"Little Othrik," said Eodan. He looked at his wife's hand and
remembered how his son's baby fingers had curled about his thumb. He
shook his head and smiled. "No--him we shall always mourn.... But it
would be worse if we sailed off leaving him to grow up a Roman's beaten
beast. You could not have done otherwise. There will come more children
to us, and some of them will die of this or that; so it has ever been.
But some will live, Hwicca."