The Warrior’s Princess

‘London. So you don’t have to worry about her expecting me back any time soon, Jess.’ His voice had a mocking ring to it.

She retreated to the bed and sat down. What were the chances of someone coming to call? None at all. Unless Rhodri took it into his head to come over again before he went away. He might phone and find the line dead and worry about her. Was that likely? She bit her lip. It was as she could see her only hope.

Half an hour later Dan’s voice woke her from a semi-doze. He sounded as though he was eating. ‘I’ve helped myself to some breakfast, Jess. I hope you don’t mind. Is there anything I can get you? Coffee? Toast? You must be feeling hungry by now.’

She grimaced. ‘Thank you, Dan. I’m fine!’

‘What time did you say Rhodri was coming?’ He sounded amused.

‘Soon.’

‘I’ll be waiting for him if he does.’

Shit! What was she going to do now?

There was water to drink in the bathroom, and she could go without food for the time being, surely. She wasn’t hungry anyway, she was too scared. She could wait him out.

She tried to read but she couldn’t concentrate. She did some sketching, thankful for the small sketchpad she had left on her bedside table and after a while she dozed. When she woke two hours had passed. Levering herself to her feet she went to the door. ‘Dan? Are you still there?’

‘Oh yes, sweetheart, I’m still here.’

‘Just checking!’ She forced herself to laugh.

It was almost dark when she finally heard his footsteps outside in the courtyard. She ran to the window, dizzy with hunger and exhaustion, dodging just in time behind the curtain as he turned and looked back at the house. He obviously hadn’t seen her and in seconds he was once more heading towards the gate. Where was he going? Why had he given up? She didn’t give herself time to think about it. Pulling a sweater on over her shirt and jeans and ramming her feet into her shoes she ran to the door and flung back the bolt. In seconds she was down the stairs and in the kitchen, unlocking the side door with shaking hands. Moments later she had ducked behind the studio out of sight of the front of the house and was running across the lawn towards the hedge.

Forcing herself through a gap laced with sheep wool, she was through, bleeding with scratches from the hawthorn and brambles and out into the field. Running as fast as she could she doubled back out of sight of the house and in moments she was in the shelter of the trees, gasping for breath. Desperately she tried to control her gulps for air as she listened for the sound of Dan’s footsteps. Had he seen her? Why had he left unless it was to lure her out of her bedroom? All she could hear was the wind rustling in the treetops and the sudden sharp call of the owl. Below her in the valley it was already dark.

It seemed an age before she dared to move. Beyond the trees the sky was flooding with a colour wash of crimson and scarlet shot with green, silhouetting the distant hills. Cautiously she moved forward through the trees towards the house again, her eyes straining into the shadows until with a gasp of fear she saw his car below her, looming out of the darkness of the lane. She was far too close, coming out above the lane, much nearer to the house than she had expected and Dan was obviously still there. Somewhere. Her hope that he might have given up and driven away was a vain one. As silently as she could she melted back into the shelter of the trees and found her way back to the track. What now? There was only one option. To try and find her way across the fields to the Prices and pray that Rhodri was still there.

She glanced up at the sky between the branches of the trees. There was still a glimmer of light in the north west but down here amongst the trees it was growing pitch black as the sun slid behind the rim of the hill leaving nothing but a red glow on the highest branches of the summit trees. She glanced behind her. Was Dan following her or had he gone back into the house to wait for her? She didn’t have the courage to retrace her steps to try and find out.

All day she had kept the idea of Rhodri, with his broad shoulders and his deep strong voice in her mind, hoping against hope that just by conjuring him in her imagination she could bring him physically back to Ty Bran. It hadn’t happened, but he would protect her if she asked. Just by being there he would protect her from the madman in her house.

With a shiver she knew she dared not wait any longer. Carefully she began her descent of the steep escarpment, sliding through the soft leaf mould, clinging to the branches, feeling her way between tree trunks rough with lichen, protecting her eyes with the crook of her arm against sharp twigs and whipping saplings.

At last she reached the fence that bordered the wood. She felt along the barbed wire cautiously looking for the wooden footrail of the stile and finding it at last, climbed over, pausing for a moment to catch her breath. The clouds had rolled back and the night was bright with stars. On the horizon there was still a bright green line of reflected light, the last trace of the dying sun. Far behind her a pheasant launched itself suddenly out of the treetops with a deafening squawk of alarm. She held her breath. Something up there in the wood had scared it. She listened, her fingers still clutching the top rail of the stile.

Togo? We’ve stopped playing now. Where are you?

The voice echoed softly through the trees, barely a breath in the wind.

The moss under Jess’s fingers was damp. She could feel the moist warm velvet oozing under her nails. For a moment she clung tightly to the rail, paralysed with fear, then with a deep breath to strengthen her resolve she released it and set off across the field. It was rough under her feet, strewn with stones, uneven tussocks of grass and mudslips with here and there a patch of rushes catching at her ankles as she slid down into deeper puddles.

She felt horribly exposed as she crossed the field, but at least she could see in the starlight. As she reached the far side she found herself once again in the dark under the branches of a stand of ash trees as she made her way cautiously towards the gate.

She didn’t know how long it was before she finally found her way to Cwm-nant. Almost weeping with exhaustion, she pushed open the heavy gate and let herself into the farmyard. The farm was in darkness. As she hammered on the back door she realised suddenly that the dogs were not there. Nor was Rhodri’s car.

‘Oh no!’ She knocked again, beating on the door panels with her fists. ‘Please, please be here!’

She already knew he wasn’t. She was too late. He had gone. Too tired to do anything else she sank down into a huddle there in the porch, with tears of despair and exhaustion rolling down her cheeks.

Eventually she pulled herself together enough to climb to her feet and circle the house checking for open doors or windows. Rhodri had done a good job locking up and the dogs had gone. Feeling her way through the darkness into an outbuilding on the far side of the farmyard, she found some old sacks in which she could huddle as exhaustion finally overcame her. Her last thought before she fell asleep was that at least here Dan would not find her.

8 (#u90907c20-6df2-52a2-a1c6-6b23225d6a1e)

In Rome the morning was bright and already very hot. Steph stood for a moment at her open window, staring down at the street below, then with a sigh she reached out and closed the shutters against the heat. Still wearing her white cotton nightdress she padded barefoot down the corridor. ‘I’ve tried to phone again. The line is still dead.’ She found Kim in the kitchen. ‘I’m going to phone the police.’

‘I still think that is over-reacting. Call one of your neighbours. They won’t mind now it’s daytime, surely.’ Kim poured a second cup of coffee for herself and then as an afterthought one for Steph as well. She pushed her tousled hair back off her face. ‘You’re fussing too much, Steph. She’s a grown woman, for God’s sake!’

Reaching wearily for the coffee, Steph sat down at the table opposite her. ‘I know. And she’ll be furious. It’s just – I’ve got this feeling. And after last night –’

‘Did you call the Prices?’

Steph nodded. ‘No reply. Which is weird. How can a farm be empty? There has to be someone there for the animals.’

‘Don’t you know anyone else round there, Steph?’

Steph laughed. ‘Of course.’

‘Then ring them. Then you can relax.’

It was an hour and a half later that Sally Lomax rang Steph back from her car outside Ty Bran. ‘Just to let you know that all is well. I have just talked to a nice chap who said he was called Will who is staying here with Jess. They know the phone is out of order and it has been reported. I didn’t see Jess myself, but her car is here and he said he would get her to ring you this evening. Hope that puts your mind at rest.’

‘There!’ Kim grinned at Steph triumphantly when the message was relayed back to her. ‘What did I tell you? And she’s back with Will! That is fantastic news!’

* * *

Asleep in the outhouse Jess moved uncomfortably on her makeshift bed of sacks. Her eyes were flicking back and forth under her eyelids. They were leaving the lost and frightened children behind. This couldn’t be. They had to look again.

But once the decision had been made there was no delay. A wagon was provided for Cerys and her daughter with an escort of fifty men. Many of the captives from the battle had already left on their way east; the remainder were being marshalled in chains to follow them, defeated, wounded, some half dead from illness and near starvation. Scapula watched as the woman and child were brought out of their tent and steered towards the vehicle. Cerys walked with stately dignity. Only her fists, clutched into the folds of the Roman tunic and mantle in which she was dressed betrayed her tension. Drawing opposite her captor she stood still. ‘Promise me you will continue to search for my children.’ Her voice trembled slightly as she held his gaze.

He nodded. ‘We will continue to search.’ They both knew he was staying to consolidate his victory and take the battle deeper into the mountains. There would be no time to search for children.

‘Thank you.’ The single austere phrase was all she said. She turned to the wagon, allowing one of the soldiers to take her arm and help her up the step. Eigon followed her, her face white and tear-stained. ‘Mam, what about Togo and Glads?’ She clung to her mother’s skirt.

‘The soldiers will look for them, child.’ Cerys sat down on the bench which ran lengthways down the side of the wagon beneath the leather hood. She put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. ‘We must pray to the goddess to take care of them.’ Her voice faded to a whisper as she fought back her own tears. As the wagon lurched into motion they both looked through the double line of marching men as it fell in behind them, back towards the golden line of the hills, the broad river plain, the neat lines of Roman tents behind their fortifications slowly growing smaller as they lurched down the track. They were following the winding line of the great river towards the legionary fortress of Viroconium from where they were to start their journey east towards Camulodunum.

At Viroconium they were lodged in the house of the wife of one of the senior officers. She was kind and treated them with dignity. They were served with carefully prepared food at the family’s table, but neither Cerys nor her daughter ate much, both locked in their own misery. It was the same wherever they stopped. At each day’s end the procession halted at one of the forts, scattered a day’s ride apart along the road, and at each one they were given hot food and beds. Several times the escort acceded to Cerys’s demands that they be allowed to ride. Abandoning the imprisonment of the wagon with little regret they made better time, the legionaries watching the straight backs and easy riding style of the captive queen and her daughter with grudging approval. Even surrounded by the guards of her enemy with a lead rein from her horse’s bit to the hand of a trooper Cerys felt better. At first she felt her spirits lift at the exercise but as the distance grew between them and the lands of the Silures and their northern neighbours the Ordovices she spoke to Eigon less and less, her heart torn with anguish for her two lost children. Eigon watched her miserably, huddling deeper and deeper into her cloak, her own guilt and loneliness growing greater with each step of her shaggy pony.

The countryside changed. Leaving the mountains of Wales faraway in the west they followed a route which became flatter with every day’s journey. Eventually even the lower hills were gone and they plodded on across the flat midland plain through endless forests, areas of scrub, areas of burned cleared woodland, past small reclaimed areas of cultivated land, and larger fields, past small villages where the occupants cowered at the sight of the Roman soldiers and shook their fists at their backs as they rode by, always, endlessly heading towards the rising sun.

At Verulamium the party stopped for two days.

It was there, watching other children playing, that Eigon heard Glads’s voice calling her.

Where are you? You told us to stay in the wood. Eigon? I can’t find Togo. Can we stop playing now. I’m lonely!

The voice was hysterical, broken with sobs, echoing across the broad streets, threading over the sound of other children’s laughter.