Skin (45 page)

I placed my lips on the ridge of his cheek, then sat up, reaching for my under-robe.

In a flash he had roused and pulled me back down. ‘Do you think I will let you go
now you have come to me?'

‘I cannot stay,' I protested, wriggling from under him.

‘So you have not changed your mind?' He propped on one elbow
as I dressed. ‘You did
not come to stay?'

I shook my head. ‘Last night was my farewell gift.'

‘Ailia—' His tone became grave. ‘In truth, it is best if you do not go. Let me hide
you until the danger is passed.'

‘Never,' I said as I stood. ‘I will not be hidden away.'

‘You must trust me. You will not be spared.'

‘For how long would you have me hidden?' I scoffed, strapping my sword to my belt.

‘Until I have gained their trust. There are scouts from the legion in the township
already, surveying the land, seeing who is dangerous. Please let me protect you.'

‘Impossible.' I pulled on my cloak, eager to be gone from him. He was too insistent
now.

‘If you will not see sense, then I will see it for you.' In the blink of an eye he
had sprung up from the bed and was pulling me across the room. Gripping me around
the waist, he kicked away the basket that covered the opening to the storepit beneath.

‘Stop—' I struggled against him but he was as strong as a bullock, determined to
force me into the narrow opening. I fought, raking his skin with my fingers, but
he held my arms like a vice.

With his final shove, I tumbled down the ladder. I sat, shocked, on the dirt floor,
scratches bleeding on my hands and legs.

‘You will have food and drink—you will be safe!' called Ruther from above.

‘And when will I be released from this cage?' I shouted up at him.

‘When it is done and I have their trust. Then I will release you.'

‘No!'

But he was drawing the bolt of the trapdoor and my scream was deadened by the damp
earth around me.

The storepit was cold, airless and entirely black until Ruther opened the door and
descended the ladder with a torch that he fixed
into a wall bracket. In the weak
light of the flame, I saw there were blankets on the floor, a pot and a jug of water.
He had prepared for this. He had intended to trap me and I had walked straight to
him.

‘You snake,' I whispered in disgust.

‘You will be grateful.' He turned to the ladder, then back to me. ‘Give me your sword.'

‘No.' I panicked. He could not take it. ‘I will cause no further trouble if you leave
it with me. This is my promise.'

He stared for a moment then snorted with indifference. ‘There is little harm that
can come of it here. Tidings, Ailia.' He climbed the ladder and shut the trapdoor
beneath him.

I heard the iron latch slide shut and I sank to the floor. The warriors would think
I had abandoned them. They would doubt their strength. ‘Fight,' I urged them with
my mind's voice as I sat for hours in the dank silence.

Later, one of Ruther's attendants brought food, but would tell me nothing of what
was happening in the township. I begged and cajoled him but he handed me the bread
and stew without a word and latched the door again.

What torture it was to be powerless in wait, while the tribespeople were working
to face the darkest enemy we had yet known. What kind of Kendra was I who allowed
herself to be hidden and protected while her people put their lives at risk? Who
could not even give them the seeing that was needed?

I could not eat the food. It was as though my body was making Troscad of its own
will, protesting the confinement that I was neither strong nor clever enough to protest
myself.

Again there was scuffling above me and the sound of the latch being drawn. Strange,
it was only moments since the attendant had left. Was he back for my bowl so soon?
I stood, ready to pass it to him, untouched.

A woman descended the ladder. The fine hairs on my neck bristled. It was Heka. ‘What
are you doing here?' I whispered. ‘Does Ruther know you have come?'

She pulled the door shut above her. Her business would have to be swift or the servant
would find it unlocked when he returned. When her feet touched the floor she turned
to me, her eyes glittering in the torchlight. There was mud on her skirts and her
hair was strewn with straw. ‘He does not know,' she said.

She looked to the bowl by my feet.

‘Take it.'

She crouched on her haunches, devouring the meal. ‘You have come to greatness, Ailia,'
she said, chewing a large mouthful of stew. ‘Or must I call you Kendra?'

‘The news has spread quickly,' I said.

‘This is not all I know.' She scraped the bowl with her fingers. ‘You have been with
Fraid and the Journeyman. I know you have sanctified a plan to fight.'

I was astonished. ‘How can you know this?'

‘We are not so far from one another as you would wish,' she said. ‘I followed you
to the farmhouse. I have heard your talk.'

Once again, I was shocked by how brazen, how sly, she was. If she used this against
me, Ruther would not spare Fraid or Llwyd, or any of those who had pledged to fight.
‘Heka—' My voice was low. ‘For the final time, I ask you: what do you want of me?
Why do you pursue me?'

She set down the empty bowl. ‘The Roman army comes. They are hours away and I do
not want to be among the dead. I need a horse and cloak and coin to escape. Give
this to me or I will go to Ruther.'

I stifled my laugh. ‘Coin? And where, please tell, will I get your coin?' I motioned
around at the chamber. ‘Do you see a horse here between us?'

‘Ask Ruther, when he comes, to arrange it and I will wait for it—'

We both looked up as the door creaked and was tugged open. The servant had come to
take my bowl.

Heka caught my glance and her eyes flared with panic.

‘Quick,' I whispered. ‘Lie still under the blanket. Stay there!' I called to the
servant. ‘I will pass up my bowl.'

‘Why was the door unlocked?' he growled as he reached for the bowl. ‘Has Ruther been?'

‘No,' I answered quickly. ‘You must have forgotten to draw the latch.'

The servant grumbled as he hauled himself up from the opening. ‘I will not forget
it now.' The door thudded shut and I heard the bolt slide.

Heka threw off the blanket. ‘Now I am caught here, curse you!'

‘Good then.' I sat beside her. ‘This may serve us both.'

Like any journeywoman, I did not have much by way of metals, but I had the favour
of those with wealth and could easily have her provided for. My only treasure was
Taliesin's love. As long as I had this, I could promise her anything. ‘I will give
you coin, Heka. I will give you horses. I will give you all that I have to give.
But first you must tell me the truth. You must tell me my skin. You must tell me
everything you know of my family. Not just one question answered, but all. Without
this—tell Ruther what you will—you will have nothing.'

She looked at me and I saw she was startled by my boldness. ‘What promise do you
make me,' she said slowly, ‘if I tell you all?'

I took deep breath. My words, when they came, were raw and meant. ‘You will have
what is mine, Heka, or you shall own my freedom.' It was a form of geas that I offered.
Under it, I would be cursed if I acted outside her will: a debt of obligation that
surpassed all others.

‘You would put yourself under my geas?' She was stunned.

‘Yes. Even my freedom is useless without skin,' I said. ‘I am nothing without skin.'

She nodded.

‘Who are you, Heka?' I murmured.

‘Ay then, I will tell you.' She turned from me and spoke into the darkness, her voice
softly rasping. ‘I first came to Caer Cad when I was seven summers old. It was the
time of the Gathering. I came with my father and mother. She was huge with a babe.
They offered me for the gift. Perhaps it was the shock of the ritual or the relief
that I was not chosen, but Mam's pains started early, and soon it was plain that
she was going to have the babe that night. There was a birth hut in the town, but
Mam wanted to be near the river. She insisted on it. So we all went down: the midwife,
me, others as well. I was scared,' said Heka.

‘Two girls came from Mam that night.' She paused. ‘The first was Kerensa. Mam was
still strong after her, lying on the riverbank and smiling at her sweet face. But
when the second child set to follow, Mam started twisting and crying to get into
the water. She kept screaming, “Let me under”, and trying to crawl in. The river
was icy. But maybe she thought the cold would ease the pain, so we helped her in,
me on one side, a woman on the other, and the midwife in front to catch the child.

‘She tore right open with the coming of it. The night water ran black with her blood
and when the babe was lifted out of the water, she was so slippery that the midwife
lost the grip of her ankles and she was washed downstream where she lodged on a log.
Nearly drowned in her own mother's blood, before I got to her.' Heka turned to me
to see if I understood.

‘It was me,' I whispered. ‘I am the child in the river.'

Heka nodded.

I could not breathe. Heka was my sister.

‘It was I who hauled you out and laid you on the grass next to Kerensa, while our
mother bled to death in the river. You came hard
and stole her life to buy your own.
If it were only Kerensa, Mam would still be alive. She was whole after Kerensa.'
Heka closed her eyes for a few moments before she spoke again.

‘You were not sameling twins; you were odd. When we got back to the camp, my father
said we could keep only one and the other had to be left somewhere to be safe and
fed.

‘I begged him to let me keep you both: the two bits of life left from Mam, but he
knew—and he was right—that with only seven summers, I could carry one babe and still
be helpful with the cattle, but not two. It was no difficulty to choose whom to keep.
Kerra was the most likened to Mam and the one whom had left Mam well. The other—you—I
took to the Tribequeen's kitchen door on the night you were born.

‘I cried when I farewelled you, despite all. There was a newling's loveliness to
you in your own way, though, even then, you had the look of one who would fight for
herself.' Heka paused once more.

The scowl scored in her face began to make sense.

‘I did not forget you. Not for one day. Every sun turn I thought of the sister who
was growing in Fraid's town. And I worried, too, that you might
not
be growing. If
you had died or gone to fosterage I would never have known of it. And I did not forget
either, that you did not know your skinsong and you would be suffering the lack of
it.

‘When I saw you again it was seven summers past, at the next Gathering. I had dreaded
and craved that day all at once. The moment we arrived I wanted to find you and tell
you that you had kin and let you meet your womb sister. Our father was dead by then—but
I was kept on by the farm that he had worked, and we cared for each other greatly,
Kerra and I. We wanted you to come home.'

‘What happened then?' I asked. ‘Why did you not find me?'

Her face twisted. ‘Because it was Kerensa who was given, torn apart that day.'

I reeled back as if struck in the chest. ‘That was my sister,' I gasped, remembering
the child who had been chosen as the gift, ‘and you were the one with her.'

Heka's eyes closed against the memory. When they opened again they were burning.
‘It was
you
the Journeyman chose for the gift that winter. You were the most pleasing,
the special one, but because you were with the Tribequeen's woman—ay, I saw her speak
for you—they took my Kerra instead. The most precious thing I would ever know. You
bought your life a second time by taking one of mine.'

I was silent. Reliving that unspeakable day. Was it as Heka charged? Had my life
been wrought by others' deaths?

‘I had some sister's love for you when I came that year, but it was nothing next
to my love for Kerra. If I had been given the choice between you and her—there would
have been no question in it—I would have kept my Kerra.' Her eyes bore into me and
I saw her face begin to twitch and change with the anger that shaped it from the
inside. ‘What did you whisper to the wiseman to buy your life?' she growled. ‘What
words bought the death of my sister?' Her face crumpled as she slumped against the
wall.

I said nothing more.

She was my kin. I felt the earth shift to make room for the knowing of it. ‘Why did
you not tell me? Or Cookmother?' I asked.

Heka stared at me in disgust. ‘Because both of you killed my sister. I felt nothing
but hate. Cookmother must have seen it in me because she drew you close and turned
away as I passed her after the giving.'

The torch flame flickered. It would not bring us light for much longer.

‘But
you
didn't turn away,' continued Heka. ‘You looked straight at me with those
round eyes, full of innocence. The same strange colour of sun in muddy water. You
have none of the heart of her but your eyes are all Mam's.'

And with those words a ribbon of wind drifted into the core of me, gently awakening
the knowledge that I had come from a mother—my mother. Now I knew that I was born
to a woman who had gifted me the colour of her eyes and may have gifted me the world's
love if she had lived to do it. I was bound to other souls, dead and alive, and now
sitting here before me.

‘So there it is,' said Heka. ‘You had all of it. I had nothing.'

‘Nothing!' I cried. ‘You knew your skin. This is something I have never known.'