by Ilka Tampke
‘I cannot hold myself here any longer.’ He was shivering, his very breath struggling to come. ‘There are only moments left.’
‘How…how will I tell them?’ I was frantic.
‘Your knowledge will tell them. The Mothers will call you again and when they do, do not deny them—’ his eyes began to glaze, ‘—show yourself.’
‘Ailia!’ Ianna’s voice was shrill in the distance. ‘Where are you?’
‘Hurry.’ I wrapped my arms around his neck. ‘Kiss me for luck.’
Rain broke on our faces as I swam in his kiss.
For three days and nights the skies opened. The riverways filled and spilled their banks. Our drain channels flooded and water seeped through the thatch on our roofs. Our bedding was sodden and nothing could dry.
Cookmother took ill with the damp. I tended to her constantly, refusing to see Ruther, who came several times to our door. He left Cad for Rome without an answer from me, bearing news, no doubt, of Fraid’s refusal to make terms.
On the morning of the fourth day, we were trying to stuff dung in the roof leaks when one of the stablemen burst through the door. ‘Women, quick! There is trouble streamside. We may need herb lore soon enough.’
Dropping our bowls, we followed him out, our skirts dragging over the muddy ground. The rain drove down in sheets as we descended the hill.
A great crowd was gathered at the Cam. The banks were breached and a mother stood too close to the frothing edges. ‘My boy!’ she screamed, and though she held one babe safe in her arms, it was clear there was another in danger.
I grabbed Mael the baker’s arm as he passed. ‘What has happened?’ I shouted over the drum of water.
‘A child, swept off the banks. No one has seen him rise.’
Townspeople were shouting, hysterical, along the banks downstream, casting offerings into the water. I ran toward them.
‘Ailia, come back!’ It was Cookmother’s shout. She had followed from her bed.
I slowed for a moment but I could not heed her. As I ran, I looked into the water, thick as cream with the churning mud. I kept running. Beyond where any other looked. After a few more strides, I stopped. The river was wider now, tangled with reeds. I closed my eyes. I knew the child was here. I knew the child was alive.
I had to be quick. I tugged off my cloak and sandals and stood at the surging edge.
The crowds had reached me, shouting, questioning why I would enter the water here when there was nothing within it.
‘Ailia, no—’ commanded Cookmother. She halted, gasping for breath, at my side. ‘I’ll not give the life of you to pull out one already gone.’
‘He lives,’ I said, readying to jump.
‘You cannot swim!’ She tried to restrain me, but I wrenched free from her grasp and jumped. The water was ice-cold and angry. I braced myself against the force of it, clutching at reeds, but I could not find the riverbed, nor see anything through the muddied water.
I had lost the knowing of the child. I found footing on a river stone and paused. Again, I knew he was here.
My feet wobbled on the shifting stones. Then my toe touched a soft-skinned form, lodged by the current in a crag between boulders. Dropping beneath the surface, I stretched out my fingers but could not reach the child. I needed to go deeper, but if I moved further into the heart of the current we would both be gone. With one final stretch, my fingertips found a small foot. I grasped it and pulled. The body came easily and I hauled it to the surface and then to the bank.
Tribespeople gathered as I dragged him from the water. ‘Shake him!’ they cried. ‘Give blows to his back!’
The boy’s skin had begun to grey. His closed eyelids were thin and veined. There was no heat in him. No breath at his mouth.
As I watched him dying, I saw a vision of him as he was in life: blond and rosy. His blue-eyed gaze met mine before he turned away.
‘Suck the river from him,’ hissed Cookmother. Though her lips were at my ear, I heard her only faintly: ‘Cover his mouth with yours and suck.’
I set my mouth over his and drew a breath as deep and strong as a smith’s bellow. His ashen chest did not move. He was walking away, his fair hair glinting under a bright sun.
My dripping braids curtained his face as I sucked again. From the base of my spirit I called him back. A cry so raw that it split the hardworld.
The walking child slowed.
I sucked once more with the last of my strength. This time a rush of water and bile flooded my mouth and he was back, convulsing with life as he retched, vomiting onto the ground.
There were many gathered around us now who had seen me pull this child back from death. Some were falling to their knees in reverence.
Then Llwyd stepped forward, his eyes shining with a wild excitement. ‘You saw that boy!’
‘Ay, in the water,’ I gasped.
‘No. Not in the water. You saw him when he couldn’t be seen.’
‘She merely caught a glimpse of him as she passed,’ said Cookmother.
‘No, woman.’ Llwyd spun to face her. ‘Do not close my eyes to what lies before them. This is not your story to tell.’
For the first time in my memory, Cookmother was wordless.
The boy’s mother broke through the crowd and fell to her knees beside the child.
Llwyd placed his hand on my shoulder. ‘Go back to the kitchen, Ailia. Dry yourself and take food. When you are rested, I will call for you.’
As I walked back along the river, the rain lessened and finally stopped. People murmured as I passed them. All of Cad had witnessed my finding the boy and bringing him back to life. All were asking how it came to be.
I waited through the afternoon and into the next morning. The kitchen was a forest of wrung-out robes and blankets draped on poles by the fire, pouring steam as they dried. Gradually Cookmother, Bebin and I sorted through the store pots, burning the herbs and meal that had gone mouldy and upending baskets to dry. By highsun the following day, the kitchen was restored but my nerves were in disarray. When would Llwyd call for me?
For want of busying my hands I took a ground bird, freshly slain by one of the stablemen’s sons, and began to pluck its feathers for cooking. The bird was still warm under my fingers as I tugged each plume with a pop from its pore. Blood smeared the table.
The doorskins stirred and Cookmother came through. She had to wait out an attack of coughing before she spoke. ‘The Head Journeywoman Sulis has just arrived from the Glass Isle,’ she panted. ‘Wash your hands, Ailia, and put on your cloak. She is with the Tribequeen and Llwyd in the Great House. They call for you now.’
I swallowed. ‘Will you accompany me?’
‘No, girl, I am not permitted.’
Lingering moisture weighted the air as I walked to the Great House. For all my grown life I had attended here, polishing the carvings, sweeping out floors and serving food. Never had I entered as guest. I stopped at the threshold, shivering inside my still-damp cloak. I knew that I would not leave this place the same woman who entered it. Suddenly I wanted to run. Then I reached down and squeezed my sword handle through the fabric of my skirt. I straightened my cloak, hooked the loose strands of hair behind my ears and pushed through the doorskins.
Fraid was at the strong place behind the fire, facing the door. Llwyd sat on her left, and on her right was the journeywoman of whom Cookmother had spoken. She was no larger than a child, with silver braids that hung to her waist and a staff upright in her hand.
They turned to me as I entered.
‘Come,’ said Fraid.
I walked past the hearth and stood before them. The fire was hot on my back.
‘Ailia,’ said Fraid, ‘this is Sulis. She has come from the temple at the Glass Isle.’
I had never met a woman who had trained to the white cloth. Twenty summers. I dropped my head and kissed her outstretched fingers. They were clawed with age, and smelled faintly of limewater and onion. ‘Let me look at you,’ she said.
; I raised my head and met her gaze. The angles of her face were entirely unsoftened by flesh: no lips, hollow cheeks, a large, bony nose and jutting chin. Yet her wide, grey eyes cast her harsh features with a deep soulfulness.
‘Do you understand why we have called you?’ she said.
‘The child in the river…’ I faltered.
‘Because you have shown strength in the visioning arts and it may indicate you for the Isle,’ she said bluntly.
‘It must be confirmed,’ said Fraid.
‘She has shown it,’ said Llwyd.
‘Still—’ Sulis quieted them with a raised hand. ‘It must be proven. Sit.’
I lowered myself onto the small stool they had placed before them.
‘Tell me, girl, is it true that you have reached beyond the gates of Caer Sidi, and that you brought a child back from death to life?’ Sulis asked.
I looked to Llwyd, who gave the smallest hint of a nod. ‘Yes,’ I whispered.
‘By what means did you find the child beneath the dark water?’ asked Sulis.
‘I saw him.’
‘But he was deep in the river, how could you see his form?’
‘Not his form.’ I frowned, trying to find the shape of what had happened. ‘I saw something else…’
Sulis leaned forward. ‘And how did you retrieve him?’
‘Cookmother told me to suck the water from his chest with my own breath—’
‘No,’ she said, sharply. ‘What made him turn back?’
I paused. ‘My call.’
Sulis nodded. The firelight made her grey eyes glitter.
What did she make of me? Would it be enough?
‘Journeyman Llwyd tells me that this is not the first time you have bent life to your will?’
‘Ay. I know plantcraft by my Cookmother—’ again I glanced to Llwyd, who bade me continue with a trace of a smile, ‘—and I have set a geas that brought a maiden to death’s threshold.’
‘And she died?’ said Sulis.
‘No. When I saw that I had done it, I lifted it.’
Sulis rubbed the carved indentations of her staff’s handle. ‘And the fish?’
‘The fish?’ I stammered. ‘Yes…it appeared to me.’
‘And where did it lead you?’
My mouth opened to speak but a stab of trepidation silenced me. Admission to the learning I had so long craved was just within my grasp. I could not risk it now with a confession that I had breached the tribe’s most sacred boundaries. ‘The fish appeared only briefly and was gone again. It led me nowhere.’ I exhaled silently. The lie felt comfortable. There was enough without this truth.
‘Good.’ Sulis smiled for the first time, revealing small, even teeth, and looked to Llwyd. ‘I will have her. I will school her at the Isle.’ She turned to me. ‘Tell me, Ailia, are you Cad-born? Are you skin to the deer?’
I stared at her in shock.
‘Did Llwyd not speak of this before, Sulis?’ said Fraid in surprise. ‘The girl is unskinned.’
‘Unskinned? This I was not told,’ said Sulis to Llwyd.
Llwyd’s expression did not falter. ‘She has been raised since suckling in Summer,’ he said. ‘She is wedded to this tribeland by time and service to its Tribequeen. And she has shown spirit enough to learn.’
‘That is all of no consequence,’ said Sulis. ‘You surprise me, Llwyd. You know we cannot bless her learning or submit her to the temple if she has no skin. She is half-born. She cannot learn.’
‘She has a command of life I have rarely seen, even among those of high training. We cannot let it lie fallow.’
Sulis shook her head. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Half-born, I will not train her.’ She rose, readying to leave. ‘You are poorly considered, Llwyd, calling me here in haste to look at a girl without skin.’
Despite my fears, I could not allow this doorway to close. Once Sulis had gone she would not return to consider me again. I remembered Taliesin’s words. It was the Mothers’ rains that had revealed me and now I must answer to their call. ‘Journeywoman Sulis,’ I said as she walked to the doorway.
She turned.
‘I honour your judgment.’ My voice trembled. ‘What would you say if I told you of another woman without skin, without training, who had walked with the Mothers of fire? What would you say if I told you she had learned with them and carried now, as we speak, their knowledge with her? Would you admit this woman to the Isle?’
Sulis frowned. ‘I would say that you are a fool and she is a liar. Only from the Isle can women journey by flesh to the Mothers, and only then after many years of training. The only one who could journey beyond the Isle and without training, as you have described, is the Kendra herself.’
My breath stopped. I could not think.
Llwyd stared at me. ‘Is this what has happened, Ailia? Are you she who has already walked with the Mothers?’
‘Yes,’ I whispered.
‘She lies,’ said Sulis. ‘She lies to gain her admittance to the temple.’
‘It is no lie. I can prove my claim.’
‘Then show us your evidence,’ said Sulis.
In one fluid movement, I stood and lifted my skirts, taking hold of my sword and drawing it from its sheath. The dull bronze gleamed as I offered it flat in my palms, firelight flickering over the shapes carved into the handle.
There was a long silence before Llwyd stood, then lowered himself to his knees.
Sulis also bowed her head.
Fraid looked to them, unknowing. ‘What is it?’ she said. ‘Why do you bow?’
‘It is the Kendra’s sword.’ Llwyd began to weep. ‘She has been given the sword of the Kendra.’
19
Trees
A tree is an echo of the cosmos.
All trees are branches of the one great tree
that spans all consciousness.
Its branches sprawl infinitely above,
its roots infinitely beneath.
THE ROOM SWAM as I stared at their stunned faces. There was error in this. It was too great a leap. I could not bridge it. I sat down, legs shaking beneath my skirt, and laid the sword across my lap.
‘She cannot be Kendra,’ said Fraid. ‘Not without skin.’
Sulis returned to her place at the fire. ‘Indeed she cannot,’ she said. ‘And yet she is marked.’
Llwyd rose and kissed my face, his beard scratching my cheek. ‘Bless you, Ailia.’ He turned to Sulis. ‘What say you now on the matter of bringing her to the Isle?’
‘I do not know,’ said Sulis. ‘Never have I known an unskinned woman to be called—’
‘And yet there has not been a call for many summers.’ Llwyd stood beside me, his hand on my shoulder. ‘We all know there is great need.’
I glanced up at him, astonished. He believed I was called. He saw no error.
‘Do you know anything of your people?’ Sulis asked me. ‘What hope is there of learning your skin?’
‘I…I was left newly born at the time of the Gathering. I know nothing of my people.’
‘Still,’ said Sulis, ‘if anyone knows your story, then this news may call them forth…’
‘Will you train her?’ pressed Llwyd.
I was taut with hope, as Sulis sat, deep in thought, before me.
‘If the Mothers so mark her, I have no choice.’ She gripped her staff with both hands. ‘I will take her to the Isle,’ she said, ‘though I am unsure of it.’
Llwyd squeezed my shoulder.
I said nothing, but my heart was exploding like a rising sun.
Llwyd looked to Fraid. I was under her queendom. The final decision would always be hers. ‘This is greatly unexpected,’ she said, ‘and yet somehow I am not surprised.’ She smiled at me. ‘Perhaps we should drink some ale…’
I went to serve from the heavy flagons on the shelves near the door, but Fraid rose first and motioned that I remain seated. She poured four cups of the dark syrup and handed one to each of us. When she came to me, she paused, then
held the cup forward for me to take. Of all that had occurred today, this was the strangest.
I sipped the fragrant ale and it rolled, heavy and sweet, down my knotted throat. We drank in quietness. Outside, a pig squealed and I heard the laughter of young men, for whom today was like any other. Slowly, the joy began to seep into my body. I would be further trained. I would gain the learning to journey to Taliesin.
‘When will you take her, Sulis?’ asked Llwyd.
‘Tomorrow. While the skies still favour travel.’
‘Tomorrow?’ I yelped before I could halt it. ‘I cannot leave Cookmother so soon.’
Sulis frowned. ‘This call is an honour above honours, especially for one without skin.’ Her voice was hard. ‘Your kitchen tasks are of no consequence now.’
I nodded, beginning to falter. In all my yearning to be taught, this was a truth I had not thought of. ‘When will I return to Caer Cad?’
‘You will not leave the temple until your training is complete,’ said Sulis. ‘Three summers at the fewest, almost certainly more.’
‘Cookmother cannot work the kitchen without me for such a time.’
Fraid smiled as she sipped her ale. ‘It would seem that your days in the kitchen are finished, Ailia.’
‘And when you return, you will be sought on matters of Ceremony and judgment,’ said Llwyd. ‘Your Cookmother would find you a most unreliable kitchen girl.’
I looked around at the three faces staring at me, the most powerful tribespeople of Summer. It was almost unbearable to be so revealed. I had been given a gift beyond imagining, and yet I had to face a future bereft of all I had known.
‘Are you doubting the call of the Mothers, Ailia?’ said Sulis. She looked to Llwyd. ‘She is weak enough without skin. If she is not firm in her conviction, I cannot take her.’
Llwyd crouched before me. ‘Ailia.’ His voice was kind yet unwavering. ‘If this sword speaks truly, then you are the woman who has been chosen to hear the first songs of our tribelands. To bring them back. We face an invasion of people who threaten to sever our ties with the Mothers. You alone can keep them close.’
‘What is your response, girl?’ said Sulis. ‘Will you answer this call?’
