Brica turned, her pretty eyes blank. “It’s the bridge. It’s as if the river has been tamed, the mighty river itself. But this is the dun of Lud, the god of the water . . .”

“The Romans took to calling the city Augusta,” said Regina dryly. “It never caught on. But if there are such legends buried in a mere name, perhaps they were wise to try . . .”

She was disturbed. She didn’t want her daughter’s soul to be so primitive that she was astonished at the sight of a mere bridge. At least Regina remembered the villas and the towns as they had been. What next—would Brica’s daughter in turn cower from thunderstorms, fearing the anger of the sky gods?

I must get her away from that place, the dunon, Regina thought with renewed determination. And I must save her from Galba, and his mind like a sink of stupidity and superstition.

Artorius had negotiated the use of a town house for himself, Regina and her daughter, and others of his party. The town house was the home of a particularly wealthy negotiatore called Ceawlin. A grossly fat man of about fifty, Ceawlin was of Welsh origin, but he spoke fluent Latin and Greek. Having risen to the top of Londinium society, such as it was, he seemed determined to expand his business interests on the continent, and had become one of Artorius’s most significant backers.

But he troubled Regina. He clearly dismissed her as unimportant, a mere woman. In her presence he would let slip the mask of smiling beneficence he kept up before Artorius—and Regina saw the greed and calculation in his fat-choked eyes. His motivation was his own wealth and power, she saw immediately, and Artorius, this barbarian soldier-king, was no more than a means to an end.

While Regina was to be admitted to Artorius’s councils, Brica was expected to stay with Ceawlin and his household. But she was unhappy—and loathed Ceawlin on sight. “They laugh at me,” she groused. “These pretty children and their vapid mother. They laugh at the way I speak, and the clothes I wear, and the way I do my hair. But I bet not one of them could strangle a chicken or gut a pig. And that Ceawlin makes my skin crawl; he stinks of piss, and he stands so close . . .”

Once Regina herself had been like Ceawlin’s spoiled daughters, she thought, and would have laughed just as much at a girl from an old hill fort. She embraced her sturdy, bronzed daughter. “I’m proud of you,” she said. “And anyhow it won’t be for long.” She was sure that was true—she was becoming convinced she was nearing an end game with Artorius—though she didn’t yet know how that end game would play out.

And at the same time she faced another problem.