The Warrior's Princess Read online

  The king of cups.

  Dan pushed another measure of grappa across the table. Two empties already stood in line in front of the portiere from the palazzo and the man’s eyes were glazing over. ‘So, you have the keys? Le chiave?’

  ‘Si. Si.’ Jacopo nodded. He reached for the glass.

  ‘Keys first.’ Dan drew it back a little, just out of reach.

  With a phlegmy sigh Jacopo groped in his pocket. He produced a set of keys. They were shiny; newly cut.

  Dan smiled. He pushed the drink over.

  ‘Soldi!’ The rheumy eyes were suddenly focused. Jacopo clicked his fingers under Dan’s nose.

  Dan reached into his pocket and produced an envelope. He pushed it across the table, leaving a smeared trail amongst the wine stains. ‘Nice doing business with you, Jacopo.’ Dan stood up. ‘Now, remember. Silenzio. Capisce?’

  Jacopo nodded. He glanced into the envelope, ruffled through the wad of euros then raised the glass in a silent toast but Dan had already turned away. In the doorway he paused and gazed across the street. He could see the corner of the palazzo from there, its graceful lines rising austerely between its more raffish neighbours. He chinked the keys in his pocket with a small nod of satisfaction.

  ‘So, no unwelcome visitors in the night?’ Kim greeted Will next morning as he appeared in the kitchen, drawn by the smell of perking coffee.

  ‘No sign, no.’ Will grinned. ‘Poor Jess. Nice though all your guest rooms are, I got the better end of this deal. That view over the garden is fantastic and far more peaceful than the street.’

  ‘I’m going to make English toast,’ Kim announced. She reached for a loaf of crusty bread. ‘Do you want to give Jess and Steph a shout.’

  There was no need. Seconds later Jess appeared in the doorway. She was wearing a bathrobe, her hair awry. ‘He’s been in the night!’ she said huskily. ‘Look.’ She threw her sketchbook down on the table. With a glance up at her face Will reached for it. Slowly he opened it and turned the pages. Every one had been defaced.

  ‘Good morning, guys.’ Steph walked in and stopped behind him, looking over his shoulder. ‘What’s happened?’ Her voice sharpened.

  Will put the pad down on the table and went on turning the pages so they could all see Jess’s delicate pen and ink drawings, the pencil sketches, the water colours. Every one had been scribbled over.

  ‘Jess.’ Steph put her arm round her sister’s shoulders. ‘I don’t understand. How could anyone have done this?’

  Will and Steph were standing staring down at the final pictures. It showed a young woman wearing a long gown and mantle, her hair tied on the top of her head by pale pink ribbons. She had slanting, sad eyes and high cheekbones and her hair was the colour of polished jet. The line which sliced across the page had cut through the paper.

  ‘It can’t have been Dan,’ Kim said slowly. ‘I double-locked the front door last night.’

  ‘Then he must have come through the window.’ Jess looked at Will. ‘He saw I wasn’t there and searched the apartment until he found where I was.’

  He shook his head. ‘I tied thread across the window. It was unbroken this morning. And the door was still keyed on the inside.’

  ‘But – you don’t think I did it?’ Jess stared at each one in turn.

  ‘Is it possible that you did it in your sleep, Jess?’ Kim asked gently. ‘You’ve been under a lot of strain.’

  ‘You can’t think that! Of course I wouldn’t!’ She looked from one to the other wildly. Her gaze sharpened. ‘I couldn’t lock my door. There was no key.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Will said.

  ‘Anyone could have done it.’

  ‘Are you accusing one of us, then?’ Kim’s mouth tightened.

  ‘No. Of course not. But it wasn’t me.’

  ‘Sit down, love, you’re shaking.’ Steph put her hands on Jess’s shoulders and guided her to a chair. ‘Jess needs coffee, guys, not accusations. Her lovely pictures are ruined.’

  ‘It wasn’t Dan, it was Eigon.’ Jess’s voice was shaking. ‘She did this. It happened before. At Ty Bran.’

  They were all staring at her.

  ‘Dan was there, but so was Rhodri when it happened. She ruined all my paintings and broke some glasses and bottles of wine. Then later,’ she paused, shaking her head wearily, ‘I went in again, to clear it up and it was all as it had been. No damage done.’

  Steph pulled up a chair next to her. ‘You say Dan saw this?’

  She nodded. ‘And Rhodri. It wasn’t my imagination.’

  Will whistled. He pulled the sketchbook towards him and gently turned the leaves over. ‘Well, this is not going to magically mend itself.’

  ‘I’ll go and get dressed.’ Jess pushed back her chair and stood up. She took the sketchbook out of Will’s hand and picked up her mug with the other. Without another word she walked out of the kitchen.

  They watched her go in silence. ‘Ghost or Dan?’ Kim said at last.

  ‘She might have done it herself,’ Will said quietly. ‘I don’t think she’s lying. If she did do it, I think she’s unaware of it. You are right, Kim, she might have done it in her sleep.’ He shook his head thoughtfully. ‘She’s so stressed about Dan. She could wreck his career by accusing him of raping her,’ he went on slowly, ‘so he is going to want to destroy her credibility. It’s her word against his. But if there was any doubt at all or it went to a court case, or if the school held an enquiry, then whatever the outcome, his career is compromised. You know the way these things work. If he has any ambition to become a head one day it would be well and truly scuppered. If she is totally discredited and no one believes a word she says then it would save his bacon.’

  ‘So, you think he could have come in last night,’ Steph said.

  ‘If he did, he came in somewhere other than my room.’ Will glanced at her. ‘I don’t suppose he could have put the ladder up to your window? It’s next door. Could he have crept across your room without waking you and gone to look for Jess? Or yours, Kim?’

  ‘How would he know she wasn’t in the same bedroom any more?’ Steph said.

  ‘He would have found the door locked. So he might just have looked around the apartment to see if there was some other mischief he could do, and found her by accident.’

  They looked at each other. Kim shivered. ‘I don’t relish that idea one bit.’

  Steph leaned back in her chair. She fixed Will with a thoughtful stare. ‘You want to believe her, don’t you?’

  He nodded. ‘Dan has always been a shifty bastard. And I know – knew – Jess very well. She is not neurotic and she is not a liar.’

  A door banged in the depths of the flat. Kim frowned. ‘That’s the front door.’

  ‘She hasn’t gone out by herself!’ Will leaped to his feet. They heard his footsteps in the corridor outside. It was several seconds before he returned. ‘She has. She’s gone.’

  ‘Supposing he’s waiting for her?’ Steph looked at him anxiously. ‘Run after her, Will!’

  This time it was ten minutes before he came back ‘There’s no sign of her. She could have gone anywhere. There is no point in me trying to follow her.’ He slumped back into his chair, defeated. ‘I told her not to go out on her own. She knew I would go with her.’

  Jess crossed the Corso Vittorio Emanuele and with a quick glance over her shoulder to check she wasn’t being followed, headed towards the Pantheon. From there she made her way towards the Corso. Turning up the Via Condotti she walked towards the Piazza di Spagna. She didn’t think Dan was behind her. She had crossed each road several times, ducking in and out of the crowds. Climbing the Spanish Steps she resisted the urge to turn round and scan the piazza behind her. If Dan was there he would be looking up, trying to spot her. In front of the twin towers of the Trinità dei Monti she turned left. She was going back to the Villa Borghese. This road was quieter and shaded by trees. Bougainvillea trailed over the walls and oleanders filled the shade with colour. The air was full of the
scent of flowers and the spiced smell of the great stone pines. She cut down past the Villa Medici and crossed the bridge into the Borghese Gardens.

  It was hard to find the spot where she thought she had seen Eigon before. She wandered into the shade of the trees, staring round, resisting the urge to look over her shoulder. Dan could not know where she was. There was no chance he had followed her this time, she had been too careful. For once she was alone and could concentrate on the matter in hand.

  She was an idiot to have shown her sketchbook to the others. If she had given it any thought at all she would have known it was Eigon who had done it, as it had been at Ty Bran. Dan could not have got into the apartment and now she had made a fool of herself in front of them all.

  She paused under the shade of an old pine, staring round. It was early. The park was relatively empty. No parties of foreign school children visiting Rome in their summer vacations this early in the day; no guided tours yet. Only one or two riders quietly walking their horses down tree-shaded paths.

  She stared into the distance between the trees, trying to locate the place where she had had the strange feeling that she was near Eigon’s home. A heat haze hung over the park, making it impossible to see very far. There was dust in the air; a strange feeling of expectation. She turned round slowly in a full circle, trying to find the slight shift in the perception of reality where she could slip through that invisible curtain which divides past from present. She put out a tentative hand. ‘Eigon?’ She whispered the name uncertainly. ‘Are you here?’

  The room was crowded with people. Pomponia Graecina and Melinus slipped into the back and took their places amongst the others. All around them people were greeting each other with hugs and kisses. Everyone seemed to know each other. They had found their way to the house with little difficulty, following the small crowd of people clearly intent on the same destination.

  ‘Welcome, strangers.’ Someone stepped forward and greeted them. He eyed them closely but without animosity. ‘You haven’t joined us before, I seem to think?’ His face broke into a smile.

  Pomponia shook her head. ‘Is it all right to be here?’

  ‘Of course. Everyone is welcome. Peter is here. He will speak to us soon.’ The man was about forty years of age, dressed in the toga of a wealthy citizen though the crowds around them were mixed, some clearly slaves, some tradesmen, perhaps half of them women. Pomponia found herself next to another woman, wrapped in a warm cloak. Moving up to make room the woman smiled wanly at her neighbour.

  ‘I have come to receive healing.’ She took a deep, laboured breath, glancing beyond Pomponia to Melinus who had seated himself beside them, his face a carefully guarded blank. ‘Are you Christians?’

  Pomponia Graecina hesitated. Then she shook her head. She felt that this was somewhere one should remain honest. ‘I’ve never heard him preach. But we are here in the hope of finding healing for a close friend.’

  ‘Is he here with you?’ The woman glanced at Melinus.

  Pomponia shook her head. ‘He is too ill to walk at present.’

  Her new friend nodded. ‘As I was. My friends carried me here the last time I came. I want to be baptised.’

  ‘What is that?’ Pomponia frowned. Near them a rustle of expectation heralded the arrival of an elderly man who was threading his way to the front of the crowd. ‘Is that him?’

  The woman nodded. She smiled radiantly. ‘Just wait till you hear the message. He is amazing and the Lord he serves more amazing still.’

  It had grown dark many hours since when at last the crowds began to disperse and Pomponia Graecina and Melinus made their way back to her house on the Palatine where Melinus kept a room, though to all intents and purposes he now lived out at the villa. The slaves brought them wine and food and left them to talk softly by the fountain in the central courtyard.

  ‘So, what did you think?’ Pomponia glanced at the old Druid, eyebrow raised.

  ‘Astonishing man. Full of charisma. A powerful story. Convincingly told.’ He nodded.

  ‘So, are you convinced?’

  ‘That the son of God was born as a man and died as a man and then rose as a God himself? This is a story I have heard before. Our gods frequently came to earth as humans. As did the gods of Rome and Greece.’ He was being cautious.

  She frowned. ‘The difference is that Peter says there is only the one god. The others were not real.’

  Melinus shook his head. ‘I’m not so easily convinced of that.’

  ‘And the healing?’

  ‘Oh, Peter is a powerful healer, I would not deny that. And this Jesus Christ is a god of power. I would not deny that either.’ He reached thoughtfully for his goblet of wine. ‘The Gauls have a god, named Esus.’

  ‘Is he the same god?’

  He shook his head. ‘I think not. This Jesus hails from Judea. His lands are the hot desert places; his people the Jews. I doubt if he would bless our mountains and rivers and forests at home.’

  ‘But he is the universal god. From what Peter says he is as much the god of your country as of mine.’

  ‘And as such I will greet him with our own gods. And I shall go again to listen to Peter. He is an astonishing man. Irascible,’ he chuckled, ‘but compelling. I can see he doesn’t suffer fools gladly and yet he radiates a strange warmth and compassion. My neighbour told me he originated as a simple fisherman working for his father with his brothers in his own country. Yet he is clearly an educated man. He speaks with learning and authority, and I have to say with more conviction than I have heard for many years.’ Melinus nodded thoughtfully. ‘It is that conviction which has brought him to faraway countries spreading the word about Jesus.’

  That night both prayed to the Lord Jesus, one fervently, one with a certain amount of caution. Both in their prayers mentioned Caradoc.

  The next morning when they arrived back at the villa the invalid was out of bed and with unaccustomed vigour strolling slowly in the gardens. They exchanged glances but said nothing. Both of them pragmatic by nature, they were waiting to see what the new god could achieve.

  ‘Eigon?’ Jess’s eyes refocused abruptly. ‘What happened. Where were you?’

  But the vision had gone. She was alone in a patch of deep shadow just beyond the Viale del Muro. Crossing out of the park, back over the bridge across the chasm made by the fast road circling outside the ancient wall she walked through the Pincian Gardens, past the famous water clock towards the belvedere which looked out from the height of the hill across Rome towards St Peter’s and she gasped. Surely this was the view from the villa wall. Eigon’s home had been somewhere like this, on a height above the city, looking west. The Pincian Hill. She remembered the name now. Eigon herself had mentioned it. In Eigon’s day it would have been so different it was hard to visualise it, but the skyline would have been the same and where now there were churches, cupolas and domes there would have been marble temples. She stood for a long time staring out over the Piazza del Popolo below towards the distances, trying not to see the forest of aerials which sprouted from every rooftop, trying to fade out the two thousand intervening years. Giving up at last, she turned away and went to find a seat where she could rest in the shade of the plane trees and holm oaks, cedars and palm trees which filled the gardens. It was peaceful there in spite of the roar of traffic in the distance and she pulled out her sketchbook and opened it. If she had hoped the drawings and paintings would be miraculously restored she was disappointed. Sadly she looked at the portrait of Eigon with its angry slash. What message was she trying to convey?

  The afternoon was very hot.

  Where are you, Jess?

  The voice seemed to be coming from somewhere very faraway. A man’s voice. Dan. She shrank back, scouring the area round the trees. He couldn’t be here.

  You know I’ll find you, don’t you.

  The mocking tone was carried on the warm breeze. Slowly she stood up, her eyes frantically probing the shadows, black in contrast to the dazzling sunlight.<
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  ‘Dan?’ Her own voice sounded flat by comparison. It hit the humid atmosphere as though it had been absorbed by damp rags and it disappeared without resonance.

  Jess! He was further away.

  ‘He’s not here,’ she murmured to herself. ‘All I have to do is ignore him. He’s thinking about me from far away. Playing with me. Messing with my head! It proves he doesn’t know where I am.’

  She sank down onto the parched grass under a tree and leaned back against the trunk, her arms wrapped around her legs. ‘Leave me alone, you bastard!’ She muttered the words under her breath. She closed her eyes tightly. ‘Eigon? What happened? Where are you?’

  There was no reply.

  Opening her eyes again, she sighed. She shifted her weight against the tree and heard the slight rasp of stiff paper from her pocket. Groping for it she drew it out. She had forgotten all about Carmella’s card.

  Carmella lived in a small rooftop apartment in a narrow street off the Piazza di Spagna. Consulting her guidebook Jess retraced her route; running down the long sun-baked flight of the Spanish Steps she headed past the Fontana della Barcaccia towards the Via delle Carrozze. Ducking into the shade of the narrow street past bars and cafés, threading her way between scooters and parked cars she found Carmella’s street of faded ochre and terracotta buildings and managed at last to locate the house. The entry phone admitted her at an ancient door, probably in itself a museum piece but covered in torn faded posters and there at the top of four exhausting flights of stairs she found Carmella waiting for her. She was ushered into a low-ceilinged, bright flat with stripped floors and shuttered windows looking on to the street far below.

  Carmella’s furnishings were an eclectic collection of bright artistic fringed and beaded comfort, the walls crammed with paintings, most donated by her artistic friends from the quarter, some good, some frankly crap, as she confided, ushering Jess past one riot of colour towards another. One of the windows opened out onto a small roof garden, a blaze of flowers and greenery in even more colourful ceramic and terracotta pots, with views across the rooftops towards the towers of Trinità dei Monti and round towards the Pincian Hill.