Read Online The Crimson Chalice by Victor Canning - Free Book Online

to take the fish spear which he had thrust into the mud of the bank a voice said, “Touch it—and you get this through your head.”
    Standing full in the center of the break in the reeds through which Baradoc had made his way to the river was a tall youth, dark-haired, his skin brown from dirt and sun, a straggling growth of beard covering his chin. He wore old, tattered woollen breeks to the knees, the rest of his legs bare. From his shoulders hung a brown cloak held tight about his waist with a broad leather belt from which hung a deep fringe of rusty, finely linked ring-mail to form a short skirt. On one side of the belt was looped an unscabbarded short broadsword, rusty and blunt-edged. Hanging from the other side was a leather quiver full of short arrows. His arms raised, he held a charged bow, the arrow aimed at Baradoc. He was flanked on one side by a lank-haired young woman with a long, ill-humoured face, an old scar deeply marking her right cheek. She wore strings of coloured beads around her thin neck, the long loops falling across a dirty, ragged, long-sleeved white stole striped with red and green diagonal bands. At his other side stood another youth, who, small and sturdy, dressed in a belted tunic of furs, heavy sandals on his feet, carried a light throwing spear.
    Baradoc, making no attempt to touch the fish spear, said calmly, “You need not hold the arrow on me. I mean harm to no one. I hunt and kill for the pot alone.”
    â€œYou live around here?”
    â€œNo. I make my way west to join my people. I have been working up-country.”
    â€œYou had a master there?”
    â€œAye. But he is now dead. He gave me my freedom.”
    The youth spat suddenly. “No masters are good. So you were a slave?”
    â€œI was.”
    The young woman said impatiently, “Leave him, Atro. Take his spear and sling if you will.” She laughed. “His clothes, too. And those good sandals and trews and the dagger at his belt. But leave him. We have better work at hand.”
    â€œShut your mouth, Colta.” Atro spoke roughly without looking at her. Then to Baradoc he said, “Come here.”
    Baradoc moved through the reeds onto the grass and Atro stood back from him, the arrow still levelled.
    Colta said, “Now what is in your mind, Atro?”
    â€œThat we have to live. That he means nothing to us. That there is no tie between us except poverty. These days that tie is a cobweb broken by a breath. So”—his mouth twisted angrily—“he is a freed slave. But who should take his word for it? There are those in Clausentium and Venta who will buy without questions—and crop his ears to mark their property. Enghus, tie him.”
    But for the arrow tip a few feet from his head Baradoc would have made an attempt to escape. The iron-tipped arrow could not be denied. It would split his skull like an eggshell. Then the thought of Tia left alone stirred him to make a plea which came hard to his lips.
    Baradoc said firmly, “Shared poverty holds no value these days. But we are of the same country and we have the same enemy. If you sell your own kind to slavery what can you expect for yourself when the new masters come? And come they will unless we hold together in a kinship bigger than this country has ever known since the old queen put Verulamium and Londinium to the sword and flame.”
    Atro shook his head. “Now you talk big and fancy. Such talk means nothing. Old kings and queens or new ones mean nothing. Today it is each for himself. Bind him, Enghus.”
    Enghus, giggling, danced around behind Baradoc while Colta knelt to a travelling bundle that lay on the grass at her feet and brought out rope lengths. She handed these to Enghus. Then, taking his light spear, she pressed the point against Baradoc’s neck, saying, “Now, Big Talker of the good times to come, put your hands behind your back and stand calm.” She scratched the tip