The Crimson Chalice

by Victor Canning

  Within an hour they were wrapped and lost in veils of heavy mist and the sea which had been kind for so long stirred and strengthened and began to run in a long swinging swell, deep and powerful, carrying them up its dark slopes and then drawing them down into wide valleys of foam-marbled water. Through the mist came now and then the cry of some solitary seabird and sometimes a glimpse of the black-winged, surface-hugging passage of shearwaters and shags.

  The three dogs, hating this new movement of the sea, huddled together miserably in the bows. Within an hour Tia was violently seasick and Baradoc made her lie down on a couch of their spare clothes in the bottom of the boat. Although he spoke cheerfully to her, he was worried by this sudden turn in the weather. In the past days he had always been careful to hug, the shore as closely as possible. Now because of the mighty outpouring of the river waters they were farther out to sea than they had ever been and in the mist he had no idea of the direction of the boat’s drift. In a couple of hours it would be dark. By morning they could have drifted far out to sea, maybe out of sight of land. The prospect was not a happy one, but he kept his anxieties to himself. So far they had seen no ships but he knew at this time of the year that the foreign trading vessels from Erin and Cymru would be on their way west and south-about to clear the great toe of Britain around the promontory of Belerium to avoid the autumn storms, heading for Gaul and the Mediterranean. If they met one of them there was every chance that they could be taken up as slaves. Silently he put up a prayer to the gods that the mist would clear soon.…

  By the time full darkness was with them Tia had recovered. The two of them sat in the stern, their cloaks drawn over them, pressed close together for warmth, the darkness now so thick that although they could hear the occasional stir of the dogs forward they could not see them.

  Tia slept, leaning against Baradoc, his right arm about her. She dreamt that she was back in her brother’s home and riding with him as he made his morning rounds, seeing the oxen drawing their ploughs across the long strips of lynchet fields, hearing the laughter from a shearing party as men clipped the early summer coats from the sheep, riding through the beech woods on the down tops where the swineherd watched his beasts rooting through the dead leaves for the last of the past year’s mast, and looking forward to the moment when they would turn down the long home combe to the beach. Coming back through the fishing village, they would buy fresh lobsters and crabs, carrying them across their saddle fronts, alive and moving in their straw-plaited skeps. And as they turned from the beach they would rein in and watch the fishing boats, with crowds of gulls and terns wheeling and calling noisily above them.… In her dream the screams of the gulls rose until she was slowly drawn from sleep to find that the noise had followed her. For a moment or two she had no idea what had happened or where she was. Then slowly memory and the present came back to her.

  She stirred stiffly and sat upright. The darkness of night had gone, but the mist was still with them. She could see the dogs sitting in the bows, their coats dewed with a fine rain. But the sea no longer rose in the swinging motion which had made her sick. It lay around the boat flat and calm. Not far from them came the screaming and calling of unseen sea-birds.

  Baradoc, seeing her awake, said, “Take your paddle. The gulls are crying from cliffs, I think. A little while ago the sea calmed as though we had come into the shelter of land.”

  They dipped their paddles and began to move the boat toward the sound of the crying gulls. After a few moments Aesc rose from the bows, shook her coat and began to bark.

  Tia said, “Aesc smells land.”

  Almost before she had finished speaking, the bows of the boat grated gently on shingle and the mist ahead of them darkened, then swirled apart and briefly they had a glimpse of grey rocks footed with a small stretch of pebble beach. Baradoc went to the bow, slid overboard up to his waist and then began to drag the boat forward. Lerg and Aesc jumped over and swam to the beach and disappeared into the mist. Baradoc let them go. If there was any danger close at hand they would soon give warning.

  Tia, as the boat slewed sideways to the beach, jumped over. Between them they drew the boat up onto the beach clear of the water.

  As they walked across the narrow scallop of beach Lerg and Aesc came to them out of the mist. The morning light was strengthening quickly and the air, which had been still and heavy, was slowly touched with the breath of an awakening breeze which began to shred away the veils of mist. They saw that the small beach was flanked closely by rocks on either side and backed by the steep broken rise of a cliff.

  Baradoc said, “We’ll make the boat safe and then find out where we are.”

  They took all their possessions out of the boat to lighten it, carried them above the high-water mark of sea wrack and driftwood, and put them safely on a wide shelf of cliff rock. Then they pulled the boat well above the tide mark and to make it safe Baradoc tied the long bow rope to a heavy boulder. Then, wearing his sword and carrying his spear. Baradoc sent the dogs ahead and they followed them up a narrow, overgrown track which zigzagged up the cliff through screes of loose shale and patches of scrub and low windshaped thorns. Sea thrift padded the rocks and brown seed-headed foxgloves, willow herb and gorse filled the small gullies and gentler slopes. Before long they were above the last, dying trails of mist and out into the strong sunlight. The cliff line ran far to the northeast and the rocks were covered with colonies of seabirds, the air full of their cries. Here and there on the higher slopes they could make out the movement of grazing goats and sheep. To the southwest the cliff line, much shorter, ran sheer for a while and then dropped sharply to the sea, ending in a small island joined to it by a line of rocks which the dropping tide was now uncovering.

  Without a word to Tia, Baradoc turned and began to climb higher and after a while they came through a narrow, twisting valley to the top of the cliffs. Before them stretched a wide run of grass and heatherland rising gently to the north. Just below the skyline stood a group of round, stone-walled huts roofed with weather-browned turves. Baradoc dropped to the ground and pulled Tia down with him, his eyes never leaving the huts.

  Tia said, “What is it? Do you know where we are?”

  “Yes, I think so. We’re on the island of Caer Sibli—the fortress of birds. Only a handful of people live here and they don’t welcome strangers. Look—” He turned and pointed southward where the haze over the sea had cleared. “That’s the main coastline over there.”

  Tia saw, away across the growing sun sparkle on the sea, a faint hazy line of shadow against the lower sky. Then, looking back at the huts, she said, “I don’t see any smoke from cooking fires or any sign of life. We’re short of food and we come in peace. Why should they harm us?”

  “Because they are the Lundi people.”

  “Lundi?”

  “That is their name for their tribal bird. The birds you saw on the cliffs as we climbed, the ones with solemn faces and painted beaks that others call puffins.”

  “But why should we fear them?”

  “Because nobody ever knows what is in their minds. The sea raiders and the trading captains know this island. They land and rob them and take those who do not hide in the cliff caves for slaves. Sometimes, too, when there is famine on the mainland the tribesmen come out in their boats and steal their sheep and goats and take their maidens. Once there were many of them. But over the years they have become only a handful. Wherever they are we would risk too much by meeting them.”

  Baradoc rose, took her hand and began to lead the way down to the beach where they had left their boat. Tia went with him without question, her legs aching from the long climb to the island top. Halfway down when they stopped to rest Baradoc said, “The tide is running out and the wind is in our favour. We can cross to the mainland by nightfall. The little food we have will serve us.” He was happy, as he moved on, for if the gods were good to them, a handful of days would see them back with his people.

  Walking behind Baradoc, her clothes dry o
n her now from the strong sun, Tia watched Cuna snap at a butterfly that crossed the track before him and thought of the Lundi people, whose hard life had taught them that there was danger in greeting any stranger. She smiled fondly to herself as the memory came back jewel-bright to her of Baradoc talking his daydreams to her one evening as they lay close together on warm sand, his dream—maybe his only dream—of a Britain proud and free of all Saxons, where one day any man might walk its length and breadth unarmed and unafraid … Baradoc the dreamer of peace—but also the warrior husband, the man she loved, whose sharp spear tines shone from the whetstone and whose sword never lacked its bright edge.

  So they came down together, jumping the sea-smoothed beach boulders onto the tiny crescent of sandy shingle, growing now as the tide ran out—and both of them were suddenly robbed of all movement.

  Their boat was no longer on the beach. The large stone to which the bow rope had been tied lay in its place, and from it the shingle and sand were scored with the broad mark where the craft had been dragged down to the sea, pulled by the stern for there were no footprints showing. Tia looked out over the waters. There was no sign of the boat, only the winging and diving movement of the myriad seabirds and the long, lazy rhythm of waves breaking over the rocks and washing up onto the shore, seething and hissing softly.

  With an anguished cry, Tia turned and ran back up the beach to the rock ledge where they had left all their possessions. None of them had been taken. They rested, piled on the ledge, just as they had put them there.

  “Why take the boat and leave these?” cried Tia angrily.

  Baradoc said nothing, but he stepped closer to the rock face below the ledge. On its flat face writing had been freshly scratched with the sharp edge of-a piece of shillet.

  Baradoc said, “Read the writing. The answer is there if you can understand it.” Then the passion of frustration in him burst and he struck the rock with his fist and cried out bitterly, “What have I done that the gods make sport of me like this?”

  On the rock face was written in Tia’s own language:

  Cronos in the dream spoke thus

  Name him for all men and all time

  His glory an everlasting flower

  He throws no seed

  Tia turned slowly to Baradoc, a frown marking her suntanned brow. “What does it mean?”

  “Ask the gods!” he said angrily.

  “Who is Cronos?”

  “He, too, is a god, but not one of ours. From my old master I know about him. He was the god of all Time, the god of the Golden Age and the father of Zeus.”

  “Why should someone steal our boat and then write that?”

  Stifling his rage, Baradoc said, “How can I tell you? But it is said that many of the people who live here, because of their close breeding, are strange in the head.”

  “To take our boat and leave our belongings they must be mad. What are we going to do?

  Baradoc, catching the trembling note of anxiety in her voice, put his arm around her and said calmly. “Accept what the gods have sent and face it. The boat must be hidden somewhere around the island shores. But we can’t go looking for it without being seen by the islanders. So there is no choice left us but to go to them.”

  “But they’re dangerous, you said.”

  “So they are. But if they had meant us harm they would have waited in ambush for us here and killed us and taken our boat and our possessions.” He pointed to the rock ledge. “Look, the boat is stolen but the bow and the arrow in their quiver are left. That is either a sign of madness or a sign of peace.” He tightened the buckle of his sword belt, handed Tia his spear and picked up the bow and the arrow quiver, and said, “I leave you with Lerg and if anyone—”

  Tia interrupted him, her face taut, “You leave me nowhere! Where you go I go. Until we read the truth of this mystery my place is by your side.”

  Baradoc hesitated. Then, seeing the firm set of her mouth, the stubborn tilt of her chin and the light of defiance in her eyes, he shrugged his shoulders and said, smiling, “What kind of wife, have I taken that she overrules my words? The women of Enduring Crow are meek and lower their eyes when their men speak.”

  Tia said, “So they should when the time is right. But that time is not now, though”—she grinned—” the gods know I will take no pleasure in climbing that cliff track again.”

  She turned from him and began to make into a bundle such food as they had left. As she picked up the almost empty waterskin Baradoc said, “There will be no need for that. There will be water on the high heathland.”

  That day, their first on the island, was a strange one. The mist long

  gone now, the sky bright and clear with a warm breeze blowing from the south, the sea a maze of serpentine currents below them, the air pierced with the cries of the seabirds, they climbed the cliff track. Near the island top where a small stream ran down a narrow valley they stopped and drank at a pool overhung with ferns.

  When they reached the plateau they hid for a while and watched the nearest group of huts. They saw no sign of life. Before moving Baradoc sent Lerg on ahead. He loped away across the rough grasses, lost now and then in the tall patches of bracken, and they saw him move around the huts and disappear into one of them. After a while Lerg came out and sat on his haunches in the doorway.

  Baradoc and Tia went forward with the two other dogs, while Bran circled in low flight above. There were four huts and they were all deserted. Their walls were made of piled stones; the roofs of driftwood poles—for there were few trees on the island—were thatched over with layers of heath bundles and turves. For protection against the strong sea winds the thatch was held by a network of twisted heath ropes from which hung large stones. All the low doorways faced southeast to cheat the fierce westerly winds that swept the island top in the autumn and winter gales. Outside each hut was a pile of old limpet and mussel shells, fish and animal bones and other cooking debris. Each hut had a stone hearth in the center, long cold now and the ashes blown about the floor. Above the hearths was an opening in the roof to take away the smoke. Each hut, too, had a raised platform away from the door which served for bed, and three of these still held piles of sewn sealskins and rough woollen coverings. And each hut looked as though the owners had suddenly, in the midst of their normal life, just walked out and left everything. Earthenware pots still held stale, dust-filmed water; skillets and cauldrons stood by the cold hearths, some with dried and rotten fish and porridge in them; a string of coloured clay beads lay on the floor by one of the beds and from the walls hung fishing lines and nets. In niches were set scallop-shell holders full of congealed seal oil with rush tapers for lighting. The floors were covered with soft, dark peat earth which still held the footprints of the people who had lived there.

  Beyond the huts was a large granite-walled enclosure for cattle penning, the gateway of driftwood and latticed rushes broken and lying on the ground. In a sheltered corner of the outside wall stood two wind-crabbed and twisted damson trees on which the fruit was slowly turning colour.

  All that day while the light lasted Baradoc and Tia explored the island, moving always with the three dogs well out ahead of them. The island was almost four miles long and, in its widest part toward the southern end, a mile broad. It ran narrowing to the north like a roughly shaped flint dagger, the cliffs on the westerly side so steep and sheer that. Tia drew back with fear as she looked down at the breaking waters and the white stippling of seabirds on the rocks and coasting above the sea. On the easterly side the land was gentler, sloping through bracken combes and small hanging valleys to much lower cliffs.

  It was in one of these combes toward the tip of the island that they came upon another group of huts, lying below the crest of the plateau, the doorways looking out to sea and to a great rock outcrop far below where a colony of gannets roosted. All the huts were deserted, but here the insides showed signs of violence. Some of the roofs had been burned, the cooking vessels about the hearths were smashed, bed platfor
ms broken and the nets and fishing gear strewn on the floors. Grain storage pots were broken and cracked and corn and flour lay yellow and mouldy over the trodden peat. Behind the huts a walled field held crop strips, long neglected, the pods on the rows of beans now black and split, the barley in full ear smothered with poppies and weeds and thrusting bracken growths.

  On the seaward side of the field, in a small marshy hollow from which a stream ran thinly, a great rock outcrop thrust up from the short turf before the fall of the true cliffs, and here Baradoc and Tia found some of the islanders.

  They were all men, and there were eight of them, and they lay as they had fallen in battle with their backs to the craggy face of the rock pinnacle. Sun and weather had worked on their raggedly clothed bodies, and rats and foxes and seabirds had picked their bones clean. All their weapons had gone except for a broken spear, a sword snapped short almost to the hilt, and two round padded bucklers, skin-faced over wooden frames, their centers crowned with wide bronze bosses. One of them had been split almost to its center by some weapon stroke, and in the bleached skull of the skeleton alongside it was wedged an iron head of an axe with the wooden handle broken off short below the socket. Bracken and yellow ragwort had grown up around the men, mildew had spread over their rough tunics and the rain and sun had stiffened board-hard their cloak skins.

  Without a word Tia and Baradoc turned away from the scene of past violence. They knew what must have happened … Tia seeing it all in her imagination, though she would have wished to close her inner eyes on the sight: the long keels of sea raiders or traders who would barter and sell human or any other goods, ghosting into the island by night, the sudden assault maybe at first light when all the men, women and children would be in or close to their huts … and here, this handful of men who had found time to snatch their weapons and make their stand, choosing death to the slavery which would await them in far places.