Slave Princess

‘Perfect,’ said Brighid, smiling into his large brown eyes. He was putting on a Roman face, she thought. Like her. The natural linen tunic suited him better than woollen plaids and leather. His hair was short and clean, dark brown like chestnut skins and free of that awful lime that men used to make it spiky. In spite of the broken nose, Math was still a comely young man, more so than his ferocious parent had ever been. ‘I appreciate your help,’ she said.

She would like to have said more, but Florian was impatient to claim him, and she knew they would have little enough time to make arrangements for the night. She put her tray aside and wiped her hands on the napkin, tempted to risk the Tribune’s displeasure, and the threat that would surely follow, to find the bathhouse and take a dip. With Math nearby to help her escape, her defiance doubled.

She was still dwelling on the possibility when one of the Tribune’s slaves entered, addressing himself to her as one who merely recites the message but takes no responsibility for its content. ‘The Tribune commands you to come to him, Princess,’ he said with a sideways glance at the two friends. ‘I am to escort you.’

‘Now?’ said Brighid, putting down the sewing she had just picked up. ‘Whatever for?’

Florian helped the messenger out. ‘Now, domina. When the Tribune sends for you, you go. You don’t ask why.’ He came to her and helped her up, looking her over like a maid, tweaking at the folds of her gown and throwing the ends of her palla to hang down her back. ‘Go quickly,’ he said.

Filled with concern, her eyes met those of her brother. Without words, he was telling her to stand tall, to hold her head up like a high-born princess, not to act the humble slave, but to keep her dignity. Fortunately, it was an exchange that neither of the other two saw as she left the quiet room and headed for the triclinium where a steady stream of slaves carried salvers and bowls, urns and glasses as if for a feast of fifty instead of half that.

Frescoes decorated the walls; her sandalled feet slapped upon the patterned floor, past marble busts in niches, past the tables of rare woods and the dark fountain in the centre of the atrium, its droplets caught in the light of a dozen lamps. Sounds of laughter and the buzz of conversation reached her with the rich aroma of food, and she knew even before she arrived that this was to be some kind of demonstration of her docility. The newly tamed barbarian. Like the Tribune himself, their preconceived ideas about tribal people would be sadly out of date, and she wondered how much the Tribune had said about her, and who it was who wanted her there. She thought she could guess.

She had heard that Romans preferred to recline on couches to eat, but she had never quite understood how this could be done without taking up much space. So it was difficult for her to find the Tribune’s face amongst so many white-clad men until she was edged past several pairs of slippered feet and brought to a stop at the end of one couch. By this time, the chatter had ceased and faces on the opposite side of the piled table were following her progress, watching like hawks for the submissiveness they expected, their hands groping blindly for the next mouthful of food.

It was the Lady Aurelia, just before Quintus turned, whose piercing voice began what she intended to be Brighid’s humiliation, for she had been denied one chance already and the girl was obviously giving herself airs. ‘Ah, here she is, Tribune. What does she call herself? Princess, is it? Well, we are honoured.’

From the head of the table, Quintus answered for her. ‘It is I who calls her that, my lady. As the daughter of a chieftain, that is her title.’

‘I see. So that’s why you allow her to deck herself with all that tribal clutter. Does she do anything to earn her keep?’

That raised a laugh, as Aurelia knew it would, and Brighid could feel their intrusive stares taking in every detail of her appearance. She felt her anger rise, wondering how much of this she would have to take without responding.

‘I should think she’s worth her weight in gold, eh, Quintus?’ called out one of the men facing him, looking round to see who saw the joke.

‘Does she read to you?’ called another.

‘Does she speak?’

‘Does she need to?’

Bellows of laughter. Tullus and Lucan looked uncomfortable. The guests were mostly ex-soldiers, not diplomats.

Quintus took it all in his stride. ‘I’ve told you,’ he said. ‘The Princess’s father had his offspring well educated. These people are not all as uncultured as you seem to believe. The idea is not new.’

Brighid could hold her tongue no longer. ‘Your historian Tacitus recommended it,’ she called out, rashly.

Mouths gaped at her effrontery. Here was a slave speaking without permission.

‘Not women,’ one man said, loudly. ‘He was talking about men.’

‘But the poet Martial was not,’ she retorted. ‘He actually approved of the British woman Claudia Rufina. She was taken for an Italian by the women of Rome, sir.’

‘Nobody will ever take you for one,’ snapped the Lady Aurelia, ‘wearing that stuff round your neck. And with that hair.’

‘I should hope not, my lady,’ said Brighid, hotly. ‘But perhaps we should not discuss hair. Mine is my own, at least.’

The silence was almost tangible.

Quintus moved fast, leaping to his feet to take Brighid’s arm as the shocked amusement rippled round the room, hands hiding smiles, heads ducking, eyes peeping towards their white-faced hostess. By his stillness, her husband seemed to imply that she had brought it on herself.

But having burned her bridges so soon, Brighid was sure to be in deep trouble unless she could escape in time to avoid it. In which case, she might as well have her last say. ‘And my people, lady,’ she called out, dodging under Quintus’s arm, ‘have better manners than to send for a woman in order to insult her for the amusement of guests.’

‘Enough!’ Quintus said with one hand in the small of her back.

‘Not tamed yet then, Tribune?’ called a voice on the edge of laughter.

With a distinct lack of ceremony she was propelled towards her waiting escort. ‘Take her back. I’ll deal with her later. And watch her,’ Quintus growled.

‘Yes, sir.’

But Brighid was already striding away from the subdued guests where the grating voice of the outraged hostess could be heard telling them all what she would do with an impertinent slave girl, princess or not. Without a look back, Brighid dodged around kitchen slaves like quicksilver, her rage at boiling point, the blazing green of her eyes awash with tears. This was just the kind of thing her father had protected her from amongst people of their own sort. Here, in Roman guise, she was a target for more abuse than before. She ought never to have dressed up like this, for she had suspected all along that the mixture of styles would provoke the wrong kind of interest. A hybrid to be made fun of. A circus freak.

Furiously, her fingers clawed at the ties that bound her gown, at the floating palla that had concealed very little, after all, and at the brooch on her shoulder. Her sense of direction registered nothing of turns to right or left, of doorways and steps, the night air and garden scents.

‘No, domina! No, not that way!’ called her young escort.

Blinded by tears and rage, Brighid paid no attention, stepping out of her blue-green gown and hurling it at the poor lad’s head. He crashed into a column, yelped, and tried again. ‘Come back, Princess! It’s the other way, not …’ His protest faded as she rounded a corner where the floor was warm and the faint aroma of water and steam lured her on. A trio of small oil lamps cast a light from the steaming pool to ripple upon the curved ceiling above, inviting her to wash away the coarse remarks that clung to her like grime. Her escort had not followed. She was alone.