‘He will not accept that the Romans are too powerful.’

‘You said this to him?’ asked Aulus. The young chieftain nodded, his nose wrinkling as he picked up the scented odour of a Greek slave, leaning forward to refill his goblet with wine. ‘And how did he reply?’

‘He insists he has spoken with the gods of our race, and the message is clear. We Celts have ten men to every one of yours…’

The youngster’s black eyes took on a fearful look as he conjured up the image of the eagle charm that the Druid had then taken into his fingers. He called it his talisman, the harbinger of his destiny. How many times had Masugori listened as Brennos had told him that the man who wore this would conquer the legions. Like so many prophecies, it had not come to pass; someone, somewhere, had misread the omens.

‘He refuses to believe that we cannot fight you and win.’

Aulus had asked his next question with some hesitation, feeling, deep in his being that he already knew the answer. ‘And what does he intend now?’

‘Not surrender. He has gone north into the mountains. A man like Brennos will want to question the gods from a place close to the sky, but he will return. He swears it is his fate to confront Rome, only the means and the method elude him. Nothing has happened to dent that belief.’

The sun had been behind Brennos as he had uttered his parting words, framing his red-gold hair like a halo. Even in shadow his bright blue eyes had blazed with anger while his parting words, which had sounded so much like a prophecy, were seared into the young chieftain’s brain.

‘Go, make your peace, Masugori, but before either you or I are dust, every man who accepts Rome’s word will end as bones on a bloody battlefield, heaped high to bring glory to a Roman general.’