'Then you are suggesting raids,' said Togodumnus. 'Ambushes.'

Braint nodded. 'Cassivellaunus did that. And he used delaying tactics too. He had his allies send embassies to negotiate for peace. All of it used up Caesar's energy and patience.'

The druidh got to his feet. 'Sneak attacks? Delays? Perhaps you should go back to your own country, Nectovelin, for I hear the Brigantians make a living off stealing each other's cattle.'

Nectovelin glowered.

But Caratacus was immediately on his feet. 'The priest is right. We must fight with devastating force. We must gather an army of our allies and meet the Romans in the field. It will be glorious-and we will push the Romans back into the Ocean!'

That won him a few cheers, but Agrippina saw that the support was only half-hearted.

Nectovelin remained standing. Despite his obvious anger at the priest's insult he spoke carefully. 'But that, prince, is the mistake Cassivellaunus made in the end. When he fought limited skirmishes on grounds of his choosing, he won. When he met Caesar in a pitched battle in the field, he lost. Look around you, man! You have only a few warriors. It will be farmers who would take the field. And this will not be a war against the Trinovantes or the Atrebates, who are like you. Now you will face Roman legionaries, who are trained from boyhood for one thing only, and that is for battle. Even if you were to win a victory or two, what then? Your farmers will come home for the harvest, or to plant the winter wheat. The legionaries have no harvest to gather. They will come on and on, until they crush you.

'You know me, Caratacus. I have fought at your side. I would never flinch from a fight. But I'm urging you to pick a fight you can win.'

But Caratacus would have none of it. He yelled, 'I say the priest is right, you think like a Brigantian cattle thief!'

Nectovelin rested his hand lightly on the hilt of a dagger. The tension in the house was extraordinary.

Agrippina could bear it no more. She pushed her way out of the house into the dusty air of Camulodunum. She could see the logic of Nectovelin's argument, that patient resistance was the way to wear down the Romans. But she was not the person she had been a few days before. Her deep, angry core responded to Caratacus's bold cries of total war; she longed to see Roman blood spilled.

Narcissus came to a ridge of high ground. He broke away from his companions and urged his horse to climb the rise. From here, he looked back at the column.

He would not have admitted it to any of the officers, not even to his ally Vespasian. But the fact was that a Roman army on the march was a stunning sight. The legionaries flowed past, an endless river, their metal armour shining under the watery British sun, the standard bearers identifying each unit. The army was noisy too. The sound of thousands of feet was a low thunder that shook the very landscape, overlaid with the amphitheatre-like murmur of a crowd of male voices, and the clatter of metal on metal, and the brittle peals of signal horns.

The men were heavily laden. As well as his weapons and armour each man carried a complicated kit containing a saw, a basket, a pickaxe, a water bottle, a sickle, a chain, a turf-cutter, a dish and pan, and enough rations for three days. Narcissus had heard the men grumble about this load; they called themselves 'Marius's mules', after Gaius Marius, the great general who had helped define the Roman way of waging war. But this meant that each unit was ready at a command to fight-or to dig out a fort or build a bridge-and the army as a whole was unburdened by a long baggage train.

Away from the main column of the legionaries the auxiliaries walked or rode. The specialist foot soldiers marched like the legionaries, the slingers and javelin-throwers and spearmen, the archers with their chain mail and bows, while cavalry units rode out to the flanks, providing cover for the infantry. Most of the auxiliaries were recruited from the provinces or even the barbarian lands beyond, and in the drab British landscape they made splashes of colour with their exotic helmets and cloaks and tunics. Indeed, many of the legionaries were provincials now too, a major change since Caesar's day, and when the cohorts came close enough Narcissus could hear the jabber of alien tongues. This Roman army was a vast mixing-up of races drawn from Gaul to Asia, from Germany to Africa, and yet they all worked in harmony under the command of a good Roman.

And the marching men threw up dust that caught the sun, so that a band of light stretched dead straight across the undulating British landscape.

Vespasian came trotting up. 'You shouldn't break away like that, secretary. This is hostile country, remember.'

'Oh, I like to test your vigilance, legate. And what a sight!'

'Quite. The poor little British.' Brittunculi. 'The legions will crush them like peppercorns in a grinder.'

'Well, it's a marvel of organisation,' Narcissus said. 'It's like a city on the march.'

'Aulus Plautius is nothing if not meticulous.'

Narcissus said softly, 'His enemies say he is nothing but meticulous.'

Vespasian raised his eyebrows. 'Are you testing my loyalty, secretary? I suppose that is your job. I'd rather follow a man like Plautius than a Caesar. What we need is planning and control, not brilliance-dedication to the cause, not to oneself.'

Narcissus mulled that over. He actually knew Aulus Plautius a little better than Vespasian probably suspected. The Plautii had a somewhat tangled relationship with the imperial family. A daughter of Plautius's father's cousin had been the Emperor Claudius's first wife-and her mother had been a close friend of Livia, the manipulative and dangerous wife of Augustus. So Aulus Plautius was a good choice personally for this crucial project, and as it happened, with his experience as governor of Pannonia, he was well suited militarily and politically as well. Claudius was wily enough to choose a man whom he could trust-but that hadn't stopped him sending Narcissus along to keep an eye on things.

Meanwhile, as Claudius trusted Aulus Plautius, so Narcissus knew he could trust Vespasian. It had been Narcissus's influence that had secured Vespasian this posting in Britain, his first legionary command. From humble origins, Vespasian had used the influence of his better-connected mother to climb up the social ladder. He had acquitted himself well in his first military post, as an equestrian tribune in Thrace. Narcissus watched constantly for young men like Vespasian, clearly able, eager for advancement yet blocked by their social origin. They were the hungry sort who needed a favour-and, once given it, were forever in your debt.

'Well, it's a marvel, however this adventure turns out,' Narcissus said. 'Look at that band of dust we throw up, right across the country, like a dream of the road that will one day be laid here.'

Vespasian grunted. 'Not "one day", secretary-today.' He pointed to the rear of the column.

In the back of the short baggage train, behind bulky shapes that were the components of prefabricated siege engines, Narcissus made out slower-moving units; he saw the flutter of flags, the flash of surveyors' mirrors. 'They are laying the road already?'

'Why not? We aren't coming this way by chance; for decades to come this route is likely to be a key artery inland from Rutupiae. May as well get it right from the start. Anyhow it keeps the troops busy, and there's no harm in that.'

'And show the natives we intend to stay.'

'Quite so.'

'Ah, but where is it we have come to stay?'

Narcissus tugged at his rein, turned his horse away and gazed out on the landscape of southern Britain. He saw a gently rolling land. Forest clumped on hilltops and spilled into the valleys-he thought he saw pigs snuffling at one forest fringe-but most of the land was cleared, and covered by a patchwork of fields. Round houses sat everywhere, squat, dark cones. The place was clearly densely populated-though empty today; evidently when they saw a Roman army approaching the people had sensibly run or hidden.