The Crimson Chalice Read Online Free Page B

don’t frown at me—it must be so for your own safety. Now, do I have to explain the rest as though you were a raw recruit, goggle-eyed in barracks for the first time?” He took the flint and, holding the spearhead jabbed into the ground, struck the stone against one of the iron prongs and brought brief, blue sparks spurting to life. “Raw fish or fowl cheer no belly. Fire we must have to cook. And have I not brought two cracked platters to go with your cooking cauldron and that wicked little dagger you keep always close to your side?”
    â€œAnd this—this stinking piece of hide?”
    â€œIt’s a long way to Aquae Sulis. Those fancy sandles of yours could need new soles in a week. Now—let’s get packed up and moving. And, Lady Tia, leave the rest of the cake and cheese near the top of your bundle. We shall need them before the night is out.”
    Marching, Baradoc watched the moon and the stars in their slow swings, and shaped his course, but even in pitch darkness the magic compass in his mind would have served him, though less finely. Once or twice he heard an owl call, and now and again came the harsh screech of a hunting night jar. The forest was alive with Nature’s hunters, whose skills were more precise than any man’s. Now and again either Lerg or Aesc would come from the darkness to his side for a few seconds and then disappear to their posts once more. Toward morning, with daylight like a grey wash of cobwebs through the eastern trees, he sent Cuna out to the right flank. Of all the dogs he and his old master had bred for export abroad, there had been none to touch Lerg or Aesc. They had been kept jealously for the household. Cuna would learn the wordless signs in time. Of all animals, the gods had gifted dogs with a magical kinship with man, but only to some men the gift of the words and signs that held them coupled in understanding and loyalty.

2. The Black Raven
    It was almost midmorning before Tia woke. There was a fresh westerly wind blowing and the sky was full of low, rolling grey clouds. She sat up and looked around her. She had only the vaguest memory of the last stretches of their march and the moment when Baradoc had halted and said they would make camp. She had been conscious of his stirring around in the moonlight and shadows, unloading their bundles and spreading covers on the ground, of herself dropping on them and finally of his throwing the blanket across her.
    She stretched her arms, yawned and rubbed the last of sleep from her eyes. The camp had been made on a high bluff which rose clear of the forest, in a small ravine whose sides were a jumble of broken stones. Behind her the rock face rose sheer and smooth like a fortress wall. The sound of running water reached her ears. Away to the left a thin stream dripped down a moss-covered cleft of the rocks and was gathered into a small gravelly pool, from which it seeped away down the hillside in a marshy slope bordered by primroses and blue-starred periwinkle growths. There was no sign of Baradoc or the dogs, but Bran sat on a spur of rock above her, beak-combing his flight feathers and scratching himself about the head as he made his morning toilet. Tia smiled to herself and decided to follow his example. Her tiredness was gone but she felt dirty and tousled.
    She went to the pool, stripped off her tunic and took off her sandals. Wearing only her short woollen drawers, she splashed and washed her face, the top half of her body and then her legs. There was a blister on her right foot where the sandal had rubbed her during the march. She wiped herself with a corner of her bundle cover and dressed, and shivered a little until her clothes began to bring back warmth to her body.
    Then, seeing close up against the rock face the contents of the bundles that Baradoc had opened up, she picked up the dirty old seaman’s shirt and the filthy pair of long hose. There was no sign of the fishing spear.