Read Online Chains of Gold by Nancy Springer - Free Book Online

stench there. “Why, let us wash, then,” he said.
    â€œâ€™Tis not that.” The man rose to his feet, looking ill at ease but determined. “There is death walking with ye; there will come pestilence upon us or some grievous ill fortune if it touches us. Out, now.”
    â€œBut wait a moment!” Arlen stood up, incredulous. “You cannot turn us out into this cold night. We will be dead ourselves before morning!”
    â€œLet us stay in the barn, then,” I put in, seeing the dark cast of the man’s face.
    â€œAnd let the cattle sicken and die? I tell ye, go.” The goodman reached for the poker.
    â€œOur perishing will be on your account,” declared Arlen hotly. “And if you think there is death here now—that is nonsense, but I tell you this: if I die this night my vengeful spirit will return to you and never leave you. I vow it.” There was a reckless, burning look in his eyes.
    â€œHusband!” It was his goodwife, frightened.
    He was thinking. “Well,” he said grudgingly, “I suppose there be’s the shed. Naught in it but tools. I’ll take them out.”
    â€œWe’ll need bedding,” said Arlen, “if we are not to freeze.”
    â€œI’ll put in some straw. For ye and the horse. I’ll have the horse out of the barn—”
    â€œThere’s no taint on the horse!” Arlen shouted. “Go smell him for yourself!”
    In the end Bucca stayed in the barn, but we went out in the dark and slept in straw in a drafty shed and were glad of it. A small gift of food awaited us at our door in the morning, like a propitiation, but no one came near us. We ate and left feeling saddened and puzzled.
    â€œAre all seculars like that?” Arlen wanted to know.
    I had to laugh. “You have nearly as much experience of them as I! How should I know, who have spent my life locked in Stanehold?”
    â€œHave you learned nothing useful at all?” he teased me.
    â€œTo be sure! I know several ways to embroider a napkin.”
    But it was beautiful, the snow on the moors, and neither of us had ever seen such a thing before, the long windswept slopes of land and the eskers snaking across them, and after a while the pale winter sun came out and touched everything with aureate light. Arlen, who had never been atop a hill in his life, kept shaking his head and exclaiming at every vista, and we could not be very sad, either of us, not with the horse surging under us and the heady feeling of freedom. We tried to keep to the hillsides blown clear and brown, but we could never hide our traces for long, not in the snow, and before the day was old we gave it up and struck out recklessly across the billowing wealds at speed. We laughed as we rode, and we forgot to look back over our shoulders as we topped each rise.
    Came afternoon and nothing to eat, our good spirits abated.
    â€œMy stomach is pinching me,” I complained. And a day before I had been grateful merely to be alive and at liberty.
    â€œSo is mine,” said Arlen wryly. “They used to feed us well, back on the Sacred Isle—us boys, I mean. Scant fare for the white-robes, but anything we fancied for us lads, except love.… Bodies beautiful for the goddess. Meat being fattened for the slaughter.” A note of longing had crept into his voice in spite of his bitterness—he was thinking, perhaps of dinners past. I paid no attention, for something inexplicable was happening within my senses and my comprehension.
    â€œWait,” I said to Arlen. “Stop the horse a moment.”
    Bucca was glad enough to stop, and I slid down. We were at a level hilltop with a copse of tangled trees and something rumpled under the snow. Not knowing what it was, but following the guidance of a force I did not understand, I walked for some small distance, then stopped and scrabbled with my feet. The earth was peaty, friable even though frozen. I kicked