Cunedda and Agrippina walked a little way away from the light of the fire. They brought some spare clothing to spread out on the cool sand, and lay side by side, peering up at the slow unveiling of the stars, while the sea lapped softly.

Cunedda took her hand. ‘Do you think he’s really asleep? I’ve heard that old soldiers never sleep.’

‘You make fun of him, but he really is a warrior. After all his birth was attended by a Prophecy!’

‘Really? Tell me,’ Cunedda said, intrigued.

So Agrippina told him how Nectovelin’s mother had supposedly started babbling during her difficult labour. ‘Brica never explained how come she spouted Latin, for she died in childbirth - although the baby, Nectovelin, survived.’ Her grandfather Cunovic had written out a fair copy of the ‘Prophecy’ on parchment, and had given it to Nectovelin as he grew older.

‘I love stories like this,’ Cunedda said. ‘What did it say?’

‘Well, I don’t know for sure. Something about the Romans, something about freedom, a lot that made no sense at all. Cunovic had a theory about it, that it was a scrying of some kind, poured into Nectovelin’s mother’s head by a god, or perhaps by a wizard of the future meddling with the past. A “Weaver”, Cunovic called him. He was rather frightened of the Prophecy, I think. He dared not destroy the copy he had made, but he was happy to pass it on to Nectovelin ... I’m told Nectovelin has carried it around all his life, even though he can’t read it!’

‘And yet it shaped him.’

‘Yes. Because of the Prophecy Nectovelin believes he is destined to be a warrior, destined to fight Romans - just as his own great-grandfather fought Caesar. It probably hasn’t helped that that great-grandfather gave him his name too.

‘But for most of his life he has been a warrior without a war to fight. In Brigantia there is only a little cattle rustling, and a warrior can’t get his teeth into that! And he certainly never fit in as a farmer. He was always moody and aggressive. “Like living with a thunderstorm in the house,” my mother used to say. He never had children, you know - lovers, but never children. And so, when he heard that you young Catuvellaunians were becoming adventurous - even though he was in his thirties by then - he came down here for a bit of fighting. Cracking a few Trinovantian skulls suited him. But he’s still restless. You can see it in him ...’

Since the days of Cassivellaunus, while the Romans brooded across the Ocean, the Catuvellaunians had been busy building an empire of their own.