Regina stepped forward to face him. “We don’t need you, or your shining Chalybs. For all your posturing and speeches you are just another thug, another warlord, as bad as the Saxons or the Picts.”

The riothamus eyed her. “You have done well to survive here, Boudicca. Few have prospered so well. I can see you are a strong woman.”

She glared. “Strong enough not to be patronized by a popinjay like you.”

He seemed to want to convince her. “I am earnest in what I say. I am not a Saxon or a Pict. I am like you. I am your kind. I grew up in Eburacum, where my father was one of the landowners . . .”

“Earnest or not—son of a citizen or not—you are still a warlord. And if I submit to you it will only be because I have no choice, because of your force, not because of your rhetoric.”

He laughed. “Are you bargaining with me? I offer you survival, with me, in my compound. But you want more than survival, don’t you?”

She glared at him. “I am old now—”

“Not so old.”

“—and I may not live to see the day when the emperors return. When we don’t have to scratch at the land like animals, and live in fear of barbarians. I may not see it. But my daughter will, and her daughters. And that is what I want for my family. For them to be ready . . .” She fell silent, suddenly aware of how wistful she sounded, before this silent tower of muscle in his scuffed cuirass.

“I have met Romans,” he said softly. “I have dealt with them in southern Gaul and elsewhere. You know what the Romans call us? Celtae. It means ‘barbarians.’ Their Empire is a thousand years old. We were barbarians before our assimilation, and we are barbarians now. That is how they think of us.”

She shook her head tightly. “My daughter is no barbarian. And when things get back to normal—”

He held up his hand. “You are determined that the light of civilization will not go out. Very well. But until that day of blessed recovery comes, until the Emperor rides in to tell us what to do, we must fend for ourselves. Do you see that? Well, of course you do, for I can see what you have built here. You must come with me—you and your family, and the others who depend on you. I can protect you in the dangerous times to come . . . You can’t do it all yourself, Boudicca,” he said more gently.

“And if we refuse?”

He shrugged. “I can’t let you stay here, for what you have built will give succor to the Saxons.”

“What will you do—burn us out, as the Saxons have our neighbors?”

“I hope not,” he said. But he was still and silent as a statue, and she could see his determination.