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Authors: Rosemary Sutcliff
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the snow came, when he and Dog had snared and hunted for days, desperately, without a kill and there had been nothing to live on at all save a little corn from the store under the baker’s shop. The corn, stale and fouled by rats as it was, had kept them alive; but it was getting low now, and Owain knew that it was time to be going.
He had known all along that they could not go on living in their dead city for ever. The Saxons might come back any day, the woods were full of broken men, and the hunting was not good. But every time he tried to speak to Regina of what they should do, she slipped away from the subject with a kind of silvery whisk like a minnow. Viroconium was the only place she knew, and she was frightened of what lay beyond. And then it had been winter, and one could not travel in the winter.
But now the blackthorn was in flower …
It had been a strange winter; hard and grim and hungry, but with a kind of light shining through it. They had simply lived from day to day, with not much thought to spare from warmth and food, just the business of keeping alive as the vixen who laired by the West Gate understood the business of keeping alive. But now it was over, he found himself remembering the rosemary seedling that Regina had dug up from the Palace gardens and planted in a broken crock by their doorway, and the blue flames of the burning olivewood. They had not burned it all. ‘We will keep some of it for another time. It is too beautiful to burn all at once,’ Regina had said. Owain scratched his head—there were things that walked about in his head now—and realized suddenly that he was thinking of their time at Viroconium as something that belonged to the past already; and of course it did no such thing; he still had to talk Regina into coming away. Well then, if she would not come, he’d go without her! But he knew he would not. He was not always sure that he liked her very much, especially when the beggar’s whine crept into her voice, though that did not often happen now; but he knew that they belonged together, as he and Ossian had belonged together even when they fought.
The sun had gone and the light was thickening under a stormy sky as he came up to the North Gate, and the wind ran shivering through the long grass. And in the gateway he checked, sniffing. But it was nothing so tangible as a smell that had pulled him up; it was the odd instinctive feeling one may have on entering a house that is supposed to be empty, that it is not empty at all.
Then Dog growled, soft and menacing, deep in his throat, and looking down, Owain saw the hackles rise on the hound’s neck and down his spine. And suddenly his own heart was racing, and he did not know why.
He stooped, and slipped the bit of old rope that he used as a hunting leash through Dog’s collar, and then went on. He was about a spear-throw from the Gate when he heard it; a distant splurge of voices somewhere ahead of him in the ruins that had been silent so long. He checked a second time, listening. Everything was quiet now, only a thrush singing in the gardens. And then as he stood straining his ears for any sound above the racing drub of his own heart, it came again, and mingled with it the distressful lowing of cattle.
The sounds seemed to come from the direction of the Forum. ‘Quiet now,’ Owain muttered to Dog, thankful that being a war-hound he was trained to keep silent at command; and together they turned aside from the straight main street into the gardens behind the city’s principal inn. No sense in going blundering down the open street into whatever was happening. Silent as a pair of shadows for all the speed that they were making, the boy and the hound crossed the garden and took to the maze of narrow alleys beyond, heading by back-ways and through the ruins of shops and houses in a bee-line for the Forum.
Round most of the Forum the streets ran broad and open, making of it an island, but on the north side the ruins of a
He had known all along that they could not go on living in their dead city for ever. The Saxons might come back any day, the woods were full of broken men, and the hunting was not good. But every time he tried to speak to Regina of what they should do, she slipped away from the subject with a kind of silvery whisk like a minnow. Viroconium was the only place she knew, and she was frightened of what lay beyond. And then it had been winter, and one could not travel in the winter.
But now the blackthorn was in flower …
It had been a strange winter; hard and grim and hungry, but with a kind of light shining through it. They had simply lived from day to day, with not much thought to spare from warmth and food, just the business of keeping alive as the vixen who laired by the West Gate understood the business of keeping alive. But now it was over, he found himself remembering the rosemary seedling that Regina had dug up from the Palace gardens and planted in a broken crock by their doorway, and the blue flames of the burning olivewood. They had not burned it all. ‘We will keep some of it for another time. It is too beautiful to burn all at once,’ Regina had said. Owain scratched his head—there were things that walked about in his head now—and realized suddenly that he was thinking of their time at Viroconium as something that belonged to the past already; and of course it did no such thing; he still had to talk Regina into coming away. Well then, if she would not come, he’d go without her! But he knew he would not. He was not always sure that he liked her very much, especially when the beggar’s whine crept into her voice, though that did not often happen now; but he knew that they belonged together, as he and Ossian had belonged together even when they fought.
The sun had gone and the light was thickening under a stormy sky as he came up to the North Gate, and the wind ran shivering through the long grass. And in the gateway he checked, sniffing. But it was nothing so tangible as a smell that had pulled him up; it was the odd instinctive feeling one may have on entering a house that is supposed to be empty, that it is not empty at all.
Then Dog growled, soft and menacing, deep in his throat, and looking down, Owain saw the hackles rise on the hound’s neck and down his spine. And suddenly his own heart was racing, and he did not know why.
He stooped, and slipped the bit of old rope that he used as a hunting leash through Dog’s collar, and then went on. He was about a spear-throw from the Gate when he heard it; a distant splurge of voices somewhere ahead of him in the ruins that had been silent so long. He checked a second time, listening. Everything was quiet now, only a thrush singing in the gardens. And then as he stood straining his ears for any sound above the racing drub of his own heart, it came again, and mingled with it the distressful lowing of cattle.
The sounds seemed to come from the direction of the Forum. ‘Quiet now,’ Owain muttered to Dog, thankful that being a war-hound he was trained to keep silent at command; and together they turned aside from the straight main street into the gardens behind the city’s principal inn. No sense in going blundering down the open street into whatever was happening. Silent as a pair of shadows for all the speed that they were making, the boy and the hound crossed the garden and took to the maze of narrow alleys beyond, heading by back-ways and through the ruins of shops and houses in a bee-line for the Forum.
Round most of the Forum the streets ran broad and open, making of it an island, but on the north side the ruins of a
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