Slave Princess

by Juliet Landon

  Putting down his file, he unclamped the tiny pewter thing and held it out for her to see. It was a miniature leg no longer than her middle finger, exactly like the ones she’d seen being sold near the shrine at Aquae Sulis. Beside the old man was a tray of amulets and charms made of pewter, tin and silver, with flat pieces of metal on which messages could be written. All kinds of body parts were represented: arms and breasts, hearts and feet, ears and eyes, even small pans for pouring liquid offerings, covering every kind of need. ‘It’s beautifully made,’ she said, ‘like those I saw a man selling at the shrine of Sulis-Minerva in town. He said he made them here, too.’

  The man nodded, tossing the leg into the tray. ‘My assistant,’ he said. ‘Did you want me to make something especially for you, domina? You’re one of the guests?’

  ‘No thank you. I was hoping to find the goldsmith’s work shop.’

  ‘You won’t. He’s locked up for the day.’

  ‘Oh. When will your assistant be back?’

  A knowing smile lit his blue eyes. ‘Ah, it’s Gaditanus you came to see, is it? He’s only been here three moons, and already he’s got the ladies asking for him. He’ll be back from Aquae Sulis before long. Do you want to wait?’

  Smiling back, she shook her head. ‘You’ve got it wrong. Your Gaditanus doesn’t know me. Good day to you. Your amulets are beautiful. If I’d brought some money with me, I’d buy one.’

  ‘Then take one as a gift from me. Which shall it be, a heart? Not as valuable as your ornaments, domina, but they seem to be effective. Here you are. Take it.’

  Her fingers closed round the smooth cool silver heart that fitted so comfortably into the palm of her hand. ‘I shall keep it,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

  In the suite assigned to Quintus and his assistants, doors slammed and voices shouted. ‘Not here, either. No, not here.’

  ‘She’s not been in here, sir,’ said Math.

  Another door slammed. ‘Where is she, then?’

  ‘The workshops? Would she have gone …?’

  ‘Come with me,’ said Quintus. ‘I was going to look there anyway. Bring one of the guards. The other had better stay here.’

  Like a flock of flustered white-and-grey pigeons, they flapped off into the gardens and on up the hillside, stopping with a concertina-like squeeze as the figure of Brighid tripped towards them, still smiling at the old smith’s kindness. ‘If you’re off to find the goldsmith’s workshop,’ she called, ‘it’s closed for the day. Plenty of others are open, though.’

  ‘I told you,’ Quintus said, unsmiling, ‘not to go out alone.’

  Feeling four pairs of eyes upon her, Brighid bristled. ‘Oh, my mistake, my lord. I thought you asked me. Well, here I am. Quite unharmed.’

  ‘For which we have good fortune to thank rather than a sudden rush of common sense,’ he muttered, exasperated. ‘I wonder if you would be so good, Princess, as to remain at all times with at least one of us. Preferably myself. I do not have time to add you to my list of searches.’ His request was a lightly veiled command.

  ‘I shall give your request my due consideration, my lord.’

  ‘Yes, do. Now, if you will be pleased to follow me?’

  ‘But I’ve told you, the goldsmith’s place is locked up.’

  Tullus and Lucan exchanged the lift of an eyebrow as Quintus set off once more, sweeping Brighid along with him like an autumn leaf. ‘That will not prevent us from taking a look, however,’ he said sharply.

  Brighid thought he must be mistaken, but she had not bargained for the guard’s mighty shoulder that crashed the locked door open at only the second try, leaving the place wide open for their search. It revealed all they had hoped to find: chests of newly cut and stamped gold coin, the dies and tools used for the forgeries, and the latest basketful of thefts from the shrine, from which the bullion was manufactured. It was the answer to the riddle of who was paying his considerable taxes in new coinage.

  Leaving the workshop intact, they posted the guard outside until they could return with reinforcements. Meanwhile, Brighid stood apart, silently fuming, turning the heart over and over in her hands.

  ‘What is it?’ said Tullus, politely.

  Wordlessly, she showed him.

  ‘That’s nice. Where did you pick it up? At the shrine?’

  ‘Over at the amulet maker’s workshop. The old man gave it to me. He thought I was looking for his assistant, Gaditanus.’

  ‘Who?’ His voice went up at the end, in disbelief.

  ‘Gaditanus. He was not there. He sells these at the … what’s the matter?’

  ‘Will you tell the Tribune, domina? I think he might be interested.’

  ‘No, I shall not tell the Tribune anything until he finds a civil tongue in his head. I am a Brigant—’

  ‘Yes, a Brigantian Princess, I know, but I think you should. Quintus! Come here, man. What does the name Gaditanus mean to you? Isn’t that what you Cadiz men call yourselves?’

  ‘From Cadiz. Yes. Why?’ Quintus frowned at Tullus, then at Brighid’s tight-lipped mouth. ‘Princess,’ he said,’ tell me, if you please. It’s important.’

  There was no mistaking his commanding voice, though the urge to make him wait was very strong. ‘A man called Gaditanus helps the old man to make and sell his votive offerings at the sacred shrine. I met him when I was there; he told me he works here. The old man gave me this.’ She held out her silver heart to show him, but he was staring at Tullus as if he’d seen an apparition.

  ‘How long has this man been working here? Not the old one. The other.’

  ‘He said about three moons.’

  A breath went out of Quintus that trembled and was sucked in again, sharply. ‘It’s worth taking a look,’ he said. ‘Which way?’

  ‘But he’s not there,’ Brighid said. ‘He’s on his way back …’

  But Quintus had already set off along the track, and she had no choice but to follow him to the amulet maker, who showed some concern at the sight of the red-haired woman with three burly men. Respectfully, he answered the Tribune’s questions, which he at first assumed were to do with the legality of his trade and his employing of an assistant without the permission of Watercombe’s owners. They had never seen Gaditanus, he told them, but he’d been taken on during the winter months when the trek to Aquae Sulis with a heavy basket had been too much for him personally. Gaditanus was strong, honest, and willing, once he had recovered.

  ‘Describe him to me, old man, if you will,’ said Quintus.

  ‘Tall. About your own age, I should think, and dark like yourself. He has a fresh scar on his brow, up here …’ he touched his white hairline ‘… but he’s said nothing about himself to me, and I’ve never asked. Do you think you might know him, my lord? He’s not in some kind of trouble, is he?’

  ‘No trouble, but, yes, I think I might know him. Would you tell him that Tribune Quintus Tiberius Martial has been asking after him? He may recall my name.’

  ‘Indeed, sir. My lords. Domina.’ He returned Brighid’s smile and picked up another leg to clamp into his vice.

  Brighid would rather have gone back to the room to change into dry clothes, but the hold on her hand was relentless, and she was not surprised that Quintus offered her no thanks for giving him the lead he’d been so desperate for. Apart from his hand clasped around hers, she had ceased to exist except as someone who irked him. It was not the way for a chieftain’s daughter to be appreciated, she told herself, angrily.

  Yet her sideways glances at his set expression, his strong determined jaw, his alert brown eyes that scanned the buildings as they approached, made her heart leap with love, aching for a gentle word from him, a look of tenderness. The pain in her heart became almost unbearable when the terrible alternative came back for review: Helm’s offer of security and status, her own identity valued for what it was, and a life lived in pride instead of slavery. She could do it. Yes, she could do it. She must not credit the Tribune with any finer feelings that would set her a
part from other women he’d known. Helm’s father needed a wife and the Tribune would marry a woman of his own kind. She must stop trying to make her dreams into reality, for that was not how things worked. The Brigantes were realists, not dreamers.

  She pulled back on his hand as they entered the men’s part of the bath-house, but Quintus kept hold of her, making a signal for silence. She thought he was about to take the steps down to the furnace room on the lower level but, on hearing the distant sound of voices raised in anger, he slipped off his sandals and motioned for her and the others to do the same.

  ‘That’s Valens’s voice,’ Lucan whispered. ‘He’s supposed to be away.’

  ‘And that’s Helm’s,’ Brighid said.

  Tullus had crossed to the half-open door that led directly to the tepidarium and from there to the next room where the space was taken up almost completely by a circular pool of cold water across which the two men’s voices echoed. Venturing further, Tullus waved them on, holding a hand up to warn them.

  The owner of Watercombe and his friend had obviously not gone there to bathe, for both were fully clothed, but to find shelter and privacy at a time when the bathhouse was deserted. Valens was leaning against one red-painted wall, his arms folded across his chest, his attitude contemptuous. On the other side of the pool stood Helm, whose belligerent stance was meant to show that he had the advantage, borne out by his words of defiance. ‘It was agreed months ago, Valens, as you well know, and there’s nothing you can do to change it. It’s a boy and he’s mine.’

  ‘Wrong, my friend. I sired him. He’ll stay here with me.’

  Quintus frowned at Brighid, her hand still in his grasp. ‘You didn’t tell me,’ he mouthed at her.

  She glared back. ‘You didn’t ask.’

  Again, Tullus held up a warning hand. The men had only to turn towards the doorway to see the four figures listening to the quarrel. Helm was shaking his head. ‘You’re not up to it, man. You’re slipping. You can’t even keep your captives secure any more, can you? The lad I brought in on the night I arrived you’ve already let slip. I could have had him halfway there by now if you’d had your wits about you. Now we’ve lost him.’

  ‘No, you couldn’t,’ said Valens. ‘You’d have been here waiting for your wife to perform, and that lad would be of no use to you half-dead from suffocation, would he? And how much help are you to me anyway, my bearded friend? Whenever I need you to take men to the mines you’ve been away on some wild goose chase. What good was your trip up north when you came back empty-handed? We’re never going to get paid if you’re diverting the work-force to your useless recruitment camp. It’s Cambrian mines where they’re needed, man, not your training grounds. The gold is split between us, remember, for my tax dues and your rebel causes, but we’ve seen nothing to show for it from your side yet, have we, fool?’

  ‘Then supply me with more men, Valens. Last time I was in Cambria they told me that one from here had got away, so how long will it be before he returns to spill the beans? It won’t last for ever, you know, and if you can’t get me the workers, I can’t get them to the mines and neither of us will get what we need to operate. Any dimwit can see that.’

  ‘Insult me at your peril, man,’ said Valens, placing his hands on his hips. ‘And if you want gold faster than you can get it from Cambria, then take it off the red-head when you get her back to your place. That should keep you going for a year or two. I still can’t believe she’s willing.’

  ‘She is,’ said Helm, his voice ringing out across the water.

  ‘Has she said so?’

  ‘Yes, only an hour ago. I made her a better offer than the clever Tribune’s, and she knows it. I may not get the brother now, but she’ll come.’

  Brighid felt the hand tighten over hers, pulling her to make her look at him; when she refused, he took her chin in his grip, turning her face to his. ‘You didn’t tell me,’ he mouthed.

  She met his eyes, stubbornly. You didn’t ask me.

  ‘Don’t even think it,’ he snarled, his eyes burning into hers.

  Tullus’s hand moved, flapping a warning. But it was too late.

  ‘What was that?’ said Helm, already whirling on the balls of his feet.

  Still holding Brighid, Quintus stepped forwards. ‘It’s me,’ he said, ‘come to contribute a few facts to your discussion. It’s been most entertaining, so far.’

  Valens appeared unflustered, even amused. ‘Well, if it’s not our clever Tribune and his sidekicks. And the beautiful slave. Helm, my friend,’ he said without looking at him, ‘while our busybodys are here in force, I suggest you go and help yourself to that strongbox in the Tribune’s room. You should be able to manage the guard. There’s only one of him.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Helm, ‘while you help yourself to my son, Valens. I think not. I know which I’d rather have, I thank you. Something that you’ll never have, for all your connections. A loyal wife and a son.’

  That stirred Valens as nothing else could. Enraged by those two home truths, he let out a roar of rage that resonated round the cavernous room, followed by a volley of oaths that called into question Helm’s birth, his parents’ birth and, naturally, Helm’s inability to father a child. And while this explained to the audience why he had agreed to marry the Lady Helena’s pregnant slave, it did not explain, except to the two people involved, his reasons for negotiating with Brighid’s father.

  ‘So while we’re on the subject of wives, sons and impotence,’ said Quintus, ‘let me put one other matter straight. I used the Princess to lead me to the man who is acting against the Emperor Septimus Severus. At the time, I did not intend her for anything beyond that. So if you have some grand idea that the lady will choose stability with you, Helm, rather than remain for the rest of her life in my protection, then I advise you to forget it. You have a son and a wife, but you do not have the woman who will be my wife. As for you, Publius Cato Valens …’

  My wife. My wife? Was that what he’d said?

  Brighid stared up at him, then beyond him to Lucan and Tullus, whose faces told her nothing they’d not expected, then at Helm, whose accusing eyes seemed to imply that she had deceived him. Quintus had not looked at her directly, and even now she thought she might be dreaming, while his voice boomed across the water on matters to do with tax evasion, forgery, murder, and the abduction of men into slave labour.

  Only half-listening, she could not tell what triggered the sudden explosion of activity, men running and chasing, roars of fury as Valens and Helm leapt into the pool to get at each other faster than running round it. Surges of water frothed over them as they heaved and ducked, wrestling and throwing each other while spitting out insults with the water. Shouts at them to stop were heard in the commotion, and would not have been heeded, but Helm’s dagger flashed, and Valen’s struggles became more desperate, for he was unarmed. A cloud of pink swirled through the foam and then, as Valens roared, twisting away, Helm dived like a dolphin, swimming underwater to the far end where Brighid had been told to stay by the door. The men lined the edge, ready to heave the wounded Valens out.

  But Helm did not wait to see. With water pouring off him in torrents, he headed straight for the door. Brighid could have tripped him, slammed the door shut, slowed his exit somehow, but she stood aside and allowed him to pass. He staggered back instead, bowled off his feet by a man who hurled himself headfirst like a demon into Helm’s body, ignoring the dagger, roaring with fury and all the impetus of a year-old rage. It was Alexius Tito Gaditanus, Quintus’s lost friend, now transformed from the smiling man who had sold offerings at Aquae Sulis to this raging fighting machine, rolling on the floor with murder in his heart and his hands clamped round Helm’s thick neck.

  The heavy gold torque at Helm’s throat, however, protected him from the full force of Alexius’s stranglehold and, as Helm heaved his assailant off, a gap appeared between them into which Brighid threw herself like an enraged mother breaking up a fight between her sons, knocking the astonished
men apart just long enough for Helm to roll away and scramble to his feet. And before Alexius could shake off her clinging, clawing hands, Helm had gone, slamming the door behind him.

  Lightning fast, Brighid hurled herself at the door and pressed her back against it, legs apart, head down, pointing the wet dagger directly at Alexius. It was her brother’s, stolen by Helm and already put to good use. She knew how to wield it, but never in cold blood, as a man could. A woman’s defence was tied to her emotions, and already her voice was husky and broken by the last few turbulent moments, her free hand pushing against one breast that burned with the pain of a blow from someone’s elbow. She could control neither pain, nor tears, nor rage.

  ‘Leave him!’ she panted. ‘Let him go! Let him go, I say!’

  ‘Domina,‘ Alexius whispered, pointing at the door. ‘He’s mine. I’ve waited long for this chance. Let me get at him.’

  ‘No!’ she screamed, hoarsely. ‘No!’

  Quintus and Tullus were already at his back, but Brighid misjudged their intentions, swinging the dagger point at them, too, preparing to launch herself in Helm’s defence. ‘Lass,’ Quintus said, gently.

  Hot tears filled her eyes, blinding her. ‘He has a wife,’ she gasped, ‘and a new son … and you cannot deprive her of his protection when she … she most … needs it. I don’t … care … what he’s done … but I had a maid once … who’d done nothing … to deserve.’ The memory of it, so recent, overwhelmed her as the dagger wavered and clattered to the floor, turning her away from their stares of masculine bafflement towards the door upon which she poured out tears of grief and doubt and hope.

  Hands caught her before she slid to the floor, contorted by her emotions, and she was lifted, sobbing, into the arms of the man she loved, the one whose throw-away words she still could not quite endow with the sincerity they ought to have. Carried away out of that dreadful place to the warm tepidarium, Quintus sat with her on the massage table in a tangle of arms and legs, soothing her with his hands and lips, and with the deep velvet voice that could change, too abruptly, to an officer’s command. He was, he admitted, sadly out of practice, a fault he intended to work on in the future.