Cato 02 - The Eagles Conquest Read Online Free PDF Page A

hospital tent, with his personal effects. The surgeon’s assistant knows what to give you. We’ll burn Bestia’s body at dawn. You’re dismissed. ‘
     

Chapter Four
    Outside, Cato whistled with astonishment at the prospect of Bestia’s bequest. But the centurion was paying little attention to his optio; he fingered the torc, relishing its considerable weight. They walked towards the hospital tent in silence until Macro looked up at the tall figure of the optio.
    ‘Well, well. Wonder what Bestia’s left for you.’
    Cato coughed, clearing the tightness in his throat. ‘No idea, sir.’
    ‘I had no inkling the old boy had it in him to make that kind of gesture. Never heard of him doing anything like this the entire time I’ve served with the eagles. Guess you must have made quite an impression after all’
    ‘I suppose so, sir. But I can hardly believe it.’
    Macro thought about it a moment, and then shook his head. ‘Neither can I. No offence meant or anything but, well, you just weren’t his idea of a soldier. Must admit, it took me a while to work out there was more to you than a beanpole bookworm. You just don’t have the look of a soldier about you.’
    ‘No, sir,’ came the sullen reply. ‘I’ll try and look the part from now on.’
    ‘Don’t worry about it, lad. I know you’re a killer, through and through, even if you don’t know it. Seen you in action, haven’t I?”
    Cato winced at the word ‘killer’. That was the last thing he wanted to be known as. A soldier, yes, that word had some measure of civilised credibility. Obviously being a soldier entailed the possibility of killing but that, Cato told himself, was incidental to the essence of the profession. Killers, on the other hand, were just brutes with few, if any, values. Those barbarians who lived in the shadows of the great German forests were killers. They slaughtered for the sheer hell of it, as their endless, petty tribal conflicts illustrated all too well. Rome may have had civil wars in its past, Cato reminded himself, but under the order imposed by the emperors the threat of internal conflict had all but passed. The Roman army fought with a moral purpose: the extension of civilised values to the benighted savages who lived on the fringes of the empire.
    What of these Britons? What kind of men were they? Killers, or soldiers after their fashion? The swordsman who had died in the legate’s games haunted his mind. The man had been a true warrior and had attacked with the ferocity of a born killer. His self-destruction was an act of sheer fanaticism, a trait in some men that deeply disturbed Cato, filling him with a sense of moral terror, and a conviction that only Rome offered a better way. For all its corrupt and cynical politicians, Rome ultimately stood for order and progress; a beacon to all those terrified huddled masses hiding in the shadows of dark barbarian lands.
    ‘Still regretting your bet?’ Macro nudged him out of his self-absorption.
    ‘No, sir. I was just thinking about that Briton.’
    ‘Ah, forget him. Stupid thing to do, and that’s all there is to it. I might have more respect for him if he’ d used the sword on us and tried to make a break for it. But to kill himself? What a waste.’
    ‘If you say so, sir.’
    They had reached the hospital tent, and waved away the insects crowding the oil lamps by the tent flaps, before ducking inside. An orderly was sitting at a desk to the side. He led them to the rear of the tent where the injured officers were quartered. Each centurion had been allotted a small sectioned area with a camp bed, side table and chamber pot. The orderly drew open a curtain and waved them in. Macro and Cato squeezed in either side of the narrow bed on which a linen shroud covered the chief centurion’s body.
    They stood a moment in silence, before the orderly spoke to Cato. ‘The items he wanted you to have are under the bed. I’ll leave you two here a while.’
    ‘Thanks,’ Cato