Chains of Gold Read Online Free PDF Page B

on my breasts. His sobs quieted quickly, I could feel how he hardened himself against them, but he lay motionless with his face pressed against me, and after a while he groaned.
    â€œIt is cruel!” The words burst out in a sort of desperate protest. “So cruel.…”
    There were things that could have been said to him: how the red blood of the sacred king fertilized the earth of all the many kingdoms, causing the green crops to grow; how the goddess who gives us life demands payment in death—Meripen, she is called, death-in-life, and Mestipen, fortune-fate or destiny-doom, for all things are in her. Or how the seasons come full cycle and the great glycon bites its tail. In some sense he would live again, if only as grass. I said none of these things, but only lay still and held him and stroked his temples, feeling my own pain burn as deep as his, knowing the words would not have touched even the tithe of it.
    â€œIt is odd.” Anger had left him, and he spoke only with a wry weariness, still nestled against my breasts. “Very odd. I had thought a coward was one who fears pain, as I do not; the blows and the blinding and all the rest of it—that is nothing. I would serve the goddess willingly in that way. But this love of you that calls me to live—pain of leaving you may yet undo me, Rae. Cerilla.”
    â€œI will love you as long as the goddess gives me breath,” I told him. It was all I could do for him, and I could scarcely speak for sorrow. He lifted his head and drew mine down to his, to kiss me. Then we lay side by side, drawn close into each other’s arms, until our hour was at an end.
    At the appointed time the chamber door opened and Lonn came in, carrying a tall spear and a great frothing stoup of mead. He set the spear against the wall and came over to us, went to one knee to present the mead. He held the stoup in both hands. I could see that the draught swam thick with herbs.
    â€œA potion,” Lonn explained gruffly, “to take the edge from the pain.” But as Arlen reached for it, Lonn hesitated and drew it back, a light coming into his face and eyes. “There is a change in you,” he murmured. “You wish to live now.”
    â€œYes, may the goddess forgive me.” Arlen spoke tightly, holding back his grief. “For my lady’s sake, honor or no honor. But it is too late for such thoughts.”
    â€œThink you so?” Lonn stood up, staring down at us. Then he laughed, a wild, enchanted laugh that flew like a trapped bird between the stone walls. “This cup is for me!” he cried, almost gaily. “And to think I never knew it!”
    His voice had changed. The warmth was still in it, but so now was the echo of a song. I glanced at him, then stared, openmouthed. He seemed taller, stronger, greater in every way; his hair shimmered with golden light, a sheen as of sunlight lay on his face, and his every movement spoke of glory. There he stood, the hero, shining godlike. And his eyes, a glowing dark amethyst hue, the deepest hue of wood violets—how was it that I had not noticed them before?
    â€œLonn,” Arlen breathed.
    I turned to look on him and found him nearly a stranger. A youth like other youths, like a hundred youths I had seen beyond my father’s castle walls, youths I had wished to speak to. A comely young man, fair but ordinary. Russet hair above a somewhat freckled face, anguish in his greenish hazel eyes. Still, with mingled consternation and relief, I found that I loved him ardently. The bond held strong.
    Lonn raised the stoup to his own lips and quaffed the mead.
    â€œYou have done this,” Arlen said to him, but Lonn seemed not to hear him.
    â€œWhere is that white shirt of yours?” he muttered. He was stripping off his own of wine red, and he tossed it at Arlen, his movements spellbinding, full of serpent power, his skin aglow with a golden brilliance. He found the white tunic and