The Crimson Chalice Read Online Free Page A

favourite saying of her brother’s came back to her. The blackest night must die under the fiery wheels of Apollo’s golden chariot.
    It was close on sunset when Baradoc returned. He came with the blanket slung over his shoulder, bulky with his findings. He carried in his right hand a long, wooden-shafted fishing spear, its socketed three-pronged iron head missing a tang and the two others badly rusted. He dumped the bundle on the ground and, squatting by her, laid out his pickings from the fishing huts. There were some rusty hooks of different sizes; a length of worn hempen rope; part of a circular throwing net with some small stone weights still attached to its skirts; a tangle of old catgut lengths; a sail-maker’s needle with a broken point; a small wicker-woven birdcage with the bottom missing, into which he had stuffed odd lengths of cloth; two wooden platters, both badly cracked; a large lump of beeswax; a raggedly shaped piece of goat’s hide as stiff as a board; a thick woollen fisherman’s shirt, with a slit down the side, half a sleeve missing and the front coated with tiny, dried opaline fish scales; a well-worn piece of striking flint; and a small length of tallow candle with a rush wick.
    As he laid all these out, Tia watched in silence. He took no notice of her until he had pulled out the last of his finds, a pair of long coarsely woven leggings that reached down to the ankles, stained with rust and pitch marks and with a great hole in their seat. He dropped them on the pile and looked at Tia with a grin of satisfaction.
    â€œWhat do we want with all that rubbish?” she asked.
    He shook his head and said, “I know the kind of place you come from. Like my old master’s. You had servants and maids, fine clothes, and fine table furnishings. Aye, even glass in your windows and worked mosaics on the great-room floor. Baths and hot rooms and everything you wanted for the table. You’ve lived soft, wench—but now the world is upside down.”
    Tia jumped up and said furiously, “Son of a chief you may be, but call me ‘wench’again and I walk from here and find my own way to Aquae Sulis. My name is Gratia. As a mark of friendship, Tia to you. Name me so and not as a herd or kitchen girl.”
    â€œWhooah! Rein back! I meant no rudeness. Tia it shall be.” He reached up, took her hand and pulled her down. “Should we fight now, whose side would the dogs and Bran take since they have been given the word for you?”
    â€œI’m sorry. I have a quick temper.”
    â€œNo, ’Tis pride and that is a good thing. I shall not offend it again—except by mischance, for which I ask forgiveness now to save further trouble. So, let’s get back to our rubbish which is no rubbish. What one man throws away another can use. A fish spear with two prongs is better than no fish spear. Fish can be eaten but first they must be caught. So I brought the spear, the hooks, the gut and the piece of net. I can sharpen a new point to the needle and with threads pulled from the cloth and waxed you can repair the shirt and the long hose.”
    â€œWho are they for?”
    â€œThe shirt is for me. The hose for you.”
    â€œI wouldn’t wear those filthy things!”
    Baradoc was silent. For all that she had recently suffered Tia was far from realizing what change had come over her life. Never before had she ever had to think of a black tomorrow, of a tomorrow which would be as full of want as all the yesterdays. In this wilderness of place and evil times she was no more able to survive alone than a fledgling, unfeathered, pushed from its warm nest. He could have wished that it had been some simple herd girl who had saved him and who would have needed no teaching. Still … she was not. He said with good humour, “The clothes can be washed first and mended after. In long hose and the legs gartered you will be a handsome young fellow. And