‘I will go with Ard Greimme,’ she said, ‘and learn to be a smith.’
3
It began with a crow. As the light of morning bled into the sky, the black and white hooded bird flapped down on to the headstone of the circle, and cawed. Other wings flapped past, fluttered down. Claws scrabbled, dancing on top of the standing stones. Kaah… kaah… kaah… they called. They'd come to feed. Below them, Kerrigen's body lay on the low offering stone, stripped naked, head shaved, her abdomen split by a deep cut that ran from breast to pubis and another from side to side above her navel, the released decomposition gases an irresistible signal of carrion.
The journey north to the sacred stones had taken two days. A ring of massive monoliths, the stones stood upright in flat, open pasture, placed there by the ancients. Behind them, on the north side, the long water of a sea loch snaked on to a shingle beach. Craggy mountains towered in the east. Thick woodland crowded the west. Tosk had led the way there, on foot, taking the smoothest path between mountains and sea, leading Kerrigen's chariot, mended and draped with her bearskin, on which lay the dead queen's fully armed, helmeted body.
Skaaha rode behind the chariot, Eefay alongside, Ard and Donal at their backs. The warriors of Bracadale, headed by Mara, came next. Naked and painted, wearing short sash cloaks, they bore full honours, spears and swords glistening, hair spiked white with lime, enemy heads dangling at their horses' sides. Other warrior chapters followed: Donal's school; the men from north and south of the island. The tribe walked, a procession that grew as more clans swelled their ranks. Two carts carried cauldrons, barrels of beer, pitchers of mead, food for the feast. The druids brought up the rear, chanting and singing to reed pipes and hand drums, using rhythm to keep the long train of people high-spirited and in step.
Now they stood silent in a wide ring around the sacred ground, witnesses waiting for sunrise. Tosk was the only druid still inside the circle of stones. The others had carried the body in, waited on him while the preparation was done then left to join the watching tribe while he stood guard, back to his dead queen, facing the wake-stone over which the sun would rise. He would not leave her till it did. Kaah… kaah… In the pale half-light, the crows gathered, eyeing him, calling.
Tosk chanted quietly. The rhythmic sound carried in the stillness, making the birds uncertain. As the glow of sun slid up from the horizon, he raised his arms, rod in hand, towards it, following its rise to the crown of the distant stone. When the light struck his face and the stone behind, he dropped his arms, ceased chanting and strode, in his strange gliding fashion, away from the queen's sunlit body, out through the gateway stones of the circle to join the wider ring of watchers. Before he was half-way, the crows were down off their high perches, strutting, squabbling, pecking.
Gulls already wheeled above, shrieking, raucous, their white wings flashing. They dived now on the feeding crows to disperse them, making space to land. Facing the gateway stones, as chief witness, Skaaha watched the fluttering wings. She hadn't known what she asked. No one, not even Tosk, had ever witnessed the ancient rite. Now she knew. Falling felt like this. Once, while trying to master a leap, she'd fallen. It was the wrong place to practise, on the beach, from one rock to another, both studded with sharp barnacles. Blood oozed from grazing on her shin and hands.
‘Pain is the teacher,’ her mother said. ‘If it hurts, it's meant to hurt. Listen to what the pain tells you, else what do you learn?’
‘How to die bravely,’ she answered, blinking back tears.
‘And young,’ her mother retorted, ‘very young.’
She hadn't understood. Warriors fought with courage. ‘Live the day well,’ they said when parting, and added before battle, ‘It might be your last.’ Death wasn't feared. It meant new life. So the druids said. Her mother's face faded from her mind. It lived only in her memory. Now she understood pain. Death meant loss for those left behind.
Biting her lip, Skaaha hoped for eagles. High above, raptors arrived, soaring, circling. A few kites darted down, in and out quickly, scattering gulls, pointlessly chased after by a handful of annoyed crows. The air filled with brown wings as a wake of buzzards mobbed the crows in return, screeching, swooping in to land and jostle for space at the feast. Beating, heavy as her heart, thumped overhead. The vast black wings of a raven carried it past her to the circle of stones, stones that were alive with fluttering feathers, hawking cries and quarrelling. Another raven followed, and another. The stone circle boiled like a cauldron of birds.
Then they came, down the valley of the sea loch, giant white-tailed eagles, so many she couldn't count – more than she had fingers on her hands. Rau… rau… Yip – yip – yipp. Barking and yelping like dogs, wings bigger than broch doors and barely beating, at last, they came.
‘They're coming, they're coming!’ she squealed at Ard, so excited she forgot to keep the silence.
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Did you think they wouldn't, for a queen?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I knew they would.’ But tears filled her eyes. There was an ocean between hope and certainty. That gulf had been safely crossed. Most of the smaller birds swarmed into the air as the convocation of eagles swung down to land. Though tears spilled over her cheeks, Skaaha began to laugh.
‘Look,’ she giggled. ‘They're like the warriors.’
On the ground, the sea eagles were indeed like warriors, with white, limed hair and wearing bearskin coats, all strut and feathers, well-armed warriors with sharp beaks and talons who coolly ignored the odd hoodie crow that thought to make a fight of it, just as cattle ignored flies.
‘We'll not stand long now,’ Ard said. ‘Do you hear that?’
High above was a new call. Kya… kya… kya… Golden eagles, come from the mountains, soared overhead. They might not come down, but they paid their tribute. Kerrigen had been offered to the sky, and the sky had answered. Skaaha buried her face in her father's tunic and wept.
Tosk picked his moment with care. The departure of the first crow, a handful of gulls rising, the first eagle to lift and land on the headstone, preening its feathers. He lifted the heavy iron mallet from the queen's redundant chariot. With its weight resting on his shoulder, he set out back to the circle. A step behind, two companion priests matched his pace, one playing a slow rhythm on the hand drum, the other a soft, haunting tune on a reed pipe. There was a great fluttering inside the stones. Screeching in protest, the remaining birds lifted into the sky, finding different heights to hover at. Tosk drew breath deep and steady with every step. Kerrigen had been his charge from her childhood. He was an old man then and expected her to outlive him. Now his beard was grey and she was white bones, picked almost clean.
It was said their ancestors came from the sky. It was said eagles were born from the sun and died among the stars. Tosk eschewed such superstition. He'd seen many dead eagles and didn't believe in ancestors. Everyone who lived was alive still, here or in the otherworld. The spirit couldn't exist without mind and body, or be separated from them, as this ancient ceremony intended, with flesh from bone. Yet, as he swung the mallet from his shoulder to balance in his hands, he turned his face to a sky dark with wheeling birds and willed the progenitors pleased to receive this woman. Then he swung the mallet high and brought it down, hard and heavy, smashing the bones. Over and over he swung, shattering all that was left of the queen he adored into sharp shards and leaking marrow.
Skaaha squirmed, watching the rhythmic movement of Tosk's back. The sun climbed high, the pipes played on, the hand drum beat out quiet and steady, every fourth beat joined by a heavier thud from the mallet.
‘What's he doing?’ she asked Ard. It took so long.
‘Making a great sacrifice,’ her father replied. ‘Making sure it will be finished today.’ She saw his body stiffen, the fist nearest her clench. He turned to look west. ‘There's a bear coming,’ he said. ‘Keep still.’
As he stepped forward, scanning for it, Skaaha froze. The wide human circle that allowed bir
ds to come down should also deter land predators who might chase them away. A bear wouldn't come near people, unless it was sick or very hungry. Maybe this one was. She glanced around, looking for Kerrigen to protect them, and caught herself, the shock of absence sudden and alarming. Ard had no such hesitation. Spotting it, he signed ‘bear’ to Mara, who stood further round the ring, pointing its whereabouts. Skaaha stared in that direction. At first she could see nothing, but as she heard the faint click of weapons released, she saw the shambling movement on a low mound in front of a wooded copse.
Drawn to the possibility of an easy meal by squawking, circling birds, the bear stopped, surveying the sky to pinpoint the food source. Then he reared to sniff. His nose told him all was not well. The warriors rearranged themselves between him and the people, spears held ready. Ard stepped back into place beside Skaaha.
‘Mara might want a new coat,’ she said, worried by the warrior's leadership.
‘They won't hunt today,’ her father said, ‘unless they must.’
As they watched, the bear decided otherwise. Affecting an air of sudden indifference, he swung around and headed off, out of sight behind the hillock.
Inside the circle, Tosk reached the end of his task. He was too old for this, the work long and hard, the mallet heavy. Only the skull remained, slivers of skin and sinew still attached, eye sockets empty, brain intact, the accident damage to it now obvious in the cracked cup-shaped depression on the rear mound of bone.
He rested the mallet against the keeper at the head end of the offering stone and wiped sweat from his face and hands with the rim of his stained robe. Tenderly, he lifted the skull and placed it in the centre, clearing a space among shards of rib and spine. The warriors preserved the heads of enemies because the soul couldn't pass to the otherworld while the mind remained in this one. His hands trembled, the ageing muscles in his arms protesting at the effort they'd expended. Again, he raised the iron mallet. Again, he swung it.
‘Mara doesn't like you,’ Skaaha told Ard, in case he thought otherwise. ‘She gives you the evil eye.’
Her father laughed. ‘She liked me well enough once,’ he chuckled. ‘In her bed. And a wildcat she is too, as I remember it.’
Skaaha's mouth fell open. ‘She bedded you!’ He was even braver than she thought. Mara's lovers rarely lasted long. One was found at the foot of cliffs where she'd thrown him when he displeased her. The druids banned her from a full circle of Bride's four festivals over that.
‘Until your mother took a notion for me instead,’ Ard said. ‘For which Mara only had her own boasting to blame, though she never saw it that way.’
‘She boasted of bedding you?’ Skaaha puzzled. Men were easy to bed, and warriors took any they wanted. ‘Because you're a smith?’
‘No, of how well I pleased her.’
The look on his face made Skaaha wonder if he boasted now. He was beautiful to look at, strong with broad, sinewy muscles in his arms and thighs. No doubt he could swing a hammer, stand up to great heat, forge and shape rock into metal. In the jewellery he wore, there was also something fine and delicate about his craftsmanship. But she was far too young to know a man and couldn't guess what he meant.
‘You didn't please my mother,’ she corrected.
Again he laughed out loud. ‘Oh, I think I did,’ he said. ‘Perhaps too much.’ But he would say no more.
The druids returned from the sacred stones. Silence fell again. This time the birds came down quicker, the eagles landing almost before the smaller birds settled. The sun approached mid-day but it didn't take so long this time – a short period of screeching, squawking, fluttering and flapping. The high kikikiki scream of golden eagles usurped by their bigger kin ripped through the day. This time when the birds left, they didn't circle but swept off, back to their different roosts and territories, leaving only a few disappointed gulls wandering among the stones.
Tosk made his third trip into the ring. It was brief. When he emerged, he stopped in the gateway, took the cord from his waist and raised his arms. Two priests carried a bronze pot with a burning peat in it to him. They pulled off his ruined robe and dropped it on the peat so it flamed. A new robe was pulled over his head, covering his nakedness. It was then Skaaha saw that the sash Tosk held was not the usual knotted cord druids wore but hair – long, dark, plaited hair: Kerrigen's. The old druid held it high for a moment, then he dropped it into the heart of the flame. It smoked and burned, the acrid stench drifting up in the warm air.
‘Kerrigen of the tribe of Danu, queen of warriors, foster-child of Lethra, born of Oohaa, blood descendant of the goddess, is gone to her ancestors,’ the old man called. ‘She lives now in the skies and is no more among us. It is finished.’
‘Aye-yaa!’ The crowd cheered the triumph of beliefs older even than druid faith, old as the standing stones themselves. Kerrigen's spirit was freed from the endless burden of life. ‘Aye-yie-yaa!’ Some hugged each other with joy. Others wept. Most crowded forward to see the proof that nothing remained. The priests, relieved that the profane ritual was over, struck up a lively tune. Children, relieved of the need for silence, skipped about. Young women ran to pick flowers for garlands, men to collect wood for the solstice fire. Barrels of beer were broken open, food laid out for the feast. When they'd eaten, the warriors would pledge their honours to a new queen.
4
‘I pledge allegiance to Mara!’ One by one, warriors from every chapter on the island clenched their right fist to their heart and took the oath of honour. No man could challenge Mara, and none of the women did. Jiya wasn't among them. On the far side of the field, she paced back and forth behind her niece, murmuring incomprehensibly to herself. Protected by her disorder, with the freedom of those blessed in such ways, if she chose to make no pledge, no one would insist.
Ignoring her aunt, Skaaha frowned as the new queen swore to protect and uphold the druid peace throughout the Islands of Bride. Ard, who stood beside his daughter, wore an identical expression, brow dark as a moonless night.
‘I think we should go,’ he prompted, ‘before drink reminds Mara of her spite against me, and she exerts her new authority.’
Suli hurried over, swinging her long staff to prod the ground ahead as she walked. ‘We'll restrain Mara,’ she assured him. ‘A queen serves the will of her warriors or she does not lead for long. Don't miss the sun-dance.’ The celebration would last all night, the shortest on the wheel. ‘Stay till morning, my son. You have a long road and there will be many goodbyes.’
‘Not my favourite thing,’ said Ard, declining.
Jiya slid round behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist. ‘Not even with me?’ she whispered in his ear.
Ard clasped his arms over hers, leant his head back against her hair. ‘Now that would be a long goodbye,’ he teased.
Watching the two of them, Skaaha felt a surge of inspiration. Her aunt liked her father, perhaps enough to marry him for a time. ‘Jiya can come with us,’ she exclaimed, looking to Suli for confirmation. ‘Can't she?’
Ard pushed the warrior's arms away. ‘We've trouble enough,’ he protested.
‘But I will come.’ Jiya grinned, and turned to Suli. ‘We should make sure our little shadow settles only where she's safe.’
‘And what happens when visions torment her?’ Ard demanded of the elderly high priest. ‘There are no warriors in Kylerhea.’
Visions? Skaaha frowned again. Jiya couldn't be a visionary. Seers, like Suli, were always priests. A small body thumped into her, grabbing her tunic. It was Eefay.
‘Don't go, Skaaha,’ she begged. ‘Don't leave me.’ Her green eyes filled with tears. ‘You've to look after me.’ Her mouth trembled. ‘Kerrigen said.’
All Skaaha's certainties deserted her. She had often resented their mother's insistence that she protect Eefay. But now, unable to imagine life without her sister, she threw her arms round the little girl and hugged her tight.
‘You can come with us too, Eefay,’ she assured her, �
��be a smith like me.’ It wasn't right they should be separated. She glared at Eefay's father, arriving from his oath-taking to fetch her. ‘You don't have to go with Donal.’
Suli thumped her staff on a rock. ‘Enough,’ she insisted. ‘We will not go over old ground.’ She called on Tosk to fetch Kerrigen's chariot. Then, sternly, she laid down the law for Skaaha. ‘You can't solve losing what you love by taking half of Ullinish with you,’ she said. ‘Jiya can accompany you.’ She raised a hand to forestall Ard's further objection. ‘But Ruan,’ – she indicated the blond, beardless druid who had sat next her in the council – ‘will go too, as your advisor and teacher.’ She glanced at the blacksmith. ‘He will bring Jiya to me, if the need arises, before returning to you.’
Skaaha hesitated. She could tolerate the druid if Jiya was the reward. But Eefay clung to her, still pleading. A life among strangers without her little sister to share it yawned suddenly before her, alien and lonely.
‘You both have futures to embrace,’ Suli went on. ‘All that comes between you is a strip of sea. Blood is surely thicker than the water of the sound between Kylerhea and Glenelg. You'll meet often, this much I see. Your bond will be tested. It need not break. Eefay chose to be a warrior, to follow Kerrigen's path. She goes with Donal. And you, Skaaha, have a sacrifice to make.’
Tosk arrived beside them, leading the chariot ponies. Mara rode alongside, bearing the torch to light the solstice fire. Eefay clung tighter to her sister.
Halting her skittish horse, the new queen looked down on them. ‘The warriors of Bracadale,’ she announced, ‘would be honoured to make the final sacrifice for Kerrigen in her homeland.’
Warrior Daughter Page 3
