The Golden Acorn - Catherine Cooper [79]
Camelin sighed again and hung his head. They sat in silence watching the trees.
There was a flicker of movement.
‘Look!’ Jack whispered. ‘What’s that over there?’
Camelin had seen it too, a glint of metal and a flash of red.
‘Romans!’ he gasped. ‘This is it. You’re going to have to watch. I don’t want to see what they did to me.’
Jack didn’t want to watch either but if they were ever going to succeed he’d have to be strong and brave as the prophecy foretold. He had to know what had happened to the cauldron plates.
‘Wait here. I’ll go and have a closer look.’
‘Don’t let them see you,’ warned Camelin.
Jack glided down from the tree and landed as quietly as he could on a branch near the entrance to the grove. He felt quite shaken at the sight of a tall muscular soldier coming out of the trees. The leather straps hanging from his belt were studded and tipped with metal. They clinked together nosily as they bounced up and down on his red tunic. Another soldier appeared. He was obviously in command. On his head was an impressive helmet with the red plume of a centurion. In his hand he carried a tall stick with a silver top. Each segment of his polished armour glinted in the morning sun as he paced up and down. The first soldier saluted him. Two more came out of the trees and joined them, one leading a horse, the other a heavily-laden mule.
The centurion was about to speak when a boy bolted out from the trees and ran straight into his chest knocking the long stick out of his hand onto the ground. The first soldier Jack had seen quickly bent down and picked it up.
Jack gasped; the missing part of Camelin’s life was about to unfold.
He watched in horror as the centurion shouted angrily and struck the boy’s face. He gripped him hard around his shoulders and shook him violently. The boy struggled as he tried desperately to escape. More soldiers ran out from the trees and surrounded them.
‘Stand still,’ one of the soldiers commanded, as he thumped the boy hard in the back.
It must have hurt but the boy didn’t cry out, though he stopped struggling. The centurion took one hand off the boy’s shoulder and retrieved his long stick from the soldier who was holding it. He must have relaxed his grip on the other shoulder because the boy squirmed and wriggled out of his grasp. Once free he turned and kicked the soldier who’d punched him, as hard as he could, on the shin. He started to run. He dodged between the first two soldiers and sidestepped a third before the centurion bellowed loudly.
‘Kill him!’
The scraping of metal filled the air as every soldier drew his sword. One struck the boy on the back of the head. His knees buckled; his limp body dropped onto the damp grass. It was over so quickly. Jack could see blood flowing from the wound. He was frozen to the branch, his whole body rigid from shock and fear. He felt sick and was finding it hard to breathe. If he didn’t know better he would have thought Camelin was dead. The centurion prodded the body with his long stick.
‘Search him,’ he commanded.
Jack held his breath as one of the soldiers rolled the boy over and put his hand inside his tunic. He pulled out the three cauldron plates and examined them.
‘Only these,’ he said as he offered them to the centurion.
‘Nothing of value here,’ the centurion replied and tossed them into the grass. ‘Is the building alight?’
‘All is done centurion,’ the soldier announced. ‘The trees will be ablaze shortly.’
Jack could hear the crackling of branches as the fire began to spread.
‘We march to Viroconium,’ the centurion commanded as he mounted his horse.
The soldiers started to shoulder their packs and equipment and form rank. The soldier at the back bent over and picked up one