Made a little embarrassed and uncomfortable with this talk, Tia asked, “Is it true that you have treasure hidden here?”
The old man finished his broth, set the bowl down and then, shaking his head at her move to help him, rose awkwardly to his feet with the help of his staff. He looked down at her, one hand slowly teasing his beard, and there was a slow twinkle in his eyes.
“You are a practical, forthright young woman. That is there for all to see. So to talk in riddles to you would make you perhaps impatient. Each day that God gives us—or that your gods give you—life and freedom to worship them is a treasure. Is that not enough?”
Tia, puzzled, shrugged her shoulders. “That kind of talk is beyond me. You know what I mean by treasure. The kind those people would have wanted to find. Silver, gold and jewels.”
Asimus laughed quietly. “Practical and frank. Then so will I be because a dream and a prophecy have come true. Yes, I have treasure here, treasure you could sell in the marketplace for a few gold coins. But their weight set in the scales against it would be nothing. You would need the whole weight of the world against it to make the beam tilt. But when you go, you and your friend shall take the treasure with you.”
Tia, feeling he was teasing her, grinned and, shrugged her shoulders, said, “Well, I just hope it won’t be too heavy. We have to travel light.”
Asimus shook his head at her, giving her up, and then turned and began to make his way slowly toward the shrine.
5. The Centurion’s Cup
From that day Asimus made an ever-quickening return to health and he would take no more personal service from either Tia or Baradoc. He gathered and pounded his own herbs and worts to make into salves for his burns and he kept his half-healed body wounds clean but refused all dressing for them, preferring to sit in the clearing by the fire, letting the air and the sun work on them. If Tia had not fought him over it he would have insisted on helping with the preparation of food and cooking. But she stoutly scolded him away from the fire and such tasks and he would retreat, chuckling gently to himself. At night, depending on the weather, they would sit outside the hut or just within the door to catch the last of the light, and talk.
Asimus was never without questions to Baradoc about his old master and the things he had taught him. His face would be masked with a grave, yet almost amused cast when Baradoc (who never lacked words or wild flights of fancy) turned sometimes toward the east in his excitement, shaking his clenched fist as though he held a sword in it and with one swing could annihilate the threat from the Saxons, who sought to swallow up the whole land, and, bursting with emotion, cried “Aie! their time will come!” And Tia noticed that he showed no shadow of his own thought, no sign of whether he agreed or disagreed with Baradoc.
It was this that one evening made her say quietly in a pause, as Baradoc stopped talking, “Master Asimus, these last nights you have turned us both inside out as though we were chests stuffed with trifles and odds and ends of our lives and opinions that serve only to brighten your eye like a magpie’s or to raise a smile under your whiskers as though you were a cat who had been at the cream. Is your own chest empty?”
Baradoc said sharply, “Tia. That is no way to speak to a holy man.”
“No, no,” said Asimus, “she is not to be scolded. First, because I am not a holy man. Only an indifferent servant of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Also, too, it is true that I am like a magpie or a well-fed cat for the brightness and richness of your minds give me joy … aye, and hope. Though none of these can escape the shadow this world casts on them from time to time. So”—he smiled at Tia—“you would know what I have to show? And so you shall and so you should. I was born in Antioch. My father was a steward in the household of a general officer in the Imperial Army. Later, I worked in the household, too, and became the personal servant of a young son of the house. He was called John and was ten years younger than myself. He wanted none of the Army and studied law and I went with him when he left his father’s house. But when he was little over thirty he turned from the law, became a Christian and joined the clergy in Antioch. I became a Christian, too. We had bad times and good times, and with the passing of the years my master became archbishop of Constantinople and people named him John Chrysostom, John of the Golden Mouth. And his mouth was golden always with words in defense of the needy and in condemnation of the intrigues in his own church. Aye … he had a mouth with a tongue of gold when he praised and preached the teachings of our Lord, and a tongue like the whip of a fiery lash when he faced wickedness.… I will not empty the whole of my chest for it would take too long. My master, the good John, died well over twenty years ago at a place you will never have heard of, near the River Irmak in Asia Minor, and I was with him at his death, which was a lonely one.”
“Then how did you come to this country?” asked Tia.
“Because of a gift he gave me the day before he died, and because of a dream he sent me after his death.”
“If all this happened over twenty years ago you must be very—” Tia broke off, suddenly embarrassed at her own impetuousness.
Asimus smiled. “There is no shame in age. I have seen far more than eighty summers. My only sadness is that I did not come earlier to the service of the Lord.”
Baradoc said, “I believe in dreams. But the understanding of them is often difficult.”
Tia said, “Bother the dream. Tell us about the gift first.”
“Tia!” Baradoc frowned at her.
Asimus smiled. “There is no call to scold her. She is the practical one. Things must be clear in the right order in her mind. It is no scolding fault. I will tell you about the gift when I give it to you, and then of the dream—but neither until the day you leave for Aquae Sulis, for that, too, was part of the dream and—”
At this moment Baradoc jumped to his feet. Turning his head toward the forest, he said sharply, “Listen!”
For a moment or two the three of them were silent, listening. The fire burned low like a small red eye. The feet of the trees around the clearing were lost in black shadow, and beyond the fire the three dogs were alert, facing away from the hut, watching the forest. Through the stillness of the evening came the sound of a low, long-sighing throat rumble from Lerg, and then Cuna whined sharply once. Then suddenly from beyond the stony, bush-clothed rise that held the shrine came a sharp, racking burst of deep roaring. There was a silence for a while, and then the spasm of roaring broke through the night again and this time it was much closer.
Baradoc turned to Asimus and Tia and said quietly, “Get inside the hut.” He reached down and pulled Tia up and then helped Asimus to his feet.
As they moved to the hut Tia said, “What is it?”
Asimus put his hand on Tia’s arm and led her to the door, saying, “There is a time for questions—but it is not now.” Then he turned and said to Baradoc, “I have heard the sound before—twice. The only thing you can use is a bow. A spear would—”
Baradoc broke in impatiently, “I know. Now, into the hut.”
He went in with them and took up his bow and strapped on the belt with its quiver of arrows and went back into the clearing, closing the rough door behind him. Though the door, he knew, would hold no protection against the attack to come. That had to be met and held before the bear could move across the clearing to it. The racking, angry roaring split the still night again and the dark wall of trees sent back its thunder in searing, pain-filled echoes. Only once before, while hunting with his old master, had Baradoc ever heard the sound; but the memory lived with him and he knew that the beast that was coming their way moved now in a frenzy of pain and hatred for all of the kind who had lodged that pain with it. Somewhere in the forest recently, he guessed, a party of hunters, eager for meat, for the rich bear fat and the warm skin which would ward off winter cold, had attacked one of the last few of the great brown bears that roamed the southlands. Avoided and left to themselves, they were no threat to human life, content to live on honey from wild bees’nests,
on leaves and forest fruits and grabs and insects. But attacked and not killed, escaping with broken spears and arrows in its body, such an animal turned killer, savaging with blind anger and pain-goaded fury anything that crossed its path, following the scent of homestead fire, of any human or animal body that came downwind, seeking only a berserk killing to assuage its own agony.
Baradoc went to the fire and stood with it between him and the rocky rise. He called the dogs to him. Only in desperation would he send them in against the bear, and then only to harry and not to attack for not even Lerg could stand against such an animal. He slipped two of the short arrows from the quiver, held one in his mouth and fitted the other to his bow. When the bear came over the rock rise, following upwind the smoke and human scent, it would be outlined clear against the sky. The bear would see him and come straight for him … and he knew that he would have to wait until it reached the foot of the rise before he loosed the first arrow at the farthest killing range.
Behind him Cuna whined gently and from the corner of his eye he saw Lerg stretch his great jaws in a slow, wide defiant gape and he knew that while fear ran in him, drying his mouth and lips, there was no fear in Lerg. One silent signal would send the hound in.
The bear roared and then appeared as though by magic on the crest of the rise. It stood for a moment on all fours, its great head weaving and swinging. Then it rose on its hind legs, raised its head to the sky and roared its anguish and fury. It stood almost twice as high as Baradoc and against the long line of its belly he saw the heavy milk-full dugs … a she bear, her cubs now killed to swell her fury… and from the right side of her thick, pelted neck stuck out the splintered shaft of a great spear, and another broken spear shaft showed in her left flank, the blood from the wound thickly matting her fur.
The animal, seeing Baradoc and the dogs, dropped to all fours, roared, and began to lumber down the slope. As she did so Baradoc saw that an unbroken shaft stood upright in her back. He raised the bow and drew it, sighting along the arrow, knowing exactly where it must lodge, through the long fur a hand’s span in from the top of the left foreleg to smash through bone and sinew and find the heart. To shoot at her head would have been to shoot at a rock. As he covered the lumbering downhill approach of the bear the pony tethered to the back of the hut whinnied and neighed suddenly with fear and then Baradoc heard the thud of her hooves as she reared and bucked in panic. At the foot of the rise the she bear, hearing Sunset, stopped and swung her great head toward the sound. For a moment the beast’s left shoulder was wide open to Baradoc.
He let the arrow fly, heard its hornet flight across the clearing and saw it bury itself deep in the bear’s shoulder. The animal roared with pain, rose full height and, her jaws flecked with white foam, the red mouth gaping, the great teeth flashing ivory dull in the lowering sunlight, came, on in a lumbering run toward Baradoc. And Baradoc stood his ground, for there was only death in flight; and standing his ground, he cursed himself that he had not practiced more with the bow at close range. It pulled to the left but the nearer the target the less it pulled. All this swept through his mind as he stood, marking the spot which the bear must reach before he fired again; and, as he held the tensed bow, he prayed to the gods that they would put virtue and cunning into his hands and eyes to humour and direct the arrow in a true flight to the small target inside the left shoulder.
When the bear was two spear lengths from the fire, Baradoc loosed the second arrow, saw it find its mark, heard the heavy sound of its strike as the short length of shaft bore into the beast’s body until the flight feathers were only a finger length from the rough pelt. The bear roared, dropped to all fours, and still came on. It charged across the small patch of garden and through the low-burning fire, scattering ashes, red embers and hearthstones, and Baradoc, as he fitted another arrow, knew that the gods had deserted him, for there was no time even to draw.
At this moment Cuna barked sharply and ran in at the bear. He ran from the side, jumped for the furred throat of the animal, and got a grip on the side of her neck. The bear, pausing in her foreward movement, rose to her hind feet and with one sweep of a forepaw brushed Cuna from her neck like a fly. Cuna flew through the air, yelping high, and landed in the soggy ground around the pool. Then, as the bear still came on and the signal was moving from Baradoc to send Lerg in, the great beast swayed sideways, halted, roared to set wild echoes ringing around the clearing, and then dropped to all fours and collapsed on her side on the ground at his feet.
Baradoc stood unmoving. From the poolside Cuna barked sharply and then came limping toward Baradoc. Lerg went forward slowly and his great muzzle dropped to the bear’s head. He stood, hackles risen, and then turned away. Baradoc knew that the bear was dead; the second arrow had done its work. Then, feeling Cuna rubbing against his leg, he bent and picked him up, fondled him, and then felt his limping leg and found that no bones were broken. Silently he thanked Cuna because but for the pause the bear had made to brush Cuna away he might have been crushed and mauled beneath the bear in her dying seconds.
He went toward the hut and Tia and Asimus came out to him. Tia ran to him and for a moment held his arm, anxiety still high in her.
“You are all right?”
Baradoc nodded. “But we have lost Sunset. The smell of the bear made her panic and she broke loose. It is growing too dark now to go after her. If she doesn’t come back I’ll search for her tomorrow.”
Asimus, looking down at the bear, said, “God give you good days for your courage.”
Baradoc said, “Those who hunt should always kill. To leave a beast alive and full of broken spears would mark the name of any of my tribe with shame. A man should fetch fresh spears, take the trail and finish the killing. But now the bear is dead it is your gain, Father. I will skin and butcher it and Tia can smoke the meat and fill your jars with bear’s grease, and the skin you can use for a bedcover on winter nights. So do the gods arrange bad and good into their own patterns.”
Suddenly Tia said woefully, “Without Sunset I shall have to go afoot to Aquae Sulis. I give no thanks to the gods for that!”
Baradoc and Asimus, seeing the half-angry, half-rueful look on her face, eyed one another and then burst out laughing.
Asimus, chuckling, said, “Maybe your gods, seeing into the future, have their reasons.”
And Baradoc said, “Sunset did not break the tethering rope. The knot was pulled free from the hut post. Who was it that tied the knot?” He looked at Tia.
Sunset did not return and the next day Baradoc went with Aesc in search for her. He found her in a small valley under, the craggy face of a cliff that blocked its end, but before he saw her he knew that she was dead. When he was half a bowshot from the foot of the crag with Aesc well ahead of him a cloud of carrion birds rose into the air. Standing over the fly swarming carcass, Baradoc could guess that a hunting wolf—for the packs were broken now for cub raising—or a rogue band of dogs had driven her up the valley to make their kill under the crag. He left the halter rope length on her and when he returned to the clearing he told Asimus and Tia that he had found no trace of her. The lie was guessed at by Asimus but he knew that it was told for Tia’s benefit. That Baradoc should have this consideration for the young girl pleased him and heartened the faith he had in the dream he had dreamt so many years ago, lying under the cold winter stars by the River Irmak.
A few days before Tia and Baradoc left Asimus two young men from the nearby village came to the clearing for news of the holy man. When they saw the great bear skin with the head still on it, pegged out on an upright frame of poles, the inside of the skin already three-quarters scraped clean by Baradoc and Tia, their jaws dropped.
After they had gone, Asimus, who had sat by as Baradoc had told the two the story of its killing, said, “Now the story will grow in their minds with every step they take toward home. So begins the rise of a legend. Baradoc and the bear. In years to come in Venta and Noviomagus … aye, and Calleva, there will be a drinking hou
se or hostel called the Bear of Baradoc.”
Tia, running her fingers through the hair on the nape of Cuna’s neck as she sat by the fire, said, “Here is the real hero, little Cuna. The drinking shops should carry his name, too. I take no praise from Baradoc, but Cuna should have his share.”
Baradoc grinned and said, “Give him no praise. It will turn his head. He is so foolish still that he thinks he is a Lerg. But when I tell the story to my people he shall have more than his full due.”
“You see that you do.”
Looking down at her, her short golden hair stirring in the breeze, her blue eyes alight with the pleasure she took in teasing him, the glow of the lowering sun touching her cheeks with the soft blush of a blooming peach, Baradoc said without thought, “If you doubt that I will—then journey west with me and do the telling yourself.”
Tia rocked on her heels with sudden laughter. “The gods save me from anything like that! No power on earth will get me farther west than Aquae Sulis!”
On their last evening with Asimus, after they had eaten, Baradoc and Tia were sitting by the low fire when the old man came to them from the shrine, where he had been saying his evening prayers. In his hands he carried a well-worn doeskin bag gathered at the mouth with a drawstring. He sat down with them and put the bag on the ground at his feet. Then quietly and without any emotion he began to speak to them.
“In this country, as you know, there are many people who are Christians. And in the old Empire which is slowly dying there are many, many more. Neither of you is a Christian. And, as I have learned while you have been here, you know little of the martyrdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was crucified at Golgotha. Before He died a centurion of the Crucifixion guard dipped a sponge into a cup of vinegar and, sprinkling it upon a spray of the hyssop plant, put it to His mouth. And when He was dead, but to be sure of His death, the same centurion thrust a spear into His side and the life-blood ran from Him. The blood ran down His body and some of it dripped into the vinegar cup which had been put at the foot of the Cross. All this happened over four hundred years ago and the story changes in the mouths of men as they retell it, but the real truth never departs from it. It is said that as He hung on the Cross two black birds, common in the country and around its shores, perched on the Cross, and their feet were covered with the blood from His pierced hands. When they tried to preen the blood from their feet with their beaks, then they, too, were covered and the bloodstains have stayed with all their kind since. There are many such birds all around the eastern Mediterranean.” He reached forward and pulled back the opening of Baradoc’s rough shirt and exposed the tribal tattoo on his skin. “You are marked with such a bird.”
The Crimson Chalice Page 8