Close to the central hearth, where the night’s fire was fitfully burning itself out, perhaps fifty people were huddled. They were the leading Catuvellaunians and their princes, Caratacus and Togodumnus, sons of Cunobelin. Among the crowd were shaven heads, probably druidh. The princes and their warriors wore weapons and brooches, splashes of iron, bronze and silver, and heavy golden torques around their necks. In Camulodunum you showed your power and wealth by wearing it. But there were others with finger rings and plucked facial hair, Roman styles even here in the house of Cunobelin, before the grandsons of Cassivellaunus.

Most people, though, wore work clothes from the farms, as dun-coloured as the earth.

Agrippina and her companions found a place to sit, on a hide blanket thrown on the ground. It was soon clear that the ongoing argument was fractious and unsatisfactory. The discussion had evidently been continuing all night.

Though people deferred to the princes this was a very equal debate in which everybody was entitled to speak - very un-Roman, Agrippina thought, very unlike the grave councils of the Roman generals which must be proceeding even now. But neither Caratacus and Togodumnus had the authority of their father Cunobelin, and none of his subtlety either - and, challenged, they were becoming increasingly angry. They were like men left over from the past, Agrippina thought, men from an age when physical strength and drinking prowess were all it took to be a leader.

Cunobelin had always had trouble with his sons. As was the custom of his people, and indeed Agrippina’s Brigantians too, Cunobelin had cheerfully taken many wives, who for twenty years had produced a steady stream of children. Cunobelin had lived to see grandsons grow to adulthood, including Cunedda. But even before his death many of Cunobelin’s sons had quarrelled among themselves. And when Cunobelin at last died it was as if the lid had blown off an over-heated pot.

The two sons Cunobelin had sent for education in Rome, Adminius and Cogidubnus, had been driven out - the talk was they had gone all the way back to Rome to seek Claudius’s help. And meanwhile the two ‘warriors’, Togodumnus and Caratacus, cared nothing for Caesar who was long dead, the signing of his treaties beyond living memory.

So the princes started to raid their neighbours. This was when Nectovelin had been drawn to the Catuvellaunians, relishing the chance to swing his sword at their side. The peoples they raided were cowed, not assimilated; theirs was a sullen imperium.

At first all this turbulence appeared to do no harm to the Catuvellaunians’ trade with the Romans. But then the princes deposed a ruler, Verica of the Atrebates, a nation whose sprawling holdings covered many south coast ports. Verica, a friend of Rome, fled there. And this time Claudius listened.