The Eagle and the Raven Read Online Free PDF

to discuss.”
    Caradoc looked at him closely. He had been wrong about the fat. Subidasto was enormous, yes, but his girth was not loose or flabby. His arms were full of tight muscle, his mouth firm and unyielding, and he had the pale blue, piercing eyes of a man who spends all his time out-ofdoors, looking into far distances. Is there trouble here? Caradoc wondered. Is that why Subidasto has claimed the immunity of Samain? What is my father plotting this time? He glanced at Cunobelin but read only merriment in the close-set eyes, in the heavily wrinkled face.
    “Peace, Lord!” Cunobelin said. “First there must be good eating and drinking tonight, and plenty of music, and of course the rites of Samain. Then we will talk.” He scrambled to his feet. “But if you’ve eaten for the morning, let me show you Camulodunon.”
    Subidasto’s mouth set in a hard line of disapproval but he rose also, nodding reluctantly.
    Caradoc suddenly found Boudicca’s round eyes staring at his face, and it made him uncomfortable. “Father,” he said. “Will you excuse me? I must go and see to my herd today.”
    Cunobelin dismissed him, but said quietly, “There is also the matter of my dogs, Caradoc. Brutus has a ripped ear and cannot now be sold. How did that happen, I ask myself, when the guards at the kennel have had orders not to let those dogs out of their sight? There must be a settling here.”
    “You know everything, Father,” Caradoc said, grinning. “Have you spoken to Tog?”
    “Yes, and to Aricia. The three of you owe me two heifers. Breeding stock.” Cunobelin was smiling back.
    “Now Father!” Caradoc protested. “Take a carcass. I cannot afford a live heifer.”
    “I’ll fight you for it if you like,” Cunobelin said indifferently.
    “No, Father, no.” Caradoc shouted with laughter. “I have no wish for more scars, but a breeder gone will be a sore loss.”
    “Then take Cinnamus and Fearachar and go raiding,” Cunobelin said. “How do you think I got rich, Caradoc?”
    Caradoc saluted him ruefully and turned on his heel, but he felt a small hand steal into his own and hold him back. He looked down to see those brown eyes still fixed solemnly on him.
    “Can I come with you?” she whispered.
    His heart sank, but before he could refuse, Cunobelin said, “Take the child down to the slaughtering, Caradoc, and amuse her for a while. Do you object, Subidasto?”
    Subidasto hesitated. He was evidently torn from moment to moment by the wish on the one hand to be as objectionable as possible and on the other not to offend these most powerful people, but finally he shook his head, and so Caradoc left the Hall with Boudicca trailing behind him. They walked into the sun and took the path that led straight down to the gate. It stood wide, and beyond it Fearachar waited, sitting on the ground, a sour look on his face, the reins of Caradoc’s horse held loosely in his hands.
    “I have been waiting for you for a long time, Lord,” Fearachar said reproachfully as he handed the horse over to Caradoc. “I am cold and hungry.”
    “Then go and get warm and have something to eat—but I don’t think we have left you much,” Caradoc retorted. “Boudicca, can you ride?”
    The chin came up. “Of course!” she said. “But not…not horses like him, only chariot ponies. There are not many horses as big as that in our country,” she finished, blushing.
    Caradoc lifted her and set her on his mount’s back, jumping up behind her and gathering up the reins. “Shall we go fast?” he asked her, and she nodded vigorously, winding her fingers into the horse’s mane as he dug in his heels and swept down the gentle slope into the meadows beyond.
    In an hour they came to the river flat, and even before they rounded the bend that would reveal the water and the marshes and the tall, leafless willows, they could smell the slaughtering—the sickly sweet, wet smell of freshly spilled blood—and they could hear the high,