The Warrior’s Princess

This time she could not hide the pain in her eyes.

‘Has everything been done?’ He raised his gaze to that of the praefectus, Justinus, who stood at her side.

He stood to attention and saluted. ‘Sir. If they were there to be found, we would have found them. The search has been extended over a huge area. Either they have been found by local tribesmen and spirited away into the mountains, or –’ He paused, with a glance at his commander. ‘They are not there any more, sir.’ Wolves. The word hovered between them. Out of pity for the woman’s anguish neither man said it out loud.

Scapula was impressed by her dignity and courage. He sighed. He was as certain as maybe that the woman would never see her two younger children again. And he was prepared to waste no more of his soldiers’ time on looking for them. Her capture and that of her daughter was enough to give him leverage over Caratacus, if any were needed. Now he was sure of the man’s capture he had no real need of her at all, but no doubt parading them both before the people of Camulodunum, once the capital of this man’s father, would add to the impact of the defeat.

Back in the tent where her daughter waited for her, Cerys sat down next to the child and put her arm around her shoulders. ‘Your papa has been found alive, sweetheart. He is wounded but not too badly.’ No point in saying he was a prisoner. No point in saying that the Queen of the Brigantes had betrayed them, betrayed her blood, her kin, her oath to her gods and to her people. She clenched her teeth desperately. They would never see Togo and Glads again. That had been made clear by the Romans. They were not unsympathetic; she had read that much in Scapula’s eyes, but there was nothing more to be done. And never, never, she vowed as she cuddled her daughter to her, would she say anything that would cause Eigon to blame herself.

It was a game! Can we finish playing the game?

The voice echoed through Jess’s head as she slept.

Please, can we stop playing now?

The words came not from Eigon but from a smaller child, her sister.

Restlessly Jess turned over and punched the pillow. ‘She’s alive! She’s still alive! Glads is alive. Oh please, someone, go and look for her!’ She called out the words in her head but no one heard them.

The lamps were burning low; no one had come to replenish the oil and the tent was full of shadows. Cerys could see the silhouettes of the two guards beyond the leather flap of the doorway, their profiles black against the firelight. She could see their spears as a cross, black against the flames.

And again the thin little voice echoed round Ty Bran:

Eigon, where are you? Can I tell Togo to come out now?

In her sleep Jess gave a little moan.

Outside the house a figure crept across the yard and stood for a moment at the front door. It was just growing light.

Dan reached out and pushed the door experimentally, soundlessly rattling the handle, then he turned and tiptoed along the front of the house, pausing as he reached the corner. In the holly bush the blackbird fluttered up to its look-out post, shrieking a warning into the cold morning and upstairs Jess jerked awake suddenly, startled by the noise. The dream fled as she sat up.

She listened nervously. Something was wrong. Throwing back her bedcovers she eased herself out of bed and moving silently towards the window she peered down. The courtyard was empty, lost in colourless pre-dawn mist. Soundlessly she pushed the window open and leaned out. There was a car parked in the lane. She could see the dull gleam of the bonnet beyond the stone wall. She couldn’t distinguish the colour but she knew who it was. Closing the window silently she hurriedly threw on her clothes and tiptoed to her bedroom door, listening. She had locked all the downstairs doors and windows the night before; she remembered clearly touring the house one last time before she climbed the stairs to bed. He couldn’t get in. Not without breaking a window. Almost as the thought occurred to her she heard the sound of breaking glass from somewhere downstairs. Bolting the door, she flew to the phone beside the bed and lifted the receiver. It wasn’t until she had dialled 999 and waited, breathlessly, for an answer that she realised the line was still dead.

Oh please God, no. She shook the phone, tried again. Silence.

‘Jess?’

Dan’s voice was right outside her door. She saw the latch lift and heard the creak of the hinges as he tried to open it.

‘Jess, come on. Open the door. I’m not going to hurt you. But we do have to talk, don’t we.’

‘What the hell are you doing here, Dan? You can’t just break in! Go away. Now. I’ve called the police.’ Her voice came over as remarkably strong. ‘Don’t be a fool. You are going to make things worse than they are already.’

There was a moment’s silence. She thought she heard a chuckle. ‘No, Jess. You haven’t called the police. Your phone is dead, I tried it. I have your bag, and your mobile is here, in my hand.’

She spun round staring wildly about the room. She had left her phone downstairs, plugged in to charge. The thought that he had found it and that he had rifled through her bag as he was prowling through the house at five o’clock in the morning sickened her.

She tiptoed towards the window and peered out. Could she climb down? She doubted it. Anyway he would hear her.

‘Go away, Dan. Please. I’m not coming out so unless you’ve got all day, in fact all week, you may as well give up now. Threatening me is not going to make things any better. Go and we can talk on the phone.’ She clenched her teeth.

‘Come on, Jess. You must realise I can’t allow you to put everything I hold dear in jeopardy. I need you to make me some promises.’

‘I’ll promise nothing, Dan. Go away.’

There was a short pause. ‘Open the door and we’ll talk about it.’

‘You know I’m not going to do that.’

‘So you don’t trust me, but I am expected to trust you?’

‘There is a reason for that as you must realise.’ She bit her lip. ‘I’ve never lied to you, Dan.’

‘Yes you have. You just told me that you had called the police. That was a lie, wasn’t it.’ His voice was silky.

She closed her eyes. ‘I may not have called the police, but I’ve told someone what happened to me,’ she said defiantly. ‘And I have told him it was you. If anything happens to me he will go to the police for me and the truth will come out.’

‘That was a mistake, Jess. We could have talked about this. I could have explained.’ There was a long pause. ‘Did he believe you, this person you talked to?’

‘Of course he did!’

‘You amaze me. No one else will, once the facts come out.’ He laughed. There was a long silence. ‘Really, Jess. There’s no need for all this. We can talk it through.’ There was another pause. ‘We don’t have to have a great confrontation. If I misunderstood what you wanted, I apologise. I thought you wanted it as much as I did. You did. How can you say you didn’t? After all you can’t remember anything about it, can you. So, you do need to take my word for this.’ She heard his footsteps as he paced up and down the landing, then he was back outside her door again. ‘No one needs to know anything about it. Come on. Open the door. We need to talk. You’ve been depressed, Jess. Things get out of all proportion when one is depressed. That is why you’ve been behaving so oddly; your friend Rhodri will confirm that.’ There was another pause. ‘Of course, it was Rhodri you talked to.’ Another pause. ‘It was, wasn’t it? Large, extrovert, noisy Rhodri! Well, you didn’t have to tell him how you were paranoid about ghosts in this house, how you hallucinated about people smashing up your paintings, how you broke bottles of wine and accused me of doing it. He knows. He saw it all.’ She heard his footsteps again, heavy, angry, turning sharply at the end of the landing and returning to stop outside her door again. ‘You realise I could break this door down,’ he went on at last. ‘You can’t avoid me, Jess. Much better to talk about this. You don’t want to make me angry. After all, if something happened to you, who would ever suspect me? I would tell them how depressed you were when me met in Hay. Rhodri would confirm that, I expect! So, if you were found to have killed yourself, Jess, I doubt anyone would query your suicide. Look how strangely you’ve been behaving, even at school. Resigning. Not giving them notice. Refusing to go in even to collect your stuff. Oh Jess, no one would be surprised if it came to that. But we don’t want it to happen, do we. Come on. I’ve got all the time in the world. I could just wait here!’

She had broken out into a sweat. He was threatening to kill her. She took a deep breath. ‘You could never break this door down, Dan. It’s solid oak.’ She paused. ‘OK. We’ll wait then.’ She kept her voice as light as possible. ‘After all it won’t be long. Rhodri will be here after breakfast. I’ll just read till he comes, and you can wait there, on the landing.’ She padded barefoot across the room and sat down on the bed. Turning on the lamp, she reached for her book.

In seconds she had put it down again. She listened hard. There was no sound from the door. Outside the blackbird had started whistling, its song beautiful as the sun rose in a blaze of stormy red.

Have the nasty men come back?

The voice was clearly audible in the room suddenly. Jess looked round, her heart thudding. ‘Yes, they have.’ She spoke out loud. ‘Where are you, sweetheart?’

‘What did you say?’ Dan’s voice was slightly muffled. He had obviously moved away from the door.

‘I wasn’t talking to you.’

‘No?’

‘No.’ She gave a grim smile. She turned and addressed the empty space between the bed and the window. ‘Can you fetch help, Glads?’ Was it the younger child again? She thought so. The voice was lighter, more tentative. ‘Can we find someone to make the nasty man go away?’ She spoke softly, knowing he wouldn’t be able to make out her words.

‘Who are you talking to?’ For a moment he sounded suspicious. Then he laughed. ‘OK. You had me fooled for a second there, but only a second! I can wait all day, Jess.’

‘Just till Rhodri comes!’ She turned back towards the window. ‘Are you still there, Glads?’

There was no reply. She sighed. It was insane to think there would be. For twenty minutes neither she nor Dan spoke, then at last she heard him walking across the landing. She didn’t hear him come back. Had he moved away then? Exploring the house perhaps? She tiptoed towards the door. ‘Dan? Tell me the truth. You might as well. Was it you who pretended to wreck my pictures? Was it some sort of practical joke?’

‘And how exactly do you suppose I set up this joke?’ His voice was very close to the door after all. Perhaps he was leaning against it. ‘I brought glass and blood and a duplicate sketchbook with me, did I?’

‘Doesn’t sound very likely, does it!’ she admitted ruefully. ‘So,’ she went on, ‘where does Natalie think you are this morning?’