Not long after, we were seated in a spacious and exceptionally well-sprung carriage taking a tour of the city under the guidance of the steward. He was, he informed us imperiously, the son of Five Mirrors’s mansa. He did not like Andevai, that was obvious, but best of all, he had begun addressing gentle comments to me as if he felt sorry for me. The djeli had come along, ostensibly to narrate our tour. Although he glanced at the laced-up basket and my cane, he did not remark on them.

Noviomagus had the look of a prosperous town. Folk were out shopping. Servants pushed carts along the cobblestone streets. Like most urban centers that had survived the collapse of the Roman land empire eight hundred years ago, the old forum of the Roman city had developed into a civic center of a new town. A clock tower and a council house identified the public square where festival dances could be held, soldiers could parade, and princely bards and djeliw could declaim to large crowds. My husband compared these agreeable surroundings unfavorably to the superior architecture of cities I was pretty sure he had never visited except in prints collected into books. He then demanded to see New Bridge, whose splendors the djeli described in lengthy detail as we rolled through the streets toward the river. I enjoyed the djeli’s resonant speaking voice and fluid delivery not least because it meant I didn’t have to listen to Andevai go on in that appalling tone.

It was a mercy to get out of the carriage at New Bridge. The air was cool, and the cloudy sky was rent by wind. Andevai asked question after question about the design and engineering of the bridge. He sounded as if he actually knew what he was talking about, as perhaps a man trained in carpentry by an architect would. I lagged behind. The moment the djeli turned his back on me, I slipped away behind a passing wagon. The men attending us shouted in alarm, but I had already hidden in the shadows and raced away. Because the Feast of Mars Triumphant began this evening, shopkeepers had hung the red festival wreath pierced with a short sword from their doors or over their windows. I saw no ram’s masks in honor of the old Celtic war god Camulos, as were customary in Adurnam. Here, Mars Intarabus was known as the wolf-killer because he wore a wolf’s pelt for clothing.

It was a comforting thought, soon succeeded by annoyance as I dodged out of the way of wheeled vehicles and hurried onto quieter lanes behind a man pushing a wheelbarrow full of bricks.