The Warrior’s Princess. Barbara Erskine

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СКАЧАТЬ We’re playing hide and seek. Must keep quiet.’

      They waited for a long time. The rain was heavier now. All three children were shaking with cold. At last she could bear it no longer. She sat up. ‘Wait here,’ she told them. ‘Don’t dare to move till Mam says it’s safe to come out, do you hear me! I’m going to see what is happening.’

      It was hard to retrace her steps in the dark but after several false starts and detours she recognised the darker shape of the hut against the dark hillside beyond the forest’s edge; from where she stood, hiding behind a tree, she couldn’t see any horses. Soaked to the skin and shivering violently she crept onto the track and made her way closer to the hut.

      ‘Mam?’

      There was no reply.

      ‘Mam, where are you? Are we still playing the game?’ She tiptoed closer and peered in. The hut was empty. ‘Mam?’ She turned round, staring out into the darkness. ‘Mam?’ Her voice was a trembling whisper.

      Somewhere close by a horse whinnied in answer and she froze. The sound came from a stand of trees behind the tumbled stone wall. She crept towards it and then she saw them. The men had thrust one of the torches into a crack in the stone. The hissing flickering light showed her mother, lying on the ground, her gown pushed up above her hips as one of the soldiers lay across her. He was holding her wrists above her head, forcing himself again and again into her unconscious body. Her face was cut, one eye swollen. Nearby Alys was kicking and screaming as two of the soldiers took turns to hold her down. Of Blodeyn, there was no sign.

      ‘Mam?’ Eigon’s whisper was soundless with horror. ‘Mam, are we still playing hide and seek?’ She had not seen the man behind her.

      ‘Well, well, what have we here? Another little Brit!’ Two hands had seized her and she was swung off her feet into the circle of the torchlight and tossed onto the ground beside her mother.

      The child’s desperate endless scream woke Jess. She lay staring up at the ceiling, the sound of Eigon’s voice reverberating round and round the room. Outside it was barely light. She could hear the raw joy of the dawn chorus echoing from the woods beyond the gate below her bedroom window. She was shaking with fear and her bed sheets were soaked in sweat as she sat up.

      She had been dreaming about a rape. Not hers. Someone else’s. A horrible vicious murderous rape. The rape of a child. With a sob she staggered to her feet and ran to the bathroom where she was violently sick. The outrage of what she had witnessed was everywhere. She couldn’t get it out of her head. The men’s faces. The smell of lust. The cruel jeering. The casual way one of them drew a dagger and pulled it across Alys’s neck as desperately she tried to throw herself between him and the child, leaving her slumped on the ground like a broken doll, her head half-severed from her body. And the child, the girl whose screams filled Jess’s ears. One of them had held her down, another of them hitting her mother so hard as she tried to crawl to help her daughter that the woman fell back in a huddle at the base of the wall and stopped moving. It was the third man who had viciously raped the child.

      Again and again Jess splashed her face with cold water, shuddering. It was the most graphic dream she had ever had. She had been there. She had watched, unable to help, paralysed by fear, as the men tossed the child’s body aside like a rag doll, turned away to find their horses and rode off.

      ‘Sweetheart? Are you all right?’

      Had she really spoken out loud in the dream? She wasn’t sure. Had she reached out to cradle the child in her arms? She wasn’t sure of that either.

      With a groan she turned on the shower and stood under the cleansing water feeling it beating down on the top of her head until she was numb all over. Only then did she turn it off and reach for her bathrobe.

      She was halfway down the stairs when the image flashed through her consciousness. A man’s arm across her body, holding her down. She was in the bedroom of her flat; she couldn’t see anything but the pillow half across her face and she could hear music. One of her own CDs. Soft. Reassuring, and then an arm, across her breasts pushing her back onto the bed.

      That was all. The memory had gone as soon as it had begun to form. She stood still, clinging to the handrail. That wasn’t part of the dream about the child. That was her flat, her bed. The doctor had said her memory might start to return; she had said there might be flashbacks, nightmares, as the longterm effects of whatever drug he had used on her began to wear off.

      Unsteadily Jess made her way down to the kitchen. On automatic pilot now, she plugged in the kettle and assembled mug and coffee pot. Her hand was shaking as she measured the coffee into the pot. Outside the window the yard was already bathed in sunshine. The geraniums in the tub next to the studio door were almost luminous as the light caught their petals. The rough stones of the wall threw a pattern of irregular shadows where the original byre met the more modern infill. She frowned. She could recognise the shape of the older stones. Sunlight. Torchlight. The kind of torch that trailed flames and tarry smoke. This was the scene of her dream. Slamming down the mug, she opened the door and walked out into the yard. The air was soft and fragrant, mountain air with the scents of grass and wild thyme and gorse and sheep. Walking across the still-damp flags to the wall in her bare feet she ran her hand over the sun-warmed stones. With the sun at this angle it was easy to see where the new wall had taken over the old, transforming the ruined byre into a modern studio workshop. Unlocking the door she walked in and stared round. The huge room was very silent.

      ‘Hello?’ Jess approached the work table. There was no one there, of course. A bumble bee flew in through the open door, did a couple of quick circuits and flew out again. ‘Hello? Are you here?’ She wasn’t sure who she was expecting to answer. The little girl of her dream, perhaps, because this building had been at some time in the past the scene of the rape she had witnessed in her sleep. Of that she was certain.

      The phone rang as she walked back in through the front door.

      ‘Jess, you OK?’ It was Steph. ‘I got no answer from your flat so I guessed you were already at Ty Bran. Oh, Jess! I can’t tell you how wonderful it is here! I am having such a fantastic time!’

      Jess turned to look out of the window at the sun-drenched yard. ‘Me too.’ She gave a wry grimace. ‘So, do I gather you’ve got some gorgeous man out there you haven’t mentioned?’

      There was a snort from the other end of the line. ‘I’ve told you before, Jess, I’ve given up on men. I love them at arm’s length, but that’s all from now on. They make for far too many complications if you let them get too close.’ There was a slight pause. ‘Are you sure you’re OK? You’re not lonely? If you need anything, don’t forget you can go and ask Megan Price. She would love to see you and she’ll look after you.’

      ‘Steph –’

      Jess always found it hard to get a word in edgeways with her sister. It was probably trying for so many years that had made her such a good teacher. Quiet persistence was the name of the game. ‘Steph, listen, I want to ask you something. Is this place haunted?’

      There was a moment’s silence the other end of the line. At last she had Steph’s attention. ‘Why?’ Steph’s cautious response in Rome was almost drowned by a volley of hooting in the street outside the apartment window behind her. Jess heard it and smiled wistfully. ‘I just wondered.’

      ‘I –’ Steph hesitated. ‘To be honest I have suspected there might be something odd there once or twice. Just noises. The feeling sometimes that I was being watched. I haven’t seen anything.’ There was a pause. ‘You’re not scared СКАЧАТЬ