Skin (29 page)

‘Then let them come.' Cun stood. ‘You make your choice, Fraid. Every man of Mai Cad
will die fighting before I kiss the feet of the pigs.'

‘And so they shall,' said Ruther.

Talk of Rome was put aside until the meeting of heads on the morrow. Tempers were
soothed by Cun's rich beef and turnip stew, dark ale and vulgar jokes. The meal lasted
late into the night.

I sat between Fraid and Llwyd, saying little and growing exhausted.

Ruther's eyes had barely left me, and when I stepped outside the Great House to cool
my face in the autumn night, he was swiftly at my side. ‘Ailia, I would speak with
you.'

‘Then walk with me for a while,' I said, ‘I need air.'

We turned down one of the wide and unfamiliar streets.

‘Why did you not see me in Cad?' he demanded. ‘I asked of you.'

‘There has been too much afoot,' I answered in truth. ‘I am to go to the Isle.'

‘Impressive. And without skin.' He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Did I not pick you
for the temple when first we met? And I was your fire-lover!'

‘Hush.' I smiled.

The house beside us was noisy with babe-cry and the dog at its threshold growled
as we passed. In truth, it was a relief to be with someone who treated me as he always
had. ‘I cannot believe that I will go to the temple,' I whispered, taking his arm.

‘And then?'

‘And then…' I hesitated. ‘I will serve Summer as journeywoman.' The words felt foreign.
‘And if, somehow, I learn of my skin—' I paused; it still felt unutterable, ‘—I will
train to be Kendra.'

‘A very ancient wisdom,' said Ruther. ‘It has served a long time.' He glanced at
me. ‘Is it the best pathway now to take?'

I stopped and turned to him. ‘Do you speak against your history?'

‘I love my history as deeply as any tribesman. It is the future of which I now speak.'
He stepped forward so that our faces were close. ‘I have known since we lay at Beltane
that you had a great strength. When you train, it will be even greater. Then you
must decide how to use it.'

I looked at him in shock. ‘It is foretold how I shall use it.'

He pulled me by the hand and led me through a narrow passage between two houses.
Before us was the township's wall. We hoisted ourselves up and sat, our feet overhanging
the plummeting ditch, looking out at the grain fields before us. The moon glowed
at half strength behind drifting rags of clouds and I shivered in the wind.

Ruther unpinned his cloak and wrapped it around me. It was thicker and heavier than
mine, scented with leather, sweat and smoke. He shifted closer until our shoulders
were touching. ‘What if I were to offer you marriage?'

I almost laughed. ‘Do you forget I am unskinned?'

‘That is no obstacle to me,' he said. ‘I will have you unskinned.'

‘But no such marriage could be rightly made,' I said, incredulous, ‘without the blessing
of my totem.' While Taliesin breathed, I would not marry Ruther, yet still his boldness
intrigued me.

‘It will have to survive on my blessing alone.' The moon shone on his pale hair.

‘You honour me,' I said, ‘but it is no longer my question to answer. I am to be given
to the temple and then to service…' Still I did not confess that there was another.

‘Is this your choice then?' His voice was sharp.

‘It is not my choice to make.'

‘But it
is
your choice, Ailia. Do not be commanded by others. If you do not desire
the journeywoman's life then speak it so and take a different way.'

‘There is no other way.' His words were unsteadying me.

‘You could have a place beside me, Ailia. My family is powerful in Cad. The Romans
will talk to me…they
have
talked to me.' He paused. ‘They offer great reward to those
who receive them well. With our strengths united, there is no barrier to what we
may build together—'

I stared at him in horror. ‘Are you saying you are in league with the Empire?'

‘I am in league with what is inevitable. Cad cannot hold back the Empire, nor can
Cun. No one can. For the well-eyed among us, it need not be feared. I will need a
woman beside me, a woman to whom the people will listen. I already have the trust
of Rome and you will keep the trust of the tribes.'

I shook off his hands. ‘As if they would listen to me in this—'

‘Do you not understand? You have a gift. The journeymen think you are called to be
Kendra—but it is something far less shrouded in mystery. It is the gift of leadership.
An allure, a natural wisdom that others will follow. The men of Rome who possess
it rise to Consul or Emperor.'

I was spun beyond speaking. The Kendra's call was no mere gift. It was a cry from
the Mothers. Undeniable. ‘This is desecration,' I said.

‘By some, yes, but true nonetheless. Ailia, I love you and I am choosing you. I can
offer you a great deal. Consider your decision.'

I reeled from his words, from his love. ‘You ask me to deny what has always been.'

‘Nothing remains the same. Is that not the first lesson of the journeypeople? Change
will happen. The great among us will ride it like a chariot.'

‘Stop. You are speaking against the truth of our wisepeople. The truth of the Mothers.'

‘The Mothers are revered by those who have not seen what men can do. It is not the
hidden forces, Ailia, that strengthen us—it is our own forces.'

But were they not the same force? That which was hidden in the rivers and trees,
and that which moved through us as breath and blood? How could they be separated?
How could one be greater than the other?

The stars above us began to sway and the wall itself seemed to lurch beneath me.
I braced my hands on the stone for balance.

Ruther sat solid as iron beside me. How tempting it was to yield to the assuredness
he offered. To be part of his certainty.

The other way I was alone. The strength I needed would have to be mine.

That night I dreamed of Taliesin.

He was calling to me across a river of stones, his face in bright sun. My feet were
bare and the stones were jagged. As I ran to him, I slipped on my own blood.

My heart bashed me awake and I lay in the strange bed at Mai Cad, unable to find
sleep for the brightness of his face in my memory.

I thought of the two men who had entered my cosmos.

Ruther was a cloak I could wrap around me.

Taliesin was an arrow that had pierced my soul.

Our tribelands are nourished by ritual.

Flood, disease and weak crops occur where
bonds with the Mothers have not been renewed.

T
HE
TRIBAL
LEADERS
of Durotriga could not agree.

The same independence of spirit that had kept them free of the Great Bear—and free
of each other—now meant that whatever the Roman forces brought each region would
face on its own.

Ruther left in disgust for the east, on bad terms with Cun and several others.

I was the only one he sought out to farewell.

Our party left late in the afternoon and arrived at Caer Cad by highsun the next
day. By the time of our return, all of the tribespeople had heard that I was to go
to temple. Many rushed out to offer greetings as we rode in through the gates, casting
petals that caught in my hair. Others hissed and spat as I passed. There was great
joy that the
Mothers had finally marked a Kendra, but it was utterly bewildering
that it fell on a skinless woman. They knew that without skin, my Kendrahood, so
deeply craved, would never be realised.

I stared down at the upturned faces, full of questions and hope, and I felt, for
the first time, the kindling awareness that my knowledge was not only for me, nor
even for Taliesin. It was for them.

Ianna and Bebin ran out to meet me at the stables. As I dismounted and kissed them,
the greatest excitement was Bebin's. Uaine had sung her the song of skin while I
was gone and she would marry him this moon.

‘Be prepared for Cookmother,' Bebin warned as we walked to the kitchen. ‘Her chest
is worsened and it spoils her temper.' She glanced at me. ‘That and the loss of her
favourite workdaughter.'

Cookmother was resting in her bed. Her face was pale and her forehead, when I crouched
to kiss it, was damp with sweat.

I propped her more comfortably and brewed her a tea of yarrow leaves for fever. Despite
my care, she was determined to deepen the chasm between us. She watched me as I unpacked
my bundle. ‘What is that?' she said as I lifted out a fine bone brooch.

‘A gift from Cun.' I held it forth. ‘Look—the sweetest carving of a thrush.'

She turned her face away.

I tried again. ‘Have you survived well enough the attendance of Cah while I was gone?'

‘Most perfectly well,' she grunted over her shoulder.

Sulis had left word that tomorrow's mid-morning was favourable for departure. These
were my last hours in the kitchen. I could not bear that they would be spoiled in
this wordlessness. The ill temper Cookmother had always shown to others, but never
to me, was now to be my farewell gift.

We had but one day to make and dye the wedding cloth, for Bebin wanted my blessing
in it.

Ianna was using the warp loom to speed the fabric, with Bebin at her side. Together
they walked the length of the loom and back again, passing the shuffles smoothly
between them. Cah was weaving ribbon on a small tape loom and I was crushing blackberries
and scraping the pulp into a steaming pot of dark blue liquid. Cookmother slept,
snoring noisily.

We had placed juniper outside the doorway to warn our men not to enter. Dying was
strictly women's work and the presence of a man would curse the cloth. Especially
near wedding time.

Only those skilled in plantcraft could work the dye pots. Cookmother usually left
it to me, as the pots were too heavy for her now. I was dying berry for good fortune
and kelp for protection. Both pots had to be mixed and dipped by the end of the day.
Tomorrow the moon would turn and it would be a poor time to fix the colour and craft
into the cloth.

The air was pungent with the aroma of bubbling fruits and the large pot of stale
urine in which we would soak the cloth so it would better take the dye. Often we
would sing stories into the flax as it was woven, but today there was too much to
discuss.

‘Sisters,' I said, ‘with two of us to be gone from the kitchen, I am worried for
Cookmother. The sound in her chest is not good and she needs to be tended.'

‘Then we need another girl,' snapped Cah. ‘My days are too laden as it is, and I
would take marriage if it were offered.'

‘She will have my loyalty,' said Ianna. ‘I am not sure I will ever marry.'

‘Oh, Ianna.' I smiled but I was far from comforted. ‘Are you quite certain,' I asked
Bebin, half in jest, ‘that you prefer Uaine to the kitchen?'