Skin (32 page)

The very next day I commenced the first lustre: the degree of learning. It would
last one year, or several, depending on my speed and strength.

Each day was without variation. We awoke two hours before dawn to sit on long benches
under the open sky. Even as the autumn rains came, running in icy rivulets down the
necks of our cloaks, we had to sit unmoving, bearing witness to the Mothers' birthing
light, training our breath to align with its rhythm.

After sunrise came our day's first meal of sheep's curd and bread, taken in the temple
house. We huddled and chattered, thawing our damp robes against a fragrant birch
fire, initiating friendships despite the many tongues that were spoken between us.
These were young women selected for the deep seams of their thoughts, and it was
easy to feel at peace among them.

The hours of the sun's ascent were given to lessons. We sat in the
gardens learning
the poems by tireless repetition. Writing had come to Albion, but the poems were
too sacred to be given to letters. Their power lay in the months it took to seed
them in memory.

We walked with the teachers through the forests and grasslands of the Isle, learning
survival arts of fire, water-gathering, wild food and shelter—arts that would be
tested in the long night.

I pushed my terror of this night from my thoughts. We were told little of it, only
that it would come without warning, and that it would separate the weakest from the
strongest of the initiates.

In the afternoons, we tended the hutgroup: weaving, thatching and herding the sheep
that fattened on the lush pastures surrounding the Tor.

We ate our only other meal at sunfall: an unvarying stew of mutton and roots. There
were no rose cakes, no honey glaze on our bread, no fruit wine or other Roman delicacies.
Rome had not touched this place.

Over many weeks, I learned the stories that formed the Isle, the stories of which
Llwyd had spoken. The magnificent Tor was the longest poem, a well of sacred lore,
and I wept, sitting in the grass beneath it, on the drizzling morning when Sulis
nodded that I had spoken its final verse without error.

We learned the laws of fair treatment of one person by another, the moral truths,
the correct attitudes to pain and death. Slowly (for it would take twenty lustres
to say I had truly learned) I began to see the patterns that lay over all things:
the veins of a leaf, the cast of the stars, the bones of a robin. I saw the shapes
mirrored between these and everything beyond, and I also saw the pricked holes of
difference that threw the Mothers' light in its infinite directions. I saw that it
was neither Llwyd's oak nor Ruther's burning wheel alone that was truest, but the
two set in perfect balance, one at the heart of the other, the stillness created
by ceaseless spin.

Every day I was more fully awakened. But the truth remained. I was still without
skin. At first it had caused sharp words among the teachers, and some had refused
to give me lessons. But gradually, as my strengths were seen and the story of my
sword was repeated, I was taken by them all, until there was only one lesson I had
not yet commenced.

I had been two moon turns at temple. Sulis called us to the red springs before dawn,
and we gathered drowsily, stamping against the cold. ‘Sit,' she commanded and began
passing out cups of dark liquid that she ladled from a bucket. ‘Not you,' she warned,
as I reached for a cup. ‘You will watch only. You will not journey.'

‘No, Sulis—' I protested before I could stop it. Surely she would not withhold me
from this.

‘Silence,' she said. ‘Without skin, you are unguided. We cannot sing the spells to
prepare you. We cannot protect you. It is for your own sake as well as ours.'

I watched wretchedly as my sister initiates drank the herbs and raised the chants
that would prepare the passage. Over many hours I bore witness as they fell into
trance, their bodies emptied, quivering, as they made their first spirit flights
toward the Mothers.

Sulis wandered attentively among them, guarding their passage.

‘Let me journey, Sulis,' I cried as she passed. The lure of the Mothers was an ache
in my chest.

She crouched before me, her grey eyes alive to this rite. ‘The danger is too great.'

‘But I am not scared.'

‘I know it. But there is more at risk than you alone. Skin holds us all. It must
not be breached—'

‘
Why not
?' I whispered. ‘What is the risk?'

‘Infection,' she hissed. ‘Disease of the hardworld. In shape and form we cannot imagine.'

‘Then when?' I lamented.

She scowled, searching my face with her journeywoman's sight. ‘I can see that they
want you. But you must go on our terms, held fast by your skin.'

From that day onward, I sat beside my sister initiates through all their journeys.
I watched them commence each morning, eager and rosy, then emerge hours later, pale
and exhausted, their eyes black and glazed. Sulis asked if I would not rather spin
or harvest late-autumn herbs while they practised, but I chose to stay with them,
wanting to be close to the rite that my soul craved.

Sometimes the call was so strong that even without the medicine, without the chants,
I began to slip into trance, plunging toward the Mothers in a wash of elation.

Sulis stayed near me always, watching for the loll of my head, the whimper of my
breath, so that she could rouse me and bring me shuddering back to the wet ground
of the temple garden.

I was marked to be the Kendra, yet forbidden the journey that would birth me.

On nights when the moon phase bestowed sufficient protection, Sulis kept me in the
temple house after all others had retired to sleep, to teach me what she could of
Kendra law. Enough to protect me, but not enough to endow me: it was not permitted
for any to touch the Kendra's head; only the Kendra could ascend to the summit of
the Tor; her purpose was to bring the Mothers close to the tribes and to nourish
the hardworld with their song.

Sulis spoke with expressionless eyes and a voice as cool as night.
My questions bubbled
over, yet few were answered. Still I did not have her trust.

‘How is she made Kendra?' I asked. Winter was approaching and we sat under heavy
blankets beside the fire.

‘She must endure a long night more terrifying than those of all other journeywomen.'
Sulis paused. ‘For her long night is in the Mothers' realm.'

My pulse hastened. ‘And if she survives it,' I asked, ‘what marks her transition?'

‘The Singing,' said Sulis. ‘She is Kendra when she has sung.' She laid down her blanket
and rose to stand. ‘That is enough. Let us return to the sleephouses—'

‘But might not any of the initiates say they have sung in their journey?' I asked.
‘And claim the Kendra's title?'

She stared at me. ‘None would be so devious.'

‘Yet if they were?' I persisted.

Sulis hesitated, displeased at the question. She breathed heavily and sat back down.
‘I had not intended to speak of it, but I will tell you only this: she who has sung
is given a scar. The Mothers cut her.'

My gasp was audible in the quiet night. ‘What if the scar is falsely made?'

She laughed. ‘Have no doubt, girl. It cannot be falsely made. Now ask nothing more.
For until your skin is claimed by a totem, the Mothers will never scar it.'

We returned to our beds with no further word. Sulis could tell me of the Kendra's
duties and her taboos. But the rest of it, the thrumming heart of it, I had to learn
with the Mothers. As I drifted to sleep, I consoled myself that I would learn of
my skin.

That I would journey again.

That Taliesin would wait.

She who understands has wings.

I
HAD
BEEN
four full moons at the Isle. It was a wane day, a day of rest. They were
granted to us once in each moonturn.

I was scouring the Isle's forest for late peppermint, vervain and pansy leaf for
Sulis's lessons. None of the girls had wanted to walk in the rain, preferring to
sit by the temple fire, telling stories from their villages and sewing charms for
the young smiths or warriors who waited for them there.

The rain padded down on my back as I stooped to tug out plant stems. Black soil clumped
at the roots, oily between my fingers, like bloodcake. With my eyes locked to the
ground, I did not expect it when I found myself at the other edge of the forest.
We had been told it was a full day's walk, at least. This was the western side of
the Isle, the burial place. Sulis had said that herbs grew well here, but that I
must not come here to harvest. Those of later lustres may come here for trancework,
she had said, but never initiates.

I peered out from between the trees. Despite Sulis's warning, the country looked
inviting. The hills were lushly grassed, thin streams of mist settling in their shallow
gullies. I saw no burial mounds or marking stones. A heavy bank of vervain, with
lingering purple blossom, lay just beyond the forest's edge. I darted out to pluck
one quick stem. The vervain was beautiful, mature and strong—perfect for a tincture
for Sulis's lesson. I walked a little further to gather more.

A movement in the distance caught my eye. Squinting against the drizzling rain, I
saw a figure with dark hair and a fineness of stature that I could mistake for no
other. ‘Taliesin!' I shouted, running toward him, without a thought for Sulis's warning.

He was too far away and could not hear me.

‘Taliesin!' I shouted again and this time he looked toward the call. I was directly
in his sight but he continued walking.

‘Wait!' I screamed with all my breath.

He glanced back once more but did not stop.

Why did he not see me? I paused, panting. To follow him I would have to run deep
into these lands of the dead. But I could not let this chance pass. I let go my basket
as I launched down the slope. A gully of mist lay between us and I prayed, as my
feet pounded toward it, that he would not be gone before I could reach him.

As I headed into the first drifts of mist in the crevice of the hills, there was
an odd thickening of the air that slowed my pace. I pushed on but it grew yet more
dense, repelling me, until finally I could press no further into the whiteness without
it holding firm, like flesh, against my weight. Was this some contrivance of wind
and water that I had not yet known? Why could I not pass?

Every moment took Taliesin further away.

With all my strength I pushed against this vaporous skin. It was
impenetrable. With
a wail of despair, I wrenched my sword from my belt and stabbed furiously at the
barrier before me. Through my wild strikes, I saw the mist shiver and bend with the
force of my sword, and a small fissure break open around its tip.

I worked my arm through the tear and felt the cold, strange air on the other side.
Again I slashed into the veil and a strong, living smell, like blood or milk, rose
to meet me as I cut. Soon I could wriggle my body right into the hole. With tendrils
of torn membrane brushing my face and arms, I stepped through.

The valley seemed darker, disturbed. Had I angered the Mothers with these steps?
I could not think of it. I started to run.

Taliesin was no longer at the rise of the hill where I had seen him. I screamed his
name and ran westward, as he had headed. As I rounded the hillside, I stopped in
surprise, gasping with joy and relief. A hutgroup stood before me. I had found him.

The houses were like none I had seen before: small stone domes wedged deep into the
slope, their roofs covered in grass, hidden in the hillside. Smoke snaked from the
roof peaks. I hesitated as I approached. We had not been told of any settlements
on the Isle, other than the temple hutgroup. Perhaps it was a lesser village of the
temple or a place for retreat. But why was Taliesin here?