Skin (21 page)

At highsun we ate, then I spent afternoons learning the art of the fight. I was taught
to stand firm and draw spirit through my bare feet
into my task. I learned how the
fury that possessed me when I came upon the slaughtered fawn could be harnessed to
my will.

My skills blossomed. I parried with many tribeswomen, each bringing a different pattern
to the battle's dance, and I learned to match and better them all. Three full moons
passed in this learning. My mind became sharp and precise like the blade I swung,
more alive than it had ever been. And Taliesin's presence was bright, as though my
learning brought him close.

Yet when I thought of anything beyond him, beyond this gathering of women, my thoughts
became veiled, as though I was recalling a dream. I asked the women many times, as
we sat by the fire at day's end, where I was and why I had come, but they only chuckled
at my confusion and wondered that I had not been better prepared.

What I dared not ask them of was skin. Like outcasts, they did not greet with it,
they did not speak of it. I could only imagine that they assumed I was skinned, and
I said nothing to correct them. For the first time—by some twist of grace—I was learning,
and I would not endanger it for anything.

Eventually I asked nothing at all, because deep in my bones I knew where I was and
why I had come. As my learning grew, I let myself think what I had not dared think,
and hope what I have never dared hope: that these were neither outcasts, nor even
journeywomen. These were the Mothers and I was walking among them. Not fleetingly,
not by spirit, but by flesh. I was in the Mothers' realm. I had journeyed without
skin.

I should have been frightened. But I was not.

The boundaries between realms are potent, bound by many taboos.

Realms must align for souls to pass.

S
UMMER
WANED
,
REPLACED
by a crisp autumn.

I sat polishing the sword beneath flame-leafed trees at the edge of the hutgroup,
waiting to begin the morning's training.

Meb approached and I rose to meet her. ‘There will be no training today,' she said.

‘Why not?'

She paused. ‘Today you will fight.'

I nodded and collected my polishing leathers. I had been told this would come. I
knew I was to be matched with one of similar strength, perhaps a little stronger,
as it should be a good fight, one to test my knowledge of swordcraft, my communion
with the metal and, of course, my courage.

Meb was quiet as she prepared me in the sleep hut.

As she readied my washwater, she yielded no word of my foe. Surely they would not
have me fight Mandua, who was like a she-wolf in battle, or Sirit, who could summon
glamour almost as powerfully as Tara.

Meb bathed me and painted my skin with ground red stone. She was coiling the last
of my braids when the horn call sounded.

Outside, the women had formed a circle. They parted so that I could enter, and waiting
within—naked, with owl feathers in her hair and swirling patterns on her chest and
face—was Tara herself.

I looked back at Meb, who nodded with encouragement.

They were testing me well in this match. So greatly did I honour Tara that I was
already weakened. But I had been taught to fight, so I would fight.

I walked in, unsheathing my sword. Already the bone handle I had so lovingly polished
felt like part of my body as I grasped it. We stood before each other, swords raised,
as the women chanted the invocation to fight.

Mandua sounded a shrieking cry and the spark of combat ignited.

I took an instant to form strategy and Tara exploited it, her weapon whistling as
it tore through the air. I lurched back, lifting my sword in a powerful block. The
tone had been set: she would not win unchallenged.

She drove me back with three lateral swipes.

I struggled to parry them, sensing their position by the movement of wind as they
descended. Then, in the split second she took to shape her next stroke, I lodged
an attack: two sharp lunges that forced her retreat. Our audience took breath.

‘Ha! The learner is bold,' she hissed.

I knew that at any moment she could enchant me and my terror would be too great.
So I whipped the sword furiously before me, the clang of metal ringing in the air.

We locked eyes and I saw hers darken. I swiped into the space between us. In the
next instant she loomed, her skin alight, so dazzling that I could not see her edge.
Her strikes came one each side in a steady rhythm.

Blinded, I swung my sword wildly back and forth to protect myself, but I was beginning
to stumble. ‘Mothers, help me,' I called from my heart. The weapon grew warm in my
hands. Time slowed. I paused, at great risk, to draw spirit through my feet. First
of the earth, then yet deeper, fire.

Tara was upon me. I felt her sword's breath before its cut, painless at first, a
clean slice, then a fierce sting as blood pulsed from the wound. It was long and
bone-deep in my swordless arm. But I had drawn. Spirit was within me.

When Tara halted at the sight of my blood, I attacked with four driving swipes. She
staggered back. All around us, the women shrieked, inciting us to fight without mercy.
Tara's face was a grimace of rage as she swore and spat at my strikes.

But I was not angry. I was at peace.

My handle grew slippery with blood, but I drove forward with unwavering force until,
with my fiercest blow, Tara lost her footing and was down on the ground. I straddled
her with my sword at her chest. Though she was trapped beneath me, I feared her still.
‘What am I to do?' I whispered. In training, fights finished with laughter and a
shared piece of sheep cheese.

‘Kill me,' she whispered. ‘That is your task.'

I looked frantically to Meb, then to the women around me but no one disputed her
command.

I turned back to Tara's fine face, her chest pounding under the point of my blade.
Then I stepped away, casting my sword to the ground. ‘If that is my task, then I
have failed it. I will not kill without purpose.'

Tara rolled over then jumped to her feet with throaty laughter. ‘Oh, you are good!
We've not seen one such as you for some time.' She picked up the sword and handed
it to me. ‘This is yours. You have earned it. Now go to the healing tent and tend
your wound. Then we will eat and drink for the last time. Tonight you leave us.'

Evening drew and the women led me to the mouth of the forest track that would carry
me away from this place. Excitement danced in my belly as I glanced at the rising
moon, as full and golden as the one that had carried me here.

I wore a woollen shawl and leather cloak over my own summer dress. Though my wound
ached beneath its flax dressing, my muscles were hard from training and from the
animal flesh I had eaten in such abundance. I was ready to face whatever my return
to Cad would bring.

I embraced Meb and the other women in turn, until I came to Tara.

She kissed my cheeks, then held my sword out before her on flattened palms. ‘This
sword is our body. It is your body reborn. Carry with it the knowledge of fire.'

‘Thank you,' I said, as I grasped it. It was weighty and warm like a living creature.

Tara met my eye. ‘The sword will bend the world to your will, Ailia. But once it
takes life, it will have no greater power than that. Do you understand?'

‘Yes,' I nodded, although I could not fathom how it would serve me.

‘Keep it well hidden until it is needed.'

I nodded again and strapped the sword, sheathed in leather, beneath my skirts. It
was short and light enough that I could bind it to my thigh—a little awkward as I
walked, but nothing compared with my pride in possessing it.

Tara handed me a torch and stepped away.

Suddenly I was frightened. ‘How will I find my way back?'

‘By our song.'

I went to query her but she silenced me.

Softly, the Mothers of fire began to sing. It was low at first, in unison, on deep,
rolling breaths. Then it built, until song poured like water, filling the dusk. It
spoke to me of all their wisdom, the gift of fire, and the birth of my learning.
I began to walk. They were singing me out of their place and back into mine.

For several hours I walked, guided by their voices. As they grew fainter, the night
air grew hotter. Eventually I stripped off my shawl and cloak, wedging them under
my arm. When they became too cumbersome to carry, I left them behind on the path.

Finally I heard the voices no longer. My torchlight spluttered. I was at the forest's
edge.

A dog barked. With a surge of joy, I burst free of the trees and there, to my disbelief,
was Neha. I buried my face in the folds of her neck, drawing deep breaths of the
crushed-grass scent of her fur. ‘Were you waiting for me?' I marvelled. Surely she
had not kept vigil since I entered the forest? I stroked her flank, but she was no
thinner, and bore no sign of having lived wild. It was as though no time has passed.

The creamy moon lit our path back to Cad. By its height, the hour was not long past
midnight. As I walked on, I imagined the words that I would tell Llwyd: that the
Mothers had called me, that I was worthy of learning despite my skinlessness, and
he must teach me at last.

After a short way I was sweating. It was yet warmer here beyond the forest. What
strange autumn was this? The air was as hot and noisy with insect hum as it was when
I left, a whole season hence. I stared around me. The crops were still thick in the
fields and there were berries on the bushes that lined my path. There was something
tilted here. I had been gone for several moon turns. At least the turn of the season.
But I was returned to the scents and fruits of midsummer.

Had I slept in the forest and dreamed my passage? No, there was a wet bandage around
my arm and the dull throb of the cut. And bound, chafing, to my thigh, was the sword
I had been gifted. It had been no dream.

The sight of my hilltop town brought a wave of relief. For the first time since I
had left, I yearned to see Cookmother and my worksisters. But with each step closer,
my excitement gave way to dread. The lulling haze that had wrapped me as I trained
with the Mothers was now truly lifted. I had no idea of what furies Cookmother would
deliver, what Llwyd would say of my learning without skin. My boldness, my new strength,
were ebbing away.

I stole through the gates and into the Tribequeen's compound. In the odorous heat,
Cookmother, Bebin, Ianna and Cah were sleeping soundly. Cookmother was alone. It
was odd that she had not called one of the others into her bed when I had been gone
so long.

Then I noticed what was strangest of all. Spread across the floor was the same upturned
basket and spilled barley that I had kicked as I left.

I stood paralysed, my mind reeling. I had returned to the same night that I left.
Had they all been captured in some stillness of time? There had been some deep magic
here and for the first time, far away from the light of the Mothers' fire, I felt
sickened with fear for what I had done. It could not be right to have passed time
in one place without time being spent in another.

I pulled off my sandals and lay beside Bebin, who stirred and murmured without waking.
Despite my exhaustion, sleep would not come. What had happened was wrong. I had journeyed—this
much I knew—but it should not have happened in this way. I had the journeywoman's
gift but not the learning to support it.

How could I explain my months with the Mothers when there had been only a passage
of one night? I would not be believed. Or I would be punished for walking where I
was not permitted.

I could not ask Bebin, who had warned me, nor Cookmother, who had forbidden me. I
was alone.

There are years of good harvest and years of bad.