Daughter of Albion (4 page)

I laughed off her warning. ‘He is the son of a high warrior to the deer. He won't come looking for a skinless girl.' I paused. ‘No one will.'

‘Oh, Ailia.' She took my hand. ‘It will be you who'll do the choosing. There are knaves who'd have had you long since.'

‘None of honour.' I picked a bud from the branches cradled in her arm. ‘And even if there were, I have no clan ties to offer in marriage.'

Bebin threw back her head and laughed in the way that saw her first coupled at every festival. ‘Beltane is no time for making marriages. It's the night to throw rings off!' She set down the branches on the box and turned to me. ‘This is the marriage of earth and sun! Clan ties mean little tonight.'

I nodded. ‘There's a petal on your cheek.'

‘Sweet friend,' Bebin said, looping her arm around my waist. ‘Do not be nervous. All will be well.'

Not until the sun nudged the western horizon did we hear the shouts and barks of the returning hunt. Bebin and I were in the courtyard, stoking the roasting pit outside the Great House. We rushed to the queen's gate, where a crowd was gathering to meet the hunters.

Fibor came first, then the others strode through the gate, a strung milking doe swinging between them, its pelt matted with blood. The last of the hunters carried its young—a single buck, unharmed, no more than one moon old.

We followed them to the Great House, where the doe was laid on the ground at the door and received by Fraid, before the hunters swiftly gutted and lowered it, without beheading, into the pit. There were cheers and laughter from the crowd and Neha surged forward with the rest of the dogs, snarling and snapping for her share of the innards.

I stood back while the doe was covered with straw, stones and finally earth. As I turned to go back to the kitchen, I noticed the baby buck standing wide-eyed and alone beside me, paralysed by the noise and the dogs. I scooped it up, its spindly mass no heavier than a basket of bread. It struggled feebly then collapsed, trembling, into my arms.

Fraid called to the crowd. ‘Look how the sun is nearly set. Go to your homes, put out your hearths and ready yourselves for the fires!'

With shouts of excitement, the crowd dispersed and Bebin came to my side, cooing and fussing over the baby deer.

‘Ailia!' Fraid called. ‘Go and lay out my metals. I will follow soon to dress.'

‘Can you take him back to the kitchen?' I asked, pushing the buck into Bebin's arms.

As I walked to the sleephouse, I saw townspeople tying rowan branches to their doorways. The boughs would protect against the dark spirits who could steal forth when the Beltane fires burned a hole to the Otherworld. The rowan was a reminder to us that when we sought light, there was an equal risk of finding darkness.

From the baskets and boxes that rimmed her walls, I pulled out all of Fraid's metals onto a table draped with cloth, wondering what she would choose tonight. Next to the coloured armbands, anklets, neckrings and her silver festival torque was my favourite of her ornaments: a bronze hand mirror with the swirling face of a Mother engraved on its back. I picked up the mirror, savouring the weight and lustre of the metal and the texture of its scored pattern under my fingertips. I loved the spinning patterns that flowed from the hands of our makers. None of the Roman crafts were ever as beautiful.

On a wooden stand beside the table was the Tribequeen's diadem, the tribe's most sacred piece. With its hammered gold and flame-coloured stones, it seemed as if lit from within.

Glancing at the doorway, I set the mirror down. Then with both hands, I lifted the crown—heavier than I expected—and placed it on my head. When I held the mirror to my face, I gasped. Before me was a queen. A Mother.

‘Ailia?' Fraid was at the doorway. ‘What are you doing?'

I wrenched the crown from my head and pushed it back onto its stand.

‘This headpiece marks the first consort to the deer,' she said, striding toward me. ‘Do you seek to defile it?'

‘No!' I assured her, furious with my stupidity. ‘I am sorry, Tribequeen. I…I was beguiled by the metal—'

She stood before me, surprise knotting her brow. ‘You might have my favour,' she said, ‘but do not forget that I am at the very limits of my grace in keeping you here. Do not give me cause to release you. You are here by a spider's thread.'

‘Yes,' I whispered, bowing my head.

‘Oh, Ailia,' she sighed as she sat on her stool. ‘This is not as I expect of you. Come.' Her voice softened. ‘You are unsettled as we all are by the news from the east. Now, we shall forget this and you will help me dress.'

I nodded in gratitude and brought the robes from her cloak stand.

She raised her arms so I could slip the silk under-robe over her bare torso, followed by a dress of clan tartan threaded with silver. She wrapped her chain belt twice around her waist and let the heavy bronze charm rest against her belly. I helped her slide her narrow feet into leather sandals ornamented with twisting metal and coloured stones. Then she sat very still while I blackened her fine eyebrows with berry juice and rubbed roan into her cheeks.

Admiring her own beauty in the bronze mirror, she caught my eye in the reflection. ‘You run the fires also tonight, do you not?' she said.

‘Yes.'

‘Would you like me to colour your lips?'

I nodded and crouched beside her.

Her fingertips were cool as she patted powdery roan across my mouth and cheeks. Then she feathered a small juice-soaked brush over my eyebrows and dabbed rose oil at my temple and throat.

‘There,' she said, handing me the mirror. ‘Does it please you?'

My eyes widened in the mirror. The colours made them sparkle and had turned my lips to petals. My tinted cheeks tempered my jaw, drawing my face into perfect alignment. I was beautiful.

Fraid, too, seemed astonished. She looked at me as though seeing me for the first time. ‘I may have chosen the First Maiden this morning, but it seems the Mothers have chosen you.' She laughed.

She asked for rose oil to be rubbed into her arms and shoulders so they would gleam in the firelight. As I stroked her skin, I marvelled at how it was just like my own: warm, alive, pale from the winter sun. It held her as mine held me, and wept blood when cut, as mine did also. Our skin was the same. Yet hers had a name and mine had none.

After admiring my face, Bebin brushed my unruly hair and wove the crimson ribbon down its full length as I kneeled on the floorskins before her. I could hear the distant shouts of the men dragging the last of the branches up to the bonfires on Sister Hill. Ianna and Cah were already dressed and readied, waiting outside, watching the Beltane moon rise.

Cookmother groaned, struggling to feed the buck by the fire. She grew more and more impatient, guiding its whiskery mouth to her nipple. ‘By Mothers, there's scarcely a drop left in these useless sacks,' she muttered, kneading her breast. ‘I'm too old for this. Bebin, you need to start breeding so I can be free of this cursed nursing.' She would feed the buck until it was strong enough to be given back to the forest. When the hunt took a feeding mother, this was what we had to do.

Cah's face burst through the doorskins. ‘Come!' she called. ‘It will be over before we leave.'

Bebin squeezed my shoulders. ‘Let's away.'

‘I'll catch up,' I said, rising. ‘I want to settle the buck first.'

‘Butter heart!' She shook her head. ‘Be quick at least.'

Milk bubbled from the buck's nostrils when he had drunk his fill and Cookmother put him down on the floor with a thud. ‘It'll stink of deer shit in the morning,' she muttered, getting up.

I fashioned the tiny deer a nest of straw in my own bedskins and cradled him into it. He quivered at my touch. ‘Hush, youngling,' I cooed. ‘You're safe here.'

I stared at his dewy face, the whisper of spots across his back, and wondered at the wash of love that rose in my chest. Was this skin love? Was this my kin? I had grown on deer country. Surely my kin could not be far from here. But no one had claimed me. It was said that those without skin were still seeking their souls. I took a deep breath as I stroked the creature's knobby spine. If I was without a soul, what was it that heaved and thrashed within me?

Neha approached, sniffed the buck, and flopped down beside it.

‘That's it, girl. You watch him for me.' I stood to leave.

Cookmother was poking inside the rosewood chest where her most precious oils and powders were kept. She pulled out a tiny leather pouch and brought it to me, pressing it into my hand. ‘I meant this for your next birthday,' she said. ‘But every maiden needs a threshold gift on her first Beltane, so take it now.'

Inside the pouch was a gold pin in the shape of a fish. I shook it out into my palm, then fastened it to the front of my new yellow dress.

She crushed me with her embrace and I breathed in the warm, sour smell that had swathed me all my childhood. ‘Let me take the red ribbon out and thread a blue so you can sleep in peace another summer,' she whispered. ‘Men's hunger is like a dog's—always sharp.'

‘Leave it so. I am ready.'

Through sacred love the fields are made fertile.
Through sacred love we are freed from famine.
Through sacred love the world is renewed.

I
WALKED THE
torch-lined path to Sister Hill with Bebin, Ianna and Cah. The moon hung fat and low in the eastern sky, teasing a honey fragrance from the elder blossoms that brushed our shoulders as we passed. We all wore dresses of yellow and orange, and our hair ribbons whipped in the wind. Laughter trailed down the hillside and the air felt ripe with magic.

Cah pulled a flask from her belt pocket and took a long swig.

‘Ay, Cah, do you not want steady wits for the rite?' said Bebin.

‘Surely it is a night to abandon steady wits?' She offered it around but we refused. ‘Mind you are not chosen by Fec, Ailia. He is as ugly as a boar and carries contagion, I am told.'

‘Cah!' chided Ianna.

‘Well, it's true. I see you smile.'

‘You'll not have Fec,' whispered Bebin into my ear. ‘It will be a noble match for you this night.'

As we neared the crest, the unlit woodpiles reared like two beasts silhouetted against the western sky. Circled around them were the journeymen and -women, chanting purifications for the flames to come. Tribespeople milled around the poles set for the dance. Men had worked for three days to dig holes deep enough to hold the trunks upright. Eleven had already been positioned. The raising of the twelfth would commence the rite.

At the pole-bearer's cry, we all surged back, making space for the men to bring the trunk. It was a grown oak, freshly felled, its skin smoothed to a silk sheen and wound tight with twelve ribbons along its length. It took ten men to manoeuvre it over the final hole, shuffling forwards then back until they were in place.

‘Down!' came the call and the pole rose skyward. Tribeswomen packed the base with dirt so it stood as firm and straight as the others. I craned my neck to see them all: stretching from earth to sky, the ribbons like water, swirling about them.

A drum strike began. It was time to dance. The crowd fanned open to form a circle.

Instinctively, I moved to the back. Already the music was coiling around me and I was swaying and treading with its pulse. There was little my bones loved more than to dance.

‘Come!' Bebin tugged my hand. ‘It's your threshold year—you must dance at the poles.'

‘No,' I said, horrified. ‘I am not permitted.'

She grabbed both my shoulders, thrusting her face close to mine. ‘Ailia, you are true and whole and you love the Mothers more than any I know. Come and dance. No one will protest it this night. The Mothers know your heart—'

‘Wait—' But she was pulling me into the centre.

There were twelve maidens to a pole. We each caught a dangling ribbon and began to walk. The weight of so many eyes upon me was crippling, but I listened to the drumbeat and forced myself forward.

A second, faster rhythm began, counter to the first, and this was our call to start the steps: a fast-moving pattern of footwork, twisting one leg behind the other. I watched Bebin ahead of me, her hips and shoulders rolling smoothly. The ritual was deep in her body and she wove its spell effortlessly.

The tribespeople began to sing and the drums gathered pace. My feet kicked up dirt as I danced. Panting, I kept my eyes fixed on Bebin, her hair sailing behind her. Faces blurred as they flew by. The drums become faster, the chant yet louder. Soon I was sweating, heat pouring through me. My chest cried to stop but I danced faster and harder.

Now I felt the magic we pounded in the dirt. Now I felt the power of the dance to wake the Mothers from their winter sleep. Now it was no longer a dance, no longer twelve maidens. It was a wheel wrought of our bodies and as it turned I was flooded with an intense joy. I ran and ran until I was no longer there. There was earth and sky and the poles that bridged them but I, Ailia, had melted away and there was only the dance. Only the wheel.

A voice was raised in a mighty call and the drumbeat ceased.

We stopped, breath ragged. The fires were to be lit. I hurried back into the crowd, my heart still hammering.

Llwyd stood between the two woodpiles, arms raised. We fell silent to hear him speak. ‘Our earthly world—our hardworld—is a place of wildness,' he began. ‘The forces of chaos run through its veins. They are our breath and our devastation.'

The crowd gave a rumbling cheer.

‘By our knowledge—by skin—we are aligned to these forces. Yet we know in our souls they can never be harnessed. The wildness is stronger than us and we are always subject to its mystery and power.'

Voices began to swell.

‘This night, beloved people of Summer, we kindle the fires that will cleanse our cattle, seed the belly of our earth, and bless our souls. Then—' he paused for a moment, ‘—let the forces of chaos run free!'

The crowd erupted into cheers. Two lesser journeymen approached, bearing burning sticks. Over stamping and shouting, they called the final incantations to the Mothers and the towering woodpiles were ignited.

Fire surged upward into the indigo sky. I watched, motionless, staring at the flames, my cheeks smarting with heat. I had been separated from Bebin and forced back to the edge of the gathering. But as I looked out over the grainfields, pastures and forests that stretched beneath the hill and the magnificent rise of Cad beside it, my heart brimmed again with the gladness I felt in the dance. All my people were here around me, rejoicing in the land that held us. All we could ever want was given to us. For this moment, the ache for skin was gone, healed in the love and warmth of the fire.

There were shouts and we scrabbled to make way as two white bulls were driven toward the flames. They stalled at the mouth of the firepath, bellowing in fear, eyes rolling and muscles twitching.

Llwyd called their blessing, and they were forced, galloping, through, burning sticks at their rumps. The crowd roared.

Now the farmers were herding all of Cad's cattle up the hillside. The air was filled with their screams and the smell of their terror as they, too, were run through the flames and onto the safety of their summer pastures.

When the animals had been purified, Fraid called forth the First Maiden. I pushed my way forward to see her. A deerskin cloaked her naked, painted body, and beneath her antler crown, the mask of the doe covered her face. None could see who had been chosen. She was the earth now, a Mother.

The drums began again and the young men of Summer formed a line before her as she walked the length of them. They stood tall and bare-chested, baring their teeth and making animal cries to attract her attention.

We all swayed and stamped as we waited for the Mother to make her match. From the corner of my eye I noticed Ruther, standing well back from the line, and I wondered why he, of all the young men, would not contest this honour. Finally the Maiden held her hand out to Juc, the newest of the warrior initiates. He dropped to his knees to accept her and then together they ran through the fires to the crowd's screams of excitement.

Now all were free to run the fires. The threshold maidens were brought forward first and Llwyd called blessings on their wombs as they entered the flames. Young men raced to the other side to meet them when they emerged.

Tribespeople were dancing furiously, drunk on the fireheat. Maiden and knave were writhing in pairs, then racing down the hillside or coupling right there by the fire.

I hovered at the edges and saw Bebin bounding away with Uaine. Ianna and Cah were nowhere to be seen. I turned back to the fires. They were why I had come.

When all the tribespeople had run and only those without skin remained, it was my turn. I walked to the threshold. Once I had run through this passage of fire, I would be something other. Something new.

The heat was searing. It pushed me back, yet I forced myself forward.

‘Run! Run!' chanted the few who awaited their turn.

I ran. Embers blistered my feet and stung my eyes, but I pushed on blindly. The passage went on and on. The heat was too great. I stopped, panicked. Were the fires collapsing? There was no way forward. I cried out, my voice drowned in the roar of the flames. How had others endured this torment? Every part of me commanded me to turn back, but I kept going. There was a final, unbearable surge of heat. My bones softened like iron in a forge, then I burst out the other side into the cool night. I had done it. I was through.

I beat out the sparks smouldering on my dress and looked around, unable to wipe the smile from my face.

‘Found you!' Ruther was at my side.

I threw my arms around him, unexpectedly happy to see him, then screamed with laughter as he scooped me up and began to run. With my height, I was no easy load, and he staggered as we careered down the hill. I could not stop laughing with his every clumsy step.

Where the hill met the flatland he set me down and we fell to the grass, panting as our laughter faded. Out of the fire-warmth, it was dark and cold. I could not make out his features as he took my face in his hands.

‘Do you accept me?' His voice was hoarse from chanting.

‘Ruther, I am unskinned.'

‘I follow the laws of my own judgment, Doorstep. Do you?

‘Don't call me so!'

He pulled me closer. ‘Will you take me?'

His hips were hard against mine. My singed skin howled for his touch. ‘I will.'

His mouth descended and I startled at its strange, serpent softness and its taste of ale.

We stood and walked a short way to the shelter of a fennel bank. Then, with the crackle of fire masking my sharp cries of pain and pleasure, and the cool grass beneath my back, the doings of a man and a woman were made known to me.

We slept entwined, part-hidden under the fennel. I awakened with the starlings' cry. In the rosy light I watched Ruther's face: his smooth, broad cheeks and lips half smiling, even in sleep. The thick muscles of his chest and shoulders were slack. There was so much force in him, yet last night he had been gentle.

His eyes flickered open and he seemed to take a moment to remember where he was. ‘Tidings,' he croaked.

‘And to you.'

‘Forgive me,' he said, ‘You will not be called Doorstep and I do not remember your true name.'

I could not help but laugh. ‘What if I were a nobleman's daughter?'

‘But you are not.' He stared at me through bleary eyes. ‘You're of the groves, aren't you?'

‘No,' I said, frowning at his forgetfulness. ‘I am of the Tribequeen's kitchen.'

‘A kitchen girl! I
have
chosen highly.'

I lowered my eyes and rubbed off the ash smeared on my legs.

He sat up and pulled the leather tie from his hair, scratching it loose. ‘I'd have picked you for an initiate, though. There's a presence about you—' He reached for me, snuffling my neck like a boar. ‘You are beguiling.'

I smiled. ‘The fires beguiled you.'

‘No,' he said, pulling me close, ‘it's you.' His kiss tasted bitter and stale, but he was so assured in his want of me, and so splendid behind the creases of sleep, that I had to return it.

‘What have you done?' He held my face between his warm hands. ‘You're fine-faced—true—but so are many women…' He frowned and drew back his head. ‘Have you charmed me this night?'

‘No,' I said. ‘Why would I have wish or knowledge to charm you?'

He stared hard at me. ‘Then, by the Mothers, I am caught,' he declared. ‘By a kitchen girl. And without skin!' He laughed in disbelief.

‘You're not caught,' I said, annoyed. ‘We are fire lovers, nothing more. Have no fear.'

He offered me his water pouch before taking a long draft himself. Around us people were rising and wandering back to the township. Ruther stood and took a long piss against a tree.

‘Mule!' I laughed.

When he sat back down he stared at me again. Neither smoke nor little sleep had dimmed the blue of his eyes. ‘Woman, I speak in truth.' He lowered his voice. ‘I know not what magic was worked last night, but there is a force in you that has disarmed me entirely. I am here for only one more day before I ride the trade routes again. Will you join me at the feast today?'

‘I will be serving—'

‘Then tonight?' he pressed.

There was something of the child in his demand and it did not kindle my affection. ‘If I am free.'

He reached for a last embrace and laid his head upon my chest. My thoughts spun as I looked out over the fields of Cad, Ruther cradled like a babe in my arms. He lifted his head. ‘Would you remind me of your cursed name?'

I laughed. ‘Seek it for yourself, if you are so persuaded!' I stood up, brushing the twigs from my skirts, and bade him farewell.

Cah spoke of feeling weakened by the doings of a man. But I felt strengthened as I walked back to Cad, as if I had a new part to myself.