Brennos stood on a long escarpment, looking down on to a settled agricultural plain, criss-crossed with neatly ordered fields. In the distance lay a white-walled town, red-tiled roofs catching the rays of a sinking sun. Behind him lay thousands of Celtic tribesmen, warriors who could obliterate these Roman settlements, all they needed was a leader. He raised the eagle to his lips as he had done every day since his escape and made a vow; that one day he would return to the lands of the north, not as a fugitive but as an all-conquering head of an army; that one day he would stand in that circle of stones and, keen knife in hand, cut out the hearts of those who had sought to slay him.
CHAPTER ONE
The tiny chapel off the atrium was packed, though the number of people in the confined space was small. There was no need in normal times for this private family room to hold a multitude; it was the dimensions of the chamber rather than the number of guests that created the impression of overcrowding. Some were family, others important friends, fellow senators or clients, while one distinct group stood close to the altar, dressed partly in goatskins. On the day of the Festival of Lupercalia, these men had stopped on their way to the sacred cave on the Palatine Hill, wearing the skin of the animals they would sacrifice in the rituals of their cult. Lupercalia being the God of Fertility, no child could ask for a more propitious day to be born.