Jenny: Silver Thread

The Guttersnipe flushed a moment. "I'm Iceni, and I am my Lord Ambrosius' girl. We are very native, after all," she explained. "My Lord is Roman an Iceni, so that he has the best of both worlds. And it was just me among them all, so it doesn't leave much room for softness, being always jostled by the menfolk. But it's a good life. They are all of them the best of men.

"As for Scotti, it's not a term we ever use. And no. No, I'm not...Scotti."

How did one explain a thing more ethereal than dreams, something more tangible than the beating of one's own heart? As the sun darkened and turned the land a burnished bronze, she knew as surely as she knew her name that he was out there - they were out there - thinking of her in the backs of their minds. Her Lord Ambrosius could see what lay beyond the next hill; Artos could know what movement and man would make before he made it. And there was that connection that they had which none of them could ever explain, none of them ever questioned, which seemed to grow like the roots of a tree, entwining them all, her Lord Ambrosius at its centre.