The Crimson Chalice (18 page)

A spear's throw from the rough road Baradoc sat with his back against a rock, facing the west, eating a handful of dried grapes and a piece of hard cheese. The sun was shrouded in a low, rolling mantle of grey rain-promising clouds. There had been little morning movement on the mining road, a few carts making for Aquae Sulis with country produce, a handful of miners on their way back to the lead mines in the low limestone hills over which the clouds now were close-wreathed. The men had given him news of Abonae. The hillmen had taken it some days before and most of the people from the settlement had fled into the country to hide. Cadrus and his men would go back across the river in their hide-sheathed boats, taking their spoils with them. One day someone would have to arise with the strength and power to command Cadrus and his kind, to shape and wield their courage and skills and make of them an army with a mission and a true faith. He broke the cheese into small portions and tossed a piece to each dog and Bran, and he smiled to himself as he realized that to Cuna he had tossed the largest piece. The gifted dog. The twice-gifted dog.

But this thought was driven from his mind as Cuna suddenly leapt to his feet, barked and began to run toward the road. Baradoc called sternly to him, but the dog took no notice. At the same time, although Lerg and Aesc held their place, Bran, from the top of the rock against which Baradoc leant, took off, dropped low, his great wings almost sweeping the seeding heads of the long grasses, and then rose, beating his way above the road. In those few moments a wild hope swept through Baradoc which shook his body as though a swift fever had gripped him, firing his blood. He jumped up and ran toward the road. Far down it he saw a low cloud of dust racing away like wind-flattened smoke. Clear to him came the sound of horse hooves beating against the hard ground.

Standing by the road, watching her ride toward him, he knew that this was what he had wished for but had cherished only as an idle dream that defied all sense and reason. Only she was free to turn the ceremony of duress into the truth or denial of love. Now she came riding the single horse, which, being free at grazing, Cadrus's men had overlooked, and he knew that even had he left the road earlier and moved without benefit of track or path to the hills she would have found him because, no longer to be denied, the heart had its own knowledge of human courses as the swallow went unerringly south in autumn to return to the same hut eave each spring.

With Cuna barking around the horse's legs she halted before him, her growing hair free and shining in the wind, her eyes smiling but uncertain with a soft shyness. Behind her a bundle was packed across the horse's back and she was dressed as he was in the old travelling clothes. Going to her and looking up, he took her hand. With a touch as brief and light as the wing of a passing moth he kissed her palm, and the shyness went from Tia. Her lips upturned with a faint touch of mockery, she said, “O Son-of-a-Chief Baradoc, who was too cowardly to speak the truth, but wrote it on wax in the night—is that how your love will be? Easily scribed and as easily wiped away?”

Baradoc raised her hand, touched his brow with it, and then, kissing it again, said, “No, Lady Tia. What I wrote on the tablet was the shadow of a dream which I thought would die at daybreak.” He held her arm as she slipped off the horse and stood by him, and he went on, smiling, “Now we both have our feet on the ground and live no dream.” He raised her hand and kissed it. “This is the kiss of my true love and the true pledge that joins us. From this day, as there is only one royal sun, so there is only one queen in my life. Your honour is my honour and any who misnames it shall have only the swift charity of my sword.”

For a moment Tia said nothing. Then, the teasing in her eyes masking her joy, she said, “O Son-of-a-Chief Baradoc, your old master gave you a skill with words that snares my heart … aye, and did so, I know now, from our first day together. But this day I have ridden hard and far and without food. If you would not hear the belly of your love grumble then feed me.” She leant quickly forward and kissed him on the lips. Before he could hold her, she bent and picked Cuna from the ground and began to fondle him.

Baradoc led the horse to the rock and made Tia sit on the ground on the goat-hair cloak, and he fed her from the small store he had brought from the villa with him. There were few words between them and when their eyes met it was as though a light passed between them too strong and too strange yet for them to endure its flame but briefly. Man and woman they would be but until that time came there lay ahead of them the groves of courtship to be threaded hand in hand, and a sweet and slow discovery of one another which would bring their love to full term.

They slept that night in a dry cave on the lower slopes of the hills, lying so that in the darkness they could reach out and touch one another. Until sleep took them, it was mostly Baradoc who talked, both to ease his own shyness and joy and also to have her begin to know about the journey ahead and the life that waited for them with his people. He told, too, about these hills which they must cross, where now most of the mines were worked out or abandoned, and the great stretch of marsh-and-lake land that lay beyond, which must be crossed before they would reach the coast where the barren moors ran down to the sea in steep headlands. Finally he heard Tia's breath-note slow and her body stir briefly to find comfort as she fell into sleep. Then as he lay awake he thought of old Truvius, who, Tia had told him, had sent her after him with his blessiag, of Truvius who had once said to him as they talked in the courtyard together, “All countries are greater than the people who take them by the sword. They shape conquerors to their ways and work in them a new love which is a mystery above any human love.” So it would be with Tia. One day she would know herself to be not only his wife, but one of his people, and their children would be of his country.

The high-summer rain fell steadily the whole of the next day. Because there was no hunting with success through the slow-driving swathes of rain as they climbed the long scarp to the crest of the range, they turned aside to the road and found a small mining encampment of meager huts and a rough tavern, where they bought cheese and oat cake and dried fish and six eggs for their evening meal. The tavern keeper told them that in the last week there had been few travellers coming or going through from the quest because the marsh people would boat none across the lakes and swamps. He advised Baradoc to take the long route around to the south, but Baradoc's mind was set on crossing the marshes for it would save them two or three days' travel and there was a growing eagerness in him now to reach his own people.

They crossed the top ridge of the hills in a grey shroud of rain cloud and picked their way slowly down the steep westward face through rocky ravines and sides of loose stones where the horse, laden with their goods, had to be led and sometimes forced to keep the track. That night on the lower slopes they found a herder's hut, its wattle sides and bough-thatched roof half burned away in some old accident or act of pillage. Baradoc cut fresh branches from a nearby thicket of alders and repaired enough of the roof to give them shelter. Even so, the rain drifted in upon them and they passed the night with more discomfort than sleep, but because they were together and their shyness was easing they made light of the hardship. Baradoc said, half in joke and half in earnest, “You could be lying warm and comfortable and clean in your bed at the villa, Tia. Even now I would take you—”

With a suddenness that startled him, Tia suddenly reached out and put her hand across his mouth, stopping his words, and she said without anger but with a sharp note of command, “Never talk like that again. I belong to you.”

As she withdrew her hand Baradoc took it and said, “Then I never will. When you command I obey.” He chuckled. “
Aie
… from that first moment after you had cut me down and I opened my eyes to see you I became your slave.”

Tia, smiling shook her head. “You talk, and your tongue runs away with you, my brave heart. You will never be anyone's slave.”

When they awoke the next morning the rain was still falling, driving before a strong southerly wind in dark, swaying curtains. They ate a scanty cold breakfast of dried fish and were wet through to their skins before they had travelled half a mile. The western slopes of the limestone range eased and finally levelled out at the fringe of the great river-and-lagoon-scored stretch of marshes that lay across their path. Skirting the first stretch of towering rushes and reed-mace growth, they came across a well-used path. In places the path had been firmed and strengthened with faggots of cut withy branches and bound bundles of reeds. After a time it brought them to an opening in the marsh growths and they stood on the edge of a small piece of cultivated ground, the tilled dark marsh soil green with lines of growing vegetables and lank rows of still unripe barley. Beyond the cultivated ground was a narrow lagoon inlet. Built on wooden piles a little way out in the water was a reed hut which was joined to the land by a rough wooden causeway. From raised poles along the causeway and at one side of the hut fishnets were strung. From the eaves of the roof hung plaited osier cages and coops in which fowls and pigeons were penned.

Baradoc shouted three times before any movement came from the hut. Then a short thickset man appeared and came to the head of the causeway.

Baradoc, giving the horse's halter to Tia to hold, walked forward slowly a few paces, holding his hands, above his head. The man on the causeway made no movement.

Baradoc drew the sword from his belt and thrust it upright into the ground and then walked forward farther. At this the man came slowly down the causeway. In one hand he carried a light spear, and his other hand rested on the haft of a long knife which was thrust into the belt at his waist. He was bearded and long-haired and dressed in a sleeveless tunic made of otter skins roughly thonged together, the garment worn and greasy and ripped in places. The man stepped off the causeway and walked to within a few paces of Baradoc, then stood in silence for a while, eyeing him suspiciously. The skin around his right eye was red and swollen. The rain ran off his bare arms and legs and the sour smell of his body came strongly to Baradoc. The man's gaze went from Baradoc to Tia with the horse and dogs standing at the fringe of the reeds.

He said gruffly, “What do you want?”

The words were in Baradoc's tongue, but heavy with the marshmen's accent and surly with suspicion.

“We go to my tribe in the west. We have money and will pay for a passage across the marshlands.”

“Who is the woman?”

“My wife.”

“The word has been given that none can cross the marshes.” He gestured to the south. “You must go round. Besides, I have nothing that would take your horse.”

Baradoc said “We want to cross quickly. To go round will take many days. The word was not given against your own kind. Marshmen have eaten in my father's hut many times. We have the same tongue, the same country.”

“Maybe. Show me your mark.”

Baradoc pulled his cloak and tunic aside and showed his tribal mark of the crow. “We want to cross now. If this rain lasts another day not even you could take us against the floods.”

The man pursed his lips. “What do you know of the marshes and the rains? Nothing. This is the rain of Latis, who weeps for the return of her lover.” A smile briefly touched his dirty, weather-marked face. “She could weep for a day or a week. No man can tell.”

Baradoc said, “Then let us leave Latis to weep long if she must. You could have us on the other side by nightfall. Also—” he paused, for he had seen the man's eyes stray more than once back to the horse which Tia held, “as well as paying you we would leave the horse. Two people with one horse travel no faster than a man alone.”

The man was silent for a moment and then, grinning, nodded his head, and said, “Leave me the horse. I need no other payment.”

From that moment there was no trouble. The horse was handed over to the man, who told them his name was Odon. From his hut appeared his wife and son, who was a sturdy boy, his face still smooth and untouched by any beard growth. At a word from Odon the boy dived off the edge of the causeway and swam across the lagoon inlet to the fringing reeds. He disappeared into them. In a short while he reappeared, poling a strong, light-drafted boat made of overlapping hides stretched over a framework of willow poles. The inside had been roughtly daubed with a mixture of marsh mud and chopped straw and sedges, all set hard by baking in the sun, and then given a coating of fish glue whose rank smell still persisted.

Between them they loaded up the possessions which Baradoc and Tia carried and the dogs, Tia sat forward in the blunt bows, while Baradoc was in the middle of the boat and Odon stood in the stern to pole the craft. At his feet lay a broad-bladed wooden paddle which he would use in deeper and more open water.

At first the boy wanted to go with his father and refused to leave the boat. After a few angry words between them Odon swung his pole menacingly and the boy jumped over the side and waded ashore, shouting defiantly at his father.

As Odon poled off he laughed and said to them, “He's as wild as a wolf—but he's a good son. I had two others but they died of marsh fever.” He shook his head to free his hair and eyes of the rain and went on to Baradoc, “There's a bailing pot near you. The boat is sound. But with this rain it gathers water. You'll need to use it.” He dipped the pole and they began to move down the narrow inlet.

For the next two hours Tia sat in the bows, the thick woollen cloak draped around her, growing heavier and heavier with the rain. Sitting there, she was, although wet and uncomfortable, surprised by the calmness and happiness of her feelings. She had no true idea of what lay ahead. But she had no dread or concern about it because her spirit was content with the calm knowledge that whatever happened now she and Baradoc were together, not as strangers held by chance, but as man and wife tied by love.