Daughters of Fire

  Pat shrugged. ‘I’ve got a lot of stuff to show you. Maddie has seen it. She likes it.’ She stubbed out the second cigarette and uncapped her pen. ‘Let’s see if we’ve got the introductory scenes right, shall we?’

  It was as though Medb had never been mentioned at all.

  10

  I

  Hugh. Please!

  Alison turned and looked at him, her eyes intense with compassion. Her hair was a fluffy halo around her head, drifting in the wind as she stood on the top of Traprain Law staring out across the fields towards the sea.

  Please. Be careful!

  She held out her hands to him and taking a step forward, he reached out to clasp them but she was fading. Drawing away.

  Desperately he moved towards her but she was going. Nothing would keep her there with him. In a second she was gone and he was alone.

  It was then he heard it. The sound of the war trumpet echoing across the hillside. He found himself turning round, straining his ears, the hair on the back of his neck prickling even in the dream. ‘Alison? Where are you?’ His voice was thready, weak, echoing out across the distances and in response he heard it again, the carnyx, the war trumpet of the Celts. It was closer now and the shock of the sound woke him.

  He lay staring up at the ceiling as the early sunlight pushed tentative fingers through the curtains. Twice he had heard that noise the day before. Once as he walked down the road, a newspaper under his arm, the sound echoing over the sound of traffic. It was beautiful. Wild. Imperious. Then again in the garden as he strolled out to look at the roses after speaking to Viv on the phone. He had been scared that time too. He wasn’t sure how he knew what it was; he had never heard one before though he had seen one in the museum. It comprised an elegant, long bronze tube leading up to a bronze boar’s head with a raised crest, a movable clapper-like jaw and fiery red enamelled eyes. The trumpeter carried it vertically so its great head was high above the heads of the warriors whence its eerie notes echoed over the din of battle. It was, he remembered reading somewhere, one of the loudest, most sophisticated and terrifying instruments ever made. The sound now was threatening and unearthly. And each time it was getting closer.

  Rolling out of bed, he went and drew back the curtains, staring down at the back lawn. A pair of blackbirds were hopping about on the grass. The place was quiet, save for the birds and there was nothing threatening there now. Turning away he headed for the shower.

  He rang Viv again as he waited for the kettle to boil. This morning she had turned on the answer machine and he didn’t bother to leave a message. Annoyed, he slammed down the receiver. On his desk lay the letter from the museum. It was full of phrases like,‘If you could see your way to …’ and,‘The fibula would of course be a central feature of the new exhibit …’ and,‘We have been enormously grateful in the past for your generous decision to leave it in our care …’

  So, they were forcing his arm. Now he would have to demand it back. He sighed. When was it she said she wanted to show it on the TV? History Discussion Night was on Wednesdays and her publication was coming up soon, so it would most likely be next week. With a frown he reached for the phone again. This time he called Steve Steadman.

  Steve was there by 10.30. ‘It’s awfully good of you to lend me this stuff, Professor.’ The young man gazed at the pile of notes and books on Hugh’s desk. If he was puzzled by Hugh’s imperious demand that he come and collect them from Aberlady at once he gave no sign of it. ‘I’m probably going home at the weekend, so I can take it all with me.’

  Hugh was watching him thoughtfully.

  ‘Have you seen Dr Lloyd Rees in the last day or two?’

  Steve tensed. ‘I have seen her, yes,’ he said guardedly.

  ‘And how did she seem?’

  Steve hesitated. ‘A bit stressed.’

  Hugh saw the wariness in the other man’s eyes. ‘She’s upset about not getting the Readership, no doubt. There are good reasons why I changed my mind.’ He began methodically to roll up his shirtsleeves. ‘Would you like a mug of coffee? One of my talents, coffee, though you must promise not to tell Heather. She thinks I can’t even switch on her machine whereas I can open a jar with the best of them!’ He strode through to the kitchen and reaching for the kettle, glanced out of the window. Steve’s old blue Peugeot 205 GTi was parked outside the front of the house.

  Hugh rummaged in a cupboard for mugs, then turned back to him. ‘Would you like to do a bit of lecturing for me next year?’

  Steve stared at him.

  ‘I expect you could do with a bit of cash,’ Hugh went on. ‘And it would help Viv. She’ll be stretched with all the teaching I’ve given her.’ He reached for a jar and unscrewed the top, sniffing at it cautiously. ‘Give it some thought, and perhaps a tutorial or two a week?’

  ‘That’s very good of you, Professor.’ Steve frowned. ‘But I would have to talk it over with Viv. I wouldn’t want to tread on her toes.’ He was firm.

  ‘Of course.’ Hugh managed an affable smile. ‘You see quite a lot of her, don’t you.’ He paused, eyebrow raised. ‘I should imagine she’s a good friend.’ He paused again. Steve made no comment so he went on,‘Well, when you do see her, would you remind her that I need the pin. The museum wants it back.’

  ‘The pin?’ Steve looked genuinely mystified.

  ‘She borrowed a valuable artefact from my study.’ Hugh said slowly. ‘I’ve been trying to contact her about it without success. Her answer phone is permanently switched on, it seems.’ His eyes met Steve’s steadily. ‘She needs to return it soon or I shall be forced to inform the police.’

  Steve stared at him, stunned. ‘Are you saying she stole it?’

  ‘I am saying she borrowed it without permission. It is only stolen if it fails to return.’

  ‘She wouldn’t steal anything, Professor, you must know that,’ Steve said hotly. ‘You must have misunderstood. She wouldn’t do a thing like that.’

  ‘You know her that well, do you?’ Hugh narrowed his eyes.

  ‘Pretty well, yes,’ Steve retorted.

  Hugh nodded. ‘I hope you’re right. I’m sure a reminder from you is all she needs.’ He added water to the granules in the mugs, topped them up with milk and pushed one across to Steve. ‘I’m really very fond of Viv, you know,’ he added. ‘I’d hate anything to come between us permanently.’

  Steve gave a wry grin. ‘She speaks well of you, too.’

  Hugh raised an eyebrow. ‘Does she indeed.’ He laughed. ‘I’m sure this will all blow over. I miss her friendship, you know.’ He put his mug down decisively. ‘Right. Let me give you a hand with this stuff to your car.’

  As they piled it all into the back, Hugh glanced up abruptly. He had heard it again. The wild call of the bronze war trumpet echoing in the gentle warmth of the breeze. He felt himself grow cold. ‘Did you hear that?’

  Steve pulled the hatchback down. ‘What?’ He paused, listening. ‘I didn’t hear anything except for the birds. This is a lovely garden, Professor.’ He walked round to the side of the car with a smile and held out his hand. ‘Thanks again for the notes and books. I really appreciate your lending them to me.’

  Hugh shook his hand. ‘It’s a pleasure. Let me know if there is anything else I can do to help.’ He stiffened, listening again. ‘Are you sure you can’t hear anything?’

  Puzzled, Steve hesitated as he was opening the driver’s door. ‘What sort of thing?’

  ‘A horn.’ Hugh turned away from him, staring down the drive. ‘A war trumpet.’ He turned back, and seeing the expression on Steve’s face burst out laughing. ‘Probably the kids next door. Or tinnitus! Take no notice, my boy. I’m obviously heading for early onset senility!’ He laughed again. ‘Drive safely now.’

  He watched as the Peugeot disappeared out of the gate and he stood for several minutes alone on the gravel listening to the birds. Then at last he turned back towards the house.

  II

  ‘I knew it!’ Viv turned on Steve furiousl
y. ‘I asked you not to tell him!’

  He had turned up early the next morning and the moment he mentioned Hugh she exploded. ‘You just had to run to him, didn’t you!’

  ‘Hey, wait a minute!’ Steve followed her inside. ‘For your information I told him nothing about what you showed me. Nothing at all. Just listen to me, please, before you blow a gasket!’ Patiently he relayed all that Hugh had said. When he got to the fibula she erupted again. ‘So that’s it! He gets you to do his dirty work. And I suppose you believe him, that I stole it!’ She was pacing up and down the floor, her lips pursed.

  Steve perched on the corner of the sofa. ‘I’ve no idea what you did’, he said mildly. ‘Perhaps if you didn’t take it you ought to tell him because presumably someone else did!’

  ‘But I did take it!’ Viv swung round. ‘I asked him if I could borrow it. Did he tell you that? For a TV show. On Channel 4 next week.’

  She sat down abruptly and put her head in her hands. ‘God knows what possessed me, Steve! I asked and he said no, and I was so cross! I wasn’t thinking. He turned away almost daring me to take it -’

  ‘Why not give it back?’

  ‘Because -’ She paused again. ‘Because I would have to admit I’d done it. Because I would have to apologise. Because I need it!’ She shook her head furiously. ‘I’ve completely screwed up over this, Steve. I don’t know what the hell to do.’

  ‘Can I see it?’ He was looking very serious. It made her feel worse, as though her confession had reversed their roles and now he was the elder, the teacher, the keeper of moral rectitude and she was the one who had fallen by the wayside.

  She went over to the desk and opened the bottom drawer. The small box was hidden at the back under a whole lot of old papers. She held it out to him.

  Taking it, he studied the brooch for a long time through the Perspex, without opening the lid. ‘It’s beautiful,’ he said at last.

  ‘And priceless.’

  ‘Does it feature in your research?’ He gestured towards her desk.

  She shook her head. ‘Not so far. I’ve no idea if it genuinely did belong to Cartimandua, but that’s what it’s called. The Cartimandua Pin.’ She glanced up at him. ‘You think I should give it back.’

  ‘I think if you don’t there could be real trouble.’ He opened the lid and held it up, studying it more closely.

  ‘It’s not long till the TV programme. I only want to keep it until then.’

  ‘When you will admit to millions of people that you have it? That you took it?’

  ‘Do you think he’d want me to go to prison?’ She stared at him. ‘That would solve his problem, wouldn’t it. How long do you reckon they’d give me? Five years?’

  ‘Viv!’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m not giving it back, Steve!’ She held out her hand for the box.

  He hesitated, lifting a finger as though to stroke the cold enamels.

  She froze. ‘Don’t touch it,’ she said sharply.

  ‘Sorry.’ He withdrew his finger and refitted the lid carefully, then he handed it back to her. ‘I’m going home at the weekend,’ he said, glancing up. ‘Do you want to come with me?’ She was standing by the desk, the box in her hand. ‘It would be a break for you. Get you away from Hugh. Give you a chance to think this over.’

  She looked down at the pin. ‘Do you think he’d really call the police?’

  Behind them the front door was pushed wide and Pat appeared, out of breath from the stairs. ‘What’s this about the police?’ She paused. ‘Sorry. You left the door open - am I interrupting?’ She dropped her bag on the floor. ‘What’s that?’ She had spotted the gleam of gold in the sunlight which poured through the open window.

  ‘The brooch.’ Viv turned and slotted the box into the back of the drawer decisively. ‘I was just showing it to Steve.’

  Pat frowned as he stood up. ‘I hope you didn’t touch it.’

  He grinned. ‘Don’t worry, I didn’t.’

  ‘Good.’ She shrugged. ‘It has dangerous powers!’

  ‘Really!’ He grinned even more broadly. ‘Glad I wasn’t tempted, then.’ He glanced across at Viv before heading for the door. ‘Let me know?’

  She nodded. ‘I’ll ring you tonight, OK?’

  ‘Who was that?’ Pat began to unpack her bag as the door closed behind him.

  ‘One of my graduate students.’

  ‘Wow! I thought your students were all pimply faced adolescents. He’s grown up. And gorgeous.’

  Viv smiled. ‘I’ll tell him you think so.’ She hesitated. ‘Why did you tell him the brooch was dangerous?’

  Pat shrugged. ‘A momentary fancy,’ She replied thoughtfully. ‘Or an intuition, perhaps. Or common sense.’

  Viv studied her face for a moment. She said nothing. Then she turned her attention to Pat’s script. ‘So, have you had any more dreams?’ She glanced up warily.

  To her relief Pat shook her head. ‘I’ve written the next scene, though. Just skim through it and then we can move on.’ She held out a few pages.

  Viv took them. ‘I’m beginning to get the impression you’re writing this without me,’ she said as she turned to the first page.

  ‘Not at all. We discussed all this. Some of it is based on what you did in the first draft. I’m just tidying it up.’ Pat sat down, not meeting her eye. ‘So,’ she went on as Viv turned over the first page, ‘is this young man special, as it were?’

  Viv didn’t look up. ‘Don’t be daft.’ She frowned. ‘Pat, this is nothing like the outline we agreed.’

  ‘Better, don’t you agree?’

  ‘No. I don’t. You’ve put Medb in here.’

  ‘We discussed that, Viv. She’s too good a character to ignore.’ Pat sighed. ‘I talked this over with Maddie. I told you.’

  Viv was shaking her head. ‘No, this is all wrong. We are writing a drama documentary, Pat. There is no room for all this. It may be exciting. I’m sure it would be wonderful for a thriller. But this isn’t a thriller. We have to keep within a framework of the known facts.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘I’m sorry. This won’t do. Let’s put our heads together and rewrite this bit without Medb. We agreed. There is only room for about five minutes about Carta’s early life. If that. The story really starts just before her marriage.’

  Her second marriage.

  Pat stood up. ‘I don’t see any point in this.’ Medb had to be in the play. Medb was the play.

  Viv had picked up a pencil and was drawing a line through whole sections of the typescript. She looked up, startled. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I came here to help you because I know what makes a good play. If you are going to ignore my advice I may as well go back to London.’

  ‘That’s silly. I value your advice.’ Viv sighed. ‘You’ve done some fantastic writing in the first scene.’

  ‘And so I have in this scene. What is it with you and Medb? You cannot bear the thought that people might hear what happened. That’s it, isn’t it.’

  ‘Pat! Hang on a minute!’

  ‘I told you Maddie is fine about this. And she wants the play finished soon. Before she goes on maternity leave. If you keep making problems the whole thing will be scrapped. I suggest you let me do the writing, Viv. That’s what I’m here for. Just be pleased that the project is in good hands.’ Pat stood up and swept her pages together. ‘Look, I’ll leave you to think about it. There’s no point in even discussing it with you in this mood.’ Heading for the door, she stopped. ‘Ring me when you’re ready to look at some more, OK? I do understand how hard this must be for you, but I know when you’ve considered it you’ll agree it’s for the best. If you want the play to be broadcast, that is.’

  Viv sat staring at the door for fully two minutes after Pat had gone, stunned at the outburst, then she lowered her eyes to the script and read the scene through again. It was all about Medb.

  III

  They sold Anu on the quay. The women were still bedraggled and dripping with salt water, chained
together in a miserable group while the cargo was being unloaded, when two men walked up to them and stood discussing them as though they were brood mares. Medb met the eyes of the taller of the two defiantly, daring him to approach. He did, circling them with a critical eye, exchanging quiet comments with his companion. Then they moved away to talk to the ship owner. ‘I’ll take the little blonde,’ he said, loudly enough for them to hear. ‘The other two look like trouble. You can send them to the slave market next week.’

  And that was that. Anu was unchained and dragged away screaming. They never saw her again.

  Medb and Sibael, in their dry clothes, with their hair combed, were bought by a Roman official to work in his household some two days’ march inland. He kept twenty slaves, fifteen working on the farmstead around his villa and five working indoors. Sibael and Medb were to wait upon his wife, Lucilla, an austere woman with cold steel-grey eyes and rugged cheekbones who spoke the language of Less Britain and therefore was able to converse with them more or less. Medb did not for one moment betray the fact that she understood Latin. ‘Behave and work hard and you will find me a fair mistress,’ Lucilla said to them on the first day. ‘You will have clean clothing and good beds and decent food. When I know I can trust you your chains will be removed. You cannot work with chains. My other servants will tell you they have a good life here. Don’t abuse my trust.’

  Sure enough, several days later the chains were struck from their wrists by the blacksmith and their duties were allotted to them. Sibael was to work in the laundry and Medb was required to wait at their meals. ‘You have a certain refinement,’ her new mistress said to her. ‘I suspect you have worked in a wealthy household. That is good. You can teach the others.’

  Medb smiled and nodded and kept her counsel. She would tell her mistress who she was in good time.

  The woman was indeed fair. She rewarded hard work with praise and small gifts which made their lives easier. She was popular with all the servants, free and unfree and, as they saw in time, with her friends and family as well. But the slaves were locked in at night and the house and grounds were patrolled by armed guards. Escaping would not be quite as easy as Medb had imagined. And even if she escaped from the villa she still had to work out a way to cross the ocean to go back home. Gritting her teeth she smiled and worked and earned Lucilla’strust. At night she lay awake and schemed. She never considered for a minute that she might have brought her misfortunes upon herself. Always in her dreams she saw the face of Cartimandua, the woman whom she blamed for all her misery. The woman who, once she was free, she intended to kill with her own hands.