Slave Princess

‘As there would be in yours, young Tullus, after a night with the Princess.’

Brighid was shaken out of her sleep by a gentle hand on her arm. ‘It’s late,’ Florian was saying in her ear. ‘The camp is already packing up. Wake, or you’ll get no food. Did the Tribune keep you awake all night?’

She rolled herself upright, pushing away her loose hair. ‘Mind your own business,’ she said. ‘What’s all that din?’

‘We’re almost ready to leave. What do Brigantian princesses eat for breakfast these days?’ he said with a knowing grin.

‘Porridge, and a thin slice of masseur’s tongue, if you’d be so kind.’

‘Tongue’s off,’ he quipped, ‘but I’ll find you some stodge, if you insist.’

‘Clear off while I get dressed. Where can I go and bathe?’

Florian paused at the tail-board. ‘Bathe, domina? I would not recommend it. Not here. Not unless you want an audience.’

‘Then how am I ever going to get cleaned up?’

‘Better do it in here until we reach our lodgings. Wait. I’ll bring some water.’

The extraordinary events of the night came back to her as she unravelled the blankets and saw the pillow with the dent in it close to her own. He had left without disturbing her, she who always woke at the slightest sound. Even more remarkable was his opening of the chest beside her where now her treasures lay in a row on top of her folded clothes, set out for inspection like a soldier’s kit.

Even by Roman standards, the pieces were of the highest craftsmanship, technically perfect. The most impressive was a flat crescent-shaped neck-collar with a raised pattern of sinuous spirals studded with cornelians and lapis lazuli, and inlaid with coloured champleve enamel. One bracelet was a wide band of beaten gold with triskeles, sun discs and lunar crescents in relief, the other was fashioned like a coiled serpent with rock crystals for eyes. Her earrings were the delicate heads of birds with garnet eyes, spheres hanging from their beaks chased with spirals, as intricate as man could devise. There was a pile of anklets of twisted gold, a belt with a gold enamelled buckle, several brooches and long hairpins with gemstone tops. Gathering them on to her lap, she fondled them lovingly.

The horses were being hitched to her wagon by the time Florian brought her the porridge and a bucket of water in which to wash, and by the time the wheels were back on the road she had sluiced away the scents of the night that clung to her skin, leaving her only partly refreshed and longing to bathe at leisure. However, her clothes were clean; she could only assume that someone had washed them and laid them out to dry overnight, ready for her to use.

She dressed, clothes and ornaments alternately, ears, ankles and wrists, brooches fastening front to back, the belt buckled in a tighter notch. Without a mirror, she could not know how the starving had hollowed her cheeks, or how the violent events of the past week had diluted the girlish bloom given her by sun, breeze and ice-cold stream. Unable to see the fastening beneath her chin, she found it impossible to manage the hinge of the neck-plate at the front. But as she held it, the canvas flap was lifted to admit a leather-covered leg, then the other, then wide shoulders ducking underneath.

She turned her face away, suddenly unnerved as her body responded to his nearness, recalling his bold searching hands and the male warmth of his skin. Guiltily, she realised that the memory had scarcely left her since waking, sneaking into every thought, relevant or not, just to taunt her.

‘You slept late,’ he said, poking upwards at the puddles of rainwater on the canvas, tipping the last drops away.

‘I hardly slept at all.’

‘You’ll get used to it.’

‘I don’t intend to.’

He chuckled, a deep throaty murmur as meaningful as any argument. ‘Here, give that to me. Turn round this way.’

She stood up to face him, lifting her hair for him to place it round her neck and to bring the broad edges together. ‘The rivet?’ he said, softly.

She held it up for him to slip through the precise dovetails, aware of his fingers upon her skin. Quickly, she stepped back, almost losing her balance as the wagon jolted over a rut. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘For these, too. Where are we?’

Like a colossus, he braced himself against one of the wooden ribs. ‘Next stop will be a small place called Danum. I shall send Florian out to purchase some stuff to make you something after the Roman fashion, and, before you start to protest, let me remind you that you promised to adapt.’

‘I didn’t promise to apply for Roman citizenship, Tribune.’

‘You won’t be a Roman, will you, wearing Brigantia’s wealth round your neck and arms? How could anyone possibly mistake you for a Roman citizen, woman?’

‘So what’s wrong with my own clothes? Are we out to confuse everybody?’

‘Sit down before you fall over. Now listen. We shall be staying at the home of a retired legionary commander and his wife in Lindum, and I don’t intend to spend my evening explaining the presence of a wild red-headed Brigantian captive in my baggage when they know I’m on my way to a health spa for treatment. It will save me much tedium if it’s simply known that I have a Brigantian princess with me whose appearance will cause no comment.’

‘Except, of course, that I am quite obviously the only female in your party and I wear my own adornments. You really believe that will cause no comment, do you?’

‘Very well,’ he said, taking a step towards the exit, ‘if you don’t like the sound of that, the solution is simple.’

She knew what he meant. ‘No … stop … Tribune! Please. I didn’t mean to …’ Leaping to her feet, she staggered across the wobbling floor, intending to catch him before it was too late. ‘I will adapt. I will go along with you. Whatever it looks like.’

He took an arm to steady her, steeling himself against the deep luminous green of her eyes that would have made any mortal man forget his own name. At that moment, she was the fierce tribal princess to whom he was suggesting a change of identity, which, naturally, she resented. ‘I’m not about to change who you are,’ he replied, hoping to convince her. ‘I doubt anyone could do that just by having you dress the Roman way. But I would rather our host and hostess regarded you as my woman than a barbarian captive I’m dragging along for some mysterious reason of my own. The choice is yours, Princess. Take it or leave it.’

‘As your woman? But I’m not… .’

‘Then pretend! Adapt. You told me you could do it.’

The moss-green eyes blazed with fear, stirring him to a recklessness he’d intended never to show. But she needed to be convinced, an incentive to play the part, for he had nothing genuine with which to threaten her, and the safety he had promised her last night was already wearing thin. As if to hold her against the rocking of the wagon, he grasped her shoulders before she could tell danger from safety, pulling her hard against him with a groan of sudden desire. ‘Then this may help,’ he said, taking a handful of the red hair, tilting her face to his own.

Brighid felt his kiss flood through her, melting her limbs, reaching her thighs. She ought to have fought him. But when it ended, instead of railing at him that a woman like her must not be treated in that manner, she stood silent, swaying to the wagon’s motion, her hand over her lips, watching him disappear in one leap through the canvas flaps.

‘Divine Brigantia,’ she whispered behind her fingers, ‘don’t let it happen to me, or I shall be worthless. I am promised, goddess. You know that I am.’ Even so, her body did not share in the same high-mindedness, for although the Tribune would probably think nothing of this kind of thing, she had been taken one step deeper into the forbidden dream that had haunted her throughout the night. It would be difficult enough for her to escape from captivity, but even more so to run from the bondage of her newest emotions.

Unplaiting her hair, fingers and thoughts working furiously together, realising too late that she lacked a comb, she finger-raked it back into a bunch and fixed it on top of her head with her pins. But help was not far away, for the small town of Danum was only a few miles down the road and already bustling with market traders and all the chaos of early morning preparations. The clamour reached her as the wagon came to a standstill, bringing her to the tail-board where Florian’s black curly head was coming up to her level.

‘We’re stopping on the edge of a marketplace,’ he told her. ‘and I have to go and find you something to wear. I doubt if they’ll have much to offer, so no point in telling me what colour you want. I’ll have to take what I can get. What size sandals do I buy?’

With resignation, she placed her foot on the edge of the tail-board. ‘There. Take a look. Buy whatever you like, Florian. Size, colour, shape, fabric—anything. But I need a comb. And the Tribune said I might have a small shrine. The small portable kind for travellers. Brigantia is the one to look for, though we may have passed out of the Brigantes territory by now, for all I know.’

Florian’s eyes followed her as she turned away, his eyes showing some surprise. ‘Oh dear,’ he said, sympathetically. ‘Still not quite yourself, are you? Go and lie down a while, domina. I’ll do my best for you.’

Florian did his best, and more, although it took him longer than the alloted time, for which he received the sharp end of his master’s tongue. Throwing his purchases up into the wagon even as it was moving off, he passed the last package more carefully into Brighid’s hands. ‘Careful with that. Hope it’s the right one. Too late to change it,’ he panted.

She felt its weight and saw the bright metallic gleam before recognising the hand-high figurine of Brigantia, a helmet-wearing version symbolising her warrior-wisdom, a wise owl on one arm, a spear in the crook of the other. The goddess stood proudly inside an arched niche, her name inscribed in Roman capitals on the pedestal.

‘Polished pewter,’ said Florian. ‘And here are the scented candles to set at each side of her, and a garland of flowers I begged from the temple flower-girl.’ He took these from his black curls and passed them to her. ‘Sweet violet, borage and crocus. There. You can set her up wherever we are. Feel better now?’

‘You did well, Florian. Thank you. Much better. I’ll set her over here where she’ll not fall over.’ Her thanks were genuine. The solace of having her deity close at hand was something she had missed greatly since her capture as much as the loss of her family. Brighid had not had a mother since she was eleven, so it had always been to her goddess she had turned more than to the older village women who would have claimed an intimacy more for status than genuine fondness. Friendships and rivalries were thickly intertwined in her incestuous society, and to stay on the edge was often safer.

Florian was setting out his other purchases for her inspection, delighting in each item as much as if they were for himself. He shook out lengths of linen much finer than anything Brighid had ever worn, soft, sumptuous, flowing rivers of fabric in white and cream, blue-green and palest madder-dyed pink. Draping them over her shoulders to judge them against her hair, he tilted his head to one side, then threw a heap of scarves over them to add sparkle, a deeper tone, a texture of fringes and tassels. ‘Do you know, domina,’ he said, ‘with that jewellery, this is going to look amazing. Quite unique. Nobody will be able to copy this look. Nobody.’

At last, Brighid began to see what the Tribune had seen from the start. At her father’s insistence, she had adopted other aspects of the Roman life, the language and learning, but never the appearance. Not until now, when nothing of her woollen plaid showed under the shimmer of fine linen, had she realised what the effect would be. As Florian continued to ply her with ribbons and braids, goat-kid purses and pairs of soft openwork sandals, the Tribune himself climbed aboard to see how his denarii had been spent, making Brighid’s heart leap to see his admiration, quickly concealed, and to hear his restrained compliment that she would surely raise a few eyebrows at Lindum.

‘Is that what you aim for, Tribune? To raise a few eyebrows?’ she asked, striking a graceful pose with arms full of cloth.

‘Yes, Princess. Why not? Better to be unique.’

Florian agreed. ‘But that’s exactly what I said, sir. Unique.’

Lazily, Quintus glanced at him without a smile. ‘Yes, my lad. And when you’ve finished in here, you can come and tell me what you’ve spent and how many extras you purchased while you were about it.’