spirit that does not quite fit in this world than one that is broken.
Athelinda said nothing in reply to Hertha; she just moved closer to Auriane and put a reassuring arm about her daughter’s shoulders. For long, no one spoke and the silence above began to madden Auriane; it was like the indrawn breath of a dragon. In the unnatural quiet she felt closely the presence of the Hermundures. Sadly she looked at Arnwulf.
Poor fragile nestling. Why do the gods make us so helpless? We cannot fly, nor have we claws—we are pushed naked into a world that would devour us at every turn.
Now Auriane could see the thralls in the gloom. Mudrin, Fredemund and the five women who worked the looms sat on a ledge of earth, the place of greater honor. Beneath them on the moist ground were the field thralls, pressed close together. Garn, who was chief over them, sat a little apart. The field thralls farmed their separate plots and were required to hand over half of what they produced to the tribe. Among them was a former Chattian warrior who disgraced himself by dropping his weapons in battle and running off—for this, the Assembly had condemned him to slavery. There were five women of the Hermundures, taken during the repeated skirmishes between the tribes that erupted over the disputed ownership of salt springs. And then there were the two Romans. One was a Gallic slave trader caught by her father’s men with a cartload of Chattian children bound for the slave markets. The Assembly had not sacrificed him to Wodan because they felt such an offering unworthy. The other Roman was Decius.
It was Decius who fascinated her, for he was a captive Roman legionary soldier. There before her, tamed and close, was one of that terrifying race of men who built stone dwellings like mountains and enslaved all the peoples in their path. Often she studied Decius in secret, watching him as he pulled weeds from his miserable plot or threw mock spears at imaginary targets to keep his body youthful and strong. She searched for signs of unusual mettle and strength, and was sharply disappointed when she found none. Decius was just a man. He threw a spear no farther than a Chattian warrior, and his courage was no greater; he was even smaller in stature than most men of her tribe. He revealed nothing of the war mysteries of the all-conquering tribe of the South.
The only thing extraordinary about Decius was his arrogance. When she observed him, he stared back with more boldness than anyone would expect from a thrall—a look that said: I am better than you, even enslaved . Even now he seemed to watch all about him with amused contempt, as though her people were unruly children who had somehow upset the natural order of things and had temporarily gotten the better of him. He learned as little of their language as possible, as though the Chattian language defiled the tongue. He kept his hair clipped short and his face shaved in the Roman fashion, and Auriane knew it was because he did not want to look like them. Scorning mead, he preferred wine so poor it looked like brown river mud. Once she had caught him seated before his hut, holding up a thin, rolled sheet, staring at it intently; she wondered if he had gone into some kind of trance. She described what she had seen to Baldemar, who patiently explained that the language of the Romans was marvelous; every word of it could be represented by a series of marks, not unlike runes, and what Decius had been doing was called reading. For nights after hearing this, Auriane had hardly been able to sleep, considering this. With this talking paper you could hear the words of someone a great distance away, or even a thousand years dead. But it seemed a thing that could breed confusion: How did a person who could perform this reading know precisely what was meant when he could not hear the musical tones of the voice?
Then she tensed with excitement. Why had she not thought of this at once? The letters on the belt she took
Athelinda said nothing in reply to Hertha; she just moved closer to Auriane and put a reassuring arm about her daughter’s shoulders. For long, no one spoke and the silence above began to madden Auriane; it was like the indrawn breath of a dragon. In the unnatural quiet she felt closely the presence of the Hermundures. Sadly she looked at Arnwulf.
Poor fragile nestling. Why do the gods make us so helpless? We cannot fly, nor have we claws—we are pushed naked into a world that would devour us at every turn.
Now Auriane could see the thralls in the gloom. Mudrin, Fredemund and the five women who worked the looms sat on a ledge of earth, the place of greater honor. Beneath them on the moist ground were the field thralls, pressed close together. Garn, who was chief over them, sat a little apart. The field thralls farmed their separate plots and were required to hand over half of what they produced to the tribe. Among them was a former Chattian warrior who disgraced himself by dropping his weapons in battle and running off—for this, the Assembly had condemned him to slavery. There were five women of the Hermundures, taken during the repeated skirmishes between the tribes that erupted over the disputed ownership of salt springs. And then there were the two Romans. One was a Gallic slave trader caught by her father’s men with a cartload of Chattian children bound for the slave markets. The Assembly had not sacrificed him to Wodan because they felt such an offering unworthy. The other Roman was Decius.
It was Decius who fascinated her, for he was a captive Roman legionary soldier. There before her, tamed and close, was one of that terrifying race of men who built stone dwellings like mountains and enslaved all the peoples in their path. Often she studied Decius in secret, watching him as he pulled weeds from his miserable plot or threw mock spears at imaginary targets to keep his body youthful and strong. She searched for signs of unusual mettle and strength, and was sharply disappointed when she found none. Decius was just a man. He threw a spear no farther than a Chattian warrior, and his courage was no greater; he was even smaller in stature than most men of her tribe. He revealed nothing of the war mysteries of the all-conquering tribe of the South.
The only thing extraordinary about Decius was his arrogance. When she observed him, he stared back with more boldness than anyone would expect from a thrall—a look that said: I am better than you, even enslaved . Even now he seemed to watch all about him with amused contempt, as though her people were unruly children who had somehow upset the natural order of things and had temporarily gotten the better of him. He learned as little of their language as possible, as though the Chattian language defiled the tongue. He kept his hair clipped short and his face shaved in the Roman fashion, and Auriane knew it was because he did not want to look like them. Scorning mead, he preferred wine so poor it looked like brown river mud. Once she had caught him seated before his hut, holding up a thin, rolled sheet, staring at it intently; she wondered if he had gone into some kind of trance. She described what she had seen to Baldemar, who patiently explained that the language of the Romans was marvelous; every word of it could be represented by a series of marks, not unlike runes, and what Decius had been doing was called reading. For nights after hearing this, Auriane had hardly been able to sleep, considering this. With this talking paper you could hear the words of someone a great distance away, or even a thousand years dead. But it seemed a thing that could breed confusion: How did a person who could perform this reading know precisely what was meant when he could not hear the musical tones of the voice?
Then she tensed with excitement. Why had she not thought of this at once? The letters on the belt she took
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