The Crimson Chalice (19 page)

She sat with the dogs at her feet as the boat slid down the inlet and, after a while, Bran, who had been circling overhead, dropped down and perched on the low prow of the boat. Odon, seeing the raven, said something to Baradoc, who answered, but Tia could not understand what they said. Odon, now that the bargain had been made, seemed pleasant enough but there was something about the man that she did not like, something that had nothing to do with his dirty, unkempt appearance or the strange cast given to his face by the constantly twitching diseased eye. Baradoc had told her that the marshmen had long grown apart from all the other tribes. Nearly five hundred years of Roman rule had left places like this and the wild mountains from which Cadrus came much as they always had been. Beyond Isca no great military roads ran. Westward was an almost unknown land, and it was westward that she was now going.

Hour after hour they moved through the marshes, sometimes snaking through narrow channels that were overhung with high reeds and rushes, sometimes sliding out into stretches of river where the brown waters rolled and swirled so strongly with the rain flood that Odon had to fight his way with strong strokes of the paddle to ease the boat out of the mainstream and into a side channel to keep his course.

Tia grew used to the sudden upflinging of a fishing heron disturbed by their coming, to the quick fire-flash of kingfishers arrowing away from them, to the noisy alarm calls of mallard, teal and widgeon rising from their feeding grounds, churning the water to a creamy spume with their thrusting feet and beating wings, to the sudden shocks which she had had at first when the weird booming calls of bitterns rang through the rainy air. Now and again Baradoc pointed out to her an otter sliding through the water, or the white marked head of a water snake as it curved sinuously away from them.

In the early afternoon they came to a wide weed-free lagoon. Near the shore stood a small group of huts built on poles over the water. From the causeways and platforms around the huts a group of marsh people watched them pass and Odon gave them a wild, ringing cry of greeting as they swept by. Sometime after this they entered a track of swampland where alders and willows crested the reeds of little islands and the shallow stream they followed closed until the rushes at times overhung the boat.

After a while the stream began to broaden, and eventually the boat slid out to a small lake into which a river ran from the south and emptied from the north end. Nearly halfway across this lake, short of the main river flow, a solitary hut stood on poles. It had no causeway because it was too far from the shore, but there was a wooden platform around it.

Odon, taking the paddle, swung the boat toward the hut. He said to Baradoc, “The hut is empty. We rest for an hour and eat.” He looked up at the sky. “Soon I think the rain will stop. By nightfall I can put you on a safe path to take you through the far side of the marshes.”

Odon edged the boat into the side of the hut, dropped his paddle and held on to the timber frame of the platform. He held the boat steady as Tia climbed out and the dogs jumped up with her. To Baradoc he said, “You go up. There's a rope in the bows you can make fast.”

Baradoc climbed on to the platform, walked to the bows and knelt to take the bow rope. As he did so, and before he could reach the rope, Odon, giving a strong push on the platform's edge, sent the boat gliding away from the hut. As it drifted he picked up the paddle and turned the boat back in the direction from which they had come. Over his shoulder he shouted, “The word was given that none should cross. I would have taken you for you are a tribesman. But I take no woman who is not of the blood and who speaks only the foreign tongue.”

Turning his back on them, he began to paddle strongly away. Baradoc and Tia, taken by surprise, stood and watched him. He was going and taking with him all they possessed, leaving them stranded in the middle of the lagoon. Then, angrily, Baradoc swore loudly, and the anger was at himself for his stupidity. For a moment his instinct was to dive in and swim after the boat, but he knew at once that Odon could easily outspace him. All their weapons and belongings were in the boat, except for the sword which he wore. Even if he got to the boat Odon had a spear.…

Then, the dullness clearing from his mind, he turned to Tia, unbuckling his belt and beginning to strip, and said, “Give me your dagger.”

“But, Baradoc, you can't—”

“Give me your dagger!” he cried harshly as he stripped himself naked.

Tia handed him the dagger which she always carried. Baradoc took it and then turned toward Bran, who had flown up onto the rush roof of the hut. He called loudly,
“Saheer! Aie! Saheer!”

Without another glance at Bran or Tia, the dagger between his teeth, he dived into the water and began to swim as fast as he could after the boat.

From the platform Tia, her heart thumping, watched him and she saw that he would never catch Odon. The man, seeing him coming, was paddling hard for a reed channel at the northern end of the lake. No man swimming could ever overtake the boat. Then, harsh and searing through the rain, she heard the strong wingbeats of Bran. Bran came down through the wind-driven rain and flew low over the water after Baradoc. Tia heard Baradoc whistle to Bran as the bird hung at his side. The raven wheeled away from him and began to beat quickly toward the boat.

Standing on the hut platform, the dogs about her, alert and quivering as they watched, Tia saw Baradoc swimming as fast as he could through the dark waters, saw Odon paddling toward the reed channel, and Bran moving after the boat. The raven rose in the air and then came down in a slow, heavy stoop at Odon, passing over the man's head, raking it with his talons, and then swung back to hover and beat with talons and great beak at Odon's head and face.

Odon raised his paddle and swung at Bran. The bird slid away from him only to come back, first from one angle and then from another, forcing him to twist and turn on his seat as he struck upward with his paddle. Again and again Bran dived at Odon, baulking and sideslipping to avoid the paddle blows. Once as Odon slipped on his seat, Bran landed on his shoulders and drove rapid thrusts of his great black beak at the man's neck and face.

Odon screamed with sudden pain and Bran, hovering away from him, called loudly
“Cark-cark,”
As Bran came in again Odon dropped the paddle and picked up his light spear. He stood up in the boat, blood running from his face, and slewed and turned as Bran attacked him, but Bran now kept well clear of the quick spear thrusts, circling and diving and calling loudly all the while.

As Odon could no longer paddle, the boat lost way and drifted, and Baradoc rapidly began to overtake it. He saw Odon glance around to mark his progress. When he neared the boat he circled away to the bows, well clear of any spear thrust that Odon might make, safe in the knowledge that Odon would not risk throwing it, for a frenzy now had taken Bran, who whirled and swooped at Odon. One unguarded opening given to Bran and the raven would strike for Odon's eyes. Baradoc caught the side of the boat and with a great thrust of his arm and shoulder muscles lifted himself over the side. The boat tipped as he rolled aboard and water swirled over the gunwale. He heard the hoarse bark of Bran and a sudden fierce cry of pain from Odon. As he scrambled to his knees Odon, with blood running down his neck where Bran had struck him, raised the spear and hurled it wildly at him. Baradoc threw up an arm to protect himself and the blade of the spear scored the length of his right forearm and flew past him into the water. Then Odon, to escape Bran as the bird came swooping at him, dived overboard and disappeared. Oblivious of his wound, Baradoc stood, dagger now in hand, and watched the brown waters while Bran circled slowly overhead. Suddenly he called and went downwind through the rain wreaths toward the distant fringe, of reeds about the channel opening through which they had come into the lake. Odon's head and shoulders appeared above water, but as Bran dived at him he sank quickly below the surface and Baradoc knew that when he surfaced again it would be in the safety of the reeds. He called to Bran, and the raven, after a slow circle over the waters of the mouth of the channel, beat back to him upwind and dropped to the bows of the boat.

The wound in Baradoc's arm, though long, was not deep. Tia, tight-lipped, tore strips of cloth from an undershift and bound it. They had unloaded their possessions from the boat, which was now securely tied alongside the hut platform. Above them the rain beat steadily on the weathered and decrepit rush roof. The hut was empty except for an old pile of reeds laid out as a bed in one corner. Seeing Tia's anxious, drawn face Baradoc raised his free hand and touched her on the cheek. He said, “Don't worry about Odon. He won't come back.”

“Why didn't he keep his bargain? You are of the same blood.”

Baradoc hesitated, then said lightly, “The same blood, maybe—but his has become diluted with the fever water of the marshes. He was over-greedy for a good bargain.” He looked up at the leaking roof, the sound of the rain beating on it mingling with the noise of the floodwater rushing against the piles below them. He went on, “Odon was wrong or lying about Latis. She still weeps for her lover. I think we should stay here the night. In this rain and with darkness coming on we should be helpless. We can make an early start at daybreak. I'll see what food we've got.”

Tia shook her head. “You do no woman's work. Sit and rest your arm. And while I do it you can tell me about Latis …” Her voice trailed away. Impulsively she moved to Baradoc and pressed her face against his breast, holding him. She felt his arms move around her and slowly the comfort of his embrace eased the shaking in her own body and killed the fear she had known for him when she had seen him climb into the boat and Odon had flung the spear. She raised her head to him and Baradoc touched her cheeks gently and then bent and kissed her on the lips.

While she lay in the darkness before sleeping Tia thought of the story of Latis, which Baradoc had told her as they had sat eating, sharing their cold and short commons with the dogs and Bran. Beside her, his arms ready at hand, Baradoc slept. She drew close to him to find the warmth and comfort of his body to join with her own. Latis still wept … Latis, who, sitting by the side of a river, had seen a great silver salmon swimming in the waters below her and had fallen in love with it. To please her the gods had changed the salmon into a young warrior who had stepped from the waters into her arms. But each year in the winter the warrior lover moved back into the waters, became a salmon, and swam away to sea, not to return until the next year's floods brought him again upriver to step silver-armoured into her arms. Latis, who sits beside the drought-starved waters and weeps, flooding the rivers with her tears to bring her lover back from the sea, hastening to her up the spate-filled stream.…

Latis wept all that night and was weeping the next morning. When they looked out the floodwaters had risen so much that the boat floated level with the hut platform and would soon be in the hut itself. A brown torrent, carrying drift and flood debris, swept through the lake, and the fringing rushes stood now with only their flowering tips above water. They could not stay in the hut and in this flood there was no hope of finding a way across the miles of marsh they still had to cross. They must follow the river down to the sea and then make their way westward inshore until they were clear of the marshlands.

They loaded the boat with their belongings. Baradoc pulled one of the framework timbers from the hut wall and with his sword and knife fashioned a rough second paddle so that they both could sit in the stern and handle the craft between them. With the animals sitting up forward and their belongings stowed amidships they went downstream on the summer spate-filled river, a rolling flood of creamy-brown water running so high now that they could see far over the marsh stretches on either side. They had no need to use their paddles except to keep the boat on course. When Tia had got used to handling hers, Baradoc now and then left her to hold their course while he bailed the rainwater out of the boat. By mid-morning the simpleminded Latis gave up weeping. The wind shifted round into the east and slowly the sky began to clear of the low, heavy clouds which had dominated it for so long.

The farther north they moved down the river, the larger it grew. At noon they came to a wide lagoon. To one side of it they saw a hut with the water well over its platform. They paddled out of the mainstream and across to it. When there was no answer to Baradoc's shouts, they eased alongside the platform and tied up, and Baradoc splashed along the flooded boards and into the hut. The marsh family who inhabited it had clearly left from fear of the rising waters. Such stores as they could not take with them were lodged high up under the roof or on the rough shelving on either side of the door.

Baradoc found dried fish, a basket of wild duck eggs, a hard circular slab of bread, three smoked eels, a waterskin half-full of thin barley beer and a small wicker cage in which sat three miserable-looking hens. He loaded them all into the boat and left payment for his takings with some of the money which Tia had brought with her. As he got back into the boat and they pushed off, Tia said, “Look, the flood must be going down.” She pointed to the wattled side of the hut where a dark, wet band showed a handsbreadth above the water.

Baradoc scooped some of the lagoon water into his hands, tasted it and spat it out. “No—the flood's still running high. The tide is going out. We must be nearing the mouth of the river. The water's salty here.”

By midafternoon they were running down the looping estuary of the river. Mud flats were showing above the dropping tide and echelons of gulls and waders were beginning to work them. On either side of the estuary the marsh ground spread dense, and high with reeds. To the westward, over this sea of moving greenery, they could just make out, like a brown mist in the distance, the hazy rise of the first low hills beyond the flatlands. A little while later they were free of the mudbanks and the bordering marshes, moving into the sea on the breast of the river that curved like a dark ribbon across the turquoise and jade waters of the sea, a ribbon that thinned and faded and frayed as the sea slowly tookit and made it part of itself. When they were well clear of the land the tide, running hard, took them and swept them westward.