The Warrior’s Princess. Barbara Erskine

door. ‘Rude bastard!’ She addressed the dogs with feeling as they reappeared, tails wagging as soon as the door was safely closed. ‘I hope he’s feeding you properly.’

      The walk back seemed endless. Far more of it was uphill on the return journey and it was strenuous. She was breathless and thirsty by the time she reached Ty Bran and was diving into the fridge for a glass of cold juice when she noticed a large black 4 x 4 turning in at the gate. It drew up beside her Ka, the door opened and Rhodri Price climbed out. She saw him stand for a minute, glancing round the yard.

      ‘Shit!’ He was not someone she had been expecting to see again so soon.

      He approached the open door of the house with what might have been a sheepish grin as he caught sight of her watching. ‘I think I may owe you an apology.’

      She stood her ground in the doorway, glass of orange still in her hand. ‘Why?’

      ‘I was rude.’

      ‘Were you? I thought that must be your normal manner.’ She could feel herself bristling.

      He shrugged. ‘Touché! It probably is, if I’m honest. I’m not very keen on fans tracking me down when I’m off duty, and I assumed you were one of them. My mother says it was unforgivable of me. She rang just after you left and she put me right. Forgive me.’ He was wearing a contrite expression completely at odds with his squared shoulders and confident, upright bearing.

      ‘I don’t see why you should be rude to your fans, if they have taken the trouble to track you down in the middle of nowhere,’ she retorted. ‘Who are these fans? Are you a popstar or something?’

      It was strangely satisfying to see him stare at her, genuinely shocked. ‘You don’t know who I am?’

      ‘No.’ She met his gaze and held it. ‘Should I?’ She had taken a huge dislike to this man with his smug arrogance and she was, she realised with sudden shock, feeling quite intimidated by him. Both emotions were unusual for her. Through most of her life she had found herself inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt; liking them until they gave her a good reason not to. But then he had done just that, hadn’t he! He had made her walk all the way back across the fields without her cup of tea! She took a deep breath and stood a little straighter. She was not going to make it easy for him.

      ‘It was nice of you to come over but there was no need, I assure you. I shouldn’t have intruded on your privacy.’ Stepping back into the stone-flagged passage, she gently pushed the door closed in his face. She listened intently, her ear to the solid oak. She could hear nothing. He didn’t move for several seconds, then he turned on his heel and walked back to his car. In a moment he had backed out of the gate and disappeared down the lane.

      ‘Oh God! I shouldn’t have done that!’ She bit her lip. As she walked into the kitchen she found she was giggling out loud. ‘Pompous prick! Who the hell does he think he is? How can such nice people as the Prices have such an awful son!’

      The dining room was the perfect place to put all her sketchbooks and paints and set up her easel. The line of north-facing windows looked out across the valley towards the distant hillsides, on the far side of the house from the courtyard and Steph’s studio – nothing would persuade her to settle down in there. As she laid out her brushes and began to paint, the sun was setting in a haze of crimson cloud streaked with gold. Her mobile rang from her handbag as she watched, brush in hand. Reaching for it automatically she glanced down at the number. Will. She cut off the call. There were four other missed calls, she saw. All from Will. With a grimace she threw the phone back into her bag and went back to the window. She stood there for several minutes watching as the shadows lengthened across the valley filling the deep fissures in the hillside with velvet blackness. It was almost a shock to turn her back on the view at last to find the room had grown dark behind her, too dark to paint. Thoughtfully she went back into the kitchen, turning on all the lights on the way. The courtyard was lost in darkness now as well. And beyond it the woods. She needed to distract herself from those woods; she had no desire to think about her nightmare. None at all. Make soup. Cooking was something she enjoyed and while she was doing it she would listen to some music. She had spotted a pile of CDs on the dresser next to Steph’s sound system. She grinned fondly. Sound system was altogether too grand a name for this old CD player and speakers which appeared to be liberally smeared with flour and clay and paint and other nameless substances. She glanced at the CDs and her mouth fell open in astonishment. The first two sported pictures of Rhodri Price. She stood, one in each hand, staring at the handsome arrogant face, the wild hair, the dramatic stance. In one he wore evening dress, in the other an open-necked shirt. In the first he had obviously been photographed in a concert hall, in the other, the more informal, he was standing on the wild hillside. ‘Oh my God! He’s the opera singer.’ She bit her lip. Of course she had heard of him. Who hadn’t? Alone as she was, she closed her eyes in embarrassment. It was no excuse that this was not her kind of music. She was not particularly keen on opera but she loved orchestral music and instruments like the harpsichord and this man sang all kinds of music. He gave recitals. He sang at football matches, he was often on TV. He was a celebrity!

      Still smiling ruefully to herself, she slid the disk into the machine and his voice filled the room, singing in Welsh, a wild wonderful folk song backed by the rippling cadences of a harp. It was spellbinding. She stood and listened for several minutes before at last turning back to her cooking. She found onions and potatoes in the boxes she had brought with her and listened as she began to dice them and threw them into a heavy iron pan. His voice soared over the sizzling of the oil and she found herself standing still again, mesmerised, a knife in one hand, onion in the other as song succeeded song, some sad, some exultant, some wistful, all lyrical. She brushed her eyes with the back of her wrist. Onions always made her cry.

      Standing at her bedroom window much later she could see the moon sailing clear of the wood. It was incredibly beautiful out there; something else to try and capture on paper. She frowned. There was a figure on the track, standing motionless in a silvery patch of moonlight. She bit her lip. Was it the child? No, the child was part of her dream. Holding her breath she pushed the window open and leaned out. The figure didn’t move. It was a girl, she could see that clearly. A girl, standing with her back to the house, gazing into the trees, a girl with dark hair this time, not blonde. Eigon. Jess held her breath. The moonlight on the path cast silver-edged shadows before it; the long shadows of the trees. The figure threw no shadow. A band of cloud was racing down the valley now; she glanced up at the moon. In a second it would be obscured. She knew before it happened that when the path was again floodlit by the clear cold light the girl would have gone.

      Almost as soon as her head touched the pillow Jess began to dream again. It was as though Eigon was waiting for her, a small lonely figure, her hair ebony in the moonlight, revealed in all its long tangles as the sun rose over the stone walls of the old byre where she was lying half-naked amongst the nettles.

      When Eigon awoke the sky was blue and the birds were singing and she was looking up into the eyes of yet another Roman.

      Only one of the men had raped the child. The others had sated their lust on the women. When finally they had ridden away just before dawn both Eigon and her mother were unconscious; Alys and Blodeyn were dead. There was no sign of Togo or Gwladys.

      ‘What’s happened here?’ The Roman dismounted from his horse and bent to examine the women. Eigon saw him shake his head as he glanced at Alys. No one could have survived that vicious knife slash to the throat. It had almost severed the woman’s head from her body. With a cursory glance at the naked twisted body which was Blodeyn, he laid a hand, gently, on Cerys’s forehead. She groaned. He glanced over his shoulder to the men behind him. ‘I think we’ve found the missing family. Look, this woman is no peasant. See her hands? She is either Caratacus’s wife, or one of his family.’ He used the Roman version of Eigon’s father’s name. He took Cerys’s hand in his own and held it for a few seconds, examining her nails. Her eyes flickered open for a moment, then closed again. He could see the marks where her arm rings had been wrenched from her; her necklet too had gone, leaving a telltale bruise on the side of her throat. The woman had worn jewellery; what was left of her gown had been fine linen, beautifully stitched and embroidered.