The Forest House Read Online Free PDF Page A

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."

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    "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 Page 24
    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