33 The Legate and the SwordThere came no warning before the Imperial Legate, Suetonius Paulinus, rode into Glevum on his way to face Boudicca. There was a sudden howling of Roman bronze horns, and then a strident voice shrieked out to the tired legionary who stood sentry duty to fling wide the gates before he was disembowelled and then cut into forty pieces to feed half the dogs of Britain.
The man stamped to attention and then almost ruptured himself in drawing the rusty bolts. No troop had passed that way for a month, and the weather had been very wet, very British and wet.
The Legate, a gaunt and stooping man who wore a blunt red beard and had lost three fingers on the right hand, rode under the archway with only two followers; impassive brown-faced cavalrymen, with the ribbons of a d
