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more, and come at her with a cutlass when she’d refused. Chamanca had been glad for it. She’d been hungry.
    She didn’t bother looking for a horse. It was a bright, fresh-aired, late summer’s day, she was full of energy from her feed and the walk to Maidun after the day and night at sea appealed.
    On the way out of town a boy tagged along with her for a while. He was a verbose little fellow, determined to tell her all about the battle of Frogshold and the Spring Tide that had destroyed the evil armies and saved Maidun.
    “Spring Tide?” asked Chamanca.
    “That’s what they’re calling the giant wave. A great magician named Spring made it.”
    She listened to the boy’s tale then gave him a coin to bugger off. She wanted to be alone with her thoughts as she walked the final few miles to Maidun. She was torn. She was not looking forward to reporting Carden Nancarrow’s death. He’d been popular, and with reason. He was a good man and he’d died so that she might escape. His mother, the blacksmith Elann, would be deeply upset, even though she was sure not to show it. Chamanca had killed her other son Weylin – on Zadar’s orders, so it wasn’t her fault – but she was empathetic enough to see that a mother might blame her for both his and Carden’s deaths. The wrong-headed wrath of a bereaved mother usually wouldn’t have fazed Chamanca one jot, but there was something about Elann. She hardly ever spoke, showed emotion even more rarely, yet she made the finest weapons and other iron works that the Iberian had ever seen. And there was more, a quiet power emanating from the woman like warmth from one of her forges.
    So she wasn’t looking forward to talking to her. On the other hand, she’d found herself missing Atlas Agrippa more and more. It had been just her and Carden on the most recent trip to Gaul and initially she’d been glad to be in charge, free from the African’s boringly pragmatic command. But she’d found herself wishing that he’d been there. Not for help against the Romans – she was quite capable of fighting those little men on her own – but … well, she wasn’t sure what it was. She just missed him being there.

Chapter 4
    T he birth was apparently a quick one, but it hadn’t seemed that way to Lowa. Most women she’d spoken to had warned her that childbirth was no fun, but a few had claimed that it was inspiringly natural and that the pain was life-affirming. She’d hoped the latter few had been right, but now she knew they’d been either lying or deluded. There had been nothing good about pushing the little bastard out of her splitting vagina and the only thing that it had affirmed was that she did not like being in agony. It hadn’t been as bad as the torture when she’d been a captive of Pomax the Murkan, but it hadn’t been far off.
    Not as bad, but still seriously irksome, was that she’d been through it all in front of Maggot. There was nobody she would have preferred to help her through the birth, but now that he’d seen her at her worst, her most abuse-screamingly bestial, she wasn’t sure that she’d ever be able to look him squarely in the eye again.
    The baby on her chest shifted, and for a dreadful moment she thought he was going to wake up and yowl, but mercifully he didn’t.
    “All happy?” said Maggot, ducking into the warm, well-lit hut. It was freezing outsize, but Maggot was still clad only in his habitual tartan trousers, leather waistcoat and enough jewellery to sink a small merchant ship.
    Lowa thought for a moment. No, she wasn’t happy. She was sore and she felt no great affection for the tiny human tucked up in blankets on her chest. That was something else the life-affirming lot had told her – that she’d be immediately overwhelmed with all-encompassing love for her child. Well, maybe they weren’t lying about that, maybe they had immediately fallen for their babies, but the only emotion she felt was frustration that she was cooped up in