It had become obvious to both Brica and Galba that Regina opposed their union. Regina was so powerful that Galba and his family did not dare stand up to her, and Brica herself had so far stopped short of open rebellion. But Regina knew that could not last forever. Just as Artorius’s ambitions were overweening, so Brica’s frustration, as the years flowed steadily by, was becoming overpowering.

In both areas of Regina’s life a crisis was approaching, then. She had no clear idea how she would handle these twin issues—not yet. But this Londinium trip would surely be useful. It would let her gauge the seriousness of Artorius’s ambitions; and it would buy her a little time by taking Brica away from Galba for a while.

And perhaps, in Britain’s greatest city, other opportunities would open up. Before setting out, with no clear intention in mind, she had taken the three matres, her deepest symbol of family, carefully wrapped them in her softest cloth, and lodged them in her luggage.

Artorius held his war council in Ceawlin’s reception room. It was a large, well-appointed chamber, but it was crowded, for it held no less than ten petty kings and their advisers.

Regina quickly got to know a few of these ambitious warlords. Aside from Ceawlin, two struck her as significant.

One was a very young man, barely twenty it seemed, who called himself Ambrosius Aurelianus. In his shining body armor he was a slab of muscle and determination, and it seemed to Regina that he would follow Artorius wherever he asked—and perhaps, on Artorius’s inevitable death, take up Chalybs and wield that mighty sword himself against the Saxon hordes.

The other was a thin, intense man called Arvandus. He was actually an official of the Roman Empire, a prefect in the troubled, half-dislocated province of Gaul. But his ambition was clearly to rule not in the Emperor’s name but in his own right. Regina fretted that because he had already betrayed one ruler, in the Emperor, he would likely have few qualms in betraying another.

Artorius, in his zeal and passion, seemed to have no idea that such complexities might be brewing among his nominal followers, that these men were not like the loyal soldiers with whom he had fought side by side, but men with their own goals and ambitions, even their own dreams: In Artorius’s blindness Regina felt she saw his destiny clearly shaped.

They spent much time discussing the tactical situation across the country. Information was patchy, the situation complex. Though the Saxons were unified in their hostility to the British and the Roman legacy, they were not a politically coordinated force, and their advances were opportunistic and scattered. Meanwhile the British response was equally fragmentary.

“But what is sure,” said Artorius grimly, “is that there isn’t a blade of grass east of Londinium that isn’t now in Saxon hands. And time is short . . .”