The Forest House Read Online Free PDF Page B

clean and mend them, if it can be done; they haven't much else to do in this weather.
    But you'd look like a maid in a long gown in this." He flung it down. "I'll go and borrow something nearer your size."

    He went away, and Gaius fumbled in the remnants of clothing that lay folded beside the bed for the purse on the leather belt they had cut off him. Everything was untouched as far as he could make out. A few of the tin squares that still passed current for coin outside the Roman towns, a clasp, a folding knife, one or two small rings and a few other trinkets he had not wanted to wear hunting — ah yes, here it was.
    Much good it had done him! He glanced briefly at the scrap of parchment with the Prefect's seal; his safe-conduct would be no good to him here, if it did not in fact endanger him; but when he left here, he would need it to travel.

    Swiftly he fumbled it back into the pouch. Had they seen the signet ring? He started to slip it off his finger and put it into the purse; but then Cynric, some clothes over his arm, came back into the room. Gaius felt almost guilty; it looked as if he was examining his possessions to see if anything had been stolen.

    He said, "I think the seal of the ring became loosened when I fell," and worked the green stone back and forth a little. "I was afraid it might come out if I wore it."

    "Roman work," said Cynric, looking at it. "What does it say?"
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    It bore only his initials and the arms of the Legion but he was proud of the ring, for Macellius had sent to Londinium and ordered it from a seal-cutter when he took up his commission; but Gaius said, "I don't know; it was a gift."

    "The design is Roman," said Cynric, scowling. "The Romans have strewn their rubbish from here to Caledonia." He added scornfully, "There's no telling whence it came."

    Something in Cynric's manner told Gaius he stood in more deadly danger now than in the pit. The Druid himself, Bendeigid, would never violate hospitality; he knew that from tales his mother and his nurse had told him. But there was no telling what this young hothead would do.

    On an impulse, he took one of the smaller rings from his pouch.

    "My life I owe to you and to your father," he said. "Will you accept this as a gift from me? It is not costly, but it may serve to remind you of a good deed done."

    Cynric took the ring from his hand; it was too small for any but his smallest finger. "Cynric, son of Bendeigid the Druid, thanks you, stranger," he said. "I know no name by which I may return thanks . . ."

    It was about as broad a hint as good manners permitted, and Gaius could not in courtesy ignore it. He would have given the name of his mother's brother; but the name of the Silure chieftain who had given his sister to a Roman might have made its way into even this corner of Britain. A small breach of truth was better than a major one of manners.

    "My mother called me Gawen," he said finally. This much at least was true, for Gaius, his Roman name, had been foreign to her tongue. "I was born in Venta Silurum, to the south, of no lineage you would know."

    Cynric thought about this for a moment, twisting the ring on his little finger. Then a curious light of comprehension dawned in his face. He said, gazing intently at Gaius, "Do ravens fly at midnight?"

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    Gaius was no less astonished by the question than by Cynric's manner. For a moment he wondered if the young man were simple; then he answered carelessly, "I'm afraid you have the better of me in woodcraft; I never knew any that did."

    He glanced down at Cynric's hands, saw the fingers were enlaced in a peculiar manner, and began to understand. This must be the sign of one of the many secret societies, mostly religious like the cults of Mithras or the Nazarene. Were these people Christians? No, their sign was a fish or some such, not a raven.

    Well, nothing could interest him less, and his expression must have showed it. The young Briton's face changed slightly, and he