Daughter of Albion (31 page)

‘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.

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.

H
OURS 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.

She alone has been touched by the Singing.
She has a light that belongs to no other.

H
EKA 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.

I lifted him and saw the wound at his side. Too deep to treat, yet shallow enough that he may have lived another hour or two. I pulled Bebin's knife from her hand, stilled him quickly and walked on.

From the peak of Cad Hill, I saw the camp in the west, the soldiers gathering around fires next to the Nain. Their work was complete.

At the door of the shrine was a pile of old man with pale robes and silver hair. The sight of him ignited me and I ran the last few steps to his side. He was sliced neatly beneath his left ribs, his face drained to the colour of chalk. He would not have fought. He would have stood before them with the names of his beloved Mothers on his lips. But what was this? Blood still seeped from the wound in a weak pulse. He lived.

I dropped to my knees. ‘Journeyman?'

At the sound of my voice his eyes drifted open. In them, I saw the courage and faith that had never wavered, and it broke me in half. ‘I was wrong, Llwyd.' My voice was hollow. ‘I needed skin to protect you.' I paused, scarcely able to breathe. ‘I did not transcend it…no one can—'

He frowned, his lips parting as blood welled at the corners. ‘And now?' he uttered, searching my eyes. ‘Do you have skin now?'

‘Yes,' I whimpered, wincing at its uselessness. ‘But it came too late. I am sister to the dog, Journeyman! The Mothers did not need it, but I needed it. Forgive me, beloved Llwyd. I am no Kendra. I have betrayed you all.'

‘No,' he rasped. His face was greying, yet his gaze sharpened. ‘The failure is ours. You have shown us the truth. Skin is the law of all life—' he paused, his chest rattling as he laboured for breath, ‘—but it is something other than what we have known.' His eyes closed. Then slowly he looked upon me once more. ‘You always had skin.'

I stared into his eyes. Even moments from death, his strength held me.

‘You were always the Kendra,' he whispered.

Then I heard his final breath and watched his life end.

I rose to my feet. With his death I was at last awakened to this slaughter. ‘Do you know this man you have killed?' I screamed into the smoke-filled sky. ‘Do you know his greatness? Do you know what you have destroyed?'

I ran to the outer wall of the township and looked down. Our most sacred part of the river Nain was where they washed their knives and rinsed their dirty bowls. They camped in the Mothers' place, the northwestern place, where my womb sister had been slain. That death was a gift, offered with love and great reverence. That was how we killed. Not like this.

Standing high above their smoking fires, I held my arms to the sky. With every part of my being I drew spirit to set a geas against them. A sudden cold wind curled up from the valley. The smoke clouds shifted and swirled. My Kendra's power was summoning weather. I reached my fingers into the furious sky. ‘I curse you soldiers of Rome,' I screamed down to them. ‘For this devastation that you have inflicted, may you be crippled by anguish and shame. May you be overcome with the weakness and suffering of a woman raped. May this remain on you for every night and day of your lives.'

My curse echoed like thunder and the soldiers below looked up at its sound.

If I were caught I would be killed. I strode back to Llwyd and quickly whispered the chants that would carry him to Caer Sidi, tucking his adder stone talisman into the front of his robe. I pulled the knife from his belt so the Romans could not take it, and ran back to the sleephouse, murmuring what blessings I could, as I passed, to honour the dead.

Heka waited in the storepit just as I had left her.

‘Come,' I urged, pulling her gently to her feet. ‘Do as I say and we may be safe.'

She was weak and compliant as I fastened her robe.

I led her from the chamber and through the township to the northern gateway, steadying her as she took in the sight of the slaughter.

We kept ourselves hidden by the hedges that lined the field lanes, but there was a short distance where we would need to pass close to the legion's camp, if we were to reach the river track.

I stood at the end of the hedge, Heka behind me, and peered around at the camp. The men were so strange, so different from us, yet all dressed alike: one beast made of many, like a swarm of wasps. I picked up only fragments of their Latin tongue, but their laughter, the irreverence with which they sat on our sacred place, was unmistakable. They were the mighty and all others must fall.

Some of the tribesmen of Cad sat at the camp's periphery, unwounded, but bound by rings about their necks or ankles. One of them stood and, with what little movement the chain at his leg afforded, took a few steps to the edge of the camp. He stared southward toward the hill. It was Ruther. He had been spared.

Despite my stillness, his eyes fell upon me.

With Heka's hand gripped in mine, I took a step forward.

His lips parted. Would he call my name? He glanced around at the camp, the soldiers lulled and drowsy with their morning's kill, then looked back, nodding me on.

We moved lightly, with the rhythm of the wind.

The Mothers protected us. Ruther alone saw us pass.

The farmhouse was empty, but two grey horses still grazed the house paddock. We ate bread and milk that we found inside, then I roped the stronger of the two horses and helped Heka mount.

‘Ride to the north,' I told her, pushing the last of the bread into her belt pouch. ‘Head for Siluria, where Caradog hides. It may take some days, but his people will give you refuge. Tell what has happened. Tell to all the nature of this enemy.'

‘And what of you?' she said. ‘There is another horse. Will you not come?'

‘No.' I handed her the head rope. ‘I am still needed here.' I untied Llwyd's knife from my belt and gave it to her. ‘This will gain you much coin.'

She hooked her tangled hair behind her shoulders and gathered the reins. ‘Thank you,' she said.

I looked up, my hand resting on the mare's smooth flank. ‘Thank you also,' I said. ‘Thank you for giving me my skin.'

‘It came too late,' she stated.

‘It came by its own course.'

‘Farewell, Ailia.' She stooped down to kiss my mouth. The first and only kiss I had been given from kin.

‘Farewell, sister,' I whispered as she rode away.

Only when Heka was disappeared from view did I allow my legs to weaken, my breath to shudder in grief. I sank to the ground and lay on the grass. As much as I tried to still it, the shaking would not cease. Too many had died. How did I deserve to survive? Llwyd was wrong. I was no Kendra. There was nothing I could bring to my people now.

As I curled in a ball, something rustled behind me. The soldiers had found me. I buried my face in my arms. Let them come. Something nudged the back of my neck. But it was not a sword or a soldier's foot. It was a whiskery snout and a cold, wet nose. I lifted my face, disbelieving, then reached out and pulled her to my chest. Her rough tongue scraped my cheeks.

‘Neha.' I breathed her warm fur. My sister dog.

We lay unmoving together, her heart whirring under my grasp, until I had the strength to rise again. ‘Come.' I brushed the grass off my skirts. ‘It is time for us to get Taliesin.'

She trotted beside me as I walked to the Oldforest. At least I would be safe there from the soldiers. With every step I forced myself to silence the warning of the Fire Mothers. I forced myself to hope that my sword would still cut.

At the mouth of the Oldforest, Neha stopped.

I turned back to face her. ‘Do not abandon me,' I whispered.

For the first time, she came.

Already the forest was lively with the dead, howling and unsettled, as they moved among the trees. I sensed their panic in the shadows and in the bleats of the owls. They were calling on me to give them their rites so they could passage in peace to Caer Sidi.

I staggered among them, cycling the chants and poems that would free their souls. There were so many. The light deepened. At last my voice was hoarse and my legs were buckling, but the forest was quiet.

I returned to the path. There was one left still to save. My sword had killed. It would need every shred of my strength, my knowledge, to bring Taliesin through.

As I walked onward, I thought on what we would do once he had been freed. We could not return to Cad. We would have to stay forest-hidden for some time. Taliesin was skilled in hunting arts and I could help us find our way northward until we reached safer tribelands. There would be no hardship with him at my side.

We came to the pool. A fine mist rose off the water, coiling around the hazel branches, staking, with its watery tendrils, the boundary between our place and the realm of the Mothers.

Neha stood beside me at the water's edge.

Through the thickening veil, I sensed the presence of Tara, Steise, and all the women who kept the knowledge in their magical otherworld. Their voices echoed over the distance, mingling with calls and rustles of the forest.

The mist started to close in, heavy and wet.

‘Taliesin!' I cried.
Let him come. Let him come
. ‘Taliesin!' My voice was ugly with fear. I stared hard into the whiteness, unsure if he would appear.

And then, just as it had rolled in, the mist began to thin before me, and he was standing on the other side of the river. Thinner, weaker, beneath his rough shirt and trousers, he seemed altered. But still it was
his
form that waited, hopeful, before me. His beautiful spirit. ‘Ailia?' he called, his expression uncertain.

‘I am here!' I cried, laughing with relief. I could scarcely hold the sight of him as the mist ebbed and surged with its own living force.

A smile broke over his face. ‘I can hear you!' he called. ‘But I cannot see you. Can you cut the mist?'

Frantically, I tugged free my sword and plunged it into the space between us. The air shuddered and rippled from where my strike had disturbed it, but no hole was cut.

‘Ailia?'

‘Yes! I am here.' I slashed into the vapour, ‘Stay near!'

Neha stood beside me, her head thrust forward, hackles raised. She growled warily at the eddying vision.

I stumbled into the shallows, stabbing at the veil. But the membrane did not yield. Again and again I struck it, willing the skin to tear with all my being. It bent and moved, yet held intact.

Although he stood only paces away, Taliesin was frowning into the distance, unable to see me. ‘I can hear you, my love. Why do you not cut?'

‘I cannot,' I said, beginning to weep. ‘The sword will not cut.'

‘Try again!' His voice rose in panic. ‘Ailia, do not fail me. You are my only chance.'