The Forest House Read online

  He was a big and powerful man, with shoulders strong enough to throw down a bull. His face was rough-cast on his skull, as if carelessly chiseled out of stone, and his eyes were light grey and cold. His hair was liberally sprinkled with grey; Gaius thought he was around the age of his own father, about fifty.

  "You had a remarkably narrow escape, young man," the Druid said. Gaius had the impression that lecturing came very naturally to him. "Next time keep your eyes open. I'll have a look at that shoulder in a minute. Eilan —" He beckoned to the girl and gave her instructions in a low voice.

  She went away and Gaius asked, "To whom do I owe my life, Honored One?" He had never thought to show respect to a Druid. Gaius, like everyone else, had been brought up on Caesar's old horror stories of human sacrifice, and tales of the wars which had been fought to subdue the Druidic cult in Britain and in Gaul. Nowadays those who remained were pretty well controlled by Roman edicts, but they could be as much trouble as the Christians. The difference was that while the Christians spread dissension in the cities and refused to worship the Emperor, the Druids could incite even conquered peoples to bloody war.

  Still, there was something about this man that commanded respect.

  "My name is Bendeigid," the Druid said, but he did not question Gaius, and the young Roman remembered hearing his mother's people say that among the Celts a guest was still sacred, at least outside Roman lands. A man's worst enemy might claim food and shelter and depart unquestioned if he chose. Gaius breathed a little freer at the reprieve; this was one place it might be safer - and wiser — to claim hospitality as a guest than to exact it as the right of a conqueror.

  The girl Eilan came into the alcove again, carrying a small chest of oakwood bound with iron, and a drinking horn. She said timidly, "I hope this is the right one."

  Her father nodded to her brusquely, took the chest, and gestured to her to give the horn to Gaius. He reached for it and found to his surprise that his fingers had not the strength to close.

  The Druid said, "Drink that," with the unmistakable manner of a man who is accustomed to giving orders and to having them obeyed. He added after a minute, "You'll need it by the time we get through with you." He sounded pleasant enough; but Gaius had begun to be frightened.

  Bendeigid gestured to the girl and she came back to Gaius's bedside.

  She smiled, tasted a few drops in the traditional gesture of hospitality, then held the horn to his lips. Gaius tried to raise himself a little but his muscles would not obey him. With a compassionate cry, Eilan lifted his head in the curve of her arm so that he could drink.

  The young Roman sipped at the cup; it was strong mead, to which some bitter, obviously medicinal spice had been added.

  "You had almost won through to the Land of Youth, stranger, but you will not die," she murmured. "I saw you in a dream, but you were older - and with a little boy by your side."

  He looked up at her, already too deliciously drowsy to find that disturbing. Young as she was, lying against her breast was like being back in his mother's arms. Now, when he was in pain, he could almost remember her, and his eyes stung with tears. He was vaguely aware when the old Druid cut away his tunic and the old Druid and the young man Cynric washed his wounds with something that stung - but not any worse than the stuff old Manlius had put on his leg when he hurt it before. They smeared his leg with something sticky and stinging, and bound it tightly with strips of linen. Then they moved the swollen ankle, and he watched without much interest as somebody said, "Nothing much wrong here — not even broken."

  But he snapped out of the dreamy daze when Cynric said, "Brace yourself, youngster; that stake was filthy, but I think we can save the arm, if we burn it out."

  "Eilan," the old man commanded curtly, "get out of here; this is nothing for a young girl to see."

  "I'll hold him, Eilan," Cynric said. "You can go."

  "I will stay, Father. Maybe I can help." Her hand closed over Gaius's, and the old man growled, "Do as you like, then, but don't scream or faint."

  The next minute Gaius felt strong hands - Cynric's? — holding him flat and hard. Eilan's hand was still twined in his, but he felt it quiver a little; he turned his head away, closing his eyes and grinding his teeth lest some shameful cry should escape him. He smelled the approach of the heated iron, and then a frightful agony ripped through his whole body.

  A scream contorted his lips, he felt it escape as a gagging grunt; then the rough touch released him and he felt only the girl's soft hands. When he could open his eyes, he saw the Druid looking down at him, a bleak smile tight around the greying beard. Cynric, who was still bent over him, was very white; Gaius had seen that look on youngsters in his own command after their first battle.

  "Well, you're certainly no coward, lad," the youth said in a choked voice.

  "Thanks," Gaius said absurdly. And fainted.

  Two

  When Gaius came to himself again, feeling as if he had been unconscious for a long time, the rushlights had burned down. Only a little light came from the coals on the hearth, and by it he could just make out the girl Eilan seated beside him nearly asleep. He felt tired, and his arm throbbed and he was thirsty. He could hear women's voices not far away. His shoulder was done up in thick wrappings of linen — he felt as if he had been swaddled like a newborn babe. The injured shoulder was slick with some greasy salve and the linen smelled of fat and balsam.

  The girl sat silent beside him on a little three-legged stool, as pale and slender as a young birch, her hair combed away from her temples, waving a little; it was too fine in texture to lie perfectly flat. She had a gilt chain around her neck with some sort of amulet. These Briton girls matured late, Gaius knew; she might be as old as fifteen. She was hardly a woman, but just as certainly not a child.

  There was a clatter as if someone had dropped a pail and a young voice yelled, "Then you can go and milk them yourself if you've a mind!"

  "And what's to do with the byre-woman?" a woman's voice asked sharply.

  "Oh, wailing and weeping like the banshee because those Roman butchers came and marched her man off with the levies, and she left with three babes," said the first voice, "and now my Rhodri has gone off after them."

  "The curse of Tanarus on all Romans —" began a voice Gaius recognized as Cynric's, but the older woman's voice cut him short.

  "Hush now. Mairi, put the dishes on the table, don't stand here shouting at the boys. I'll go and speak with the poor woman - tell her she can bring the little ones here to the house - but someone must milk the cows this night, even if the Romans carry off every man in Britain."

  "You are good, Foster Mother," Cynric said, and the voices subsided into a hum again. The girl looked toward Gaius and rose from her stool.

  "Oh, you are awake," she said. "Are you hungry?"

  "I could devour a horse and chariot and chase the driver halfway to Venta," Gaius said gravely, and she stared a moment before her eyes widened and she giggled.

  "I'll go and see if there is a horse and chariot in the cookhouse," she said, laughing, and then the light behind her broadened and a lady stood in the doorway. For a moment he was astonished at the brightness; for there was sunlight in the room.

  "What is it, the next day?" he blurted without thinking, and the lady laughed, turned aside and drew the horsehide curtain wide, catching it on a hook and extinguishing the guttering rushlight in one easy motion.

  "Eilan would not let us disturb you even to eat," she said. "She insisted that rest would do you more good than food. I suppose she was right; but you must be very hungry now. I am sorry I was not here to welcome you to our house; I was out attending to a sick woman in one of our clanholds. I hope Eilan has been looking after you properly."

  "Oh, very," said Gaius. He blinked, for something in her manner had reminded him painfully of his mother.

  The lady looked down at him. She was beautiful, this Briton woman, and so like the girl that the relationship was obvious, even before the girl said,
"Mother -" and stopped, too shy to continue. The woman, like the girl, had fair hair and dark, hazel-grey eyes. She looked as if she had been working with her maids, for there was a smear of flour on her fine woolen tunic, but the shift that showed beneath it was white, finer linen than he had yet seen in Britain, edged with embroidery. Her shoes were a good dyed leather, and fine fibulae of spiraled gold fastened the gown.

  "I hope that you are feeling better," she said graciously.

  Gaius raised himself on his good arm. "Much better, lady," he said, "and eternally grateful to you and yours."

  She made a little gesture of dismissal. "Do you come from Deva?"

  "I have been visiting near there," he answered. The Latin flavor of his speech would be explained if she thought he came from a Roman town.

  "Since you are awake, I'll send Cynric to help you bathe and dress."

  "It will be good to wash," said Gaius, pulling up the blanket as he realized that he was naked except for his bandaging.

  The woman followed his gaze and said, "He'll find you some clothes; they may be too large for you, but they'll do for the moment. If you'd rather lie here and rest, you can; but you're welcome to join us if you feel able."

  Gaius thought for a moment. Every muscle in his body felt as if he had been beaten with cudgels; on the other hand, he could not help feeling curious about this household, and he must not appear to scorn their society. He had believed that the Britons who had not allied with Rome were mostly savages, but there was nothing primitive about this establishment.

  "I will join you with pleasure," he said, and rubbed a hand across his face, dismayed at the untidy stubble. "But I would like to wash - and perhaps shave."

  "I don't think you should put yourself to the trouble of shaving — certainly not for us," she said, "But Cynric will help you to wash. Eilan, find your brother and tell him he's needed."

  The girl slipped away. The lady turned to follow, then looked at him, seeing him more clearly in the light of the recessed cubicle. Her eyes softened from a smile of courtesy to one that reminded him of the way his own mother had looked at him, long ago. "Why," she said, "you're nothing but a boy."

  For a moment Gaius felt stung by the words — he had done a

  " man's work for three years - but before he could frame any

  courteous answer, a mocking young voice said, "Yes, and if he is a

  boy, Stepmother, I am a babe in long clothes. Well, stumble-foot,

  are you ready to go tumbling in some more bear pits?"

  Cynric came through the door. Once more Gaius was struck by how tall he was, but except for his great height he too was still a youth; though he would have made two of Gaius. He laughed. "Well," he said, "you look a little less ready to be carted away by the old man who kills off fools and drunks. Let me look at your leg and we'll see if you're fit to set your foot to the ground." For all his size, his hands were gentle as he examined the hurt leg, and when he was finished he laughed again.

  "We should all have legs so fit to walk! It's mostly a bad bump; what did you do, knock it on a stake? I thought so. Anyone less lucky would have broken it in three places and gone limping for life; but I think you'll be all right. The shoulder's another thing; you won't be fit to travel for seven days or so."

  Gaius struggled upright. "I must," he said. "I must be in Deva in four days." His leave would be ended . . .

  "I tell you, if you're in Deva in four days, your friends will bury you there," said Cynric. "Even I know that much. Oh, by the way" - he took on a deliberate stance and repeated as if reciting a lesson - "Bendeigid sends his greetings to the guest in his house, and bids him recover as best he may; he regrets that necessity keeps him absent this day and night, but he will rejoice to see you on his return." He added, "It would take a braver man than I am to face him and tell him you wouldn't accept his hospitality."

  "Your father is most kind," Gaius replied.

  He might as well rest. There was nothing he could do. He could hardly mention Clotinus. What happened next all depended on that fool who drove the chariot; if he went back and dutifully reported that the Prefect's son had been thrown and maybe killed, they'd already be combing the woods for his body. On the other hand, if the halfwit lied, or took this opportunity to run away to some village not under Roman rule — and there were plenty of them, even this close to Deva — well, it was anyone's guess. He might not be missed until Macellius Severus began asking questions about his son.

  Cynric was bending over a chest at the foot of the bed; he drew out a shirt and surveyed it with a mixture of amusement and dismay. "Those rags you were wearing are only fit to scare crows," he said. "I'll set the girls to clean and mend them, if it can be done; they haven't much else to do in this weather. But you'd look like a maid in a long gown in this." He flung it down. "I'll go and borrow something nearer your size."

  He went away, and Gaius fumbled in the remnants of clothing that lay folded beside the bed for the purse on the leather belt they had cut off him. Everything was untouched as far as he could make out. A few of the tin squares that still passed current for coin outside the Roman towns, a clasp, a folding knife, one or two small rings and a few other trinkets he had not wanted to wear hunting — ah yes, here it was. Much good it had done him! He glanced briefly at the scrap of parchment with the Prefect's seal; his safe-conduct would be no good to him here, if it did not in fact endanger him; but when he left here, he would need it to travel.

  Swiftly he fumbled it back into the pouch. Had they seen the signet ring? He started to slip it off his finger and put it into the purse; but then Cynric, some clothes over his arm, came back into the room. Gaius felt almost guilty; it looked as if he was examining his possessions to see if anything had been stolen.

  He said, "I think the seal of the ring became loosened when I fell," and worked the green stone back and forth a little. "I was afraid it might come out if I wore it."

  "Roman work," said Cynric, looking at it. "What does it say?"

  It bore only his initials and the arms of the Legion but he was proud of the ring, for Macellius had sent to Londinium and ordered it from a seal-cutter when he took up his commission; but Gaius said, "I don't know; it was a gift."

  "The design is Roman," said Cynric, scowling. "The Romans have strewn their rubbish from here to Caledonia." He added scornfully, "There's no telling whence it came."

  Something in Cynric's manner told Gaius he stood in more deadly danger now than in the pit. The Druid himself, Bendeigid, would never violate hospitality; he knew that from tales his mother and his nurse had told him. But there was no telling what this young hothead would do.

  On an impulse, he took one of the smaller rings from his pouch.

  "My life I owe to you and to your father," he said. "Will you accept this as a gift from me? It is not costly, but it may serve to remind you of a good deed done."

  Cynric took the ring from his hand; it was too small for any but his smallest finger. "Cynric, son of Bendeigid the Druid, thanks you, stranger," he said. "I know no name by which I may return thanks . . ."

  It was about as broad a hint as good manners permitted, and Gaius could not in courtesy ignore it. He would have given the name of his mother's brother; but the name of the Silure chieftain who had given his sister to a Roman might have made its way into even this corner of Britain. A small breach of truth was better than a major one of manners.

  "My mother called me Gawen," he said finally. This much at least was true, for Gaius, his Roman name, had been foreign to her tongue. "I was born in Venta Silurum, to the south, of no lineage you would know."

  Cynric thought about this for a moment, twisting the ring on his little finger. Then a curious light of comprehension dawned in his face. He said, gazing intently at Gaius, "Do ravens fly at midnight?"

  Gaius was no less astonished by the question than by Cynric's manner. For a moment he wondered if the young man were simple; then he answered carelessly, "I'm afraid you have the better of me in w
oodcraft; I never knew any that did."

  He glanced down at Cynric's hands, saw the fingers were enlaced in a peculiar manner, and began to understand. This must be the sign of one of the many secret societies, mostly religious like the cults of Mithras or the Nazarene. Were these people Christians? No, their sign was a fish or some such, not a raven.

  Well, nothing could interest him less, and his expression must have showed it. The young Briton's face changed slightly, and he said hastily, "I see I have made a mistake —" and turned away. "Here, I think these will fit you; I borrowed them from my sister Mairi, they're her husband's. Come, I'll help you to the bathhouse and get father's razor for you if you want to shave - though you're old enough, I would think, to grow a beard. Careful - don't put all your weight on that foot or you'll fall on the floor."