Slave Princess

by Juliet Landon

  ‘Right,’ said Quintus, resuming his seat. ‘You do that.’

  Math watched his sister’s dignified departure. ‘With respect, I think you may have said the wrong thing sir,’ he said.

  ‘Did she ever kill anyone with that look, young man?’

  ‘That’s usually the intention, sir. She’s still perfecting it.’

  ‘Uh-huh! I don’t suppose I have long, then.’

  Brighid would have liked to hear what was being said to the two guards, guessing that it was sure to concern the fate of the man to whom she had unwittingly led them. Well, she thought, crossly shaking out one of the new linen lengths, it would serve the double-dealing louse right, whatever they decided, quite forgetting in her quest for vengeance that he would leave behind a wife and unborn child. Now, where could she find something to remove all these creases?

  Her search led her to a corridor along which guests could reach the gymnasia, the baths and, for slaves, the laundry and kitchens. Without a maid, Brighid’s appearance raised a few eyebrows, but she soon found a space where she could damp the linen and lay it under a screw-press, which is where she was joined, most unexpectedly, by Helena Coronis. ‘You should let your maid do that, Princess,’ said the lady through a hiss of steam. Brown-clad slaves moved like ghosts behind wicker cages draped with white togas and sheets, and the clatter of water hitting bowls softened her words. She took hold of one end, ready to draw it through the press as Brighid released the screws.

  ‘Yes, I lost her just before we left Eboracum. I’m having to fend for myself,’ she replied. ‘I miss her sorely.’ Brighid stopped feeding the linen into the plates and looked up. ‘There, that’s one length. Now for the green.’

  Helena Coronis held laughter in her eyes at last. ‘That’s how it’s done. Were you sorry to leave Eboracum?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Brighid admitted. ‘The prospect of visiting the shrine at Aquae Sulis where my own deity resides was too good to miss.’

  ‘Brigantia?’

  ‘Yes,’ Brighid said, twisting the screw again. ‘She’s also known as Minerva down here, I believe.’ She looked across the table, but her hostess was still gently smoothing the linen into a neat pile, her dark pleated hair now uncovered, glistening with droplets of steam. Her hands were long and deft, her sleeves showing bare wrists where the fabric had been pushed up and, just below the cuff, soft smudges of grey-blue and crimson bruised the delicate skin. No wonder, Brighid thought, she had winced when her arm was touched. It was no accident, however, that when their eyes met, Helena Coronis made no attempt to cover her injuries, as if she wanted them to be noted, their origin to be deduced. Only then, when she knew Brighid had seen, did she adjust the fabric over her wrists and continue to smooth the linen.

  ‘I wanted to thank you,’ the lady whispered, ‘not only for what you did yesterday but for saying nothing of our meeting. My litter-bearers will say I was visiting friends. They are very loyal.’

  ‘You need have no concerns, my lady. Tullus is the soul of discretion.’

  ‘Please thank him for me.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘And tell him that—’ her eyes darted sideways ‘—my husband has friends at the tax office.’

  Brighid stared at her, her hands once again idle. ‘Friends?’

  ‘Yes, officials. There we are. I think that’s it. If you need some help with the sewing, I can send you some girls. I would let you have Dora, but she’s getting near her time.’

  ‘Is that why her husband is to visit?’

  ‘Oh, yes, to be sure.’ Such a casually spoken reply was bound to be some way from the truth.

  Carrying the pile of linen across her arms, Brighid was about to turn away when she was levered back into the door recess by the lady’s arm, the hand covering her mouth. Obediently, she flattened herself, clutching the linen to her chest as several men crossed the end of the corridor led by Valens, the lady’s husband. ‘He’s showing them to baths and boiler rooms,’ Helena Coronia whispered.

  ‘And you don’t want him to see you talking to me,’ Brighid said.

  The lady’s eyes closed with a sigh. ‘I don’t wish to face an inquisition about what I said, what you said, and why. That’s all.’

  ‘But I’m the Tribune’s healer,’ she said, looking down at her layers of folded linen. ‘I’ve been treating his wound.’

  ‘Oh, I have no doubt of that at all. That’s probably why he forgets to limp sometimes, especially up and down the steps.’

  Their laughter was almost inaudible. ‘It was me who wanted to stay here,’ Brighid said. ‘We had to have a reason to stay in such a lovely place, even though the knee is almost mended.’

  ‘At this time of the year, business is only just starting to pick up. I wonder if you would pass on a piece of information to the Tribune, though I would not want him to acknowledge that it comes from me. Tell him, when he is asked who recommended Watercombe to him, to say that it was Nonius.’

  ‘But he said it was a man at the tax office who—’

  ‘Yes, dear. Nonius is the head of the tax office. My husband’s friend.’

  ‘Then I shall certainly remind him of that, my lady. It was Nonius.’

  ‘Until this evening then, Princess.’

  ‘Thank you for your help.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear about your maid. Let me know if … ‘

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  Brighid’s return to the suite was greeted by Math and Florian who had no time to wipe the frantic expressions off their faces before the door closed. One of the guards stood outside on the wooden-railed balcony, arms folded across his chest. ‘Where in the name of Zeus have you been, domina?’ said Florian, with a hand clapped dramatically to his forehead. ‘We were told to find you. Fast.’

  ‘I don’t mind you claiming success,’ said Brighid, laying her linen down carefully. ‘You found me in the laundry doing this, and I came back like a lamb, you see, and now you can help me to cut it up. My shears are in that workbox, Math. Where are the men?’

  ‘Invited to tour the water systems,’ he said, eyeing her with suspicion. ‘And next time you go off somewhere, you’d better say where you’re going or we shall get it in the neck.’

  ‘I am most unlikely to say any such thing,’ Brighid responded, rummaging for her tools. ‘What on earth would you two find to do if you didn’t have me to look for? Florian, don’t just stand there. Help me.’

  As if Brighid’s imperious manner was somehow Math’s fault, Florian sent his friend a look of resentment that changed to a grin as he saw the grotesque face being aimed at her back. ‘Certainly, domina,’ he said.

  The time it took for Quintus and his friends to be conducted round the site was all the time Brighid needed to sew the straight seams and hems of the violet gold-embroidered linen she intended to wear that night. It also gave her the chance to think back over her meeting with Helena Coronis and the various messages she had slipped into their conversation that seemed to explain her sorrow at the shrine. If her younger husband was ill treating her, that would also explain why he was so firmly excluded from being one of the loves of her life, and why she showed signs of unease when he looked at her. Another hint was the head of the tax office who, for some reason, the lady wished to take responsibility for recommending their stay here. Did it matter who recommended it? And was it significant that Valens had friends there?

  Certainly the lady’s assistance was more an example of helping a guest to deceive her husband than of wifely support. Yet the two daughters had shown no reserve in his presence. One had walked and laughed with him, the other had run to hold his hand. The affections of a four-year-old were quite transparent. There could be no problem there, then.

  The tour of Watercombe’s hydraulics system kept the men in conversation long after Valens had left them, for although the workshops had been excluded, their interest in the water power, the heating systems and the utilisation of every drop of water, both waste and pure, was both genuine
and well informed, all three being familiar with the engineering of other countries. Impressed by the owner’s capabilities, it was some time before they all went off to the baths, leaving Brighid with the distinct impression that this might be the sole topic of conversation all through dinner and well into the night. There had been a time in ancient Greece, she understood, when dinner was a men-only affair. Not so the Romans—more was the pity, she said to Math. What had the Tribune decided to do with Helm?

  ‘Come on!’ she cried. ‘He must have known you’d tell me.’ She thought he looked different, more relaxed, happier, his eyes softer. Very handsome. No wonder Florian was attracted to him.

  ‘The Tribune wants to know what he’s doing here,’ he said, reluctantly. ‘They have to watch his movements. He doesn’t believe he visits just to see his wife. He’s sure he needs money for this enterprise of his, whatever it is.’

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘No. Father never discussed anything with me, did he?’

  ‘It’s a plot by Helm and his tribe to raise an army against the Emperor, Math. Getting powerful men behind them. Like Father. That’s why he wanted a connection with the Brigantii. That’s why he offered for me.’

  ‘He thought Father would fall over himself to have a Dobunni man as a son-in-law, that he’d even pay him to make it happen. He didn’t know our father very well, did he? Father expected payment from him. A large one. Too large for Helm. He’s a nasty piece of work, Bridie love. You’re well rid of him. Whatever your feelings are for your slave master, I believe you’ll fare better with him than with Helm. Whatever you do, don’t agree to go off with him. Once they’ve found out what they want to know, they’ll kill him.’

  ‘They?’

  Eloquently, Math tipped his head towards the guard who stood outside the door with his back to them.

  ‘And what of his wife and unborn child?’

  He shrugged, shaking his head. ‘She’s not part of the equation,’ he said.

  ‘Typical!’ she whispered, savagely. ‘So what makes you think I shall be better off with the Tribune, I wonder, when a woman and child have no part in the equation?’

  ‘You’re not …?’

  ‘Of course I’m not, idiot! But it’s only a matter of time, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered, turning away. ‘I’m going to bathe. Come with me.’

  Later, she had a chance to pass on the message to Quintus.

  ‘I have something to tell you, Tribune. From Helena Coronis.’

  ‘Oh? Then tell me.’

  ‘She wants you to say it was a man called Nonius at the tax office who recommended Watercombe to you.’

  His eyes widened fractionally, his slight frown jerking his head down before he spoke. ‘You’re sure it was Nonius? He’s the head—’

  ‘Yes, of the tax office. A friend of Valens.’

  The deep brown of his eyes appeared to absorb the information while he searched over her shoulder for a place to store it. ‘Well, well,’ he said, quietly.

  ‘You must not say that she told you this.’

  ‘Of course not. But this suggests …’

  ‘That she’s telling you something about her husband. And there’s something else, too. I saw her arms covered in bruises. She knows I saw them. She gave no reasons for them being there, but I think she was telling me that that was the reason she was at the shrine yesterday, when we first met.’

  ‘When she fainted?’

  ‘Yes. She asked me to thank Tullus and to say thank you for not letting on that she was there. Obviously, she’s anxious for her husband not to know.’

  ‘But he has every right to know, as her husband.’

  ‘That’s not quite how it came across. Not to me.’

  ‘How did it come across? To you.’

  ‘As if she was afraid of him.’

  ‘Too big,’ he whispered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Too big. Your eyes. Your mouth. I could eat you.’ His face had moved closer as she talked, his eyes half-closed with desire, his mind already veering away from Helena Coronis and her husband.

  ‘I would spoil your appetite for dinner,’ she whispered back.

  ‘There is that danger,’ he said, placing his hands on her waist, searching her voluptuous body with his eyes while pulling her gently towards him. ‘So I shall wait until afterwards.’

  ‘You’ll still be talking waterworks at dawn,’ she teased.

  ‘Is that what you think, Princess? Let’s see, shall we?’ His silky wayward hair brushed her forehead as he bent her to him, taking her mouth in a tenderly tormenting kiss meant to remind her of his intentions, and of the way he hungered for her.

  But as they walked across to the triclinium through lamplit arcades, the enigma of making the man called Nonius responsible for their being here was held at the back of Quintus’s mind like a knot that wouldn’t stay tied. If the Lady Helena was setting her husband up, which was not impossible, then she was perhaps hinting that Nonius would be the very last person to want a Provincial Procurator snooping around Watercombe and that, if Valens believed it, his friend Nonius would have some explaining to do. Added to that was the flimsy excuse Valens had offered when Lucan had asked to see the workshops. There had, in fact, been plenty of time, but no inclination. He was brought sharply back to the present when Brighid observed that he was again forgetting to limp. Behind them, Tullus and Lucan exchanged looks of concern. The Tribune had spent several hours that afternoon clambering over rough ground, half-built hypercausts and steps without the slightest discomfort.

  It was the first thing Publius Cato Valens asked about, noting the convincing wince of pain as Quintus arranged himself on the couch of honour at the head of the three-sided arrangement. Tenderly ministering, Brighid arranged the toga over his legs before joining him. ‘Quite painful after all that scrambling,’ said Quintus, ‘but it was worth it. One can’t allow an old wound to get in the way of learning. What a blessing it turned out to be when I mentioned it to Nonius. He was determined I ought to visit Watercombe to seek a cure.’

  ‘Nonius … at the tax office? That Nonius?’ Valens’s attempt at nonchalance was sadly overdone.

  ‘The very same. Do you know him? Bald. Well made. An excellent man. One of the best.’

  ‘Hmmm!’ said Valens, scratching his nose. ‘I wouldn’t know.’ His blue eyes were hard like stones, softening as they rested upon his lissome stepdaughter. She was arranged on the couch near her mother, who preferred to sit in a wicker chair with padded arms rather than with her husband. Intercepting a smile between Valens and Clodia, Brighid was intrigued to see how the girl blushed and looked down, and how his eyes caressed her before catching Brighid’s inquisitive glance.

  Immediately, the eyes changed, challenging her with a look of frightening directness. ‘Princess,’ he said from the other side of Quintus, ‘tell me something about your ornaments, if you will.’ She thought he must mean their symbolism, but apparently not. ‘Are they solid gold, or hollow?’ he wanted to know.

  She smiled, as if he had made a joke. ‘I doubt if I’d be able to walk in here with them on if they were solid,’ she replied. ‘No, they’re made of sheets of beaten gold, and the smaller pieces are twisted and coiled gold wire. Not too heavy.’

  ‘But valuable, eh?’

  ‘Invaluable to me, sir.’

  ‘Hmmm, yes, of course.’ He stared hard at his fingernails before abruptly swinging the conversation round to the food arriving at the table, to the fine wine the slaves were pouring, and Brighid could see why Helena Coronis would have been attracted to his glowing robust health and restless energy, a certain rough directness that would have taken her widowhood by storm. Refusing to take no for an answer, blustering his way over her threshold, he would have been careful to keep his bullying under control, and she would have been reassured by his fondness for her daughter on the verge of puberty, a difficult age for a girl to accept a rival for her mother’s
attention. He wore a voluminous toga of cream linen with panels of brown-and-gold stripes that echoed the gold sheen of his shaved head, and his hands were strong, gold-ringed and well manicured. But as well as his physical attractiveness, Brighid wondered what direction Valens’s fondness for Clodia took, having noticed how often his eyes wandered over the pale pink chiton bound beneath her young breasts and the curve of her hip as she reclined. When her chiton slipped off one shoulder, Helena Coronis eased it back into place, earning a frown of irritation from her daughter, who apparently wanted it to stay.

  The meal was a tribute to their hostess. Simple healthy fare, Valens had told them, all locally grown produce; only the wines and snails had crossed the seas. They started with honeyed wine, stuffed kidneys in sauce and tiny cubes of roast venison, with the snails as a merry talking point. Before them, a verandah gave on to a garden lit by lamps and flickering lanterns. Behind them were panels of garden revelry, dancing girls and eager satyrs, swags of flowers, ribbons and masks leering from the top borders, more to the host’s taste, Brighid felt, than their hostess’s.

  Inevitably, the conversation turned to Valens’s alterations to Watercombe and of his contribution to other hydraulics schemes, consultancies and planning. His work had taken him the length of the country. He knew the family with whom they had stayed on their way down, whose daughter Flavia was a budding gladiatrix. His face lit up at that for, he said, looking pointedly at Clodia, he was determined to have his stepdaughter try it, too.

  Eyes turned to Clodia for her reaction. Perhaps her stepfather was teasing. Her eyes were downcast, but she was smiling, disregarding her mother’s sharp glance that silently pleaded with her husband to say no more of that. Laughing at the discomfort he had caused, Valens tipped back his head to drop a morsel of food into his mouth, looking round at the silent faces as he chewed.

  ‘You approve of that, do you?’ said Quintus.

  The reply was predictably unfeeling. ‘Yes. It shows what a woman is made of.’

  ‘Well,’ said Quintus, keeping his voice level, ‘I can suggest a dozen or so better ways to find out what a woman is made of without resorting to violence, my friend. They might be somewhat slower in nature, but at least no one gets injured in the process. Does the Lady Helena share your urgency, Valens?’