The Crimson Chalice by Victor Canning Read Free Book Online Page B

little louder, then if there’s anyone around they’ll get a real chance of knowing we’re here.”
    Cross with herself for her show of anger, Tia mumbled,
    â€œI’m sorry.”
    â€œThat’s all right.” He chuckled. “Nobody likes walking into the backside of a horse.” He patted Sunset’s neck. “Luckily, she’s good-tempered or she might have kicked out.”
    He began to rearrange the bundles on Sunset’s back into a saddle pack.
    Tia asked, “What now?”
    â€œIt’s getting dark. It’s better that you ride. Up you get.” He bent down and made a cup of his clasped hands for her to mount. Tia climbed onto Sunset and made herself as comfortable as she could with her legs dangling behind the bundles, her hands taking a loose loop of the halter. She looked down at Baradoc through the darkening gloom and said, “There was a print on the path some while ago. Does that mean someone is close ahead of us?”
    â€œNo,” said Baradoc. “The print was not made today.”
    â€œI had a feeling the star pattern meant something to you.”
    â€œYou’re right. You have quick eyes. But for now, stop trying to read my thoughts and hang on tight.” He moved forward and Sunset followed with Tia swaying on her back.
    The next few hours were mild agony for Tia. Baradoc set a good pace. The going was rough, up and down the forest and valley tracks, with the occasional switch of a loose branch flicking across Tia’s face so that she had to pull the cloak close about her head to protect herself. Within a mile the inner skin of her thighs was chafed, all feeling had been bumped out of her bottom, and her arms ached from hanging on to the halter.
    When the moon rose, long past midnight, they stopped in a small clearing where years before the trees had been chopped down and the ruins of a woodman’s hazel-latticed shelter still stood.
    Baradoc helped Tia down from the pony. As she stood bowlegged he smiled at her and said, “The stiffness will soon go. In a couple of days you will think nothing of it.”
    He took the cold deer tack from one of the bundles and the last of their cheese and wheat cake, and they ate, lying on the ground with their backs propped against a moss-covered fallen tree trunk.
    He said, “There’s no water nearby. But we’ll drink at the next stream we cross.” Then, as though she had asked him a direct question, he went on, “The star pattern comes from the sandal of one of the two who strung me up to the oak. He is of my tribe—my cousin—and journeys westward as I do. The other was a wanderer who had joined us. They could have killed me but that, because of the laws of our tribe, is forbidden to the wearer of the star sandals. So they strung me up to let death come without any dagger thrust.”
    â€œWhy is it forbidden?”
    â€œBecause I am the seventh son of my father. The last son, too. None of my brothers is living. The gods will give no gifts, nor long years to any who kills, except in fair fight, the seventh son of a family. But to leave me to die was different.” He grinned. “It’s a nice point of morality. But when I reach home there will be a fair fight and a killing of my cousin—thanks to you.”
    â€œSo, I save one life in order that another shall die.”
    â€œThe gods have thrown their dice. They fell that way. The two ahead will soon take a different path from ours. I’ll take you to your uncle and then my debt will be paid.” He smiled and rubbed his hand over his beard-fuzzed chin. “Maybe your uncle will give me the use of his bathhouse and the loan of a razor to smooth my chin. With my people no man may grow a beard or long moustache until he is married.”
    â€œIs there a chosen girl in your tribe that you will marry?”
    â€œNo. My cousin and I were only twelve and gathering shellfish along the