A Novel

by Signe Pike

  I rushed at Cathan with a shriek. But then the weight of it struck me and I threw up my hands. “Sweet Gods! My first summer as Torch Bearer and the Dragon Warriors for an audience.” As if the eyes of the entire village weren’t enough.

  “Oh, come, now, Languoreth. You worry over much.” Looking over my shoulder, he nodded at the forest path. “Eh, is that Ariane?”

  I turned to see her emerging from the forest path across the field, her dark hair loose about her shoulders and her blue cloak catching on the tall grass. At the sight of her basket, heavy with greenery, I realized I’d forgotten to string up the plants for drying as she had bade. As she took in my proximity to the cows, she raised her brows amusedly as if to say, So this is what you’ve done with your day?

  I offered a weak smile as Cathan turned.

  “Ariane, well met!”

  “Lord Cathan.” She nodded.

  “Will you walk to the courtyard with us? We were speaking of the Midsummer rites. Our Languoreth is worried she’ll trip over her own two feet and wind up face-first in the fire.”

  “That is not precisely what I said.”

  “Silliness,” Ariane said as we moved together along the forest path. “The earth is always singing, and every creature upon it engaged in dance. So many forget. This is why we do ceremony. This is what raises our power. When we dance, we are one with everything, seen and unseen. In these moments the Gods are breathing through our bodies.” Her eyes were the color of salt water in the afternoon sun, and she poked a finger at me playfully. “So you see? You are not truly the one who is dancing.”

  The Gods are breathing . . . her words transported me back to the forests of Bright Hill, and I thought of the monastery soon to be built at its foot. The people who were fouling the river. But as we neared the courtyard, the sight of Lailoken standing there, grinning, banished my melancholy and I ran to him.

  He let out a grunt as I collided with him, folding me into his newly muscled embrace. “Some welcome you’ve given us. We had to send the old Wisdom Keeper off to find you. Harassing the livestock again, I’ll wager.” He held me at arm’s length. “They haven’t yet made you into a cowherd, have they?”

  “I would happily become a cowherd if any could succeed at the substantial task of making you into a proper lord.”

  I ducked to avoid the swat of his hand, but, truth be told, my brother was growing into a fine lord indeed. Muscle had appeared seemingly overnight on his once lanky frame, leaving him nearly as tall as Father, with broad shoulders and a tapering waist. His voice had developed a richness that was pleasing to the ear, his sandy hair darkened into a golden-streaked brown. He wore it longer now, like Brodyn, bound from his face with a length of leather cord. His blue eyes were striking. There was no denying it: my brother had become a handsome young man.

  A handsome young man who stank of horses and sweat and riding dust.

  I wrinkled my nose. “In truth, I delayed my arrival in hopes you might bathe before I saw you,” I laughed, then glanced around the courtyard. “Where’s Father?”

  “He’s gone to his chamber.”

  “At this hour? Is it the swellings again?”

  “You’d do well to lower your voice,” Lailoken said. “He doesn’t want the servants to know. Father doesn’t like to speak of it, but the pain is back. This morning as we departed, his foot was so enlarged, he could scarcely put on his shoe.”

  I’d seen the swellings on his feet, shiny and scarlet, bulbous at the base of his big toes. It was a type of arthritis, a sort not uncommon among kings. I had seen it once catch him unawares, watched it nearly double him before he clamped his jaw and straightened with a laugh—an effort to hide his weakness.

  “I’ll make him a poultice,” I said.

  “He’ll be glad for it.”

  • • •

  The shutters were drawn and Father’s chamber was dark, his face pale against his pillow.

  “Languoreth.” I heard the pain as he struggled to rise.

  “Don’t sit up, Father. Rest.”

  He sank back against the bedding with a heavy breath. “It was the feasting, that’s all,” he said. “And then the journey. I’m only taking a wee respite.”

  I looked about the dark chamber. “But has nobody lit an oil lamp for you? Shall I unfetter the window?” He’d sent the servants away, no doubt.

  “No, no windows,” he said. “Light the lamp on the table if you will.”

  I set down the poultice and a jug of fresh water on the table and moved to draw a dry reed from the earthenware vase stocked beside the hearth. Kneeling, I held it to the dying embers until it caught and brought it with cupped fingers to the wick of the lamp, casting the chamber in a world of darkness and light.

  “It is good to have you home,” I said.

  “Aye, and it’s better to be back,” Father said. “My heart is here at Cadzow with my cattle and my daughter.” His amber hair glowed in the lamplight, and I smiled, drawing back the coverlet. Father eased back onto his pillows, watching me bind the poultice to the pulsating swell on his foot. My touch likely seared like hot iron, but Father did not so much as wince: warriors were students of pain. Still, I searched for something to distract him.

  “It seems Brant and Brodyn endeavor to cast Lailoken in their image.” I smiled. “They will make him a vain young cad.”

  “He is already a vain young cad,” Father scoffed. “Do you see how the village girls gawk after him? With his golden-brown hair that blows in the wind. And now that he is bronzed by the sun, he fancies himself a vision of the Gods themselves.

  “But you . . .” Father looked to me. “This will someday be your land, eh, daughter? Tell me the state of things.”

  I told him of the taxes I’d collected in tribute from the merchants traveling our stretch of the river and of the goings-on at the mill.

  “All grown-up, you are,” he said, smiling. “Better you than your brother.” He brandished an imaginary sword. “Nearly fifteen winters and Lailoken wishes to fight! Your brother is consumed with comely maids. With philosophy and rhetoric and weaponry! He has his beasts to battle . . . though I’ve yet to meet a specter that will succumb to a sword.” Father dropped his arm to his side.

  I swallowed. “I suppose some are less bound than others when it comes to pursuing their passions.”

  He fell quiet a moment, his dark eyes sad.

  “I have watched you these past years, your head bent over that table, drying this and crushing that. You have your mother’s gift,” he said tenderly. “Do not think I cannot read your heart, Languoreth. You long to be a Wisdom Keeper, too, and well I know. But the Gods have chosen Lailoken to walk the path of the Keeper. And I am learned enough to understand the Gods will have their way. Just as the Gods have chosen you for a life of leading the people, as the head of another household. You will be safe by the side of a powerful king or chieftain. And when I die, I will rest well in the Summerlands knowing that all this has come to you.”

  He must have seen the tears in my eyes, because his voice brightened and he nodded to the swollen weal on his foot. “Right, then. What magical remedies have you blended there?”

  “Yarrow. Among other things.” I smiled as I tightened the wrappings.

  “I trust you’ve heard news of our Midsummer guests?” His voice strained as I secured the knot.

  “Yes. It will do us all good to see our Gwenddolau again. In truth, I can hardly wait. It will no doubt be a celebration to remember.”

  Father nodded and sank back, his thick lashes lowering to his cheeks: the poultice was easing the pain. At last he might sleep.

  “Enough chatter now, Father. I’ll leave you to rest.” I doubled the sheepskin under his foot to raise it.

  “Yes, rest,” he said gratefully.

  As I turned to leave, I looked back at the peaceful rise and fall of his chest, and my heart filled with the elusive satisfaction only a healer could know.

  Life is not only filled with the pain an
d longing of the things that cannot be, I reminded myself. There was the ease of my father’s suffering; his restful breathing. There was Gwenddolau’s homecoming and the excitement of hosting Pendragon and his Dragon Warriors alongside Cadzow village for the Midsummer rites.

  And yet the sadness of my destiny still loomed like a shadow.

  As the head of another household, Father had said. To be wed, for allegiance, to a faraway stranger. A stranger who would someday own my home.

  Darkness and light.

  CHAPTER 16

  * * *

  Five days before the Midsummer celebration, I woke to find my bed linens streaked with blood. My cry sent Crowan rushing into my chamber as I threw back the covers searching wildly for the cause of my injury. As she glanced at the linens, her eyes kindled with understanding.

  “Your moontime, my dove. ’Tis only your moontime.”

  Of course. How silly. I must have known it would come, but no one had spoken of the pain. My belly felt so tender, seizing in dull knots, that I would have spent the day curled up in the sheets if Crowan hadn’t stripped the bed and sent orders for a hot bath to be drawn. I was submerged to my chin, eyes closed in relief, when Ariane came through the door, a vial in her hand.

  “I’m not clothed!” I cried, splashing water over the edges of the wooden tub as I covered my parts.

  She perched on the wooden stool at the edge of the tub looking at me unabashedly. “Tincture of nettle. A few drops should do.”

  I nodded my head as I accepted the slender glass vial and tilted a few bittersweet drops onto my tongue. Naked bodies were as nothing to Ariane. It was all the talking—for her, that was the difficult part.

  “It will help ease the cramping. It is a great honor, you know. To become a woman.” Her attempt to discuss it made her shift in discomfort.

  “It hurts.”

  “Yes, and so will bringing life into the world. Why should its messenger be any different? Where I come from, this is a time that we celebrate.”

  I laid the soaking cloth over my shoulders and peered at her from beneath lowered lashes. “Ariane?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why is it you will never speak of where you come from?”

  Something flickered across her face, but when she answered, her voice was pleasant enough. “I come from the north. This much I have told you. There, when a young woman first gets her moontime, the women gather to celebrate.” Her eyes softened with memory. “They come to you at first light, to bring you to the forest and wash you in rosewater. They towel you with thick linen and drape your body in a glorious gold-threaded cloth. They braid ribbons into your hair until you become a shining thing, sacred as a goddess. You spend the day in the shelter of the forest . . .”

  “And then what? What happens in the forest?”

  “You understand that you have become a woman,” she said simply. She cleared her throat and looked at me. “You are sad that your mother is not here to mark this moment.”

  The truth stabbed in tender places. “Truth be told, I haven’t any idea what my mother might do if she were.”

  “Surely as a Wisdom Keeper she would have wished you to undergo a ritual.” She studied me. “Perhaps I could lend some small working of my people’s moontime celebration into your Midsummer rites. That is, if you would wish it.”

  My heart swelled at the thought of it. I dared not speak for fear I would burst into tears, so I nodded instead, more brusquely than I intended.

  “Then so be it.” Ariane stood, smoothing her skirts. “Ah. I nearly forgot. I also brought some water elder. Crowan will steep you some tea, but for now it’ll ease you to chew on the bark.”

  “Thank you.”

  Ariane gave a small smile and turned to go. But she paused at the door, as if she would say something more.

  “It is bitter,” she warned.

  “That’s all right,” I assured her.

  Obediently, I put the cramp bark in my mouth and bit down. It was indeed bitter, sickeningly so. But I couldn’t help but think it was womanhood, not the bark, that Ariane had been speaking of.

  • • •

  The following days were mad with preparations for Midsummer and the impending arrival of our guests. The nettle and water elder relaxed my seizing womb, so I was able to spend my days in supervising the preparations: Cathan’s blessing and the slaughtering of the cattle for the feeding of nearly three hundred people, the decorations, the restuffing of the mattresses, and the acquisition of new platters. I heard Crowan grumble more than once that she was thankful we hosted such events at Cadzow only twice a year.

  A new field was cleared and fire pits dug and edged in thick slabs of stone. Lail threw himself into the preparations with new vigor; he would be taking part in the ceremony with the men for the first time, a moment he’d been awaiting since before he could crawl.

  When my bleeding ceased the morning our guests were slated to arrive, I was certain it was some sort of blessing. All morning my stomach had been a host of butterflies, as though something exciting or wonderful were about to happen. If only I knew what.

  Already the strains of a cruit sounded from the great room where Father, Lail, and the others sat drinking as they idly awaited our guests. Unable to sit still, I slipped from the hall and through the empty courtyard to the practice field beyond the stables where the warriors’ targets sat, my fingers itching to grip my knife.

  The weight of the blade in my hand was satisfying after days upon end of women’s work. I sank into the rhythm of throwing and retrieving until the bold heat of the sun raised a dewy sheen of sweat that had my dress clinging to my back and itching uncomfortably at the neckline. I had just sent my knife hurtling with a triumphant thunk into the heart of the closest target, when the hollow blow of the watchman’s horn sounded. Sweet Gods. They were not meant to arrive until midday. And such a state I was in!

  I wrenched my blade free and sheathed it hastily at my waist. Across the field I could see Father’s men on the lofted platforms of the outer rampart, readying to open the outer gate. I brushed furiously at the bits of hay clinging to the emerald folds of my new gown and cursed the disemboweled targets, my pace quickening at the ominous rumble of hooves in the distance. They were riding at great speed. I would never make it to the courtyard in time to greet them beside Father, that much was clear. I prayed that, for this one impropriety, he would forgive me.

  And so it was that I was only midway through the field when I heard the bone-chilling chorus of baying and yips, saw the Dragon Warriors streaking through the timber gate, and felt for the first time the fear they must incite in their enemies.

  Their mounts were warhorses, meanly muscled and masked in leather guards. But it was the men themselves who were most fearsome. Battle-hard and fierce-faced, at a distance they seemed more like beasts than men in their scaled leather armor. Their shouts and whoops were deep and unbridled, their spear points thrust to the sky as they charged into the pasture.

  It was fortunate that the guards had flung the doors wide, for our guests were yet at a canter, pressed over the necks of their horses as if the unbridled joy of speed was a god demanding complete and utter sacrifice. Heart hammering, I scoured their lines for Gwenddolau, squinting into the sun. So mesmerized was I by the graceful stretch of their horses in full run, the way the late morning sun streamed round them in halos of gold, that I had to wrench myself—at the very last moment—out of harm’s way, lest I be trampled where I stood, dumbstruck at the edge of the road.

  Could that be Gwenddolau leading the way? The man who approached had hair streaming past his shoulders, braided back from his face, bleached nearly bone-white by the light of the sun, but his figure was unmistakable. My brother! Beaming, I lifted my arm in greeting, but he blew by giving only the swiftest of nods, as if he did not know me at all.

  I dropped my arm to my side and lifted my chin in an attempt to appear regal as one by one they sped past, the earth trembling beneath the beat of their horses�
� hooves. They rode light on their mounts, as if more at home on horseback than on foot. Brightly colored beads and silver clouties flashed in the sun, dangling from saddles or braided into their horses’ manes for luck: talismans from wives or lovers to bring their men safe home from war. These men, however, unlike Gwenddolau, paid me no notice at all. And I, their hostess! Just who did they imagine I was, a swineherd? Well, they would see, wouldn’t they? I scoffed and had nearly turned away, when the last rider came into view. He was a black-haired man on a magnificent brown and white stallion, his hands wound into his horse’s mane. He rode with no bridle. I looked up at his face and his eyes locked on mine.

  They were as green as forest leaves and flecked with amber, set into a strong, olive-skinned face beneath a sturdy set of brows. It was the way he regarded me, his gaze so penetrating it might have pinned me to a target board. A heat rushed through me so suddenly that it uprooted me, leaving me nearly stumbling over my own two feet. We stopped, each of us seemingly startled by the look that passed between us, before he bowed his head in greeting and rode on. I stood, swirling as if struck, until my wits returned.

  Who was he? I could not understand what I’d felt, but knew I should dare not seek to. Warriors were beguiling, overproud, and pigheaded, my brother and my cousins chief among them. Hadn’t I seen for myself the way they rendered the village girls dumb and witless, as if winning their affections were nothing but sport? The way they loved and abandoned for the next pretty thing?

  I tossed my head and straightened my shoulders, remembering: I am Languoreth, daughter of Morken. Perhaps it was a boon that I would never suffer the trials of love with a fickle-hearted warrior. Sacrifice or no, I would be wed to a prince if not a king. There was much pride in that. Smoothing my hair and lifting the hem of my dress, I followed the fading din of Pendragon’s retinue into the courtyard.

  The men had already dismounted and begun their greetings by the time I arrived, but the Dragon Warriors swiveled as I crossed the expanse. Suddenly I was too aware of the attention my emerald gown was garnering, with its low-cut neckline that offered the high curve of my breasts. Curses on you, Crowan. I felt like a lamb trussed for a feast before a table of lions. But Ariane had held a place for me. I moved quickly to stand beside her as Gwenddolau came forward, his handsome face split into a smile.