Nectovelin hardly raised his voice. ‘Get back here, boy.’

Mandubracius froze immediately. He turned and jogged back.

Cunedda marvelled. ‘He’s like a well-trained dog.’

Nectovelin said, ‘Oh, I train my dogs better than this.’

Mandubracius trotted up, sweating, panting a little, but not resentful.

Nectovelin pointed. ‘Here. Put the tent up.’

‘I never put a tent up before.’

‘Then you need to learn how.’

Mandubracius plucked at the leather sheet. ‘But it’s hot. We’ve walked for ever. And it’s heavy. Look, I can’t even lift it!’

Nectovelin snorted. ‘By Coventina’s snot-crusted left nostril, I never heard the like. A Roman legionary would have dug out a whole fort in the time you’ve been standing there like a whelp. Get on with it. I’m going to bathe my feet.’ He walked away.

Cunedda said to Mandubracius, ‘I’ll help you-’

‘When he gets stuck,’ Agrippina said gently. ‘Let him figure it out for himself first. Come. Walk with me to the sea.’

They followed Nectovelin, while Mandubracius struggled to unfold the stiff leather.

II

II

Nectovelin loosened his sandals to reveal feet that were a mass of hair and fungus-blighted nails. He stepped into the sea, sighing as the cool wavelets broke over his toes. Agrippina kicked off her own sandals to follow. Cunedda was wearing heavier boots and socks, Roman style, and he sat on the damp sand to loosen them.

Then the three of them stood in the sea, side by side like standing stones, facing east towards the grass-covered island, the calm Ocean, and Europe invisibly far beyond.

Cunedda said cautiously, ‘I’m surprised at you, Nectovelin.’

‘Why so?’

‘You held out a Roman soldier as a model to the boy. Suppose he ever had to face a Roman in combat?’

‘I build up the Romans in his head. But when Mandubracius sees them for the dour little runts they really are, he will have no fear.’

Agrippina said, ‘But it won’t happen. The Romans won’t be fighting the Catuvellaunians or the Brigantians or anybody else.’

‘Caesar did,’ said Nectovelin.

Cunedda said, ‘And I’ve heard Caratacus talk of a massing of Roman troops in Gaul, at a coastal town. He and his brother even gathered a few thousand men on the coast in case the Romans crossed. Of course the Romans never came, and it’s too late in the season for campaigning now anyhow, and everybody went home. But still—’

‘But still, that’s all just rumour. The difference with Caesar’s time is that now there is all this trade.’ She pointed to a shadow on the horizon, a squat heavy-sailed ship. It was a trader from Gaul, probably, a massive ship of nailed timbers, with iron anchors and rawhide sails. ‘In Massilia they say that an invasion of Britain would cost the Romans more than it would be worth, because they make so much from customs duties on the trade across the Ocean.’