The Warrior’s Princess - Barbara Erskine

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didn’t stop until she reached the garage in the next town where an obliging mechanic found the loose connection within minutes. Within half an hour she had filled up with petrol, bought some sandwiches and called the builder to go up to the house and fix the window. She plugged her phone in to charge, then she leaned forward to select a CD.

      The first that came to hand was Elgar’s cantata Caractacus with Rhodri in the title role. She looked down at it thoughtfully, then pulled out the booklet tucked into the front of the case. Yes, Caractacus was the man she knew as Caratacus and his daughter was here too. Eigen, she was called. Jess frowned, looking down the cast list. Orbin. Who was Orbin? She read on swiftly. He was, apparently, Eigen’s lover. Jess shook her head. No, that wasn’t right. Eigon was a little girl. There was an Arch Druid in the cast, and of course the Emperor Claudius. She read on thoughtfully. The scene had been set by Elgar in his beloved Malvern Hills. She slid the first disk from its case, slipped it into the player and as she pulled out of the garage forecourt she turned up the volume. Behind her, in the distance, the true site of Caratacus’s defeat lay in the summer sunlight, gentle now beneath the distant escarpment of the hills, sleeping in the arm of the river, the site chosen with such care for his great confrontation with the forces of Rome and which had in the event served him so badly in the face of the greatest fighting force the country had yet seen.

      The last leg of their journey took them from Verulamium to Camulodunum. Altogether, they had been some fourteen days on the road. This town had been the centre of the confederation of the two great tribes of the Catuvellauni and the Trinovantes. Cunobelinus, the father of Caratacus, Cerys’s Caradoc, had been king here before the Romans came. Now it was the centre and the military base of the new province of Britannia. It was here, while she was lodged with her daughter in the legionary fortress, that Cerys learned their fate. As soon as her husband was brought south to join them all the captives were to be taken to Rome to be paraded as vanquished enemies before the people of Rome and before the Emperor in person and then consigned to their doom. Cerys did not need to read the expression in the eyes of the commander of the legion to know that he expected that they would be sentenced to a horrible death before the baying crowds, or that while waiting for her husband to be brought south from his incarceration by the queen of the Brigantes she and Eigon would be kept in close imprisonment. Their time as honoured captives was over, their new lives as prisoners and probably slaves about to begin.

      She stared at the letter in his hand as though willing it to disappear; as though praying he would reread it, say he had made a mistake, but his eyes pitilessly confirmed what he had just read out loud. Already he had beckoned the guard forward. Already she was being led from the room, Eigon at her heels.

      ‘Mam? Mam, where are we going? What is happening?’ The child caught at the skirt of her tunic. Cerys ignored her. She clenched her fists in the folds of her cloak and straightened her shoulders. She would not show fear. She would not show grief. She would not betray the honour of her tribe or the royal bravery of her husband before these men. And nor would her daughter.

      ‘Be silent, Eigon,’ she snapped. ‘Remember you are a princess. Do not show them you are afraid!’

      Eigon shrank back. Bewildered, she bit back her tears. One of the legionaries of their escort noticed the exchange. He glanced at his officer, noted he was looking the other way and smiling down at the little girl in an attempt at reassurance he winked. ‘Courage!’ he whispered.

      The last chorus of the first CD came to an end with a flourish. With a start Jess realised she had driven miles without being aware of where she was, buoyed up by the passion of the music. She glanced round, looking for a signpost. She was still on track heading down towards the motorway and London. While Eigon’s life had been unfolding inside her head some other part of her consciousness had been steering the car, turning corners, negotiating roundabouts and villages, heading away from Wales.

      Pulling in at last at Warwick Services on the M40 she took stock of the situation as she queued up for coffee and a toasted sandwich, forcing herself to put Eigon and her family out of her mind and bring herself back to the present. She couldn’t go back to her flat; her tenant wouldn’t appreciate her sudden return and it would anyway be the first place Dan would look. She shivered, glancing in spite of herself at the crowds of people around her. No, she would stick to her plan. She had her passport, her credit cards, all she needed in the car with her. She would follow Steph – and Eigon – to Rome.

       9

      The gods were with her. She managed to get a flight that same evening. Leaving most of her belongings locked in the car in the long term car park at Heathrow, she settled into her seat with a huge sigh of relief as the plane took off and angled sharply over London.

      She arrived at last at the palazzo in the early hours of the morning. When she climbed out of the taxi, paid the driver and dragged her case to the door the street was, she noticed wearily, as busy as it would be at midday at home. She had no time for any other observations. In seconds she was being enveloped in hugs and escorted up the great marble staircase which led to Kim’s front door on the first floor. Minutes after that she was seated in front of a crisp glass of Frascati and a bowl of pasta in the echoing old-fashioned kitchen.

      ‘So?’ Steph sat down opposite her and leaned forward on her elbows. ‘What happened?’

      ‘What do you mean?’ Jess took a mouthful of the fettuccine alla marinara, savouring the flavours with delight. She had not eaten since her motorway stop, so long ago it seemed like another era. A warm fuzzy sense of security was beginning to drift over her.

      Kim spooned the last of the sauce onto Jess’s plate. She glanced at Steph. ‘No questions now, Steph,’ she said sternly. ‘Jess is exhausted. We’ll catch up on all her news in the morning.’

      In less than an hour Jess had taken a long relaxing bath and fallen into bed. Almost before her head touched the pillow she was asleep. But her sleep was restless and it wasn’t long before she woke suddenly and lay staring into the dark. Her head had been full of music. Elgar. The voice of Rhodri Price, filling the dark spaces of her brain. Except it wasn’t Rhodri Price, it was Caratacus.

      * * *

      Tall, his strong weather-beaten features drawn with pain, his hair threaded now with silver amongst the thick auburn locks, he was standing in the doorway, his shoulder and upper arm still bandaged from his battle wound, his wrists shackled with heavy iron manacles, staring in towards his wife and daughter. ‘Where is he?’ he asked. ‘Where is my son?’

      Cerys clasped her hands in anguish as he stepped into the room. Behind him the guard slammed the door and they heard the bolt slide across.

      ‘We searched. We searched everywhere. The Romans searched. They put the whole legion to the search –’ Her voice rose in anguish. ‘Eigon hid them in the wood above the battlefield. To keep them safe. But when we looked they had gone.’

      Eigon had started to tremble. She stared at her father in terror, her eyes filling with tears. ‘I told them to hide. I told them not to come out.’

      For a brief second his face was consumed with anger; with an enormous effort he controlled it. ‘They told me. Can we hope our own people found them? Can they be keeping them safe?’

      ‘That is my prayer,’ Cerys said softly. ‘I pray every day to the goddess Bride to keep them safe. You must not blame Eigon. She did what she thought was right.’ Her voice was softened by a smile as she turned towards her daughter but there was a hard edge of pain to it that Eigon heard with a small whimper of unhappiness.

      Caradoc studied his wife’s face. ‘I had no intention of blaming her. Come here, child.’ He held out his arms, awkward because of the chains and Eigon ran to him, leaning against his knees, worming her way into his embrace. ‘You did what you thought was right, sweetheart, and you were very brave.’ He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. ‘And who knows,’ he glanced up at

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