Daughter of Albion (8 page)

He glanced at me. ‘Has plantcraft claimed all your knowledge?'

I looked away, fighting a wave of shame.

‘I can eat it beyond my skin home. To strengthen my skin.'

‘Perhaps if you told me your skin home—' I stiffened, ‘—I'd be less ignorant of that at least.'

‘Beyond your travels, I am sure.' He shifted as he sat.

‘But where?' I pressed. Why had he cause to hide this?

His face clouded with irritation. ‘Does my skin home determine your opinion of me?'

‘Of course not.'

‘Then why do you pursue knowledge of no consequence?'

I was silent, caught again by his prickly logic.

He laughed softly. ‘What would you say if I told you that I do nothing but swim up the river and down again, resting a moment here or there. Taking my food where I can find it. Harming no one.'

‘I would say that you mock me. And if not that, then you do not earn your place in your tribe. Though there is something sweet in the freedom of it.'

He nodded. ‘Well answered.'

And I felt ripe with pride that I had pleased him.

He fondled the bone whistle around his hips, carved with symbols I did not understand. I fought the urge to ask of them, and then it dawned upon me that I was with someone who believed I had skin, someone who did not know that I was forbidden to learn. ‘Tell me what the patterns mean.'

‘These?' he said, lifting the whistle.

I nodded.

‘Close your eyes.' He picked up my hand and rubbed my fingers over the nubs of bone. ‘These are the marks of my ancestors.'

My eyes opened. ‘What does it feel like,' I asked quietly. ‘Your skin?' My heart was thumping.

He frowned. ‘As yours—'

‘But I mean yours,' I said quickly. ‘Tell me how it feels to possess the salmon's skin.'

The afternoon was very still. No breeze or bird cry broke the silence that had fallen around us. When he answered, I knew from the music in his voice that he spoke from his core. ‘The salmon is my story.' He gave a light, desolate laugh. ‘It is the mirror of what little is perfect in me.'

I yearned to assure him there was much that was perfect in him. But I was beginning to see the bruises beneath the pride he held like a shield before him. ‘Tell me more,' I whispered.

‘What should I say?' He shrugged. ‘We all understand our totem.'

‘Is it not something different for each of us?'

His eyebrows lifted. ‘Perhaps. For me it is survival. The salmon song will always exist. My body dies, but my skin never will.'

I nodded, choked with the truth of it. I was bound to nothing that would endure.

‘Would you like to hear a story?' he asked.

‘Yes.'

He gouged ruts in the ground with a twig as he spoke. ‘In the time of the Singing there were shapes in the water. No eyes, no fins, no soul. They could not swim. They just drifted in the river. One night a Mother of fire threw a burning log into the water and the sparks ignited the shapes and turned them into red salmon that darted around.

‘The Mothers of sky were angry that the Mother of fire had made something so beautiful, and said that they would cast them away to the four corners of the oceans. But before they did this, the fire Mother put a little of the soil from the riverbank into the salmons' noses, so they would never forget the smell of their birthplace. They would swim until they found the smell that matched the one they carried within them. And even if the journey killed them, they would die at home.' Taliesin looked up. ‘I should not have told you this.'

‘Why did you tell it?'

‘Because you asked of my skin. And my stories are my skin. As are yours.' He drew his knees to his chest. ‘If I fail this life, my skin stories will take me to another.'

‘You will not fail this life—'

‘How would you know?'

I reached out to touch his forearm wrapped around his legs. His muscles were as taut as wood, but his skin was softer than a horse's muzzle.

He smiled, before pulling his arm away.

We sat together until evening coloured the western sky. I learned nothing of his tribe or history, only of his favourite season (late summer) and companion dogs (hut-reared wolves), his love of prey birds and dislike of combat arts. But the lightness of his words could not mask the sharpness with which he watched the world and the tenderness with which he met it. He could not be of low birth; he was learned.

I stood, calling Neha to my side, terrified that I would not see him again. He was so tall that I had to tilt my head to find his eyes. ‘Thank you,' I said. ‘Payment has been well made. Yesterday's dab of honey for today's fish and stories.'

‘A fair exchange,' he agreed. ‘There is no further business that binds us.'

‘No,' I said. ‘None at all.'

‘I shall meet you here tomorrow then?'

‘Yes,' I said with too much relief. ‘I will see you then.'

As I walked home through pastures and wheat fields doused in amber light, Taliesin's words swirled around me. I knew what he said was true: for those held in skin, this life—this fleshform—was just a fragment in a river that was ever-flowing. Totems did not die, nor did the souls who had joined with them.

But for those like me, death
was
the end. A casting back to the void. For most of the skinless this was too much to bear, it was why they relinquished their days to the comforts of beer at the fringe fires. A life without ritual. A life unlived.

Now, more than ever, I knew that this would not be my way. I whistled for Neha, who had bounded into a field in pursuit of a hare. I was going to search for my skin until the last breath flowed from my body.

‘There you are!' Cookmother said, as I slipped into the kitchen. ‘Take these to the council.' She pressed a jug of beer into each of my hands, too distracted by preparing meat for the councillors to question the lateness of my return.

I walked straight back out into the dusk. Tribal council met on the third night of the wane, or whenever Fraid required it. Most often in the Great House, but if the evening was mild, like tonight, they would gather directly under the stars that would guide them.

I wove between them, filling the horns of the twelve tribespeople who formed our council: Fraid at the strong place, Llwyd to her left. Fibor and Etaina, Ruther's father, Orgilos, and seven others.

‘Your son has disturbed us, Orgilos.' Fibor's voice still carried some of Beltane's heat.

‘He speaks not for me nor I for him,' said Orgilos.

Fibor drank. ‘It is said that the apple does not fall wide of the tree.'

‘Sometimes pigs eat the apples and shit in the fields,' Orgilos responded.

Etaina threw back her head and laughed. ‘My sister's daughter is also newly returned from fosterage,' she said. ‘Ruther is but one of many who begin to proclaim the light of Rome. In the eastern tribes, there are many minded as he is minded.'

‘And what of their loyalty, wife?' Fibor raised his cup as I refilled it.

‘Dissolving in grape wine and olive oil,' said Fraid. ‘We are protected by distance. And the strong minds of the western kings.'

‘We are protected by skin,' said Llwyd, and the council's silence acknowledged it.

I stood behind Fraid, outside the circle. The eastern horizon was deep-water blue with one lively star rising to its surface.

‘You call us to determine if we should prepare for war, sister,' said Fibor to Fraid. ‘We are fools if we do not. We know the Romans lust for these tribelands.' He looked around the circle, eyes blazing, ‘They will come. If we are not prepared, then they will fuck us like a dog!'

Fraid turned away.

‘Perhaps we should strengthen the earthworks around the hill,' agreed Orgilos. ‘As a precaution.'

‘At the very least!' cried Fibor. ‘And replenish our stones and renew the chalk—'

‘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 Cook-mother, 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?'

‘That which has seen you cross the river alone,' he said without apology.

I glared at him, then burst into laughter.

Then he showed me, more carefully, the art of travelling through water until finally, with him coaxing beside me, I swam smoothly from one bank to the other and back again.

I had almost forgiven him as we climbed out to dry.

‘What is your greatest fear?' he asked.

We lay back on our elbows in the sun. His questions were like cast stones, falling straight to the depths.

‘To be alone.' It burst out before I could catch it and I prayed he did not think me too brittle. ‘And yours?'

‘A witless conversation.'

I stared down at his long fingers splayed in the grass.

‘And your greatest pleasure?' he continued.

In an instant of truth, I realised it was him, but I could not confess it. ‘Knowledge,' I answered, thinking of when I was happiest.

‘Mine also.'

‘Hah! What do you love in it?' I had never spoken in such a way with another.

He thought a while. The sun had dried his hair to crisp coils on his shoulders. ‘That it saves us.' He glanced at me and saw the question in my face. ‘What else is evil but ignorance?' he said.

‘A brutal assessment.'

‘But true.'

‘And for those who are untaught through no choice of their own, what is their salvation?'

He stared at me. ‘It is a great waste that you have not been made journeywoman.'

‘Why do you say so?'

‘Because you would look so fetching in the robes.'

I shoved his arm and he collapsed onto the grass.

‘Because you have a mind that asks,' he said, sitting up. ‘Like a river that finds new paths. Such minds are rare as jewels. I am surprised it has not been recognised.'

I reddened under his praise. ‘My tribespeople need me for other purposes.'

‘It is not for the tribespeople to determine. If the Mothers want you, they will call you to journey.'

‘But skin is needed to journey—' I flinched, almost confessing myself.

‘Of course,' he said, frowning.

I took a deep breath, wondering how long it would be until he discovered how far from a journeywoman I was. Until that moment, I would drink of the cup he offered. ‘Taliesin, can you tell me of the Kendra?'

His eyebrows lifted. ‘You ask me of your own Kendra?'

‘But Albion is without a Kendra.'

He looked at me with an expression I could not read.

‘Is it so illicit a truth?' I ventured. ‘Might no one speak of it?'

‘How is there no Kendra?' he interrupted, his voice sharp. ‘What has happened?'

‘I don't know—' I faltered. ‘The township is forbidden to speak of her. I am told she is lost…drowned. There is no other.' I had gone too far with this question. He would learn too much of my ignorance.

‘Drowned,' he repeated to the river. ‘Then what holds your people to the Mothers?'

‘Why…the same that holds yours…' I floundered. ‘The journeypeople?' I thought of Llwyd's distress, of Cookmother's words. ‘Perhaps…not enough.'