Skin Read online

  ‘Ay—begin, begin,’ she urged. ‘The mixture will not hold for long.’

  I finished walking the circle of upturned faces, dripping the poison into each pair of eyes. ‘It will pass in a moment,’ I whispered to one, who winced with the sting.

  Eyes streaming, the men stood, making the cries of the animal they would hunt: the short blasting snorts of the doe, the guttural grunts of the tending buck. They mimicked not in disdain but in kinship. The eating of totem meat was forbidden, except at Beltane when it was hunted, just once, and eaten to remake the bonds.

  Fibor called the dedication and strode to the doorway. The men gathered their weapons and followed him out to the roadway, headed for the forest’s edge where the dimming light would embolden the deer and draw them out from the shelter of trees.

  ‘Return with deer or shame!’ Cookmother cried after them. She took my arm. ‘Well worked, Ailia,’ she said.

  ‘The knave Ruther proclaims himself loudly.’ Bebin passed a branch of fresh hawthorn to me as I stood atop an upturned woodbox. We were decorating the Great House and it was tiring work; five men on end would not reach its roof peak and five farm huts would not cover its floor.

  ‘Too loudly,’ I agreed, tucking the sprig of white blossoms behind a beam. Delicate petals showered on her head as I wedged it in.

  ‘Still,’ she said, ‘you seem to have caught his eye at market this morning.’

  ‘As many others catch his eye.’ I jumped off the box and dragged it under the next beam.

  ‘Choose carefully if he comes seeking you tonight,’ Bebin paused as she followed me, finding her words. ‘He is changed from what I remember of him.’

  I straightened to face her. ‘How so?’

  ‘I’m not sure. There’s a newness in him. Something not of the tribes.’

  ‘And Uaine? Is he so changed?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she answered. ‘But Ruther is somehow at its source.’

  I laughed off her warning. ‘He is the son of a high warrior to the deer. He won’t come looking for a skinless girl.’ I paused. ‘No one will.’

  ‘Oh, Ailia.’ She took my hand. ‘It will be you who’ll do the choosing. There are knaves who’d have had you long since.’

  ‘None of honour.’ I picked a bud from the branches cradled in her arm. ‘And even if there were, I have no clan ties to offer in marriage.’

  Bebin threw back her head and laughed in the way that saw her first coupled at every festival. ‘Beltane is no time for making marriages. It’s the night to throw rings off!’ She set down the branches on the box and turned to me. ‘This is the marriage of earth and sun! Clan ties mean little tonight.’

  I nodded. ‘There’s a petal on your cheek.’

  ‘Sweet friend,’ Bebin said, looping her arm around my waist. ‘Do not be nervous. All will be well.’

  Not until the sun nudged the western horizon did we hear the shouts and barks of the returning hunt. Bebin and I were in the courtyard, stoking the roasting pit outside the Great House. We rushed to the queen’s gate, where a crowd was gathering to meet the hunters.

  Fibor came first, then the others strode through the gate, a strung milking doe swinging between them, its pelt matted with blood. The last of the hunters carried its young—a single buck, unharmed, no more than one moon old.

  We followed them to the Great House, where the doe was laid on the ground at the door and received by Fraid, before the hunters swiftly gutted and lowered it, without beheading, into the pit. There were cheers and laughter from the crowd and Neha surged forward with the rest of the dogs, snarling and snapping for her share of the innards.

  I stood back while the doe was covered with straw, stones and finally earth. As I turned to go back to the kitchen, I noticed the baby buck standing wide-eyed and alone beside me, paralysed by the noise and the dogs. I scooped it up, its spindly mass no heavier than a basket of bread. It struggled feebly then collapsed, trembling, into my arms.

  Fraid called to the crowd. ‘Look how the sun is nearly set. Go to your homes, put out your hearths and ready yourselves for the fires!’

  With shouts of excitement, the crowd dispersed and Bebin came to my side, cooing and fussing over the baby deer.

  ‘Ailia!’ Fraid called. ‘Go and lay out my metals. I will follow soon to dress.’

  ‘Can you take him back to the kitchen?’ I asked, pushing the buck into Bebin’s arms.

  As I walked to the sleephouse, I saw townspeople tying rowan branches to their doorways. The boughs would protect against the dark spirits who could steal forth when the Beltane fires burned a hole to the Otherworld. The rowan was a reminder to us that when we sought light, there was an equal risk of finding darkness.

  From the baskets and boxes that rimmed her walls, I pulled out all of Fraid’s metals onto a table draped with cloth, wondering what she would choose tonight. Next to the coloured armbands, anklets, neckrings and her silver festival torque was my favourite of her ornaments: a bronze hand mirror with the swirling face of a Mother engraved on its back. I picked up the mirror, savouring the weight and lustre of the metal and the texture of its scored pattern under my fingertips. I loved the spinning patterns that flowed from the hands of our makers. None of the Roman crafts were ever as beautiful.

  On a wooden stand beside the table was the Tribequeen’s diadem, the tribe’s most sacred piece. With its hammered gold and flame-coloured stones, it seemed as if lit from within.

  Glancing at the doorway, I set the mirror down. Then with both hands, I lifted the crown—heavier than I expected—and placed it on my head. When I held the mirror to my face, I gasped. Before me was a queen. A Mother.

  ‘Ailia?’ Fraid was at the doorway. ‘What are you doing?’

  I wrenched the crown from my head and pushed it back onto its stand.

  ‘This headpiece marks the first consort to the deer,’ she said, striding toward me. ‘Do you seek to defile it?’

  ‘No!’ I assured her, furious with my stupidity. ‘I am sorry, Tribequeen. I…I was beguiled by the metal—’

  She stood before me, surprise knotting her brow. ‘You might have my favour,’ she said, ‘but do not forget that I am at the very limits of my grace in keeping you here. Do not give me cause to release you. You are here by a spider’s thread.’

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered, bowing my head.

  ‘Oh, Ailia,’ she sighed as she sat on her stool. ‘This is not as I expect of you. Come.’ Her voice softened. ‘You are unsettled as we all are by the news from the east. Now, we shall forget this and you will help me dress.’

  I nodded in gratitude and brought the robes from her cloak stand.

  She raised her arms so I could slip the silk under-robe over her bare torso, followed by a dress of clan tartan threaded with silver. She wrapped her chain belt twice around her waist and let the heavy bronze charm rest against her belly. I helped her slide her narrow feet into leather sandals ornamented with twisting metal and coloured stones. Then she sat very still while I blackened her fine eyebrows with berry juice and rubbed roan into her cheeks.

  Admiring her own beauty in the bronze mirror, she caught my eye in the reflection. ‘You run the fi
res also tonight, do you not?’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you like me to colour your lips?’

  I nodded and crouched beside her.

  Her fingertips were cool as she patted powdery roan across my mouth and cheeks. Then she feathered a small juice-soaked brush over my eyebrows and dabbed rose oil at my temple and throat.

  ‘There,’ she said, handing me the mirror. ‘Does it please you?’

  My eyes widened in the mirror. The colours made them sparkle and had turned my lips to petals. My tinted cheeks tempered my jaw, drawing my face into perfect alignment. I was beautiful.

  Fraid, too, seemed astonished. She looked at me as though seeing me for the first time. ‘I may have chosen the First Maiden this morning, but it seems the Mothers have chosen you.’ She laughed.

  She asked for rose oil to be rubbed into her arms and shoulders so they would gleam in the firelight. As I stroked her skin, I marvelled at how it was just like my own: warm, alive, pale from the winter sun. It held her as mine held me, and wept blood when cut, as mine did also. Our skin was the same. Yet hers had a name and mine had none.

  After admiring my face, Bebin brushed my unruly hair and wove the crimson ribbon down its full length as I kneeled on the floorskins before her. I could hear the distant shouts of the men dragging the last of the branches up to the bonfires on Sister Hill. Ianna and Cah were already dressed and readied, waiting outside, watching the Beltane moon rise.

  Cookmother groaned, struggling to feed the buck by the fire. She grew more and more impatient, guiding its whiskery mouth to her nipple. ‘By Mothers, there’s scarcely a drop left in these useless sacks,’ she muttered, kneading her breast. ‘I’m too old for this. Bebin, you need to start breeding so I can be free of this cursed nursing.’ She would feed the buck until it was strong enough to be given back to the forest. When the hunt took a feeding mother, this was what we had to do.

  Cah’s face burst through the doorskins. ‘Come!’ she called. ‘It will be over before we leave.’

  Bebin squeezed my shoulders. ‘Let’s away.’

  ‘I’ll catch up,’ I said, rising. ‘I want to settle the buck first.’

  ‘Butter heart!’ She shook her head. ‘Be quick at least.’

  Milk bubbled from the buck’s nostrils when he had drunk his fill and Cookmother put him down on the floor with a thud. ‘It’ll stink of deer shit in the morning,’ she muttered, getting up.

  I fashioned the tiny deer a nest of straw in my own bedskins and cradled him into it. He quivered at my touch. ‘Hush, youngling,’ I cooed. ‘You’re safe here.’

  I stared at his dewy face, the whisper of spots across his back, and wondered at the wash of love that rose in my chest. Was this skin love? Was this my kin? I had grown on deer country. Surely my kin could not be far from here. But no one had claimed me. It was said that those without skin were still seeking their souls. I took a deep breath as I stroked the creature’s knobby spine. If I was without a soul, what was it that heaved and thrashed within me?

  Neha approached, sniffed the buck, and flopped down beside it.

  ‘That’s it, girl. You watch him for me.’ I stood to leave.

  Cookmother was poking inside the rosewood chest where her most precious oils and powders were kept. She pulled out a tiny leather pouch and brought it to me, pressing it into my hand. ‘I meant this for your next birthday,’ she said. ‘But every maiden needs a threshold gift on her first Beltane, so take it now.’

  Inside the pouch was a gold pin in the shape of a fish. I shook it out into my palm, then fastened it to the front of my new yellow dress.

  She crushed me with her embrace and I breathed in the warm, sour smell that had swathed me all my childhood. ‘Let me take the red ribbon out and thread a blue so you can sleep in peace another summer,’ she whispered. ‘Men’s hunger is like a dog’s—always sharp.’

  ‘Leave it so. I am ready.’

  Through sacred love the fields are made fertile.

  Through sacred love we are freed from famine.

  Through sacred love the world is renewed.

  I WALKED THE torch-lined path to Sister Hill with Bebin, Ianna and Cah. The moon hung fat and low in the eastern sky, teasing a honey fragrance from the elder blossoms that brushed our shoulders as we passed. We all wore dresses of yellow and orange, and our hair ribbons whipped in the wind. Laughter trailed down the hillside and the air felt ripe with magic.

  Cah pulled a flask from her belt pocket and took a long swig.

  ‘Ay, Cah, do you not want steady wits for the rite?’ said Bebin.

  ‘Surely it is a night to abandon steady wits?’ She offered it around but we refused. ‘Mind you are not chosen by Fec, Ailia. He is as ugly as a boar and carries contagion, I am told.’

  ‘Cah!’ chided Ianna.

  ‘Well, it’s true. I see you smile.’

  ‘You’ll not have Fec,’ whispered Bebin into my ear. ‘It will be a noble match for you this night.’

  As we neared the crest, the unlit woodpiles reared like two beasts silhouetted against the western sky. Circled around them were the journeymen and -women, chanting purifications for the flames to come. Tribespeople milled around the poles set for the dance. Men had worked for three days to dig holes deep enough to hold the trunks upright. Eleven had already been positioned. The raising of the twelfth would commence the rite.

  At the pole-bearer’s cry, we all surged back, making space for the men to bring the trunk. It was a grown oak, freshly felled, its skin smoothed to a silk sheen and wound tight with twelve ribbons along its length. It took ten men to manoeuvre it over the final hole, shuffling forwards then back until they were in place.

  ‘Down!’ came the call and the pole rose skyward. Tribeswomen packed the base with dirt so it stood as firm and straight as the others. I craned my neck to see them all: stretching from earth to sky, the ribbons like water, swirling about them.

  A drum strike began. It was time to dance. The crowd fanned open to form a circle.

  Instinctively, I moved to the back. Already the music was coiling around me and I was swaying and treading with its pulse. There was little my bones loved more than to dance.

  ‘Come!’ Bebin tugged my hand. ‘It’s your threshold year—you must dance at the poles.’

  ‘No,’ I said, horrified. ‘I am not permitted.’

  She grabbed both my shoulders, thrusting her face close to mine. ‘Ailia, you are true and whole and you love the Mothers more than any I know. Come and dance. No one will protest it this night. The Mothers know your heart—’

  ‘Wait—’ But she was pulling me into the centre.

  There were twelve maidens to a pole. We each caught a dangling ribbon and began to walk. The weight of so many eyes upon me was crippling, but I listened to the drumbeat and forced myself forward.

  A second, faster rhythm began, counter to the first, and this was our call to start the steps: a fast-moving pattern of footwork, twisting one leg behind the other. I watched Bebin ahead of me, her hips and shoulders rolling smoothly. The ritual was deep in her body and she wove its spell effortlessly.

  The tribespeo
ple began to sing and the drums gathered pace. My feet kicked up dirt as I danced. Panting, I kept my eyes fixed on Bebin, her hair sailing behind her. Faces blurred as they flew by. The drums become faster, the chant yet louder. Soon I was sweating, heat pouring through me. My chest cried to stop but I danced faster and harder.

  Now I felt the magic we pounded in the dirt. Now I felt the power of the dance to wake the Mothers from their winter sleep. Now it was no longer a dance, no longer twelve maidens. It was a wheel wrought of our bodies and as it turned I was flooded with an intense joy. I ran and ran until I was no longer there. There was earth and sky and the poles that bridged them but I, Ailia, had melted away and there was only the dance. Only the wheel.

  A voice was raised in a mighty call and the drumbeat ceased.

  We stopped, breath ragged. The fires were to be lit. I hurried back into the crowd, my heart still hammering.

  Llwyd stood between the two woodpiles, arms raised. We fell silent to hear him speak. ‘Our earthly world—our hardworld—is a place of wildness,’ he began. ‘The forces of chaos run through its veins. They are our breath and our devastation.’

  The crowd gave a rumbling cheer.

  ‘By our knowledge—by skin—we are aligned to these forces. Yet we know in our souls they can never be harnessed. The wildness is stronger than us and we are always subject to its mystery and power.’

  Voices began to swell.

  ‘This night, beloved people of Summer, we kindle the fires that will cleanse our cattle, seed the belly of our earth, and bless our souls. Then—’ he paused for a moment, ‘—let the forces of chaos run free!’

  The crowd erupted into cheers. Two lesser journeymen approached, bearing burning sticks. Over stamping and shouting, they called the final incantations to the Mothers and the towering woodpiles were ignited.