The Warrior’s Princess. Barbara Erskine
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‘I know you are, sweetheart.’ Cerys pulled her close. ‘You will be a credit to us. Your father is certain of it.’ There was a shout outside. Somewhere a door banged. Eigon shrank closer to her mother. ‘Will it hurt? Being killed?’
Cerys shook her head firmly. ‘No. The gods will bring you strength and comfort.’
They brought the chains at the last moment. Manacles and neck rings like those of slaves. Then they were ushered outside to their places in the procession which was forming on the barracks parade ground. Eigon caught her breath and gripped her mother’s hand tightly. There was no sign of her father. There were hundreds of captives being ushered from the prison cells barefoot, emaciated, stinking from the filth of their imprisonment. Warriors. Farmers. Peasants who somehow had avoided being slaughtered, formed into ranks between the Roman guards who marshalled them into groups with swords and whips. There were noblemen from the tribes there too. Some smartly dressed like Eigon and Cerys. Others crippled with wounds or disease. All in chains. Somewhere at the front of the procession there were trumpeters, dignitaries in chariots, wagonloads of captured treasure, and interspersed with the prisoners were groups of horsemen and everywhere legionaries and auxiliaries of the Roman army. They heard the triumphant summons of the trumpet and knew the front of the long parade had started. It was a long time before it was their turn, walking hand in hand in their places as the procession wound its way through the baying crowds, towards the centre of Rome.
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