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sword.
    Sharn saw his father take a very deep breath and hold his neck rigid so that the sword would cut clean.
    And then time stopped. Sharn felt the cool breeze on his cheek and noticed how the light bounced off the grass and somewhere a bird flew off squawking.
    The Norseman hefted the sword up to shoulder height and started his swing. Colun was staring straight at Sharn and Cumbria, a rod of love extending from his eyes to theirs.
    And then just before steel met flesh, Sharn had to look away – in fact Sharn had to run away. There was a gasp from one of the officials to announce it was done, as Sharn broke into a run … and ran and ran.

CHAPTER 20
THE BOTTOM FALLS OUT OF THE WORLD
    S harn ran all the way back to Ryant, trying to outstrip the memory of what had just taken place.
    He burst into the hut, his ragged breathing making Fritha turn from the hearth and rush to him. He drooped in her arms as she led him to the sleeping platform and made him lie down. He huddled there with his face to the wall, covered in clammy sweat.
    Fritha tended him, as he had once looked after her. Guyleen prepared infusions of skullcap and valerian which allowed him to doze for a while, but she also had something upsetting to tell them. She had decided to settle with relatives deeper in the tribal lands where the Romans had not penetrated. “They blight this land with their murder!” she grunted with distaste and spat into the fire. She kissed Sharn quickly and handed Fritha a pouch of herbs, before she closed the door behind her for the last time.
    And only an hour later, Sharn’s fragile grip on reality was disturbed even further when Cumbria visited and brought troubling news.
    “Crassus has asked me to be his wife.”
    Sharn turned over in the bed and gaped at Cumbria. “And you laughed in his face?”
    “I told him I would be honoured.”
    Sharn was dumbfounded, and his world unravelled a little more. “You can’t mean that, Cumbria.”
    “I love him,” she replied.”
    “He killed da. Have you forgotten already?”
    Cumbria winced.
    Sharn tried to make himself as imposing as possible, difficult as that was, feeling like death in his sweat-drenched bed. “I am head of this family now and I forbid it!”
    Cumbria shrugged. “The old ways are over, Sharn. Rome is here to stay. Christianity is here to stay. Celtic ways are dying. I am a Celtic Christian marrying a Christian Roman. I’m not going to say sorry for that.”
    Sharn stared reproachfully at her and she stared steadily back. He wracked his brain for something to say but he couldn’t think of a thing.
    Cumbria put her hand on his. “There is a very good military physician who might be able to help you. I will ask Seth to come and see you.” She stood quickly and kissed Sharn on the cheek.
    “Get well, brother. Peace be with you.” She crossed the hut to embrace Fritha, who had been listening to all this in the background.
    “Look after him for me,” she murmured as she hurried out.
    Everything was closing in on Sharn. The Romans had taken his father and were now getting his sister too. He shivered as the room seemed to grow colder. Fritha arranged their thick bearskin around his shoulders. She held him close but Sharn could not feel her. His body seemed to be coated with ice, as if the cold of the earth had travelled through him, freezing his bones.
    He tried to sleep but when he closed his eyes, the darkness inside him spawned horrifying sights: headless corpses, bleeding Africans, black crows with stabbing beaks.
    And so he opened his eyes, but then the light from the fire and the flickering mutton-fat lamps lanced into his brain. The light was his enemy, as the dark was also, and his head filled with screeching and buzzing.
    Sharn couldn’t stand it any more. He jumped up and stood in the middle of the hut, swaying on his feet. Fritha hardly recognised the haggard, lank-haired creature staring at her with unfocused eyes. Then he turned and ran out. Fritha