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But the strange thing had been the reaction of his mother. His father had simply sighed, remarked, “She’s hiding somewhere to annoy him,” and started out to find her. But his mother’s response had been entirely different.

She had gone completely white. Her jaw had dropped in horror. And then, in a voice hoarse with fear, she had shouted at them both: “Quickly. Find her. Before it’s too late.” Nor would Segovax ever forget the look his mother gave him. It was almost one of hate.

It was the least favoured of the pack, the last in consideration, the last, always, to eat. Even now, in summer, when its brethren were so well fed that they often did not trouble to attack the game they saw, this one retained a thin and mangy look. When it had set off from the ridge to scavenge below, none of the brethren had bothered to object, but had merely watched it leave with incurious contempt. On this warm afternoon, therefore, the gaunt grey shadow had slipped silently down through the woods towards the habitations of men. It had caught some poultry down there once.

When it saw the little fair-haired girl, however, it hesitated.

It was not the custom of the wolves to attack humans, for they feared them. To hunt a human alone, without the sanction and aid of the pack, would bring a savage reprisal from the leader. On the other hand, this killing need not be found out. A tempting morsel, all to itself. She was sitting on a log with her back to it. She was humming to herself and idly kicking the log with her heels. The wolf edged closer. She did not hear.

As Cartimandua strode up the hill she was still deathly pale. She had been running. She had sent her husband by a different path. Segovax, now frightened, was already out of sight. She was breathing heavily, but this agitation was nothing to the terrible fear in her mind, where one thought had formed to the exclusion of all others.

If the girl was lost, then all was lost.

The passion of Cartimandua was a fearsome thing. Sometimes it seemed beautiful; more often it was like an ache that would not go away, and sometimes it was blank and terrible, gripping and then hurling her forwards so that she was helpless. So it was now. As she raced up the slope with the sun on her cheek, it seemed to her that her passion for her husband was endless. She desired him. She wanted to protect him. She needed him. She found it hard to imagine her existence without him. As for their little family and the baby, how would they manage without a father? Besides, she was ready to have more children. She passionately desired that too.

She had no illusions. There were already more women than men in the hamlets along the river. If there were fighting and he was killed, her chances of finding another man were poor. Her passion had driven her; motherhood and the preservation of her family had made her reason harshly. She had to. And so she had come to her terrible and secret decision, the agony of which had been with her all spring like a haunting and reproachful echo.

Had she done right? She told herself she had. The bargain was a good one. The girl might be happy; probably she would be better off. It was necessary. It was all for the best.

Except that every day she found she wanted to scream.

And now – this was the terrible secret of which her husband and children were unaware – if anything happened to little Branwen, her husband would probably die.

Branwen heard the wolf when it was only twenty feet behind her. Turning and seeing it, she screamed. The wolf watched her, ready to spring forward. But then it paused. For something surprising happened.

Branwen was terrified, but she was also quick-witted. She knew that if she ran the wolf would have her in its savage teeth in an instant. What could she do? There was only one chance. Like all the village children, she had driven cows. Even running cattle could be turned by a man waving his arms. Perhaps, just possibly, she could face the creature down. If she did not show fear.

If only she had a weapon, even a stick. But she had nothing. The only weapon she possessed was the one she often used at home and which nearly always seemed to work. Her temper. If I can pretend to be angry, she thought. Better yet, if I could just get really angry. Then she would not be afraid.

And so it was that the wolf suddenly found itself confronted by a tiny child, her face red and contorted with rage, waving her little arms and hurling obscenities that, although unintelligible to the wolf, conveyed their sense clearly enough. Stranger yet, instead of running away, the girl was advancing. Uncertain for a moment, the wolf backed away two paces.

“Go. Get away!” the little girl shouted furiously. “Stupid animal. Clear off!” And then, doubling herself up just as she did when she threw a real tantrum at home, she positively screamed: “Get out!”

The wolf backed off a little further. Its ears twitched. But then, watching her carefully, it stood its ground.

Branwen clapped her hands, shouted, stamped her foot. She had actually succeeded in working herself up into a real fury now, though at the same time she was carefully calculating the battle of wills. Did she dare make a rush at the wolf to make it turn and run? Or would it snap at her? Once it bit her, she knew she was finished.

Watching, the wolf sensed her hesitation and understood the bluff. It took two steps towards her, growled, and crouched to spring. Desperately the little girl, knowing that the game was up, bellowed at it in rage. But she had stopped coming forward. The wolf crouched lower.

It was just at this moment that the wolf saw another figure appear behind the girl. The animal tensed. Did this mean hunters were coming? It glanced right and left. No. There was only this single figure, another man-child. Unwilling to abandon this easy prey, the wolf crouched once again. The man-child was only carrying a stick. The wolf ran forward.

The searing pain in its shoulder took the wolf completely by surprise. The boy had thrown the pointed stick so fast it had taken the quick-moving animal off guard. The pain was sharp. The wolf stopped. Then, puzzled, suddenly found it could not go on. Then sank to the ground.

Segovax did not want to tell the grown-ups about the wolf.

“If they find out,” he explained, “I’ll get in even more trouble.”

But the little girl was beside herself with excitement. “You killed it!” she cried joyfully. “With your spear!” And he saw that it was useless.

He sighed. “Come on then.” And they began to descend the hill.

It was his mother’s reaction that was so mystifying. At first, while his father kissed them both and patted his son on the back, she had said nothing, staring across the river as if the little reunion before her was not taking place. But after his father had gone off to skin the wolf, she turned and fixed her eyes upon Segovax with a terrible, haunted look.

“Your sister nearly died. Do you know that?” He gazed miserably at the ground. He knew there would be trouble. “You would have killed her by letting her go up there alone. Do you understand what you did?”

“Yes, Mother.” Of course he understood. But instead of scolding him, Cartimandua had let out a low, despairing moan. He had never heard such a sound before and he looked at her awkwardly. She seemed almost to have forgotten him. She was shaking her head and clutching the little girl at the same time.

“You don’t know. You don’t know at all.” Then she had wheeled round, uttered a cry almost like an animal’s wail, and walked away from them both towards the hamlet. And neither he nor Branwen knew what to think.

The terrible bargain had been made when the noble from the great chief Cassivelaunus had first come to plan the river defences that spring. Perhaps the idea would not have occurred to her if it had not been for a casual remark he had made to the women of the hamlet while he was inspecting the weapons of the men.

“If the Romans come to the ford here, you’ll all be moved upstream.” The dark-bearded captain did not like having women near a battle. In his opinion, they got in the way and distracted their men.

But the remark was enough to set her thinking, then to give her inspiration. That evening, seeing him alone by the fire, she had ventured up to him.

“Tell me, sir,” she asked, “if we go upstream, will we have a guard?”

He shrugged. “I dare say. Why?”

“All the people round here trust my husband,” she stated. “I think he would be the best one to accompany us.”

The noble looked up. “You do, do you?”

“Yes,” she said quietly. She saw him smile to himself as one who, having authority, has known every kind of proposition.

“And what,” he asked gently, as he gazed at the darkened waters, “would make me think that?”

She stared at him. She knew her attractions.

“Whatever you wish,” she replied.

He was silent for some time. Like most military commanders, he did not bother to count the women who offered themselves to him. Some he took; others not. But when his choice came, it was a surprise.

“The fair-haired little girl I noticed beside you this afternoon. She is yours?”

Cartimandua nodded.

And in just a few, brief moments, she had given little Branwen away.

It was all for the best. She had told herself so a thousand times. Branwen would belong to the captain of course. Technically, she would be a slave. He could sell her or do what he liked with her. But the fate of such a girl might not be bad. She would be at the court of the great Cassivelaunus; if the captain liked her he might free her; she might even make a good marriage. Such things happened. Better than waiting around this village where everything was so dull, Cartimandua reasoned. If the girl could learn to control her temper, it could be a fine opportunity.

And in return, her husband would not fight the fearsome Romans, but come with her to safety up the river.

“You will all go upriver,” the captain had told her bluntly. “You will deliver the girl to me at the summer’s end.” Meanwhile, all she had to do was to hide the bargain from her husband. For though she knew he would never agree, once it was done, it would be too late. An oath was an oath in the Celtic world.

No wonder, therefore, that from the day when the wolf nearly killed her, Cartimandua kept the girl always at her side.

Still no news was heard of Julius Caesar.

“Perhaps,” Segovax’s father cheerfully remarked, “he will not come.”

For Segovax, these summer days were happy. Though his mother continued in her strange, dark mood and kept poor Branwen always at her side, his father seemed to delight in spending time with him. He had mounted one of the wolf’s pads for the boy, and Segovax wore it round his neck like a charm. Every day, it appeared, his father was anxious to teach him some new skill of hunting, or carving, or guessing the weather. And then, at midsummer, to his surprise and delight his father suddenly announced: “Tomorrow I shall take you to the sea.”

There were several kinds of boats in use upon the river. Normally his father used a simple dugout hollowed from an oak trunk for setting his nets along the bank or crossing the river from time to time. There were rafts, too, of course. The boys of the hamlet had made their own the previous summer, mooring it out in the stream and using it as a platform from which to jump and dive into the river’s sparkling waters. There were also little coracles, and occasionally Segovax had seen traders from upriver come by rowing long boats with high, flat-boarded sides that the Celtic islanders also knew how to make skilfully. But for a journey like this, the little hamlet owned one vessel that was especially appropriate. It was kept under cover and tended by his father. And if the boy had any lingering doubts about whether the long-awaited journey would actually take place, they were finally dispelled when his father told him: “We’d better test it on the river. We shall take the wicker boat.”

The wicker boat! It consisted of a shallow keel, with broad ribs made of light timber. But this delicate framework was the only hard material in the vessel’s hull. Over the frame was stretched a coat not of wood, but of osier woven into stout wickerwork. And over this, to provide the necessary waterproofing, was a coating of skins. Traders from over the seas had long admired the wickerwork of the Celtic Britons. It was one of the island’s minor glories.

Though only twenty feet long, the wicker boat had one other refinement. In its centre, secured with stays, was a short mast on which a thin leather sail could be raised. The mast was nothing more than a small, freshly cut tree trunk, carefully chosen so as not to be too heavy, and with a natural fork left at its top as a head for the halyards. Charmingly, it was also the custom to leave some sprigs of leaves growing at the top of the mast, so that the little wicker boat seemed almost like some living tree or bush floating upon the waters.

Primitive the vessel certainly was, but also remarkably convenient. Light enough to be carried; flexible but sturdy; stable enough, despite its shallow draught, to be taken out to sea if necessary. The oars and tidal flow would propel it about the river, but its little sail could be a useful additional source of power – enough, given its lightness, to overcome the river current if the wind was anywhere behind it. For an anchor, it had a heavy stone set in a wooden cage like a lobster basket.