Daughter of Albion

by Ilka Tampke

  ‘I begged him to let me keep you both: the two bits of life left from Mam, but he knew—and he was right—that with only seven summers, I could carry one babe and still be helpful with the cattle, but not two. It was no difficulty to choose whom to keep. Kerra was the most likened to Mam and the one whom had left Mam well. The other—you—I took to the Tribequeen’s kitchen door on the night you were born.

  ‘I cried when I farewelled you, despite all. There was a newling’s loveliness to you in your own way, though, even then, you had the look of one who would fight for herself.’ Heka paused once more.

  The scowl scored in her face began to make sense.

  ‘I did not forget you. Not for one day. Every sun turn I thought of the sister who was growing in Fraid’s town. And I worried, too, that you might not be growing. If you had died or gone to fosterage I would never have known of it. And I did not forget either, that you did not know your skinsong and you would be suffering the lack of it.

  ‘When I saw you again it was seven summers past, at the next Gathering. I had dreaded and craved that day all at once. The moment we arrived I wanted to find you and tell you that you had kin and let you meet your womb sister. Our father was dead by then—but I was kept on by the farm that he had worked, and we cared for each other greatly, Kerra and I. We wanted you to come home.’

  ‘What happened then?’ I asked. ‘Why did you not find me?’

  Her face twisted. ‘Because it was Kerensa who was given, torn apart that day.’

  I reeled back as if struck in the chest. ‘That was my sister,’ I gasped, remembering the child who had been chosen as the gift, ‘and you were the one with her.’

  Heka’s eyes closed against the memory. When they opened again they were burning. ‘It was you the Journeyman chose for the gift that winter. You were the most pleasing, the special one, but because you were with the Tribequeen’s woman—ay, I saw her speak for you—they took my Kerra instead. The most precious thing I would ever know. You bought your life a second time by taking one of mine.’

  I was silent. Reliving that unspeakable day. Was it as Heka charged? Had my life been wrought by others’ deaths?

  ‘I had some sister’s love for you when I came that year, but it was nothing next to my love for Kerra. If I had been given the choice between you and her—there would have been no question in it—I would have kept my Kerra.’ Her eyes bore into me and I saw her face begin to twitch and change with the anger that shaped it from the inside. ‘What did you whisper to the wiseman to buy your life?’ she growled. ‘What words bought the death of my sister?’ Her face crumpled as she slumped against the wall.

  I said nothing more.

  She was my kin. I felt the earth shift to make room for the knowing of it. ‘Why did you not tell me? Or Cookmother?’ I asked.

  Heka stared at me in disgust. ‘Because both of you killed my sister. I felt nothing but hate. Cookmother must have seen it in me because she drew you close and turned away as I passed her after the giving.’

  The torch flame flickered. It would not bring us light for much longer.

  ‘But you didn’t turn away,’ continued Heka. ‘You looked straight at me with those round eyes, full of innocence. The same strange colour of sun in muddy water. You have none of the heart of her but your eyes are all Mam’s.’

  And with those words a ribbon of wind drifted into the core of me, gently awakening the knowledge that I had come from a mother—my mother. Now I knew that I was born to a woman who had gifted me the colour of her eyes and may have gifted me the world’s love if she had lived to do it. I was bound to other souls, dead and alive, and now sitting here before me.

  ‘So there it is,’ said Heka. ‘You had all of it. I had nothing.’

  ‘Nothing!’ I cried. ‘You knew your skin. This is something I have never known.’

  ‘Do you not think I would have gladly traded my skin knowledge for just one moment of the care you have known by your cursed Cookmother? From seven summers I was motherless with none to replace her.’

  I frowned, seeing the truth of it.

  ‘I have found friends enough to drink with but I have never known a moment’s kinwarmth since that day. Do you know what love has been to me, sister? It has been a man’s prick and the money he’ll give to use me freely for its pleasure. This is what I have known of love.’

  ‘And now?’ I asked, suddenly exhausted. ‘Why did you come back?’

  ‘Justice,’ she said. ‘After seven years of grieving Kerra, I woke up. The wrong needed to be righted. I knew you should help me or suffer for it if you would not. That is what brought me back.’

  ‘And what of me? Did you care nothing for me as your sister?’

  ‘Ay. I cared. I did not know—right up until the very moment I saw your face at the door—whether you would be kin or enemy to me when I found you. But when I saw you so rosy and tended and then not letting me have even a crumb of it, like I was less than shit on your sole, well, I knew then you were no kin to me.’

  ‘But I am kin!’ I cried. ‘I did not know—how could I have known?’

  ‘You, the knowing one! Did not even know her own sister. Not then, nor months after. Never until this moment. What kin does not know itself? No, sister. I say you knew. You knew you owed me some life somehow, but it was sweeter for you not to grant it.’

  I spun from her words, fathoming what truth they held, and stared into her face, now seeing its echoes of my own. ‘And now?’ I asked. ‘Am I your sister now?’

  She would not meet my gaze.

  I watched her profile. Now I saw more than the worn skin at her jaw, the lines gouged in her brow, her sunken temple. Now I saw our story.

  ‘This has shaped me, Ailia. I cannot change what I am.’

  I wanted to comfort her. I needed comfort from her. But the wrongs she had done me had shaped me also and I was scarred from the knowing of her. Like hers, my cuts could not be washed away.

  We sat beside each other, locked in the chamber, listening to the rise and fall of each other’s breath.

  Then, in the silence, Heka began to sing. A sweet, lilting song, in a voice made husky from ale, that called to the wisdom, the loyalty, the kinship of the dog. She sang it once. Twice. Three times.

  On the fourth cycle I began to whisper, joining with her as she sang. My voice strengthened as I learned the song, making it more precise, more true, each time I sang it through. After many cycles, we were singing together in perfect unison.

  The song soaked into my bones, finally giving shape to what had been formless. Naming what had had no name.

  This was our skinsong.

  I was skin to the dog.

  32

  Destruction

  Our world is a braid, made up of three strands:

  our land, our laws and our rituals.

  Take away any one of these, and our world

  will be altered beyond survival.

  HOURS PASSED AND Heka drifted into sleep. Her body slumped sideways and her head fell on my shoulder. I breathed her hair, musty, like the nest of a kitchen mouse, and a wave of exhaustion rolled over me.

  In the lull of half-sleep, something was stirring. The new parts of my story were intermingling and fusing with those I already knew. Layers were shifting with the birthing of skin. The change that had pressed so close but could not break through in the forest, now entered me.

  With skin, my sight came. My knowledge awakened. With skin, the Kendra was fully born.

  In my dream it was almost dawn. I was a raven, black and strong, soaring over the fields and forests of my country. I was flying southeast toward the vast water, nearing Mai Cad. I passed over a tall ridge and there was the hilltown spread before me. Straightaway with my raven’s eye I saw something was wrong. The pink sky was stained black with smoke.

  I dropped forward to gain a closer view. Smoke stung my nostrils and eyes. A foreign banner, bearing an eagle, flew at the eastern entranceway. I circled over it and saw men with the close-
cropped hair and red skirts of the Roman legions. There were only a few, gathered around fires, laughing together as they ate from steaming bowls, jovial with their success. Were the rest hidden in the tents, tired from their night’s work?

  I dipped my left wingtip to turn and sail over the town.

  Where were the huts? I dived in closer. Where were the tribespeople?

  I flew toward the western gate and there the full breadth of this attack was laid before me. The sight turned my avian bowels to liquid.

  I came to perch on one of the tall posts that stood each side of the gate. The few who remained alive were digging furiously, deepening the grave to hold the mountain of dead beside them. They were digging with stones, branches, their hands, so urgent was it that they laid their kin to rest before the daylight alerted the Romans to their task.

  I cawed in despair and a young boy looked up to see the day’s first bird.

  With a chest full of stone, I lifted off the post into the sky and began to fly back to my home, where Rome would come next.

  When I reached Caer Cad, no matter how loud I cried that the resistance must be ceased, that we had to surrender to this force if we were to protect anything of ourselves, no one could understand the bird. No one could hear me.

  I awakened with a jolt, Heka still heavy against me.

  Skin had given me sight in the hardworld and I had seen what would happen if the tribe fought. I had ordered a battle we could not win, that would injure our people beyond healing. I had to get word to Llwyd and Fraid. I had to tell Ruther that I would marry him and concede to the Empire. I would do anything to halt the massacre I had seen and that moved toward our township. To live by Roman law would wound the Mothers, but the blood of whole tribes soaked into their ground would destroy them.

  I wriggled out from under Heka and climbed the ladder to pound at the door. ‘Ruther! Come!’ I shouted. ‘I must speak with you!’ There was no response. I shouted again, pummelling the door with my fists till they ached.

  Heka roused with the noise. ‘What are you doing?’ She yawned.

  ‘I have made sight, Heka—I have seen the Roman attack on Mai Cad. I have to call back our warriors.’ I started hammering on the door again.

  ‘For Mothers’ sake, shut up!’ cried Heka.

  I dropped down from the ladder and stood before her. ‘Listen,’ I commanded. ‘I have seen an attack more terrible than your worst imagining.’ I paused, trying to gather my thoughts. ‘If my vision is in true time, then we still have some hours, even days,’ I muttered. ‘Their soldiers must replenish and rest, then make footjourney from Mai Cad. But if I was looking into old time, then…’ I looked up and met Heka’s gaze.

  ‘They may be upon us,’ she finished, understanding me.

  ‘Help me,’ I said. ‘Help me scream so that one of the servants may hear as they pass.’

  ‘Strange that no one has come with food or fresh water,’ said Heka, getting to her feet. ‘We have been here some long time.’

  I glanced at the torch, burned almost to its base. She was right. Why had no one come?

  We locked eyes again and neither of us spoke.

  Slowly I climbed the ladder once more, but this time I did not bash against the door or cry out. This time I drew the underbolt closed so that it could not be opened from above.

  I did not know how long we waited, huddled together in the chamber. Without sun or stars to guide us, there was no way of knowing if the moments were hours or even days. We sipped what remained of our water and waited.

  A sudden thump startled us both from a half-sleep.

  Immediately my senses were sharp. There was anger in the force of the strike. The thump was followed by a second that sent us cowering against the wall.

  ‘Patefacite!’ The Latin command to open was shouted through the wooden door.

  We clutched each other, my heart crashing, as showers of grit rained down from the edges of the opening. Then, for a moment, all was quiet.

  ‘Have they gone?’ whispered Heka.

  ‘Perhaps,’ I breathed.

  Another splintering strike sent us shrinking into a huddle. Now they were using a tool.

  Heka began to whimper, grey with fear.

  ‘It will be all right,’ I heard myself tell her.

  The axe was almost through. I saw the door bend and shudder under the blows and I heard the sound of wood beginning to split. Two more strikes and I saw the glint of the axe edge.

  I stood and inhaled to draw up power from the earth, but it did not come. I remained a mere girl. Against this enemy, my strength would not come.

  They had made a hole in the door.

  I was chanting, calling on the Mothers, drawing up from their deepest spirit. Why would they not come?

  Sandalled feet slid through the hole. Then the rest of the Roman: young, stocky, dressed in the short tunic and leather skirt of the foot soldier. His face was partly obscured by his metal helmet but his eyes shone, dark and aroused.

  A second soldier dropped down behind him. They both guffawed at the discovery of us, loosening their sword belts. From the words they exchanged I recognised only ‘lupa’, a she-wolf, and also a woman who lay with men for payment.

  I stood before them while Heka crouched against the wall behind me.

  Suddenly their swords were drawn.

  ‘What do you want?’ I screamed.

  They shouted back and the first soldier moved forward, pushing me away, bidding Heka to rise, his sword at her throat.

  She shook as she stood.

  There was a shout from above. The second soldier bounded up the ladder in response to it, but the first remained. He bellowed at Heka.

  She stared back, uncomprehending.

  Then he was upon her. He twisted her around, shoving her hard against the wall.

  She lifted her head to scream but the soldier pushed it back down with a sickening thud. He rummaged within his tunic, readying to take her.

  I stared, frozen in horror. It was so fast. I saw the pale flesh of her flank as he wrenched up her skirts and forced her thighs apart with his knee.

  Just as he was about to breach her, it finally came. A white blaze of rage. I drew as I have never drawn. The full power of the Mothers exploded within me. I pulled my sword from my belt and lunged forward.

  The soldier leaned over my sister.

  With all my strength, I drove the sword deep into his back. First high, to puncture his lungs, then lower, into the orbs and pockets, twisting the blade to ensure he would not survive it. To ensure I took his life.

  He slipped to the floor.

  Heka sank down beside him. ‘Thank you,’ she wept as I crouched to embrace her.

  I held her tightly with one arm, my sword in the other, as the soldier’s blood pooled at our feet.

  33

  The Kendra

  She alone has been touched by the Singing.

  She has a light that belongs to no other.

  HEKA GREW WHITE and silent with shock.

  I wrapped her in blankets. ‘Stay here and make no sound,’ I whispered. ‘I will come back for you.’

  My legs trembled as I climbed the ladder.

  First the smell. Of smoke and blood.

  Then the quiet. The inhuman quiet.

  But it was the sight that met me when I stepped out of the sleephouse that finally told me we were lost.

  The smoke wrought a sinister false darkness. Caer Cad was an underworld. Every hut was burned to the ground. Smoke drifted from blackened stumps, from charred remains of children and livestock scattered through the smouldering ash. Strewn across the ground before me were the bodies of the stablemen and Ruther’s servants.

  I began to walk.

  Ianna and Cah lay near the scorched ruins of the kitchen. Their chests and bellies opened, skirts torn away, their bodies defiled before they fell.

  I walked through the Tribequeen’s gate into the central street of Cad. Here were the men, women and children of Cad, hacked and
slain.

  I found Fraid. She was stabbed in the face beyond recognition. I knew her only by the arms and feet I had washed and tended for many years. Near her lay Fibor, Etaina and the other warriors who had fought close at her side. And Manacca, slain at her mother’s skirts.

  I viewed it as though in a dream. As though it were not true.

  Farmers, smiths, builders, musicians, weavers I had known since sucklinghood lay scattered, staining the streets black. Their hands were shredded from lifting their arms to shield themselves without weapons. Others lay face down, the wounds struck to the backs of their legs as they had tried to run.

  This Roman army had not come to fight. It had come to wipe us away.

  I drifted, like a spirit, through the bodies, toward the shrine.

  There were a few yet alive. Crouched on the ground, they rocked back and forth, singing their low songs of mourning. They called to the Kendra as I passed. Would she help them? Would she sing their dead to Caer Sidi?

  I could not go to them. I did not even look at them.

  I walked down the spine of Caer Cad. All around me was the smell of burnt flesh and bowels opened in terror, the sound of wailing, and the fallen bodies like autumn leaves on the ground.

  If there were any dead among the Roman soldiers, they had been carried away.

  This was no honourable battle. These Roman soldiers had slain people who could never have equalled them in strength or numbers. Babes. Old women. Even animal kin. This was a massacre, as Ruther had forewarned it. What was their purpose in this? How did they earn glory by this inhuman fight?

  And yet I saw my hand in it. Because they had expected compliance, and found resistance, the Roman soldiers had fought angrily, impatiently. The killing was worse because I had told the tribe to fight.

  Near to the bread house—the oven still standing—I found Uaine almost, but not completely, beheaded. Bebin lay a few steps on, terror frozen in her face, the gash in her throat bearing strings of white tendon.

  Her injured boy child kneaded her breast, still seeking milk, his plump cheeks sprayed with her blood.