14

‘You did know Macsen was a follower of Mithras.'

Elen stared at Julia in horror. ‘I had no idea.'

A year had passed since she arrived at Segontium. Today was Midsummer's Day. The Feast of St John.

The fort had two main shrines that she knew of: one dedicated to the goddess Minerva and one to Mars, the god of war; either or both could have been reconsecrated to the Christian faith after the decree of the Emperor Constantine that the whole empire become Christian, but it had obviously not happened in this faraway fort at the corner of the world. Macsen agreed instead that a room could be set aside for his wife's Christian worship, a house church, but nothing had happened and now she knew why.

‘Where is it? The temple?' Her mouth had gone dry.

Julia shook her head. ‘It's in the marshes down there, somewhere below the walls of the fort; a sacred place. We can't go there. No woman can. I shouldn't have mentioned it. I'm so sorry.' She noted Elen's confusion. ‘Mithras is the soldiers' god. Most of the officers here are initiates.'

‘Including your husband?'

Julia nodded.

‘And yet you are a follower of Christ?'

Julia nodded again. ‘Christ is a woman's god; at least, that is what the soldiers think.'

Elen stood up wearily. She was heavy with child, conceived at last in the previous winter after Macsen had finally returned to her bed. His attention had been determined and exhausting, and she had enjoyed it, the feelings she had experienced in their first months together re-awakening as her body responded to his, touch for touch and thrust for thrust, melting at his kisses and exchanging bite for bite. It was the moments of tenderness she treasured most, but also the new feeling of confidence and a profound belief in her own strength as a woman. She no longer felt inferior to the other wives, she was beautiful and strong, and above all she was fertile. But now the -summer heat was draining her. Her instinct was to go and drag her husband away from his pagan god with its bloody rituals, but she knew that would never be possible. There was nothing she could do even if she had the energy. He would come to see her again in his own time. Which was less and less often now as the days passed. ‘You need women around you, Nel,' he said kindly when she remonstrated at his neglect. ‘When our son is born, then I shall return.'

Their son.

Delyth was sure it would be a girl. As was the midwife who had been in residence for a week now, sent from Deva, where the Celtic woman was widely regarded as the best birth attendant in the province.

‘See how the child lies in your belly,' she said. ‘And see how she kicks. She will be a horse rider like her mother.'

Elen's rides around the farms and woods, exploring the shore of the Strait, the meanders of the River Seiont and beyond into the wild mountainous countryside, often on the black colt, but lately on a more docile mare, had made her notorious amongst the men of the fort. Macsen did not try to dissuade her. He was proud of his beautiful princess. Her unconventional ways were explained by her royal blood.

She gave a wince of pain and put her hand to her back. There had been no riding for a few weeks now and she missedit, cooped up in the fort with its high stone walls trapping the heat. They had been built originally to intimidate the local British tribes, but of late, with the local tribes friendly trading partners, they formed instead a much-needed protection against hostile pirate attacks from the sea, from Hibernia in the west and from the far north, and they were a base for her husband's increasing ambition. He was frustrated by the continued failure of support of men or money from the mainland empire. As far as the Emperor Gratian was concerned, Britannia was a distant -province, useful for its mineral riches and its taxes, but now too far away to be any kind of priority.

‘Shall I call someone to massage your back?'

Elen became aware of Julia leaning towards her, her face full of concern, and she realised that she had groaned out loud. She managed a smile. ‘That would be nice. I'm sorry. I'm not good company at the moment. Perhaps you could suggest to the -others that I need a rest?' The chatter of the women, well-meant though it was, was exhausting. Only Valeria seemed to have got the message and stayed away.

Julia stood up. ‘Of course. Anything you need, let me know.'

Mithras .

As Elen lay back on her bed, soothed by the gentle hand movements of the masseuse as she rubbed in the warm olive oil infused with lavender and by the quiet harp music played by the girl sitting in the corner of the bedchamber, her mind kept repeating the single word. The soldiers' god. Temples drenched in the blood of the slaughtered white bull. No -wonder her mentions of Christ had left her husband unresponsive. -Christianity had been a religion within the Roman Empire for seventy years now, permitted by the tolerant Roman occupiers as one of many. Only one religion was banned: that of the Druids, who had been too clever, too political, too fearsome for their Roman oppressors. They were educated, organised and -inimical to the ambitions of their enemies. The most sacred place forthe Druids had been the Island of M?n, over there on the far side of the Strait, within sight of the fort which was now her home, a fort built specifically to suppress them. They had had to go, massacred and officially wiped off the face of the map by Agricola some three hundred years before. They still existed, of course. Everyone knew that. But now they were cautious. Their scholars even frequented the court of the emperor, but as philosophers and poets; only underground did they still present as a powerful force. Branwen was a Druid. And so, perhaps, was Elen's own father at heart, for all his lip service to Christianity. But now it was the Christian faith that was spreading. Christianity with its gentle god who no longer appeared to be a threat to anyone had been enthusiastically adopted throughout the empire, but mainly amongst women. Not all women. Elen had seen small altars dotted around the fort with their offerings of flowers and food and effigies of Minerva. Her own shrine to Christ and his mother was in the corner of the garden. She still had no chapel. But there was a little monastery along the coast. She had visited the monks there when out riding. And there was a holy man, a hermit, only half a day's ride away in the foothills of Eryri.

Macsen ignored the local Christians. Patrolling the mountain routes and the shoreline with his troops, his attention was directed towards signs of pirates, attacks from the aggressive tribes from Caledonia and from Hibernia, but his full concentration was fixed on distant ambitions. So did he pray to Mithras and the Unconquered Sun for success in his endeavours? She jumped as the baby kicked under her ribs and the masseuse laughed. ‘Not long now, Princess. Your child is eager for the world.'

Elen's daughter, Maxima, was born on the Ides of July, a bouncing baby with a head of dark curls and a pair of lungs to outyell the shouts of the troops who had drawn up outside the house to drink the health of their general's child. Macsen hid his disappointment at not having a son well, giving her his name and his blessing. A message was sent south to tell Elen's father of the safe delivery of his first grandchild and on the eighth day, as was customary in Julia's household, and according to her throughout the Roman world, the birth of a girl baby was celebrated with special rites of purification that Julia as her patroness oversaw. Elen took part in the feasting and giving of gifts, but deep in her heart she wanted more for her daughter. Those rites were pagan. The thanks were directed at the goddess Juno, and to the local goddess, Ffraid. She wanted Maxima to have a Christian baptism.

Only two days after the purification, when his daughter was ten days old, Macsen, with his son Constantine at his side, led the larger part of the garrison out of the fort. He had called for a meeting of field commanders and regional leaders in Eboracum. He left Elen and the baby behind, guarded by the remainder of the garrison under the command of Titus Octavius, Julia's husband. Valeria's husband, Claudius Valentius, and Macsen's ADC, his brother Marcellinus, rode at his shoulder at the head of the cohorts, together with the young prince Vortigern who had joined him from one of the local tribes.

Julia was full of importance. ‘It's a fantastic promotion for Titus. Your safety, all of our safety is in his hands.'

Elen waved away the nursemaid in charge of the baby. As soon as the girl was sitting in the shade on the far side of the courtyard, rocking the cradle and well out of earshot, she leaned forward. ‘But there is no danger, surely? My husband would not have gone if there was any intelligence of marauding pirates nearby.'

Julia looked offended. ‘There is always the risk of danger. That is why he left his best officer in charge.'

‘Of course. I didn't mean to imply otherwise.' Elen was only slowly learning to guard her tongue but sometimes she spoke without thinking and Julia was easily offended. ‘I feel completely safe here.'

So safe in fact that with Delyth's help she had arranged a secret outing. It was a small group consisting of Rhys and two sturdy British grooms, Delyth, the wet nurse, and Nia and Sian, Elen's closest attendants. With them were four British slaves, armed with staves, all part of Elen's household, and one of the horse boys, a young man who had special care of Emrys and who, Elen knew, had been selected for training by Rhys with a view to one day being put in sole charge of this most special horse. Elen had already vowed to give the slaves their freedom as a reward for their part in today's ceremony. All of them had come with her from the south. All of them were Christians. Gemma was left behind in the care of one of the younger house slaves. Their destination was the hermitage tucked up a narrow valley in the foothills, the site of a spring that had already been sacred for a thousand years.

The servants left behind were instructed to inform Julia and anyone else who called at the commander's house that the princess was feeling tired and had decided to spend the day in bed. Valeria Valentina had, it appeared, accompanied her husband to the meeting at Eboracum. Julia had conveyed the news with a quick glance at Elen, which was nothing if not embarrassed when she told her. Perhaps she suspected that Titus was after all not the most senior officer on the base. That accolade had left with Claudius Valentius, who had taken his wife and his own household with him.

The duty guard at the gatehouse had been sworn to secrecy, with suitable threats that if anyone betrayed news of the outing of the general's wife and her party they would be instantly demoted if not dismissed from the service, but the parade ground was deserted as they left, the guardsmen keeping their eyes carefully averted. Of Julia there was no sign.

The day was already hot and humid as the party set off just after dawn, following the road south through farmland and woods and then turning at last up the steep narrow track which led eventually between rocky outcrops and towering cliffs towards the hermit's cave. Little Maxima slept soundly, tightly bound in her swaddling shawl against her nurse's breast, lulled by the steady gait of the sturdy mountain pony. The party were all mounted, Elen on Emrys, happy to be back in the saddle at last, Rhys and the horse boy riding beside her, the others all following closely behind as the track climbed more and more steeply into the wild foothills.

The half-hidden cave opened onto a narrow rock platform beside a gushing spring. Offerings of coins and jewellery lay in the shallow basin below the jet of water and flower petals floated in the whirlpool before the stream ran over the edge of the rock and plunged down towards the narrow cwm below. There they halted and dismounted. The four slaves and the boy were detailed to remain with the horses, and the rest of the party climbed the long flight of rough-hewn steps towards the cave. The hermit greeted them with a blessing. He was an elderly man with a white beard and soft grey eyes. He stepped forward to take the baby from her nurse with a gentle smile.

Elen had chosen her baptismal name with care. Mair, for the mother of Christ. She knew the little girl would never go by that name– to her father she was already Maxima, but after her baptism the child was doubly blessed and safe, protected by her secret name and by the tiny gold cross which had been tucked beneath her swaddling bands when she was re-dressed, a squalling red-faced bundle who had not enjoyed her part of the ceremony one bit. Her sponsors were Delyth and Rhys, if not of royal blood, nevertheless her brother and sister in Christ, and as such, both kissed the little girl on the forehead.

The ceremony over, the party returned down the steep steps to the narrow strip of meadow at the valley's bottom where one of the slaves had been laying out a picnic on rugs on the edge of the stream while the boy took the horses, two by two, further down to a shallow pool where they could drink.

When the attack came it was sudden and vicious. More than two dozen heavily armed men with shouts and screams of defiance, most brandishing swords and daggers, some armed with quarterstaffs, surged onto the grass and before anyone knew what was happening the boy with the horses by the stream lay dead on the ground. Everyone froze. There was no escape, no chance for even one of their men to reach for a weapon. No one spoke. Their attackers fell silent as their leader, a man with wild red hair and beard and piercing green eyes, singled Elen out at one glance. Her mantle, her jewellery, her hair, marked her out as a rich woman. He approached with a ferocious fixed smile on his face. ‘There is no need for anyone else to die. Tell your followers to put their weapons and jewels on the ground for my men to collect.' He spoke with a thick lilting accent.

Elen collected herself with difficulty, conscious of his knuckles tightening over the hilt of the dagger in his hand. Taking a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders and stepped towards him. ‘Do you know who I am?' Her voice rang out clearly across the grass. She saw his eyebrows shoot up. He had not been expecting defiance.

‘No, I don't know who you are, and I'm sure I don't care!'

‘Well, perhaps you should.' She was aware of the total silence around them. Everyone was holding their breath. ‘I am the daughter of the high king.' Her voice rang out over the -gentle gurgle of water in the stream.

It was a gamble. She suspected he was a pirate from Hibernia or perhaps a Pict from Caledonia. Either way he would owe no allegiance to any king on the island of Britannia but Mammon. But another voice had lifted after hers.

‘And I, my friends, am your father in Christ.' No one had been watching the hermit, standing above them on his rocky dais, his staff in his hand. He had declined the invitation to join in their picnic, retiring into his cave to pray, but now he emerged to stand above them in the full light of the sun. ‘I command you to put up your weapons. There is no gold here. Even our king's daughter has little. I am sure she will throw you her woman's bangles if they mean so much to you. We came here to worship Christ, not to display our wealth. And what riches did that poor boy there have that he deserved to be slain?' He pointed at the young man lying in a pool of blood by the stream, the severed leading rein of one of the horses trailing from his hand. The horses themselves had fled into a rocky defile below the meadow.

There was an uncomfortable silence but the man's expression did not change. Elen stepped forward and pulled the bangles off her wrist. They were chased gold, a present from her father on her marriage, but she threw them down on the ground at the man's feet. ‘Do you want my wedding ring as well?' she asked, her voice heavy with disdain. ‘I advise against it as my husband is the leader of all the armies of Rome on this island and you have already done enough to incur his fury.'

This time the leader of the ruffians did react. Was it possible he hadn't known who she was? But of course she wasn't guarded by a troop of soldiers. Her small bodyguard of men did not wear any insignia. She saw the man's gaze shift slightly. One or two of his followers had grown restless and she wondered if they were readying themselves to commit murder or to flee.

Above their heads the hermit took a step forward. He raised his right hand and slowly and deliberately made the sign of the cross. ‘Go in peace,' he cried, his voice echoing off the rocks behind him.

None of them had noticed Elen's colt walking steadily out of the rocky shadows towards his mistress. At the sound of the echoing shout from the man of God, so loud in the silence around them, the horse reared up, letting out a shrill whinny of rage. Instantly the attackers broke rank and fled. One of them turned back and with a challenging glance at Elen scooped her bracelets out of the grass, then he too disappeared after the others, lost from sight almost at once on the rocky mountainside.