‘The problem,’ I said, ‘is that the bridge arches are dammed with debris. It was your task to keep them clear. It was also your task to preserve the walls.’ His mouth opened and closed without a word. He hefted the slate as if to demonstrate his efficiency, then just blinked helplessly. ‘Not that it matters now,’ I went on, ‘the city can’t be defended.’

‘Can’t be defended!’ Cildydd protested. ‘Can’t be defended! It must be defended! We can’t just abandon the city!’

‘If the Saxons come,’ I said brutally, ‘you’ll have no choice.’

‘But we must defend it, Lord,’ Cildydd insisted.

‘With what?’ I asked.

‘Your men, Lord,’ he said, gesturing at my spearmen who had taken refuge from the rain under the temple’s high portico.

‘At best,’ I said, ‘we can garrison a quarter mile of the wall, or what’s left of it. So who defends the rest?’

‘The levy, of course.’ Cildydd waved his slate towards the drab collection of men who waited beside the bath-house. Few had weapons and even fewer possessed any body armour.

‘Have you ever seen the Saxons attack?’ I asked Cildydd. ‘They send big war-dogs first and they come behind with axes three feet long and spears on eight-foot shafts. They’re drunk, they’re maddened and they’ll want nothing but the women and the gold inside your city. How long do you think your levy will hold?’

Cildydd blinked at me. ‘We can’t just give up,’ he said weakly.

‘Does your levy have any real weapons?’ I asked, indicating the sullen-looking men waiting in the rain. Two or three of the sixty men had spears, I could see one old Roman sword, and most of the rest had axes or mattocks, but some men did not even possess those crude weapons, but merely held fire-hardened stakes that had been sharpened to black points.

‘We’re searching the city, Lord,’ Cildydd said. ‘There must be spears.’

‘Spears or not,’ I said brutally, ‘if you fight here you’ll all be dead men.’

Cildydd gaped at me. ‘Then what do we do?’ he finally asked.

‘Go to Glevum,’ I said.

‘But the city!’ He blanched. ‘There are merchants, goldsmiths, churches, treasures.’ His voice tailed away as he imagined the enormity of the city’s fall, but that fall, if the Saxons came, was inevitable. Aquae Sulis was no garrison city, just a beautiful place that stood in a bowl of hills. Cildydd blinked in the rain. ‘Glevum,’ he said glumly. ‘And you’ll escort us there, Lord?’

I shook my head. ‘I’m going to Corinium,’ I said, ‘but you go to Glevum.’ I was half tempted to send Argante, Guinevere, Ceinwyn and the families with him, but I did not trust Cildydd to protect them. Better, I decided, to take the women and families north myself, then send them under a small escort from Corinium to Glevum.