Skin (18 page)

I smiled at Bebin as we headed through the door and out of the compound to join the
river of torches streaming through Cad's southern gateway. I took a deep breath of
the warm air and tightened my hold of Manacca's hand. This was the first time I would
walk beyond the town walls in more than two moons.

The solstice fire was beginning to die down as we reached the top of Sister Hill.
Young knaves took up hoops of branch and reed, doused them in grain spirit, then
held them to the embers to ignite. We all chanted for the wheels to be sent forth,
cheering and laughing as each
flaming circle reeled down the slope, tumbling into
the Cam below.

‘They're like shooting stars,' I whispered to Bebin.

Manacca squealed as another was launched.

The fire had been lit at dusk and had burned through the night, with Llwyd and the
lesser journeymen keeping vigil. Now, as the hour of light drew closer, they allowed
it to die down so that the solstice sun would know no contest as it banished the
darkness.

Fraid stood flanked by her high warriors at the western point of the fire, wearing
her diadem and a thick gold torque. She would be first to hear the visiting seer's
predictions, first to be touched by the year's strongest light.

With their shoulders wreathed in summer oak leaves, the journeymen chanted by the
dwindling fire. Their low, rumbling drone invoked the fire spirits to yield their
truths to the seer who sat in trance beside them. When they had sung, the seer would
scry the firebed and read the embers.

The ground under my sandals was sticky from a wild mare's slaughter. Her bones, flesh
and white pelt had bubbled through the night in a cauldron on the solstice fire.
Llwyd ladled the broth into a bowl and passed it to the Tribequeen. She drank to
renew her place as first consort to these tribelands, then passed the bowl to her
warriors, and finally to the seer.

When all had drunk, Llwyd brought us to silence with his raised staff. Despite his
frailty, he was still majestic in Ceremony. ‘The solstice fire has burned tirelessly
through this night,' he called. ‘This promises an early ripening and a plentiful
harvest!'

We cheered. Good news was greatly needed now.

‘It is time for the fire to speak,' Llwyd continued. ‘But first look to the west.'

Sinking into the horizon was a moon that was one day from fullness.

‘Today our mighty solstice sun will set against the full moon's rise,' Llwyd said.

A murmur rippled through the gathering. There had been unease in the township about
the sky patterns as we approached midsummer, but only the journeypeople could speak
directly of such things.

‘Such a constellation occurs only once in many lifeturns,' said Llwyd. ‘The two great
sky spirits are each at their most powerful. As they oppose one another in the east
and west, the skin of our tribelands will be stretched between them. We may be held
in perfect balance,' he paused, ‘or we may tear.'

A rumble of panic rose in the crowd.

‘Be still,' said Llwyd. ‘Keep to your houses at sunfall this day, that you will not
be caught by the force of the pull. That you will not tear the skin. But now—' he
looked to the seer, ‘—it is the hour for augury. The coming sun, so challenged by
the moon, will speak only its truest messages through the fire. Come forth if you
would hear the fire speak.'

The tribespeople surged forward, eager to learn what was foretold for them in fortune
or marriage. They would need to be swift; there was less than an hour before sunrise.
Among the milling bodies, I noticed a familiar hunched form, standing with her back
to me. Almost as if she could feel my stare, Heka turned, meeting my eye. Her skin
was still pocked with the scars of the blisters.

A large-shouldered tribesman stepped in front of me, obscuring my view, and I pushed
her from my thoughts. The seer had begun. He stood at the lip of the firebed, calling
the Mothers to speak. He was a slight man; his beard seemed too dark and his brow
too firm to have attained the degree of seer, but he had been trained at the Isle
of Mona in the northwest, and the words of such a man were highly valued. Using an
iron stick to prod wisdom from the long-burnt wood, he spoke to one tribesperson
after another, turning the
embers, sometimes casting in an acorn to watch how it
burned. Fraid and Llwyd stood beside him, whispering as they heard the portents.

Finally it was Bebin before him. The crowd was thinner now, as many had heard their
fire words and had dispersed to the hillside for the rise. I stood beside her. The
embers were turned for a fresh message.

‘A high marriage is shown,' said the seer.

I squeezed Bebin's arm.

‘There is the sign of metal and the symmetry of a skin.'

‘These are traders' wears,' I whispered, ‘they tell of Uaine.'

‘Hush.' She smiled.

‘It is indeed a man of trade and a favoured match,' said the seer. ‘Accept the marriage
and its consequences.' He set down his stick. ‘That is all. The sun threatens to
dawn.'

Bebin pushed me forward. ‘Please—scry for my worksister,' she said, as I shook my
head. ‘Just one more.'

‘Not Ailia,' commanded Fraid. ‘The fire will not speak to one without skin.'

‘With your permission, Tribequeen,' said Llwyd, dipping his head. ‘I would like to
test it.'

Fraid frowned. ‘As you wish, Journeyman. But quickly—' she glanced at the sky, ‘—the
fire must soon be doused.'

The seer looked at me and took up his stick. ‘Of what do you wish to learn?'

My heart was racing. I had never heard my own fire portents before. ‘Skin,' I said
slowly. ‘I ask of my skin.'

The seer turned to the fire and I stared at him as the light flickered on his deepening
frown. ‘There is nothing,' he said, finally. ‘There is no story in the wood.'

‘Because there is no story in her!' called a man from the crowd. ‘The Mothers do
not see her.'

‘I said it would be so,' said Fraid, turning away.

‘Let me help,' said a low voice beside me. I turned to see Heka, poised, readying
to throw a handful of acorns.

‘Thank you, no help is required—' I stammered, prickling at her nearness.

‘But it is,' she said. ‘After all, did you not help me as I stood at the gates of
the Otherworld?' She glanced at me and I saw that her spite had not lessened in the
weeks since I had tended her. ‘Perhaps I can help wake the Mothers.' She cast the
acorns into the embers. Too many. Their explosions broke open the thickest log, releasing
a red trickle of sap. Heka turned to the seer. ‘Now what does the fire say?'

The crowd watched. We all knew the method was flawed, but the seer was transfixed
by what it had conjured.

‘The sap,' he said, ‘It foretells the running of blood.'

‘Whose blood?' I gasped.

‘Yours. Another's. There are many rivulets—perhaps the blood of many.' He looked
at me. ‘You will find skin—'

My breath caught.

‘—but its cost will be blood.'

‘What is this rot and nonsense?' Cookmother's voice thundered into the silence, pushing
Heka aside as she shouldered to the front. ‘Even I know that sap in the fire can
mean many things. The coming of rains for one, which is well needed here. Or the
waters of babebirth. Don't set to terrifying the stupid girl with these horrors,'
she said to the seer as she clutched my arm.

Llwyd leaned forward, looking into the fire. ‘No, Cookwoman, I, too, see the message
that has been spoken.'

‘I think there is little cause for concern,' said Fraid. ‘She's my kitchen servant.
Unskinned and without influence.'

‘The fire says otherwise,' said the seer.

‘Yes.' Llwyd turned to Fraid. ‘She must be watched.'

My shock was lost in the babble of townspeople hurrying to take their place on the
hillside before the rise. I stood between Bebin and Cookmother, the closest I knew
to kin. We all fell silent as the sun neared the horizon, painting the sky a brilliant
turquoise. A lone drummer struck a steady pulse.

We watched, motionless, as it dawned: the most beautiful and powerful sun of the
year. When the crimson orb was fully birthed, Llwyd began the incantations. Many
tribespeople took up the chant and some began to dance, but I had no heart for singing
or dancing.

I looked out to the far edges of Summer, squinting against the rising sun. Perhaps
Cookmother was right and there would be no spilling of blood. Perhaps I could trust
in the light.

Heka's grey-shawled figure sat alone on the hillside at the edge of my vision.

‘Do you see, girl?' said Cookmother, shuffling beside me through the town's winding
paths. Bebin had stayed at the hill, but I had left early with Cookmother to prepare
the solstice feast. ‘Do you see what comes when you play fool with the forest?'

‘But you said it would not be as the seer foretold!'

‘I said it,' she spluttered, ‘but I cannot be sure of it. Heed the seer, if you will
not heed me. Settle yourself, as I have done, to your days in Cad.'

‘I am told I will find skin!' I wailed.

Cookmother tripped on a loose cobblestone and I grasped her arm to steady her. She
stood, catching her breath. ‘Have I not given you the comforts of kin?'

My heart folded. ‘Yes,' I said. ‘But—'

‘Then stay within the safety of Cad. Don't stir up what is at rest.'

Then I voiced a question I had not even asked myself. ‘What if I am called to more?'

‘You are not!' she cried. ‘How could you be called? You're not even—' She looked
away.

‘Not what?' I demanded. ‘Not even a tribeswoman? I know that. But you have always
said otherwise. You have always told me I am whole to you.'

Her lips pressed firm. ‘This is a tiresome business, Ailia. You are needling more
than a mouse in a grainsack and I wish you to stop it.'

‘And what of my wishes?' I said. ‘What of my hopes and questions? Do you not think
I
hunger to know why the forest has spoken to me?'

Cookmother was seldom rich in good temper, but never had I seen her so vexed. Her
eyes darkened. ‘You are no tribeswoman.' Her voice was low and hard. ‘You are not
wholly born and you shall not go in again. Do you hear?'

But I would hear no more. Instead, I ran. I ran back through the township, ducking
and stumbling through the narrow paths. Ianna greeted me as she returned from the
hillside, but I was too wild to answer. All I saw was where I did not belong and
where I would never find Taliesin. I flew through the town's entrance and down the
hillside, turning west when I reached the Cam.

Eventually I came to an outlying farm where a winter cattle house stood empty while
the beasts grazed the summer pastures. Exhausted, I pushed open the heavy door and
crept into one of the pens, where I burrowed beneath the straw.

Cookmother's faith had always given me a place. Without it, I had nothing. I cursed
the woman who birthed me then condemned me to this tribelessness. The only one I
wanted was equally lost and utterly forbidden to me. I curled into a ball and let
myself weep.

A rustle behind me made me look up. Neha had found my hiding
place. She dropped beside
me, whipping the straw with her tail, summoning a spill of fresh tears that she licked
from my cheeks.

We lay in the barn for many hours, although there was a feast to serve and the girls
would have had to work harder without my help.

It was near day's end when I emerged from my refuge. I took a moment to farewell
the solstice sun as it grazed the horizon, then I turned back toward Cad. There,
rising between the eastern hills, was a moon as round and red as a bowl of blood.
This was the moment of which Llwyd had warned. It was too late to hide. I tried to
move but I was caught between them, my fluids suspended by the pull of each orb.
For an instant I felt myself stretched taut to breaking across the sky, then the
moon wrenched free of the horizon, and I fell to the ground intact, released from
their struggle.

Had it held? I worried as I scrabbled to standing. Or had the skin of our tribelands
been torn?