The Forest House Read Online Free Page A

me!” A woman’s hand, slender and white, reached down to him; Gaius put up his serviceable hand, but could not close it. "What’s the matter? Are you hurt?” the girl asked more gently.
    Before Gaius could answer, the other—Gaius could see nothing about her except that she was young—bent over to see for herself.
    "Oh, I see now—Dieda, he is bleeding! Run and bring Cynric to pull him out of there.”
    Relief washed over Gaius so powerfully that consciousness nearly left him, and he slumped back down, whimpering as the movement jarred his wounds.
    "You must not faint,” came the clear voice above him. "Let my words be a rope to bind you to life, do you hear?”
    "I hear you,” he whispered. "Keep talking to me.”
    Perhaps it was because rescue was coming that he could allow himself to feel, but his wounds were beginning to hurt very badly. Gaius could hear the girl’s voice above him, though the words no longer made sense to him. They rippled like the murmur of a stream, bearing his mind beyond the pain. The world darkened; Gaius realized that it was daylight and not his sight that had failed him only when he saw the flicker of torchlight on the trees.
    The girl’s face disappeared and he heard her call, "Father, there’s a man caught in the old boar pit.”
    "We’ll get him out then,” a deeper voice replied. "Hmm…” Gaius sensed movement above him. "This seems a job for a stretcher. Cynric, you had better go down and see.”
    The next moment a young man had scrambled down the sides of the pit. He looked Gaius over and asked pleasantly, "What were you thinking about? It must take real wit to fall in there when everyone around knows it’s been there thirty years!”
    Mustering the scraps of his pride, Gaius started to say that if the fellow got him out he would be fitly rewarded, then was glad he had not spoken. As his eyes gradually adjusted to the torchlight, the young Roman realized that his rescuer was about his own age, not much over eighteen, but he was a young giant of a man. His fair hair curled loosely about his shoulders, and his face, still beardless, looked as gay and calm as if rescuing half-dead strangers was all in a day’s work. He wore a tunic of checked cloth and trews of finely dyed leather; his embroidered wool cloak was fastened with a gold pin bearing a stylized raven done in red enamel. These were the clothes of a man of noble house, but not one of those who welcomed their conquerors and aped the manners of Rome.
    Gaius said simply, "I’m a stranger here; I don’t know your markings,” in the language of the tribes.
    "Well, don’t worry about it; let’s get you out and then we can talk about how you came to fall in.” The young man slid his arm beneath Gaius’s waist, supporting the young Roman as easily as if he were a child.
    "We dug that pit for boars and bears and Romans,” he remarked tranquilly. "Just bad luck you got caught in it.” He looked up at the pit top and said, "Let down your mantle, Dieda; it will be easier than finding something for a stretcher. His own cloak’s all stiff with blood.”
    When the mantle had been let down, the boy knotted it around Gaius’s waist, then, fastening the other end about his own, he set his foot on the lowest of the stakes, and said, "Yell if I hurt you; I’ve hauled out bears like this, but they were dead and couldn’t complain.”
    Gaius set his teeth and hung on, almost fainting with the pain when his swollen ankle struck a projecting root. Someone at the top leaned over and grabbed his hands and at last he struggled over the edge, then lay there just breathing for a moment before he had strength to open his eyes.
    An older man was leaning over him. Gently he pulled away Gaius’s fouled and blood-smeared cloak and whistled.
    "Some god must love you, stranger; a few inches lower and that stake would have