Q. If this is the way you always talked, I'm not surprised you angered them. A. I am sorry. Q. You turn everything around that's said to you. A. I will try not to. It's like the bishop--he complained about the same thing, and I was only trying to-- Q. What bishop? A. I forgot his name. He was the thin one; he was much cleverer than the others. He gave me an impossible choice, so I chose to make another start. Q. You mean you got yourself burned again? A. Yes! They did it to all their best people. Both sides did. I would have looked a precious fool if I'd backed down. Q. Can't you bear to admit you are wrong? A. But I wasn't wrong. Anyway, they'd have made me out in the wrong either way. Q. Did they only burn the women, when they thought the women were wrong? A. No, of course not. And it was usually when they suspected the women were right. Then there were the women who were thought to be possessed by what they thought were evil spirits. Q. They didn't suspect _they_ were right, surely? A. No, but they were afraid they might be. They were very unsure of themselves and their beliefs. That's when they burned people. Q. It sounds very wasteful. They must be very careless of their possessions. A. No, not in the least. I'll explain-- Q. I wish you wouldn't. A. There, you see? They were just like you--they kept asking me questions and getting more and more enraged when I answered them. So, to shut me up, they tied me to a stake. Q. You are too interested in your own reactions to things. Tell us about something more constructive--about what you found in other guises. I understand you led an insurrection? A. If you call throwing an armed robber out of your house an insurrection. The trouble was that on that occasion a lot of my friends thought I was right. That's called conspiracy.... * * * * * The captain led a small group of foot-soldiers into the village at what, to the Romans, was the Twelfth Hour, which is sunset. The soldiers had light armor and carried only the small shields--not the enormous _testudines_--but they had been warned to keep their eyes open as the British were tricky, even treacherous. The captain greatly disliked to take such raw troops so far north, where the treaties were uncertain and the Pax Romana was held lightly, if at all. An ancestor of his, also a captain, had been killed near here in one of Hadrian's marches, and no one was quite sure what had happened.