Songwoman Page 3

  I turned back to Caradog. He had stiffened his hair with limewater and wore a thick gold neck-ring with a wren’s head on each terminal. There was no mistaking him as anything other than a leader of the tribes now. He spoke to me attentively, in the correct manner of host to honoured guest, but I saw that he was aware of every movement in the room.

  Euvrain sat on his other side, her posture proud, breathtaking in a green tartan threaded with silver. Though she faced away from her husband, her head thrown back in laughter at someone else’s joke, her hand rested lightly on his thigh. There could be no more fitting match for Caradog.

  I pressed him to speak of the Roman campaign. It had been almost four summers since Claudius’s army arrived on our shores. In the first few months eleven tribes had submitted, lured by the false prize of a peaceful alliance. But for those who had not, submission had been demanded anyway and not peacefully. The governor Plautius now controlled the southern and eastern tribes. The north and the west remained free. Rome was far more established than I had imagined.

  Caradog described how the summer had been spent making small, but relentless, attacks on the Roman camps, burning their fort walls, emptying their grain stores, blocking their supply routes, diverting their water channels, destroying their carts as well as killing soldiers wherever they moved in small numbers through the forests. ‘I have not made myself a friend of Plautius,’ he said, laughing, ‘and he hunts me because of it.’

  I learned he had been barely half a year in Llanmelin, drawn here by the fervour of the western warriors who remained staunch in their hatred of Claudius, unlike the eastern chiefs who had been too long softened by the luxuries of Roman trade. It was good to speak of war again after so many months without fresh news. ‘So what is Rome’s boundary?’ I asked. ‘Where does Plautius stand at this moment?’

  ‘A day’s ride away on the banks of the Habren,’ said Caradog. ‘But he will come no further.’

  ‘Because the season is over?’ I asked. None fought past the onset of winter.

  Caradog shook his head. ‘Because he has met the edge of his war.’ Hefin and a few other chiefs had quieted to hear our conversation. ‘He knows I am within these tribelands, but he cannot reach me. The paths are too steep and tribesmen too brutal. I return every scout he sends, tied to his horse and missing his head. We are guarded by the mountains and the currents of the Habren. The Mothers themselves stand watch for us here.’

  Others were listening now.

  ‘Does he retreat then for the winter?’ I asked, too curious to be shy at the audience.

  ‘He has pulled some men back,’ said Caradog. ‘But he does not leave the front unguarded.’

  ‘They have levelled the Sun Road,’ said Prydd, ‘and laid it with stone. They call it the Fossa. This is the line they hold.’

  ‘So it cannot be walked,’ I murmured.

  The Sun Road was one of our oldest story roads. It ran south to north, bisecting the line of the winter solstice through several tribelands. Journeypeople from all of Albion walked it each winter to remember the songs embedded in the rise and fall of its path. It was as if Rome knew the exact places to cut, to ensure we bled.

  ‘Neither walked nor crossed,’ said Caradog. ‘Plautius has been building his twig forts to guard it. Over fifty at last count—’

  ‘But the fool cannot man them!’ said Hefin.

  ‘Indeed not,’ said Caradog. ‘The legions have been pulled back to the east to hold peace in the captured territories over winter. Plautius has left only the auxilia to guard the front line—’ He paused, eyes dancing, as if to give me time to imagine what he might next reveal.

  ‘Go on,’ I urged.

  The hall was now quiet, all were listening to the war chief.

  ‘The Sun Road is long and Plautius must spread his men thin to hold it. There are feeble numbers at each fort: one-fifty, two hundred at most. Often far less.’ He paused again. ‘His line is weaker than thread.’

  ‘So…will you attack next season?’ I asked. ‘And claim back the road, at least?’

  ‘I am planning an attack,’ he said, ‘but not only to claim the road.’ ‘What then?’ My voice was low.

  Despite all eyes upon us, his own did not leave my face. ‘All of Albion.’

  The warriors began to chant and call.

  ‘How?’ I asked over them.

  Caradog stilled the men so he could continue. ‘It is not just the front that is weakly defended,’ he said. ‘The province has grown so rapidly that the legions are stretched to control it. I have message lines to the eastern tribes, even those who have long since signed treaties. Many chiefs have pledged their allegiance to Claudius, yet their warrior oaths remain with me. They are weary of enslavement and they are ready to act.’

  I listened, amazed. The tribes had always fought for themselves. Had this man begun to bring them to one mind?

  ‘When I attack the Sun Road from the west,’ said Caradog, ‘the tribes of the east will take up their weapons against the legions.’

  ‘The Romans will be torn in two…’ I whispered.

  ‘Yes,’ said Caradog. ‘If they come forward to meet our attack, they will lose the east. And if they defend their provinces, they will lose their line. Either way, we will gain ground and they will be weakened. They will learn that Albion cannot be subdued.’

  ‘And you have brought the tribes to agreement on this?’ I marvelled. No other had done so in this, or any, war.

  ‘Enough of them,’ said Caradog. ‘I have the Iceni, the Coritani…’

  These were powerful tribes, and among the first to have submitted to Claudius. Caradog had the power of a magician if he had seduced their alliance.

  ‘But surely,’ I continued, ‘Plautius will replenish his numbers before the next season?’

  ‘He will,’ said Caradog, leaning forward. ‘But we do not wait until next season.’ He paused, eyes on mine. ‘We attack this winter.’

  ‘But that is madness,’ I gasped. None fought in the cold, when snow obscured the landscape and nights demanded heavy tents. ‘Forgive me…I did not expect a campaign in winter—’

  ‘Just as Rome will not expect it,’ said Caradog.

  ‘Why should we not launch in the cold?’ said Euvrain, slipping her arm through her husband’s. ‘We are hardy to it, and they are not.’

  Caradog kissed her and the warriors called and stamped.

  I took a long sip of ale and felt its warmth spread in my tightened belly. I had missed its numbing pleasure. It was a bold plan. And had I not come in search of a bold plan? Caradog followed only his own rules. Perhaps this was his strength.

  ‘And there is a greater reason for a winter attack,’ he said over the din.

  ‘Is this not a matter for council, War Chief?’ said Prydd quietly.

  ‘Bah! Let the warriors hear it. It will stir them.’ He sipped his ale, wiped the froth from his beard and turned to the gathering. ‘Plautius finishes his term as governor this month and Claudius sends a fresh man to rule the province. Ostorius Scapula.’

  I watched him, impressed. He must have spies and messengers in every corner of Albion.

  ‘They will make the exchange in winter when they believe the campaigning is quiet,’ he announced. ‘The new man will know nothing of Albion’s forests, nor weather, nor the ways of the tribes. He will be weak-footed. He will not expect an attack so late in the season.’ He turned back to me. Despite the bleariness of ale, his eyes burned. ‘This is when we will strike.’

  His audience cheered, but the plan unsettled me. ‘Surely you do not propose open battle?’ I asked. ‘I have seen the Romans fight. They abandon their souls—’

  ‘Kendra, I too have seen the Romans fight!’ said Caradog, laughing. ‘It is a costumed dance they repeat without variation. They fight like cocks, but have the minds of sheep.’ He paused as a servant replenished his horn. ‘We of Albion fight with our own mind. Our only costume is the night and the forest.’ His eyes glittered as he stared at m
e. ‘No, journeywoman, we will not meet them on the field. We will not allow them their preening battle dance. We will use stealth, and slaughter them as they rest. And they will learn that they can advance no further.’ His voice filled the breadth of the hall.

  I saw now the flame that had entranced this tribe, one of the fiercest in all Albion.

  ‘Tell us why we fight!’ cried a warrior from the outer circle. The men were drunk, lusting for a war cry.

  Caradog did not hesitate. He rose, drawing himself to full height until it seemed that his spiked hair nearly touched the roof beams. ‘We are sovereign to these tribelands,’ he began. ‘Our ancestors’ bones are crumbled in the soil we farm. Our mothers’ blood runs in our rivers. We will not bow to another sovereign power on this land. We are this land’s descendants. We are formed by it, and only we can rule it.’

  Among the roar of the audience, Euvrain caught my eye and smiled.

  ‘And now I am certain that the Mothers bless our battle plan—’ Caradog pulled me by my wrist to stand, ‘—because the Kendra has come to us.’ He bent to kiss my hand, then looked up at me with a wild mischief in his eye, before grasping me around the waist and lifting me high above his head, spinning me around as he sounded a war shriek, quickly echoed by the warriors. ‘We cannot lose!’ he shouted over the noise. ‘The Mothers are with us. We cannot lose!’

  I gasped as he spun me too close to the fire, then he loosed his grip and I slid, laughing, to the ground with a thud.

  The room returned to laughter and conversation.

  I sat down, my waist bruised where he had held it. Despite the high spirits, unease stirred in me. I had seen the devastation of war. Should we not wait and see the nature of this new governor before we act? Learn of his limits? His goals? I sipped my ale. I was sitting beside the greatest war leader Albion had ever known. Who was I to question him?

  Some hours later, when the joints were sucked clean, Caradog called for his Songman. I drew a skin over my legs, readying myself for the pleasure of music. I wondered why the Songman had not feasted among us, nor regaled us throughout our meal.

  The figure that emerged from the room’s periphery, bearing a rhythm staff, was no taller than a child. As he moved into the firelight, my breath caught, and I saw why he had kept himself hidden. This was a journeyman of ill-favoured formation. His skull was misshapen, as though collapsed on one side, and his left eye swam in a sunken cavity. An eruption of bone seemed to bulge at the back of his head, exposed by a scantness of tufted hair. His face was one of the most wretchedly-forged I had ever witnessed.

  If Caradog noticed my shock he did not acknowledge it. ‘His name is Rhain,’ he whispered in my ear. ‘He is the finest Songman in Albion.’

  I sipped my ale and watched him walk once around the hearth’s circumference. Despite his formation, his posture was graceful and he walked proudly. He was beautifully dressed in the embroidered cloak of a chieftain’s poet and silver bells tinkled around his hips. Usually one so cruelly wrought as this would shunned by their tribe, or given back to the Mothers by death. It must have been Caradog who ensured otherwise.

  A place was made on the inner bench and Rhain stood ready, facing his war chief.

  ‘For whom do you sing?’ called Caradog, making the familiar preamble to song.

  ‘I sing for Caradog, son of Belinus, prince of the Catuvellauni, mighty warrior of the Medway, slayer of Romans, protector of Albion, father of warriors yet to be born. I sing more beautifully, more powerfully, than any poet.’

  I felt my eyes widen. His voice was as strong as flame. He spoke with authority. As if he bore no imperfection. How did one so flawed learn such grace?

  Glancing at me, he lifted his staff, then closed his eyes as he prepared himself.

  The hall fell quiet.

  Of what would he sing? The role of the Songman was three-fold: to praise his chieftain, to mock our enemies, to revive the great warriors of the past by invoking their voices. Always the words were riddled to draw the audience beyond their surface.

  He began to pound the earth with his staff, setting the pulse that would sustain his story.

  Then he started to sing.

  Even the beauty of his speech had given me no warning of what I now heard.

  What was this sound that came from his chest? How did he create, with only breath and the tissues through which it passed, something so powerful? It was his soul unsheathed. His voice was bone and muscle, a serpent, birthed in his belly and formed with his tongue.

  The audience listened, enthralled, as the serpent wove through the silent hall.

  I sing of a maiden who leaps to bright Annwyn

  As strong as a salmon, as swift as a hound.

  I sing of a maiden whose chest has been opened,

  Whose breast is a vessel that runs with the song.

  I smiled. A Kendra’s story. I glanced at Caradog. Had he commanded his Songman to sing one of these ancient stories in my honour? He stared straight ahead, entranced by his poet. It seemed that the Songman’s choice had been his own.

  I sing of an army who spread like a bloodstain,

  Who run like the soulless, un-kept by the song.

  I sing of a maiden who sees not the danger,

  Whose eyes wear a skin, though her spirit: not yet.

  I sipped my ale. It was not only the words that told the story. There was meaning in his rhythms, his sound-shapes, his very bearing. The riddle was bewildering, yet somehow familiar.

  I sing of a stag who buries the maiden,

  In Annwyn’s dark chamber she finds the sky’s light.

  I sing of a maiden who soars as a raven,

  Who sees the land’s headless and knows they are lost.

  My fingers tightened around my cup with the horror of recognition. This was not just a Kendra’s story, timeless and oft-sung. This was my story.

  I sing of a she-dog, voiceless and buried,

  Who howls to her warriors to lay down their swords.

  I sat unmoving, rigid with fear. Was this to be my exposing? The poets were tasked to pour scorn as well as to praise. Their judgements were revered. Would Rhain condemn me with this song?

  He went on singing verse after verse. Each told, with greater clarity, the story of what I had done in Caer Cad. Yet, as I glanced around me, it was not condemnation I saw in the faces of the audience, but rapture. Did they not hear the hidden meaning? Were they too caught in the thrall of his voice?

  No, it was not this. Although Rhain’s poem bore witness to the harm I had caused, it was not the deeper truth of what he sang. As I listened, I began to hear another story finding its shape.

  I sing of a Kendra who walks through the bleeding,

  Their dying breaths knitting to weave her a skin.

  I sing of a Kendra, so beloved by the Mothers

  That they would slay thousands to bring her to song.

  I sing of a Kendra reborn of the mountain,

  Whose wound pours the song from which Albion drinks.

  My eyes ached with tears. His song did not betray me. It took my failing and forged it into something beautiful. It spoke of the purity of my intent. It was my story, but he had created something greater.

  I did not know how Rhain had come to learn my history. There were so few living who knew it. He must have heard, in the winds of Albion, what even Prydd had not. It did not matter now. He had chosen to protect me and I would not question it.

  There was no sound other than the low moan of the wind outside the hall and the voice within. Rhain’s craft was a rope that lashed us together.

  I stared at him. He was nothing but beguiling now, despite the oddness of his bones. What was his own story that he should wield such tools of enchantment? There were many singers in Albion, one at least for each chief and many beyond, but his was a skill above all others.

  I wanted to learn it.

  The song finished and Rhain bowed as the guests stamped and cried their appreciation.

  I clos
ed my eyes in a silent prayer of thanks to the Mothers. For I would not train with Prydd. I would ask this man Rhain if he would be my teacher, if he would share this gift.

  If I could wield song in this way, perhaps I would be worthy of the praise he had offered.

  If I could wield song in this way, I would not be a figurehead, a title. I would be a shaper of souls.

  2

  Annwyn

  We call our land Albion, meaning light,

  or that which can be seen.

  Within it is the unseen.

  We call this Annwyn.

  It is place and not place.

  It is another way of knowing.

  LL EU. THE sky’s gleaming warrior. He who lives, dies, and lives again. The sun.

  At his first light, I walked to the temple to offer libation. As highest ranked journeywoman, it was my duty to acknowledge Lleu’s rebirth each day on behalf of the tribe.

  I pushed aside the speckled mare-skin that covered the doorway and stepped in.

  The temple was larger than that of Caer Cad. Four separate fires marked the directions, each guarded by sheep skulls and smoking herb pots.

  Opposite the entrance, aligned to the light of the midwinter dawn, was an oak box, waist height, fitted with a bolted lid. On the outside was a skin of sheeted silver hammered into intricate patterns. Inside were bones, blood, flesh and viscera; slain offerings seeping into the earth below.

  This was the belly of the temple: the altar. I stood before it, a square of sky visible above me through an opening in the roof. Were it not for this vent, the stench would be so overwhelming that none could sit in chant for the hours that our worship required.

  I lowered my head to begin, and breathed in the aroma of putrefying flesh mingled with nettle and thyme smoke. This pungent soup was the smell of our reverence. I had missed it.

  ‘Can you sharpen this and restore the blade?’ I asked, holding forth my bronze sword.

  The smith took the weapon and examined it. He traced his blackened fingers along the blade-edge and over the carved bone hilt. ‘A good piece.’