The Warrior's Princess Read online

  Steph’s mouth dropped open.

  ‘She tried to persuade me to go to the police but I wouldn’t. I just wanted to get away.’

  ‘So you resigned and went to Ty Bran.’ Steph levered herself off the bed and went to stare out of the window.

  Wordlessly Jess nodded.

  ‘Why?’ Steph turned to face her. ‘I don’t understand. If it’s true, then why in God’s name did you let him get away with it? You’re a fighter, Jess. You should have crucified him. The bastard!’

  Jess shrugged. ‘I wasn’t thinking straight. Besides, I’ve seen what happens to women who claim to have been raped. I went to the police with one of the girls from school. I was not going to put myself through that. After all, even you are wondering how much I had had to drink!’

  ‘I believe you, Jess.’ Steph shook her head. ‘Of course I do. Oh my darling. I’m so sorry. He’s a complete and utter shit, but I’m afraid I think he’s right. Even if you went to the police, unless there was forensic evidence of what happened, even if there was …’ Steph paused with a shrug. ‘It’s going to be his word against yours.’

  ‘Head of department. Married man. Respected teacher. Versus flighty vindictive frustrated colleague who was about to be sacked, you mean,’ Jess whispered.

  ‘Were you about to be sacked?’ Steph asked gently.

  Jess shook her head. ‘Not as far as I know, but he could claim I was. He could say that was why I resigned. I jumped before I was pushed. He could say anything!’

  ‘Would the Head believe your word against his?’

  ‘Brian?’ Jess shook her head again. ‘Not against Dan, no. He’s got him lined up to be his deputy. One day he’ll get a school of his own.’ She turned to face her sister. ‘What am I going to do, Steph?’

  Steph was silent. She was chewing her lips as she studied Jess’s face. At last she spoke. ‘To be honest, I don’t know. How long have we known Dan? Years. Has he ever showed an interest in you before? I don’t mean that unkindly, but I don’t remember him fancying you. Not so we noticed, anyway.’

  Jess gave a rueful smile. ‘It was Kim who fancied him, remember, although I don’t think he ever returned the compliment, did he? But I was with Will before.’

  ‘Have you told Will about this?’

  Jess shook her head. ‘He and I have not been communicating lately, remember?’ She paused. ‘Did you hear what I said? Dan threatened to kill me, Steph!’

  Steph turned to face the window again. ‘So, he’s thinks he’s got away with it, but he is still after you.’

  ‘He’s afraid I will tell Nat.’ Jess shivered and pulled the towel around her more tightly. ‘I just wanted to put it all behind me. Start again. Paint. Maybe get a new job somewhere in the country. I never wanted to see Dan again. And now here he is.’

  ‘He may be here, Jess, but he’s not going to stay here. I’ll see to that.’ Steph turned purposefully towards the door. ‘Leave this to me.’

  In the kitchen Will was watching Kim frying onions in a heavy skillet when Dan walked in and sat down at the table, drawing the bottle of wine towards him. ‘Listen, folks. I am going back to London tonight.’ He watched Kim toss some garlic into the pan and swirl it round in the hot oil. ‘But before I go there is something I need to tell you.’ He glanced at Will. ‘You both know that there is something odd going on between me and Jess.’ He sighed and took a deep swig from his wine glass. ‘I think you should know what’s been happening. It is going to come out one way or another and I didn’t want it to, but maybe it’s better for Jess if you know about it.’ He shrugged ruefully and took another sip. He looked at Will. ‘You’ve probably guessed that things are not good for Jess at the moment.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Did she tell you about her breakdown?’

  Will frowned. ‘What breakdown?’

  ‘I thought not.’ Dan shook his head as Kim slid the skillet to one side and came to sit down beside Will. Frowning, she pushed up her sleeves and reached for her own glass. ‘Jess hasn’t had a breakdown. Steph would have mentioned it.’

  ‘Steph doesn’t know.’ Dan pursed his lips. ‘Look, I feel disloyal saying all this, but she is going to say some pretty vicious things about me, I suspect, and I need to put things right. She had it very tough after you two broke up, Will. It all got to her badly. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that. Well, she developed a bit of a thing for me. It wasn’t on, of course. I mean, she’s very attractive, but I’m happily married, as you know. I tried to put her off as gently as possible but she couldn’t take rejection. She’s made up some terrible fantasy that I’ve beaten her up. Raped her. She got very confrontational about it. Threatened to go to the police. I wasn’t sure what to do. You wouldn’t be, would you?’ He glanced from Will to Kim and back, his fingers laced around his wine glass. ‘I had to go to the Head. Ask his advice. I mean teachers are used to kids developing crushes or accusing them of stuff these days, but not a colleague. Not someone like Jess.’ He studied his drink sorrowfully for a moment before taking another deep swig from the glass. There was a long silence. Kim and Will glanced at each other, stunned.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ Will said at last.

  ‘No.’ Dan reached for the bottle.

  ‘And you say she has been sacked from the college,’ Kim said doubtfully.

  ‘Asked to leave,’ Dan said softly. He topped up their glasses. ‘More diplomatic. Working too hard. Needs to take a bit of a break. That sort of thing. Then it got even more weird. She somehow transferred all her accusations and frustrations into some kind of inner fantasy about a ghost. I was seriously worried after she disappeared from Ty Bran. She was rushing round the countryside fleeing Roman soldiers, yelling that one of them was trying to kill her.’ He paused. ‘Then I find she has headed for Rome itself. That was why I came after her. I mean, what would you have done? I was really scared for her.’

  ‘So, there’s no conference?’ Kim said.

  ‘No. There’s no conference.’

  ‘Shit,’ Will whispered. ‘I don’t believe this.’

  ‘No,’ Kim said slowly. ‘No, the bit about the ghosts she is not making up. Steph has seen the ghost. There is something there.’

  ‘Roman soldiers?’ Dan smiled cynically. ‘Oh, please! OK, it’s up to you if you believe her.’ He threw back the last of his drink and stood up. ‘I just wanted you to know the position about what happened at the college, OK? Don’t say anything to her about this, it will only upset her more. And perhaps you’d better not tell Steph. She’s never going to believe it anyway. Up to you. But I’m going back to England. I didn’t want to come, but I felt I should see if she was OK. And she will be safe here with you to keep an eye on her. I’m going to disappear now because my being here obviously upsets her and I need to get back to Nat and the kids. Can I leave it to you? Maybe she’ll be OK once I’ve gone.’ He shrugged. ‘But I think you should be on your guard. Especially you, Will. She’s not herself. She was quite violent when I was at Ty Bran.’ He bit his lip and grimaced. ‘Just don’t hang around if she seems to think you’re a Roman soldier or something.’ He gave a wry smile and pushing his chair in turned towards the door.

  ‘You’re going now? This minute?’ Kim called sharply.

  ‘Better that way. Sorry to dump you in it, but you needed to know.’ His bag was already in the hall. He heaved it up onto his shoulder. ‘Take care, folks, and say goodbye to Steph for me. Sorry.’

  ‘Dan –’ Will scrambled to his feet but Dan had closed the door behind him. Seconds later they heard the front door bang, the sound resounding round the high-ceilinged, shady hallway.

  ‘Merda!’ Kim said. She stood up and went back to her pan, absent-mindedly pushing it back onto the heat and reaching for her wooden spoon.

  ‘I knew something must be going on, but I never suspected anything like this.’ Will resumed his seat and sat staring down at the tabletop in front of him. There was a long pause.

  ‘Poor old Jess. That explains all that weird stuff a
bout the Celts and the child. And the way she arrived so suddenly,’ Kim said thoughtfully. ‘Oh God, what are we going to say, Will?’ She glanced up at him.

  ‘Even if any of it is true, there’s nothing we can do,’ Will went on slowly. ‘So we don’t mention it. We’ll just say Dan had to leave. Nat called him because one of the kids was ill. Something like that.’

  Kim nodded. ‘Do we tell Steph?’

  Will sighed. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Shouldn’t she know?’

  ‘She wouldn’t be able to keep quiet. She’d either be so furious with Dan for saying all this she would want to kill him, or she would want to rush poor old Jess off to a shrink or something in case any of it was true. Which I am sure it isn’t! Let’s give Jess a break. Dan has gone and he’s right, his being here did upset her. A lot. That much we could all see for ourselves. Perhaps knowing he’s left will give her a chance to calm down.’ He gave a deep sigh, then he frowned. ‘I never got the impression she fancied Dan. Did you?’

  Kim raised an eyebrow. ‘If she did she is obviously well and truly over it now.’ She began to pull fresh herbs off a bunch standing in a jug on the windowsill. ‘Do you still love her, Will?’ She glanced across at him.

  He frowned. ‘We split up, Kim.’

  ‘That’s not an answer.’

  ‘Well, it’s the only one you’re getting.’ He stood up and walked over to the window, staring down into the street. On the opposite side, Dan was climbing into a taxi. Will saw him glance up briefly towards the windows of the apartment. Then the door of the cab slammed and it pulled away into the traffic.

  12

  Eigon looked up at her mother and smiled uncertainly. The last few days had raced by in a whirl of confusing images. The family had been installed at once in a villa on the slopes of the Pincian Hill. Her father was treated as a king. Suddenly they had slaves and beautiful clothes and comfortable beds. She was to resume her lessons and she was to have companions her own age to play with. The only shadow of uncertainty was the nature of the guards on the gates of the villa, guards who were to escort them if they went out into the city.

  ‘We are prisoners in all but name, Caradoc!’ Cerys said to her husband as they stood looking towards the porticoed gateway.

  ‘We are alive, Cerys. We have not been torn apart by lions.’ He smiled down at her and put his arms around her shoulders. ‘Let that suffice for now.’ He was tired, her husband, somehow shrunken compared with the warrior he had once been, and he coughed incessantly. She glanced up at him, then leaned trustingly against his shoulder. He would not always surrender so easily to his captors, but he was right. For now they must be content and bide their time. Once he had regained his strength they would begin to plan their escape and their return to Britannia.

  It was when she was alone with her daughter that Eigon had come to stand beside her and pulled urgently at her mother’s gown. Cerys, still pale and drawn, was wearing a pale linen tunic and mantle. She looked down at her and smiled. It was the first time they had been alone together in many weeks.

  ‘Mam! I keep having bad dreams about him. I saw him. He was guarding the Emperor.’

  ‘Saw who, child?’ Cerys sat down and pulled Eigon against her knees.

  ‘The man who hurt me. He was there. I saw him.’

  Cerys froze. Eigon felt her mother’s hand tighten on her arm and she pulled away, frightened. ‘You said I should tell you if ever I saw him again. He was there, near the Emperor. Part of his guard. He did this when he saw me.’ She copied his gesture exactly, drawing her small fingers across the front of her throat. ‘We can catch him, Mam. Then he can be punished.’

  ‘No!’ Cerys’s face had frozen into a snarl. ‘No. Not now. You must not mention him now. Your father doesn’t know. He must never know what happened!’

  ‘He does know.’ Eigon remembered her father’s gentle kiss, his assurance that the man would be punished, his promise that she would forget in time.

  ‘He knows about you, but not about –’ Cerys was silent suddenly. She had never dared tell her husband of her own violation and it had slowly dawned on her that for some reason of his own, neither Scapula nor anyone else had told him either. Perhaps Scapula had been too furious that men under his command had committed such an outrage. Perhaps he had been afraid it would devalue her as a hostage if her husband renounced her. She would never know. She pictured Caradoc’s face, his gentle eyes, his strong arms around her, protecting her, cherishing her, comforting her for the loss of her son. She knew how the man who loved her before all others could change at the drop of a pin into a cold calculating killer. The leader of men, the warrior king who had defied Rome for seven long years would risk everything to find the man who had harmed his wife. He would not rest until the man was dead, but then – then how would he react? How could he ever love her again as he had loved her before knowing she had been raped by a common soldier from the enemy ranks. When she had realised that no one amongst the Romans had told him what had happened, she had seen it as a reprieve.

  ‘Tell no one, Eigon,’ she said urgently. ‘We are safe here. We have a home. We have a new life. We must forget everything that happened to us before. That was a different world.’ She paused. ‘You imagined you saw him. Or if you did, I am sure he didn’t really see you. That’s it! He couldn’t have recognised you. You have already grown out of all recognition, child. You are nearly a young woman.’ She paused again. ‘If he realised you had identified him, then his life would be worthless from that moment on. If that happened none of us would be safe ever again.’

  ‘But he does know, Mam,’ Eigon murmured, frightened, but Cerys was already restlessly heading for the door into the courtyard. She never heard her daughter’s words.

  One of their first visitors was the lady Pomponia Graecina, the wife of Aulus Plautius, the man who had led the army that invaded the Britannic Isles and become the first governor of the province of Britannia. She was tall and slim with iron-grey hair pulled into a knot at her neck. She stood in the atrium of their villa and looked round, her expression austere rather than friendly as Cerys came forward to greet her.

  ‘So, we are honoured by the presence of a queen,’ Pomponia said. ‘And the Emperor has made you welcome.’ She waved away her attendants and sat down on a stone bench near the centre pool.

  Cerys stood for a moment, dignified and regal in her turn, then she too sat down. From her position behind her mother Eigon noted their guest’s fine clothes and her jewellery. She wore a lot of jet she noticed, and the gold rings and bracelets looked as though they were of intricate craftsmanship. They were probably part of the booty looted from the invasion of her own land.

  ‘We met, did we not, in Camulodunum when the Emperor came to establish our rule?’

  Cerys’s eyebrow shot up. ‘My husband was not one of those who went to bow the knee to Claudius, madam.’

  Pomponia Graecina smiled. ‘Of course not. Forgive me. He led the opposition, did he not.’ She leaned forward. ‘And a very brave man he is. I salute him.’ She waved one of the attendants forward again from the doorway where they had been waiting. ‘I have gifts for you and your daughter, madam. To help make you welcome to our city.’

  The smaller box was for Eigon. She eyed it suspiciously and then looked up first at her mother and then at this very grand woman who was making herself so very much at home. Cerys smiled down at her. ‘I am sure you may open it, child, so that you may thank the lady Pomponia Graecina for her gifts yourself.’

  Eigon put the box down on the kerb around the edge of the pool and lifted the lid. Inside was a gaming board and a set of counters and dice. She picked out one of the intricately carved pieces and examined it, then she looked up at the donor. ‘Thank you, lady,’ she said shyly.

  Pomponia smiled, delighted. ‘She speaks Latin!’

  ‘Of course.’ Cerys nodded.

  ‘And who is to teach the child her lessons?’ Pomponia beckoned Eigon forward. She put her hands on e
ither side of Eigon’s face and tilted it up towards her. Eigon could feel the pressure of the heavy rings on the woman’s fingers pressing into her cheeks.

  ‘We don’t know, yet.’ Cerys arranged the folds of her mantle around her with a slight shiver. A draught had sent a drift of woodsmoke from the fires in the kitchens through the corridors of the building. Autumn was coming. ‘It has been mentioned that she should have lessons. It is what her father wants, but he is not well. He suffers from a recurring fever. It is hard to make decisions; it is too soon to know who –’

  ‘It is never too soon to have proper lessons.’ Pomponia smiled down at Eigon. Eigon relaxed. The woman’s eyes were warm and friendly. ‘I have the very person for her in my household. He came with us from Britannia. He is one of your own people.’

  Cerys frowned. ‘Indeed, my lady?’ she said cautiously.

  ‘He worships your gods and follows your ways. He instructs me in the philosophy of your country,’ Pomponia went on.

  ‘A Druid?’ Cerys whispered softly.

  Pomponia nodded.

  ‘But they are proscribed by your government.’

  Her visitor shrugged. ‘He does not advertise his beliefs.’

  ‘Is he a slave?’

  ‘Outwardly.’

  ‘And if I agree, will that condemn me for condoning a forbidden practice?’

  Pomponia sat deep in thought for a moment. ‘You have not been forbidden the worship of your own gods. No one is forbidden the worship of their gods. Ours is a tolerant people. The Druids were condemned because they fought us. They fomented sedition. They plotted and organised the opposition against Rome. They still do. But this man, Melinus, is different. He is gentle and learned. He will teach her all that she needs to know.’ She paused. ‘I cannot force you to accept his services, Lady Cerys, but the offer is there. Wait until you feel more certain of your position. Consult the king your husband if you wish.’ She gave a sudden almost mischievous smile. ‘Ask about me. You will find that I am well known for my own opposition to the Emperor. He does not question me for it. He is wiser than to cross me as you will find out when you get to know us in Rome. You will be safe to take in this man. I do you a favour to offer him, for he is very dear to me. But this child needs someone to guide her.’