Sosius was a good cook, his stew a rare treat, making Bran wonder why the slave had got either him or Minura to cook for them on all the other days. She was more herself when she returned, dressed again and skin clean, and if she sat apart and said little that was nothing unusual.

After they had eaten, Sosius told them that he must ride to see the local chieftain at his farmstead. ‘Chrauttius and the others were his cousins. Distant ones, but blood is blood and I’ll have to pay him in gold to make things right.

‘In the meantime, you take him,’ he jabbed a finger towards the captive, ‘back to the province and then south to the queen. Guess she’ll be in Moesia by then, probably the Upper province. Maybe Viminiacum, but I don’t know. The letters you have will see you through. No one will question those seals. I ought to have joined you long before then. If I can, it will be in a day or two, but it is hard to be sure.’

Sosius had ridden away almost immediately, even though night was falling.

‘Doubt that we will see that slave again,’ Bran said after he had gone.

‘We will, on the day we find him and I kill him. And he is a free man now, no longer a slave.’

They kept the prisoner tied hand and foot at night, and only released his legs when he needed to ride, and did the same on the days that followed.

‘I’m just a merchant,’ the man kept on insisting. ‘What do I know that really matters?’

Sosius had told them that the man worked for Decebalus, and that his main business was recruiting allies for the king to help him against Rome. Such great affairs did not matter to them, so they ignored him, and spoke little and then only in the language of the tribes of Britannia. If the merchant understood, he showed no sign. Their job was to take him to the queen and that was what they would do. Bran had made it clear to the man that his head would do almost as well as the rest of him, if the task proved difficult.

Sosius did not return and they were glad of that, especially as the journey was easy. They saw few people, and fewer still who wished to speak, so perhaps Sosius had cleared their path for them by speaking to the chieftain and others.

On the third night Minura came to Bran as he was swilling their pan and plates in a brook. The merchant was tied up, and fastened to a tree trunk, so did not need to be watched.

‘Am I fair to look upon?’ Minura asked.

‘You are beautiful,’ he said and it was not flattery for he did consider her among the fairest of women he had seen. ‘If it were not for our oaths…’ A brother and sister who had learned the craft of war as they had done were not supposed to lie with one another.