Skin (4 page)

‘Nay, I fast for the rites.' Llwyd smiled at me. Rarely did I see him outside of
Ceremony or council. He wore the bone-coloured cloth of all journeymen Elders and,
where it parted at his shoulder, I saw the mark of the deer scarred and dyed into
his upper arm. His beard was the colour of pewter and his brown irises were misty
with age, but the creases in his face showed there had been laughter in him. There
was laughter still.

The journeypeople were those who had travelled many years in their learning. They
were our teachers, our law-keepers, our ears to the Mothers. They knew how to travel
the dream states, the trances, from which they saw what was true.

I unhooked the cookpot and placed it on the hearthstones. Then I hung an empty cauldron,
filled it with wash-water, and sat down at Fraid's feet.

‘This death will hasten an attack, I am sure of it,' Fraid said to Llwyd between
mouthfuls. ‘Not only because it makes cracks in our leadership, but because Caradog
speaks so provocatively against Rome.' She sighed.

‘He has always spoken so,' answered Llwyd.

‘Yes, but he had his father to blunt his words.'

‘True,' Llwyd nodded. ‘Belinus was an artful leader, equally skilled with word and
sword. But Caradog has his own strengths. He is a tribesman, a lover of our Albion.'
His voice had the warmth of a long-burned fire.

Fraid placed her bowl on the bench beside her. ‘Do you suggest that we offer an alliance
with Caradog? Should I send an envoy to pledge our fighting men and our coinage?'

Llwyd glanced at me and I turned back to the fire, embarrassed that he had caught
me listening. ‘No,' he said. ‘You have worked hard to protect the independence of
this tribe.'

‘Caradog may seek to bring us into an alliance by force,' said Fraid. ‘After all,
he already controls the tribes on three sides of Durotriga.'

‘Caradog will seek to subdue the tribes whose leaders hold Roman sympathies,' said
Llwyd, ‘and that, good Tribequeen, is not us.'

I unhooked the simmering pot and poured the steaming water into a clay bowl, sweetening
it with a pinch of dog-rose from a pot on Fraid's shelf.

She winced at the heat as her feet slid in. ‘Nevertheless it will not hurt to keep
the tradelines strong. After Beltane, I will send an envoy with new samples. I will
send the knave Ruther.'

I glanced up as I rubbed her feet with a slippery slab of tallow.

‘Why him?' asked Llwyd. I could not read the tone that had darkened his voice.

‘He's been Roman-taught. He knows their ways. Perhaps he can help smooth what Caradog
upsets.'

‘Be at peace, Fraid,' said Llwyd, lightening again. ‘Caradog is a man of fire, but
he is fuelled by love of the Mothers. If he leads us to war with Rome it will be
an honourable war.'

‘But can we win such a war?'

Llwyd paused. ‘We will win it if the Mothers desire it.'

‘We will win it if our armies are strong enough,' said Fraid.

I looked to her. It was not her way to speak so irreverently.

Llwyd frowned.

‘Forgive me,' Fraid sighed. ‘It is only my worry speaking. But I cannot share your
good faith, Journeyman. The messengers have long spoken that the fool Emperor Claudius
searches for glory. The Romans are awaiting the right moment to strike, and this
time they will not allow themselves to fail.'

As I dried Fraid's feet, I could not tell if it was her words or Beltane nerves that
made my belly clench. I loosened her night braid, setting her dark hair tumbling
down her back. As I retied it, the pulse in her neck throbbed under my fingers.

‘You speak freely in front of this girl.' Llwyd stared at me.

‘She can be trusted,' Fraid said. ‘What do you think, Ailia? How will we fare under
another Roman attack?'

My mouth fell open in surprise. I knew nothing of statecraft or the arts of war.
I could not read omens in the night sky or the spilled innards of a slain lamb. I
shook my head. ‘I don't know.'

Fraid laughed. ‘Of course you don't. It is festival eve, not the time for such questions.'
She turned to Llwyd. ‘I will speak on this with the council when the fires have burned
down.' She held out her fingers to be cleaned and I gathered my sticks and brushes.
It was a mark of shame for nails to be ragged or dirty and I was the only one she
permitted to tend them.

Fraid was bold in keeping me as her attendant. She chose me because she liked my
touch and she said that, of all the girls, I was the most at ease with a woman of
power.

I was fortunate beyond words. Privileged in ways others without skin can only dream
of.

Why was it not enough?

I walked down to the well near the southern gate, murmuring thanks to the Mothers
before I cast my bucket into the long, dark drop.

The passage from womb to world was only half a birth—the body's birth. Our souls
were born when we were plunged, as babes, into river water, screaming at the cold
shock of it, given our name and called to skin.

Deer. Salmon. Stone. Beetle. The North wind. Skin was our greeting, our mother, our
ancestors, our land. Nothing existed outside its reach.

Beyond skin there was only darkness. Only chaos.

Because I was without skin I could not be plunged or named. I was half-born, born
in body but not in soul. Born to the world but not to the tribe. I could never marry
lest skin taboos were unknowingly betrayed. Deer did not marry well to owl. Owl to
oak. At Ceremony I had to be silent, and keep to the edges. For where would I stand?
What would I chant?

I lived with these losses, but the one that hollowed my chest was that I was not
permitted to learn. All learning began and ended with the songs of skin. I ached
to learn. Weaponcraft, oak-lore, the knowledge of the stars. I hungered for the poems
that brought shape to this world of earth and water—the hardworld—and mapped the
spirit places of the Mothers' realm. Poems that told us what had come before, what
made a life right and true.

I pulled up the bucket brimming with water from deep in the mountain.

When Fraid gave me my freedom, I would find my family. I did not know how, but there
would be a way. I would find my birthplace, my kin and my skinsong, and then I would
be able to learn.

Then I would be born.

We eat enough, but pay fines if our belts become too large.

We couple freely, but never with force.

We observe the rise and set, the wax and wane, the winter and summer.

What we take from the forest, we give back.

‘S
ALT
FOR
THE
grain cakes. Mustard.' Cookmother called out the list for market as
she fossicked through the pots crammed on the shelves and floor. She was always promising
to tidy her stores but never did, and refused to let anyone else. ‘Honey, of course.
Not the watered-down sap from that cheat with four fingers. Get the elder honey from
that nice Dobunnii girl with a bit of a rump.' Cookmother grunted as she got up.
‘Don't forget the goat, of course, and Ailia, on the way back, pick some yellow dock
and meadowsweet from the marshes.'

I nodded as I sharpened my harvest knife and slipped it into my belt. Cookmother's
knees could no longer abide the steep walk, so Bebin and I went to market each moonturn,
though Cookmother
was always convinced we'd be fiddled.

Following the sound of market drums and bleating livestock, we made our way down
to the flatlands from the southern gate. Sellers from all of Summer were gathered
below, on the banks of our largest river, the Cam. We quickened our pace. The best
pickings went early at market.

Neha tore ahead toward the sprawling pens of lambs and goat kids, where we found
her wolfing a fresh-cut calf's tail from our favourite seller. We haggled over
the fattest of his young goats and walked on, dragging it on a rope past the ponies
and hunt dogs.

Dried salmon and geese hung above tables laden with fresh carcasses. Beyond the flesh
stalls were sacks brimming with salt and herbs from the trade routes, and waist-high
baskets of grain and fruit. The air teemed with smells of blood, sweetcakes, dung
and smoke, and the shouts of sellers calling their wares. Bebin and I wove among
them, making our greetings and stopping to gossip. News of the Great Bear's death
had spread through the township, but it could not dampen the thrill of the upcoming
festival and the whispers of who would be paired at the fires.

Two young men jostled to watch us pass. ‘Hold the bulls,' one called, ‘we have found
our Beltane lovers!'

‘Do you hear cocks crowing?' Bebin asked me loudly as she pushed past them.

It was only this spring that the men of market had been noticing me. I had grown
taller. Bebin came only to my shoulder, though she was as curved as a goddess, whereas
I had the chest of a knave. My bloods had flowed for almost a year, but I would never
be one with a wet nurse's chest and I was glad of it. I was fair enough of face,
but too strong-nosed and sharp-chinned to be called sweet, unlike Bebin, who was
as succulent and wet-eyed as a baby calf. She was dark like our first people, whereas
I was of middling colour, with hair the hue of
beech wood and eyes as green as moss.
Though I loved Bebin dearly, I would not have traded my strong shoulders for her
round hips. I could not help thinking there was more use in the first.

We moved swiftly past the jewellers, toolwrights and potters to reach the sellers
of cloth. As well as honey, salt and a goat, I needed to buy ribbon for my hair at
Beltane. I had always worn blue. Tonight I would wear red.

As I was stuffing the loops of ribbon into my basket, I heard Bebin yelp. I looked
up to see her darting around the next corner. The stubborn kid slowed me in following
her, but when I had cajoled it past the medicine sellers (and paid for the pots of
resin it kicked to the ground), I found her on the far side of the market, standing
with Uaine, watching the young men and women practising for the games tomorrow.

I lingered, allowing them their whispers and laughter, as I watched the threshold
maidens shooting archery targets. A pang of envy shot through me as a fair-haired
girl raised her bow and drew back a sinewy arm. Ribbons of deerskin hung off the
belt around her narrow hips. She released the arrow and hit the trunk at its centre,
smiling as the crowd applauded. I marvelled at her mastery.

Fraid had come down to observe the play, for the results of this contest would help
her choose which of the fresh-bled maidens would run first through the fires tonight.

Neha nosed my palm and I rubbed her cheek. If it were a contest of commanding a wayward
dog I would win without rival.

‘Do you not join the games, Doorstep?'

I jumped at the voice so close to my ear. Neha growled.

In a tartan tunic pinned by a silver brooch, Ruther held himself as though the gates
to the Otherworld would fly open at his command.

‘Don't call me that. It is no kindness to be reminded so.'

‘Is it not a compliment? Are not the thresholds sacred?'

My gaze snagged on the bow of his lip, before I turned back to the
games without
answering.

‘Why are you not among them?' he asked.

‘I am not permitted.'

‘Have you not bled?' He was as forthright as a siring bull.

‘Ay, I am aged for my first Beltane, but you know as well as I that I cannot contest
the Maiden's crown.'

‘Because you are without skin?'

I frowned. ‘Yes. Because I have not been taught any of the contest skills.'

He snorted. ‘Foolish waste.'

I turned to him in surprise. ‘It is not for us to judge the laws of the tribe.'

‘Why not? Do they stand above questioning?' He leaned closer. ‘I am recently returned
from travel where I found a world greatly different from this.' He paused, his breath
warm on my ear. ‘I have seen cities where men claim their place by merit alone. Where
they are no more bound by clan than the eagle by ground.'