There was a murmur from the warriors up on the walls, and muttering and calls as those who could see him spoke to the ones who could not. Faces peeped over the barricades. The Romans could not have any arrows left by now, but even if they had, he trusted them not to shoot.

Brasus stopped at the junction between the two roads, ahead of him the scarred arch of the principia was filled with a barricade.

‘Come forth, Flavius Ferox!’ he shouted in Latin. ‘Come and fight me. I am Brasus, son of Cotiso, and one of the pure and I swear that if you fight me none of your people will be harmed. Whether you die or I am slain by your hand, you have my word that we will leave you in peace and go on our way. Let us meet as warriors, fight as men, and let the rest go as strangers!’

Brasus turned and shouted the same words back towards the ramparts, this time in the tongue of his own people. The old warrior was up there and raised his hand in acknowledgement. Then Brasus faced the Romans again and spoke to them in Greek.

‘Ferox is gone!’ a man who sounded like one of the Britons called back to him. ‘Will another do?’

Somehow Brasus had not expected Ferox to die, even though so many on both sides had fallen. Doubts filled his mind for this was not as he had felt it should be.

‘I will fight your bravest and best in his place,’ he shouted.

Brasus waited. There were raised voices from within the Roman compound, angry words and complaints.

‘Come, do you accept?’ he called.

‘We do, but please give us time to choose.’

Brasus rested his oval shield against his leg and put the point of his falx on the ground. His armour gleamed, but rather than a helmet he wore the tall cap of his rank to honour his opponent and because it was easier to see, hear and move fast without the heavy bronze helmet.

At last a couple of the barrels forming the barricade were pulled aside and a chill came upon him as the queen stepped through the gap. She wore a gleaming white tunic with a red border, felt Thracian boots and had her red hair coiled on top of her head. A small round shield was held in her left hand, its field dark blue and the stick figure of a running horse painted over it in white, but she wore neither corselet nor helm. In her right hand was a sica, like the ones used by his own people, but there was a scabbarded gladius on her left hip.

‘Don’t do this, lady!’ a Briton called after her.

The queen ignored the man and came on. ‘I am Enica of the Brigantes, called Claudia of the Romans,’ she said in fluent Greek, and her voice was softer than seemed right for a woman armed so well for war. ‘I am queen of my people and descendant of many women – and men – of honour and power though their names would mean nothing to you.