Slave Princess Read online

  ‘Isn’t that natural?’ Lucan said, watching Brighid say farewell to their hostess.

  ‘Maybe, but I would not be surprised if this lad Max is of the same tribe.’

  ‘Could he be the young suitor from the Dobunni, do you think?’

  ‘No! Not the right calibre for that, is he? Nor would he be speaking the Briganti dialect, nor has he travelled this way before.’

  ‘How d’ye know all this?’ said Tullus.

  ‘Florian tells me everything.’

  ‘But I thought …?’

  ‘Yes, even so. But he knows which side his bread is buttered.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve eaten butter, like the barbarians,’ said Lucan, wrinkling his nose. ‘Disgusting stuff.’

  Quintus flicked an eyebrow. ‘If you’d been in the army, my friend, you’d be glad to eat nothing worse than butter on your bread.’ Sliding his hand down the horse’s neck, he bounded up into the saddle with an ease that would have been impossible only two days ago, thereby missing the eloquent exchange of eyebrow-raising between his two handsome friends.

  To himself, Quintus had already admitted, on waking, that he’d taken a risk last night in allowing the Princess some control of the situation, knowing why she was anxious to keep a tight hold on her virginity. But he did not believe she would harm him after treating his injury so efficiently and when she needed him to take her to where she could find the Dobunni tribe. Whatever young Max was to her, it looked as if he had the same aim in mind unless, of course, the lad was playing a different game.

  Trotting away from the villa, Tullus and Lucan shared their amusement about the close encounter with a gladiatrix of such determination, though Brighid seemed too preoccupied to join in. She had passed several gifts to Florian to stow away in the wagon, beautiful alabaster jars of creams for face and hands, phials of perfumes and stoppered glass pots of sweet oils and unguents, pressed upon her by the Lady Sylvana as momentos of her visit. That morning, for the first time ever, Brighid had received a massage at the skilful hands of a girl whose precise routine had been more closely studied than she realised. It would be one more skill to add to Brighid’s growing list.

  It would have been difficult for Brighid to say exactly in what respect the spoilt young Flavia had made an impression on her, though she had soon recognised some of her own aspirations there. Her empathy had not met with the Tribune’s understanding, nor would it have found a foothold in her father’s attitude towards a daughter’s role, for neither of them had suffered the kind of exalted confinement she’d had to put up with all her life. At seventeen, Flavia had a lover and the experience to go with it. A gladiator. Fêted and idolised, such men could afford to be choosy. Her parents had accepted that, too, though it must have cost them a few conventionally minded friends along the way. Brighid had heard of such men, lapping up the details of their deeds and misdeeds with a mix of disgust and arousal that had confused her adolescent mind. And now, here she was, mingling with those close to them and, to all intents and purposes, apeing their customs with pots and creams and cosmetics in her possession and a sneaking feeling that they would not be wasted. Would she resort easily to tribal life when she found Helm? In less than a week, was her resolve beginning to weaken? And where was Math when she needed his help most?

  She managed to snatch a few words with him, but he had little to offer. ‘We can’t do anything,’ he whispered, ‘until we get there.’ They had stopped for a rest in a flat sky-filled landscape that accentuated their sense of isolation with no distant feature to tell them where they were, as there would have been in their native hill-country.

  ‘When?’ Brighid demanded, as if he should have known the answer. ‘Where on earth are we? How long will this take?’ She had retired into the wagon to tear up some linen strips her hostess had given her when Brighid had apologised for the pink stain on the towel after her massage. The Romans, it seemed, even had a better way of coping with that, too, more comfortable by half than having to make use of basketfuls of moss. She sat on the wooden chest with her hands wrapped around a beaker of milk, frowning at her brother’s vagueness.

  ‘Another day or so and we’ll be moving into their territory,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to be patient, Bridie.’

  ‘You must keep me informed, Math.’

  ‘Yes, I will. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open. Must go.’

  ‘Wait! Ask about the Dobunni … where their chieftain lives. We don’t want to pass it and have to retrace our steps.’

  Math’s hand was upon the canvas flap. ‘And how d’ye think you’re going to get free, exactly?’

  Brighid’s patience was running thin. ‘I’m expecting you to plan it, brother. Or what good is it you being here?’ Exasperated, she handed him the empty beaker and watched him disappear, only then seeing just below the tail-board of the wagon Florian’s dark curly head looking up to smile at his friend as if he’d just arrived.

  ‘She called him “brother”,’ Florian said to his master a few minutes later. ‘I know the word. I heard it often enough in Eboracum and in Londinium, so it’s not dialect. And the domina pronounces his name Math, not Max, sir.’

  ‘Well done. Anything else?’

  ‘Nothing I could understand, sir. But.’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Please, don’t hurt him, will you?’

  ‘I’ve no intention of hurting him, lad. Just keep listening and watching.’

  Florian continued with his massaging. ‘Yes, sir,’ he whispered. ‘The domina has done well for your wound. It’s healing nicely.’

  Silence.

  ‘I imagine the domina will soon be doing this for you too, sir.’

  Quintus smiled into his towel at the hint of jealousy. ‘You have nothing to fear,’ he said. ‘As a twelve-year-old, you were an expensive acquisition, Florian. You’ll be earning your price for some years yet.’

  ‘Really, sir?’ Florian grinned.

  Whether it was her sensitive condition or her growing anxiety about the nearness to their goal, Brighid’s usual caution slipped when, at that night’s hospitality, she rashly asked their elderly hostess if she knew anything of the Dobunni people. If the lady had kept the question to herself instead of repeating it at dinner, all would have been well, but it was thrown into the conversation as a perfectly normal topic with the added interest of why the Princess wished to know.

  ‘Why? Because my family is of the Brigantes,’ she said, thinking that she ought to be whipped for her stupidity, ‘and I know that the Dobunni are powerful in these parts. But I don’t know where one territory ends and another begins, not even ours.’

  The host, a white-haired retired builder, provided her with all the information she had expected of Math that morning, that the people she had heard of were a little further south and that if they were to reach Corinium Dobunnorum by the next day, they would indeed find plenty of them strolling around the streets. Yes, he responded to Brighid’s look of surprise, they even minted their own coins and had their own tax-collecting depot. A wealthy tribe they were, some of whom actually co-operated with the government on various levels while some were more solitary and independent. Like most others, he added politely.

  Brighid did not think her host knew much about the northern Brigantes, or he could not have held that opinion. But if she expected the Tribune to challenge her interest in a tribe of people so distant and different from her own, she was a little surprised to find that he thought nothing of it. Respecting her wish for some privacy, Quintus made no attempt to get close to her and made no objection when she wished to sleep on the spare couch in the room they’d been given. In fact, she would not have protested too strongly if he’d offered her the comfort of his arms at the end of the day, but he did not, and it was as if his only need of her was as the woman who tended his wound and who travelled beside him for the sake of appearances.

  She had done both with spectacular results, so that when they rode through the huge four-arched gate into the lar
ge Roman city of Corinium, the attention given to the exceptionally fine woman with the blazing red hair sitting proudly on an expensive-looking chestnut mare was enough to part the crowds that thronged the busy streets. Carelessly, the thought flitted through her mind that if she had intended to lose herself in the dense throng of market-goers, she would need to make herself far less conspicuous. But just as she turned to catch the eye of her brother, who rode some way behind them, the Tribune leaned forwards to slip a length of rope through her mare’s bit-ring, without explanation, keeping her close to his side and leaving it for her to decide whether it was for her safety, or restraint.

  Although their stay of a single night at Corinium strengthened Brighid’s impression that the citizens here were an affluent lot compared to any others she had seen, her need to know about her suitor’s possible whereabouts remained unsatisfied, for she did not dare to risk broaching the subject again so soon.

  It had been as they were preparing to leave the luxurious villa at Corinium next morning that she had been quite taken aback by her brother’s hurried whisperings that he had some news for her.

  Heartened by Math’s sudden spurt into action, she had managed to hide her excitement until they stopped to eat at mid-day. ‘I found out,’ he muttered, escorting her to the wagon, ‘that the chieftain’s son spends some time at a place called Watercombe. He’s friendly with the owner. Very Romanised is your Dobunni suitor, it seems.’

  ‘Where is this place? Did you find out?’

  ‘Somewhere near Aquae Sulis, I believe. A healing centre. That’s all I know. Here you are. Let me hand you up. I have to look as if I’m making myself useful, Princess.’

  ‘Not before time,’ she said. ‘See if you can find out how to get to this place.’

  ‘Certainly, Princess,’ he said for the benefit of the two guards. ‘I’ll bring your drink immediately.’

  It was not Math who brought it, however, but Quintus who came to sit with her while she drank, sharing a platter of assorted shellfish fresh from the market, new bread, dried apricots and raisins. ‘Do you wish to ride in the wagon?’ he said, pulling the shell off a prawn and offering it to her.

  ‘No, thank you,’ she replied, taking it. ‘I’m not uncomfortable on Clytie.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Clytie. Clytemnestra. You know. Agamemnon’s wife.’

  ‘Yes, I know that. I’m just surprised that you know.’

  She stopped munching and turned to look at him, sharing his astonishment. They had spoken very little that day, and now his sharing of her food, too, in private, was like a warm caress over her heart that had begun to chill with cooling doubts. After his unexpected compliments two nights ago, she had assumed he was regretting it, regretting, too, the familiarity he had imposed upon her, taking advantage of her fears that he might soon discard her. But the expression in both their eyes was like a silent conversation that spoke of a comfort in each other neither had expected to find, affecting them with a certain kind of guilt. It had not been part of their plans.

  He had not thanked her for healing his wound, nor had she thanked him for the handsome mare, for to do so would have moved their captor-captive relationship on to a different level, which neither was willing to acknowledge. But this long unaccompanied duet of perception where, in the dimness of the wagon, the two veils were lifted for a fleeting moment, said all that needed to be said—indeed, all that could be said—about their exact position in each other’s lives, so that when her conscience reminded her of his refusal to set her free, she knew he had meant that he would not let her go. Which was not the same thing at all.

  The strategy Quintus had planned was for his captive to ride beside him into Aquae Sulis in enough splendour to turn heads and for questions to be asked by visitors to the spa in the hope that her arrival would reach the ears of the Dobunni chieftain’s son. Now, plunging headlong into those deep green eyes that darkened as he surfaced, his strategy lost some of its attraction, for while he had a duty to the Emperor, his heart had begun to play a cheating game with his loyalties.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he said.

  Her reply was not prompt, her gaze straying to the open triangle of the canvas. She nodded. ‘Yes, I’ll ride beside you, if I may, Tribune, and you can slip a rope through my bridle.’

  He smiled at that. ‘To ruffle your feathers again?’

  ‘No, sir,’ she said, softly.

  He felt her turn to look up at him again and heard, in the silence, what she had not spoken out loud, and his well-controlled desire for her tore at his innards. ‘Then come,’ he said, huskily. ‘We’d better be away. We have some miles to cover.’

  Chapter Seven

  The town of Aquae Sulis sat snugly in a basin of land surrounded by wooded hills where a natural source of hot water had been bubbling up from the ground for longer than anyone’s memory. Quintus’s party might have made better headway if the road had not been packed with other travellers intent on the same destination through a countryside verdant with blossom, green hills and white sheep. So it was late when they arrived, tired and hungry. As usual, a messenger had been sent on ahead to reserve an apartment in one of the lodgings designated for visitors to the hot spring. Aquae Sulis thrived on the business of healing.

  The town heaved with people flocking to the temple, the forum, the baths, the sellers of offerings, amulets and charms, yet Quintus’s hope that Brighid’s striking appearance would cause heads to turn proved to be too optimistic when everyone seemed much too preoccupied to notice who came and went. Nevertheless, she made by far the brightest splash of colour in the otherwise monochrome entourage and, if her appearance did not provoke quite the diversion Quintus had expected, his own eyes were diverted far too often, for Brighid’s intention to be seen was for the same reason as his, and she had spared no effort to that end.

  Swathed in ells of soft lichen-dyed linen of grey-blue and apricot, she had arranged the fabric to allow glimpses of her tribal adornments and to not quite conceal the thick braids of red hair piled cleverly on top of her head, held with dagger-like pins. With the horse’s braids, bells and tassels to complement the picture, she looked every inch the Princess and, though the mare was tired, the dainty hooves pranced and danced amongst the crowds as if they’d come out only to greet her and her graceful rider.

  The quip about the rope through her bridle, however, turned out to be more than mere words and, as Brighid was helped to dismount, the two armour-plated guards with Tullus, Lucan, Quintus and Flavian made a wall around her that left her in no doubt that she was still in every sense a captive. In view of her co-operation, she had hoped for some relaxation in the security, but apparently it was not to be, and the conspicuous guard outside the door of the room she was to share with her captor was obviously as much for her as for the chest placed at the end of the sleeping-couch. These precautions did little for her temper at being so confined, and she had decided to take no part in their conversation at dinner, to make clear her annoyance. But when the Tribune broached the topic of his business with the tax officials, she found it impossible to conceal her interest. This was the first time he had discussed it.

  ‘We’ll visit the tax office tomorrow,’ he said to Lucan and Tullus, swinging his legs up on to the dining-couch.

  Tullus cast an approving eye over the dining table laden with food from the local market stalls: hot pigeon pies, oysters and warm loaves, fishy sauces, cheese and sausages, olives, tuna with eggs, smoked ham, beans and stuffed vine leaves. ‘Well, they’ll know we’re here by now,’ he said. ‘I only hope they haven’t done a cover up before we get there.’

  ‘It’s not quite like that,’ Quintus said, holding his hand out to Brighid to seat her beside him. ‘The message I received is not that it’s an inside job. They could have sorted that out for themselves. The problem is that some incoming taxes are appearing in the form of recently minted coinage, which suggests that someone is producing his own supply.’

  ‘He’d have to get his
hands on rather a lot of gold to do that, wouldn’t he?’ said Lucan, ‘And have the men to do it? Are we talking about large sums?’

  ‘Big enough to have been noticed over two years. I don’t understand why they don’t check it more thoroughly while the tax payer is there. Will you try some of this, Princess? Do you eat sausage?’

  ‘There is nothing quite like hunger to broaden the palatte,’ she said, taking hold of a hot sausage by its end as if it might bite her. She had by now accepted that Quintus expected her to dine with him, to be his woman in all outward appearances, if not in private. It served no useful purpose to protest that a captive slave would never do such a thing.

  ‘Perhaps they’re too short of staff to inspect it there and then. If the sacks are the correct weight, some well-known tax payers could be off and away before anything is noticed,’ Lucan said.

  ‘Nah!’ said Tullus, dismissively. ‘You’ve got it wrong, my friend. They’re supposed to count it out on the spot, but forgeries don’t always show up until somebody takes a closer look. The mistake this forger is probably making is to send it in always looking too new. That’s the biggest giveaway. Even money-changers’ coins have that used look.’

  ‘I thought,’ Brighid said, ‘that people were allowed to pay their taxes in kind instead of in money.’

  Quintus explained, ‘If they have consistent surpluses of something valuable, like corn, for instance, they may be allowed to pay in that currency at the discretion of the local tax office, who send it on to feed the army. But the Emperor prefers to pay his armies in gold, so if the tax payer has only base-metal coins, he must go to the money-changer to buy gold ones.’

  ‘Which will no doubt cost him dear,’ she said, pertly. ‘Even I can see that. So if I were to mint my own gold coin, it would cost me less than having to buy it and then give it away again in taxes. No wonder my father refuses to pay.’