Skin (31 page)

‘Have no fear,' Heka said. ‘I will care for her.'

Instinctively, I shivered. How could this woman care for another when she cared so
little for herself? All of my being lamented this decision, but I could not protest
it.

She knew my skin.

I met her gaze. ‘I have kept my part in our bargain. Now you must keep yours.'

She stared at me, her expression bemused. ‘Ah yes. Your skin. Are you so certain
you want it? You are temple-bound. You already have all you could wish for.'

‘No…' I whispered, my heart thundering. ‘Do not play with me, Heka.'

‘Why not?' she challenged. ‘I am fond of games.'

‘Tell me, you stupid woman!' I spluttered, almost crying. ‘Do you not know what is
at risk in my not knowing?'

She laughed. ‘Risk? I will comfort you with this: you are born of those who are lucky
in risk.' She turned back toward the fire, still laughing.

‘Stop!'

Slowly she turned.

‘Is that all I shall know?' I gasped, incredulous at her deceit.

‘I shall tell you more when I have reason to do so.'

‘You are lying. You do not know my skin!' I wailed. ‘You invent stories for your
gain.'

‘Perhaps.'

Please, Mothers, I prayed, let her not be lying. ‘I will withdraw your place in the
kitchen—'

‘Do so if you will.' She nodded to the misery around us. ‘I will be no worse off.
And you will never know anything more.'

I brimmed with fury at the weapon she made of her knowledge. ‘You inflict an unspeakable
cruelty with this,' I whispered.

Her eyes blackened with contempt. ‘It is nothing to what has been inflicted on me.'

My temper erupted. ‘That was not my doing!' I shouted. My legs were trembling with
the injustice, the indignity of anger.

Her fire companions turned at the noise. One sprang to his feet, hungry for trouble.

Then Heka screamed, her teeth bared like an animal, ‘Yes, it was!'

I heard it ringing in the marrow of my bones.

I ran, shaking, through the streets of Cad. I could not fight this battle now. Heka
knew my skin. She was telling the truth. I could feel it within her. To protect this
knowledge, I had to protect her. When I returned I would find a way to make her tell
me. But now I had to steady myself. Now I had to leave.

I had time left only to pack my few belongings: my shawl, a waterskin, a bone comb
and the golden fish pin. They fitted easily into a pouch I tied across my back.

Ianna had made rye porridge but I could not eat. Bebin brushed and re-braided my
hair and, too quickly, I was ready.

Neha was not permitted to accompany me. She had been tethered to a pole at the stable,
out of sight, so she would not see me leave. I
went to her one last time and crouched
to farewell her, rubbing her muscled shoulders and soft belly. She stared up at me,
her odd eyes questioning, and I fought back the wave of sorrow that told me not to
leave without her.

I walked to the Tribequeen's gateway, where Fraid and my house kin waited to bid
me leave. Llwyd was already leading the horses through. He would accompany Sulis
and me on the day-long ride to the lakes.

I stood first before Fraid. She straightened my cloak. ‘I am proud of you,' she whispered
as we embraced. ‘Continue to make me so.'

I kissed the cheeks of each of my worksisters, murmuring blessings for Bebin's marriage
into her ear.

Then there was only Cookmother. Her hold threatened to crack my ribs. I pressed my
face into her hair and drank the thick, smoked smell of her: burnt milk, sour bread,
nettle, sage and a thousand other herbs. The smell of my girlhood. I filled my lungs
till they took no more.

‘Go well, daughter,' she muttered hoarsely, ‘go bravely.'

I nodded vigorously, unable to speak.

The next moment, she had released me and pushed me away.

I walked through the gateway without looking back. Llwyd waited with my mare just
beyond the queen's wall. Only he saw my face collapse.

At the final rampart of Cad Hill, a messenger stopped to tell us his news before
he took it to Fraid.

The stammering, limping leader of Rome, the Emperor Claudius, had landed on British
soil and led the legions into Camulodunon. On his ships, he had brought more men,
jewelled chariots and beasts from foreign lands to make up his procession. The animals
that bore him into Camulodunon were as moving stones: hairless, grey and as big
as
farmhouses, with curved, white swords that grew from their faces. They were said
to be the mightiest and greatest beasts that walked the land, all under the Emperor's
command. He appointed General Plautius as Governor of Britain.

I looked to Llwyd, white-haired and stooped, on his brindle pony. What hope did we
have?

People of Albion do not seek to invade other lands.

We seek to invade the lands of
our souls.

W
E
RODE
WEST
along the Nain, turning north into the vast wetlands that bordered
the great lakes. Already I felt the pull of the water as we travelled the wooden
causeways that spanned the marshes. Already it seemed as a spirit world, where land
and water slipped into each other without boundary.

Llwyd and Sulis said little as we rode. Where the pools deepened, or the willow trees
were grouped in a certain way, they dismounted and stood by the water, chanting and
casting in pieces of silver.

By late afternoon we had reached the lakes. Never had I seen such breadth of water.
I squinted into the distance as we approached, trying to find the shape of the Isle.

‘It would not be called Glass,' smiled Llwyd when he saw me craning, ‘if it were
easily seen.'

‘Do not tease, Journeyman,' called Sulis, who rode ahead. ‘You will see the Isle
clear enough, girl. But it is still a night's boat journey away.'

‘Further than the Mothers' world,' I joked to cloak my sudden nerves.

‘Indeed,' said Sulis, unsmiling. ‘The Isle is hard, but the realm of the Mothers
is reached easily from its shores. This is why initiates train there. And why you,
especially, must be careful.'

When we had reached the place where the lake became deep, Sulis stopped. A wooden
canoe knocked against one of the causeway's pylons. As we dismounted and Sulis untethered
the boat, a thick mist poured in across the lake's surface.

‘Come, girl.' Sulis was lowering herself into the canoe.

‘Do not betray my faith in you,' whispered Llwyd, as we embraced farewell.

‘I will not,' I murmured into the folds of his collar. I stepped into the wobbling
boat and sat opposite Sulis. ‘Journeyman—' I knew the answer but I could not help
asking. ‘Can you not come with us?'

‘It is not the Island of Mona,' he chuckled. ‘You'll find no men on Glass.' He unhooked
the rope and cast it into the boat. ‘Or none that hope to return.'

I shuddered as he pushed the boat away with his foot. Taliesin was such a man: caught
in the wrinkles of a place where he did not belong. Not the Isle, but somewhere more
deeply hidden: the Mothers' place. I prayed that the Isle would admit me to him.

As Llwyd faded from view, the mist wrapped around us, and soon I could not see land
in any direction. Sulis rowed without speaking. At times we passed a gliding nightfowl
or a quiver of reeds, but otherwise the lake was as lifeless as a tomb, and only
the splash and drag of the oars broke the silence.

Though we faced one another, Sulis kept her eyes averted. She
was among those who
did not trust the Mothers in choosing me. Soon my eyes grew heavy and I dozed, while
Sulis rowed through the night.

A dull dawn met us as we pulled onto the beach. I glimpsed grassy banks, startlingly
green. But what stilled me, as I stepped into the shallows and stood on the Glass
Isle for the first time, was a mighty, steep-banked hill rising out of the mists,
like a cry from deep in the earth, a crag of stone at its peak. ‘What is it?' I asked.

‘The Glass Tor, our most scared place.' Sulis glanced at me as she dragged the canoe
up the pebbly shore. ‘You are forbidden to climb it. And you are forbidden to walk
on the west side of the Isle. It is our burial place.'

I nodded, following her up a woodland track until we reached a small group of huts
dotted amid beautifully tended gardens and fruit trees at the foot of the Tor. A
round, stone temple welcomed the sun, surrounded by a labyrinth of narrow streams
and springs.

Sulis waited as I walked, delighted, among them. The rocks lining the streams were
stained deep rust. Even the water itself appeared rose-tinted. ‘What is this redness?'
I asked, peering into the deepest pool.

‘It is the blood of the Mothers,' said Sulis. She took a cup that nestled in a low
rock wall and handed it to me. ‘Drink.'

I crouched at the pool and filled the cup. The water was cold and tasted of metal.
No one could have missed the magic in it and I was glad I had come.

We entered the temple house where the journeywomen were preparing to take their morning
meal. Sulis had told me that I would not eat, and that none would acknowledge me,
until I had been ritually admitted. I sat at the outer edge of the curved room, watching,
listening. There were women from all tribes of Albion, many in the green robes of
the initiate, others in the blue that marked the
ovate's learning. The teachers wore
undyed cloth and sat closest to the fire.

Sulis stood in the strong place to dedicate the food, her staff in both hands, her
head lowered. For the first time, I heard her speak the three laws that would become
the shape of all my learning: ‘Remember the Mothers,' she began. ‘Seek their world.
And know your own.'

That night, an older initiate led me wordlessly to the sleephouse where I was finally
permitted to rest. The day of admittance had been long. I had been bathed in the
red pools—not once, nor twice, but five times—scrubbed, soaked and skin-roughed in
between with salt and herbs, fresh leaves and blossom. I had been naked in the groves,
surrounded by women bearing fire sticks held at the outer points of me, and had smoke
washed through my skin and hair. The chanting was ceaseless, its breath warming my
bare thighs and shoulders in the autumn chill. I had not eaten or drunk all day and,
even as the sun had fallen, my growling belly was not given a crumb to relieve it.

The sleephouse was sparse, its floor swept and without skins. Six tidy beds lined
the walls and sage smoke rose from the scent pots beside them. For the first time
since I had arrived, I missed Cookmother so sharply that I would have gladly gone
another day without food for one embrace against her grubby breast. But I was to
have neither. ‘Where are the others?' I asked my companion, suddenly terrified that
I was to sleep alone.

‘They will come.'

In a moment the hut was full of giggling voices, busied hands and discarded robes:
the music that is many girls.

Sulis threw open the doorskins. ‘Silence, initiates! To sleep without delay. The
new one needs rest.'

The room fell quiet but I lay awake, sleepless in this strange place. ‘Friend,' I
finally whispered to the girl beside me, the one who had led
me in. ‘Might I sleep
in your bed? I am not accustomed to sleeping alone.'

‘Come then.' She held open her bedskins.

I curled against her bony back. It was not as comforting as Cookmother's, but still
drowsiness descended at the touch of another.

‘Enjoy it now,' she whispered as I began to drift. ‘There will be no such relief
when you go to the forest for the long night.'

‘What is this?' I asked, fully awakened.

‘We all fear it,' she said. ‘At the end of the first lustre you must sleep alone
in the wild places of the Isle. With only forest food and water.'

‘I cannot do that,' I said, horrified. ‘I cannot sleep alone.'

‘We all must endure it,' she said. ‘But do not worry. It is many moonturns away.'