Sun Horse, Moon Horse by Rosemary Sutcliff

Author:Rosemary Sutcliff [Sutcliff, Rosemary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: RHCP
Published: 1977-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

7

Captive Winter

‘What will they be keeping us for?’ someone asked.

And ‘They will be having a use for us,’ someone answered. ‘We shall know it soon enough.’

It was true that the conquerors had a use for them; and soon enough they knew what it was. Now that they had captured the dun, it seemed to the Attribates not large or strong enough for the frontier fortress of a great tribe. The turf and timber walls must be thrust out on the southern side, the remaining ramparts repaired and strengthened, the ditches dug wider and deeper. It was not for the Attribates, the Spear Lords, to do such work. It was work for the Old People, the Dark People. But the Old People had simply melted into the woods when the fighting began. One day, they would drift back, but not yet. That was always the way of the Old People, who saw the conquerors come and go or become Old People in their turn. So there was work and to spare, that autumn and winter, for Lubrin and the tattered remains of his clan.

At first, they were wild to rise against their conquerors and fight their way out.

Lubrin flung his whole weight against that. ‘It would be a fine red way to die, nothing more. Death for all that is left of the clan, even for the cubs. Have you forgotten the cubs? This way – ’

‘This way, we may live – with the Attribates’ heels on our necks.’ Kuno, who had been with him in the Boys’ House, looked him straight and bitter in the eye. ‘Easy it is to see that you have the Dark blood in you; easy it is to hear it speaking in your words.’

And a jagged mutter of agreement rose around him.

A little drum began to beat deep down at the base of Lubrin’s throat. He forced it into stillness. If they began to quarrel among themselves it would be the end indeed.

‘He is of one blood with the Woman of the Clan!’ That was Dara’s voice, still not much more than a breathless croak, and looking round, Lubrin saw him straining up on to his elbow from the old cowskin rug on which he lay in the shelter of the bank. His face looked as though it had been cut from the white inner layer of birch bark, his hair was still dark with sweat from the wound-fever that had scarcely left him. But his eyes, set back in bony hollows, were wide and challenging, and every hair seemed standing on end like angry hackles. ‘And if any man speaks such words again, let him wait until I can stand upright, and I will thrust them back down his throat until he chokes on them!’

In that moment, Lubrin was sure for the first time that Dara was going to live. And there came to him the same rush of warmth and strength that he had felt beside the Chieftain’s hearth on the night that Teleri was born.

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