The Warrior's Princess

  This time he stood his ground. ‘Your death will destroy your father, princess,’ he said quietly. ‘Doesn’t that worry you?’

  ‘My cowardice would worry him more,’ she retorted.

  He looked at her mockingly. ‘And does he know you are a Christian?’ The change of tack was so sudden it took her by surprise.

  She glanced at Antonia in spite of herself. ‘I’m not a Christian.’

  ‘No?’ He laughed. ‘Well, almost. The thing is that it seems I don’t have to kill you, Eigon of the Silures, as my Emperor will do it for me.’ He grinned. ‘He feels that an example must be made of the Christians who have fired his city. People can ‘t go around doing things like that, can they; they have to be made an example of, enough of an example to terrify the rest of the population into submission. That has always been the way with our leaders. You know that as well as I do. You are an intelligent woman. Do you know what he is doing with Christians, men, women and,’ he smiled, ‘even children?’

  ‘I’m sure you are going to tell me,’ she said dryly.

  ‘Last night the first batch were dealt with. I understand it was an amazing sight.’ He moved back a little to lounge against the wall. ‘They are going to repeat the show tonight. They are setting up posts along the paths in the royal gardens. Posts soaked in tar. To light the way in the dark.’ He paused. ‘Each one had a Christian lashed to it last night. They lit up the skies of Rome like candles, and it was only right, after all. Think of all the innocent Roman citizens who died in the fire they themselves had lit.’

  Antonia groaned. Eigon felt her stomach tighten with fear.

  He smiled. Pushing himself away from the wall he moved towards her. He reached out his hand and touched her face. She stood her ground. ‘Such a shame. You are beautiful. It is hard to imagine your skin wrinkled and blackened, hanging off your skull in shreds as the flames lick round you.’

  Somehow she managed to stand upright and hold his gaze without shrinking from his touch. ‘Christians believe in everlasting life, Titus Marcus Olivinus. They go to the land of the ever young, to sit at the feet of their God and the Lord Jesus and they know that God will punish those who hurt them.’

  ‘Somehow that thought doesn’t scare me at all.’ He grinned again. ‘Besides, you just said you weren’t a Christian.’ His hand was still there, near her face. He stroked his fingers gently, almost affectionately, down her cheek and across her throat. She was tempted to spit in his face. Somehow she managed to keep herself still. To enrage him would make matters far worse. At least if she kept him talking it was giving them time. Time for what she wasn’t sure, but time was the only weapon she had at the moment.

  His hand moved lower to the neckline of her tunic. He plucked gently at the material, teasing. Then he brought up his other hand. In it was the dagger. Eigon held her breath. She was sure he must be able to hear the panic-stricken beating of her heart as he placed the point of the dagger against her flesh and pressed. It wasn’t a strong movement. Not enough to draw blood this time. Then suddenly he pushed it down between her breasts, ripping through the linen of her tunic to the waist, where it met the plaited leather of her girdle and stopped. He seized the flapping wings of material and pushed them back, leaving her half-naked before him. This time she did spit. She got him directly in the eye. Without hesitation he raised his right hand and hit her hard across the face. She staggered back against the wall with a cry of pain but he had already seized her arm. He threw her to the ground, grabbed his dagger from where it had fallen at his feet and proceeded to cut the rest of her clothes from her body. She was almost insensible with terror when the sound of hoof beats on the stones of the yard outside caused him to pause and look up, panting. It sounded as though a large party of horses had arrived. A shouted command echoed through the room and then another. Titus swore. Stepping over her body he went over to the window, sheathing his dagger in his belt. A troop of legionaries had ridden into the courtyard and were dismounting, leading their horses to the trough to drink, shouting to each other.

  Titus whipped round. He bent and seizing a piece of Eigon’s torn tunic he rammed it into her mouth, tying it there with a section of the girdle. He rolled her into his cloak and tied it round her with the rest of the girdle, then heaving her off the floor into his arms, he threw her on the straw beside Antonia. He glanced down at them with a grin. ‘It seems I have reinforcements. Earlier than I might have hoped, but then there are so many more of you to round up!’ Stepping to the door he flung it open and walked out into the sunshine.

  Jess opened her eyes. She was sitting on the floor, her back against the wall. Outside the window it had grown dark. She felt sick and frightened. The palms of her hands were sweating. For a long time she sat still, gazing in front of her into space, her mind a whorl of shadows and voices.

  The senior officer strode straight into the farmhouse and stood looking down at the two women. ‘Who are these?’ he asked curtly.

  Titus had followed him back inside. He shrugged. ‘Two more Christians, sir. This area is a hotbed of them. We were about to take them to Rome.’

  ‘No need. Throw them in the wagon with the others.’ The man barked a command over his shoulder and two more legionaries appeared.

  He overruled Titus’s protests with a few short commands to his men and that was that. Titus saluted, his eyes smouldering with fury as he watched the two women being dragged from the straw and tossed through the rough leather flaps at the back of the covered wagon to crash onto the floor in the semidarkness. There were other people in there already. Two small children, beyond screaming now, too frightened even to whimper. A woman, perhaps their mother, lay on her back, her eyes open. She was dead. Two men had been tied together, their wrists fastened to the hoops of the wagon roof. They sat quietly, reciting prayers. They made no attempt to speak to the two young women who had been thrown in with them. It was a little boy, one of the children, who crawled across to them as the wagon lurched into motion, heading south towards the city and with bleeding hands tried to undo Eigon’s gag. He managed it at last. Then he set to work on the knots of the leather rope which bound her. Forcing her bruised lips into a smile, she tried to speak. It was several minutes before the whispered words of encouragement began to form. When at last he managed to free her she forced her agonised arms to move and caught him against her, comforting him, dropping a kiss on the top of his head. Then she crawled across to Antonia. She managed to tear the gag away but it was a long time before she could undo her bonds. By now the men were watching. She put her finger to her lips, hushing them, then moved to them. ‘In my pack. Over there.’ The husky whisper of one of them was in her ear. ‘There is a knife.’

  She found it at last, bracing herself against the lurching of the wagon, her ears straining for a sign that one of the soldiers sitting on the front of the wagon would take it into his head to look back and check what was happening to his human cargo. She could hear their voices, exchanging banter with the escort, shouting to make themselves heard above the sound of horses’ hooves, moving at speed.

  One of the men moved forward to the dead woman. He bent and kissed her forehead. ‘May our Lord Jesus Christ bless you, my darling.’ Then, his lips firmly pressed together, he pulled her stole away from her shoulders and gave it to Eigon. ‘You need it more than she does,’ he said quietly. She blushed. She had tried to pull Titus’s cloak around her for modesty’s sake but she knew her nakedness must be obvious to all of them. The other man moved carefully to the back of the wagon and lifting the edge of the leather cover peered out. There was no sign of anyone behind them. The escort must be in front or at least alongside. They were travelling through a wooded area, shaded from the sunlight. He looked at Eigon and raised an eyebrow. ‘Shall we jump for it?’ He had to put his lips to her ear to make himself heard. ‘It might be the only chance we’ll get.’ She nodded. The light wagon was high above the road and moving at speed. Anyone jumping from the back was risking being badly hurt but anything
was better than meekly awaiting their fate. ‘We’ll have to go quietly. When you hit the ground roll off the road into the trees. Get out of sight.’ He glanced at the other man and then at Antonia. ‘You two women go first. We ‘ll each take a child and follow. Go!’

  There was no time to argue. No time for thought. Eigon caught Antonia’s hand. Together they perched for a second on the back of the wagon then they leaped out into space. The ground hit with enormous force, winding her, but Eigon was on her feet and running for the trees before she had given herself time to think. As she ran she saw the two men jumping out too. Each had a small child in his arms. One of the men landed on his feet, he staggered forward, saved himself and dived into the woodland out of sight. The horses were travelling at a canter, the wagon bucketing along behind them. The sound of the hooves on the road surface drowned any noise they might have made and almost before they had time to catch their breath the wagon had disappeared around a bend in the road and they were left with nothing but dust.

  ‘Are you all right? Where are the others?’ The man with the little boy in his arms beckoned to her from the shadows. The child seemed stunned.

  Eigon shook her head. ‘I can’t see them. They must have rolled into the trees. I’ll look.’ Her ankle was agony. She had turned it over as she landed and she had grazed her arm. It burned fiercely as she crept to the edge of the trees and peered out.

  ‘Eigon?’ Antonia staggered towards her. She was covered in leaves, and her face was bruised, but she seemed to be all right. ‘Where are the others?’

  They found the second man and the little girl sitting in a ditch, too stunned to move. It took several minutes of coaxing and reassurance before the child would release her grip on his neck, then at last he managed to climb to his feet.

  ‘Come on. They will notice we’ve gone and come back to look for us. We have to get away from here.’ The older of the two men took command. ‘We’ll go deeper into the wood. We must get right away from the road. Does anyone know where we are?’

  Eigon had torn a piece of material from the stole she had wrapped around her and was binding her ankle tightly with it, gritting her teeth against the pain. ‘We can’t be far from the farmhouse where Antonia and I were captured. I know where that was. I rode there willingly.’ She grimaced half from the agony of her foot as she put her weight down, half at her own stupidity. ‘It was not far from my home.’

  ‘You don’t want to lead them there, Eigon,’ Antonia put in quietly. Her teeth were chattering. ‘That is the first place he will look.’

  Eigon sighed. ‘You’re right. So, what do we do?’

  ‘We should pray.’ The younger man, the father of the two children, had his arms around them now. He glanced at the two women. ‘My name is Stephen. These are Maria and David.’

  ‘And I am Marcellus,’ the older man said. He glanced up as a low rumble of thunder echoed through the trees. ‘Can you walk, Eigon? Then let’s go. My instinct tells me to walk towards the thunder. That has been coming all afternoon from the hills. It will lead us away from the city and the road. Mountains are always a good place to lose oneself. We will pray as we go, Stephen. God will guide us.’

  Eigon smiled to herself. The instinct to run and hide in the hills had never left her. In her dreams of home the soft hillsides were a background to happy memories. That last terrible night when she and her mother had been raped and her brother and sister had disappeared into the hills was something she had put so firmly to the back of her mind that it was almost beyond recall. She glanced at Antonia. ‘Can I borrow your shoulder to lean on?’

  Antonia nodded. ‘This is all my fault. You came to rescue me.’

  ‘That is not your fault.’ Eigon winced as she put the foot to the ground. ‘It was mine for being so trusting. I was a fool. We won’t talk about it any more. Except –’ she glanced at Antonia suddenly. ‘Your grandfather? Where is he? Julius came looking for you both.’

  ‘He is safe. Or he was when I left the villa. I was tricked too.’ She shrugged. ‘I was an idiot!’

  ‘Did he –?’ Eigon hesitated. ‘Did he rape you?’

  Antonia shook her head. ‘He didn’t hurt me at all. Only my dignity.’

  ‘Thank God!’

  Antonia smiled. ‘That sounded heartfelt.’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘You said thank God, not thank the gods.’

  Eigon gazed at her for a moment in astonishment. ‘So I did!’

  They walked on for a long time, heading as Marcellus had suggested towards the thunder clouds which hung above the hills. It was late, and they were exhausted and hungry when at last they came to the first rising ground and spotted a house lying amongst its market gardens against the woods.

  ‘I will go and see if I can buy bread and goat’s milk for the children and find out exactly where we are,’ Marcellus said softly. ‘You all shelter here.’ They had come to a halt at last on the edge of a rocky ravine, a tumbling river at the bottom, steep banks forming a natural hiding place amongst the interwoven tree roots.

  They watched him stride off towards the house. ‘He’s a good man,’ Stephen said slowly. ‘Dear God, please keep him safe.’

  Maria and David had huddled together in the muddy shelter at once, too tired and frightened to complain, falling into uneasy sleep as Eigon sat with them and sang gently one of the lullabies she remembered from her childhood.

  Later, Stephen, Antonia and Eigon sat close together on the edge of the river listening to the roar of the water. ‘Do you think we are safe?’ Antonia asked at last. She was shivering.

  Stephen shrugged. ‘From our own captors perhaps. Who knows? This outbreak of hatred against us is so strange. As if we would set fire to the city.’

  ‘Someone has to carry the blame.’ Eigon was hugging her knees.

  ‘And Julius had heard that the Jews are also suspected of badmouthing us,’ Antonia whispered, her voice still hoarse. ‘The Romans respect them. They weren’t interested in Christians before; they thought we were just another Jewish sect. Then the Jews began to be afraid at how many people are being baptised as Christians, especially amongst the poor of Rome.’

  Eigon was shivering. ‘Rome is a big city. One fire or a dozen fires, who knows. Perhaps it was just an accident.’ She sighed. ‘Marcellus said he was going to try and buy food. Does he have money, then?’

  There was a long pause. ‘I don’t know him,’ Stephen said at last. ‘When we were arrested he was already in the wagon. I don’t know where they picked him up.’

  ‘That was your wife, in the wagon, Stephen?’ Antonia asked at last. ‘I am so sorry for her death.’

  He nodded. For a moment he put his head in his arms on his knees. Then he looked up. ‘At least she is with Jesus.’

  ‘And she is watching over you and her children,’ Eigon said. She leaned forward and put her hand on his for a moment. ‘I sense her very close to us.’

  He stared at her. ‘How do you know?’

  She shrugged. ‘I just do.’

  A rattle of footsteps behind them made them all look up, frightened. Marcellus appeared. He had a bag on his shoulder, and a heavy cloak over his arm. ‘I have food and warmth, my brother and sisters, look.’ Sitting down beside them he opened the bag and produced two loaves of bread, still warm from the oven, a jug of milk, a wedge of goat’s cheese and two pasties. He blessed the food, they woke the children and shared everything he had brought with him as the storm grew ever louder, then huddling into the back of the cave they wrapped themselves in the cloak and prepared to wait out the night.

  The children fell asleep again at once and almost as fast Antonia, snuggling against them, began to doze. The other three leaned against the mud walls of their shelter and watched as the rain began in earnest.

  ‘You think the river will rise? We’re in the wrong place if so,’ Stephen said at last. The torrent was churning near the top of the bank.

  Marcellus shook his head. ‘It’s steep here and it’s moving too f
ast. We’ll be all right. It’s safe to sleep.’

  Several minutes later Stephen was snoring. Marcellus glanced across at Eigon. ‘You still awake?’

  She nodded. ‘I’m content to rest like this.’ She settled more comfortably on the ground. ‘You’re not from Rome?’

  ‘No.’ He gave a throaty chuckle. ‘Nor are you, though your language is fluent.’

  ‘I’m from Britannia.’ She grinned.

  ‘And I am from Ephasis. I heard Paul teaching there, ten or so years ago; he baptised me and I became one of his helpers. I came to Rome with him three years ago. After his trial and acquittal he asked me to stay to carry on his work here while he travelled again.’

  ‘So you are in more danger than us,’ she said thoughtfully.

  He chuckled. ‘I don’t think there are relative degrees of danger in these circumstances.’

  She bit her lip. ‘Would you do something for me, Marcellus?’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘That depends.’

  ‘Will you baptise me?’

  There was a long silence. ‘I should be honoured.’

  ‘You don’t ask if I know what I am doing?’

  ‘I don’t think there is any need.’ He hauled himself to his feet. ‘Come down to the water.’

  Leaving the others asleep they stepped out into the rain. In seconds they were both soaked to the skin. Marcellus laughed. ‘God is baptising you himself with his own holy water!’

  She laughed. ‘I should call Antonia. She would want to be here!’

  ‘She is here.’ He glanced behind her. ‘We must have woken her. She shall be your sponsor. Leave Stephen with his children. They need sleep to give them strength for whatever comes tomorrow.’ He half scrambled, half slid down the bank towards the rushing torrent, holding his hand out to steady her. Behind her Antonia stood, her hair streaming down her back.