Barbara Erskine - The Warrior’s Princess

She stared at the letter in his hand as though willing it to disappear; as though praying he would reread it, say he had made a mistake, but his eyes pitilessly confirmed what he had just read out loud. Already he had beckoned the guard forward. Already she was being led from the room, Eigon at her heels.

‘Mam? Mam, where are we going? What is happening?’ The child caught at the skirt of her tunic. Cerys ignored her. She clenched her fists in the folds of her cloak and straightened her shoulders. She would not show fear. She would not show grief. She would not betray the honour of her tribe or the royal bravery of her husband before these men. And nor would her daughter.

‘Be silent, Eigon,’ she snapped. ‘Remember you are a princess. Do not show them you are afraid!’

Eigon shrank back. Bewildered, she bit back her tears. One of the legionaries of their escort noticed the exchange. He glanced at his officer, noted he was looking the other way and smiling down at the little girl in an attempt at reassurance he winked. ‘Courage!’ he whispered.

The last chorus of the first CD came to an end with a flourish. With a start Jess realised she had driven miles without being aware of where she was, buoyed up by the passion of the music. She glanced round, looking for a signpost. She was still on track heading down towards the motorway and London. While Eigon’s life had been unfolding inside her head some other part of her consciousness had been steering the car, turning corners, negotiating roundabouts and villages, heading away from Wales.

Pulling in at last at Warwick Services on the M40 she took stock of the situation as she queued up for coffee and a toasted sandwich, forcing herself to put Eigon and her family out of her mind and bring herself back to the present. She couldn’t go back to her flat; her tenant wouldn’t appreciate her sudden return and it would anyway be the first place Dan would look. She shivered, glancing in spite of herself at the crowds of people around her. No, she would stick to her plan. She had her passport, her credit cards, all she needed in the car with her. She would follow Steph – and Eigon – to Rome.

9

The gods were with her. She managed to get a flight that same evening. Leaving most of her belongings locked in the car in the long term car park at Heathrow, she settled into her seat with a huge sigh of relief as the plane took off and angled sharply over London.

She arrived at last at the palazzo in the early hours of the morning. When she climbed out of the taxi, paid the driver and dragged her case to the door the street was, she noticed wearily, as busy as it would be at midday at home. She had no time for any other observations. In seconds she was being enveloped in hugs and escorted up the great marble staircase which led to Kim’s front door on the first floor. Minutes after that she was seated in front of a crisp glass of Frascati and a bowl of pasta in the echoing old-fashioned kitchen.

‘So?’ Steph sat down opposite her and leaned forward on her elbows. ‘What happened?’

‘What do you mean?’ Jess took a mouthful of the fettuccine alla marinara , savouring the flavours with delight. She had not eaten since her motorway stop, so long ago it seemed like another era. A warm fuzzy sense of security was beginning to drift over her.

Kim spooned the last of the sauce onto Jess’s plate. She glanced at Steph. ‘No questions now, Steph,’ she said sternly. ‘Jess is exhausted. We’ll catch up on all her news in the morning.’

In less than an hour Jess had taken a long relaxing bath and fallen into bed. Almost before her head touched the pillow she was asleep. But her sleep was restless and it wasn’t long before she woke suddenly and lay staring into the dark. Her head had been full of music. Elgar. The voice of Rhodri Price, filling the dark spaces of her brain. Except it wasn’t Rhodri Price, it was Caratacus.

* * *

Tall, his strong weather-beaten features drawn with pain, his hair threaded now with silver amongst the thick auburn locks, he was standing in the doorway, his shoulder and upper arm still bandaged from his battle wound, his wrists shackled with heavy iron manacles, staring in towards his wife and daughter. ‘Where is he?’ he asked. ‘Where is my son?’

Cerys clasped her hands in anguish as he stepped into the room. Behind him the guard slammed the door and they heard the bolt slide across.

‘We searched. We searched everywhere. The Romans searched. They put the whole legion to the search –’ Her voice rose in anguish. ‘Eigon hid them in the wood above the battlefield. To keep them safe. But when we looked they had gone.’

Eigon had started to tremble. She stared at her father in terror, her eyes filling with tears. ‘I told them to hide. I told them not to come out.’

For a brief second his face was consumed with anger; with an enormous effort he controlled it. ‘They told me. Can we hope our own people found them? Can they be keeping them safe?’

‘That is my prayer,’ Cerys said softly. ‘I pray every day to the goddess Bride to keep them safe. You must not blame Eigon. She did what she thought was right.’ Her voice was softened by a smile as she turned towards her daughter but there was a hard edge of pain to it that Eigon heard with a small whimper of unhappiness.

Caradoc studied his wife’s face. ‘I had no intention of blaming her. Come here, child.’ He held out his arms, awkward because of the chains and Eigon ran to him, leaning against his knees, worming her way into his embrace. ‘You did what you thought was right, sweetheart, and you were very brave.’ He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. ‘And who knows,’ he glanced up at his wife, his face strained. ‘It may be that Togo and Glads are the ones who will survive to fight another day.’

The music faded and Jess slept again. Next time she woke she went and stood by the window looking out into the darkness, listening to the noises of the night. Her window faced away from the noisy street outside. From somewhere she could hear a tinkling of water, but behind it there was still a distant subdued hum of traffic. She smiled to herself. The Eternal City. She remembered how excited they had all been when Kim had announced her engagement to her Roman aristocrat. They had all vowed to keep in touch for ever, vowed with her, to learn Italian. Jess grimaced at the memory. Kim had become fluent over the years, of course she had. Her own and Steph’s attempts at the language had flagged almost at once. Her promises to herself that she would one day read La Commedia Divina in the original had been ignominiously shunted aside, along with her recognition that her mastery of the language would probably be limited to a few useful phrases mostly involving food.

When she woke again it was late and she lay staring with delight round the large room to which she had been shown the night before. Too tired to take much notice of the room lit only by a shaded bedside light, she had taken in very little of its detail beyond the fact that it was comfortable and had its own en suite bathroom. Now she found she was lying in a baroque four-poster bed, its curtains open, tied back against the posts with brocade swags; at the windows the threadbare damask curtains were only half-drawn and sunlight poured through onto exotic old rugs filling the room with rich warm light. Climbing to her feet she went over to look out and found she was staring down into a courtyard garden somewhere in the quiet inner heart of the palazzo. The tantalising sound of water she had heard in the night, came, she discovered, from an ornate fountain at the centre of an intricate pattern of formal beds and gravelled paths.