Chains of Gold by Nancy Springer Page B

sake, fought them like a berserker. Why is he not fighting this death that lies on him?”
    We sat in silence for a while.
    â€œI have never understood men,” Briony exclaimed into the darkness with a passion I had not expected from him. “If I were he, I would be fending off the serpent with my bare hands and all the strength in my body.”
    â€œDo not rail at him,” I said, though not sharply.
    â€œI am not! There must be a reason, if only I could understand—Cerilla, tell me about him.”
    That awoke a vague wonder in me. “You seem already to know all about us,” I said. “Our names, how we fled from the Sacred Isle—”
    â€œI hear the talk of the underworld, that is all. It travels fast, but it is no more than gossip, rumors. Tell me the things you truly know.”
    There were so many things, the seemingly inconsequential things that had made him not a winterking but Arlen to me, Arlen my beloved and sometimes my vexation. The way his ears itched so that he drove me to distraction with noises and scratching, and the way he always had to hug something to go to sleep. The way he swaggered when he was tired. Things even less definable: the glance over his shoulder when we were riding, hands twirling locks of Bucca’s mane—if there was an essence about Arlen, how was I to tell it to Briony?
    â€œCerilla,” he urged.
    â€œAnimals,” I said, for want of anything better to say. “He adores animals. Whenever he sees an animal, even a coney or a squirrel, he looks at it, he points it out to me. Kine, swine, he sees them all with such excitement.… Well, I suppose there could not have been too many animals on the Sacred Isle, and he looks at other things too, the countryside, and exclaims; sometimes he is like a delighted child. But animals—he wants to touch them, to be with them. When we are in a barn, he goes from stall to stall, even if it is only cattle or donkeys there, chirruping and giving water and washing sore eyes. When we are with the sheep in the field, he plucks the parasites off them.”
    â€œWhy animals?” said Briony softly.
    I shrugged. “Why not? From what I have heard, the beasts are far kinder than most folk on the Sacred Isle.”
    I felt him looking at me, so I went on.
    â€œThey did terrible things to the boys sometimes, to toughen them. They give them whips and set them against each other, or all against one, which was even worse, though Arlen said—Lonn would never strike at him, not even if it meant punishment, but Arlen struck at Lonn once because he was made to, and then he wept and could not sleep afterward, though Lonn forgave him.”
    â€œLonn?”
    â€œHis friend—” I swallowed. “Who died in his stead.”
    â€œArlen has been favored with such a friend? Few of us ever find a true friend or a true love. Arlen has both! And yet his has been a terrible life.” Briony sounded dazed.
    â€œYes.” I plunged on. “Twice a year, in preparation for the ceremonials of sacred kingship, they would have the boys over the age of ten taste of a mock death to harden them against the real death to come. They would hang each one by a noose around the neck, hang them until they swooned and then take them down, and when they revived they were mocked if they had struggled, and sometimes a puny one was not taken down, so they never really knew, beforehand—” I stopped, feeling sick. “I can speak no more of this.”
    â€œNor do I care to hear much more.” Briony got up and gave fuel to the fire. “Yet, if I only knew.…”
    â€œKnew what?”
    â€œKnew Arlen, truly knew what it was like to be Arlen.” He sat down beside me again. “If I could somehow enter into his heart and mind, to understand him, I wonder if I could not somehow help him.… Cerilla, you should have taken him to a better witch. I have been envying him.”