‘Then let’s hope he grows up like me - strong, and with the chance to break a few of those big Roman noses, for I know he is born to fight.’

Cunovic said, ‘And if it’s a girl and she’s anything like you, Nectovelin, she’ll be even more terrifying.’

They laughed together.

Then Brica screamed, a noise that pierced the still night air. And she began to gabble, a high-pitched, rapid speech whose strangeness froze Cunovic’s blood.

Ban cried out and ran back to the house. Cunovic ran with him, and Nectovelin lumbered after them both.

III

Inside the house Brica lay on her hide pallet. The circle of women, clearly exhausted themselves after the long labour, sat back, helpless.

The paleness of Brica’s face contrasted vividly with the crimson splash between her legs, as if all her life force were draining away there. But Cunovic saw a small head, smeared with grey fluid and still misshapen from its passage through the birth canal. The baby, its body still inside Brica, was supported by the strong hand of Sula, its grandmother. Like its mother it looked very pale, and it had hair, a reddish thatch.

And Brica, her eyes fluttering as the druidh’s had done as he prayed, was gabbling out that rapid speech. The women were distressed; some of them covered their ears to keep out the noise. Even the priest had stumbled back into the shadows of the house, his eyes wide.

Cunovic stared, entranced. The speech was indistinct and very fast, an ugly barking - but he could make out words, he was sure.

Sula, cradling her grandson’s head, looked up at Ban in weary despair. ‘Oh, Ban, the baby is weak, his heart flutters like a bird’s, and still he won’t come. She’s growing too tired to push.’ She had to speak up to make herself heard over Brica’s noise.

‘Then you must cut her,’ Ban said.

‘We were ready to,’ Sula said. ‘But then she started this chattering, and we can’t think, none of us!’

Nectovelin growled. With two strides he closed on the druidh, grabbed a big handful of the priest’s robe and hauled him close. ‘You! Is this your doing? Are these curse words she utters?’

‘No, no! On my mother’s life!’ The druidh was thin, pale, balding, perhaps forty, and he trembled in Nectovelin’s huge grasp.

‘Nectovelin!’ Cunovic spoke sharply enough to make his grandfather turn. ‘That will do no good. It’s nothing to do with him. Let him be.’

‘And how do you know that?’

‘Because I recognise what she is saying. Those aren’t the words of gods - not our gods, anyhow.’

‘Then what?’

‘Latin. She’s speaking Latin.’

There was a silence, broken only by Brica’s continued chattering.