Daughter of Albion (7 page)

He did not answer.

When I turned around, there was only Neha, barking at the river. I looked to the forest and called his name, but he was gone. Disappeared like the mist from the sunshine.

Around the pool of wisdom grew nine hazel trees. Each tree dropped a nut into the water, and they were eaten by a salmon.
By this act, the salmon gained all the world's knowledge.
Whoever first eats of the salmon's flesh will, in turn,
gain all the world's knowledge.

I
HAD SCARCELY
walked through the kitchen doorway, when Cookmother thrust two steaming bowls of broth into my hands and bade me take them to the sleephouse.

‘Llwyd is with her,' she said. ‘And he was here earlier also, asking of you.'

‘Of me?'

‘Ay.' Cookmother was bent over the cookpot, and I could not see her expression.

‘For what purpose?'

‘None that he was confessing to me.'

Fraid's daughter was playing outside by the fire pit with a straggle of other children. ‘Tidings, Manacca,' I called as I hurried past. ‘Do you want some broth?'

‘I'm not allowed in,' she cried, turning back to her skittling stones.

There was a scent of disagreement in the room as I shouldered through the inner doorskins of the sleephouse. Fibor and Etaina were not within. Again Fraid sat with Llwyd alone.

‘Does he forget the reputation of Britain's knowledge?' said Llwyd. ‘We are known the world over for our teaching.'

I passed him a bowl and he took it gratefully.

‘Initiates travel from Germania to be taught here, from Gaul,' he continued. ‘Albion is at the very centre of learning, Tribequeen.' He sipped his broth.

‘But he has seen the new world,' said Fraid. ‘He sees freedom in it.'

They were speaking of Ruther. I handed Fraid her soup and slipped to the edge of the room.

‘He mistakes wealth for freedom,' said Llwyd, ‘and might for wisdom.'

They drank in silence for a few minutes. ‘You may leave,' said Fraid, turning to me.

‘Shall I not wait for your bowls?' I uttered before I could stop.

‘No, Ailia.' She frowned in surprise. ‘I asked you to leave.'

I waited as the heavy skins of the inner doorway flapped closed behind me. Fibor or Etaina could return at any moment, but I was hungry to know what was being said inside. I leaned toward the doorskins and could just hear their muffled voices.

‘Why do you remove her?' Llwyd asked. ‘I thought she held your trust?'

‘She lay with him at the fires. I do not want our words recounted at his pillow.'

I heard Llwyd chuckle. ‘She certainly commands an allure beyond that of a kitchen girl.'

They both laughed, then quieted.

‘Ruther's words have unsettled the journeypeople,' said Llwyd. ‘With Belinus's death, we do not need one of our own warriors crying the greatness of Rome.'

‘I will summon the council tomorrow to discuss what we shall do.'

Footsteps approached the sleephouse. Manacca squealed outside.

My heart thudding, I continued to listen as the footsteps passed.

‘I have looked to the stars and to the birds,' said Llwyd. ‘We stand at the dawn of a change. And Ruther's words at the feast have given it shape.'

‘Surely his knowledge of Rome can only strengthen us…?'

There was a pause before Llwyd answered. ‘What strengthens us is the Mothers. We have to hold them close. We have to protect our bond to them.'

‘But is it not already strong? The journeymen are powerful, as you have said—'

‘There is one weakness,' said Llwyd.

Fraid sighed and I heard the exasperation in it. ‘We have agreed to raise this no further, Journeyman. It is no riddle I can solve. Why speak of it now?'

‘Because the Great Bear is dead. And a vulture is circling his carcass. When it lands, make no mistake, we will need the strength of the Kendra. We will need the presence of one who has sung.'

‘The bloodline is fallen.' Fraid's voice had a strange edge. ‘We cannot conjure her from chalk or iron. With or without a Kendra, we must plan our defence against Rome.'

I stood frozen in the dark corridor between doors, straining to make sense of their words. Who was this woman? This Kendra? Why could she not be discussed?

‘No army of the tribes will triumph without her blessing,' said Llwyd. ‘She is the voice of the Mothers.'

‘Then why has she not spoken?' said Fraid.

‘She will speak,' said Llwyd. ‘We must make sure we are listening.'

‘Ailia!' Llwyd's voice rang through the early dusk.

I had fled the sleephouse as I heard him prepare to leave, and now he sighted me hurrying toward the kitchen. I stopped and waited while he caught up.

Despite the stoop of his back, he moved with a journeyman's grace. ‘May I walk with you?' he said as he reached my side. If he was suspicious of me he did not show it. His eyes caught the day's dying light. ‘I was impressed by your words at the feast yesterday,' he said as we walked.

‘I suspect the knave Ruther was less so.'

Llwyd chuckled. ‘Though it appears it did not quell his interest.'

Now it was I who laughed. ‘No, it did not.'

‘Were you always of the kitchen? Raised by the Cookwoman there?'

‘Since near birth.'

‘And you have learned the plants by her?

I glanced at him, unsure what to confess. ‘I assist her when her bones stiffen, deliveries and the like.'

‘Nothing more?'

I faltered. Llwyd was the keeper of all Caer Cad's learning. It was only by his sanction that healers could practise their arts.

‘Tell me,' he continued, ignoring my silence, ‘has an animal appeared to you since Beltane? An animal of unusual countenance or strangeness?'

We had reached the kitchen. The doorskins were pinned open. I saw the firelight glowing through the doorway and caught a waft of Cookmother's sour milk dumplings on the evening breeze. Suddenly I was very keen to be inside. I thought hard on his question. ‘None strange,' I said.

He kissed my cheeks. ‘Go well, maiden, enjoy your sweetmeats.'

It was only later, as I lay between Cookmother snoring at my back, the buck curled in my arms, and Neha grunting at my feet, that I remembered the fish I had seen as I bathed in the river.

I rushed through the next morning's tasks, then set about grinding a tincture, making sure I was noticed by Cookmother as I pounded the white meadowsweet petals to a paste.

‘What do you make?' she duly asked.

I could not tell her that I was to meet Taliesin, a stranger of tribe unknown, who waited within a breath of the forbidden forest. She would never have permitted it. So I did, for the second time, what I had never done before: I played fool with the truth. ‘Dun requested something further to dull the pain,' I announced. ‘I promised I would bring it this afternoon.' I stared down at the quern, my cheeks burning with the lies, and with the shame of not yet delivering even the first batch of herbs.

‘Good then.' She poked a wooden spoon into the mixture. ‘Throw in a little nightshade if he's making such a fuss.'

With my face and neck splashed with rosewater, my braids tied, and Cookmother's fish pin at my breast, I hurried out the south gate and down to the Cam. I soon reached the Oldforest, where only Neha saw me again stop by the river, instead of turning north toward Dun's farm.

He was not there.

‘Taliesin?' I called, answered only by a mocking silence. I sat on the bank with the afternoon yawning around me, feeling stupid for thinking he would come. Finally I picked up my basket, whistled Neha to my heel, and began to walk away.

‘Ailia!'

He stood dripping on the bank, sunlight splintering off his wet shoulders.

I walked back and stood before him. He was even finer today with his hair in damp tendrils around his face, water beading on the ridges of his cheeks. Again he wore nothing but a pair of rough trousers, roped at the waist, and the carved bone whistle at his hip. ‘Would you not have waited?' he asked.

‘I have waited long enough,' I said.

‘Be gone then, if you wish to stay no longer.'

I snorted. ‘I will check your wound at least.'

‘At least.' He presented his lip.

‘What is this?' I traced my fingers over his mouth. There was nothing left of yesterday's cut. Just a thin silver scar. ‘It's perfectly healed,' I said in awe. ‘How can it be?'

‘You tended it. Did you not think your own herbcraft was potent?'

‘Well, yes, but—' I faltered, hoping his swift healing would not bring our meeting to an end.

He flopped onto the grass.

‘How did…why were you in the water?' I asked, sitting beside him.

‘I had to cross the river.' He stroked Neha's ear; she in turn licked the water from his hand. ‘Sweet-tempered dog.'

I laughed. ‘Not normally.'

‘She senses a truly noble spirit,' he teased. It was the first time I had seen him smile.

A silence fell between us. He picked up a pebble and cast it into the river. The
plop
echoed in the quietness. ‘What payment is required for your treatment?'

‘I expect no payment.'

‘Why not? Is it of no value?'

‘Yes, but…' Again, I was tripped by his question.

‘I accept no service without payment.' He sprang to his feet, strode to the forest and slipped out of sight between the trees. Who was he that his lawsong permitted him to walk in the Oldforest? Moments passed and I feared he might have gone again. But then I heard rustling and he reappeared with a long stick of birch.

‘This one is perfect!' He squatted on one knee, drawing a small blade from his belt, and tapered the stick to a point. When he was satisfied it was sharp, he walked to the edge of the water and stepped into the shallows.

He stood motionless, his spear poised. He was delicate, far less of a warrior than Ruther, but there was something older, darker, in his spirit that gave him another strength.

He drew back his arm. ‘Hah!' he shouted as the spear shot forward. He splashed, stumbling, then turned to me, grinning as he raised his stick with a fat silver salmon thrashing at its tip. I laughed, delighted at his skill. Pulling the fish from the spear, he stilled it with his blade on the grass. When it had ceased twitching, he carried it to me and laid it at my feet. As he leaned forward, I caught the grain and honey scent of his hair.

‘Beautiful,' I said.

He looked up. ‘Shall we feast?'

Our gaze held and I could not look away. There was something so knowing and yet needful in his earth-brown eyes, and I was so unexpectedly pierced by him that, for no reason I could fathom, I found I was crying.

‘Why do you weep? Would you have preferred a minnow?'

I shook my head, laughing through my tears.

It did not take him long to shape a small fire pit, fill it with branches, and fashion a firedog from three green sticks. With river reed he plaited a rope and tied the fish to the sticks by its mouth. ‘Can you make a flame?' he asked.

‘Not well,' I admitted. Unskinned, I was not permitted to craft fire. Only to tend it.

He frowned. ‘Watch then.' He gathered a handful of tinder and bade me hold it. ‘Blow gently,' he said while he sparked it with fire flint from his pouch.

It began to smoke in my palms as I blew.

‘Not bad,' he said and I hoarded his compliment like a jewel.

As the fish began to sizzle, a blister bubbled in the skin of its flank.

Taliesin leaned forward and burst it, then held his thumb to my lips. ‘You must have the first taste.'

Tentatively, I took his thumb in my mouth, sucking the shreds of fish skin and juice from its tip. We shared the dense red flesh straight from the bone, sweet and smoky, and washed it down with river water that we drank straight from the flow.

It was only when we were sitting on the bank, legs outstretched and bellies full, Neha gnawing the bones beside us, that I realised what he had eaten. ‘The salmon! Are you not forbidden to eat it?'