Then the countryside had been hostile. The collapse of the Roman province had affected most directly the one in ten who had lived in the villas and towns, many of whom were now trying to find a place in the countryside, like Regina and her party. But the farmers had been affected, too, however they had grumbled about tax. Without the need to produce a surplus to pay the Emperor’s taxes the farmers had cut their workload back to what was necessary to maintain their families. But with the towns declining there was no market to sell or trade what surplus there was, and there was nowhere to buy manufactured goods like pottery or tools. Iron goods in particular were in very short supply, for people had forgotten the ancient craft of iron making. Many farms were being operated at a more basic level than the farmers’ ancestors had achieved centuries before.

Anyhow there had been no place for Regina and her party: no hospitality, no offers of help from hungry, resentful, suspicious people, and they had used up the last of their money on overpriced inns. But it didn’t matter. Once they got here, to this hill farm and Carausias’s friends, everything would be all right.

But now here they were, and there was nobody after all. It was just another betrayal. As never before the future seemed a blank, black, terrifying emptiness. Regina wrapped her arms over her belly and the growing, hungry life it contained.

Carta sat beside her. “Are you all right?”

“None of us is all right,” Regina said. “What a mess.”

“Yes. What a mess,” Cartumandua said. “This farm must have been abandoned at least a year. Poor, foolish Carausias.”

“There’s nothing for us here.”

“But there is nowhere else to go, and we have no more money,” said Carta grimly. “It doesn’t seem such a bad location to me. There is water down there.” She pointed to a marshy area at the foot of the grassy hill, the thread of a sluggish river beyond. “The fields are overgrown but they have been worked before; they should not be difficult to plow. This hillside is a little away from the road. Perhaps we will not be such a target for the bacaudae.”

“What are you talking about? Who is going to plow the fields? How will we pay them?”

“Nobody will plow them for us,” Carta said doggedly. “We will plow them.”

Regina stared at her. “You are making up stories. We have nothing to eat now. We’ll be lucky to live through the night. And, if you haven’t noticed, it is the autumn. What crops will we grow in the winter? And besides—Carta, I don’t want to be a farmer.”

“And I didn’t want to be a slave,” Carta said. “I survived that, and I will survive this. As will you.” She clambered to her feet and pulled Regina’s arm. “Come on. Let’s go and take a look at the buildings.”