Centuries later the country would be known as Scotland and the people of that time as Picts.

In 122 AD the Roman emperor's forces had established a foothold despite fierce objection from restless natives. A big construction project was planned and labor was needed. The local population couldn't be controlled so slaves were brought in. At that time all roads led to Rome which was as good a reason as any for the presence of a young man from the East at a camp in the northern part of an island the Romans had taken over. But only temporarily since they would be kicked back to the curb of Europe in four centuries.

The Eastern slave was called Glyn which was a close phonetic sound to his name in his own language. He was young and healthy but not very big or strong. He was also clean and appeared intelligent so he was made a personal servant to the commander of the legion. The commander thought Glyn would consider himself lucky to avoid hard labor. But people have odd ideas about freedom and Glyn wasn't grateful. He was rebellious and with the impulsiveness of youth he took a rare opportunity to escape one night without thinking much about the consequences.

In the morning he knew he would have to hide from the inevitable search. He almost missed the cleverly concealed opening to a cave that would be the perfect shelter.

Dirl was a warrior like most of the men in his tribe but unlike them he preferred solitude to rutting with the females. He had found a place for himself - comfortable as caves go - and he spent a lot of time there making spears and sharpening arrowheads. He hunted with the resulting weapons, made fire to cook the meat then dried and cured the hides to hold water. Whenever called upon he mixed the juice of various berries and plants, painted himself with the blue paste and joined his brethren to kill Roman invaders. The leftover paste was used to decorate the walls of his man cave. Two millennia later he would posthumously be known as an anonymous artist of that age.

Dirl was instantly awake when he heard rustling that morning, alert even though he expected it to be an animal that would go away after catching the scent of a human. Although it must be said that Dirl smelled more like an animal than a human. Instead, a young man crawled in. Glyn froze in terror. Dirl was so surprised that he didn't hurl his spear. They spoke not a word of each other's language but Dirl grasped the situation immediately and put into practice the theory that 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.' Glyn did the same. The art of mime, or maybe the game of charades, was developed over breakfast. After that they went hunting and hauled water.

That night was colder than before and Dirl had only two furs, one to lie on and one to lie under. By morning they had shared more than the furs.

They were doomed from the start. One slave more or less meant nothing to the Romans but they couldn't allow their property to wander at will. Others might follow and Hadrian's Wall wasn't going to build itself. So the search intensified and the lovers were discovered. Dirl defended Glyn vigorously but 16 soldiers to one savage did not make for a fair fight. It would have been a different story if there were only five soldiers since Dirl managed to kill two and wound three more before he was cut down in front of Glyn.

Their three days together were followed by two days for Glyn to reflect on his sins before he was executed as an example to the other slaves. Dirl had had only minutes. But the amount of time for repentance hardly mattered since neither of them was sorry.