Chains of Gold by Nancy Springer Read Free Book Online Page A

Rae? Have you found something?”
    â€œNo! I—am—perishing of cold, that is all.”
    â€œWell, here.” He arranged the blanket on top of me, doubled it even, then moved away. I could hear him exploring our quarters as best he could in the utter darkness. The chamber was not large; the wall did not seem to be much beyond my feet.
    â€œIt seems to be a cenotaph, an empty tomb,” Arlen said when he had found his way back to me. “There is nothing in here except us.” He knew the questions in my mind. “Is the blanket helping?” he added.
    â€œNot enough,” I grumped. Now that we were safe, for the time, all my daring had left me. I lay shivering and sullen.
    â€œWell, let me lie with you then, for warmth.”
    I hoped he had no thought except for that, for certainly I had never felt less amorous. He lifted the blanket, lay down close beside me, and I gasped—his flesh was icy, far colder than mine. Hastily I flung my mantle over him as well as the blanket, pressed myself against his chest, rubbing his back with my hands. Of course he would be frozen, he in only his tunic. I had thought it was his masculine hardness that had made him brave the cold without complaining, but I had been mistaken; so gripped was he by grief that he truly had not noticed. He might have died, not noticing.
    â€œFlex your feet,” I ordered him. “Bend your toes.”
    â€œWhy?” He did not obey me. His head felt heavy against my arm.
    â€œArlen,” I said, terrified, “do not go to sleep, or you are likely never to awaken again.”
    â€œIt does not matter,” he murmured.
    â€œIt matters to me!” I cried in his ear, startling him. I felt him jump. “It matters to me,” I said again, more softly but more sternly. “Talk to me,” I added.
    â€œWhat is there to say?” He was going to be troublesome.
    â€œTell me about yourself. I pledged my undying devotion to you some several hours ago; I would like to know something about you.”
    I believe he nearly laughed; I felt a tremor in him. “There is not much to tell,” he said. “We boys were raised on the Sacred Isle from the time of our birth, given as much as we wanted to eat and made to keep our bodies chaste and beautiful for the goddess, and sometimes the white-robes got a hand’s turn of work out of us, but for the most part of the time we ran wild.”
    Wild lads, youths and lads, the lot of them riding on the Naga, down to the strand where the glain lie, the blue stone snake eggs of the great serpent in the sea. I smiled at the thought of such riding, wondered if anyone had ever seen them, had ever thought them a vision. But to find the glain, the talisman of seers, and never be let to set foot on the strand even to pick one up—my smile left me. So there was no magic in Arlen’s steed any more, because it had set foot on a shore.
    Arlen had fallen silent.
    â€œWere they cruel to you?” I blurted to keep him talking, and instantly I could have bitten my tongue. It was a tactless question. But it made him stir.
    â€œSometimes.” His voice sounded distant. “There were many ordeals, torments. We had to be tough—and they were always pitting us against each other, placing us on our mettle, so that we would vie for the honor—” He stopped.
    The honor of being slaughtered. He was not yet ready to speak of that. “Tell me about your family,” I said.
    â€œI have none.” He sounded amused, and warmer, closer. “No more than the Gwyneda do. The oracle gives them a new name when they come to the Sacred Isle, and after that they have none other, and to their families they are as if dead.”
    â€œWell,” I remarked, “for me that would have been the one good thing about being a white-robe.”
    â€œDaughter of Rahv. Yes.” He understood. “But do you not have a mother?” he asked