by Ilka Tampke
‘Or?’ said Fraid, interrupting gently. ‘What do you advise, Ruther?’
Ruther paused. ‘I have spoken of it before, and it was not well heard. Plautius pursues a peaceful presence and offers an alliance. A friendship that preserves the tribes, that strengthens them. Many are taking the offer. It would bring us benefits.’
Without warning there were words on my tongue. ‘Though far fewer benefits than it brings to Rome.’
All eyes turned to me. Ruther looked bemused.
My heart pounded. I glanced to Fraid and she nodded me to continue. ‘Is the knowledge of the journeypeople upheld under Roman friendship?’
Llwyd smiled at my weight on the word.
Ruther paused before answering, holding my gaze. ‘The journeymen are not well loved by the Romans.’
‘But if Durotriga submits, as you are suggesting—’ my voice quavered. ‘Do we uphold the journeypeople’s learning?’
Ruther’s lip twitched. ‘It would not be to our benefit to do so.’
‘So we lose both our freedom and our knowledge.’
A flash of anger crossed Ruther’s face. Then it was gone and he softened, speaking as if only he and I were in the room. ‘Do not fear change, Ailia,’ he said, ‘not one so alive as you. The invasion comes. If we cannot hold it back then let us shape it to our gain.’
‘And what of the Kendra, should she become known,’ I continued. ‘Will she be honoured under Roman law?’
Ruther met my eye. ‘She would not.’
‘There are warriors waiting beyond this door who would knife you for these words, tribesman,’ said Cun.
Ruther turned to him. ‘Then tell them to think of the solstice wheel,’ he said.
‘What?’ scoffed Cun. ‘I am in no mood for riddles.’
Ruther leaned forward, wiping ale from his thick blond moustache. ‘It is forward motion that keeps the wheel upright as it rolls burning down the hill. When it stops, it falls, and its flames are extinguished. We are as the wheel. And this invasion is the ground before us. If we do not roll forward, our fire ceases and we will fall.’
‘A pretty image,’ said Llwyd. ‘But what if you told them of the oak. Life in its most sacred form. The seasons turn around it, the winds shake its branches, but it remains still, its roots fixed in the ground.’ He looked at me. ‘Which is stronger, Ailia, the wheel or the oak?’
I had no answer, compelled equally by each image.
‘We are neither trees nor wheels,’ said Cun, shaking his head. ‘And we have never been under anybody’s rule. Even when the Great Bear took the tribes on three sides of us, we remained untouched.’
Ruther gave a resigned snort. ‘Do not worry. Our dissent is well known to the Romans,’ he said. ‘It is the very thing that will incite them to subdue us.’
‘Then let them come.’ Cun stood. ‘You make your choice, Fraid. Every man of Mai Cad will die fighting before I kiss the feet of the pigs.’
‘And so they shall,’ said Ruther.
Talk of Rome was put aside until the meeting of heads on the morrow. Tempers were soothed by Cun’s rich beef and turnip stew, dark ale and vulgar jokes. The meal lasted late into the night.
I sat between Fraid and Llwyd, saying little and growing exhausted.
Ruther’s eyes had barely left me, and when I stepped outside the Great House to cool my face in the autumn night, he was swiftly at my side. ‘Ailia, I would speak with you.’
‘Then walk with me for a while,’ I said, ‘I need air.’
We turned down one of the wide and unfamiliar streets.
‘Why did you not see me in Cad?’ he demanded. ‘I asked of you.’
‘There has been too much afoot,’ I answered in truth. ‘I am to go to the Isle.’
‘Impressive. And without skin.’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Did I not pick you for the temple when first we met? And I was your fire-lover!’
‘Hush.’ I smiled.
The house beside us was noisy with babe-cry and the dog at its threshold growled as we passed. In truth, it was a relief to be with someone who treated me as he always had. ‘I cannot believe that I will go to the temple,’ I whispered, taking his arm.
‘And then?’
‘And then…’ I hesitated. ‘I will serve Summer as journeywoman.’ The words felt foreign. ‘And if, somehow, I learn of my skin—’ I paused; it still felt unutterable, ‘—I will train to be Kendra.’
‘A very ancient wisdom,’ said Ruther. ‘It has served a long time.’ He glanced at me. ‘Is it the best pathway now to take?’
I stopped and turned to him. ‘Do you speak against your history?’
‘I love my history as deeply as any tribesman. It is the future of which I now speak.’ He stepped forward so that our faces were close. ‘I have known since we lay at Beltane that you had a great strength. When you train, it will be even greater. Then you must decide how to use it.’
I looked at him in shock. ‘It is foretold how I shall use it.’
He pulled me by the hand and led me through a narrow passage between two houses. Before us was the township’s wall. We hoisted ourselves up and sat, our feet overhanging the plummeting ditch, looking out at the grain fields before us. The moon glowed at half strength behind drifting rags of clouds and I shivered in the wind.
Ruther unpinned his cloak and wrapped it around me. It was thicker and heavier than mine, scented with leather, sweat and smoke. He shifted closer until our shoulders were touching. ‘What if I were to offer you marriage?’
I almost laughed. ‘Do you forget I am unskinned?’
‘That is no obstacle to me,’ he said. ‘I will have you unskinned.’
‘But no such marriage could be rightly made,’ I said, incredulous, ‘without the blessing of my totem.’ While Taliesin breathed, I would not marry Ruther, yet still his boldness intrigued me.
‘It will have to survive on my blessing alone.’ The moon shone on his pale hair.
‘You honour me,’ I said, ‘but it is no longer my question to answer. I am to be given to the temple and then to service…’ Still I did not confess that there was another.
‘Is this your choice then?’ His voice was sharp.
‘It is not my choice to make.’
‘But it is your choice, Ailia. Do not be commanded by others. If you do not desire the journeywoman’s life then speak it so and take a different way.’
‘There is no other way.’ His words were unsteadying me.
‘You could have a place beside me, Ailia. My family is powerful in Cad. The Romans will talk to me…they have talked to me.’ He paused. ‘They offer great reward to those who receive them well. With our strengths united, there is no barrier to what we may build together—’
I stared at him in horror. ‘Are you saying you are in league with the Empire?’
‘I am in league with what is inevitable. Cad cannot hold back the Empire, nor can Cun. No one can. For the well-eyed among us, it need not be feared. I will need a woman beside me, a woman to whom the people will listen. I already have the trust of Rome and you will keep the trust of the tribes.’
I shook off his hands. ‘As if they would listen to me in this—’
‘Do you not understand? You have a gift. The journeymen think you are called to be Kendra—but it is something far less shrouded in mystery. It is the gift of leadership. An allure, a natural wisdom that others will follow. The men of Rome who possess it rise to Consul or Emperor.’
I was spun beyond speaking. The Kendra’s call was no mere gift. It was a cry from the Mothers. Undeniable. ‘This is desecration,’ I said.
‘By some, yes, but true nonetheless. Ailia, I love you and I am choosing you. I can offer you a great deal. Consider your decision.’
I reeled from his words, from his love. ‘You ask me to deny what has always been.’
‘Nothing remains the same. Is that not the first lesson of the journeypeople? Change will happen. The great among us will ride it like a chariot.’
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‘Stop. You are speaking against the truth of our wisepeople. The truth of the Mothers.’
‘The Mothers are revered by those who have not seen what men can do. It is not the hidden forces, Ailia, that strengthen us—it is our own forces.’
But were they not the same force? That which was hidden in the rivers and trees, and that which moved through us as breath and blood? How could they be separated? How could one be greater than the other?
The stars above us began to sway and the wall itself seemed to lurch beneath me. I braced my hands on the stone for balance.
Ruther sat solid as iron beside me. How tempting it was to yield to the assuredness he offered. To be part of his certainty.
The other way I was alone. The strength I needed would have to be mine.
That night I dreamed of Taliesin.
He was calling to me across a river of stones, his face in bright sun. My feet were bare and the stones were jagged. As I ran to him, I slipped on my own blood.
My heart bashed me awake and I lay in the strange bed at Mai Cad, unable to find sleep for the brightness of his face in my memory.
I thought of the two men who had entered my cosmos.
Ruther was a cloak I could wrap around me.
Taliesin was an arrow that had pierced my soul.
21
Ritual
Our tribelands are nourished by ritual.
Flood, disease and weak crops occur where bonds with the Mothers have not been renewed.
THE TRIBAL LEADERS of Durotriga could not agree.
The same independence of spirit that had kept them free of the Great Bear—and free of each other—now meant that whatever the Roman forces brought each region would face on its own.
Ruther left in disgust for the east, on bad terms with Cun and several others.
I was the only one he sought out to farewell.
Our party left late in the afternoon and arrived at Caer Cad by highsun the next day. By the time of our return, all of the tribespeople had heard that I was to go to temple. Many rushed out to offer greetings as we rode in through the gates, casting petals that caught in my hair. Others hissed and spat as I passed. There was great joy that the Mothers had finally marked a Kendra, but it was utterly bewildering that it fell on a skinless woman. They knew that without skin, my Kendrahood, so deeply craved, would never be realised.
I stared down at the upturned faces, full of questions and hope, and I felt, for the first time, the kindling awareness that my knowledge was not only for me, nor even for Taliesin. It was for them.
Ianna and Bebin ran out to meet me at the stables. As I dismounted and kissed them, the greatest excitement was Bebin’s. Uaine had sung her the song of skin while I was gone and she would marry him this moon.
‘Be prepared for Cookmother,’ Bebin warned as we walked to the kitchen. ‘Her chest is worsened and it spoils her temper.’ She glanced at me. ‘That and the loss of her favourite workdaughter.’
Cookmother was resting in her bed. Her face was pale and her forehead, when I crouched to kiss it, was damp with sweat.
I propped her more comfortably and brewed her a tea of yarrow leaves for fever. Despite my care, she was determined to deepen the chasm between us. She watched me as I unpacked my bundle. ‘What is that?’ she said as I lifted out a fine bone brooch.
‘A gift from Cun.’ I held it forth. ‘Look—the sweetest carving of a thrush.’
She turned her face away.
I tried again. ‘Have you survived well enough the attendance of Cah while I was gone?’
‘Most perfectly well,’ she grunted over her shoulder.
Sulis had left word that tomorrow’s mid-morning was favourable for departure. These were my last hours in the kitchen. I could not bear that they would be spoiled in this wordlessness. The ill temper Cookmother had always shown to others, but never to me, was now to be my farewell gift.
We had but one day to make and dye the wedding cloth, for Bebin wanted my blessing in it.
Ianna was using the warp loom to speed the fabric, with Bebin at her side. Together they walked the length of the loom and back again, passing the shuffles smoothly between them. Cah was weaving ribbon on a small tape loom and I was crushing blackberries and scraping the pulp into a steaming pot of dark blue liquid. Cookmother slept, snoring noisily.
We had placed juniper outside the doorway to warn our men not to enter. Dying was strictly women’s work and the presence of a man would curse the cloth. Especially near wedding time.
Only those skilled in plantcraft could work the dye pots. Cookmother usually left it to me, as the pots were too heavy for her now. I was dying berry for good fortune and kelp for protection. Both pots had to be mixed and dipped by the end of the day. Tomorrow the moon would turn and it would be a poor time to fix the colour and craft into the cloth.
The air was pungent with the aroma of bubbling fruits and the large pot of stale urine in which we would soak the cloth so it would better take the dye. Often we would sing stories into the flax as it was woven, but today there was too much to discuss.
‘Sisters,’ I said, ‘with two of us to be gone from the kitchen, I am worried for Cookmother. The sound in her chest is not good and she needs to be tended.’
‘Then we need another girl,’ snapped Cah. ‘My days are too laden as it is, and I would take marriage if it were offered.’
‘She will have my loyalty,’ said Ianna. ‘I am not sure I will ever marry.’
‘Oh, Ianna.’ I smiled but I was far from comforted. ‘Are you quite certain,’ I asked Bebin, half in jest, ‘that you prefer Uaine to the kitchen?’
‘Oh, I’d prefer him,’ burst Ianna, ‘he is handsome as a king.’
‘There are many you’d prefer,’ said Cah. ‘But none who’d take you.’
Ianna made a face.
‘Bebin?’ I pressed.
‘I am pleased to marry Uaine, as you know, Ailia,’ she answered gently. ‘I will come to Cookmother every day and tend her well. But I suspect that it is not my certainty you are questioning.’
I stirred the boiling liquid. She was right. My heart was not resolved to leave the kitchen and I did not know how to make it so.
‘Cease,’ called Ianna. There was a clack as the last length of twine sent the warp weights knocking against the loom frame. ‘Look!’ She reached up to unhook the cloth from the upper pole, ‘I have tied off my final loop. Now we have a wedding cloth to dye.’
I stood by the well trough at sunfall, scrubbing the last stains of blue dye from my hands. Dogs drifted around the quiet street. Blackbirds keened. My last day in Cad.
I did not notice Heka approaching until she was right beside me. I nodded a greeting. I had not seen her since before the rains. She had gained a small amount of weight, braided her hair, and washed the dirt from her moss-coloured dress. But although the corners of her face were softened, the pall of anger around her was not.
‘It is said you are to leave Cad. And Bebin to marry.’ She appeared sober and clear-minded, and for this she made me more nervous.
‘How have you heard it?’
‘Cah,’ she answered. ‘She is not afraid to companion me.’
Cah is not well supplied in companions, I thought to say, but did not. Heka was like green wood in a fire. ‘She has told you true,’ I said, ‘I leave tomorrow.’
‘My friend Cah,’ she continued, shifting on her feet, ‘thinks it well that I come into the Tribequeen’s kitchen when you and Bebin are gone.’
‘It is not for Cah to determine.’ I dried my hands on my skirt. ‘You know it is impossible.’
‘Why?’ Her eyes darkened. ‘Do I not deserve for a few seasons what you have enjoyed for all the summers of your life? Or do you prefer to see me cast to the fringes over winter?’
‘I do not. But Fraid would never bring you into her service,’ I said.
‘Why not?’
‘Because you are…’ I paused, struggling myself to name the nature of her b
reach.
‘What?’ Her lip curled into a snarl. ‘Too impure?’
‘Perhaps.’ I sighed, suddenly sorry for her. She had not chosen whatever had befallen her. ‘We have spoken on this before, Heka. I told you then I had no power to help you.’
‘But you are marked to be the Kendra now.’ She savoured the observation. ‘Fraid will heed your influence if you speak well of me.’
In truth, I wished Heka no further ill, but the thought of her lying in my bed was horrifying. I shook my head as I gathered up my brushes and soap. ‘I cannot recommend you to Fraid. There are others who await the places before you.’
She trailed one hand over the surface of the trough water. We both watched the ripples that rolled out from her black nails. ‘Your mother would not have thought well of such coldness in a daughter.’
The early night air became solid in my chest. ‘What do you know of my mother?’
Heka stood very still. ‘It was her way to look after those in need.’
A crow’s cry halved the sky.
I could scarcely speak for the violence of my heart. ‘Heka, if you have true knowledge of my mother, you must tell me now.’
‘Hah!’ She leaned closer, her breath sour. ‘Knowledge is a heat that makes the metal more pliant.’
I took hold of her sinewy forearm, steadying myself against the wild hope that surged within me. ‘I beg you, tell me.’
‘Secure me a place—your place—in the Tribequeen’s kitchen and I will consider telling you my knowledge.’
I clutched her arm tighter. My voice was thin. ‘Tell me now.’
She peered at me. Unglazed by ale, her eyes were green and sharp. ‘When it suits me to tell you, you shall know.’ She pulled free from my grasp and turned away.
‘Heka—’
She spun around.
‘Why did you not speak of this before?’
‘You did not have the teeth to help me before. And besides,’ she said, her face hardening, ugly again, ‘I liked to watch you flounder in your skinlessness. To be without hope of finding it.’
