Songwoman Read online

  Rhain nodded. ‘Whether or not we retain our sovereignty, the war begins to tear us from what is true.’

  The grove was alight with darting wrens, drawn by the insects hovering near the fruit.

  ‘What shall I do, Songman?’

  ‘I will not presume to advise she who has stood at creation,’ he said gently.

  I nodded, grateful that he, at least, acknowledged my memory.

  He picked up his water skin and unplugged the stop.

  ‘May I?’ I asked when he had drunk. My own skin was empty.

  He handed me the flaccid bag. ‘I like it stronger than most,’ he warned.

  I took a thirsty sip then almost spat out the liquid. Many mixed a little spirit with their water, especially where it was not freshly drawn, but this was undiluted ale, dark and potent. How did he withstand a day’s worth of such powerful refreshment? Something in the way he stared unwaveringly at the bramble as I gave him back the bladder urged me not to question him.

  ‘When shall we begin the lessons of song?’ I asked.

  ‘Now,’ he said. ‘If you are not too tired.’

  ‘Not at all,’ I said, turning to face him.

  ‘The first lesson is short,’ he said. ‘It pertains to the three aspects that make a poem strong. The first is its meaning. The second is its beauty. The third is the most important and difficult to teach. It is always the last thing to be attained…’

  ‘What is it?’ I was not in a mood for riddles.

  Rhain paused, then said softly, ‘The poet’s authority.’

  I half-laughed. ‘I am Kendra. Surely authority is what I already possess?’

  ‘It is not the appearance of authority that the poem requires,’ he said. ‘It is true sovereignty of the voice.’

  I frowned. ‘But is this not what you will teach me, Songman?’

  ‘I can teach you the stories that will create meaning,’ he said. ‘I can teach you the word-craft and intonation to bring your poems beauty.’ He paused, wrapping his fingers around his staff. ‘But the boldness, the authority of the Songwoman, must be yours alone.’

  Caradog sent out riders, through forest trackways where enemy scouts would never be met, to carry the news that an attack was now imminent and that whoever opposed Rome should join him by the next dark moon.

  Prydd had measured the stars. Winter’s Eve was in six nights. The war band would ride for Tir Dobunni three dawns after that.

  The first band of warriors emerged from the northwest mountains only a day after the message was sent, late-morning sun glinting from their shields as they rode towards the ramparts. Euvrain and I stood beside Caradog as he met them at the gateway. I saw the thankfulness in his face as they knelt before him to make their vows. There was humility in his ambition, after all. He knew that he could not do it alone.

  For six days the bands trailed in, broadening Caradog’s camp until it was an ocean of tents, carts and horses. Fighters from the Decleangli and Ordovices came from the north, the Silures to our west. Never had I seen such numbers of warriors.

  By day they trained their weapon skills and by night they drank ale and demanded stories by their fires. Caradog walked among them constantly. He was not a leader to rule from the chieftain’s hut, but parried with them, learning their strengths that he might place them well in battle, and sat at their fires, praising their courage and the greatness of their ancestors. ‘This is the strongest fighting band Albion has ever known,’ he told them in turn. ‘This is the band that will turn the war.’

  I saw the ties of loyalty it wove.

  Caradog often asked me to accompany him as he walked through the camp, announcing that the Mothers had blessed this war by returning the Kendra. But beyond these displays, he spoke little to me, and did not linger beside me when we returned to the township.

  No matter how early I rose to walk to the temple, Caradog was always standing on the northern platform, looking out towards the mountains in the chill autumn dawn. Although over forty chieftains had joined us, there were still many others who had not. They sent back messages that they would not move on an enemy who was yet to threaten their territory. But we all knew it was because Caradog did not yet have their trust.

  In the meetings of the council one name arose more often and with more argument than any other. Cartimandua. Queen of the Brigantes. It was her war vows that Caradog desired above anyone else’s. Yet she had been one of the first to swear allegiance to Rome.

  ‘Why does he care so greatly for the alliance of this queen?’ I asked Prydd on a foggy dusk as we headed for the forest grove. ‘He does not pursue the other traitor chiefs…’

  Prydd looked at me with the faint disdain that told me I had asked, again, of something I should already have known. ‘There are strong ties between Caradog and Cartimandua. She was raised in his father’s house,’ he said. ‘She is his sister by fosterage and his cousin by blood.’

  I nodded and walked on. Despite my distrust of Prydd, I had learned much by his instruction as we prepared for Winter’s Eve. I had not raised my concerns with Caradog again. I needed to wait until I had the war chief’s respect. I needed to prove my authority.

  But there were no hours in the day for further lessons with Rhain. Instead I gathered late-growing yarrow and brewed the tinctures that would ensure the tribesman I offered would journey to Annwyn without fear or pain. I practised the chants Prydd taught me in the grove, tracing my fingers down the metal rods he had given me to remind me of which words came next. And I sharpened my Kendra’s blade that it would do its work quickly and with accuracy.

  The day of Winter’s Eve dawned cold and windy.

  Outside, cattle bellowed as they were drawn down from their summer pastures into their winter pens. Today commenced the blood month, when the oldest and weakest of the herds were culled, beginning with the beasts we would eat this night.

  I prepared alone in my hut, fasting and observing silence throughout the day. As dusk drew near, Prydd came to my door to accompany me to the temple. We passed the slaughter yard, where two of Hefin’s women were butchering the day’s kill. Neha lapped at the blood that pooled on the path. Already the scent of death was beginning to dissolve the boundaries between our world and Annwyn. The year was readying to turn.

  Rhain and the journeymen were gathered in the temple. In long fur cloaks and horned head-pieces they looked half-animal, hybrid beings that straddled the realms, which tonight they were.

  None more so than I.

  Prydd handed me a leather cloak of black-green feathers, ceremonial dress, designed for splendour, not ease. It hung heavy across my shoulders and the spikes of the quill ends dug into my neck. I would wear this for the procession, then shed it for the offering when I would need to move freely.

  From a basket on the floor, Prydd pulled out a silver circlet upon which the upper part of a dog’s skull was mounted. ‘It was made for this night.’ He placed it on my head, grunting as he adjusted the band. ‘Groom your hair, Kendra. These knots are unfitting.’

  I said nothing. My hair bore testament to whom I had lost, to Taliesin. I would not alter it until I had seen him.

  When Prydd was satisfied with my costume, he met my eye. ‘Albion looks to Caradog to free us from our enemy,’ he said. ‘Tonight he looks to you to sanctify his war.’

  I held Prydd’s stare. Was he willing me to fail?

  He was right. My competence tonight would cast the seed of a successful attack. If my hand trembled, if my cut to the throat was ragged, not only would I show myself unworthy, but I would endanger the war. Beneath my cloak, sweat beaded on my back and chest. I straightened my shoulders. I could not let him see that I was terrified.

  At Prydd’s instruction, the journeymen took up the rattles and belled staffs that would summon the Mothers and signal to the township that the procession had begun. I adjusted my sword belt, hooked a string of bells around my neck, and took my place at the head of the line. With three strikes of his staff on the ground, Prydd
started the chant and we proceeded from the temple.

  The clouds were aglow as Lleu neared the edge of the sky. Our path was lined with tribespeople. Their eyes widened as we approached in our dazzling adornment. For a moment, I swelled in their awe. We, the journeypeople, were something other as we moved steadily forward: a many-headed beast that moaned in strong, low unison. I had known little chance to stand before my own people in ritual before I had condemned myself to the forest. I sensed, now, for the first time, an inkling of the glamour, to which Prydd gave such importance.

  Then a sweet, familiar face caught my eye in the crowd, and, as quickly as it came, the sensation receded. Manacca would be forbidden to attend the offering. No glamour could obscure her lack. I held her bright gaze as I passed her, smiling to reassure her that it was still I beneath the black halo of feathers, the gaping skull.

  The crowds thickened as we neared the northern gateway. I felt myself to be part of a giant turning wheel. War had torn me into pieces that one year in solitude had barely made whole. Now war was coming again and I was called to bless it and perform the acts that would ensure its success.

  My belly curdled with a wave of fear.

  I trusted Caradog. I trusted the Mothers.

  I prayed that I could trust myself.

  3

  Night is Day

  Nothing exists but by its opposite.

  Where force is untempered, it cannot endure.

  THE DUSK was windless, the moon almost new.

  The lake held the sky in a quivering likeness, a perfect surface for the ritual we would enact. Fires blazed along the shore, mirrored in the water, calling the Mothers close, that they would clearly see how much they were loved.

  We had proceeded almost an hour along the Castroggi path to arrive here, a remote inland lake, surrounded by woodland and bordered by peat.

  I had asked not to be told his name. He was dark-haired and beardless—fourteen or fifteen summers—a part-trained warrior. We were giving the Mothers a fighter we could scarcely afford to lose, trusting that they would repay us manyfold in strength and victory. He had been chosen because he was still in his threshold time, shoulders and chest only freshly swollen under a child’s skin.

  He had been readied and washed before my arrival. As he kissed my hand, I forced a tiny square of moist bread into his mouth. His black eyes looked up, alight with fear. I gave him the smallest nod and prayed that the wolfsbane would work its magic swiftly.

  Now we both waited.

  The people of the war camp and greater Llanmelin stood in a shifting silence behind me, mothers hushing their young. A gradual slope rising from the bank allowed all a clear view.

  Caradog, Euvrain, and their children stood at the front, flanked by Hefin and Rhain. Prydd and his assistants laid out tools in front of the gathering.

  The lesser journeymen grew silent. For many hours they had stood at the water’s edge chanting and drumming as the crowds gathered in. The steady rise of sound had brought all present to readiness, to the precipice of Annwyn.

  Slowly, despite my terror, I began to drink in the nourishing communion, the dissolving of separate skins that only came with ritual. There was purpose to this act. It made us thankful. It joined us. One death to sustain the living.

  ‘Begin,’ said Prydd.

  The boy’s eyes rolled, half-closed, as two journeymen braced his arms. The wolfsbane had taken effect. He would endure three deaths: one for our ancestors, one for us, and one for our children. I was to perform the second and most important death: for our sovereignty.

  Already my hands trembled too much. I could not risk inaccuracy. Quickly, as Prydd was positioning the boy, I turned to the lake, pulled a tiny bronze vial from my belt pouch, and sucked its contents into my mouth. Within moments, my heartbeat slowed and my hands grew still. I turned back to the kneeling boy.

  Two figures appeared at my side to remove my headpiece and feathered cloak. Only a thin layer of linen now screened me from the chill air.

  Prydd handed me a woollen bandage. ‘Close his sight.’

  I crouched before the boy. For a moment, he roused and his eyes found mine. As I tied the bandage around his head, I felt the soft heat of his temples. He whimpered. I pressed my lips to his cheek, then stepped aside. It was time for the first death.

  A journeyman came forward bearing an iron axe.

  Prydd sang in a tuneless drone. Mothers hear us. Bear witness to our reverence. Open the gates to Annwyn and stretch out your arms to us.

  At the conclusion of these words, the journeyman raised the axe high, then swung its blunt stub to the back of the young man’s head. With a dull crack he fell to the ground.

  The two journeymen on either side lifted him back upright, while I stepped forward, grasping my sword. My heart was a frenzy of motion, though I felt its pounding as if from a distance. I knelt before the youth and gently lifted his chin. His head lolled—was he conscious?

  Was I?

  ‘Brother,’ I began. The word sounded muffled as I uttered it. I did not feel like one who could make speech.

  This night we alter your form that you become sacred. Your death is a knife that parts the realms, an opening by which we might glimpse our creators.

  I felt myself beginning to sway. I drew breath and carried on.

  Your death is our awakening.

  Your death is our reverence.

  Our lives are a debt to the Mothers.

  Your death repays it.

  I continued to recite the dedications that I had learnt at Prydd’s instruction to protect a soul that would soon be cast from its earthly vessel. With each verse, my legs seemed to grow weaker until I was struggling to hold myself upright. Had I drunk too much of the medicine? I had never calculated quantities in error before. Prydd was behind me, his voice urgent in my ear, bidding me make the cut.

  I inhaled and reeled with the sudden intensity of smells that flooded my nostrils: the shit that had fallen from the boy as he was struck, his sweat, his fear, so pungent I could open my mouth and taste them on my tongue. This was not my body. These were not my senses. I was knowing through another form.

  I buckled forward, grasping hold of the boy to keep myself upright. My sight found no clarity, no detail, just the shape and heat of the body to which I clung.

  I could not push myself back to kneeling; my legs, my arms were as soft as water. With my next breath, my limbs had entirely dissolved and I was only muscle and spine. Slowly, I began to wind my length around the boy’s warm torso, squeezing his hips, his belly, his chest—how loudly his heartbeat drummed through my body—until my nose was at his throat.

  ‘For Lleu’s sake, Ailia…now!’ Prydd growled under his breath.

  I heard the sound, but I knew only the desire of the adder. My tongue flickered, searching the rhythm of my prey’s pulse. I found it. I drew back my head and struck, plunging my teeth into tender sinew. Blood erupted, fragrant over my skin as I tightened around him.

  There was no more fear. Just the need to draw his warmth into my hungry body.

  The boy crumpled. I felt hands pulling me off him. I twisted and writhed, angry to be pulled from my prey, but the journeymen had taken him to the bank’s edge and left me lying alone on the ground. I lifted my head, now heavy as a woman’s, and watched as they laid him in the shallow water.

  They held him upright, exposing his wound for all to see. It was a perfect opening: wide and deep enough to promise certain death, shallow enough to permit a last few enduring moments of life. A gate to the Mothers.

  The black sky shivered. We were with our creators.

  The journeymen began a low, keening chant, quickly joined by the crowd. There were no words, only sound that flowed from each tribesperson into the wound. By this sound, the boy would carry our voices back to the Singing.

  When the initial violence of twitching had ceased, the journeymen released the boy and submerged him in the water. For some time there was still breath and movement. At last the
bubbles ceased rising from the cut at his throat. The water was opaque with blood and stirred mud. He was not given the final rites to free his soul from his body, but instead was weighted with stones so that his spirit could not escape back to Llanmelin, but would remain here at the brink of Annwyn, for as long as the Mothers chose to preserve him.

  The lake was still and shallow here, its bed swampy. Floating islands of moss formed blankets over much of its surface. Fish did not thrive in this air-deprived water, but death would endure here. Death was sustained here.

  I lay my head back down, comforted by the firm ground. I sensed Rhain crouching beside me. ‘Is it done?’ I whispered.

  ‘Yes.’ He helped me to my feet.

  My dress stuck to me, wet with blood. I had scarcely any strength in my legs. It was as if they were newly grown and never used. The serpent’s keen sense still lingered in me and I could smell Rhain’s skin, the oil of his scalp, the woody scent of his relief.

  ‘You did it beautifully,’ he said.

  Caradog’s voice spoke behind me, ‘Well done, Kendra.’

  I spun to face him and reeled with the force of his smell: iron, salt, and the fierce animal odour of his sex. I gripped Rhain’s forearm, as the limbless adder threatened to possess me once more. This was the scent of Caradog’s power. But beneath its raw strength, I could smell something else: tender and intricate, like a freshly-crushed acorn or milk just-soured with a drop of apple vinegar. It was the scent of self-doubt.

  I stared at him, unable to speak. I could smell his fear, that which no one saw.

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ said Caradog to Rhain as I leaned heavily against him.

  ‘She’s exhausted from the rite,’ said Rhain. ‘I’ll attend to her.’

  ‘Bring her to me when she is steady,’ he said. ‘I want the chiefs to share in what she has done this night.’ He met my eye before he turned away. In his gaze was a different regard.