Outcast Read Free

a face so gaunt that it was like a skull; uncomfortable eyes that went through a man and let in a cold wind behind them. Those eyes of his were fixed on Cunori now; he shook back the wild white hair that hung about his shoulders, and demanded, ‘What thing is that you have under your cloak, Cunori, son of Cuthlyn?’
    ‘It is a man child, and it lives, Old Father,’ said
Cunori, perfectly aware that Merddyn knew that as well as he did.

    ‘And what do you do with the man child?’
    ‘I take it to my woman, in place of her own that died half a moon since.’
    ‘It is unlucky to rob the sea,’ Merddyn said, licking his lips. ‘If you bring it among us, it will bring sorrow on us all—sorrow and to spare on those who rob the sea.’
    ‘The sea does not want him,’ Cunori returned stubbornly, instantly stiffening in his determination to have the thing, at the first hint of opposition—just as the first thing that had made him determined to have Guinear had been the discovery that a hunter called Istoreth wanted her. ‘The sea has refused him and cast him out. He was not born to be drowned, this one.’
    ‘Nonetheless, evil will come of it, evil and the wrath of the gods, if you bring the thing among us! It is a Roman whelp, and what have we to do with such—we, the Free People beyond the frontier? It is of the breed that tore apart the Holy Places and slaughtered my brethren, sixty winters ago, and reft from us the power that was ours—ours to us, who were the holders of the secrets of life, the moon-crested, before their coming!’ The old man’s voice had risen to its seabird note, and drawn by it, tribesmen were gathering from all directions, scrambling towards them over the rocks to discover the reason for the outcry.
    Cunori was exasperated. Quite suddenly he wondered how it was, if the Druids had indeed been the masters of all power, as Merddyn claimed, that they had allowed themselves to be overcome by the Eagle People. He flung the thought away from him in a scared hurry, furtively spreading the fingers of his left hand to avert evil. But all the same, he was going to have the babe. ‘Old Father,’ he said, ‘I will give you a black ram lamb for the gods, so that they may not be angry.’
    And he stepped past the old man, his fingers still spread hornwise, and set off along the shore towards the cliff path.
Some of his Spear Brethren crowded in on him as he went, and he cried out to them, half laughing, half angry: ‘Off! Get off! I must get this thing home to my woman, or it will die.’ And he strode past them, leaving them to stare after him, leaving Merddyn the Druid muttering and mouthing in their midst, torn by the cruel awareness that sixty winters ago no man would have dared to withstand his will, nor sought to buy the gods with a black ram lamb; and the young soldier and his wife lying with their arms round each other on the wet rocks.

    Istoreth—that same Istoreth who had wanted Guinear—cried out a charm against ill luck, and spat towards Cunori as he passed him. Cunori laughed and spat back, then turned to the cliff path. He reached the cliff-top, and set off at a swift wolf-lope for the village. His dogs came out to meet him as he drew near to his own house-place, whining and thrusting round him; and he ordered them off much as he had done his Spear Brothers. ‘Off, Luath. Off, Keri! Back, I say!’ He ducked under the low lintel and plunged down into the warm gloom of the house-place.
    Guinear was stirring the morning stew, and she sat back on her heels, still holding the pottery spoon, and looked up at him, questioningly. ‘How went the hunting?’
    ‘Well enough,’ Cunori said.
    ‘Did many things come ashore?’
    ‘Wineskins and timber, and a few carcasses of sheep, on this tide.’
    ‘And—drowned men? No one saved?’
    Cunori hesitated, and as he did so the babe under his cloak gave a little sick whimper. Guinear started as though she had been struck. She put both hands to