Daughter of Albion (2 page)

She stood with limbs outstretched and tears on her face. The singing reached a wailing peak. It was time. She was, for a moment, creation, the rising sun itself, before the riders mounted, the journey-man shouted, and the horses surged with unstoppable force, to the north, south, east and west of her.

At first there was chaos. A void without form.
Then the Mothers began to sing.

AD 43

I
STIRRED WITH
the crow's first cry, instantly awake. It was the day before festival; tonight the fires would be lit for Beltane and I had been sleepless half the night in anticipation.

Despite the cold morning, I was damp with sweat in my bed, pressed on one side by Cookmother and the other by Neha, my beautiful grey-and-white bitch. She was the final born from the last of Badger's litters and the most like her in temperament: wary of any who stroked her. But to me she was as devoted a protectoress as could ever be wished for and I would not so much as empty the nightpot without her by my side.

I lifted Cookmother's arm and rolled out from under it, reaching for my grey woollen tunic that hung over a stool by the bed. The other kitchen girls still slept, Bebin and Ianna curled together. Only sour-tempered Cah slept alone. The fire in the hearth was barely smouldering. It was Cah's turn to keep it last night but she had clearly forgotten again. I stoked it quickly. It would bring great shame on Cookmother for our house fire to die.

As I tied my tunic with my leather belt, Neha brought me my sandals. ‘Good girl,' I whispered, lacing them firm. I tugged a comb through the tangle of hair that spilled down my shoulders, then I grabbed a basket and we slipped out through the heavy cowskin covering the door.

Outside, the air prickled with spring. Past the Tribequeen's low stone gateway, the path was dotted with festival offerings of cheese, eggs and milk left in small rock hollows or poured straight onto the cobbled ground. Some had left bread or jugs of ale. Each gave back the best they could.

Soon the winding pathways of the warriors' houses gave way to the open streets of the town centre, where our craftspeople worked. Caer Cad was already awake. Smoke poured from the house peaks and the open forges were lit. Many makers were already bundling their metals and pots into baskets for market, restless, like me, with the promise of festival. Most greeted me as I passed, but some looked away.

I turned into a narrow path where the rich smell of roasting wheat told me Mael's bread was ready. Inside his bakehouse, I leaned against the warm oven while he chose his largest loaves.

‘Take care when you attend the Tribequeen today,' he warned. Mael had grown heavy on his own graincraft and had a great fondness for the foretelling of ruin. He was mocked for both of these, but I always offered him a ready ear and in return he was free with the news of the township.

‘Why so?' I asked.

‘There was a rider from the east last night. The Bear is fallen.'

‘Slain?' I questioned. There had been no news of war.

‘Nay. Died in his bedskins. An old man's death, bless his soul to have reached it.'

The Great Bear, Belinus, king of the Catuvellauni, whose rule spread over most of the eastern tribes of Albion. He was greatly admired, even by those beyond his reign, like us.

‘Who will wear his crown?' I asked.

‘This is the question.' Mael bent down and swung open the door of the oven. ‘Togodumnus has claimed the capital but his brother, Caradog, will want his share of the tribes, and he is a flaming arrow. Whatever smooth waters Belinus has sailed between Britain and Rome, Caradog is sure to whip up.'

I could not help smiling at his prophecy. ‘I think we are safe from the Romans here, Mael.'

‘Are we?' He dripped with sweat as he pulled out the bread stone. ‘The Bear knew how to throw a bone to the Roman dog. He gave them all the skins and the tin they could want and kissed their fingers for the privilege. They had no reason to attack again. With that young cock Caradog crowing about Britain's great freedom, who knows what Rome will do to subdue him?'

I placed the loaves in my basket. Even within my short remembering, the tendrils of Roman ways had touched Caer Cad. Aside from the pretty cups and the dark wines that filled them, there were new arts like coloured glass, oils from fruit, and different coins that served in trade. More and more barrow-loads of our lead and grain were carted out and rolled onto ships bound for the Empire. But the tribes had always been, and remained, the law-keepers of this land.

Rome's army had come one hundred summers before and the eastern kings had defended their freedom with trade and terms. There was always talk that they would come again, that they would not be so easily withheld, but I was not afraid. Cookmother had taught me that the roots of the tribes reached deep and it would take more than Roman swords to dig them out.

I thanked Mael for the bread and he smiled at me through blackened teeth. ‘First time through the fires tonight?' he asked.

I nodded.

‘Then Mothers bless you.' He chuckled and the knot tightened in my belly.

Outside, Neha sprang to her feet. Sun streamed over Sister Hill to the east. Already there were women busied at its crest, softening the ground for the poles and laying the offerings.

Of the year's four great festivals, Beltane was the most beloved by the tribes. A night of fire, of joy, where the heat of man against woman broke open the winter, called back the sun and readied the ground for a strong, sweet harvest. For girls who had first bled since last Beltane, such as me, tonight would be their first union. I was twice seven summers.

Barking filled the air. Neha had galloped ahead. I ran after her, hoping she hadn't bitten the wheelwright again.

When I rounded the corner I found her snarling at a young tribesman marking his fightcraft in the street. I pushed through the crowd around him and called Neha off. ‘I'm sorry,' I panted, grabbing her scruff. ‘She's not fond of strangers.'

He laughed. ‘She mistakes me then. I am no stranger to Cad.'

I stared at him. He was well cast, of medium height but heavily muscled, his beard lime-bleached in the style of the warrior. Despite the crisp morning, he practised without a shirt, his silver torque glinting on his shaved chest. He was familiar but I could not place him.

‘Are you returned from fosterage?' I asked, hooking my unbraided hair behind my shoulders.

‘Ay.' He sheathed his sword. ‘I am Ruther of Cad.'

Orgilos's son. Often spoken of. Fostered to the east for fight-training, then to Rome to learn their soldier's craft, he would have been almost twenty summers now.

I nodded. ‘Blessings upon your return.' Neha growled under my firm grip. ‘Hush!' I hissed. ‘Forgive her. She's cursed with a wolf's temper.'

‘And her mistress?' He stared at me. ‘Is she so cursed?'

I answered with a brief smile, then pulled Neha and turned away.

‘Do you not offer your name?'

‘Ailia,' I called over my shoulder.

‘Skin to Caer Cad?'

I stopped, wordless. It had been many summers since I had met this question.

In the silence, a woman's voice called. ‘She's unskinned, daughter only to the doorstep!'

My face burned. There were those who were angered by my place in the Tribequeen's kitchen. Years of taunts had taught me to walk away without looking back, lest their spit wet my face.

‘Unskinned?' said Ruther. ‘Yet you hold your head like a queen.'

‘Because she attends the queen's kitchen,' called another. ‘And the Cookwoman pets her like a house dog.'

I kept walking. Ruther was right to be surprised. Not often would one without skin move through the town so freely. A pebble struck my shoulder, hard and sharp. I stopped as the sting gave way to a warm ache and a trickle of blood down my back.

‘Cease!' shouted Ruther into the crowd. ‘Do you strike a maiden's back? And for nothing but an accident of birth? Do you still live in this darkness since I have been gone?' He turned to me. ‘Go home, daughter of the doorstep,' he said. ‘Be proud of your boldness.'

Before I turned the corner, I glanced back. Ruther had unsheathed his sword and was swiping and twisting it again to a tide of admiring murmurs. Who is he, I wondered, who cares so little for the laws of skin?

‘Handsome, isn't he?' said a townswoman as she passed.

‘If your tastes are such,' I answered.

‘He thought you sweet enough.'

As I hurried home, I saw the thick smoke of the fringe fires coiling above the town walls.

Just beyond the southern gate, wedged along the lower banks of the ramparts, was a tight-packed warren of stick huts and hide tents, foul with littered bone scraps and poor drainage. These were the fringes. Home to the skinless. Shunned by the tribe.

Summer was strong in deer spirit. Except for those who had travelled or married in—bringing with them skins of the owl, wolf or the river—most born here were skin to the deer.

Born to the skinless, or lost to their families before naming, the unskinned were not claimed by a totem. Their souls were fragmented, unbound to the Singing. If they remained little seen, they were not despised, not usually harmed. The townspeople gave them enough grain, cloaks and work, if they would do it. But they could not live within the town walls because no one could be sure of who they were.

I quickened my pace and Neha trotted beside me.

Skin was gifted from mother to child by a song.

I had no mother. I had no skin.

But I had been spared. Just.

‘Who cast the stone?' spat Cookmother, dabbing an ointment of comfrey on my back.

In the quiet of the kitchen, I sat between my worksisters on a long log bench draped with pelts. We held bowls of bread soaked in goat's milk and huddled close to the hearthstones as the morning sun had not yet warmed the thick walls of our roundhouse.

‘I did not see.' I winced as Cookmother covered my wound.

‘I'll strangle them with their own innards if I learn of it.' She lifted my dress back onto my shoulders, and I leaned against her warm bulk. It was by Cookmother's insistence alone that I remained in the Tribequeen's kitchen.

As we ate, I told the girls of the Great Bear's death, and of my meeting with Ruther.

‘It is said he can match twenty Romans with his sword,' said Ianna, her wide eyes blinking.

‘More likely to share their wine and whores, I've heard,' said Cah.

‘Speak not against Orgilos's son in my kitchen, thanks be,' said Cookmother, stirring the fire pot.

Bebin rose and took up a flame to light the torches. ‘Was there another returned with him?' she asked.

‘Who could you mean?' jibed Cah.

We all knew she spoke of Uaine, also fostered to the east. She had awaited his return for three summers.

‘He was alone,' I murmured.

Bebin turned away and my heart fell.

‘Uaine will be schooled to a high warrior now,' said Cah. ‘He will set his sights beyond a kitchen girl when he returns.'

I could have struck her with a fire iron, but I knew Bebin had more sense than to listen to Cah.

Bebin walked the curved room, igniting the torches, each one revealing more of the swirling red circles that marked our walls. She lit only the kitchen's eastern half—the realm of the living—where the floor and shelves were crammed with baskets, grindstones, grainpots and buckets. The western half, where our beds were laid, was the place of the dead and must remain always in darkness.

‘Empty your bowls, Cah, Ianna,' snapped Cookmother. ‘It is time for your lessons.'

Cah groaned.

‘What was that?' said Cookmother. ‘Rather wash out the shit trough, would you?' She reached over and snatched Cah's bowl.

‘I had not finished,' said Cah.

‘You have now. Get your cloak.'

Bebin smiled as she caught my eye. Four years my elder, she had finished her schooling, but every morning except wane days and feast days, Cah and Ianna, both my age, were still expected to go to the shrine, where learners gathered before dispersing to the rivers or to the craft huts for schooling.

I followed them to the door and watched them walk off, laughing. Learning was wasted on both of them. Ianna had no brains for it and Cah had no gratitude. They had no idea of their privilege. I would have cut off my first finger to be in their place for just one summer. But I was not permitted to go with them or hear any talk of what they learned. It was forbidden for the unskinned to be taught.

Neha nosed my hand. I squatted beside her and buried my fingers in the swathe of white fur around her neck. She was not a large dog—her shoulder only at my knee when I stood—but her carriage was proud. She turned her snout to meet my caress. Her face was unusually marked—half-grey, half-white in perfect division—but it was her eyes that drew the most curiosity: the one belonging to the white side was ice-blue, the other brown. It gave her an eerie, lopsided stare that, combined with her wary temper, many felt marked her as a friend to the dark spirits. But I knew her soul was true and I had taken many years of comfort from her odd-eyed gaze.