'Then you must cut her,' Ban said.

'We were ready to,' Sula said. 'But then she started this chattering, and we can't think, none of us!'

Nectovelin growled. With two strides he closed on the druidh, grabbed a big handful of the priest's robe and hauled him close. 'You! Is this your doing? Are these curse words she utters?'

'No, no! On my mother's life!' The druidh was thin, pale, balding, perhaps forty, and he trembled in Nectovelin's huge grasp.

'Nectovelin!' Cunovic spoke sharply enough to make his grandfather turn. 'That will do no good. It's nothing to do with him. Let him be.'

'And how do you know that?'

'Because I recognise what she is saying. Those aren't the words of gods-not our gods, anyhow.'

'Then what?'

'Latin. She's speaking Latin.'

There was a silence, broken only by Brica's continued chattering.

Nectovelin released the druidh's robe. The druidh slumped to the ground, shamed. Nectovelin said heavily, 'How can this be? Who knows Latin here?'

'Nobody but me,' Cunovic said, 'save for a few words picked up from me or the traders.' And certainly not Brica, who, always a quiet girl, had probably ventured no more than a day's walk from her birthplace her entire life.

'Then what does this mean?'

'I've no idea…'

Cunovic started to hear what Brica was saying, to make out the words. It was only a few lines, like doggerel poetry, repeated over and over. It occurred to him someone ought to write this down. He ought, as the only literate member of the family. He found his bag, dug out a tablet and stylus, and began to scribble. The children watched him, wide-eyed; the letters appearing on the wax must seem like magic to them.

Nectovelin glared and turned on Ban. 'With a birth like this, with his mother gabbling Latin, his life is already blighted. Call him what you want, Ban. He will be no warrior.'