‘A while yet.’ Ferox did not want to worry the man by saying that it would probably last for hours. ‘He is singing praises of the high king, of the man born to lead his people and to unite the tribes. Of his keen eye and strong arm…’ He stopped because he could see that the tribune was not interested and also because he wanted to listen.

The bard told a story, most of which was wholly new to Ferox and helped to give him a better sense of Tincommius and how the high king wanted men to see him. It was a remarkable tale of a boy who survived the murder of his father and older brothers at the hands of a neighbouring chief. They were all burned alive, trapped in a hut set on fire by an enemy who had pretended to welcome them as friends. The young Tincommius had somehow scrabbled his way through the mud wall of the house before the smoke and flames reached him, helped by one of the enemy who rejected the treachery of his leader. The bard sang of the hunters chasing the boy, of the warrior giving his life to save him, and of how he went to an island far in the north and trained to fight. Grown to manhood, he came back to exact vengeance and there was much about this, of enemies killed in battle as the blood ran red off the wheels of Tincommius’ chariot, and of others taken by surprise and slaughtered like pigs.

‘Hercules’ balls, when will he stop,’ Crispinus muttered, until a young woman appeared and offered him more wine. The aristocrat hung his head and may have blushed, although it was hard to tell in the red light and smoky atmosphere of the hall. The woman looked to be about sixteen or seventeen, and had her thick auburn hair plaited and coiled up in a tower on the top of her head. She was pretty, and her checked dress was held at the shoulders by a pair of bronze brooches.

Vindex laughed and nudged the tribune with his elbow. ‘Lucky bastard.’