The carriage joined the flow towards Rutupiae, the slave guiding Brigonius’s horse. As they rolled across the flat coastal plain, it wasn’t long before Brigonius caught the first whiffs of salty sea air - and through the awning he glimpsed the gleaming white shoulders of the monument at Rutupiae, a landmark visible for miles around. Meanwhile the air in the carriage was filled with the tickling scent of cosmetics, and the women plied him with a fine light wine and strawberries dipped in ground pepper.

‘We heard of your trouble,’ Severa said.

‘Trouble?’

‘The revolt in Brigantia. News of such things reaches Rome, you know!’

‘I’d hardly call it a revolt,’ Brigonius said. ‘It started with a riot outside Vindolanda. Came from a bit of heavy-handedness by a decurion.’ In fact the officer had beaten a Brigantian labourer he accused, falsely, of thievery. ‘Next thing you know there was trouble all over the place. Some of the lads took the opportunity for a little petty banditry.’

‘I thought it was more serious than that,’ Severa said.

‘Oh, the army had to deploy.’ Once roused from its brothels and bath houses the army had, as usual, stamped down with maximum force on the dissidents. Heads were broken, a few villages burned, a gaggle of wives and children taken off into slavery. ‘They cleared up the trouble quickly.’

‘I don’t understand why people even want to fight the army,’ Lepidina said. ‘I mean, what if they won, somehow? Why, without the army ...’ She tailed off. Her face was empty, her eyes and mouth wide, like a child’s.

Her life had been remarkably sheltered, Brigonius thought. He felt an impulse to protect her - an impulse no doubt deriving from lust, but genuine despite that, he thought.

‘Not everybody likes the Romans,’ he said gently. ‘Their taxes, their forced-labour levies—’

‘You must like them,’ Lepidina said sharply. ‘You sell them your stone.’

‘That doesn’t mean they’re my friends.’ He grinned. ‘I follow my father. I bleed the Romans white, if I can.’

Severa nodded, apparently approving. ‘You learned much from your father?’

‘He died a couple of years ago.’

‘Yet you still rely on his wisdom, as you wait to accrue your own. A sound strategy. We are all shaped by the past, aren’t we, Brigonius? In fact we wouldn’t be sitting here now if not for deep historical links we share.’

‘In your note you talk of your grandmother, who was a Brigantian but went to Rome.’

‘Agrippina, yes. She died before I was born, but my mother told me all about her. Fascinating life! Somebody ought to write it down. And, you see, she knew your great-grandfather, Brigonius, who was called Cunedda—’

‘Like my own father.’