Songwoman Page 4

  I had not used my Kendra’s sword in battle since I had last met Roman soldiers. It was not the journeypeople’s role to fight, yet I had learnt it in my training, and I wished to be prepared should I be called to use my weapon now.

  The smith laid it down on the workbench between us. ‘It will take me some time. Come back this afternoon—’

  ‘I’ll wait now…if you will permit it.’

  He looked up. ‘As you wish.’

  I nodded and picked up a rod of black, unforged metal. It was cold and heavy in my palm. Iron. The Mothers’ blood, congealed and hardened. Drawn from the earth to form our wheels, hinges, tools and knives. I rubbed my thumb over its gritty surface. It had none of the magic of bronze, but a different, more stable, power.

  ‘There’s a bench outside.’ The smith motioned towards the back door. ‘One of my students is working there. He’ll keep you company.’ The back of the smith’s hut faced the western wall, above which sharp-edged rain clouds shone silver in the autumn sun.

  ‘Lleu’s greetings,’ said a voice from behind me.

  I turned to see Caradog seated on a bench, a bronze disc wedged between his knees.

  ‘And to you.’

  He frowned. ‘Do you seek me?’

  ‘Oh no…I await my sword.’

  He stared at me for a moment, then turned back to his work. In one hand was a puncturing tool, in the other a smith’s mallet. A set of measuring points lay on the bench.

  ‘What do you craft?’

  ‘A plate for my shield. Could you steady it?’

  I moved the measuring points aside to sit down, and took hold of the disc.

  Caradog had embossed a circle border, and was beginning a pattern of triskeles within it. He took up the measuring points and marked out the centre of the final spiral.

  I watched his large hands with surprise. I had never known a warrior to have learnt this craft, let alone one who commanded a war band. The arts of the pattern-smith required long training and a knowledge of sacred angles that was closely guarded. ‘How have you learned this?’ I asked.

  ‘I threatened to cut off my first teacher’s thumb if she didn’t tell me. I had my axe raised and her hand on the block before she would spill.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘I am joking!’ he said. ‘I had a teacher who cared more for a hungry mind than an initiated one. Besides, I came close to pursuing the journeyman’s path, but I was too brilliant a swordsman.’ He shrugged.

  I laughed. ‘I, too, have known such teachers. Without them I would not be Kendra.’

  Caradog looked up from his work. ‘My Songman tells me you came late to skin?’

  ‘Yes.’ It was still tender to speak of it. Skin was our kinship to the land and the Mothers who formed it. The disgrace of skinlessness was not easily cast off.

  Caradog looked back to his bronze. ‘How long were you without it?’

  ‘Seventeen years.’ It was a long time to have lived in shame. How would he judge it? How freely did his mind roam beyond the confines of our laws?

  ‘I am impressed,’ he said. ‘It takes strength to survive without a totem.’

  I nodded, my shoulders softening. ‘What is yours?’

  ‘I am skin to the wren.’

  I smiled. Elusive. Cunning. King of birds. I stared at the place where his beard became sparse, at a tiny blemish, part-healed, on his cheek.

  ‘Can you hold at the top?’

  I changed my grip. With a steady tapping, he formed one tentacle of the swirling triskele. There were many meanings in the shape: the turning of the sun, the cycling of the seasons, the interweaving of future and past. The proportions echoed the structures of oak leaves, mistleberries, and the solstice angles of Lleu himself, but only those trained in measurement knew what they were.

  He had a gift for this craft. ‘Why do you do this?’ I asked. ‘Is there an abundance of spare time when you are leader of the free tribes?’

  His eyes creased at the corners when he smiled. ‘Because it settles me,’ he said. ‘And I like the smell of the metal.’

  I smiled. ‘It has no smell.’

  He lifted the plate.

  I leaned forward and breathed in the coppery bronze. There was a faint mineral scent of wet earth and flesh.

  ‘Some say metal is all we fight for.’

  ‘More than that, surely?’

  ‘Is it not all? For Rome, it is the fuel of their Empire.’

  ‘And for us?’ I asked.

  ‘For us it is something else.’ He looked at me. ‘But you don’t need me to tell you what we fight for.’

  I met his gaze. ‘I would like to know what you fight for?’

  ‘I fight because I am good at it.’

  He reached over me to pick up a measuring tool and I flinched at his touch. I saw him notice and my face grew hot. A silence stretched between us.

  Finally he said, ‘Kendra, if you wish to aid me, I will put you on my war council. It is small as I do not desire the word of many advisors. But you should know something of me if you wish to be in my service.’

  I frowned. ‘What do you wish me to know?’

  ‘There are two things I despise above all others. The first will be easy to guess. It is the enemy of every warrior. Or should be.’

  ‘Disloyalty,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. I value little more than the commitment of a man to his chief and his tribe. And—’ he glanced sideways at me, ‘—to his wife.’

  I stared at the town wall, my face smouldering with humiliation. He had seen me flare in response to him and he was warning me off. He had no need, no right, to do so. My heart was claimed, bound. No warrior, no touch, would ever turn me. ‘I share your contempt,’ I said.

  ‘Good then.’ He resumed tapping the shield plate.

  ‘What is the second thing?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What is the second thing you despise?’

  ‘Oh.’ He paused. ‘Boredom.’

  I thought for a moment. ‘Those two aversions may fall into conflict.’

  He smiled. ‘They do…always.’

  Our quietness was shattered by shouts, then a woman’s scream.

  Caradog met my eye and set down the bronze.

  As we hurried through the winding streets, more and more voices took up the wailing. Others had heard it, and were hastening towards Hefin’s courtyard, from where the cries were rising.

  ‘He is cut!’

  ‘They’ve taken his tongue!’

  Caradog pushed through the dense crowd that had gathered in the courtyard and I followed.

  At the centre of the throng, braced by Prydd on one side and Hefin on the other, was a knave of no more than fifteen summers. His eyes were wide with terror, his jaw and tunic black with dried blood. He convulsed in a cough and a fresh, red stream trickled from his mouth.

  ‘Was it by Roman hand?’ Caradog asked.

  The youth nodded.

  The women cried and keened.

  ‘Who is he?’ I gasped.

  ‘He is one of Hefin’s messengers,’ said Prydd. ‘He was sent to bear news of your arrival to the other chieftains—at Caradog’s command, but against mine. He left at dawn this morning.’

  I reeled in horror. ‘But how did they find him?’

  ‘Scouts,’ said Caradog. ‘They take the tongues of our messengers whenever they find them, but this is the first attack since midsummer.’ He looked to Hefin. ‘Plautius is still roaming.’

  ‘At least we know he didn’t spill,’ said Hefin. ‘Else they wouldn’t have torn his tongue.’

  ‘Or he already had,’ said Caradog.

  The messenger began to pale and sway. ‘Give him air!’ I commanded. I tore a strip from my under-robe and made a wad for him to bite, to stem the bleeding. ‘Make way,’ I said, ‘I need to take him to the healing hut.’

  ‘Our healers will tend him,’ said Prydd. ‘It is not your task.’

  ‘I have knowledge of medicine,’ I answered. ‘And he has tak
en this wound on my behalf. I will heal him.’

  Prydd frowned. I had no wish to further arouse his disfavour, but I knew that I had the best knowledge to tend this wound.

  The messenger fell against me as I took Prydd’s place in holding him upright. My heart lurched as I realised I could heal him but never restore him. By this act, the Romans inflicted an injury worse than death. The tongue was speech, our humanity.

  ‘Make way,’ I called again, as Hefin and I walked him forward.

  Caradog gripped my wrist. ‘Leave him.’

  ‘Please, War Chief. He won’t survive without—’

  ‘What purpose is his survival? They have taken his soul.’ In a practised movement, he took hold of the injured man, cradling him in one arm and drawing his knife with the other.

  A scream of protest rang out from the crowd.

  The messenger’s head fell back against Caradog’s chest, his throat exposed. He was too weak from blood loss to struggle.

  Caradog kissed him, then killed him and laid him on the ground. ‘I will not have the mark of Rome’s evil in my presence,’ he said when he had risen.

  The watching township stood in silence.

  Prydd stood before me as the crowd dispersed. ‘This is not well,’ he said. He turned to Caradog. ‘I hope my counsel will not go unheeded again.’

  Caradog nodded.

  After I had helped carry the messenger’s body to his house for washing, and given his mother a tea of sun wort to still her shaking, I set out towards Caradog’s camp in search of Rhain, who had not been present at the death.

  My mind turned the event as I walked through the ramparts. Prydd had been angered by the killing. I feared he would see me as its omen and convince Caradog so. And what should I make of the war chief? He had revealed thoughtfulness at the smith’s hut. Now I saw that he could not be predicted.

  I glanced skyward as I wove through the woodland bordering the camp. The clouds had darkened, threatening rain. Neha kept pace with my hastened stride.

  The camp was a warren of tents and huts. Draped across their openings were tartans of almost every tribe, from the Catuvellauni at our land’s far edge, to the Dobunni, to our immediate east.

  The camp-dwellers were sitting around fires, or resting on the backs of carts. A strange stillness hung over the makeshift town. These people were homeless. They had torn themselves from their tribelands, rather than remain on soil ruled by Rome. They nodded and greeted me as I passed them, but there was a paralysis, a sense of suspension in the idleness that could not be filled with tending their fields or grinding their wheat. They were surviving on Hefin’s surplus grain, and I wondered what Caradog intended for the winter when this ran low. A young woman, suckling a babe, told me that Caradog’s Songman often took to the wild apple grove at the camp’s south edge.

  The path into the grove was a tunnel of gnarled branches and blackberry bushes, its air syrupy with the rot of fallen apples. Neha found Rhain beneath a still-laden tree, head bowed in chant. He looked up at my footsteps.

  I was startled anew by the contours of his face. The flesh of his left cheek seemed to pull backwards, twisting his features and exposing too much of his eye’s white orb. He looked like a being in transformation, like a journeyman caught between realms, half-bent to animal form and trapped partway in the transition. But his brown eyes were steady.

  ‘Join me,’ he said, petting Neha, who was sniffing at his harp propped against the trunk. ‘She can smell the fat on the strings.’

  I sat down on the grassy root bed. ‘Are you composing a war song?’ I asked. ‘For the winter’s attack?’

  ‘Not a war song,’ he said. ‘A cauldron song.’

  I nodded. These were beloved stories among the tribes, tales of magical vessels that provided ever-replenishing nourishment and could restore beheaded warriors to life. We needed their hopefulness now.

  ‘Your song last night…’ I began. ‘How did you learn of…the story?’

  Rhain laughed. ‘Poetic inspiration.’

  ‘I am in earnest.’

  ‘As am I.’

  I smiled. Of course he would not reveal himself. He was a journeyman after all. ‘How did you come to song?’ I asked.

  ‘When you look like a boiled turnip you must find another pathway to beauty.’

  I spluttered with laughter. ‘But how have you…?’ My words faded.

  ‘…endured with such a disfigurement?’ he finished for me.

  I nodded.

  He held my gaze for a moment, then turned his back to me and loosened his shirt, letting it fall from his shoulders. His back was broad and handsomely shaped, but the skin that covered it was as puckered and crimson as raspberries.

  I recognised the scarring of fire. ‘How?’ I whispered.

  He re-fastened his shirt. ‘On Caradog’s initiation day,’ he said. ‘Two other newly-made warriors—drunk as suckling piglets—wished to cleanse my impurities with flame. One held me, as the other brought his torch to my skin. Caradog found us. He sent them both to Annwyn.’

  ‘Slayed them?’

  ‘Ay. His father was furious. The honour price for two fresh warriors was not low, and Belinus hated to part with his cattle. But none touched me after that.’ Rhain chuckled. ‘In return, I pledged Caradog my voice.’

  I frowned. It was right and honourable for Caradog to have protected this gentle man, but was slaughter required? Was it this morning?

  Rhain read my pause. ‘He kills readily when he believes it fair. It is both strength and weakness.’

  I stared at the knotted tree roots. ‘He stilled a man too quickly this morn.’

  ‘Yes, I have heard,’ said Rhain. ‘Night and day.’

  I frowned. ‘What say you?’

  ‘Night and day is what he sees. He knows no mingled light of dawn or evening. Others must tell him of this.’ He glanced at me. ‘But he listens to few others.’

  ‘He listens to you.’ I realised I envied him this.

  ‘Ay,’ agreed Rhain. ‘He is soothed by my song.’

  ‘More than that. Your song guides him.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘I have led him once or twice through the gloaming.’

  We sat unspeaking. The air had grown heavy with the promise of rain.

  ‘Journeyman,’ I ventured. My heart began to beat faster. ‘I am Kendra, but I am not long-trained in the knowledge of the tribes.’ I paused. ‘Will you be my teacher in the craft of song?’

  His gaze was direct. ‘I know of no Kendra who has trained as Songwoman,’ he said. ‘It is too arduous, too tedious. It is not thought to be the most powerful use of her gift.’

  ‘And yet I believe that it is.’

  He began to laugh.

  ‘What is amusing?’

  His eyes shone. ‘You are a riddle. A journeywoman who rose without skin. A Kendra who would be Songwoman.’

  ‘But will you teach me?’

  ‘It is certain that I might.’ His fine hand ran over the bells attached to his belt. ‘Why do you want to learn song?’

  ‘Because I…I bear the Kendra’s knowledge, but not the voice to make it heard.’

  He smiled. How quickly his disfigurement receded once his spirit emerged. ‘Some will not want you to learn this craft. They will fear the power in it.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. Prydd. There would be others.

  His eyes shone. ‘What form will you take when they come in pursuit?’

  My mind sparked. ‘I will transform myself into a hare.’

  ‘And if they transform to a hound?’

  ‘Then I will become a fish.’

  He could not hide his delight. ‘And if they transform to an otter?’

  ‘Then I will become a bird.’

  ‘And if they then become a hawk?’

  ‘Then I will fly into a grain store and transform myself to a grain of corn.’

  Rhain laughed and laughed. ‘None will find you there and your knowledge will be safe.’

  Cold dropl
ets of rain began to spit on my cheek. How I had missed the play of journey-law, the axle on which our knowledge turned, the dance with what was hidden. I had tasted it in my short Kendra’s training. I wanted to feast on it. ‘I ask you again, Rhain the Songman: will you teach me?’

  ‘Be warned,’ he said, ‘it will madden you…and you will grow tired of my company…’

  ‘I will endure it.’

  ‘Then ask the hairless one,’ he said. ‘With his approval I will teach you. Without it, I will not. I have no wish to provoke the man who wields the staff of Môn in this tribe.’

  I grabbed his small, cold hand and pressed it to my lips. ‘I will make Prydd approve it.’

  By the time I reached the outskirts of the township, the rain was steady. I made a hood of my shawl.

  The men who had been digging the new rampart were trailing back to the township, crowding the path so that I did not at first notice a tiny, barefooted girl, crouched at the road’s edge. Neha nosed her as she whimpered with cold.

  ‘Tidings, small one,’ I said, squatting before her. ‘Where is your Mam?’

  She looked up with the black-brown eyes so common to this tribe. She was no older than five summers at most, with the wizened features and scabbed lips of the poorly fed.

  I hooked a wet tendril behind her ear. She was not one of Caradog’s followers; she was too untended. She was a fringe-child, daughter of those who lived in rough huts beyond the walls of the township, shunned by the tribe for a crime, or disfigurement, or for being without skin.

  I looked around, but there were none who appeared to be searching for a child. ‘Come.’ I helped her to her feet then lifted her into my arms. ‘I will feed you, then we will find your Mam.’

  She clung to my neck as I continued up the steep path. I had not held a human body so close since I had left my township. I had forgotten the sweetness of it, though this one trembled in my grasp. ‘Are you skin to the mountain sheep?’ I whispered, panting with my cargo. Most of Llanmelin bore this totem.

  ‘Unskinned,’ she bleated, close to my ear.

  I tightened my grip.

  In the warmth of my hut, I pulled off her sodden dress, wrapped her in a blanket and gave her a cup of the broth I had set on the fire this morning. She began eating with a hound’s hunger.