Bored, restless, Regina roamed, trailed by a weary Cartumandua. She didn’t find her mother, or Aetius, but at length she came across her father. He was in the living room, surrounded by his papyrus rolls and clay tablets. He was talking to a tenant, a thickset bearded man wearing a dun-colored tunic and breeches. Regina peered through an unglazed window; Marcus didn’t notice her.

Marcus looked as pale as Carta, and, hunched over his columns of figures, more strained than ever. Midsummer was the end of the rent year, and it was time for Marcus to collect the rent he was due for his land, as well as the Emperor’s taxes. But things weren’t going well.

The farmer said in his thick brogue, “We haven’t seen the Emperor’s man for a year or more—probably two.”

Marcus said doggedly, “I have kept the tax you paid me and will render it up duly at the next visit. Even if the system is sometimes—ah, inefficient—you must pay your taxes, Trwyth. As I must. You understand, don’t you? If we don’t pay our taxes, the Emperor can’t pay his soldiers. And then where would we be? The barbarians—the bacaudae—the Saxons who raid the coasts—”

“I’m no callow boy, Marcus Apollinaris,” the farmer growled, “and you show me no respect by treating me like one. And we haven’t seen a soldier for nearly as long, either. None save that grizzle-haired father of your wife.”

“You must not speak to me this way, Trwyth.” Regina could see her father was shaking.

Trwyth laughed. “I can speak to you any way I want. Who’s to stop me—you?” He had a small sack of coins in his hand; he hefted it and slipped it back into a pocket of his breeches. “I think I’ll keep this, rather than let you add it to your hoard.”

Marcus tried to regain control of the situation. “If you prefer to pay in kind—”

Trwyth shook his head. “I hand over half my yield to you. If I don’t have to grow a surplus to pay you and the Emperor, I just have to feed myself, and what a relief that is going to be. And if you go hungry, Marcus Apollinaris, you can eat the painted corncobs on your walls. You let me know when the Emperor next comes calling, and I’ll pay my respects. In the meantime, good riddance!”

Marcus stood unsteadily. “Trwyth!”

The farmer sneered, deliberately turned his back, and walked out of the room.

Marcus sat down. He tried to work through the lists of figures on his clay tablet, but quickly gave up, letting the tablet fall to the floor. He hunched over and plucked with his fingers at his face, chin and neck, as if for comfort.

Regina couldn’t remember any tenant speaking to her father like that, ever. Deeply disturbed, she withdrew. Cartumandua followed her, just as silently, her broad face impassive.