The Warrior's Princess

  She gazed down at Eigon thoughtfully. Once again the beringed fingers strayed across Eigon’s face. And then the visit was over. Pomponia called for her litter. The two women exchanged the stiff kisses of strangers who by circumstance must be sisters, and she had gone.

  Eigon frowned. She had already found a private corner in the garden under a fig tree where she could hide. She had no desire at all for lessons, far less for them to be taught by a Druid. She remembered Druids as stern, austere, and rather frightening. They spoke to her father, his advisers and his companions. They had never concerned themselves with her and she did not want that state of affairs to change. When and if the Druid arrived, she fully intended to be missing.

  He found her at once, of course. He was a man of middle height and late middle years, wearing the plain brown robe of a house servant. To Eigon’s disgust Caradoc had agreed at once that he should be admitted to their household. He had already heard about Pomponia Graecina, and her reputation was formidable. He did not believe they would be in danger if they took the man from her. And so Melinus arrived the next day and within a very short time he had walked out into the garden in search of his charge.

  ‘I see the small sparrow hiding in the bush,’ he said softly. He had his back to her. ‘She puffs her feathers against the cold, but they do not hide her. Come out, little bird. I need to see you.’

  She didn’t move. He turned and looked straight at her. He had a gentle face, deeply lined, with high cheekbones and sandy eyebrows topping intensely blue eyes. ‘Come, child. Let us not waste time.’ He put out his hand and beckoned and she felt the pull of his fingers as though they were touching her mantle. With a little squeak she burrowed further behind the gnarled old trunk of the tree, but she could feel him drawing her out as though his hand was on her neck, firmly gripping the edge of her tunic. Unable to resist, she found herself emerging into the sunshine, shamefacedly, brushing the leaves from her shoulders. He smiled and she found herself smiling back. His eyes were as blue as the skies of home, as blue as her father’s, his hair the silvery colour of ripening oats. ‘So, the reluctant pupil arrives on the scene.’ He sat down on her mother’s chair beside the pool. The pressure on her mantle had gone. There was nothing compelling her to stay but she found herself drawing closer to him, spellbound. She stared at him taking in the faded blue tattoos on his face, the laughter lines around his eyes, the way his hair fell across his forehead. She frowned. At home, Druids often shaved the front of their heads. They wore robes and carried a staff to denote their importance. Perhaps he wasn’t a real Druid after all. The thought reassured her. Her father’s Druids had been too preoccupied with the war to pay any attention to a small inquisitive child but their demeanour had frightened her. She moved closer, suddenly fascinated. He didn’t stir, letting her approach of her own accord now. Trust must come in its own time. He hadn’t realised yet that with this child no time was needed. Eigon made her mind up about people fast. In the last bewildering months after her father’s defeat she had learned to fear men, but this man she knew instinctively she could trust with her life and she already felt in some inner part of herself as she moved towards him and reached out to put her hands into his that he would be not only her teacher but her friend.

  Jess’s eyes flew open. She stared round her bedroom. Outside it was just growing light. Her head was aching and the sheets on her bed felt hot and uncomfortable against her skin. Wearily she sat up. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep with the adrenaline pouring through her body, her mouth dry and her eyes gritty with exhaustion. Climbing out of bed she went to push open the half-closed shutters and stood staring out into the cool dawn. A pigeon was sitting on the fountain below in the shadowed courtyard garden, fluffing its feathers beneath the water spray. She watched it for several minutes, clearly enjoying itself until eventually it hopped away from the water jet, shook its feathers into place and positioned itself on the stone rim of the basin while it preened.

  In the shadow of one of the neatly clipped little box hedges which surrounded the beds around the fountain something moved. Down there, away from the light it was still very dark. Jess felt herself tense as she focused her attention on the darker place within the darkness. It was a cat. She watched it crawl slowly forward, muscles taut, body compacted, almost on its stomach, each paw placed with such careful stealth she wondered if it was moving at all. Oblivious to its impending doom, the pigeon started to preen its other wing, the iridescent colours of its neck catching the first rays of light leaking from the sky into the centre of the garden. Jess’s mouth went dry. It was too faraway to do anything. The cat was close enough to pounce.

  ‘No!’ She didn’t realise she had shouted out loud until she had done it. She leaned forward out of the window. ‘Hey!’ She clapped her hands, the sound echoing off the sleeping walls of the palazzo like a pistol shot. The pigeon, startled, wheeled into the air, circled the courtyard and soared up over the rooftops out of sight.

  When she looked back to see what had happened to the cat it had disappeared.

  The others were already in the kitchen sitting at the table with their coffee and panini when she finally appeared for breakfast. She glanced round the room at once.

  ‘Where’s Dan?’

  ‘He’s gone, Jess.’ Kim stood up and pulled out a chair for her to sit down. ‘Back to England. Nat rang him. There was some crisis with one of the kids.’ She glanced at Will. He was buttering his roll and did not look up.

  Sitting down, Jess reached for the coffee jug. ‘Well, I can’t say I’m sorry.’ She sighed. After the sleepless night and the early awakening her face was wan and her eyes circled in shadows. Her intense relief that Dan had gone was cut short as she sensed the atmosphere around the table. She looked up. ‘What?’

  Steph shrugged. ‘Nothing. What are you planning to do today?’

  ‘I am going to go on with my research.’ Jess reached for the pot of home-made marmellata and spooned some onto her plate. ‘I know it sounds daft but I dreamed about Eigon again last night and I can visualise the outline of the city where they lived. Their villa was high on one of the hills, looking down on the city. I’m going to take my sketchbook and camera and wander round a bit, to see if I can get a sense of the topography.’

  ‘Stefano had lots of old books about Rome,’ Kim said, reaching for the coffee pot. ‘Why not have a root about in his library and see what there is in there? Old maps might be exactly what you want.’ She glanced at Will. ‘Why don’t you go with Jess? Steph and I have plans this morning which involve shopping and shoes and doing girly things like that.’

  Will grimaced. ‘I have plans of my own, thanks. Unless you want an escort?’ His glance towards Jess was less than eager.

  She shook her head, colouring slightly. ‘No need. I’d rather wander round on my own.’

  ‘Well, that was less than subtle!’ Kim turned on Will. After gulping down half a roll and a cup of coffee Jess had left the kitchen.

  ‘I am not her minder!’ Will retorted.

  ‘And she doesn’t want you to be,’ Steph said slowly. ‘What is wrong with you two? I’m picking up some funny vibes here. Do you know something I don’t?’

  Will shook his head. ‘Dan made some rather derogatory remarks about Jess before he left. I don’t know or care if they were true but I am not here to pick up the pieces.’ Pushing his chair back he stood up and carried his own mug and plate to the sink. He ignored Kim’s glare.

  Steph rounded on her. ‘Come on. Tell me. What is going on?’

  ‘Dan says she set her cap at him after we split up,’ Will answered for her. ‘He says she became a bit unhinged.’

  There was a snort from Kim as she tidied away the rest of the breakfast things.

  ‘Dan said that?’ Steph narrowed her eyes. ‘And you think that sounds like Jess?’

  ‘No.’ Will’s monosyllabic answer was almost lost as he headed for the doorway. ‘No, I don’t.’ Ten minutes later they heard the front door b
ang behind him. Kim and Steph looked at each other.

  ‘So, what’s really going on here?’ Kim asked as she reached for her purse and unhooked a bag from behind the door.

  Steph shrugged. ‘Dan and Jess have had a row. More than a row. A serious falling out. Will is upset. Jess is feeling better now Dan has gone.’ She paused. ‘Does that cover it?’

  ‘Wounded male pride all round.’ Kim shrugged as she led the way out of the apartment and down the broad marble stairs to the front door. Walking out into the blinding sunlight she and Steph headed up the street.

  Behind them a figure stepped out from behind the passing crowds and stood watching them until they were out of sight. Dan glanced up at the windows of the apartment, his golden brown eyes narrowed in the strong sunlight. He gave a quick, hard smile. They had all gone out except for Jess. When she appeared she would be alone and he would be waiting for her.

  Jess was poring over a book in Stefano’s library, her fingers tracing the detail of an intricately worked etching. Stefan had collected books all his life, as had his father before him. There must have been thousands on the shelves of this high-ceilinged book-lined room with its beautiful leather-topped circular reading table and exquisite sets of library steps. If she could find Caratacus’s villa anywhere it would be from information somewhere in this room. She glanced up. The shutters were closed against the sun to protect the leather bindings but narrow rays of light filtered through throwing dust-laden rays across the table. The whole room smelled of dust and age. She looked back at the brown, slightly foxed pages of the book lying on the table in front of her and shook her head in irritation. None of this was any use. The period when Eigon had lived was so long ago, nearly two thousand years. Why couldn’t she get her head round the span of time? That was even before the building of the Colosseum. None of Stefano’s histories was going to help. Nothing would help. Why had she thought it would? There was a reason no one mentioned the eventual fate of Caratacus and his family. It was because no one knew. And no one knew because no one cared. Their fate was irrelevant. He was no longer of any interest to the Roman historians once he had been defeated and brought here to Rome. From then on the only thing that had caught their attention was Claudius’s extraordinary, but obviously self-interested gesture in sparing their lives. She pulled down another heavy volume of history and then another. They were all written in Italian but she could at least consult the index. Nothing. She wandered down the shelves helplessly gazing up into the shadows where the highest ranks of bindings blended into a monochrome wallpaper of tooled leather and gilt. One name caught her eye suddenly. Gibbon. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. That at least would be in English and might say something. Eagerly she dragged the library steps across and climbed up to pull out the first of the volumes.

  She pored over the closely printed pages with their elegant but hugely difficult print face and long s’s. This was a first edition, for God’s sake! She glanced at the chapter headings and turned to a page about Britain and began to read: ‘Before Britain loƒt her freedom, the country was irregularly divided between thirty tribes of barbarians …’ She glanced down the page. One of the tribes he mentioned was the Silures in South Wales. She read on: ‘As far as we can either trace or credit the reƒemblance of manners and language, Spain, Gaul and Britain were peopled by the ƒame race of hardy ƒavages.’ She shook her head with a wry smile and closed the book, pulling out instead the last volume to consult the index. But there was no mention of Caratacus there that she could see. This story was too early even for Gibbon. If Caratacus had escaped and made his way back to Britain, if he had made a great comeback in an attempt to free his people, Tacitus or the later Roman historian Dio Cassius would have mentioned the fact. They didn’t. Gibbon didn’t. No one did. No one cared what had happened to him. Why did she? That was easy. It was because of a bewildered child who was somehow lost wandering in the corridors of time.

  She sat, staring at the table blankly, overwhelmed with disappointment. Where else could she look? Stefano had a copy of The Annals of Imperial Rome in the original Latin. She had found it earlier and laid it on the table. It was beautifully bound. She opened it carefully once again, hoping she might have missed something, then suddenly she stopped. Of course there was one possible reason that there was no mention of Caratacus. Perhaps he had died. That would explain everything. That first autumn they had spent in Italy he was ill. Eigon had implied as much and Eigon was her only source of information now. She frowned, deep in thought. He had been suffering from a recurring fever. Could that have been malaria? The warrior from the cold damp fastnesses of England and Wales had survived his hideous wounds after that last battle, but had succumbed to the curse of the Pontine Marshes. Had he died that first year? She closed the book and stood up. There was only one person who could tell her. Eigon herself.

  Carefully replacing the books in their places on the shelves, she let herself out of the library. ‘Steph? Kim?’

  There was no reply. She glanced into the formal drawing room, the dining room, both with their closed shutters and air of summer sleep. Kim’s more informal sitting room, pretty with flowers and with windows opening, like Jess’s bedroom, onto the quiet courtyard garden at the centre of the palazzo, was deserted. So was the kitchen. Where were they all? She could see from the corridor the doors of the empty bedrooms beyond lying open. There was no sound save that of her own footsteps on the polished boards. ‘Will?’ They must have all gone out without her. For a moment she paused, hurt, then she gave a rueful grin. Her own fault for being so obsessive. They had probably called out to her, told her where they were going and deep in her study of the books she hadn’t heard a thing. She looked at the front door. She had two choices. To go out and wander round, retracing her steps from the day before but this time looking out for landmarks such as the rise and fall of streets and the flights of steps that marked the ancient hills, or she could go back to Eigon. Hear more of the story. She hesitated. To go out was so tempting. She had spent hours in the semi-darkness of the library. Suddenly she longed for the sunlight and noise of the busy streets.

  13

  Exhausted, Jess found a small restaurant off the Via dei Serpenti and sat down beneath a red parasol in the shade. She ordered iced beer and a pizza and kicked off her sandals. The heat was appalling, the sunlight reflecting off the pavement. She had walked for miles up hill and down, trying to pinpoint the outline of the hills in a city of seven hills. She had threaded her way through crowds of tourists, climbed steps, crossed roads and followed winding alleys into shady courtyards and out again, exploring the whole area of the Esquiline, but nowhere had she had any impressions that this, though she had started at the site of Nero’s Domus Aurea, was the city that Eigon had known.

  Of course, she hadn’t actually known it. The villa might have been outside the city. It probably was. After all, there were gardens. Not just courtyards, but gardens and trees. And a view of Rome. She sighed. Perhaps she was following completely the wrong lead. The Rome of Claudius was a small city compared to its successor. It had been so completely eradicated and buried, only a very few buildings, as far as she knew, still existed; even if they did they were irrelevant to the life which Eigon was now leading. Beyond her brief sojourn as a prisoner and that long parade from wherever they had been held to the Forum where Claudius and his wife Agrippina were waiting, she had seen nothing of the city of her jailors.

  With a sigh Jess pulled her sketchbook to her and turned to a fresh page. Already it was full of little vignettes of Rome. People. Buildings. Piazzas. Fountains. Umbrellas. She gave a wry smile. Everywhere umbrellas and awnings to throw shade from the searing sunlight. Two men were sitting on a wall near her. They were talking to a third who balanced astride a motor scooter as he rolled a cigarette. They looked animated, relaxed, unfazed by the heat. Another man walked behind them and for a moment he paused. He turned and looked straight at her. Dan.

  She froze.

 
A bus wheezed past and stopped with a hiss of brakes, blocking her view of the street as the three sets of doors flapped open then closed again. It moved on. Dan had gone. She looked left and right up the seething pavement. There was no sign of him. But there was no mistaking him. He had been only a few metres away on the far side of the road. She had seen him clearly; seen the smile on his face as he looked towards her.

  ‘Signora?’ A waiter had brought her food. He set it down in front of her and reached for the huge pepper grinder he carried under his arm. ‘Pepe?’

  ‘Si, grazie!’ She glanced round the man anxiously. She had imagined it. It was someone who looked like him, that was all. Dan had gone back to England.

  ‘Buon appetito!’ The waiter was already moving away, smiling at another customer. She pushed her sunglasses up onto the top of her head, scanning the street. Whoever it was, he had gone.

  ‘Thank you.’ Belatedly she smiled at the retreating back of the waiter. Her appetite had vanished.

  It was after five when she returned to Kim’s. The others were back. They were all seated in Kim’s sitting room with Carmella.

  ‘Ah, here you are at last!’ Kim smiled at her. ‘Come and join us, Jess.’

  Jess stood looking at the low coffee table in front of the sofa. There, between the glasses and a bottle of chilled Frascati lay a spread of cards. She frowned. ‘What are you doing?’

  Kim and Carmella exchanged glances. ‘Carmella felt there was something more we should know,’ Kim said slowly. ‘Sit down. Here. Let me pour you a glass of wine and she can explain.’

  Jess looked at Steph and then at Will, who was seated on a chair a little back from the table, an expression of quizzical disapproval on his face. She sat down on the arm of Steph’s chair as far from him as possible.