The Crimson Chalice Read Online Free PDF Page B

the fire. Would you sit by and see me do woman’s work?”
    â€œAnd what are you going to do?”
    He held out his blood-stained and dirt-streaked hands, and said brusquely, “Take a bath, of course. It’s a habit my master beat into me. When that’s done, I’ll grind a new point to the needle, and wax some more threads—so that you won’t be left idle after we’ve eaten.”
    Tia looked at him in silence for a moment or two, and then said evenly, “What you say is fair, though not gently said. But”—her voice began to rise—“don’t think, Son-of-a-Chief Baradoc, that I can’t do as well as any tribe woman with greasy hair and dirty face. I will do all you ask of me, but speak me fair—or I will set Lerg at your throat.”
    Baradoc stared at her round-eyed with surprise. Then he burst out laughing and said, “I am sorry. I was wrong to give you offense. Now, please , do as I ask. And also”—a twinkle came into his dark eyes—“since I don’t want to offend you again keep your eyes from the bathhouse. I haven’t washed for three days and I’m going to strip.”
    He strode away toward the pool, and Tia turned back to the fire and her duties. As she worked she heard the splashing of me pool water and his cheerful low whistling as he washed himself. There were times when she liked him, and times when she could kick him for his cocksureness. Still, whatever he was, she needed him to get to Aquae Sulis.
    Two hours later they ate. When they had finished, Baradoc cut the rest of the raw deer flesh into flat strips. He laid them on the hot cooking stone, put another flat stone on top of them and then raked the hot embers over the stones and covered these with slabs of turf cut with his dagger. By the time they were ready to move off at night the meat would be cooked dry and easily carried as emergency rations. Then Tia began to mend the shirt and hose with the waxed threads while Baradoc with a piece of grit stone—on which he had re-pointed the needle—burnished and honed the tangs of the spear to put an edge and point on them.
    As they worked, in answer to a question from Tia, he explained that in normal times they could have walked the distance to Aquae Sulis easily in four or five days. But now that journey would take longer because they must pick their route to avoid large towns and settlements and the old Roman-built main roads. He said, “The only people on these high roads will be armed parties, able to look after themselves, and not always to be trusted to give a true greeting to a couple of strangers.” As she sewed, his spearhead finished, he drew in the loose gravel for her a map of the southern and western parts of Britain, marking in roughly the towns, rivers and forests and the areas of bare downs. He showed her where they were now—to the west of Anderida, a quarter of the way toward the next coastal town of Noviomagus. He stabbed the gravel with a stick, reciting the names of the towns like a litany … Portus Adurni, Clausentium, Venta, Sorviodunum and Lindinis. Tia smiled to herself for, though she recognized most of the names, she knew that quietly Baradoc was showing off his knowledge.
    She asked, “And where is your country?”
    Baradoc’s stick swung far to the west, and he said, “Down here, beyond Isca, beyond the Tamarus River, on the north coast two days’march from the Point of Hercules, in the valley of the great rocks. Away farther, right at the end of the land, is Antivestaeum, where the sea stretches away to the edge of the world.” As he finished speaking Baradoc reached for the unwashed cauldron and ran two fingers round the inner rim to collect the grease gathered there. Without looking at her, he reached for Tia’s blistered foot and spread some of the grease over the red, chafed skin. Then he tore a piece from one of their collection of