Barbara Erskine - The Warrior’s Princess

‘But Mam, Glads is still there. She is waiting for us. She’s lost Togo.’

Cerys let out a wail of anguish and violently pushed Eigon away. The child didn’t try and tell her any more about what she had heard. Instead, quietly in her bed at night, she prayed, pouring out her heart to the goddess Bride, begging her to look after her brother and sister.

The goddess did not reply.

When Jess woke it was full daylight and she was so stiff she could hardly move. For a moment she couldn’t remember where she was, then wearily she sat up and peered round, her dream receding, memories of the events of the day before flooding back. Hungry, thirsty and frightened she climbed to her feet and tiptoed to the door. The yard was deserted.

A second circuit of the farmhouse and its outbuildings confirmed the fact that the place was empty. Driven by hunger, she opened one of the old freezers which sat in a shed behind the barn and was confronted by a frozen mountain of various cuts of lamb. With a shudder she closed it. Megan’s kitchen garden was much more help. Late raspberries and strawberries, blackcurrants, peas and a carrot or two brushed free of mud, restored her strength and confidence and by the time she had eaten her fill she had worked out a plan. She would go home, retracing her steps until she could look down at Ty Bran from the woods on the hillside above. If Dan was still there she would bypass the house, make her way down towards the road and the distant village.

Perched on the hillside above the house she had a good view of the courtyard and the lane outside the house. There was no sign of Dan’s car. Cautiously she made her way down towards the gate and paused, scanning every corner of the yard, every tree and bush, every angle of the house. The place felt empty. The lean-to garage was empty. Her own car still stood uselessly in the middle of the courtyard. There was nowhere else his car could be. No space round the back; no hidden places up on the track. He had gone. She was sure of it. The blackbird was on his favourite perch on the roof of the studio. She smiled. If anyone had been here in the last few minutes the bird would have flown away, surely. As quietly as possible she pushed open the gate and tiptoed around the courtyard. The front door was closed. Silently, flattened against the wall, she edged towards the kitchen window and after a moment’s hesitation, peered in. The room was empty. Ducking under the window she made her way round the side of the house. To her surprise the back door was ajar. She shrank back, frightened, and waited, holding her breath. Was he still there after all? It was a long time before she crept forward again and cautiously pushed the door open as far as it would go. There was no sound from inside. It took a lot of courage to go in; more to search the house. He had gone. There was no sign of him anywhere save the broken window in the dining room where he had forced his way in.

Her heart thudding with fear she stood in the kitchen again, trying to decide what to do. She couldn’t stay here now. She was too much of a threat to him. She frowned. Where had he gone? Why had he left? Had Nat phoned him and demanded he go back? Perhaps his alibi had run out. She gave a grim smile at the thought, but she wasn’t going to stay and wait for him to come back. He must realise she would tell someone about his threats. Or was he going to bluff it out; tell the world she was deluded. After all, he was right, there was no proof of what had happened, either yesterday or back in London. No proof at all. She had told no one. There was no evidence, she had seen to that. Miserably she paced up and down the floor, aware in some part of her that the blackbird was still singing outside from the studio roof, his reassurance her only comfort.

Where are you?

The words floated through the window suddenly, a child’s voice from far away.

Jess shivered.

Where are you? Don’t leave me!

‘Oh God! I can’t stand this any more!’ Her mind made up, Jess turned towards the door.

Her handbag, the bag that Dan had presumably rifled through, was sitting on the kitchen table. She glanced through it. Her mobile was in there. He had put it back in the bag. And her passport, tucked into a side pocket. He had moved nothing. She found the name of a builder on Steph’s list of emergency phone numbers and picked up the phone to get him to come and fix the window. The phone was still dead. Her mobile battery was still flat. Dan had unplugged it from the charger. Swearing, she tore off the piece of paper and put it in her pocket. She glanced round the house one last time to make sure she had forgotten nothing, as an afterthought scooped up Rhodri’s CDs and tucked them into her bag, then she went outside, banging the door behind her. Unlocking the car she pulled one of her cases towards her. She needed a few things. She would put them in a carrier and lug them down to the village where she would find someone who would let her borrow their phone. It hardly seemed worthwhile to try to start the car again but she did it anyway.

It started first go. With a sob of hope she slammed the door and began to ease the car out of the yard. Pulling out onto the track she put her foot down and headed downhill. If Dan was still lurking in the lane and about to accost her as she drove past she intended to be travelling so fast he couldn’t catch her. The car bucked and groaned as it lurched through the potholes but the engine seemed fine. She glanced in the mirror back towards the trees. The sun was glinting on the puddles, slanting through the branches throwing a network of shadows across the deep ruts.

‘Goodbye, Eigon, Glads, Togo,’ she whispered.

There was no reply.

She didn’t stop until she reached the garage in the next town where an obliging mechanic found the loose connection within minutes. Within half an hour she had filled up with petrol, bought some sandwiches and called the builder to go up to the house and fix the window. She plugged her phone in to charge, then she leaned forward to select a CD.

The first that came to hand was Elgar’s cantata Caractacus with Rhodri in the title role. She looked down at it thoughtfully, then pulled out the booklet tucked into the front of the case. Yes, Caractacus was the man she knew as Caratacus and his daughter was here too. Eigen, she was called. Jess frowned, looking down the cast list. Orbin. Who was Orbin? She read on swiftly. He was, apparently, Eigen’s lover. Jess shook her head. No, that wasn’t right. Eigon was a little girl. There was an Arch Druid in the cast, and of course the Emperor Claudius. She read on thoughtfully. The scene had been set by Elgar in his beloved Malvern Hills. She slid the first disk from its case, slipped it into the player and as she pulled out of the garage forecourt she turned up the volume. Behind her, in the distance, the true site of Caratacus’s defeat lay in the summer sunlight, gentle now beneath the distant escarpment of the hills, sleeping in the arm of the river, the site chosen with such care for his great confrontation with the forces of Rome and which had in the event served him so badly in the face of the greatest fighting force the country had yet seen.

The last leg of their journey took them from Verulamium to Camulodunum. Altogether, they had been some fourteen days on the road. This town had been the centre of the confederation of the two great tribes of the Catuvellauni and the Trinovantes. Cunobelinus, the father of Caratacus, Cerys’s Caradoc, had been king here before the Romans came. Now it was the centre and the military base of the new province of Britannia. It was here, while she was lodged with her daughter in the legionary fortress, that Cerys learned their fate. As soon as her husband was brought south to join them all the captives were to be taken to Rome to be paraded as vanquished enemies before the people of Rome and before the Emperor in person and then consigned to their doom. Cerys did not need to read the expression in the eyes of the commander of the legion to know that he expected that they would be sentenced to a horrible death before the baying crowds, or that while waiting for her husband to be brought south from his incarceration by the queen of the Brigantes she and Eigon would be kept in close imprisonment. Their time as honoured captives was over, their new lives as prisoners and probably slaves about to begin.