Rosa nodded. “Yes. They would have sacrificed themselves for you; they really would. I was brought up in a family—a nuclear family—a family with difficulties. My parents loved me, but they were remote . . . That is how it is for most people, how it has been for all of human history—how it was for me. But you are one of the lucky few for whom it was different. And that was why you were happy.” Rosa stepped closer to Lucia, her face intent. “But, you must realize, one day you will have to pay for your happiness, your safety. That is the way of things. You have to pay it back. And that time is coming, Lucia.”

Lucia quailed, baffled, trying not to show her fear.

Chapter 20

Chapter 20

There was a nervousness about the hill fort today. Artorius was due to return from his latest campaign against the Saxons, and nobody knew how their loved ones had fared.

But Regina set this aside. After six years in the hill fort she had learned it was best to stick to orderly habits. So, first thing that morning, she went to her small room at the back of Artorius’s roundhouse. With a mug of bark tea at her side, she settled on a wooden stool and spread out her calendar.

The calendar was a bronze sheet, divided into columns, carefully inscribed by Myrddin with Latin lettering—she had insisted on Latin, despite the barbarian origin of the calendar itself. It had sixteen columns, each representing four months. This sheet covered a five-year cycle. In fact the sheet was one of a set that made up a complete nineteen-year calendar, and it was said that the Druids, who had devised this mighty tabulation, worked on much longer cycles still.

It was a calendar for farmers and warriors. Each year was divided into two halves, with a “good” half—mat—stretching from Beltane in the spring to Samhain in the autumn, and the “bad” half—anm—spanning the winter months. And then each month, of twenty-nine or thirty days, was itself split into good and bad halves. The mat months corresponded not just to the growing season but also to the annual campaigning season: for Celtae a good day was a day for war. But Samhain was approaching once again, and another campaigning season was almost done, to her relief. Regina understood the necessity for war, but hated the waste of life it represented, and every year longed for it to be over.