Daughter of Black Lake

by Cathy Marie Buchanan

  A hand finally fell to the ground, fingers clutching the belly that carried her fifth child. She sobbed and muttered, repeatedly touching her lips, the earth. Eventually it was understood that she had not always buried the portion of the nightfall meal due Mother Earth. Devout’s fingernails dug into her palms, for that desperate mother’s effort to feed her brood seemed a lesser offense than kissing and caressing, oblivious to the mounting woes of the bog dwellers at Black Lake.

  * * *

  —

  They gathered in the rain at Sacred Grove. They huddled shoulder to shoulder beneath the six youthful oaks and the ancient one of wondrous girth. Devout had come often. Mother Earth was close amid the gnarled branches hung with mistletoe and the jagged bark silken with moss on its northern face. Today was different, though. Today the grove was dark and foreboding, the ground more mire and muck than lush moss.

  A ewe came into the grove, bleating, hauled by Old Tanner and Old Shepherd. Her three good hooves dug into the mud, as though she knew the aged stone altar for what it was, as though the rain had not washed deep into the earth the blood spilled onto the slab. Old Tanner spat onto the mud, said, “Cursed ewe,” and Old Shepherd gave the rope a foul-tempered yank.

  Young Smith lifted his face to the druid, whose nod showed forbearance rather than true concern.

  “That ewe’s not a true runt but a breeder,” Young Smith said. “Old Shepherd says a week or two out of the mud and the lesion on her hoof will heal. The last three years running, she birthed sets of twins. To offer such a ewe will weaken the flock. I don’t see that Mother Earth would find fault with a fox or a hare, not with the wheat rotting.”

  For a moment, Devout glimpsed his father, his bold manner, the steady voice that showed certainty. The druid’s lips pursed for a breath, as though he were considering, but then he dismissed Young Smith’s counsel with a wave and hoisted himself into the fork of the old oak. At his side, he wore the golden sickle he would use to cut free the globe of mistletoe to be made into a crown, as was usual when a beast was offered to a god. He chose two maidens to hold the square of white linen meant to catch the severed globe. They took up the corners of the linen and spread it wide. Faces turned upward to the rain and the oak where the druid balanced, his sharp blade cleanly severing the mistletoe. The crowd slouched morosely in their soggy shoes. Devout closed her eyes and imagined the vast wing of Mother Earth shielding the grove from the rain and then beating over the fields, the wet vanishing from the wheat and barley and oats. When Devout opened them, the bleakness of the surroundings glared.

  The mistletoe caught and the druid’s feet back on muddy earth, he made his crown and set it on his head. The ewe’s legs were bound, and she was lifted onto the stone altar, bleating and writhing and thrashing her head. Oftentimes there was debate about the means of slaughter, debate about which of the four gods the offering was intended to appease: Protector, who kept them from harm; War Master, who guided the tribesmen warriors; Begetter, who made man; Mother Earth, who provided. This time, though, the means was set without so much as a hitch of dissent. Everyone knew only Mother Earth could stop the rain, and while an assault to the head appeased Protector; and garroting, War Master; and drowning, Begetter; Mother Earth sought blood, drained onto the altar, spilled onto the moss, her awaiting mouth.

  Those preferences of the gods were reinforced with such regularity that even the youngest at Black Lake understood. A bog dweller striking the heel of his palm against his forehead and calling out to Protector thought quite naturally of the blow the god sought. As that bog dweller drew a finger across his neck and cried, “Heed War Master. Heed him well,” garroting came to mind. When he shifted a palm from tracing Begetter’s wheel to his chest, it was easy for his mind to flit to drowning, to the breath that would necessarily cease. And when he stooped and murmured, “Blessings of Mother Earth,” how ordinary that he should recall blood spilling from the stone altar onto thirsty ground.

  Old Hunter and Young Hunter held the ewe, and once the druid raised his arms, Young Smith positioned his knife at the beast’s throat. Devout, along with the others, called out, “Blessings of Mother Earth,” though the clamor of it was muted as the rain caught their voices and drummed into the earth. She repeated the appeal again and again, as did the others gathered in the grove, yet the rain persisted as the chief source of the din.

  What happened next was unclear. Perhaps Old Hunter and Young Hunter prematurely loosened their grips. Perhaps Young Smith applied excessive pressure to the knife even as it met the bones of the ewe’s neck. Perhaps the mess was not man’s doing, but rather that of a displeased Mother Earth, as the druid would contend in the moments to come. Whatever the case, rather than blood fully drained onto the altar and then cleanly swept onto the moss beneath, as was proper, when the sharp blade of the knife cut into the throat of the ewe, she squirmed. Her bulk twisted in such a way that blood spurted onto the men, streaking their faces, darkening their tunics. Some shot into the air, landed, caught in the deep grooves of the ancient oak’s bark. Some mixed with the rivulets of rain crisscrossing the men’s faces, the stone altar, the ancient oak’s foliage and perhaps found its way to the moss. As the bog dwellers took in the undignified scene, most were certain Mother Earth went unsated, thirsty as salt.

  “Now, all for naught, we’ll forgo her milk in Fallow,” said Old Shepherd’s mate, looking as woeful as a shriveled plum. “And the hard cheese we could have made in advance.”

  A hand called Willow stood with her skin cape spread in such a way that it sheltered her son Lark from the rain. Quick as fear, the druid was upon them, yanking the child away from his mother and toppling him backward onto the stone altar. Lark’s hands cast about, for it was through touch that a blind boy discovered his world. His fingers landed on wet gritstone, and, disbelieving, he settled, still as night. Willow screamed, piercing the rain like a cock’s crow in the early morning. The druid hooked the point of the golden sickle into the boy’s throat and with ease sliced through pale skin, warm flesh, pulsing vein.

  “Mother Earth has commanded,” he said. “She has shown us her displeasure with the ewe. By her command, we offer a runt boy. With his blood, we atone.”

  Blood surged from the gaping wound, pooled on gritstone, spilled onto moss—this time, an offering properly made.

  17.

  DEVOUT

  The wheat rotted in the fields. Devout parted underbrush and sat in the woodland with her shoulders hunched forward as her fingers raked decaying leaves and cold, clotted earth. Sometimes she would come upon a clump of mushrooms or a pocket of overlooked hazelnuts and extricate the lot from the debris. With no wheat to harvest and Fallow looming, the mushrooms were good news, but she was troubled by all that had come to pass, by the way she had smiled as she opened the door to yet another wet day. It had not occurred to her, until it was too late, to entreat Mother Earth to stop the rain. In fact, never had she spent so little time on her knees as in recent moons. Never had she been so undeserving of her name. In hopeful moments, she decided her guilt was ordinary, imagined even, rather than born of true offense. Almost certainly a good number of the bog dwellers were counting the ways they had failed, the ways they might have triggered the deluge that had not ceased, the druid who had cut Lark’s throat. Even Arc—good, decent Arc, who stood no chance of drawing the gods’ wrath—took up the burden. “Every one of us should’ve accompanied the Smiths. We just let the Romans invade, and now—” His gaze drifted toward the ruined wheat and then Sacred Grove.

  “He knew what was happening,” Devout said. “He didn’t fight. None of us did.”

  “Hush,” Arc said and laid a finger across his lips.

  The bog dwellers had made a solemn pledge. They would not speak of the horror in Sacred Grove, would not bring it to mind by recalling Lark. He was gone from their present and their past, too, a blind boy who sang sweetly, who knew to flavor barley with sorrel and hard ch
eese with ramsons.

  Sometimes as she scavenged, Devout’s mind strayed from remorse to the Romans. Though there had been no further word, no sightings as far afield as Hill Fort, those gleaming contrivances from another world could, she supposed, at any moment, arrive in Black Lake. She thought of the druid who had incited the Smith men, of his promise of plunder and killing and torched settlements and tribesmen put into bondage. She felt the cold earth against her shins, raised her face to the heavens. “Blessings of Mother Earth,” she said, but her voice pitched higher toward the end of the age-old tribute, turning it into a question for debate. She touched her lips, the decay of the woodland floor.

  At nightfall she put her palms on the hollow of her belly, parted her hands to the sharp ridges her hips had become. She could not claim the sharpness arose from necessity, not yet. Still there were the leaves and stems of the chickweed she had picked. The earth remained unfrozen and surely not every edible root—bulbous knots of bulrush, slender tapers of burdock—had been unearthed. She took comfort in the sharpness, those ridges beneath her fingers that provided testament to her piety, her generosity in the portions she set aside for Mother Earth.

  Without the usual stores of wheat, the bog dwellers knew the short days and bitter winds of the Fallow soon upon them would not be something to endure but rather to survive. They ate their fills while crab apples still clung to branches, while the elders were more berry than leaf. As far as Edge, they picked the woodland floor clean of nuts and dug up the palatable tubers.

  Devout and Crone were in high demand, knowing as they did that the pale mushrooms clinging in layers to a fallen trunk were edible while the darker ones that smelled faintly of rose petals were not. They pointed to plants, the identifying leaves—heart shaped and colossal for burdock, bunched and deeply veined for sorrel, sharply toothed and low to the ground for dandelion. They explained whether it was root or leaf or both that would fill a belly, hush a whining child.

  Devout’s mother touched the protruding ridge of her daughter’s collarbone and suggested she keep a few choice locations to herself. Yes, Devout could make provisions. She had thought of it herself, but surely surrender was the more pious route? She wrapped her arms tighter against her ribs.

  The bog dwellers set aside the hard cheese for bleaker days; and in this they were sincere, a claim that could be made for neither the hawthorn berries nor the rose hips. They had agreed to leave those fruits until first frost when they became more appetizing. Still, it was easy to chance upon a cluster of shiny, red berries and notice the sepals already emptied of their fruit and decide that some among the bog dwellers lacked restraint, that one’s fair share was better harvested now. They skulked about the clearing with rose hips clutched in fists, tubers hidden beneath skin capes. Better to appear lacking than possessing. Even Young Hunter slunk into the clearing now, the sack at his side swollen with a pheasant or a duck, and went directly to his roundhouse. Crone grew sullen and in a low moment said the bog dwellers deserved what they got—reaping berries before their sweetness had come, digging up tubers in the most haphazard way.

  * * *

  —

  Devout was called to Crone’s shack and opened the door to find Old Shepherd’s two youngest sons gripping their bellies. Loose bowels had plagued them through the night. Their mother wrung her hands. Now more than ever, the boys needed their reserves.

  “Willow herb tea, do you think?” Crone said.

  It was strange, Crone deferring to Devout, and it came to her that it was a test, that willow herb tea was not the remedy Crone knew to be right. Devout looked from one boy to the other and saw the hint of red about their mouths. She took the older one’s hands and turned them over in her own. She rubbed a thumb over reddened skin, skin close to raw. “You’ve been scratching?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you, too?” The younger brother nodded, holding out his hands so that Devout might see his own damaged skin. Crone smiled, and Devout said, “You’ve eaten the wrong kind of bulbs.” The harmful bulbs had irritated their fingers, their mouths, and then their stomachs cramped.

  Old Shepherd’s mate shook her head, but then she nodded. “I sent them to find ramson bulbs. I put something that looked like it in their broth.”

  “Probably daffodil,” Devout said. “It will pass.”

  The mother looked to Crone, who nodded.

  “They need water,” Devout said.

  The mother again looked to Crone, and she repeated Devout’s advice, that the boys should take water, and added, “Let them shit. The bulbs will have passed through them by nightfall.”

  When it was just the two of them, Crone sunk heavily onto the mass of furs heaped by the fire that she called her nest. Devout settled beside her.

  “Be on the watch for it: bog dwellers eating what they shouldn’t.” Crone shifted her hand to cover the top of Devout’s. “You’ve learned well.”

  Devout was struck by the stillness come to the old woman. Always she dug or chopped or pressed herbs in a colander. Even her eyes seldom rested.

  “It’s my time,” she said. “No point lingering, less with food so scarce.”

  Devout stiffened. Crone had shown herself watchful and decisive the day the pair first met on the woodland path, and through three years of friendship and shared labor, she had not deviated from what was begun with yellow bloodroot blooms pinched from their stalks. Had Crone foreseen this moment? Had Devout, by her diligence, by recognizing that the Shepherd boys had swallowed bulbs, hastened the arrival of this day? Her eyes flooded with tears.

  She put her arms around Crone, and the old woman did not squirm, though it was not their custom to embrace. Devout wept, and Crone said, “Hush,” and drew her fingers through the maiden’s hair.

  “All that is mine is yours,” she said, easing Devout away so that her face became visible. “I have said so in front of witnesses to Old Hunter. There will be no mistake.”

  “But you know better than anyone how to survive Fallow.”

  “No better than you.” She patted Devout’s hand, examined her wrist. “You’ve grown thin.”

  Devout put her hand in her lap, hid the wrist beneath the fingers of her opposite hand.

  “Mother Earth does not find fault with a smaller portion, not when there is no wheat.”

  She seldom doubted Crone, but just then Devout wondered what the rotted wheat and consequent brutality in Sacred Grove implied about the benevolence of Mother Earth. Her heart quickened that she should have such a thought. A thousand times she had witnessed Mother Earth’s generosity. Devout reaped her fields, drew her magic from root and leaf and bloom. She had been the beneficiary, had only to ask—or once, had only to ask.

  Still Crone waited, eyebrows lifted, but Devout did not admit the extra fistfuls of chickweed poked deep into the tribute vessel, that vessel where her household set aside the portions owed Mother Earth. Instead she took Crone’s hand, and the old woman spoke first of black henbane, repeating instructions Devout already knew. Crone moved on to myriad syrups and drafts and then to her mother’s warm hands and how she had a way with bees and then to her father’s skill in catching hares, on and on, as the shack grew warmer and dimmer, as flaming wood turned to glowing ember in the firepit. Devout yawned, felt the weight of her eyelids, the weight of her body sinking against Crone’s, who slowly, haltingly told a long story about a time when she and her father had become lost in the woods and spent a night huddled in a cave.

  Next Devout knew, she startled awake, but there was quiet all around. She listened, but the old woman had ceased speaking. Even the slight wheeze of her breath had disappeared. The girl bolted upright, admonished herself for falling asleep. At one point, as she rocked and wept and cradled Crone, she realized Crone held a small hide pouch tight in her fist. Devout rolled the pouch between her fingers. The contents were loose, granular. She drew open the string, shifted so that
her hands fell closer to the weak light coming from the firepit. She tipped the pouch, and seeds spilt onto her palm—small, like wheat in color, like bloated tears in shape. The stink of black henbane filled her nose.

  * * *

  —

  Young Smith called Devout to the Smith household. One of his brothers’ mates had not left her pallet for three days. Without Crone at her side, Devout stood in the doorway, uncertain as a shambling fawn, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. Young Smith, his mother, his brothers’ mates and children—a clan dwindled to seventeen from a once mighty thirty-four—sat at a cluster of low tables. Cook, who had served the clan since before Devout could recall, ladled porridge strewn with wild boar into bowls and poured dandelion root tea into mugs.

  Young Smith led her to the sick woman’s pallet. As Devout stepped behind the woolen partition, the mate drew skins over her head, retreating, even as the youngest of her brood reached to touch her mother’s hair. Devout knew the ailment, the magic to assist, even before she put her hand on the mate’s forehead. Goatweed lifted melancholy—a tincture made of crushed blooms and the grain alcohol that preserved the magic.

  From beyond the partition, Young Smith’s mother spoke. “Make yourselves useful this morning,” she said. “They say the gooseberries are ripe. We need water and wood brought inside.”

  The Smith women—women accustomed to working a loom or embroidering the edge of a cape—did not respond. Devout shifted to the opening in the partition, just as Young Smith’s mother picked up her basket of partially spun wool and stepped from the roundhouse.

  Then the mates began:

  “We’re to haul water while she sits in the sun spinning wool?”