Crimson Chalice 01 The Crimson Chalice by Victor Canning

Author:Victor Canning [Canning, Victor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

7. The Villa Etruria

For the next two days, the country being open and untroubled, they travelled easily and finally reached one of the small branches of the headwaters of the Abona River. The valleys of the downland with their clear chalk streams held small settlements and farms. The southern slopes were worked with terraced strip fields, the greens of sturdy growths of wheat and barley and oats patch working the land. Now, too, they came across flocks of cattle and sheep herded and guarded by family groups who lived and slept under rough shelters on the downs. Sometimes they talked to these people and bartered the game that Baradoc killed for cheese and milk. Money none of these people would accept as payment. True value lay in barter, goods for goods.

With the days an easier relationship sprang up between Baradoc and Tia. Something had awakened in her which gave her understanding and a growing admiration for his character and strength of purpose. In him, too, grew an acceptance of her which discounted all her race and breeding. She was a travelling companion, the two of them bonded in a growing friendship. One evening as they sat beside the slow-moving Abona where they were camped for the night, she asked him about his cousin who had been made a slave with him and why he had betrayed him and left him hanging from the tree in the Anderida forest to die.

Baradoc said, “When he was given his freedom he left my master but he stayed in Durobrivae and worked there for a smith and armourer. He had a cunning in his hands as great as the cunning in his mind. And he heard from meeting travellers who came to the smithy that my father had died. At the moment his father is head of the tribe—but only until I return. What he did to me in the forest he did first for his father, and then for himself. With me dead then one day he would lead the tribe.”

“What’s he called?”

“Inbar, and our tribal name is Ruachan. After the Saxon raid in which my master was killed he came to me with a friend and we all travelled together. Not until they strung me to the tree did he tell me that my father was dead.”

“And you mean to kill him?”

“We shall fight and when he lies on the ground with my sword at his throat his life will belong to me. Then I shall give it to his father, who is a good man, and he will choose whether the sword strikes or is sheathed.”

“And what do you think he will say?”

Baradoc gave a dry laugh. “Lady Tia, the questioner. How should I know? But if the word is to kill, then I shall kill him and he will be laid in the burial grounds on the cliff hill. But if the word is to spare him, then Inbar must rise and go from our lands forever. Whichever way the loss is great—for Inbar has many skills.

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