‘No need.’ Braint cast around on the ground, and turned up a lump of flint. She slammed it down against a rock and cracked it in two, exposing an interior as smooth as cream. She tapped half the rock with a pebble to crack off long thin flakes, selected one shard, and began to saw a strip of cloth from her tunic. All this took only heartbeats. ‘So,’ she said as she worked, ‘you counted the legionaries as they went by? How many?’

‘You don’t want to know. I even stayed to see the road builders pass.’

‘Oh, yes. Those blond young Germans, stripped to the waist. I bet you enjoyed the sight.’ She leered and grabbed her own crotch.

Agrippina, still shaken up, couldn’t help smiling, for she had had some earthy thoughts as she watched the soldiers work.

Braint said, ‘I saw them smashing up a holy place. They pulled down a ring of standing stones and crushed them for rubble, to make their road. They have no respect.’

‘But it’s a mighty force they’ve brought, Braint. Even Caratacus is going to be discouraged.’

‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ Braint said gloomily. ‘He’s too fond of himself for that. Yesterday he led another assault on the Roman line. He burned a cart full of legionaries’ socks, and lost three warriors in the process.’ She snorted her contempt. ‘Perhaps a thousand such flea bites will cause the Romans to falter. But it’s beneath Caratacus’s dignity, and I can’t blame him for that. What’s worse, all day the Roman commander has been receiving embassies. One local rich man or petty boss after another, coming to pledge allegiance to the Emperor.’

‘We expected that,’ Agrippina said.

‘Yes, but one of them was the princes’ own brother, Cogidubnus.’ One of the sons Cunobelin had sent off for education to Rome. ‘The word is that Cogidubnus is going to travel the country under Roman guard, negotiating treaties for the Emperor.’

‘He would betray his own brothers?’

Braint shrugged. ‘I think Cogidubnus would say that with their antics in recent years, Caratacus and Togodumnus have brought this storm down on all our heads. But there’s rarely a right or a wrong in family matters, Agrippina, as you know.’

‘So what now?’

‘Caratacus is impatient. He’s giving up the plan - the skirmishing, the ambushes. Soon the Romans will have to ford the Cantiaci River. Caratacus says that is where he will make his stand.’

‘He’s going for a pitched battle after all?’ Agrippina felt a thrill of conflicting emotions. ‘I suppose the whole course of Caratacus’s life has led him to this point - him and Togodumnus.’