Skin (12 page)

‘As you know full well, we rebuild the ramparts according to the rhythm called by
the Mothers—at the seventh winter solstice,' said Llwyd.

‘Will the legions wait for the Mothers' call?' said Fibor.

‘The legions will fall at their call,' Llwyd answered, ‘when it is spoken by the
woman who carries our song.'

The council murmured.

I stiffened, aware of the discomfort rising among them. Again, this woman. Who was
she, who carried such hope? I burned to find out.

‘This is the true heart of our argument, council.' Llwyd looked around him. ‘We have
not known a Kendra for one and twenty summers. Albion hungers for her born Mother.
Bleeds for her. Without our Kendra, we start to rot, and the Emperor Claudius can
smell it. This is why the Roman beast begins to stir.'

‘You believe one journeywoman will keep the Roman legions at bay?' said Fibor.

‘She is not one journeywoman,' said Llwyd, unflinching. ‘She is the Kendra of Albion.'

‘She is not here,' said Etaina softly.

I recognised the yearning in Llwyd's silence.

‘It is true that we hunger,' Etaina continued with care. ‘But is it not the Mothers
themselves who keep the Kendra from us? With
deepest respect, Journeyman, perhaps
they call us now to act in our own strength.'

Fibor grunted his agreement. ‘They ask us to fight for ourselves.'

Llwyd stared at them. ‘Have you drifted so far since she has been gone?' he asked.
‘Without her, we have lost the very reason that we fight at all. She is our bridge
to the Mothers.' His voice trembled.

The sky was now dark. The council was quiet. No one could deny that Llwyd spoke the
truth.

‘We will start the work to the ramparts at the next wax.' Fraid stood to end the
discussion. ‘And we call for our Kendra.'

The Singing is the Mothers' world, the making of things.

Once they are made, the world is hard.

‘G
RAB
IT
FIRM
, Ailia. Don't be timid or it won't flow.'

I was squatted in the sheepyard with my fingers squeezed around a swollen teat. The
Tribequeen's ewes were heavy with milk and we were all needed to empty them. I had
paired with Cookmother, who was bent over the animal, holding it still as she barked
instructions.

‘Tell me of the Kendra,' I asked over the hiss of milk.

She looked at me in surprise. ‘What do you know of the Kendra?'

‘Little. This is why I ask.'

‘Be still, you wretch!' she cried as the ewe bucked its head. ‘She is gone. Dead
for thrice seven summers, without a daughter to bear her cloak. Albion yields no
other Kendra.'

‘But will she return? How is she found? How is she known?'

‘How will I endure your ceaseless prattle?'

‘Please,' I urged. ‘You bid me always to be curious—who is she?'

Cookmother sighed. ‘Her name means most knowing woman. Her wisdom descends by blood
and rises by training. Keep milking, don't slow!'

I tugged on the fingers of skin that hung from the udder. ‘Why is she so little spoken
of?'

Cookmother leaned closer. ‘Fraid has bade that we do not speak of it. Because it
is feared that in losing her, we are distanced from the Mothers.'

My eyes widened. ‘Does she journey?'

‘Of course she journeys. All wisewomen journey,' Cookmother snapped. ‘How else are
they called journeywomen?'

‘But the Kendra?' I pushed.

‘Her journeys with the Mothers endure. They are not fleeting.' Cookmother pauses.
‘The Kendra learns with them. They are her teachers.'

I took breath at the words.

‘Ay, it is an honoured path she walks.' She lowered her voice, glancing sideways
to ensure that we were unheard. ‘But dangerous also. The Mothers are strong. And
they can be cruel. They will take of her what they want.'

My fingers clenched the teat. ‘What, Cookmother? What do they take?'

The ewe jerked, kicking the pail, and splashing milk over the ground.

‘By the Mothers!' cried Cookmother, setting the pail upright with a thump. ‘Concentrate
on the task, Ailia, you have no need to know of this.'

‘I
want
to know.' I was surprised by the strength in my voice.

‘Then listen,' she said, her eyes locked to mine. ‘There was a time
the Mothers stood
much closer. It was easy to see them. Now the new world bleeds into ours and the
Mothers are fading. It is harder for the journeywomen to enter their realm. The learning
we need is different. We still call upon our Mothers, but perhaps the time to walk
with them has passed. Perhaps the need for the Kendra has passed.'

Never before had I known her to question the old ways. ‘Journeyman Llwyd would not
agree,' I whispered.

‘Llwyd has not known what I have known.'

I stared at her, startled. ‘What have you known?'

She shook her head in agitation. ‘Enough!' she said. ‘Ask me of plantcraft. You're
well gifted for it and that's what you are born to. No more, no less.'

A flame of protest flared in my chest but I said nothing more.

‘Cookmother?' I ventured, when we had milked without words for some moments.

‘Ay?' she grunted.

‘How did she die?'

‘Drowned, I recall. Drowned in a river.'

The late morning brought an unseasonal heat, sedating the township with the scent
of warm earth. Work slowed as townspeople paused to give thanks for the Mothers'
gift of an early summer.

Bebin and I took hours to boil and strain the sheep's milk, and I had almost given
up on seeing Taliesin. But then Cookmother settled for a rest after highsun, and
murmured her drowsy approval when I told her I was going harvesting for spring roseroot.

‘If you give me half an hour, I'll come with you.' Bebin looked up from the table
where she was shaping the sheep's cheese into soft boulders.

‘Oh no,' I faltered, ‘I want to pick from the north side of the hill and if I wait
any longer the buds will close.'

Her smile could not mask her disappointment and I resolved to attend to her soon.

This time it was he who was waiting, sitting on the bank, when I turned the last
bend of the river path.

I was damp with sweat as I dropped down beside him. ‘How do you fare in this fearsome
heat?'

He shrugged, making me feel foolish for my trifling question. ‘As I fare at all times.'

Neha clambered joyfully over him.

‘And how is that?' I retorted.

He looked at me as if to answer, then shook his head. Something needled him today.
‘One such as you would not understand.'

‘What do you mean “one such as me”?'

‘One who lacks nothing.'

‘Lacks nothing?' I laughed at the untruth. ‘How little you know.'

He worried a small tear in the seam of his trousers. How had I displeased him?

‘You should ask your hutmother to repair that,' I ventured.

‘I would if I had a mother to ask. But I do not. Hut or otherwise.' He glanced at
me. ‘Nor father.'

I stared at his profile, stunned. By the Mothers, he was as I was. Yet he must have
known his mother once, for he was skinned. ‘I am sorry for it.'

‘Why?' He straightened. ‘It was not your doing.'

I sighed. His spirit was covered in bruises. A wrong word and he would snarl like
an injured dog. Yet when I coaxed him to come closer, it was as though I had captured
a piece of the sun in my hand.

I stretched out my legs, sticky with sweat. Heat rose off the earth
as if the Mothers
themselves were feverish. ‘Pity we cannot eat those berries,' I said, looking at
a bush laden with black fruit on the far side of the river.

‘We can,' he said.

‘Oh no—'

‘Come,' he insisted, rising. ‘Swim with me.'

‘I can't,' I confessed. ‘I cannot swim.'

‘But you are of the river tribes,' he questioned, ‘how can you not swim?'

‘Why should I?' I snapped. ‘Our bodies are not meant for water.'

‘Yes, they are,' he said, sitting back down. ‘We all began life in water. Was it
not where we were safest?'

He picked up my hand, stretching my fingers, and let it fall in my lap. Then he squeezed
my thigh through my skirt. ‘Large hands. Strong limbs,' he pronounced. ‘This body
was meant to swim. I will teach you.'

‘No!' I laughed. It was forbidden for me to be taught. Besides, I would be so graceless.

‘As you wish.' He walked to the bank and launched himself into the rolling water.

I trailed my feet among the reeds in the shallows. The river was wide here, perhaps
twenty paces across, swollen with spring melt. Taliesin stood chest-deep in the current,
his shoulders gleaming like polished wood. ‘It's colder than a widow's bed!' he called.

‘What did you expect?' I laughed. ‘It's full of mountain snow!'

He swam to the other side of the river and climbed onto the bank.

I watched him as he plucked and savoured the fruit, mocking me with his unhidden
pleasure. ‘All right,' I shouted. ‘Teach me to swim!'

He stuffed his mouth with more berries before crossing back. Standing before me,
water running off his skin, he took a berry, warm
from his mouth, and slipped it
gently into mine. ‘Get in,' he said, as the acid sweetness broke on my tongue.

The water swirled cold around my thighs.

‘You'll need to take off this.' He gathered my billowing leine and tugged it over
my arms.

Facing him in my thin linen under-robe, my resolve started to slip away. ‘Taliesin,'
I said. ‘I spoke in truth—I have never swum.'

‘I will not let you drown.' He took my hands. ‘Let the water lift you. And kick your
legs.' He walked slowly backward, pulling me into the belly of the river, as I gripped
his wrists. ‘Good,' he nodded, his dark eyes blazing.

Never had my body been so immersed. Never had it felt the icy eddies and nagging
currents of deep water. Breathlessly, I let go one hand as he pulled me further.
Now the river was too deep even for him to stand and we were both water-bound and
jubilant, joined only by our fingers.

The current surged, testing our hold. ‘Taliesin!' I gasped.

But instead of tightening his grip, he cast me free.

Water drowned my protests as I slipped under, flailing in panic. The current had
dragged me downstream several paces before I felt his hands around my ribs. ‘Why
did you let me go?' My heart hammered under his palms.

His expression was bemused, unrepentant. ‘To see what you could do.'

‘I can do nothing!' I clung to him like a frightened child. ‘You need not test it
a second time.'

‘No.' He cradled me.

Our faces were close. I was suddenly conscious of how tightly I pressed against him,
but was too nervous to loosen my grip.

He carried me to the shallows of the far bank, but no sooner had I relaxed my hold,
than he ducked out of my reach.

Incredulous, I watched him glide back to the other side, where Neha paced the bank.
‘Swim back, Ailia!' he called.

Furious, I ignored my fear and plunged forward in a frenzy of kicking to berate him.
But when I could find neither the surface above me nor the riverbed below, I panicked
again, swallowing water and clawing at the current. I heard Neha barking. My chest
burned. Would he not come?

‘Kick and lift!' I heard the muffled command through the prism of water.

Desperate, I thrust forward again and kicked with all my strength, gasping for air
whenever I broke the surface. I struggled forward until my legs sank in exhaustion,
finally finding foothold on the riverbed.

‘Do your promises mean nothing?' I panted. ‘What teaching is this?'