them up and down, then flashed out at them in a fine blaze of anger. ‘Now by Lugh of the Shining Spear! To hear you, a man might think the Prince Midir stood on sufferance, here among his own! Shall I come to you with my hands held out, and bend my neck and stand before you like a beggar before the master of the house, telling my story for a crust of bannock and a corner by the fire? It is not for you to wag your heads and take me in as the master of the house takes in a beggar of his charity; it is I, Midir the Horse Lord, who comes back to take the place among you that is mine; mine to me! I am the spearhead of this rising that shall drive the She-Wolf from the place that she has snatched, and free the tribe to walk in the daylight again! I am the Lord of the Horse People as my father was before me; if you do not believe me, kill me for an impostor; if you do, then take me for what I am, and be glad of my coming!’
For a moment longer the hush endured, and then the badger-haired man broke it. ‘That had the true ring of Midir about it. There was never a shred of respect he had for his elders!’
And someone laughed deep in his throat, and the hush broke into the hubbub of slackened strain.
And in the midst of it all, Phaedrus was handfast with the badger-haired one, and saw in the torchlight the line of an old scar slicing through one bushy eyebrow, and said, suddenly quiet, ‘What, Dergdian, no doubts at all?’
‘None!’ Dergdian said. ‘I knew you from the first moment. I am not like some fools who forget a face they have not seen for a week! Ah well, I set my mark on you, as I remember.’
‘And I on you! The scar still shows a little – but you made me pay for it! My back still smarts when I remember that day!’ He hitched at his shoulders. ‘I still say it was a simple mistake; you were red as a fox in those days. Not so red now, Dergdian.’
‘
Na, na!
I will not be called a fox! That is for Sinnoch. I am a hound growing grey about the muzzle.’ Laughter-lines deepened about Dergdian’s eyes. ‘But I am your hound as I was your father’s.’ And still holding Phaedrus’s hands, he got stiffly down on to one knee, and pressed his forehead against them, in the way of a tribesman swearing loyalty to his Chief.
One by one the others followed his lead, pressing about Phaedrus to take their allegiance. Their faces were alive with reborn hope. And suddenly Phaedrus wanted to fling the next man off and shout at them: ‘Don’t! In Typhon’s name don’t. I’m not Midir – if you want him go and look for a blind leather-worker in Eburacum!’
And then behind the rest, with some kind of great fur collar round his neck, he saw a man holding back, taking his time; watching him out of eyes that seemed, even in the gloom beyond the torchlight, to be oddly set – one a little higher than the other . . .
Their gaze met, and Phaedrus saw in that instant that the fur collar had eyes too. A striped-grey-and-dark thing with eyes like green moons. The young man made a sound to it, and the thing rippled and arched itself into swift, sinuous life, became a wildcat, poised and swaying for an instant on his shoulder, and leaped lightly to the floor, and advanced beside him with proudly upreared tail, as he came forward to take his place among the rest.
For an instant, as they came face to face, and the wildcat crouched at his foot, Phaedrus thought that this could not, after all, be the cousin born in the same summer, who had helped Midir to wash the blood from his back after that long-ago beating. Not this wasp-waisted creature with hair bleached to the silken paleness of ripe barley, who wore a wildcat for a collar, and went prinked out like a dancing-girl with crystal drops in his ears and his slender wrists chiming with bracelets of beads strung on gold wires! But one of the man’s eyes was certainly set higher than the other; and on the bright hazel iris was a brown fleck the shape of an arrow-head.
For
For a moment longer the hush endured, and then the badger-haired man broke it. ‘That had the true ring of Midir about it. There was never a shred of respect he had for his elders!’
And someone laughed deep in his throat, and the hush broke into the hubbub of slackened strain.
And in the midst of it all, Phaedrus was handfast with the badger-haired one, and saw in the torchlight the line of an old scar slicing through one bushy eyebrow, and said, suddenly quiet, ‘What, Dergdian, no doubts at all?’
‘None!’ Dergdian said. ‘I knew you from the first moment. I am not like some fools who forget a face they have not seen for a week! Ah well, I set my mark on you, as I remember.’
‘And I on you! The scar still shows a little – but you made me pay for it! My back still smarts when I remember that day!’ He hitched at his shoulders. ‘I still say it was a simple mistake; you were red as a fox in those days. Not so red now, Dergdian.’
‘
Na, na!
I will not be called a fox! That is for Sinnoch. I am a hound growing grey about the muzzle.’ Laughter-lines deepened about Dergdian’s eyes. ‘But I am your hound as I was your father’s.’ And still holding Phaedrus’s hands, he got stiffly down on to one knee, and pressed his forehead against them, in the way of a tribesman swearing loyalty to his Chief.
One by one the others followed his lead, pressing about Phaedrus to take their allegiance. Their faces were alive with reborn hope. And suddenly Phaedrus wanted to fling the next man off and shout at them: ‘Don’t! In Typhon’s name don’t. I’m not Midir – if you want him go and look for a blind leather-worker in Eburacum!’
And then behind the rest, with some kind of great fur collar round his neck, he saw a man holding back, taking his time; watching him out of eyes that seemed, even in the gloom beyond the torchlight, to be oddly set – one a little higher than the other . . .
Their gaze met, and Phaedrus saw in that instant that the fur collar had eyes too. A striped-grey-and-dark thing with eyes like green moons. The young man made a sound to it, and the thing rippled and arched itself into swift, sinuous life, became a wildcat, poised and swaying for an instant on his shoulder, and leaped lightly to the floor, and advanced beside him with proudly upreared tail, as he came forward to take his place among the rest.
For an instant, as they came face to face, and the wildcat crouched at his foot, Phaedrus thought that this could not, after all, be the cousin born in the same summer, who had helped Midir to wash the blood from his back after that long-ago beating. Not this wasp-waisted creature with hair bleached to the silken paleness of ripe barley, who wore a wildcat for a collar, and went prinked out like a dancing-girl with crystal drops in his ears and his slender wrists chiming with bracelets of beads strung on gold wires! But one of the man’s eyes was certainly set higher than the other; and on the bright hazel iris was a brown fleck the shape of an arrow-head.
For
Similar Books
