Juliet Landon - Slave Princess

Tullus pushed the game-board aside in disgust and stood up, vigorously tousling his nut-brown hair with the towel, emerging red-faced and serious. ‘He’s right,’ he said, eyeing his superior’s long limbs, noting how he sidled off the slab, gingerly testing the knee with the swollen joint. This man, Tullus thought, was a prime specimen, almost in the peak of fitness, with an intellect as bright as any he’d ever worked with, darkly good looking with a heavy-lidded insolence and steady eyes that made women blush and stammer. He would not be chaste for much longer, thought Tullus. ‘The Empress has some high-class slaves in her service,’ he said. ‘You have only to ask her. Just for the trip to Aquae Sulis and back. We shall be off tomorrow.’

‘I shan’t have time,’ Quintus said, dismissing Florian with a nod. ‘The Emperor wants to see me this afternoon. More instructions.’

‘More? I thought everything was arranged,’ said Tullus over his shoulder. He was poised on the edge of the pool, studying the ripples and reflections.

‘So did I,’ said Quintus, joining him. ‘He was pleased to be mysterious, but I believe he wants someone else to join the party.’

Standing between them, Lucan groaned. ‘Oh, Jupiter! Not another aged cripple with wobbly knees who needs spa treatment. We’ll never get there if we’re on escort duty to—’ His protest was cut short by a bellow as he was shoved unceremoniously into the water, hitting it with a loud smack and having no time to surface before two hefty male bodies landed on top of him, sending a tidal wave over the floor to wash Florian’s toes. Steam swirled around flailing limbs, engulfing them.

‘The Tribune Quintus Tiberius Martial,’ snapped the guard, opening the door of the Emperor’s newly whitewashed office.

Quintus stepped forward, his nose wrinkling at the pungent smell of medication that clung to the soldierly white-haired man who, despite the warmth of the April day, wore a fur-lined cloak and a pair of white-and-brown striped socks. ‘Your Excellency,’ Quintus said, bowing and waiting for the Emperor’s attention to lift from the scroll he was reading.

The tube of papyrus sprang upwards with a rattle. ‘Ah, Quintus! All prepared? Right,’ he went on, not waiting for any denial, ‘so I’ve had funds set aside for you in that box over there …’ he pointed with the scroll to a wooden brass-bound chest ‘… and there’ll be a two-man guard on it while you’re in transit. That’s for expenses. And here’s the final list of names and residences for the journey. They’re expecting you all the way from here to Lindum, Corinium, Aquae Sulis and all points in between, but it’s for you to decide the pace and where to pitch camp for the night.’

‘Thank you, my lord.’

Quintus had been in the Emperor’s inner sanctum many times since their arrival at Eboracum earlier in the year and was used to the sparse functional surroundings favoured by him and his two sons. As a Lybian, Severus found the harsh British climate not at all to his liking, but since his recent visit to Hadrian’s Wall, even further north, his chest complaint had been responding to treatment. Something, thought Quintus, must have agreed with him, apart from victory.

‘How’s the knee today?’

‘Bearable, sir, I thank you.’

‘Good. So you won’t mind taking along an extra passenger tomorrow, I take it.’

As if the entourage was not big enough already with attendants and aides, servants and slaves, bodyguards and bald Greek lawyers. ‘Just the one, sir?’

‘Ah … no. She’ll probably want to take her maid along with her, too.’

Inwardly, Quintus groaned. ‘A woman, sir? Not the Lady Julia Domna, surely?’

Severus sighed and rested his behind on a white marble table with gilded lions’ legs, his dark eyes straying briefly to the door and back to his sandals. ‘No, not my wife.’ His voice was subdued. The Empress would not have approved of his plan.

Quintus wondered whether there would be any point in objecting, but suspected not. Women always slowed a journey down, one reason why he’d been disinclined to accept his friends’ suggestion.

The Emperor wriggled his toes. ‘That battle last week,’ he said. ‘Remember?’

‘Indeed I do, sir. You killed the chieftain. It was well done.’

‘And if he’d been the only chieftain, Quintus, it would have been even better. But as you know, the Brigantes are the biggest and most powerful collection of tribes in Britain, even scrapping amongst themselves for dominance, and as soon as we remove one chieftain, another springs up in his place like bloody mushrooms. This time we have two of them. Sons of the last one. But we took the daughter captive.’

‘I didn’t know that, sir.’

The Governor of the northern province where the massive Brigantian tribes made such a nuisance of themselves had sent to the Emperor of Rome for help to put them in their place, once and for all. Severus, his sons, wife and a huge army had come post-haste from victories in Gaul and had already achieved some success.

‘I kept it quiet,’ Severus replied. ‘On the night the chieftain was killed, a party of our men sneaked up to their hill-fort to torch it while their backs were turned. They came back with the daughter and her maid. But I can’t keep them here indefinitely, Quintus. My eldest son is eager to bait them in the arena, but that would be asking for more trouble than they’re worth. I’d have the whole of the Brigantes united against us like a pack of ravening wolves. Subduing them one at a time is enough without provoking them still further. I wish he’d understand that.’

Imprisonment, Quintus knew only too well, was not an alternative form of punishment generally favoured by the Romans. Captives were either sold as slaves or killed. To keep them was an unnecessary burden on the state. High-status captives were sometimes taken in chains to Rome, displayed as trophies, but there was rarely a role for women in all this.

‘Would the two brothers not search for her, sir?’

‘Perhaps. But they’ll have a good idea of where she is, and anyway they’ll have their hands full sorting things out after their father’s death. I have reliable spies in Eboracum. Nothing has been seen of them after the battle. But I have to get rid of her, now, immediately.’ He leaned back, taking a deep breath. ‘Besides, there’s another reason.’

‘Sir?’

‘This woman’s tribe recently received a deputation from the Dobunni tribe down in the south. The spa Aquae Sulis is in their territory.’

Quintus was already beginning to understand. ‘Ah,’ he said.

‘A chieftain’s son, apparently. I’m told that it’s his father who favours an alliance with the local Brigantes, sending his son up here to make an offer for the daughter. I’m told she’s been promised.’

‘To the Dobunnii.’

‘Yes. It’s the kind of alliance that would give him some clout in the south.’

‘So he needs the Brigantes’s help. Is this the same troublemaker who’s building up a resistance army down there, sir?’

‘I believe it is. These impetuous young things take on all the advantages we’ve offered over the best part of two hundred years, all the trappings of Roman citizenship, but the one thing they can’t accept is that they’re expected to pay for our protection. One of these days they’re going to get a shock when we all go back to Rome and leave them to it, Quintus. But it always boils down to the tax problem. And this young renegade, so I’m told, has been recruiting young rebels to be trained for his resistance army.’

‘Jupiter!’

‘Quite. If he’s not stopped very soon, we’ll have more to do here in Britain than we thought. I don’t want to be stuck up here for years and have no wish to die here, either. We have to find this ringleader and put him out of action.’