Artorius said, “Many centuries ago—so the bards say—a great host of those the Romans call barbarians, the Celtae, thrust across Europe and burned down Rome itself. There were British among them—so it is said. What can be done once will be done again . . .”

He was calling for a great rising of the Celtae—for their culture had been swept aside, he argued, first by the Caesars and now by the Christian popes. It would be a campaign to free Britain and Europe once and for all from the yoke of Rome. And he would do that by taking Rome for himself.

“Some accuse me of seeking the purple,” Artorius said now. “The mantle of the Emperor. But I seek the mantle, not of the Caesars, but of Brutus and Lear and Cymbeline, the forefathers of Britain. And the gods who will protect me are not the Christ and His father, but the older gods, the true gods, Lud and Coventina and Sulis and the triple mothers . . .”

Ceawlin maneuvered himself close to Regina. There was a faint stink of urine even now.

Regina closed her eyes. His stink made her gorge rise, as it had done that day by the river wall. And yet she must put that aside, and think with the clarity for which she prayed daily to the matres.

Brica would be harmed by her contact with this fat pig. But the family would be harmed more badly if she sat by while Artorius submitted himself to his suicidal venture, and all he had built was cast to the winds, all the protection she had carefully accrued dissipated. Brica was the most precious person in the world to her. But together they were family. And the family, its continuity into the future, was of more importance than any individual.

There was only one choice.

She whispered to Ceawlin, “One condition. Don’t make her pregnant.”

Ceawlin sat back, and the stink of him receded a little.

Artorius had done talking now. His colleagues—those who would follow him across Europe, and those who would betray him before he walked out of this room—cheered and yelled alike.

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Lucia took a bus to the Venezia. From there it was a short walk to the Piazza Navona. She took a seat at an open-air café and sipped an iced tea. It was a bright January day.

The Piazza was a long, rectangular space surrounded by three- and four-story buildings. The square was crammed with street painters and vendors selling bags and hats and bits of jewelry from suitcases. There were no less than three fountains here. The one at the center was the Fountain of the Four Rivers, four great statues to represent the Ganges, the Danube, the Plate, and the Nile. When she was small Lucia had wondered why the Nile statue was blindfolded; it was because when the statue was created the source of the Nile had still been a mystery.