'No. The permanent bridge will come straight across to link up with the forum; people arriving will have a splendid view, directly across the river and up the hill.'

'So when is the permanent bridge planned for?' I asked, smiling.

'About ten years' time, I'd say,' he told me gloomily. 'Meanwhile we have this one, which you could call the permanent temporary bridge – or the temporary permanent bridge.'

'It's off-set so while you build the final version alongside, you can maintain a crossing point?'

'Correct! If you want to cross now, my advice is, use the ferry.'

I quirked up an eyebrow. 'Why?'

'The bridge is temporary; we don't maintain it.' I laughed.

Hilaris then fell into a reflective mood. He enjoyed giving history lessons. 'I remember when there was nothing here. Just a few round huts, most of them across the water. Orchards and coppices this side. By Jove it felt desolate! A civilian settlement struggled into existence after Rome invaded. But we were then away out at Camulodunum, the Britons' own chief centre. It was bloody inconvenient, I can tell you. Our presence caused bad feeling too; in the Rebellion that was the first place lost.'

'Londinium had enough by Nero's day to attract Boudicca's energy,' I reminisced bitterly. 'I saw it… Well, I saw what was left afterwards.'

Hilaris paused. He had forgotten that I was here in the Icenian Rebellion – a youngster, marked for life by that grim experience. Evidence of the firestorm remained to this day. Memories of corpses and severed heads churning in the local waterways would never die. The whole atmosphere of this place still upset me. I would be glad when I could leave.

Hilaris was in Britain then too. I was a ranker, and in a disgraced legion; he a junior official among the governor's elite staff. Our paths would not have crossed.