The Warrior’s Princess. Barbara Erskine

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СКАЧАТЬ flew open. The arm, across her throat, pushing her back, holding her down on the bed, she could see it suddenly as clearly as she could see her own hand, clenched on her knees. And the arm though it was tanned, and covered in fine dark hairs, was without any doubt at all the arm of a white man. It was not Ash!

      She was still leaning against the tree. The sun was still shining. Above her the buzzard was calling, a lonely wild wail high amongst the clouds, and suddenly she was shaking violently. The bastard! He was holding her down on her bed. His face was there, above her, all she had to do was open her eyes to see his face. But she couldn’t see his face. The memory had gone.

      ‘Shit!’ She lowered her forehead onto her knees. Will. It had to have been Will.

      Raising her face to the sun, she stared out between the trees into the misty blue distances.

      She couldn’t bear it to be Will.

      But if not Will, who?

      Dan?

      It was a long time before she stood up and headed slowly back along the track towards home.

      She went straight to the telephone to call Dan. She could at least ask him if he had faked the wrecking of the dining room. As a joke as Rhodri had suggested. Some joke.

      The message light on the phone was flashing. It was Rhodri. ‘Jess? I’ve just noticed in the Radio Times, there is a play on Radio 4 tonight. About Cartimandua. Have you ever heard of her? Listen to it. I think it might interest you. Eight o’clock.’

      ‘No, I haven’t heard of her! Who the hell is Cartimandua!’ Jess murmured as she punched in Dan’s number. The phone rang and rang. Neither Dan nor his message service picked up and she hung up with a sigh.

      The house was very quiet, the quietness almost eerie as though someone was there, listening. She walked over to the door and peered out into the hall, then walked slowly through the house, holding her breath. There was no one there, no sign that anyone had been in while she was out.

      As the sun began to go down she bolted the front door, and removing Steph’s dried flowers, lit a fire of old apple logs in the living room. Making herself a supper of scrambled eggs on toast she sat on the floor in the long summer twilight to listen to the radio as she watched the flicker of flames on the old soot-stained stone of the fireplace.

      Cartimandua was, it appeared, an Iron Age, Celtic queen, a contemporary of Caratacus and of Boudica, but in contrast to her sister queen, she was an ally of Rome. Pushing aside her plate and picking up her glass of wine Jess leaned back against the sofa and listened enthralled as the play unfolded. Caradoc. The name echoed through the room as the evening faded into darkness round her. Caradoc was the name the Celts gave him. Caratacus was the Roman version. This was the man whose army had been defeated here in the valley below her sister’s house. And now she knew what had happened to him. He had fled after the battle, having no choice but to abandon his wife and children and make his way almost alone and badly wounded, into the mountains, fleeing north and then east towards the lands of the Brigantes, the vast tribal confederation which was ruled by his kinswoman, Queen Cartimandua. There, he was sure he would find safety and help. He found neither. She took him prisoner, and feeling herself irrevocably bound by a treaty she had made with the Emperor Claudius when he had invaded the country seven years before, offered Caradoc, as a captive, back to his enemies.

      ‘What a cow!’ Jess threw more logs onto the fire and poured herself another glass of wine. ‘So, what happened to him after that?’

      The play did not reveal the answer. It followed the course of the queen’s life and loves; once Caratacus had been dragged away in chains by his Roman escort he was not mentioned again. She wondered if Cartimandua had given him another thought.

      Jess sat for a long time after the play finished, gazing into the flames, listening to the crackle of burning logs. Had Caratacus been reunited with his wife and children? Was he killed? Were they all killed? She did not know.

      But she had a strong feeling that Eigon and Glads would tell her.

      In her dreams, or as they rampaged round the house in their rage and fear, the ghost children who had been Caratacus’s daughters would tell her the story whether she wanted to hear it or not. Jess shivered. She had no choice. A link had been forged between her and Eigon through the experience of rape and betrayal; as long as she stayed in the house she would have to listen to Eigon’s story.

       Is Papa there?

      The voice was thin and reedy, terrified, echoing against the sound of the wind and rain against the window. Jess lay still, clutching the sheet to her chin, staring up at the ceiling. It was two thirty a.m. She had just checked the clock again. Closing her eyes against the bedside light she turned over, humping the sheet over her shoulder against the glare, yet not daring to turn it off.

      Have we finished playing the game? Papa will know where Togo and Glads are. He knows everything.

      There was a click from the door. Jess turned over, staring at it in terror. Slowly it swung open. Beyond it the landing was pitch dark.

      Clutching her pillow to her breasts, she sat up. Someone was walking towards her across the room. She couldn’t see them or hear them, she just sensed it. ‘Go away!’ she cried. Her voice wavered uncertainly. ‘Please go away. I can’t help you. I don’t know where they are. I don’t know where your father is!’

      The presence stopped. It was listening. Jess clenched her fists into the cotton of the pillowslip. ‘Look, I would help you if I could. Your father went to the Queen of the Brigantes for help. I know that much. He was hurt, but he wasn’t killed in the battle.’

      The silence in the room grew intense. It had a thick palpable quality; it was hard to breathe. Jess could feel her lungs straining; her mouth was dry, her eyes gritty. ‘Please, Eigon. Go away. I can’t help you. I would if I could. I know how you feel –’ She paused. ‘I understand.’ The feeling of invasion, of pain, deep within her soul, the anguish of a woman who has been raped and violated and left for dead. And this child wasn’t even a woman when she had been attacked by those men; she was barely more than a baby. Of course she understood!

      ‘Sweetheart, I know how hard it is. But it will get better.’ She shivered. How could she say that, utter platitudes to an invisible thought form standing in the middle of her bedroom floor when she didn’t even know if the child had survived; or her father, her mother, her brother and sister. All might have been dead within days or weeks of the battle. One thing was for sure. They were all dead now.

      ‘I’m asleep,’ she said suddenly to herself. ‘None of this is happening. This is a dream. I am asleep and there is no one here. I am all alone. Soon it will be time to get up and have breakfast in the sunshine and I will wonder what I was worrying about. In fact, I won’t remember anything about this. Nothing at all.’

      The child was gone. Staring round the room she could sense it. There was no one there. The house was empty again; in the garden the moonlight was slowly spreading through the wood. In seconds it would have reached the window of her bedroom and thrown a silver gleam across her floor and her fear would go. Leaning back she began to breathe more easily again. Within minutes she was asleep.

      She was sitting in front of a cup of black coffee next morning in the kitchen, still wearing her nightshirt, her feet bare, her hair tousled, when the phone rang. It was Rhodri. ‘Are you listening to the radio? Turn it on. Now. Speak to you afterwards!’

      Her СКАЧАТЬ