Skin

by Ilka Tampke

  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?’

  I was held in Llwyd’s gaze. Its brown depths stirred up drifts of courage in the riverbed of my ambition. ‘Yes.’

  ‘It is decided then.’ Sulis pounded her staff. ‘But hear this, girl—’ Her eyes hardened and there was no more gentleness in them. ‘You are marked to be our highest wisewoman and I will see that you are trained to this purpose. But with or without the sword, until you find skin, you will never be Kendra.’

  I walked back to the kitchen as if in a dream. Manacca and the stable-hands who passed me glanced at my sword that hung, now exposed, from my belt. Never before had I felt myself to be of such consequence. I had craved the chance to be taught but now it had come, I saw what safety there was in unknowing. What peace. How could I be the Kendra? I anchored my fears with thoughts of Taliesin. I would see him soon.

  Cookmother sat alone in the kitchen, spinning flax by a dying fire. She turned to me as I entered, her eyes dropping to my sword.

  ‘It is the Kendra’s sword,’ I stammered.

  ‘I know.’

  I wondered how she could know it, when even Fraid had not.

  ‘Are you to go to the Isle?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  She did not respond.

  ‘Why do you let the fire burn so low?’ I chastised, striding across the floor to refuel it.

  ‘When will Sulis take you?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  She whimpered as if physically struck. ‘Beloved girl.’

  I stared at her. How could I leave her? ‘Would you have me stay?’

  ‘It is not for me to speak against the call of the Mothers.’ She turned the spindle slowly and would not meet my eye.

  ‘But I cannot go without your blessing.’

  Then I saw her stiffen. ‘Do not be stupid, girl. You are going. My blessing has little to do with it.’

  Before I could argue, Bebin, Ianna and Cah burst through the doorskins and the kitchen was filled with shrieks and tears at my news. There was talk enough about my Isle training, but questions of my sword were left unasked. A Kendra had been chosen yet could not rise without skin. None could fathom the Mothers’ intentions.

  When the hour for sleep fell, we were all kept awake by Cookmother’s cough.

  I rose and boiled herbs to soothe her.

  Ianna tried to assist me but Cookmother would not permit it.

  ‘Only you, Ailia,’ she whispered as I held the cup to her mouth. ‘Only you.’

  When she finally slept, I lay down next to Bebin.

  ‘Will you care for Cookmother?’ I whispered into her ear. ‘Cah is
too unfeeling and Ianna too daft. It is only you I can trust.’

  ‘No harm will come to her until you return.’

  My eyes drifted closed. ‘Have you seen Uaine?’

  ‘Yes.’ I heard the smile in her voice.

  ‘Ruther bade him return to the east, but he has decided to stay.’

  ‘But are they not the firmest of companions?’

  ‘Something has come between them. Uaine would not say what it was.’

  Early the next morning, Sulis sent word that we were to leave the following dawn. I began my last day in Caer Cad sowing parsnip seeds in the kitchen garden, the topsoil warm and crumbly between my fingers. Cookmother worked wordlessly by my side until the chime of our doorbell pulled her, grumbling, back to the kitchen.

  Footsteps approached, but my gaze stayed fixed on the ground, lulled by the scooping and sprinkling of seeds. ‘Who breaks our peace at this early hour?’ I asked, expecting Cookmother.

  ‘A thoughtless journeyman,’ said an old man’s voice.

  ‘Journeyman Llwyd!’ I scrambled to my feet to bow. ‘Why did you not announce yourself?’

  ‘No need. Continue—’ He motioned to the garden. ‘I’ll work with you a moment.’ He knelt beside me and began to dig. His hands reminded me of Taliesin’s, fine-boned and long-fingered, weaving through the soil like needles through cloth. ‘How are you bearing this Kendra’s cloak that falls to your shoulders?’

  ‘I will wear no Kendra’s cloak without skin. This is what Sulis has said—’

  ‘The Mothers are mischievous. They toy with us in choosing you. But they have called you. They will give you your skin.’

  ‘But the Mothers of fire said nothing of my skin.’ I said.

  A frown crossed his face, then he shrugged. ‘The others will help you.’

  ‘The others?’

  He smiled. ‘I forget how little you know. There are twelve circles of Mothers. Each keeps its own knowledge.’

  My eyes widened. ‘Will I meet with them all?’

  ‘You will be called only by the Mothers whose knowledge you do not already possess.’

  ‘Then that will certainly be all of them.’

  ‘We shall see.’

  I nodded, unsure. It was all still barely true, a poet’s tale I was hearing at feast.

  Llwyd sensed my hesitance. ‘When I was first called to the Island of Mona to train, I was scared to my under-robes.’

  I looked up. ‘You?’

  ‘And why not? I was just a son of a silversmith before I became this towering greatness you see before you.’

  I laughed. Here, stooped in the garden, Llwyd mocked himself, but I had seen him summon forces that came from the most disciplined learning. He was indeed towering. Indeed great. In confessing his fear, he began to dispel mine. ‘There is still one thing that holds me…’ I faltered.

  ‘What is it? You must be free of any doubt—’

  ‘Cookmother.’ I glanced back nervously for her return. ‘She does not offer her blessing, and I cannot embark without it.’

  Llwyd sighed. ‘There is a reason your Cookmother withholds her blessing and it is time you knew it.’

  I stared at him. ‘Will you now tell it?’

  ‘I cannot. You must ask her—’

  The thunder of a galloping horse shattered the question between us.

  I helped Llwyd to his feet and we hurried out to the courtyard.

  ‘Message from the east!’ cried the rider. ‘I ride from Mai Cad. Where is the Tribequeen?’

  ‘I am here.’ Fraid emerged from her sleephouse, unadorned. ‘What do you bring?’

  ‘News of great consequence.’ The rider dismounted and bowed.

  ‘I will leave,’ I whispered to Llwyd, turning away. It was not for the servants to hear news as it was given.

  ‘No.’ Llwyd grabbed my wrist. ‘Listen.’

  ‘There has been an attack on the coast of Cantia,’ said the rider, ‘and a two-day river battle with the legions led by Aulus Plautius. The tribes of Albion are defeated. King Togodumnus, brother of Caradog, is dead.’

  There were gasps and murmurs among the townspeople who had followed him in.

  ‘And what now of the legions?’ said Fraid. ‘Is this the extent of their claim? This defeat in the east?’

  ‘They make camp outside Camulodunon and replenish supplies,’ said the rider. ‘They wait for the Emperor Claudius himself to arrive, then they will march on the capital.’

  The gathering crowd fell silent, marvelling, as I was, that Camulodunon, the capital of the most powerful tribe in Britain, could fall to Rome.

  ‘The great Catevellauni are subdued,’ said Fraid. ‘What says Cun?’

  ‘The King of Mai Cad asks that you travel south with your wiseman. He calls all the Durotrigan heads to discuss an alliance in the face of this attack.’

  ‘I wish him luck,’ said Fraid. ‘If he can unite the tribes to one strategy, then he has statecraft even the Mothers lack, but I myself will certainly come.’

  The messenger nodded, relieved. ‘Cun calls you to return with me today, that you may meet tomorrow.’

  ‘Well then,’ said Fraid, ‘I must ready myself to travel. Llwyd, you will ride with me.’

  Llwyd nodded and Fraid turned back to the sleephouse door.

  ‘I must prepare her,’ I said, moving to follow her.

  Llwyd halted my path with his arm. ‘Rather prepare yourself,’ he said. ‘You will also accompany us to Mai Cad.’

  ‘For what purpose?’ I asked in surprise.

  ‘You are journeywoman initiate, you must learn the workings of the tribes.’

  ‘But I will understand nothing—’ I gasped.

  Llwyd lifted his hand to silence me. ‘Do not argue with your Journeyman Elder. You will attend the talks. You will understand.’

  ‘But what of my travel to the Isle?’ I asked. ‘Sulis has told me we leave at dawn.’

  ‘Sulis will wait.’

  We left for Mai Cad, casting jewels and weapons into the Cam to bless our journey; then we rode south, through pastures and fields of wheat and barley. The sun drew high as we reached the woodlands that marked the southern border of Summer. These were not forbidden forests and I could enter them unskinned.

  Fraid and her stableman rode ahead. I rode beside Llwyd, soothed by the steady thud of my grey mare’s footfall and her warm strength beneath me. Along the path Llwyd pointed out fragments of forest life, the track of a fox with an injured front foot, the call of a thrush fallen too soon from the nest. As the forest turned from beech to ash, then to oak, he explained the different qualities of the trees. How one was used in binding work and one in dispelling. How a wiseman would come to one part of the forest to vision the future and another to remember the past. I gleaned that there was meaning in every stone and leaf and trickle of water.

  We had been riding gradually uphill. When we emerged from the woodland in the late afternoon, we were at the crest of a ridge that looked to the west. Fields, grasslands and se
ttlements spread before us in shades of yellow and green, with silver streams threaded among them and boulders scattered like crumbs. It was stonier, wilder than Summer. Beside us was a spring that bubbled from within the hill, ringed with stones and carvings left by others who had worshipped here.

  ‘We will rest the horses before we descend,’ said Fraid.

  We dismounted. By the spring Llwyd began murmuring a chant to the Mothers.

  While the stableman tethered the horses, I pulled strips of dried fish from my riding pouches and sat overlooking the flatlands to eat them. Llwyd settled beside me. The late-day sun was sinking before us, soaking the country in rose-gold light.

  ‘What is it that we stare upon?’ he asked.

  I looked at him. Did he trick me? ‘It is Central Durotriga…?’

  ‘But what do you see in it?’ He bit into his fish.

  I frowned. ‘Fields, rivers, many stones…’

  ‘When you train you will see it in a different way.’ The sun turned his brown eyes to amber. ‘You will see the stories.’

  I knew he could not tell me the stories until I had skin, but he wanted me to know they were there.

  ‘We alter the land,’ he said. ‘We speak with it. We take from it in our farms and give to it in our rituals. But we don’t change it too much, or the story is changed. Think on this as we meet with Cun.’

  ‘I will try.’ I drew my cloak against a needling wind. There was so little I knew.

  ‘Prepare to mount,’ called Fraid.

  ‘Llwyd—’ I touched his cloak as he went to stand. ‘I go to these discussions without even the most basic learning.’

  He crouched back beside me. ‘Then let me give you what I can now.’ He leaned close and I smelled the woodsmoke caught in his hair. Years of reckoning were held in his face. Like the tribelands he loved, it was more story than flesh. ‘Two things above all others guide the journeymen and -women of Albion,’ he said. ‘The first is knowledge so that we may deeply understand what is true and what is false. The second is freedom to choose between them. With knowledge and freedom, a soul may be enlightened. Without them, it will never be.’