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of the spear lightly across the skin of his neck and laughed.
    Baradoc put his hands behind him. Enghus bound them tight and with another cord roped his arms to his body, grunting as he jerked at the knots.
    Atro lowered his bow and withdrew the arrow. He reached forward and jerked the dead mallard from the inside of Baradoc’s shirt and tossed it to Colta.
    â€œTake it. Tonight you shall roast it at the shrine keeper’s fire. Eh, Enghus?”
    Enghus gave a giggle of pleasure and, jerking his head to the west, said, “But not until we have roasted him first to make him sing. The old fool, he burns his garden weeds, filling the sky with smoke as though the whole world moved at peace.” Then he shook his spear and pleaded, “But first, Brother Atro, promise, let me tease him a little with this to put him in the way of true speaking before the fire touches him.”
    Atro laughed. “Maybe, Enghus, maybe. Just to make you happy, my little bloodthirsty brother.” Then, to Baradoc, he went on calmly as though there could be no hard feelings between them, “Enghus is my brother. When he was born the gods touched him with a happy madness. Even when he feels like weeping he laughs. He laughs at his own pain and the pain of all others. Now, since you know us all, tell us your name.”
    â€œMy name is Baradoc.”
    Colta, now holding the fish spear, came up to him and touched his cheek and gave a sudden sharp tug to the beard growth on his chin. “If you were my slave I would beat you daily to take that proud look from your face.”
    â€œEnough of that,” said Atro. “We move.” Then looking around, he asked, “Where is the dog?”
    Enghus said, “It moved off a while ago. And such a pretty colour. I could have made myself a hood from its skin and a belt pouch from its ears.” He laughed to himself, jerking his head up and down.
    Atro said to Baradoc, “Call the dog.”
    Baradoc shook his head. “It would not come. It is a stray that joined me only this morning. But someone has trained it well.”
    â€œSo I saw when it took the duck. A dog like that could have been useful.”
    Baradoc shrugged his shoulders and made no answer. Atro turned abruptly away and began to walk down the riverbank. Before Baradoc could move he was pricked none too lightly from behind with the point of Enghus’s spear. He began to follow Atro with Enghus giggling behind him.
    Baradoc knew that Aesc would return to Tia. What she would do now that she was alone he could not guess. But one thing was certain. If he did not manage to escape from this ragged, broken-down band soon and return to find her, the dogs would leave her after a few days and come seeking him. Beyond that point he shut his mind to her fate.
    Ahead of him Atro marched now with his bow slung over his shoulder, the ring-mail skirt swinging about his thighs, the rusty links making a soft whispering music, the battered old broadsword bumping at his side. The sword was Roman and uncared for, and the bow, an old one, but serviceable still, was of the kind which in the old days the Parthian auxiliaries had used, cunningly made of alternate strips of wood and bone. To have been taken by these wanderers touched his pride sharply, but he could understand how it had happened. When a man hunted all his mind was on his quarry. Lost in a hunter’s dream, he had crouched in the reeds, all his senses concentrating toward the moment of the kill, and had allowed Atro to move up behind him.
    Whan Aesc returned, still damp from the river, Tia expected Baradoc soon to follow. But time passed and he did not appear. She got up, walked out of the willows and found a rise in the ground where she could look down the river. There was no sign of Baradoc. She went back and carried on with the work she had taken in hand, which was to repair a large slit in one of the bundle cloths made by a broken branch or thorns during