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

with the south side open to the weather, a shelter meant for lambing, perhaps. There was some soiled straw in it, and also there were some sheep. They stank, but we nestled down among them for the sake of the warmth of their wool. And Bucca had only the shelter of a thin whitethorn grove and a blanket on his back.
    In days to follow we learned not to scorn the squirrels’ hoards. When my signal unseen or voice unheard led me to one the next day, we took nuts and cracked them to have with our apples.
    Those were not easy days; it would be untrue to say they were. We did not trouble the outlanders any more with the onus of our presence, but waited until they were abed and then took shelter in a shed or barn or byre, stealing a bit of hay for Bucca, or corn. For some reason, although we did not hesitate to take what the horse needed, we would not steal for ourselves. Perhaps we felt somehow to blame, while Bucca was blameless. Therefore we survived on gleanings, we both grew thin and haggard. And I had never known the world was so large, so awesome, or the hours of darkness were so long, away from lamplight and friendly hearth. Until we were settled in our rude bedding with our blanket over us and our bodies nestled together, the nights seemed full of dread mystery, as menacing to us as we seemed to others.
    Perhaps because we needed it the more, the presence that traveled with us had grown stronger. Whatever food lay beneath the ground it would show to me without fail, even if it were only a single turnip or a few acorns—always to me, never to Arlen. But Arlen was beginning to sense the being of the thing too. At times one could almost see it; there was a sort of thickness in the air a few feet to the left of us. If we were separated, it went with me. On one occasion when it had led me off to some distance in search of carrots, I turned to see Arlen watching with a peculiar expression on his face. Then he came slowly up to us. I say “us” because there verily was an other there.
    â€œI wonder what it is,” he murmured, gazing off to my left a little.
    I must have been feeling particularly hungry that day, and bitter. “You could leave,” I told him, as if he were stupid not to have thought of it himself. “Go off by yourself and join some lord’s retinue, live like a proper person instead of a beast. They would accept you, for this thing would cleave to me; I feel sure of it. Go ahead.”
    If he had hesitated so much as to draw an extra breath—but he only smiled and took my hand. “Rae,” he chided, “you are talking nonsense.” And that was the end of it.
    Hard days, but good. Arlen had never known women except for the Gwyneda, who were scarcely women at all in any natural sense. It was most sternly forbidden that there should be any contact of a fleshly sort between the young men of the Sacred Isle and the Gwyneda, even though some of the white-robes were as young as the sacred kings. The penalty for such passion was a most unpleasant death. So Arlen had known no lovers but me, and while he knew he loved me he hardly knew how to treat me, not in any usual way. More and more he came to regard me as a comrade, a fellow, and he confided in me much as he would have confided in—well, in Lonn. I did not entirely like this; I would have liked to have been wooed, courted, I who had prayed for a sweetheart. Still, I was a wife, and once a women wed, she stood at the mercy of her husband’s fist; in this regard I was fortunate. Arlen had no notion of manly protection or a woman’s place, but his equable love for me constrained him to keep from quarreling with me and I was glad of it, for he was mettlesome. I was grateful that the hot flash of his eyes fell on folk other than myself.
    Being a comrade, I decided, had felt strange to start with, but better and better as time went on. Comradeship assorted well with freedom—another joy that had once felt