Free The Hallowed Isle Book Four by Diana L. Paxson

warm.”
    â€œYou sleep with the Old Ones. . . .” The speaker showed broken teeth in a grim smile. “This is their tomb.”
    Artor looked around him at the kerb of stones and the megaliths in whose shelter he had lain, understanding now the nervousness with which they eyed him.
    â€œI am a living man.”
    The speaker reached out and gripped his shoulder. “He is solid,” he confirmed.
    â€œI feel hollow—” Artor added with a smile. “I have not eaten since yestermorn.”
    â€œWe kill strangers who come into our hunting runs—do the children of the Great Mare not tell you so?” the first man said bitterly.
    Artor drew up his knees and rested his arms upon them, knowing it would be fatal to show himself afraid. “If your ancestors did not take my soul, it is not for you to do so.”
    The speaker muttered to the others then turned back again. “I know you. You are the one they call the Bear, the lord of the sun-people beyond the Wall.”
    â€œI am he.” Artor nodded, wondering if admitting it was wise. But he found himself compelled to speak truth here.
    â€œCome—it is not well to stay in a place of the old ones, even by day. We give you food and lead you to your men. We watch them since sunset past, but they do not see us there.” The grim smile flickered again. “But there is a price.”
    â€œThere is always a price—” said Artor, remembering his vision of the night. “Name it.”
    â€œSpeak for us to the children of the Great Mare. They drive us from the best lands already. Let them leave us alone, not hunt us like deer.”
    Artor looked at them, noting bad teeth and thinning hair, legs bowed with malnutrition. Saxon and Roman, Briton and Pict alike were newcomers next to these, the original inhabitantsof Britannia. Slowly he got to his feet and set his hand on the pommel of the Chalybe sword.
    â€œWill you take me as your king?”
    The speaker looked him up and down, then grinned. “By star and stone we swear it.”
    â€œThen by star and stone I will swear also to protect you.”

IV
THE ORCHARD
    A.D. 504
    A RTOR WALKED WITH HIS MOTHER BY THE L AKE, WHERE THE apple orchard came down to the shore. Igierne used a cane now, and paused often to catch her breath. It was clear that movement was painful, but she had refused to stop, nor did she complain. When they came to the long rock that had been shaped roughly into a seat she eased down with a sigh.
    He stood behind her, one hand resting lightly on her thin shoulder. Trees circled the lake and clung to the lower slopes of the hills, dark masses of evergreen mingled with bare branches just showing the first haze of spring green. On the apple trees, buds were swelling, their branches framing the shining silver water and the shaded masses of surrounding hills that held the lake like a cup in their strong hands.
    Here the bones of the earth showed strong and clear. In the mountains Artor found an enduring beauty for which the changing displays of leaf and flower were only an adornment—like his mother, he thought, whose fine bone structure retained its beauty despite the softly wrinkled skin.
    â€œIt is beautiful,” Igierne said softly. “It is worth the labor of getting here for the refreshment of spirit it brings.”
    â€œI might say the same,” answered the king. He had spentmuch of the winter with Cunobelinus at Trimontium, and seen him sworn king over the Votadini on the stone at the base of its hill, and at the moment the chieftain’s foot touched the stone, Artor had heard the earth’s exultant cry.
    From there he had travelled down the eastern coast. He was glad now that he had decided to follow the old Roman Wall west again to the Isle of Maidens. Since the last time he had seen her, his mother had grown visibly more frail.
    â€œLook—” She pointed towards the eastern hills. “There is the