‘And besides, I’m not much use. I have no children of my own. I haven’t been through this, not yet.’

‘But you’re here,’ Ban said solemnly. ‘As I will be for you. I suppose you miss the comforts of your travels. On a night like this a dip in a pool of steaming water would be welcome.’

Cunovic grunted. ‘Don’t believe everything you hear. The king of the Catuvellaunians has built himself a bath house. He paid through the nose for a Roman architect to design it for him. But the traders from Gaul say that to them it’s no more than a muddy hole where you’d let your pigs wallow. Not that they would say such a thing to the king’s face, of course.’

That made Ban laugh, but Cunovic was uncomfortably aware that some of the Latin terms he sprinkled in his conversation, unthinking - architect, design, even paid - meant little to his brother.

Ban said, ‘But you got away. You’re making a success of your trading. Doesn’t it feel strange to come back? You’re a grown dog returning to the litter, brother.’

Cunovic looked around at the sleeping landscape. ‘No,’ he said simply. ‘In the south they have fussy little hills and valleys, so jammed in together you can’t see past the next brow. The soil is clogged with chalk. The summers are too hot and the winters too muddy. And you don’t get nights like this,’ and he took a deep, cleansing breath of the ice-laden air.

‘Ah.’ Ban smiled. ‘You miss Coventina.’

Coventina was the goddess of this place. You could see the curves of her body in the swelling of the hills, her sex in the green shadows of the valleys. ‘Yes, I miss the old girl,’ Cunovic admitted.

He was startled by a loud snort, close by his ear. It was Nectovelin. ‘Home you call it. But you weren’t around to help with the building of the new house, were you? I think we know where your heart is, Cunovic.’

II

Nectovelin had a way of sneaking up on you. Despite his bulk and his limp he could move stealthily, and he always stayed downwind. He still had a warrior’s instincts, Cunovic thought, grooves like wheel ruts cut deep into his personality that told more about Nectovelin’s past than all his boasts.

It always hurt Cunovic that this impressive man, his grandfather, seemed to think so little of him. ‘You’re wrong about me, you know,’ he said. ‘Maybe I didn’t put my back into building the house, but the gifts I sent home helped pay for it, didn’t they?’