The Warrior's Princess Read online

  Pomponia Graecina stepped closer. ‘There is a teacher in Rome.’ She lowered her voice. ‘He’s been here some ten years now and his reputation spreads all the time. I have recently been to hear him preach. His name is Peter. He heals in the name of Jesus, the Christ. I have seen Peter raise men who were far worse than King Caradoc. He produces miracles in the name of this god of his, who he says is the son of the only true god.’

  Melinus raised an eyebrow. ‘I have heard of him. Is he not a Jew?’

  She nodded. ‘But I gather his god is different to theirs. They call him the god of love. Many of the Jews from Greece follow him, as do a lot of people here. He has won many converts, especially amongst the poor.’ She glanced at him thoughtfully, then she went on, ‘Shall we go and listen together and you can see what he has to say?’ She shrugged.

  Melinus frowned. ‘I suppose it could do no harm,’ he said cautiously.

  ‘He usually preaches in the house of one or other of his followers. I shall find out where he is likely to be and tell you.’ She smiled. ‘He speaks powerfully, Melinus. He is very persuasive.’ She paused. ‘Say nothing to Cerys. She clings obsessively to Bride, her goddess of healing and to Lenus and Ocelos, gods of her own people. She won’t even sacrifice to our Roman Febris. But none of her prayers is answered.’ She shook her head. ‘You know how much I have admired your Druidic teachings, Melinus, since my husband and I were in Britannia and I heard their philosophers. Why else would I have insisted you return with me?’ She gave a small smile, suddenly embarrassed. This man was technically a slave though both had long ago forgotten it. ‘But this man Peter attracts me too and I want to know what you think of him and his god.’

  They began to walk slowly away from the house, inspecting the neat beds of herbs as they talked. Eigon stepped out of the shadows and went to stand in her turn near the pond, staring down into the reflections. What had Melinus seen there? She frowned. Whoever this teacher, Peter, was she prayed with all her heart that his god would be able to help her father.

  Julia bounced out of the house behind her, making her jump. ‘There you are! Come on. Have you forgotten? Flavius is going to escort us back to the market!’

  Eigon frowned. ‘Is it safe, Julia? Remember what happened last time.’

  ‘Of course it is safe. And this time he and the others will be ready in case anyone comes near us. Please. Come with me. I don’t want to go alone.’ Julia blushed prettily. ‘And I do want to buy another cloak pin to match the one I have.’

  Eigon glanced into the shadowed interior of the house. In her parents’ bedroom Cerys would be sitting with her father as he slept. There would be nothing to do until evening when they met over food her father was too weak to eat. Why not go and see some more of this city which looked like being her home for ever?

  Less than two miles away the door to the mess in the barracks of the Praetorian guard creaked open and a figure peered in. ‘Titus?’

  The man sitting at the table looked up. He was writing notes on a tablet, a cup of wine at his elbow beside him. He was a tall officer, with dark rugged good looks, an aquiline nose and light amber eyes. He raised an eyebrow. ‘Lucius?’

  ‘My lookout has sent a message from the villa.’ The other man came in and closed the door behind him. He glanced at the other occupants of the room and lowered his voice. ‘The girls have gone out to the city centre again.’

  Titus’s eyes narrowed. ‘Have they indeed! Are they escorted?’

  ‘Only by a couple of slaves and Aelius’s boy, Flavius.’

  Titus shook his head in mock despair. ‘What are they thinking of. Anything could happen to them! Especially with the unrest there is at the moment. Any news of the Emperor?’

  Lucius shook his head. ‘I believe he is still unconscious.’

  ‘Then it is time to pay our respects to the heir presumptive, I think.’ Wiping the tablet clear of notes with one sweep of the blunt end of his stylus Titus stood up, his cloak swinging back to reveal the sword tattooed on his arm. ‘Are you with me, Lucius?’

  Lucius grinned. ‘As ever! What about your Celtic nemesis?’

  Titus smiled grimly. ‘She can wait. No hurry to deal with her. In fact the more they venture outside that villa the more vulnerable she will be. We want to catch her on her own for preference. The other girl has influential relations. I do not want to stir up Aulus Plautius and his followers. Something quick and quiet in the dark would be best, I think.’ He hitched his cloak back onto his shoulder and tucked the tablet and writing implements into the pouch at his belt.

  ‘So, we bow the knee to young Nero!’ Lucius led the way out of the door.

  Titus gave a grim smile. ‘Unless you have a serious death wish, my friend, you will do nothing else.’

  ‘And you think we will be chosen to be part of his personal guard even though we served Claudius before?’

  ‘If we convince him of our loyalty and bribe the right men, of course!’ The two men exchanged glances. After a moment Titus laughed. He slapped his companion on the back. ‘I don’t think we’ll have any problems, my friend. None at all.’

  For a moment Lucius frowned. ‘If the little princess points the finger before you get to her? We could have taken her, you know.’

  ‘She won’t. She’ll meet with an accident long before she gets the chance to set eyes on me again.’ Titus grimaced. ‘Pity though. I gather she is growing into an even more desirable little titbit now she’s older.’

  ‘And you don’t fear the mother recognising you?’ Lucius eyed his friend curiously. He had been half titillated and half appalled at his friend’s story of rape and murder on a lonely hillside in a faraway province.

  Titus shook his head. ‘She was half-dead before I had her and there were others after me. And now I hear she’s too taken up with weeping and moaning over the dying hero to care about me, or, I fear, her daughter.’ He snorted derisively. ‘Just make sure your informant keeps me posted. They have no idea that I have been watching her all this time. And this way it is perfect. I prefer to tease her a little.’ He grinned. ‘She is no danger to me. Who, after all, would believe her after so long? No, I shall deal with our little princess when I’m ready. I’ll have her when the moment is right.’

  He led the way outside and snapped his fingers at the orderly holding Lucius’s horse, ordering his own to be brought round at once. He restrained a smile. A delicious idea had occurred to him. It would be a waste to kill the girl straightaway. Not now that with every passing year she was growing more beautiful and more desirable. He felt himself hardening at the thought.

  Glancing back as he grabbed the reins of his mount and hauled himself into the saddle Lucius caught sight of the expression on Titus’s face and he shivered. Not for the first time he wondered to himself why he counted this man his friend.

  16

  Opening her eyes, Jess stretched and lay for a moment without moving, trying to recall the dream. She frowned, clinging to the wispy threads of the story as they dissipated into the air. A soldier. A horse. A cup of wine. The sun beating down on the raked earth of a parade ground and a sense of impending doom. That was all. With a groan she sat up, dragged herself off the bed and went to throw open the shutters. The sun had gone round now and her windows were in shadow. Leaning out she stared down into the garden. Then suddenly she turned. Slipping on her shoes she ran to the door.

  Kim was in her sitting room. She put down the phone as Jess came in. ‘Hi! Did you sleep OK?’

  Jess nodded. ‘How does one get down into the gardens here? Do you have any access?’

  Kim nodded. ‘We all have a key.’

  ‘But there’s no door.’

  ‘There is. There is a passageway. It runs down the side of the building. The downstairs apartments have their own doors leading out, but we use the public access.’

  ‘So, anyone can go down there?’

  ‘If they’ve got a key, yes.’

  ‘Have you?’

  Kim nodded. ‘It�
��s on a hook in the kitchen. I don’t go down there much. Too many windows looking down on you. It makes you feel you are being watched.’

  ‘You probably are. Can I go and see?’

  ‘Sure. It’s the big old key hanging on the wall by the dresser. You can’t miss it. Go out of the front door downstairs. Turn left. Then first left again down the alleyway between the two buildings.’ She yawned. ‘I won’t join you, if you don’t mind. I’ll see you later.’

  The key was heavy wrought iron. Slipping it off the hook Jess followed Kim’s instructions. She ducked out of the busy street into a narrow passageway she hadn’t even noticed before. It was dark and slightly damp after last night’s rain. She shuddered in distaste. Not just rain. Judging by the smell for several hundred years it had been used as a handy latrine. She paused and glanced up at the sheer walls rising windowless several storeys towards the sky. The far end of the entry was blocked by a barred gate fastened by a heavy lock, itself a Renaissance historical artefact if the key was anything to go by. She glanced down at it, then carefully inserted it. It turned without a struggle and she pushed the gate open, hearing it grate slightly on the uneven paving stones. Closing it behind her she found herself in the secret oasis at the heart of the palazzo.

  In deep shadow now, and cool after the blazing sun in the street she stepped out towards the paving and raked gravel paths and flowerbeds that surrounded the centre fountain. The small beds were weed free, obviously regularly and beautifully tended with neatly clipped low box hedges and patterns of intricately planted heliotrope and salvia and geraniums. She glanced up at the soaring walls of the building which surrounded her. Most of the windows, rising rank upon rank above the ground were shuttered now and blank. She stood staring up, trying to locate her own bedroom and found Kim’s apartment easily. All the windows stood open, though her shutters too were closed against the heat in every window save one. Jess’s. Behind her the fountain spewed its cascade of water down its ranks of sculpted bowls, draped here and there with iridescent green weed, gurgling at last into the stone basin at the bottom. She strolled slowly towards the wall where her own window looked out onto this scene of tranquillity, smelling the sweet scents of flowers and stood staring down at the bed below the window. There were no footprints in the carefully raked soil. No sign of anyone having been there at all. She took a step closer, then she saw it. Lying inside the box hedge deep in shadow where it was invisible except to someone standing as close as she was now, lay a hosepipe and a ladder.

  ‘The bastard!’ She stood staring at it for several seconds, then she turned and retraced her steps. Perhaps the others would believe her now. She was several paces from the gate when she realised there was someone standing behind the bars watching her. She stopped dead.

  ‘Dan?’

  In the dark passageway she couldn’t make out his face, just the silhouette as he stared out at her.

  Two hands came up and gripped the bars. ‘Buonasera, signora. Vorrei entrare.’ To her relief the voice was husky. Old. It wasn’t Dan. ‘Vorrei entrare per visitare il bel giardino.’

  ‘Go away!’ Jess called. ‘This is a private garden! Privato!’ Her heart thudded uncomfortably as the man rattled the gate. She had locked it, she realised, but the key was still there, sticking out of the lock only inches from his grimy fingers.

  ‘Go away! Basta!’ He must have followed her down the passage. She could see him more clearly now as her eyes grew used to the shadows. He had a haggard face with several days’ growth of stubble. She could smell him from where she stood. She heard him give a hoarse chuckle, then he turned away. He shuffled a few paces back into the shadows and stopped. Creeping forward she grabbed the key out of the lock and as she did so she realised what he was doing. Relieving himself copiously against the wall he zipped himself up and with another chuckle turned towards the street. ‘Arrivederci, signora!’ he called as he reached the corner. Then he had gone.

  Kim was in the kitchen, wrestling with a corkscrew. ‘Yes, we keep asking for a gate at the street end of the passage,’ she laughed. ‘Bad luck. But all cities have their sordid side as well as the beautiful!’

  Jess collected the glasses Kim had put on the table. ‘Did you know there was a ladder down there in the garden?’

  Kim shrugged. ‘I’ve never taken much interest to be honest. I’m not a gardener.’

  Carrying the glasses through to Kim’s sitting room, Jess put them down on the coffee table then went straight to the window and pushing back the shutters, leaned out. ‘You can’t see it from up here. It’s completely hidden.’

  ‘Why the interest?’ As Will appeared behind them Kim waved the bottle in his direction. ‘Aperitivo? Where’s Steph?’

  ‘The interest is because that is how Dan got up to my window. I wasn’t imagining it. He must have found another key or copied that one before he left.’ Jess turned back to face them.

  ‘You mean he was in your room after he left?’ Kim looked at her askance.

  Jess nodded. ‘The noise of someone at the window woke me; it was the night of the storm. He’d gone, but it was raining hard and I found a wet footprint on the floor by the window.’

  She intercepted the glance exchanged between Will and Kim with a rush of indignation. ‘OK, forget it! My imagination. Obviously.’ She sat down on the sofa with a groan. Kim poured the wine and passed her a glass. ‘Maybe you should shut your windows at night.’

  ‘Why not ask the janitor about the ladder, Kim?’ Will suggested. He sat down next to Jess. ‘Do you have such a person? Or the gardener. Someone must weed and water that glorious garden out there.’

  ‘We have a portiere,’ Kim said thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know who does the gardening, to be honest. But Jacopo would know. I’ll call him.’

  She was gone several minutes and returned shaking her head. ‘No reply. He’ll be down in the bar across the road I expect, that’s where he hangs out most of the time. No point in ringing till tomorrow when he’s sober. You know, something has occurred to me. Has anyone thought of ringing Natalie to check if Dan is with her?’

  They both looked at Jess and she shrugged. ‘I don’t have her number.’

  ‘What about Dan’s?’

  Jess nodded.

  ‘I’ll ring him.’ Will put down his glass. ‘His number is in my phone.’ He stood up and reached into his pocket for his mobile.

  Dan answered on the third ring. ‘Dan? Just calling to see that you got back safely.’ Will raised his eyebrow at the two women watching him. He chuckled. ‘Something like that, yes.’ He strolled towards the window and stood looking down into the garden. ‘Shrewsbury? Well, it sounds much like anywhere else actually, but I believe you.’ There was another silence. ‘OK, yes. Great.’ More silence. Will wandered back to the table and stooping, picked up his glass. Jess found she was clenching her fists. ‘Has she? OK. No problem,’ Will went on at last. ‘Give her my love, OK? Ciao!’

  He closed the mobile and tucked it back into his hip pocket, shaking his head. ‘He says he’s in Shrewsbury shopping with Nat. He guessed we were checking up on him at once and offered to let me say hello to Nat but then discovered she and the kids had wandered off into a shop and he couldn’t see her.’

  ‘So, she might not have been anywhere near,’ Jess said quietly.

  ‘Technically, no.’

  ‘And he might have been anywhere at all.’

  Will nodded. ‘All I could hear was traffic in the background.’

  ‘No way of checking where he took the call?’

  ‘The police could, I expect, but not me. No.’

  ‘So, he might have still been in Rome?’

  There was a long pause. ‘I suppose so.’ Will nodded again.

  Jess shrugged. ‘So, nothing proved.’

  Will shook his head. ‘Not unless we can get hold of Nat’s phone number and ask her. Look, Jess. You don’t have to prove anything to me.’ He glanced at Kim. ‘Let’s assume you’re right. He or someone perhaps at his instiga
tion is stalking you. So, we don’t give them a chance to get near you. Don’t go out on your own any more and keep your windows locked. Or better still why don’t you swap bedrooms with me? Mine looks out onto the street which isn’t so peaceful as yours but you would be safe there. No one is going to manage to climb up the front of the building and if he comes back to your present room he is going to have an awful shock when he tiptoes towards the bed ready to plonk a kiss on your brow and finds me there.’

  Jess grinned. ‘That would be worth seeing.’

  ‘You’re welcome to stay in the room with me, of course.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘That would be even better.’

  She shook her head. ‘A step too retrograde, I fear. Sorry.’

  He shrugged. ‘The offer’s there.’

  Kim cleared her throat. ‘Would you two rather be alone for this discussion?’

  ‘No!’ Both spoke at once; both laughed.

  Kim eyed them. ‘Just so I know,’ she said.

  When Steph appeared a few minutes later they were sitting in silence. Kim was playing with her pack of tarot cards. ‘At last!’ She pushed the cards across the table towards her. ‘Sit down and have a drink. We need to consult the oracle.’

  ‘Kim!’ Steph shook her head. ‘I told you, I don’t do this.’

  ‘Not even for your sister?’

  ‘Come on, Steph,’ Will cajoled. ‘I’ve never seen you in action.’

  ‘And you won’t.’ Steph took the proffered glass of wine. She pushed the cards away.

  ‘Jess needs advice,’ he said softly. ‘About Dan.’

  ‘Forget Dan!’ Steph slid off the chair to the floor and sat leaning against the seat, her ankles crossed in front of her. She was wearing cropped trousers and new sandals she had bought in a boutique just off the Campo de’ Fiori. ‘The more we think about him the more he’s managing to ruin Jess’s stay, whether he’s here or not.’ She leaned forward idly and picked up the pack. ‘One cut, OK?’ Almost absent-mindedly she shuffled them and cut the cards into two piles, pausing to sip her wine as she stared down at her hand hovering over them. Will leaned forward and picked up the top card. He tossed it on to the table, face up.