Outcast Read online

  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 her mouth, and pressed them there, staring at him with widened eyes. ‘What have you under your cloak?’ she asked after a moment, in a harsh whisper.

  Cunori squatted down beside her, almost in the warm ash of the fire, and put back the wet folds. ‘See,’ he said; ‘I brought it for you. Take it.’

  But she made no move to take it. ‘Not!’ she whispered. ‘Oh no, no!’

  ‘It is a fine little cub,’ Cunori persisted, thrusting away with his free hand an exploring grey muzzle that came under his arm.

  ‘It is not mine,’ she said flatly.

  ‘If you do not take it soon it will not matter whose it is,’ Cunori said. ‘And I might as well have left it on the rocks below the headland where I found it, to die with its mother.’

  She raised her eyes swiftly to his face. ‘Its mother?’

  Cunori told her how he had found the babe, and she listened, looking from him to the tiny spent thing in his hands and back. But she only said again: ‘It is not mine; not my babe.’

  ‘Nevertheless, do you take it. It is a fine cub, a man cub!’ Cunori poked the baby at her, hopefully, but she flinched away. The warmth had begun to revive the faint life that still flickered in the creature, and suddenly it set up a thin, exhausted crying. Cunori looked anxiously at Guinear; he had been so set on bringing her the babe—it had seemed as though it was meant for her; he had not thought about it very clearly, but he felt very clearly indeed that she had lost a child and it had lost its mother, and somehow it was right that they should be put together. It fitted, and he liked things to fit.

  But the terribly thin wailing did what all Cunori’s urging could not do. Quite suddenly, with a little sound that was almost a sob, Guinear leaned forward and reached out her hands. ‘Give him to me,’ she said. ‘It is not so that you should hold a babe.’

  II

  PACK LAW

  THEY called him Beric, and Cunori gave a black ram lamb to the gods for him; and he had his first taste of solid food from the tip of Cunori’s dagger so that he might grow up to be a great warrior. And in his second year Guinear pricked the warrior patterns of the Tribe on his brown baby skin, and rubbed woad into the prick-marks, and afterwards gave him as much wild honeycomb as ever he could eat, to comfort the smart of his wounds and still his howling.

  Nine times the gales of autumn beat over the village; nine times the lambing season came round and the Men’s Side kept the wolf guard on the sheep-folds through the bitter winter nights; nine times the sea-pinks bloomed along the cliffs, spilling down to join hands with the spray that beat upon the rocks below. And there were three sons in Cunori’s house-place; and it was time for Beric, the eldest of them, to begin his training.

  Every year when the harvest was in there came a great day in the village, and from all the Clan territory the people poured into it. They gathered in the open space at the heart of the village, where the cattle were penned in time of trouble; and there, in the presence of the whole Clan, all the boys who had turned fifteen since last harvest received their weapons from their fathers, and became men and warriors. And after that the cooking-pits were opened and the whole roast boar carcasses lifted out, and there was a great feast, with much heather beer and harp music; and the warriors of the Clan danced the Dance of Fire and the Dance of the Chariot Charge and the Dance of New Spears, under the admiring eyes of the Women’s Side. Before the Romans came with their meddlesome patrols it had been a much greater day, and all the Clans of the Dumnonii had gathered together at the Tribal Dun at Uxella, and there had been long and terrible rites that were secret between the Druids and the New Spears, before the boys received their weapons. The glory was departed now, before the shadow of the Eagles, and the great and powerful Druid-kind had almost ceased to be. Beric could just remember the Druid of his own Clan; yellow eyes, he had had, that went right through you and let in a cold wind behind them. But he was dead long ago, and now the Clan had no one to officiate at the Rites any more. But it was still a great day, and between the roast boar and the warrior-dancing the boys who had turned nine since last harvest, and so were due to begin their training, were thrust into the firelit Council circle, to be looked over and approved by the Clan.

  Beric, sitting cross-legged among Cunori’s hounds, and watching the new warriors one by one salute the setting sun with upraised spear, thought of the time when he would have finished his training: when he would stand where the New Spears stood now, and turn toward the setting sun and bring his spear crashing down across his new shield, and take his place for the first time among the warriors of the Clan. Then he would ride with his Spear Brothers on the war trail, and have a voice at the Council Fire, and the right to wear the warrior scarlet. That would be good.

  He came out of a proud and happy dream that had lasted him through a large meal of sizzling boar-flesh eaten off the point of his dagger, to find that dusk had turned to dark, and the Chieftain had raised his voice from beside the Council Fire, and was calling for the nine-year-olds. Beric hastily thrust his dagger back into his belt, wiped off some of the boar’s grease on to the nearest hound, and went to answer the summons. From all over the open space the nine-year-olds were gathering, five from the village, twice as many more from the outlying Clan, scrambling over outstretched legs and picking their way between the many hounds, to arrive at last in the firelit circle under the critical gaze of the chief hunters and warriors of the Clan. There they stood, staring straight before them or grinning uncertainly at their fathers and each other, and not quite sure what to do with their arms and legs, while the elders of the Clan looked them over.

  Cunori sat close to the Chieftain by right of kinship. He looked up as Beric entered the ring, and gave him a quick nod of encouragement, which sent a warm wave of pride through him. Beric knew how he had come into Cunori’s household, but he knew it only as a story, not as anything that really touched him. In his world, the only world he knew, Cunori was his father and Guinear his mother, and Arthmail and Arthgal his brothers. And just now his one thought was to make a good showing before the Clan so that his father might be proud of the eldest son of his house.

  The elders of the Clan were looking them over carefully, nodding to each other. ‘A likely lot,’ they said, ‘a good lot this year, a very good lot, on the whole. But that one—that one,’ and Beric found th
at they were looking at him, eyes all round the circle looking at him, doubtfully. Then the big red-haired Chieftain with the gold torc round his neck beckoned him closer; and Beric went with very stiff legs and stood in front of him, suddenly afraid.

  ‘What shall we do with this one, my brothers?’ said the Chieftain. ‘This foster son of the house of Cunori? It is time that we chose the trail for him. Nine years he has lived among us, but he is not one of us, and shall we then take him into the Spear Brotherhood of the Clan?’

  Cunori spoke up hotly from his place near the Chieftain. ‘He is one of us in all things but that he was not born of our blood.’

  It is a large “But”,’ said another man, leaning forward into the firelight.

  Cunori rounded on him. ‘Is it a larger “But” than beats in your own veins, Istoreth? You who claim descent from the Seal Folk, the People of the Sea? Was not that Seal forefather of yours accepted into the Spear Brotherhood?’

  ‘The Seal People are of our world,’ said Istoreth fiercely. ‘The Red Crests are not, and this fosterling of yours carries his breed in his face. I have been eastward across the frontier to sell pelts, and I have seen them, the Red Crests, and I know. Flann, Gourchien, you also, you have seen them often; look at him. How shall he run with our sons and carry his spear among us hereafter?’

  There was a low, growling murmur from the men round the fire; Cunori, his hand leaping to his dagger, had begun a furious retort, and for a moment it looked as if there might be trouble—the kind of snapping, snarling trouble that breaks out suddenly between hounds—for all men knew how little love was lost between Cunori and Istoreth.

  Then the Chieftain cut in: Better send him across the frontier to his own kind.’

  ‘And what shall he do across the frontier with his own kind?’ Cunori demanded furiously. ‘We are all the kind he knows, and he is but nine summers old.’

  ‘There are tradesmen enough at Isca Dumnoniorum who will take him in to learn a trade,’ said the Chieftain, kindly enough.

  But before anyone could reply, Beric himself took up the fight.

  All this while he had stood very still, staring at each speaker in turn, while the roast boar meat turned cold and heavy in his stomach. Now he drew himself up and faced the Chieftain like a small wild thing at bay. ‘What have I to do with the Red Crests, that I should go to them now? You are my people, my own people, by hearth fire and bread and salt, and I will not go to Isca Dumnoniorum and learn a trade; I will learn to be a hunter and a warrior with the rest of my kind.’ His voice cracked a little, but he managed to steady it, as he swung round on the circle of the warriors. ‘Oh, elders of my Clan, I have not done anything wrong, that you should cast me out!’

  There was a long silence, and then out of the circle two spoke up for Beric.

  The first of them was Rhiada, the blind harper, who sat on a deerskin at the Chieftain’s feet; and he drew a hand across his harp-strings, so that the firelight played on them as on running water and the harp-notes sprang up towards the stars like a bird released; and he flung back his head and laughed up at Beric. ‘So, that was boldly spoken for a nine-year-old. I do not see his people in his face, but I know a bold heart when I meet one. What matter where the blood comes from, so that it runs hot and true, my brothers?’

  And the second was Ffion, who, before he grew old and white-haired, had been the greatest hunter in the Clan; and he leaned forward into the firelight and said in his old gentle voice: ‘Let him run with the pack. If he can hold his own with them after this night’s work, he will make a warrior worth having. He comes of a warrior people, though not ours … . I have reared a wolf-cub before now; he was not a dog, but he hunted with me as a dog, none better.’

  For a while the argument raged, for Istoreth was not one to give in easily, and he had a certain following among the younger hunters. But Ffion had been a great man in the Clan almost as long as the oldest of them could remember, and the word of a harper was not a thing to be lightly set aside. Also, all of them being warriors, the game-cock way in which the boy had spoken up for himself appealed to them. And so at last, looking round the firelit circle, the Chieftain said: ‘So be it, then; let him start his training with the rest, and may he make a warrior indeed.’

  ‘And may he not bring sorrow and to spare upon the Clan, even as Merddyn foretold!’ said Istoreth savagely, and turned his attention back to his mead horn.

  ‘As to that, there was the matter of a black ram lamb,’ said Ffion quellingly.

  And Beric, his future settled on the word of Rhiada and Ffion, found himself with his fellows, who had been openmouthed onlookers all this while, thrust out of the firelit circle.

  The whole scene was breaking up and shifting, as people began to press back against the huts, leaving the open space clear in the moonlight for dancing. Beric did not stay with the other boys, but slipped away among the crowd. And when he glimpsed his mother carrying a mead jar on her hip, he dodged away before she saw him, for he knew that she would have seen and heard all that had happened, and he was desperately afraid that if she caught him she might try to comfort him, and he could not have borne to be comforted, just then. He took the hurt away with him as though it were a sore that he was afraid of anyone touching, and found Bran, the wisest of all his father’s hounds, and squatted down beside him in a dark corner between two huts. He put his arms round the dog’s warm neck, and Bran licked his face from ear to ear.

  There in the dark corner they remained for a long time, while out on the moon-silvered, fire-gilded space before them the Men’s Side kept up the stamping whirl and the rhythmic shouting of the warrior dances; and the weapons clashed and the sparks flew up from the swirling torches.

  All was well now—of course it was. He was going to train with the other boys, and wear the warrior scarlet by and by. These were his people, his own people. But it was the first time that he had ever told himself so, for it was the first time that he had ever needed to. The glory was gone from the night; and the heavy coldness was still in his stomach where there should have been only a pleasant sensation of much boar meat.

  But by next morning he had almost forgotten the coldness in his stomach. That day the people from the outlying villages started home, and there was a great turmoil of barking dogs, restive ponies, and missing babies that went on almost all day. And on the morning after that, when he woke in the living-hut where he slept with his father and mother and two small brothers and many dogs, he remembered only that it was the day on which he was to begin his warrior training.

  His mother gave him an extra lump of wild honeycomb with his barley cake and milk that morning; and Arthmail, who was six, and Arthgal, who was only four, watched him with round, worshipful eyes while he ate it; and his father let him choose one for himself from among his light throwing-spears. And Beric tightened the strap of deerskin round his middle that kept up his kilt, and took his chosen javelin, and set out.

  Down between the huts he trotted: stone-built huts, squatting low under their turf roofs, with nothing to tell which was house-place and which stable or byre or store-shed, save the blue woodsmoke that rose like so many jays’ feathers from the roofs of the living-huts into the morning air as he trotted by. He went out through the gateway in the high, thorn-crested bank, and down into the upland valley where the little field-strips clung for shelter to the lee slopes of the land. Here, on the edge of the forest of wind-stunted oak and thorn that swept up like a dark sea from farther inland, was a strip of rough grass running down to the stream, which had been the training ground for the village ever since there had been a village at all. Here the practice posts were set up for Charioteers in the making, and for twenty years and more old Pridfirth had taught the first handling of spear and javelin to the boys of the village.

  Several boys were there already when Beric arrived, tumbling over each other like puppies, while Pridfirth sat on a fallen tree-trunk and ignored them; and the rest came hard on his heels to the training ground. There wer
e only a handful of them, and none were very old, for after about their second year the boys passed out of Pridfirth’s hands into the hands of hunters who were younger and had not so many wolf-bites to make them stiff.

  It was Pridfirth’s custom, after trying them out, to tell the new-comers that they were not what their fathers had been. And this morning he followed his custom, first making each of them in turn throw their javelins at a rough straw target, and then telling them what he thought of them, more in sorrow than in anger, sitting on his tree-trunk while they stood before him, and the boys who had been through it last year gathered joyfully to listen. ‘your fathers were not much to crow about,’ he said, ‘but they did at least know what a javelin was for. Now you!’ and he continued to tell them about themselves in detail, until they turned pink and scuffled. ‘But since something must be made of you, lest the Clan lack hunters hereafter,’ he finished wearily, ‘we will now begin.’

  And begin they did. There were four new straw targets—one daubed with red stain, one with black, one with green, and one left the natural gold of the straw—and the older boys threw their javelins at these, Pridfirth crying out the colour so that they never knew until the last instant which of the four they were to aim at. But the new-comers had only one target, and that first day they seldom got as far as aiming even at that, for they were learning how to stand, how to swing forward, at what instant to send the javelin free so that swing and throw were one perfect curve of movement. They had all handled their father’s weapons since they could stagger, but they had had no particular training, save what they had picked up in imitation of their elders, and some of them were slower than others to get the feel of what they were trying to do. But Pridfirth was very patient with them, showing them over and over again … . ‘Set this foot farther out; now—over and forward. That was better; now again. No, no, child, do not jerk the thing away as though it were a hornet; smoothly—smoo-oothly, I said … . It is not enough to stand like a tree-stump and throw with one arm; you are one curve, you and your javelin, springing right from your big toe to the tip of the blade. Try again.’