All this swirled around in Cunovic’s head. He was proud of his house and his contribution to it: a Brigantian house of the old style, partly paid for with new money. This place was where he came from; he would always be Brigantian.

But as a trader of dogs, horses and leather he had to deal not just with thuggish southern kings but with sophisticates from the Mediterranean, the very heart of the huge and mysterious Roman world. He’d had to learn to be a different way. Nectovelin’s was a world of family and loyalty into which you were tied with bonds of iron, from birth to death. Cunovic moved in a much looser world, a world where he could do anything he liked, as long as he made money at it. He had learned to cope with this. But before proud old men like his grandfather, he sometimes felt as if he was being torn in two.

The door flap rustled heavily, leaking a little more torch light, and Cunovic could hear Brica’s screams and the obsessive chanting of the druidh.

Ban stamped on the ground, jerky, restless. ‘It’s going badly. It’s been too long.’

‘You don’t know that,’ Cunovic said. ‘Leave it to the women.’

Nectovelin growled, ‘Maybe it’s the prattling of that priest. Who could concentrate with that yammering in your ear, even on pushing out a pup?’

When Cunovic had been a boy the priests were there to advise you on the cycle of the seasons, or on diseases of cattle or wheat - all lore passed down through generations, lore it was said it took a novice no less than twenty years of his life to memorise on Mona. In recent years things had changed. Cunovic had heard that the Romans were expelling the priesthood from Gaul, declaring it a conspiracy against the interests of their empire. So the priests went around stirring up feelings against the Romans. Besides, Nectovelin always said that the druidh with their foreign notions only served to come between the people and their gods. Who needed a priest when the goddess was visible in the landscape all around you?

But Cunovic couldn’t resist teasing the old man. ‘If he’s in the way, grandfather, throw him out. It’s your house.’

‘You can’t do that,’ Ban said hastily. ‘It’s said you’ll be cursed if you throw out a druidh.’

‘Whether it’s true or not,’ Nectovelin said, ‘enough people believe it to cause upset. Don’t worry, grandson. We’ll stomach the priest as we stomach that Roman piss-wine your brother brings home. And we’ll get on with what’s important - caring for your boy.’ His scarred face was creased by a grudging smile. ‘Brica told me you’re planning to call him after me.’

‘Well, you’re seventy years old to the day, grandfather. What other choice could there be?’