Free The Eagle and the Raven by Pauline Gedge Page A

country where the wind tore at her and rippled the long gray grasses, and the curlews and plovers swooped overhead. She would lie on the hilltops, her arms outstretched and her eyes closed, feeling the slow pulse of the earth beneath her, feeling the swing and rhythme, majestic and eternal, of the silent rock. If it rained, so much the better. Rain enclosed her, wrapped her in her dreams, and, like Gladys, none knew her thoughts.
    She and Caradoc passed within her doorskins. The fire burned, and the light was very dim. Caradoc lit a lamp and she went to the window and dropped the skins with an apology.
    “I thought that it might snow today and I had Annis take out the tacks so that I could wake and see the world,” she said. “But all we get is gray sky, and I do believe it is warming to rain again.” She spoke quietly, her mind feeling for his.
    Caradoc glanced about him. Nothing ever changed in here. Stepping into Eurgain’s room was like stepping into a place where one might wait in perfect tranquillity for a glimpse of eternity. Her Palmyran hangings were soft, muted, very rich. Her jewels always lay in the same place, piled on a table beside her bed. There was only one chair, a Roman couch used for dining. She had many lamps, all intricately and beautifully cast and polished. Some were by her bed, some hung on slender chains from her thatched ceiling, some stood on the big table where she kept her crystals and her precious star maps and paper. For Eurgain could read Latin. Not well and not fluently but certainly better than Caradoc himself, and though she did not tell him so, she had spent an hour with the Druid, poring over the star maps, sorry that he had left so soon. It was a dangerous thing to do, she knew, yet with her father’s wealth came a certain haughty disregard for public opinion, and as it turned out, no one had seen Bran come and go but Tallia, her servant.
    “Light the other lamps,” she said, going to sit on the edge of her bed, still puzzled at his air of abstraction.
    The afternoon was advancing and the light was already fading away, but as Caradoc moved about the room the friendly, quiet glow increased and he felt his muscles and his mind relax.
    “Now,” she said when he had finished. “Sit on my couch and tell me what you want.”
    He did as he was bidden. What do I want? he thought, and such was the stillness and peace of the room that all his confusions fell into niches and he could view his troubles clearly. I want to be finished with Aricia. I want you to make me feel clean again, Eurgain. I want a new position in the tuath. I want roots among my kin, new anchors against my restlessness, but most of all, oh most of all, dear Eurgain, I want to be rid of Aricia!
    He cleared his throat. “Eurgain, we have been promised to each other for a long time now, and it is time I was wed. Do you agree?”
    She did not move. She did not color, or blink, or sigh. She merely sat there looking at him, the lamplight flickering on her hair and making shadows in her tunic. But slowly a deep sadness, a hurt, passed over her face and he saw it.
    “Caradoc,” she said calmly. “Something is wrong, I know it. Why do you come to me now, at this strange time, and blurt out your proposal as though a demon were at your back? Have our fathers not pledged us to each other? There was no need for this.”
    “I want a betrothal now, Eurgain. We are both of age and I tire of an aimless life.”
    “Aimless? How can you say that, you a warrior with an enviable honor-price, in full health and leading a hundred chiefs?” He was lying, she knew, and a knife turned in her heart. “It’s Aricia, isn’t it? The rumor is all over the tuath.”
    He started, then rose and began to pace in agitation. “I should have known better than to think I could keep my foolishness from you. You are right. It is Aricia.”
    “Are you in love with her? Do you want her for your wife?”
    “No!” The word exploded into the room,