The Warrior’s Princess

Copyright

This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2008

Copyright © Barbara Erskine 2008

Map and chapter head illustrations © Andrew Ashton 2008

Barbara Erskine asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007174287

Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780007287208

Version: 2019-03-04

For Liz Graham and for Brian Taylor In memory of happy conversations much missed

Contents

Title Page Copyright Dedication Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty One Chapter Twenty Two Chapter Twenty Three Chapter Twenty Four Chapter Twenty Five Chapter Twenty Six Chapter Twenty Seven Chapter Twenty Eight Chapter Twenty Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty One Chapter Thirty Two Chapter Thirty Three Chapter Thirty Four Chapter Thirty Five Chapter Thirty Six Keep Reading Author's Note By the Same Author About the Author About the Publisher

Prologue

In her dream Jess was standing on the track near the wood. In front of her the gnarled, ancient oaks and taller, stately ash stood in a solid silhouette against the moonlit sky. Behind her, her sister’s white-painted stone-built farmhouse lay sleeping in the warm silence of the summer night, bathed in moonlight, pots of lavender and rosemary mingling their sweet fragrance with that of the wild mountain thyme in the still air.

‘Where are you?’ The child’s voice was clear in the silence, coming from deep within the trees. ‘Are we still playing the game?’

In answer the leaves of the trees rustled in the gentle breeze.

‘Hello?’ Jess took a step towards the wood. From where she was standing she couldn’t see the track which led into its depths.

There was no reply.

Jess moved closer to the trees. ‘Are you there?’ A slight chill played across her skin and she felt herself shiver.

Behind her the house was silent. The windows dark. She had been aware, seconds before, that there were people there, asleep. Her sister. Her sister’s friends. Her own friends. Now she knew in the calm logic of her dream that the house was empty. The curtainless windows were blankly staring eyes and the hearth was cold.

‘Where are you?’ The child’s voice was closer now. She could hear the fear in it.

‘I’m here.’ Jess ran a few steps closer to the wood. ‘Follow my voice. I’m here. On the track!’

She could hear the wind in the valley now, its gentle murmur growing louder as the branches of the trees began to move. The sound was coming closer, the whisper turning into a roar. She could feel the cold on her face. Then in her hair. Across the broad valley moonshadows raced across the dark swell of the hills.

‘Come to me, sweetheart. You don’t want to be caught in the storm. You’ll be safe here with me. We’ll go and hide in the house!’ She was shouting now as loudly as she could, hurling the words towards the thrashing branches.

Then she saw her in the moonlight as the black clouds raced up the valley towards her. A girl with pale, flaxen hair, a long dress, colourless in the whirling shadows, her feet bare, her arms outstretched in desperation, her eyes huge in her frightened face.

‘Come on, sweetheart! I’m here!’ Jess was running towards her. She was only feet away now. In a second she would be able to reach the child, to draw her into her arms to safety.

The moon vanished for a second. When it reappeared the squall had passed. The night was silent. The girl was no longer there.

‘Jess?’ The voice behind her was her sister’s. ‘Jess! Come inside. You shouldn’t be out in the dark alone.’

In her sleep Jess turned over and reached for her pillow. Tears were trickling down her cheeks. Already the dream was gone.

1

The curtains were open. There were voices in her head. A lost child, crying; two children. Three …

For a while Jess lay completely still staring, puzzled, at the narrow beam of sunlight as it moved slowly across the painting on the wall. Her painting. Her picture of the woods behind her sister’s house with the leaves touched to fire by the first frosts of autumn. There were magentas there and crimsons she did not remember seeing before, though she herself had painted it. Extraordinary, beautiful details; nuances of shadow that without that spotlight she had never fully appreciated. Why? Why hadn’t she studied it properly like this before? Why had she not looked at it in its full glory?

And where were the children?

Moving her head to glance out of the window a dizzying wave of nausea overwhelmed her. She groaned, the picture and the dream forgotten. Outside the window she could hear the roar of traffic in the distance as it surged up towards the lights at the High Street crossroads, briefly stopped and surged on again. When she dared to open her eyes again the sunlight had moved on and the picture was once more in its accustomed shadow.

Raising herself with difficulty she squinted at her bedside clock. ‘Shit!’ It was midday. No wonder everything in the room looked different. With a groan she swung her legs over the side of the bed, her head spinning. How much had she had to drink the night before? Levering herself upright she caught sight of herself in the mirror and stared, appalled. Her blonde, shoulder-length hair was straggly, her eyes, normally a clear blue-grey, were bloodshot and slightly swollen. Her gaze moved on down her body and she froze with horror. The pretty new blouse she had worn to the party was torn almost in two; her bra had been dragged down below her breasts; her skirt had been pulled up around her waist. Looking down at herself disbelievingly she ran a finger over the livid bruise on her thigh, the raw scratch across her belly. There were more bruises on her arms.

‘Oh God! What’s happened to me?’

The words hung soundlessly in the room as she stared back at her reflection. Staggering slightly, she made her way to the door of the bedroom and clinging to the frame, she peered through. There on the coffee table in the living room were two wine glasses, stained with the dregs of red wine. The empty bottle was lying under the table. Whoever had been in the flat with her the night before, there was no one there now; nor in the kitchen, nor in the bathroom. The front door was closed. With shaking hands she examined the locks. No one had broken in. Whoever had been in here with her had not forced an entry. She must have asked them in.

She had been at the end of term party at school, that much she could recall vaguely. Beyond that, nothing. What had she had to drink while she was there? Where had she gone after the disco? Who had she been with? She could remember nothing.

The end of term disco had been in full swing when she had arrived. The sixth form college sports hall was a whirl of spinning lights and the noise astronomic. She stood in the double doorway, open to the humid air of the summer night, reluctant to step inside. She wanted to clap her hands to her ears, she wanted to turn and run, anything but plunge into the heavy mass of perspiring bodies with the overpowering smell of cheap scent, aftershave, stale tobacco, weed, sweat and booze. They hadn’t managed to frisk all the kids then. But what was the point. They were selling drink inside the hall and half of them were legally allowed to drink anyway.

‘Hi, Jess!’ A figure emerged out of the heaving darkness. Dan Nicolson, her head of department, stepped out onto the tarmacked parking area outside the hall and gave her a weary grin. ‘I’m getting too old for this!’ His lurid T-shirt belied his words; this was the one night of the year he let himself be seen at the college without more formal attire.

She laughed. ‘I’ve always been too old for it, Dan. Since the day I was born. You’re looking very cool.’ His short mouse-coloured hair had been brushed to stand upright, his brown eyes were hidden by a pair of designer shades. ‘I hear you’ve drawn the short straw. You’ve got to stay to the bitter end?’

‘And tear the copulating kids apart!’ He glanced heavenwards. ‘Unless I can persuade someone else to do it. Can I get you a drink?’ He pushed the glasses up onto the top of his head.

She nodded. The wave of noise coming out of the doors was too loud to fight. What it was like inside she could imagine all too well, but she had promised she would come and she had promised someone a dance. Ashley. Ash was her most promising pupil, the most promising for years. Destined to get Grade A in every subject he was taking, this young Jamaican was someone in whom she had invested a huge amount of time and effort and she could see him even now in the distance with his mixing desks on the stage, cranking up the volume. All she had to do was make sure he had seen her there, wave, raise her thumb in acknowledgement, shrug to show that there was no need to dance, something that was anyway all but impossible in that wall to wall crowd, then she could slip away.

As Dan disappeared towards the bar somewhere in the depths of the hall, another colleague appeared at her side. ‘Hi, Jess!’ Will Matthews grimaced at the noise. ‘We’ll be in trouble for this with the neighbours.’ He gestured towards the doors of the hall with a half-empty bottle of lager.

She and this tall, good-looking blonde-haired man had been an item for most of the three years she had taught English literature at North Woodley Sixth Form College in south London. Most, but not now. Will was senior master in the history department. He also coached basket ball, squash and athletics. In an open-necked blue shirt, jeans and a heavily engraved and studded leather belt he was, she noticed, the target of several pairs of lustful eyes amongst his teenage girl pupils.

She and Will had been a perfect couple in so many ways, but there had always been something between them that was not quite right. Will’s ambition, perhaps; his assumption, engendered courtesy of an adoring mother and two younger sisters, that he was irresistible, his tendency to assume that his work, his career, his opinions all took precedence over hers, his probably unintentionally patronising attitude to the study of literature as a career and to her undoubted talent as a water colourist. That had all rankled with her and when he had asked her to move in with him she had realised that on top of all those irritations, she couldn’t bear to lose her independence, however much they loved each other. That had started them on the slippery slope towards the break up.

There wasn’t another woman, at least she had never heard that there was anyone. It was purely his refusal to compromise and acknowledge her autonomy that had finally come between them, ended their relationship over the course of two or three short weeks and left her angry and uncomprehending and Will unhappy and bitter. After their acrimonious parting they had avoided each other completely, hard to do within the college, but still perfectly possible if they both worked at it. Which they had done. Until now.

‘Come on, Jess. What about a dance for old times’ sake?’ He grinned at her winningly.

She frowned. ‘I don’t think so, Will.’

‘Oh, come on. To show there are no hard feelings? End of term. Good results, please God! Then you need never see me again!’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Why? Are you leaving?’

He laughed. ‘You wish! No, but I promise I shall avoid you next term like the plague itself.’

She fought the urge to smile back. That smile of his had always been her downfall. It was too charming; too persuasive; too attractive by far. She had to fight it. ‘Let’s go on avoiding each other now, Will, shall we? Excuse me. I need to say hello to Ash.’ Not letting him see the longing inside her, the temptation which was still so strong, she gave him a strained, apologetic shrug and turned away. Taking a last breath of fresh air she plunged into the seething mass of dancing bodies, leaving Will staring after her.

As soon as he saw her Ashley stood back from his music mixing, nodded to his younger brother Max, on stage beside him, to take over and leaped down from the stage. ‘Come and dance, Jess!’ He was laughing, his handsome face running with perspiration, his bright shirt soaked, his hands reaching for hers, pulling her fists up into the air, then releasing her, positioned and ready for the dance as he gyrated, hips swivelling in front of her. She shouldn’t laugh. She should reprimand him for calling her Jess, but what was the point? School was over in every real sense. Exams were finished. The night was hot and enticing and all these young people were enjoying themselves. Surely she could let her hair down too. She danced with Ashley, she danced with several other pupils, and she danced with Brian Barker, the Head of the college, and finally, she was at last unbent enough to dance with Will – it had seemed too much effort to refuse. She drank Dan’s fruit punch. Then some more with a shot of staff-only extra-bite! She danced with Dan again and then with Ashley one last time. It was in the early hours that the disco broke up at last after a second visit from the police.

Ashley had been waiting for her outside the hall.

After that she remembered nothing. Making herself a cup of coffee with shaking hands, she sipped it slowly. Who would she have asked in to share a glass of wine so late at night? There had been no other relationship after Will. She fancied no one, especially not any of her colleagues at school. Not now. She was not the type to ask a casual acquaintance to come back with her and fall into bed with him. And no one, absolutely no one she knew would have hurt her and left her in this state.

Cudgelling her brain as she sipped more coffee, she remembered Ash leaping from the bonnet of a car onto its roof and declaiming, his fists raised to the stars. Shakespeare. He was quoting Shakespeare, this boy she had so carefully nurtured in her class, this boy who led his own team of street actors and who had a secret dream to go to RADA, a dream to be an actor on a West End stage, to defy his background, his absent father, his drug-taking brothers, to confirm his mother’s quiet determination to believe in him. He had yelled the speech to the world and then, laughing, had jumped down and swept a courtly bow in front of her. ‘Let me walk you home, Jess!’ She could hear his voice now, resounding in her ears.

Then nothing.

Her memories from that point were gone. Her flat was a half-hour walk from the school but she didn’t remember crossing the main road still with its heavy traffic long after midnight; nor walking down the busy street, half the shops still open to the hot July night air. Nor turning down into the terraced square with its tiny precious oasis of dusty bushes and trees in the centre behind the protective spiked railings with a raft of tossed litter inside them. Nor opening the front door, nor climbing the stairs, and unlocking the door into her flat and going in and presumably offering her escort another drink.

No, not Ashley. Please let it not have been Ashley.

It had to have been Ashley. People had warned her. They had said he could be violent. They had said he had become too familiar, too physical around her. But she had ignored them. She knew best. She had seen his potential and nothing was going to stand in the way of her ambition for him.

If it was Ashley, was it her fault? Had she encouraged him to make love to her? ‘No!’ The word came out as an agonised whisper. ‘No, I wouldn’t have. I couldn’t have.’ Gingerly she fingered the bruises on her arms. Whoever had done this to her had forced himself on her and had held her down. That wasn’t love, it was rape.

She stood for a long time under the shower, aware that she should not be doing this; that if she had been raped, she should call the police; that she should preserve whatever evidence lurked inside her body, but knowing at the same time, as she scrubbed herself raw, that she could never bring herself to go through the awfulness of the police process. One of her students had had to do it once and she had gone with the girl to the cold impersonal room where the teenager had been questioned and examined and eventually disbelieved. Jess shuddered at the memory. She would never put herself through that. Never. She could feel herself slowly beginning to burn with anger. However much she had been made to drink, even if she had been drugged to make her acquiesce and then forget, she would find out who had done this to her and she would make sure he paid for it.

Sitting on the edge of the sofa, huddled in her bathrobe, she could feel herself starting to shake again as in her head she went over and over the facts that she could remember. Had she asked Ash in? She had danced with him several times, after all. She had had another drink. Then another. Who had given them to her? She couldn’t remember. Obviously she had drunk too much but had they been laced with something? Had she, in whatever state she was in, agreed to sex? Enjoyed it? Her hands were clammy. She could feel a wave of nausea building somewhere under her ribcage. The room was starting to spin again.

She became aware suddenly of the sound of steps on the staircase outside running up towards her flat. Scrambling to her feet she ran to the front door, rammed the bolt across and slotted the chain into its keep then slowly, shaking with the kind of fear she had never in her life experienced before, she slid to the floor, tears pouring down her face as she leaned backwards against the wall, hugging the white towelling robe around her. Outside, the footsteps ran on up past her door without stopping and the sound disappeared somewhere on the upper floors.

In the end she fell asleep where she was, on the floor, her back against the wall.

When she woke it was to the sound of knocking. The door handle turned. Holding her breath she looked up at it, her stomach churning.

‘Jess, are you there?’ It was Will’s voice. ‘Jess, are you OK? Look, I wanted to apologise for last night. I behaved like an idiot. I’m sorry.’ There was a long pause, then she heard a deep sigh. ‘Jess? Are you there? What’s wrong?’ There was another pause. Then an angry exclamation. ‘I’ll see you on Monday for clearing up, OK, Jess?’ She heard him turn away from the door, then his footsteps as he ran down the stairs and the bang of the street door behind him. Then silence.

He had behaved like an idiot.

How had he behaved like an idiot?

Surely it could not have been Will. They had quarrelled in the past, even before that last break up. They had done more than quarrel. They had fought. But he wouldn’t force her against her wishes. Would he?

Could he have followed her and Ash home? If he had he could have let himself in. She was certain he still had a key in spite of his insistence that he had returned it to her. They had danced last night in the end. More than once. She could remember that. She’d felt his arms around her for a moment with such loving familiarity, felt herself relax into them. It was Will who, after a few minutes, had drawn away and moved alone to the music leaving her to dance by herself.

With a weary sigh she closed her eyes.

Much later she heard Mrs Lal from the ground floor flat open her door and go out, her slippers slapping on the steps. She was going to the corner shop; no need for proper shoes then. In spite of her misery Jess gave a fond smile. Sometimes the old lady would call up and see if Jess would like her to fetch a Sunday paper or some milk, but not today. Today there was silence; perhaps she had heard Will rattling her door and thought Jess must be out.

Climbing stiffly to her feet, she went over to the window and looked down. Mrs Lal was walking slowly down the road, a blue cardigan pulled over her sari, her grey hair clamped into an untidy bun. As Jess watched she saw the old lady hesitate and slow down suddenly and cross over the road. Jess frowned, wondering why. Then she saw them. Two black youths loitering by the gate into the square. She watched them for a moment, her throat growing dry. One of them was Ash. The other his elder brother, Zac. They stood staring at poor Mrs Lal, obviously enjoying her discomfort. She saw Zac call out and the old lady moved more quickly, hurrying away from them towards the shop. Perhaps she should go down and chase them away. What were they doing here anyway? The boys lived on the Constable Estate on the far side of the school. Almost as though he was conscious she was watching him she saw Ash move suddenly. He stepped out into the road where she could see him more easily and perhaps he could see her, and she saw him sketch once more the elaborate theatrical courtly bow in her direction. She saw Zac laugh and aim a half-hearted kick at his brother’s head, before Ash blew a kiss towards her house and both boys turned away, loping nonchalantly towards the Underground station and the busy High Street.

Jess backed away from the window. He couldn’t have seen her. It was much too far away. And he didn’t know where she lived. Correction: he wasn’t supposed to know where she lived. She felt herself grow ice-cold. He had done it. It was Ash and he was mocking her. Oh God, what was she to do? He was telling her what he had done; gloating; knowing she could never nail him for it. Daring her to try. That was why he bowed. Her best student. She had thought she’d won his trust and respect and this was how he had repaid her.

She phoned Brian Barker with her resignation on Monday morning. She told him she was ill; too stressed to teach any more. She cut off his protests by switching off her phone. Then she went to the doctor who confirmed that her memory loss could well be the effect of some kind of drug. She had gone for the morning after pill. She had not thought of the HIV test, the other tests the doctor insisted on; the doctor’s worried glance as she examined her. ‘If you don’t know who it was, Jess,’ she said gently, ‘you cannot take chances. The bruises, the muscle stiffness. You obviously weren’t a willing participant in this. You are right, you were raped and you should go to the police.’ On that point Jess had not changed her mind. She spent the rest of the day huddled in a miasma of depression and self-pity.