Goibban wore little more than a leather apron around his waist because of the heat of forge. His powerfully muscled torso and arms were bare, gleaming with perspiration, as the hammer rose and fell. His whole concentration was on the job at hand, so he was not aware of his customary audience. He did not notice when the cluster of children parted to make way for a new arrival.
He did not even hear Epona the first time she spoke his name. She called again, louder, and he glanced up to see one of his special favorites among the children, a girl who was content to sit quietly for hours, watching him work without interrupting. In return he had made toys and trinkets for her and given her more than one bright blob of metal to play with, metal that should have gone into something more valuable.
She kept his gifts at the bottom of her chest of belongings: special treasures, hidden away and shared with no one. For several seasons she had spun her dreams around them; they had come to represent more than Goibban suspected. When the other children teased her and called her Goibban’s pet she no longer fought them with her fists, but blushed and hid her face, secretly pleased.
Seeing her now, Goibban gave her the little wink that he reserved just for her, and asked quickly, so as not to lose time from work, “What is it, child?”
Epona smiled shyly at him, willing him to see her as the miners had seen her, not as a gawky youngster with freckles like butter forming in the milk.
His eyes took in Epona’s braided hair and long gown, but his mind did not register the fact because it was not pertinent to the forging of the iron. His arm rose and fell, rose and fell, and the sparks showered from the anvil like runaway stars.
Epona tried to think of something womanly and charming to say but the spirit within betrayed her; there was only silence in her head. “Epona, what do you want?” he asked again.
Defeated, she passed her knife hand in front of her eyes in negation. “Nothing. I only … I came to wish you sunshine on your head,” she offered lamely.
“And a day without shadows to you,” he responded kindly, the flicker of a smile crossing his mouth above his golden beard. These children! Then he caught sight of a heavy smear of carbon in the iron, indicative of an unevenness in strength, and he forgot all about Epona.
The girl shoved through the circle of spectators and walked slowly away from the forge, face turned downward, studying her feet.
Something alerted Goibban and he glanced up once more, watching her slender back as she walked away. A long gown? She had been to her woman-making, then? But only yestersun … Perhaps she had come for something important after all. But no, if she had anything to say she would have said it; women of the people always spoke their minds. He shrugged and attacked the iron.
As Epona slouched across the commonground the fragrance of baking bread floated to meet her. Her mouth filled with saliva and she was thankful to remember her day’s task. At least she had a woman’s job, now; not just the incessant woodgathering that any child could handle.
A woman’s job, but not the recognition she sought to go with it.
The radiant morning had lured another from the chief’s lodge. Rigantona had grown impatient with the walls crowding in on her, and as soon as the men and the children had gone their separate ways she was anxious to seek the sun. But first she must dress.
Rigantona never left the lodge without preparing herself to appear as the wife of a great chieftain. The village of the Kelti had become a major stopover on the trading routes since the discovery, many generations ago, of the Salt Mountain, and important visitors could be expected at almost any time; sometimes even before the passes were clear enough to allow traders’ wagons. Representatives from other tribes of the people came in search of prosperous Kelti wives and joined with Illyrian and Hellene merchants and temperamental Etruscan businessmen in bartering for furs and craftwork and salt.
Always, the salt.
The sunseason was at hand; soon strangers would come and be impressed by the sight of the chief’s wife. But like all the Kelti, Rigantona also dressed to please herself, relishing fine fabrics and jewelry, adoring brilliant colors and soft furs. As every grown woman did, she wore a dagger, almost a shortsword, thrust through her belt, convenient to her knife hand, and she was skilled in its use. As Toutorix’s wife she was entitled to more jewelry than any other woman of the tribe and she liked to array herself in every piece of it: dangling gold earrings, bracelets of bronze and amber, a neckpiece inlaid with coral from Massalia, rings of ivory and copper and star metal, bronze anklets and massive brooches. She braided her hair into a coil atop her head and fastened it in place with a handful of little silver pins. The Kelti believed art central to life, rather than peripheral, and Rigantona took great pride in the fact that every article in her household, no matter how utilitarian, was meticulously crafted and beautifully ornamented, even the smallest hairpin.
She had just finished her toilet when she caught Brydda watching her with undisguised envy.
I earned it all, Brydda, she thought complacently. I earned it all.
“Mind the fire,” she instructed the other woman. “I leave its life in your hands. I am going out.” She slung a cloak of blue wool and fox fur across her shoulders and left the lodge.
The clear light dazzled her and she squinted a little. Even after all these seasons, the lambent quality of mountain light surprised her almost as much as it had when she first came to this place from the northern riverlands, to be wife to the chief of the Salt Mountain. Then she had thought she would have everything; a home amid soaring, easily defended peaks in a village famed for its wealth, and a husband described as the Invincible Boar.
She had not realized then that Toutorix, already a grizzled warrior, had far too many responsibilities as lord of the tribe to pay much attention to a woman, aside from lifemaking, and that every aspect of his person must be shared with the rest of the tribe.
That was the sort of thing a woman discovered too late.
Rigantona noticed her oldest daughter headed for the bakehouse and set off in that direction herself, sniffing the air. At least the pleasures of food never failed one, and it had been a long time since her breakfast of cheese and salted venison with goats’ milk pudding.
She intercepted Epona at the doorway of the earthwalled bakehouse. “Get us a loaf of hot bread to share right now,” she ordered the girl, “and walk with me. My back aches and my eyes are burning.”
“I was just coming to begin our baking …” Epona started to explain, but Rigantona waved her hand. “Later. Yestersun was the last of your childhood, and now I suppose I must talk to you as my mother talked to me. After my own woman-making.” She did not sound enthusiastic about the prospect.
Epona entered the bakehouse and asked Sirona for one of her loaves of bread, fresh from the oven. “My mother requests it,” she explained when Sirona raised her eyebrows. No one refused a direct request from the chief’s wife, even Sirona, whose feud with Rigantona entertained the entire tribe.
When Epona brought the loaf she and her mother strolled through the village, dividing the bread between them, their teeth crunching the grains embedded in the chewy dough. At last they sat together on a boulder near the log palisade. Rigantona stared into space, licking her fingers, trying to recall the words her mother had used on a similar occasion. But that was many summers ago and the memory had turned to smoke and fog.
“About men,” she began, and stopped. Epona waited, digging with one forefinger at bits of grain caught in her teeth.
Rigantona tried again. “Do you know what men expect of women?”
“Certainly. To protect the lodgefire so it only needs to be rekindled at the start of each new year, to fight as warriors if needed, to cook and weave and sew and salt meat and dry herbs and …”
Rigantona cut off the flow of words. “What about bedsports? What do you know about that?”
The girl’s cheeks were bright pink. Like all the people, she caught fire easily. “I know everything abou
t bedsports. Our family shares one lodge; I’ve seen men and women together all my life.”
“Seeing something done and experiencing it yourself are not the same thing, Epona. You can watch me eat the thigh of a pig and if you had never eaten meat you would not know what I was tasting. Until a man enters you the first time you know nothing about bedsports—or men, either.”
Epona resented her mother’s patronizing tone, but the topic was causing an inexplicable wave of shyness to wash over her, turning her skin hot from the inside. She asked in a voice barely above a whisper, “Then what is it like? Tell me.”
“That depends on the man. Some are like pigs, rutting; others have all the artistry of a bard playing the lyre. If you learn bedsports with a skillful husband you will come to enjoy his body and your own; if not, it is your right according to our custom to find someone who pleases you better, just as soon as you have given your husband one living son.”
Epona gazed at her mother earnestly, a frown creasing her sunny freckles. “How can I be certain of having a good husband?”
“Foolish girl! You are of the family of Toutorix; you will have your pick of the most outstanding men from every tribe of the people within thirty nights of the Blue Mountains.”
Epona looked away, across the commonground. “And suppose I don’t want a man from some other tribe? Suppose I choose to stay here, married to one of the Kelti?”
Rigantona’s jaw sagged with shock. “You can’t! Our men always bring their wives from beyond the mountains, and our women always go to other tribes to form alliances for us. That is part of the pattern, Epona. About that, you have no choice.”
Yes, I have, Epona said within herself, setting her jaw. She watched with unseeing eyes as some women removed grain from a storage pit, while others stacked firewood on the north side of their lodges. A work crew moved around the outside of the baking house, patching holes in the earthen wall. Suleva was combing her goats in one of the livestock pens; Kwelon and two of the smith’s apprentices struggled to fit a red-hot iron tire to the rim of a cartwheel made of mountain ash. Above the bustle of everyday activity could be heard the voice of the drui bard, or history singer, Poel, accompanying himself on his lyre as he taught a collection of children the tales of their ancestors.
Epona’s eyes followed her people about their tasks but did not actually see them; her thoughts were only on herself.
“Why can’t I do things differently if I want to?” she wanted to know. “Women of the Kelti are free, are they not? As free as their men? How can we be free if we are enslaved by some pattern?”
Rigantona was accustomed to her daughter’s outbursts of rebellion, recognizing in them something of herself. But of course they were not to be tolerated. “The pattern protects, as you know, Epona,” she reminded the girl. “It does not enslave. The pattern governs all that we do, and the druii interpret it for us, since they are more sensitive to its limits than the rest of us. It can sometimes be tugged into a new shape, but that is strictly druii business and not for us to attempt. The important thing is to keep the pattern intact; it must never be broken. Never! The druii tell us that would make us vulnerable to forces beyond even their control.
“But what makes you even suggest such a thing, girl? Is there some Kelti man who has drawn your eye?”
“Goibban,” Epona whispered, keeping her eyes lowered.
“The smith, is it? Hai! Your choice does you credit. But of course it’s impossible, a childish notion. Just remember your high standards when the time comes to choose from among those who offer us gifts for you. A woman of the people must never give herself to any man but the best.
“That’s another thing we must discuss. I almost forgot it, and it’s very important. By our custom, a girl must wait until her marriage bed before her first lifemaking, but later, if she does have reason to share bedsports with another man, she must be certain he is at least of her husband’s rank. Listen to me, Epona!
“Give yourself only to the bravest and most gifted. The children you bear must bring honor to your husband’s family. The history singer must never say of you that you engaged in bedsports with a man of lower status than your husband, for that would be an unforgivable insult to the man you have married.” Her mouth twisted. “Of course, that might limit you to your husband’s brothers, if they have no women of their own and ask for you. But perhaps you will be lucky.”
Epona heard herself asking the question that had haunted her since she was a small child. “Did you think it was lucky to go with Kernunnos?”
Rigantona drew back and stared at her. “How could you remember that? You were so little!” The woman was surprised to find the memory still caused a crawling in her vitals, even after so many seasons. He took me dry, she recalled, shuddering, and his hands were like talons, ripping my flesh. The things he did … he always enjoyed it most when I screamed.
Epona saw her mother’s face turn as white as the memory of snow, and the slippage of Rigantona’s controlled mask shocked her. “I followed you once,” she related, “when you went into the trees with him. I always thought he looked so … frightening … and I suppose I was worried about you, even if I was very little. Then I heard you scream and I ran away.”
Rigantona’s face seemed to have turned to stone. “I quit going with the priest long ago,” she said in a remote voice. “Once I thought it would be a great honor to share bedsports with him; I thought a shapechanger would do things that other men could not.” She curled her lip in disgust. “I was right about that, I suppose, but now I wish it had never happened. It is not a memory I cherish, and I don’t want to talk about it with you.
“But I did learn a valuable lesson, and that I will pass on to you. Bedsports, though they may be pleasurable, can cause you great pain. There are more satisfactory pleasures than a man’s body, Epona.”
“What are they?”
“When you have borne as many children as I have, you learn to appreciate those things that are quiet and make no demands. Gold and amber and ivory, those are the real pleasures, believe me. I enjoy the way they look and feel and the way they make me feel. That delight never fades. They do not cause pain, nor do they turn away and leave a woman cold in her bed. They never stink of stale wine in the morning.
“Don’t expect too much of men, Epona, and do not waste time sighing for creatures you cannot have, like Goibban the smith. He is probably not as good as you might imagine anyway. Give your affection instead to things you can count and carry, Epona, for they will never disappoint you and they are all that lasts.”
She sighed, a long, drawn-out sigh. “Things you can count and carry.”
Rigantona was silent for a long time. Epona was reluctant to break into her thoughts; she spat on her finger tips and gathered the last breadcrumbs on her damp skin. When the silence had become intolerable, Rigantona summoned one last piece of advice.
“Have as many children as you can, to increase the strength of your husband’s tribe,” she told her daughter. “Whoever he is, he will reward you well for that. And keep your teeth in your head as long as you can. They start falling out when you start having babies. You will have to seek aid from the gutuiters of your new tribe if you want to keep them. When you accept a husband, be sure you look at his teeth first and don’t take a man with bad ones. His breath will stink in bed. Toutorix at least has strong teeth.”
She could think of nothing else to say. Life was to be learned by living it, and each person had to make his own discoveries. She was not fearful for her daughter’s future; she was not even very interested in it. Not all trails through a forest reach the same destination.
Her duty discharged, Rigantona stood up. “You can go to the bakehouse now,” she said. “I just saw Sirona leave, so her oven will still be hot. Think about what I told you and do some more growing; there is not enough flesh on your bones yet to interest a man anyway.”
She strode away, back to her loom and her own life. Epona watched her go, trying to sort th
rough tangled thoughts and feelings. Rigantona was right, she was bony still, like a yearling calf; another summer and winter might turn her into someone Goibban would really notice. Surely an exception to the pattern would be made for someone as important as the smith of the Kelti, if he wanted to marry a woman of his own tribe.
It had to be that way. Throughout the long, dark winter, had she not walked with Goibban in the dreamworld?
The bakehouse waited for her. The village rang with the voices of the women, the noises of the livestock, the clear hard striking of the anvil. Across the commonground, Mahka and Alator and some others were racing in a furious game of stick and ball, slamming into each other and shouting with laughter.
Epona cast one look at the bakehouse, then gathered her long skirts in her hands and ran to join them. “Hai!” she cried. “I challenge you all to a race! I can run faster than any of you!”
Chapter 3
With the advance of sunseason there was more light for longer days of work. Goibban the smith lay sleepless on his bedshelf at night, his mind whirling with ideas, his large hands unconsciously shaping designs atop his blanket. The iron was an endless source of inspiration. To work it was a sacred act of creation: bending, beating, capturing a thought and making it tangible with the melted essence of the ore.
As a child, Goibban had loitered around the copper smelters on the long blue evenings when the smoke rose high above the mountains. He loved watching as the miners raked out the smelting pits, banking fires at the lode faces of the mine galleries so their heat would split free the ore to be mined the following day. He dreamed of the time he would work with metal; he never wanted to do anything else.
But copper and bronze did not satisfy him, and gold was too easy. It did not offer any resistance to his great strength, but formed itself to his desire like an overwilling woman, without spirit. If he forgot himself and did not work with the utmost delicacy he could destroy the shape he sought to create.
The Horse Goddess (Celtic World of Morgan Llywelyn) Page 4
