The Eagle and the Raven Read Online Free PDF Page B

panic-stricken bellowing of a thousand cattle who were about to die. As they cantered around the bend, all the ground from forest to water became a thick mass of pushing, jostling people and closely herded beasts. The din was tremendous. A little way up the bank Caradoc picked out Togodumnus, and with a shock of remembered shame and excitement spotted Aricia next to him. They were sitting close together on cloaks on the grass, their steaming breath mingling as they talked. As he drew rein and got down, and Boudicca slid off the horse’s back to stand beside him, Adminius came striding up the slope.
    “Caradoc, where have you been? I’ve had my people running all over the place, looking for you!” He came to a halt, panting, his handsome face flushed. “There’s trouble down there. The freemen are fighting. Sholto says you offered him a bull and a heifer from your breeding stock, but Alan says no, you offered only one bull, and that for slaughter for his family’s meat. And Cinnamus is down among his cattle, screaming and swearing, for it seems that he is short twelve beasts.”
    Aricia chuckled, Tog nodded in mock solemnity, and Caradoc cursed. “Well, Adminius, why come to me? You are senior next to Father. Go and sort it all out.”
    “Because I’ve got cattle missing too!” he roared. “Tog, I’m sick and tired of creeping into your compounds in the dead of night to steal back my own cattle! Where is your sense of honor? And you with the highest honor-price of the lot of us. I’m going to complain to Father!”
    “Oh sit down, Adminius,” Togodumnus said lazily. “How could there be anything but trouble when the freemen rush to drive their cattle first to the slaughter? No wonder the traders stand back and laugh at us. If Cinnamus spent more time caring for his beasts and less crossing swords with you, Caradoc, he’d know that he lost cattle this summer through disease. And as for you, Adminius, I think I’ll bring a case against you for trying to steal my cattle. You’ve just admitted it, you know.”
    The color mounted in Adminius’s face and he rushed at his brother, pouncing on him, and soon they were rolling on the ground, fighting and kicking.
    Aricia sighed. “You had better go and see what has happened, Caradoc,” she said.
    When he met her eyes he was conscious of a tightness in his loins, but she spoke evenly and her eyes told him nothing. It was as if the night had never been. Well, perhaps it hadn’t. Perhaps it was not Caesar who was the demon, or Aricia, but he himself who had spent the whole night of Samain in a fit of delusion. She looked away, sighing in a great gust of steamy breath, and the very hopelessness of the set of her shoulders told him he had not dreamed the night. She was too quiet, too calm.
    “Leave the little one with me,” Aricia said. “Who is she, anyway?”
    “Boudicca, daughter of Subidasto, chieftain of the Iceni,” he said carefully, pulling his cloak around him. A yell of rage came from the two wrestlers and he repressed an irritated urge to kick them both in the rump.
    “Come and sit here, beside me,” Aricia said to the girl. “What do you think of the Catuvellauni?”
    “You have fine horses, and much cattle,” Boudicca answered promptly, “but my father says that you all suffer from a disease.”
    Caradoc turned, amused. “Indeed?” he said. “And what disease do we have?”
    “It is called the Roman disease,” she replied, lifting her limpid brown eyes to meet his own. “What is it, do you know? And will I catch it? I do not want to be sick.”
    Aricia and Caradoc looked at each other for one astounded moment, then Aricia burst out laughing. “I do not think, little Boudicca,” she gasped, “that either you or your father are in any danger of being struck down by this, this terrible disease. It seems to afflict only the Catuvellauni.”
    “Oh. Then I do not wish to sit here. I wish to ride Caradoc’s horse again.”
    The child is