The Crimson Chalice

by Victor Canning

  Whan Aesc returned, still damp from the river, Tia expected Baradoc soon to follow. But time passed and he did not appear. She got up, walked out of the willows and found a rise in the ground where she could look down the river. There was no sign of Baradoc. She went back and carried on with the work she had taken in hand, which was to repair a large slit in one of the bundle cloths made by a broken branch or thorns during the previous night’s march. But when Baradoc still did not appear, she began to grow uneasy and troubled. For the first time the black thought touched her that something might have happened to him.

  Almost as though this fear, newborn in her, had been some mysteriously understood signal for which the dogs were waiting, she heard Aesc whine. She looked up from her sewing.

  Lerg had risen and stood near her, his head low, the grey-brown eyes full on her. Aesc moved restlessly to and fro behind Lerg, whining gently, while Cuna lay still on the ground, his eyes watching the other dogs as though he were trying to read the meaning of their change of mood. Only Sunset seemed untouched. Tethered to a slim willow trunk on a lengthened headrope, she cropped the sweet green grass, flicking her golden tall occasionally against the flies. Tia saw that Bran had flown down to the ground and sat now on an old molehill, plumage fluffed out raggedly, head and beak drawn down between his shoulders, a picture—so her imagination prompted—of unhappiness.

  Resolutely, pushing her fears from her, she went on with her work. Almost as though in protest Aesc gave a sharp bark and moved to the edge of the willow glade and back.

  Tia went out of the willows and began to walk down the river. Aesc ran ahead of her, nose to the ground, and she turned to see that Lerg and Cuna were following her. She walked a couple of bowshots but could find no sign of Baradoc. When she turned back the dogs came with her reluctantly.

  In the willows, she stood undecided for a while. The afternoon was wearing away. The conviction came strongly to her that something had happened to Baradoc. Without him she would never get safely to Aquae Sulis. The selfish thought made her immediately angry. Baradoc might be in real trouble … even dead—and she thought only of herself. She had to find him. Suddenly she decided that there was no sense in just staying in the glade while fears mounted in her.

  She began to pack up the camp. It took her some time to stow all their possessions and lash the bundles across Sunset. As she did so Aesc and Cuna fretted around her, but she threw them a sharp word and quieted them. When, finally, she led the pony out of the willows Lerg ranged himself at her side and Aesc, followed by Cuna, ran ahead. Tia followed the line which Aesc took.

  Half an hour later Aesc stopped at the break in the river reeds where Baradoc had taken the mallard drake. Tia saw at once in the muddy soil the marks of footprints.

  As Aesc sat whining in front of her she waved the dog on. Aesc, head low, began to move down the riverbank. There was no doubt in Tia’s mind that the bitch was following Baradoc’s scent. A little later she found proof that she was following Baradoc.

  She stood on a sandy beach where the stream shallowed to a ford. In the damp sand at the edge of the water were the clear marks of the studded sandals that Baradoc wore. With them, some confused and some clear, were the marks of other prints, though she could not decide by how many people they had been made.

  Across the river was a narrow strip of wild meadow and sedge land from which rose great terraces of dark forest.

  Leading the pony, Tia forded the river, which nowhere came more than knee-high. Cuna alone had to swim in places. On the far bank were more confused prints.

  Aesc, head lowered, was already moving across the marshy meadow toward the woods. As Tia followed, Bran came flying up from behind her and with a sharp cark-cark beat his way over the trees and disappeared.

  The climb through the forest was hard and slow going. Aesc was clearly following a trail which was fresh. Looking up at the sun, Tia realized that the afternoon was fast wearing away. The thought of the coming darkness frightened her. And the thought that she might never see Baradoc again, perhaps never get to Aquae Sulis, put a dryness in her throat and a weakness in her body that made her despise herself. Silently she cursed herself for her weakness and her selfishness, for she knew that the strongest desire in her was to get safely to Aquae Sulis. If she could have been magically spirited there now, leaving Baradoc to whatever was to be, what would she have decided? she wondered. She escaped answer by cursing, stringing together all the old army oaths she could remember—and finding a strong comfort in them.

  She stopped twice to drink at small streams and to rest herself. Her arm ached from tugging and leading Sunset, who faced some of the thickets reluctantly, and there was now a persistent nagging pain in her right thigh where she had slipped and twisted her leg.

  The sun was treetop low in the sky when Aesc, who had disappeared ahead, came back and lay down on the track before her, panting, her long tongue lolling over the side of her jaws. She waved the dog on, but Aesc refused to move.

  Puzzled, Tia looked ahead along the narrow trail they were following. The trees had begun to thin a little. Twenty or thirty paces ahead the track disappeared over a thicket-crested outcrop of stony ground. Looking up, Tia realized that the tall plume of smoke which now and again she had glimpsed in her march was very close. As her eyes came back from the smoke, Lerg, who had never gone more than a couple of paces ahead of her so far, slowly began to walk away on his own. When he reached the bottom of the rocky rise, he stopped and sat back on his haunches.

  Tia hitched Sunset’s halter around a branch and walked forward. Neither Aesc nor Cuna made any move to follow her. The behaviour of the dogs puzzled her, yet at the same time there was a strange comfort in it. She had a feeling that they knew—even Cuna—what lay ahead and, by their actions, obeyed some sure instinct. When she was with Lerg she stopped and looked back. Aesc and Cuna lay on the ground close to Sunset, who was cropping at the low leafy branches of a tree. Bran, who had shown himself only now and again during the march, dropped through the trees and settled on the ground near the dogs and began to peck at the grit of the narrow track.

  Tia had an uncanny feeling that the dogs and Bran now waited on her, that in some way they were all linked in an understanding into which she could and must enter. Between them and Baradoc, she knew, there was always a silent flow of knowledge and command which linked them magically even when they were not in sight of one another.

  At this moment from beyond the outcrop there came a high half groan, half scream of pain that was followed by a burst of almost demoniac, giggling laughter. Lerg’s hackles stiffened and the long ridge of his back was furrowed with the slow rise of his pelt.

  As fresh laughter and a cackling of voices came from beyond the ridge, Tia, full of fear, but refusing to let it hold her, began to move forward.

  4. The Keeper Of The Shrine

  Baradoc lay on the ground on his side. A few feet behind him were the nearest trees. His hands were still tied behind him but now, too, his legs were bound at the ankles. Before him, sloping in a shallow bowl, was a clearing which rose on the far side to a crescent-shaped ridge with large rock outcrops showing through a growth of brooms, gorse, and brier tangles. At the foot of this ridge, and cut into it, was a narrow doorway framed on either side by upright slabs of stone with a thick wooden crosspiece at the top. In the center of the clearing a large patch of ground had been cleared and cultivated, the dark earth now marked with new bean growth, rows of young cabbages, a line of vines, a patch of young barley and a bed of glossy green-spiked spring onions. Beyond the garden an apple and a fig tree stood close to a low-roofed, long wooden-framed hut, the roof and sides thatched with rush bundles. At one end of the hut was a small wattle enclosure in which a cock and half a dozen hens foraged. Nearer Baradoc a small spring welled from the ground and ran in a thin rill through a marshy channel to the far slope of the forest. Between the stream and the hut a fire burned, a fire piled now with new kindling so that the fresh flames leapt from it an
d the blazing wood crackled and spat sparks and black ash that rose in the air like a cloud of flies. Close to the fire stood Atro and Colta, each holding an arm of a tall, thin-bodied old man whose long, girdled brown robe had been stripped from the top half of his body. Standing in front of the old man was Enghus, holding the light spear. Already he had scored the man’s bare chest with the spear-point and now he thrust the spearhead almost fully into the man’s left hip. Both arms already ran with blood from previous thrusts.

  Baradoc watched, sickened and angry with disgust, as Colta, striking the old man’s face with her fist, spat at him, shouting, “You old fool—talk!”

  Enghus raised the spear to thrust again, crying, “Yes, talk, talk, talk! Where is the treasure?”

  Atro swung his free hand and sent Enghus spinning away. “Enough, Enghus! Enough!” Then to the old man he said, “Listen, Father, be sensible and talk, and then we will leave you in peace. But if you don’t we will surely kill you.” He reached out, took the old man’s long dark beard in his hand and jerked his head up. “Talk! Where is the treasure?”

  Baradoc saw the slow bracing movement of the man’s thin, bony shoulders as he drew breath. His dark eyes opened and he stared at Atro and his lean, weather-bitten face was stony with stubbornness. He said nothing.

  Enghus lowered the spearpoint and held it against the old man’s belly. “Let me, Atro. Let me!”

  Atro shook his head. “No, he’s had his chance. But now—you shall make him talk.” He laughed gently. “Roast him a little. That’ll start his tongue to wag.”

  “Yes, yes, roast him a little.…” Enghus dropped his spear and began to dance around, beating his hands in joy, like an excited child, chanting, “Roast him! Toast him! That’ll make his old tongue waggle!”

  At this moment, long before he caught the downwind scent of the hound, Baradoc knew that Lerg was close to him. And with Lerg would be the others … yes, even Tia, for he knew the dogs would never have left her so soon. He slowly turned his head and looked back at the near trees. The group around the old man were too busy with their own business to pay any attention to him now.

  Enghus had taken a dry branch and was holding it in the fire the end of it flaming in a great yellow-and-blue tongue. He whipped it from the fire and swung it around to kill the flame and fan the thick end into a living red coal. The moment it glowed well Enghus danced in, cackling with delight, and drew the red end slowly across the old man’s chest. The old man, his body jerking violently, threw his head back and screamed, the echoes of his cry beating back from the surrounding woods, setting pigeons flighting from the far treetops.

  Behind him on the fringe of the trees Baradoc heard the shaking of a bush and a quick breathing as someone moved behind it. Slowly he turned his head. Momentarily the sunlight flashed on a scrap of fair hair. As another scream from the old man rang in his ears, Baradoc sat up so that the top half of his body would cover any approach from behind. All he wanted now was to feel the dagger thrust at the thongs of his wrists behind him, and then to have the dagger in his free hands to slash his ankle bonds.

  The old man screamed again. Baradoc watched Atro and Colta supporting the long, thin frame and Enghus dancing back to the fire to heat up the brand for a fresh assault. Anger burned in him at the wanton savagery of the three. Then he felt his left arm grasped, heard Tia’s heavy breathing and took the warm body smell of her into his nostrils. He strained at his wrists to stretch the thongs tight as, lying full length, hidden behind him, she sawed at them with her small dagger. When they came free, he said quietly, “Stay where you are.” He took the dagger from her and brought his right hand-around quickly and began to cut away at his ankle bonds.

  Across the clearing Enghus stepped back from the fire, whirling his brand to make it glow. Colta was pulling at the old man’s beard while Atro supported him as his legs sagged. The light spear lay on the ground, unheeded. Atro’s bow was slung across his back, the quiver and broadsword hanging at his belt.

  Baradoc’s ankle binds came free. Dagger in hand, he began to rise swiftly. The movement caught Atro’s eye. He turned full toward Baradoc, let out a loud warning cry, and began to fumble to free his bow from his back.

  Through Tia raced a sudden surge of fear as she saw Atro beginning to unship his bow as Baradoc ran across the clearing. Then she heard theracing Baradoc shout, “Saheer! Aie! Saheer!”

  Lerg leapt from the thicket behind her and with him went Aesc and Cuna. Before Baradoc could reach the group at the fire, Lerg was past him and leaping at Atro as the youth freed his bow. They went over in a roaring, growling mêlée of arms and legs and twisting grey body. A long shriek of pain cut through the air. Colta let go of the old man and he fell to the ground. Enghus threw his burning brand at Aesc as the dog rushed in and bit and snapped at his legs as he tried to reach his light spear. Colta raised her fish spear and ran at Baradoc, but before she could reach him Bran dropped from above in a threshing at her eyes. Colta screamed, dropped the spear and ran for the woods, covering her face with spread hands. Enghus ran after her, away from the snapping, savage attack of Aesc and Cuna, abandoning hope of gaining his spear.

  Baradoc shouted to Lerg and the dog drew back from the fallen Atro. Baradoc picked up the light spear and stood over him as Colta and Enghus disappeared in the woods. Tia ran forward and, hardly knowing she was doing it, pulled the old man away from where he had fallen so close to the fire that the hood of his gown was burning. She beat out the flames with her hands.

  Baradoc stood over the fallen Atro, spear and dagger in hand. Blood was pouring from the side of the youth’s neck where Lerg had taken him.

  “Make one move,” said Baradoc, “and I’ll put the hound on you.” Spear poised for action, he bent down and picked up the Parthian bow and threw it behind him. Grimly, he said, “Stand up and keep facing me.”

  Holding his hand to his neck, Atro rose to his feet. Then with a slow shrug of his shoulders, he smiled and said, “What need is there for all this? The talk of selling you as a slave was not in earnest. You should join us. Together nobody could face us.” He nodded toward the old man. “There is treasure here. Everyone around knows it. We have only to make him speak and then share it.”

  Baradoc pressed the point of the spear against Atro’s breast, pressed it hard so that it reached his skin and made him wince away. “Undo your belt and let it drop. And give me no more talk. After all I’ve seen—a wrong word could yet move me to kill.”

  Slowly Atro brought his hands to his belt buckle. The belt fell to the ground, an arrow slipping from the quiver, the heavy sword ringing against the stones.

  “Now go,” said Baradoc harshly. “And remember this—you are marked by me and by the hound. To see you again means a killing. Go!”

  Atro, tight-lipped, faced him for a moment or two and then turned and began to walk to the trees. Behind him stalked Lerg and when Atro passed into the trees the hound still went with him.

  They took the old man into his hut, stripped the gown from him and laid him on his bed, which was made of long, rough-hewn boards without over or undercoverings. He lay, there, breathing faintly, making no move, his eyes shut.

  Baradoc nodded to an earthenware jar by the door. “Get some water. Wash his spear wounds and find some cloths to bind them. Don’t touch the burns.” He went out of the hut, gathered up all the weapons and brought them back. Then, carrying only the light spear, he went toward the low crest above the hillside doorway.

  Tia filled the jar with water. As she did so she noticed that Aesc and Cuna had stationed themselves on the forest edge of the clearing. Back in the hut she washed the old man’s wounds and bound them as well as she could with some of the rags that Baradoc had found in the fishermen’s hut. Since the rags were dirty she tore strips from her short undershirt, which was reasonably clean, to go next to the wounds. When the dressings were done she made a pillow from the old man’s gown, propped his head up and fed water to him from her beaker. Eyes closed, he dra
nk a little and groaned sharply when her arm touched one of his bums.

  Baradoc came back after a while carrying two handfuls of leaves and herbs. With a stone he began to pound some of them into a pulp on a platter and said, “There’s a hen run at the side of the hut. Get some eggs.” He said it without looking at her, pounding away at the leaves. The old man was all his concern. She found four eggs in a bracken nest in a corner of the run and brought them back. She saw that Lerg had returned.

  Baradoc broke the eggs over the pulpy herb mass and stirred them into it to make a paste. When the paste was well mixed he took handfuls of it and spread it over the old man’s chest burns. Although he did it gently the old man twitched and groaned at his touch.

  Over his shoulder Baradoc said, “Find something to cover him.” Except for a rough loin wrapping, the old man had been naked under his rough woollen robe.

  “There’s nothing here. I’ll have to fetch Sunset.”

  “Then get her. There’s no danger. They won’t be back to face Lerg.”

  As she left the clearing, Lerg rose and went with her without any sign or word.

  When she came back with Sunset she unloaded the two panniers and freed her short mantle from the saddle rope. In the hut she spread the mantle over the old man, covering him just short of the lowest burn on his chest.