards the horizon, the dark specks of the invasion fleet were fading into the gloom of dusk.

'Run for it!' shouted the centurion, throwing down his shield and sword. 'Run!'

The shingle scattered beneath their feet as they sprinted down towards the boat. Immediately the war horn sounded behind them as the Britons also caught sight of the sea, spurring their horses on to run down the surviving men before they could reach safety. Teeth gritted, the centurion hurled himself down the gentle slope, grimly aware of me sounds of their pursuers closing rapidly, but he dared not look back for fear that it might cause him to slow his pace. He could see a tall figure standing in the rear of the boat desperately urging him on, as the general's red cloak rippled out behind him in the gentle breeze. Fifty feet to go, and a sharp cry came from just behind him as one of the Britons thrust his spear through the rearmost legionary.

With every fibre of his body screaming out for life, the centurion pounded across the wet sand at the sea's edge, splashed through the surf and hurled himself over the bows of the boat. Eager hands grabbed him under the shoulders and bodily pulled him down. An instant later, a legionary crashed down on top of him, snatching his breaths from the sea air. A pair of the general's burly bodyguards jabbed their spears at the pursuers who had reined in at the water's edge now the odds had been evened. But they were already too late and the boat quickly moved into deeper water as the oarsmen bent themselves to their work, rowing the boat back to the safety of the trireme.

'Did you manage to sink the wagon?' the general asked anxiously.

'Y-yes, sir…' panted the centurion, and he patted the wax tablet hanging at his side. 'There's a map, sir. Good as I could make in the time we had.'

'Well done, centurion. Well done. I'll have that now.'

As the centurion handed over the tablet he glanced round and saw that only one man had escaped with him. Only one. On the shrinking shoreline he could see a score of horsemen clustered round another of his men, foolish enough to be taken alive, and the centurion shuddered at the thought of what terrors lay in wait for the helpless legionary.

Every man in the boat watched in silence, until finally the general spoke.

'We'll come back, men. We'll come back, and when we do I promise you that we'll make those bastards regret the day they ever took up arms against Rome. I, Caius Julius Caesar, swear this on my father's grave…'

The Rhine Frontier

Ninety-six years later, in the second year of the reign of Emperor Claudius

Late 42 AD

An icy blast of wind swept into the latrine with the sentry.

'Wagon's approaching, sir!'

'Shut the bloody door! Anything else?'

'Small column of men.'

'Soldiers?'

'Hardly.' The sentry grimaced. 'Unless there's been some change in marching drill.'

The duty centurion glanced up sharply. 'I don't recall asking for an opinion on policy, soldier.'

'No, sir!' The sentry snapped to attention under the glare of his superior. Only a few months earlier Lucius Cornelius Macro had been an optio and was still finding promotion to the centurionate hard to handle. His former comrades in the ranks were still inclined to treat him as an equal. It was hard to register a respectful attitude to one who so recently had been seen emptying his guts of a skinful of cheap wine. But, for some months before the promotion, Macro had been aware that senior officers were considering him for the first available vacancy in the centurionate and had done his best to keep indiscretions to a minimum. For, when all his qualities were placed in the balance, Macro was a good soldier – when good soldiering was required – conscientious in his duties, reliably obedient to orders and he could be counted on to hold firm in a fight and inspire others to do the same.

Macro suddenly realised that he had been gazing at the sentry for a while and that the legionary was shifting uncomfortably under his scrutiny, as one tends to in front of a silently staring superior. And officers could be such unpredictable bastards, the sentry thought nervously, first whiff of power and they either don't know what to do with it, or they insist on giving bloody-minded and stupid orders.

'What are your orders, sir?'

'Orders?' Macro frowned for a moment. 'All right then. I'll come. You get back to the gate.'

'Yes, sir.' The sentry turned and hurriedly made his way out of the junior officers' latrine block, pulling the door to as the half-dozen centurions glared after him. It was an unwritten rule that no-one, but no-one, permitted their men to interrupt proceedings in the latrine. Macro applied the sponge stick, pulled up his breeches and apologised to the other centurions before hurrying outside.

It was a filthy night and a cold northerly wind was blowing the rain down from the German forests. It swept across the Rhine, over the fortress walls and was funnelled into icy blasts between the barrack blocks. Macro suspected that he was keenly disapproved of by his newfound peers and was determined to prove them wrong. Not that this resolution was working out terribly successfully. The administrative duties relating to the command of eighty men were proving to be a nightmare – ration-collection details, latrine rotas, sentry rotas, weapons inspections, barrack inspections, punishment ledgers, equipment procurement chits, arranging fodder for the section mules, taking charge of pay, savings and the funeral club.

The only help available for carrying out these duties came in the form of the century's clerk, a wizened old cove named Piso, who Macro suspected of being dishonest or simply incompetent. Macro had no way of finding out for himself, because he was all but illiterate. Brought up with only the most rudimentary knowledge of letters and numbers he could recognise most individually, but more than that was impossible. And now he was a centurion, a rank for whom literacy was a prerequisite. Doubtless the legate had naturally assumed Macro could read and write when he approved the appointment. If it came to light that he was no more literate than a Campanian farm boy, Macro knew he would be demoted at once. So far he had managed to get round the problem by delegating the paperwork to Piso and claiming that his other duties were keeping him too busy, but he was sure that the clerk had begun to suspect the truth. He shook his head as he trudged over to the fortress gate, pulling his red cloak tightly about him.