As though conscious of my awe, the child stopped screaming and looked directly up at me with wide eyes and my breath caught in my throat. He was well haired, his skull covered with thick, red, curling locks, the kind of curling hair that reminded me of my great-uncle Publius Varrus. But it was his eyes that gave me pause. I had never seen anything like them, yet I had read of them in Varrus's books. They were the deep, golden eyes of a raptor, a mighty bird of prey, an eagle. I had never heard of or seen a baby with golden eyes, but I knew that this baby's great- grand-uncle Caius Britannicus had had such eyes. I drew him close to me, smelling the baby smells of him and knowing I would have to clean him soon, knowing also that I knew not how. And then I raised my eyes for the first time since boarding this craft, and looked towards the shore.
There, shockingly distant and far to my right, I saw my black horse standing on the beach, watching me, his head tilted to one side as though he wondered where I was going. He was the only living thing on all that long stretch of sand, and behind him the land rose rapidly to form a line of cliffs against the sky. We had already drifted almost to the mouth of the bay, and the broad, deep stretch of water between the boat and the beach told me that we would not be returning there today. The breeze that had sprung up, blowing from the land, was gentle on my face, but it was strong enough to drive our boat further from the land with every heartbeat. For a long, long time I knelt there, holding the now quiet child protectively against my breast as we drifted out to sea. Together we watched the shores of South Britain fall further and further behind us.
THE END
Book II Metamorphosis
PENGUIN BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group
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First published in Viking by Penguin Books Canada Limited, 1994
Published in Penguin Books, 1995
109876
Copyright © Jack Whyte, 1994 All rights reserved.
Publisher's note: The Eagles' Brood is based in pari on actual events, but all the principal characters are fictional.
Manufactured in Canada.
Canadian Cataloguing In Publication Data
Whyte, Jack, 1940- The eagles' brood
ISBN 0-14-017048-0
PS8595.H88E34 1995 C813\54 C94-931222-3 PR9199.3.W58E34 1995
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