The Crimson Chalice (16 page)

Baradoc swung round quickly. A tall man stood inside the arch way, carrying sword and spear, a throwing axe thrust in his belt, a short cloak hanging from his shoulders over a finely dressed deerhide tunic, his legs bare of sandals or gartering. From behind him, rippling in like shadows, with out sound, like some flawless movement of a dream, came six other men in hillman dress. They split on either side of him in even ranks. Each man carried a heavy hunting bow, raised and arrowed, the bows partly drawn and each arrowhead pointing at the group in midcourt. For a moment or two it seemed that the invasion was part of a dream.

Cuna broke the spell. With a sudden, short bark he raced forward to the man in the doorway. Before Baradoc could stop him, he leapt up and seized the edge of the man's tunic and hung on to it, swinging from its folds and growling. The man looked down at Cuna, then laughed, and putting his spear behind him against the archway wall, reached down and lifted Cuna by the scruff of his neck, pulling him free of the tunic skirt. Laughing still, he held Cuna aloft, yapping and growling.

Baradoc moved forward quickly, seeing the arrow points swing to follow him. He went up to the man who stood smiling with amusement at the suspended Cuna.

Baradoc said, “Put the dog down. He is young and bold and not yet fully broken to command.” Without thinking he spoke in his own tongue. The man, no smile on his face now, tossed Cuna to him, Baradoc fondled the dog's ears for a moment and then dropped him to the ground, ordering him to go to Tia.

The man watched Cuna trot to Tia, eyed her briefly, and then turned to Baradoc and said quietly, “You speak my language, but not with a Cymric sound. You dress like a Roman landowner's son, but your hands are marked with hard work and you have the gift of silent talk with your dogs. Tell the big hound to come to me in peace, but say it in words, words that only I know in my tribe, words that in all the tribes are only given to the few.”

From behind Baradoc the voice of Truvius came testily, angrily but bravely. “What does he say? What does the ruffian want? By the gods—that I should be so old and feeble …” He broke off suddenly in a fit of coughing.

Without turning Baradoc said in Truvius's tongue, “These are hillmen from beyond the Sabrina. Their leader could be a man who prefers reason to force.” Then, turning briefly, seeing Tia holding Cuna, the old man bowed forward, head doddering, in his applewood seat, he spoke briefly to Lerg.

The great hound moved forward slowly, the sunlight sliding over his rough pelt. He went up to the man in the archway and sat back on his haunches. The man put down his hand and with the back of it gently touched the black wet nose of Lerg. Lerg sat unmoving. The man withdrew his hand and said to Baradoc, “What did you say to the old man?”

“That you could be a man who prefers reason to force, a man who does not use the sword or spear without true cause.”

“You speak their language well?”

“Yes. I served a Roman master as a slave for years.”

“And still keep their company?”

“I did them a service. I go home to my people beyond the River Tamarus.”

“
Aie
… now I know the strange notes in your words although they are mine. That you speak their tongue is good. You can speak for me and save the legs of old Machen, who nurses a mead-skin downriver with the rest of my men.”

As the man was speaking Baradoc studied him. He was taller than most hillmen and he had a full handful of years more than himself. When he smiled there was no guile behind the eyes, but when he frowned there was force and authority in him.

Baradoc said, “I will speak for you.”

“Good. But first I would know who you are.”

“My name is Baradoc. I am the only son of my father, the son of great Ruachan, chief of the tribe of the Enduring Crow.” He pulled aside the shoulder of the light tunic he wore and exposed the tattoo of his tribe's bird. He went on, “I return to my people to raise them and all our kind against the Saxons and …”

“Enough!” The man cut him short. “Such talk is everywhere among the tribes but it is no more than the empty chatter of house-safe sparrows as the hawk flies over. My business is of today—and here in this villa.”

Anger was so strong in Baradoc that he had to hold down the words he would have spoken. Prudence alone moved him as he said, “I have named myself. Who are you?”

“I am Cadrus of the Ocelos.” The man touched his right shoulder. “I bear their mark here. We are from the hills beyond Gobannium, and Eurium. But this day we are from Abonae, which my people hold after crossing the Sabrina.”

“You go to Aquae Sulis?”

“No. We are not enough.” He looked around the courtyard, smiled and said, “We are content to take the straying goslings. The fat goose can wait until another time.”

Baradoc knew the joke had been made for him alone. The mark he carried on his shoulder was of the goose with the golden feet and bill, the Ocelos'tattoo.

“And from here? What do you take?”

“All weapons, save yours. All treasure and money. And some of the household for slaves. All this without force unless force is offered. Go to the old man and tell him this, and then stay with him and the girl while my men do their work. Who is the girl, his daughter?”

“No, his dead brother's daughter. She came with me from beyond the Anderida forest. She lived with her brother and his wife. Their villa and homestead farm were burned and pillaged by their own people … the ones who, fearing the Saxon coming, turn in madness on their own kind. The brother and his wife were killed. She escaped into the forest and I brought her here.”

Cadrus nodded, and said, “Go tell the old man and then the three of you hold your place while my men do their work.”

Baradoc went back to Tia and Truvius. Cadrus began to give orders to his men. Four were left spaced around the courtyard, their bows held ready, while the others began to go through the house. Cadrus stood in the archway and as the house was sacked the weapons and looted treasurers were piled alongside him, gold and silver plate spilling onto the stones, small leather pouches of coins from Truvius's room, a casket of jewels—nothing of good value was over-looked, down to the smallest bronze brooch, the tiny hand lamps of beaten copper—and amongst it all the silver chalice given by Asimus, which had stood in Tia's bedroom.

Baradoc told Tia and Truvius what Cadrus intended. The old man heard him in silence until the end and then he raised his grey head and said, “So it must be, for the man who holds the sword and the spear is master. What they take from us is nothing. The years have made me helpless, and the times have made victims of the innocent. All my servants are free people. Now they go to slavery in some wild hill fortress.”

Tia said firmly to Baradoc, “The man is of your kind. He holds you in good faith. Go to him and ask him to spare the servants.”

Looking down at Tia as she sat on a stool at the old man's feet, Cuna resting against her leg, Baradoc said nothing. But the shadow of unease that had been with him from the moment that Cadrus had glanced toward Tia was now grown blacker in his mind. Truvius lived now in a dream of old age. The world about him had long lost meaning. His life lay in the past, his days now were a crawling serpent of slow hours that wreathed about him and found him impatient for the final sting. But Tia was at the beginning of her days. Cadrus's face had been unmoving as he had glanced at her, but his eyes had mirrored the quick stir of his emotions.

Baradoc said, “This is no moment to ask for a favour which will not be granted. The hillmen have no bellies for field or farm work. Fighting and hunting are their work. A slave is a high prize, to be put to the plough or the cattle folds, or to be sold to the coast traders from Erin.” But the more he could have said he kept to himself, for a woman slave who was fair in all men's eyes was a treasure not to be passed by. Tia stirred angrily and began to speak. He broke in sharply and said, “Stay here and say nothing. One wrong word could put Cadrus out of humour.” And then, as Tia looked up at him tight-lipped, he saw her face slowly change and he knew that she had read his thoughts.

From behind him Cadrus called sharply to the man who guarded the servants outside the reception room. Prodding them with the butt of his spear the man moved them down into the courtyard and across to Cadrus. They halted before him, the old steward and his plump wife, who worked the kitchen, the strong middle-aged man who kept the bathhouse and stoked the hypocaust for water and house heating, and a younger man who did general work about the villa and kept the small stable of two horses which drew the old man's four-wheeled carriage when he drove to Aquae Sulis or went to visit friends.

Cadrus raised a hand and beckoned Baradoc to him. He nodded at the group and said, “I take the two younger men. They are full of years and work. The old man and the woman could not be worth the food they would eat. They can stay.”

Baradoc turned to the servants and told them Cadrus's decision. At once the steward and his wife moved quickly to join Truvius and Tia. Of the two men the elder stood passive, but for an instant the head of the other turned, sweeping round the courtyard, and he half moved as though to escape. The movement was halted by the sharp hiss of a flighted arrow loosed by one of the men near Cadrus. The arrow bit deeply into the ground at the man's feet, the long shaft vibrating savagely. From the men on guard around the courtyard and from the others who had now come from the building rose a roar of laughter. Only Cadrus was silent. He watched as his men, needing no signal from him, roped the hands of the servants behind their backs and then fastened heavy leather collars about their necks, each one joined to the other by a long length of strong, plaited-hide rope. Cadrus watched all this done and not until they were led away through the archway toward the river did he turn to Baradoc.

He said, “What is the girl's name?”

“Gratia.”

“You speak grudgingly. Tell her to go gather a warm cloak and strong sandals and any woman's things she needs. Tell her that in obedience she can walk free and unshackled but if she kicks like a young heifer and would escape from the path then she will be roped to the others for she now belongs to Cadrus.”

There was no surprise in Baradoc. He had now long known in his heart that this moment was coming, had faced the dilemma and had known only one answer to make to it, an answer with the strength of tribal custom behind it, an answer with which all of his own race would keep faith, but an answer which Cadrus, his eyes trapped now by Tia's grace, might sweep aside with a single sharp word to bring a flight of arrows to destroy him. Tia's beauty shining in his eyes had blinded him.

Baradoc said coldly, “She cannot go with you. She is betrothed to me. Not even Cadrus of the Golden Goose can take the future wife of a man of the tribe of the Enduring Crow as a slave. The gods would mark your tribe forever with shame for the crime. She is promised to me, she stays with me.”

Without hurry, no movement of muscle in his face to betray emotion, his eyes steady, Cadrus raised his sword and held it out point forward so that the sharply honed tip just touched Baradoc's breast. He said evenly, “Your tongue is swift in the battle of words and cunning. You are distantly of my blood and we share the same gods. If the feud fire had been lit between our tribes I would kill your father, slaughter your house and burn your huts, and there would be no shame for you would do the same to mine. There is no feud, and you speak fair that I cannot take for slave a woman who has promised herself to you.” His hard face creased with a quick smile, and there was a touch of mockery in his voice as he went on, “But it is in my mind that you speak falsely for her sake. I would know from her without any word from you whether you speak the truth. From this moment you stay dumb as the slow worm. And, if she denies you, then I kill you as I would slaughter a young bull for the sacrifice!”

Without taking his eyes off Baradoc, the sword point always against the loose fall of his tunic, he called to one of his men, “Fetch me Machen here, for I need one who speaks the bastard tongue.”

From the outer side of the archway he was answered at once by a slow, lilting voice, touched with the edge of lazy laughter. “Who sends for Machen when Machen is here fresh from mead sleep?”

A tall, thin middle-aged man, his face grizzled with long copper-coloured stubble, dressed in a rough habit of brown, its ragged skirts swinging as he walked, the loose cowl hanging down his back, came through the arch and stood alongside Cadrus.

With hardly a glance at Machen, Cadrus, sword never moving, pointed with his free hand to Tia and said, “Tell the girl to come here. I would take her as slave, but this young bull denies me the right, saying that she is betrothed to him. She understands not our tongue but you will ask her the questions I give you in her own bastard language. If she denies the young bull, then he dies.”

“She knows you want her as slave?”

“No. They sit there knowing nothing—the ancient eagle of the legions and the sleek young falcon—and their world spins dying under them as yours spins when the mead takes you. You know their language and the gods have given you an ear for the music of song and the music of truth. If you tell me she says that he speaks the truth she can be no slave. If you hear the false note of a lie then she becomes my slave and this one dies.”

Baradoc felt the point of the sword prick him briefly as Cadrus finished speaking, and from the corner of his eyes he saw Machen move across the yard to Tia and Truvius.

Tia watched the man as he came to her. He moved slowly but easily and there was the ghost of a smile about his lips. Beside her sat Truvius, his hand in hers, mumbling to himself, staring straight ahead, his eyes blinking slowly with the fixed rhythm which marked his periods of withdrawal.

In her own tongue Machen said gently, “Leave the old man and come with me. Speak no word to your young tribesman friend.”