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work. He’ll be a partner in the new concern, but it will be my business, just as here.’
    ‘And you didn’t bother to tell me any of this?’
    ‘I wanted to be sure that old Nectovelin wouldn’t just keep me away from you anyhow. But he seems to accept me, doesn’t he? And now that he does, we have to decide what to do. Think of it, Agrippina. If I go to Gaul the trade routes across the whole empire will be wide open to me. And I won’t have to train up another woolly-arsed Briton every time I open up a new line!’
    ‘Now you sound Roman yourself,’ she said.
    He gazed at her, evidently trying to judge her mood. ‘Well, is that so bad? It’s you who grew up in Gaul.’
    ‘But I came back,’ she said softly.
    He frowned. ‘Look, if you’re unhappy we don’t have to do this. I’ll find some other way to build on Quintus’s faith in me.’
    ‘You’d do that for me?’
    ‘Of course. I want us to share the future, ’Pina. But it must be a future we both want…’
    She sighed, and lay back. That was the trouble, though: what did she want? In Gaul her friends, while kind, had always looked down on her as a barbarian from a place beyond civilisation. But now there seemed to be no room for her in Brigantia either, where nobody could share the sparking in her mind when she read. There were more practical issues too. In Britain a woman could rise to be the equal of a man–or better. Why, the ruler of her own nation was a woman, Cartimandua. In Rome, though, she could never aspire to be more than somebody’s wife–and even if that somebody was as delicious as Cunedda, could it ever be enough?
    ‘I’ve upset you,’ Cunedda said softly. ‘I’m sorry. We’ll talk of this tomorrow.’ He cupped her cheek in his warm hand. ‘Can you read the sky, Agrippina? Are the stars the same, where you were born? There.’ He picked out one bright star. ‘That is the star we call the Dog, because when we first see it, early in the mornings, we know it marks the start of the summer. It is the lead dog of the pack, you see. And in the winter we look for that one’–he pointed again–‘for when it rises in the east, we know we must plant the winter wheat. We believe that once a girl was washed up on a beach, perhaps not unlike this one, having swum from a faraway land. In her belly was the seed that would grow to be the first king of the Catuvellaunians. But that first night she was cold and it was dark. She built a fire, and the embers flew up into the air. And that is how the stars were formed.’
    ‘We have similar stories,’ she said. ‘And we read the sky.’
    He ran his hand down her side, thrillingly. ‘Tell me about Brigantia.’
    She smiled in the dark. ‘Brigantia is a huge country that stretches from sea to sea, east to west and north to south. You can ride for days and not come to the end of it. The name means “hilly” in our tongue. I was born in a place called Eburacum, which means “the place of the yew trees”. Our holy animal is the boar. And Nectovelin was born in Banna, on a ridge overlooking a river valley that looks as if it has been scooped out with a spoon. It’s a beautiful place.’
    ‘And sexy Coventina, this huge goddess Nectovelin jokes about?’
    ‘She is all around, in the landscape. You can see her breasts in the swelling of the hills, her thighs in the deep-cut valleys…’ She moved with the stroking of his hand. ‘Oh, Cunedda…’
    On the dark water, an oar splashed.

IV
    Agrippina sat up sharply.
    Cunedda was startled. ‘What’s wrong?’
    She pressed her finger to his lips. When she stared out to sea she could see nothing at all. But there it was again, the unmistakable slap of a clumsily handled oar, the clunk of wood striking wood–and a muffled curse, a man’s voice.
    ‘I heard that ,’ said Cunedda, whispering now. ‘You have sharp ears.’
    A growl from the dark. ‘Keep your yapping down.’ Nectovelin was a shadow against the night. Agrippina wondered