London by Edward Rutherfurd

afraid of the ravens, she might have run down to her mother.
    She saw her talking earnestly to the druid; saw the old man slowly shake his head. It seemed, then, that Cartimandua was pleading. At last, gravely, the old druid took several bones out of the fire and inspected them. Then he said something. And suddenly, a terrible sound came from below, echoing so loudly that it caused the ravens to rise, startled into the air, and descend with cross, croaking sounds. It was an awful, wailing scream that might have come from a desperate animal.
    But it came from Cartimandua.
    Still, no one had guessed his secret. Segovax felt pleased with himself. Ever since their return, Londinos had been a hive of activity. The dark-bearded noble had already arrived by the time they reached the hamlet, and his father had immediately been sent with the other men to the ford just up the river. Indeed, so busy had the men been that his family had hardly seen the fisherman from that time.
    The preparations were extensive. They were driving pointed stakes into the riverbed at the ford. Men from every hamlet within miles had been summoned to cut down trees so that all along the bank of the druid’s island they could build a stout wooden palisade.
    News came daily now, as fresh men arrived at the ford from all quarters. The news was sometimes confusing.
    “All the British tribes have sworn to follow Cassivelaunus,” one fellow stated, whilst another declared: “The Celtic tribes across the sea in Gaul are going to rise. We’ll soften Caesar up here. Then they’ll cut off his retreat.” But others were less confident. “The other chiefs are jealous of Cassivelaunus,” some wiser heads remarked. “They can’t be trusted.”
    Yet at first the reports were good. Caesar had landed by the white cliffs on the south coast and started to march through Kent, but straight away the island gods had struck. As before, a huge storm had nearly wrecked his fleet, forcing the Roman back to the coast to repair it. When he began to march once more, the swift Celts in their chariots had harried his line, swooping down, wasting his troops. “They’ll never reach the river at all,” people were saying now. Still, the busy work went on.
    For Segovax, it was a time of suspense – a little frightening, but most of all exciting. Soon, he felt sure, they would come. Then it would be time for his secret plan. “The Celts will smash them, of course,” he proudly explained to Branwen. He sneaked off along the riverbank until he came to a place where he could watch the preparations. By the second morning, they were floating extra timbers down the stream.
    Cartimandua was now in a daze of terror and confusion. If Branwen left her side, she grew anxious. If the baby cried, she rushed to it. If Segovax disappeared, as he so often did, she would search for him frantically and hug the embarrassed boy to her as soon as she found him.
    Above all, she would glance continuously in the direction of the ford where her husband was working. For two nights now, the men had camped there, and though she and the other women had brought food, it had been impossible to talk to him.
    If only she could make sense of it all. If only she understood what the druid’s terrible words had meant.
    Perhaps she should not have approached the old man that day. He had certainly not wanted to speak to her. But she had been so anxious, she had been unable to help herself. “Tell me,” she had begged, “what is to befall me and my family?” Even then he had seemed to hesitate, until at last, almost with a shrug, he had drawn some bones from his fire, inspected them, and nodded in a way that somehow suggested that he had seen what he had expected. Yet what did it mean?
    “There are three men whom you love,” he had told her bleakly. “And you are going to lose one of them.”
    Lose one? Which one? The three men could only be her husband, Segovax, and the baby. There were no other menfolk in her