Warrior Daughter

by Paisley, Janet

  ‘The outsiders.’ Ard got slowly to his feet, remembering.

  ‘Aye,’ Gern agreed. ‘You copied it on a disc off a tattoo one of them had. If you ever worked on fish hooks, you'd see it hanging next them still.’

  But Ard was gone, running. ‘Tell Erith,’ he shouted back. He ran part-way in the direction the man had gone but, seeing no sign, veered off to find Vass. The man might be anywhere by now. His brother was easier to spot, arm round Thum's shoulders but flirting with the women who watched the wrestling bouts.

  Alerted, the Ardvasar warriors fanned out, searching the crowds. Nechta sent the attendant druids to marshal the others. Outsiders, exiles from society, had no right to be here. Permanent banishment was rare – for serial offenders – and severe. Those banished lived rough, often committing other crimes. If this man was an exile, there would be more crimes in his past, and to come.

  Mara became awkward when asked to suspend the games and detail the other chapters to join the hunt. ‘Is there a point to this,’ she challenged Ard, ‘if they took little and had half their number killed?’

  ‘Half their number?’ Ard queried. No one knew how many had escaped.

  ‘However many,’ Mara snapped. ‘It was theft, and so long ago it's hardly worth drawing a blade over.’

  ‘Let it grow dark,’ Jiya suggested. ‘When he sleeps, your sword might leap courageously to hand.’

  ‘Tread carefully,’ Mara warned.

  ‘The law will be applied,’ Nechta interrupted hurriedly, to save the peace. ‘The Kylerheans were offended against, and now Beltane.’ The druid cells encircled the festival area to ensure no one left till the search was done. ‘Describe him to me,’ she asked Ard, ‘and I'll pass it round.’

  ‘You'll smell him,’ Ard said, sketching in the details of the man's appearance and ending with the tattoo. ‘On his right forearm, a moon of six crawling snakes, like this.’ He put his four fingers against his palm to demonstrate.

  Grimly, Mara quartered the site between her women and the other chapters. If Bartok was caught, he had better talk his way out of this, or she would have to silence him. Either way, her plans were jeopardized.

  High above Loch Slapin, Skaaha collapsed on her stomach in the long grass as Ruan rolled over to lie beside her. Soft groans of subsiding pleasure purred in the back of her throat. The heady scent of hawthorn, Bride's blossom, filled the air.

  ‘You make a fine, contented cat,’ he said, drawing the back of her skirt down to cover her against the growing chill. After the dogs, they'd climbed the slope to enjoy stolen time alone outside, away from the crowds.

  ‘Did you know it would be like this?’ she asked, turning to look at him. ‘My skin wants to be against yours always, and my eyes won't close in sleep for wanting to look at you.’ Her dark eyes were luminous. ‘And when we're joined, sometimes I can't tell which or what is me or you.’

  ‘As if we become each other,’ he completed, ‘or one being made whole again.’ He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘No, I didn't know. It's always pleasurable, but the stars don't always spin.’ Nor did it always engage the heart.

  A thought registered in her eyes before she spoke, chuckling first. ‘And Fion said I'd be half a woman till I lay with him.’

  He smiled. ‘That sounds like Fion.’ The wheel took no time at all to turn, the future announcing its coming to the present moment.

  ‘How can I be more woman than I am now?’

  ‘Lie with him and find out.’

  ‘I will not,’ she said, rising up on to her elbows to look out over the loch below. The setting sun gilded her hair. Her eyes found his again. ‘It's you I want.’

  He turned over, resting on his stomach in the grass alongside her, to watch the day go. ‘That won't always be.’ Against intense blue, pink clouds edged with gold painted their reflections in the sea. Dark on the water, a small boat rowed out of the estuary, heading south around the coast. Lobster fishers, maybe.

  ‘It will,’ she said, earnestly. ‘The way things are cannot be changed.’

  The quote made him smile again, having the teachings given back stripped of the wisdom behind the words. ‘No, they can't,’ he said, though he could have wished it otherwise. ‘But you're right.’ A terrible tenderness at her belief in the simplicity of love was tearing up his heart. ‘This time will always be.’

  Darkness fell. The warriors reported back to Mara. None had seen any man resembling the description. If he'd been among them, then he'd gone.

  ‘You can rest easy, Ard,’ she said. ‘I'd help you out, but younger men suit me best these days. One of Nechta's potions might better cure your nightmares.’

  Ard bit back a retort. Mara never forgot a slight, real or imagined, had never forgiven him for leaving her bed in favour of Kerrigen's. She'd have killed him then, for sure, except she feared the warrior queen.

  ‘Don't mind her,’ Nechta said, as the warriors left to join the evening feast. ‘They'll be alert now, as will we. If he returns, he'll be seen.’

  ‘He's rash enough,’ Ard said, grimly, ‘to cross water and trespass Beltane.’

  ‘What is there to deter his like?’ Jiya asked. ‘Mara mistakes spite for strength. Bracadale is grown soft since Kerrigen died.’

  ‘There's truth in that,’ Nechta agreed. The Islands of Bride suffered from weaker leadership and lost reputation. Raids and lawlessness increased. Now an outsider felt safe enough to transgress the festival. ‘But warriors must have a queen – and who will challenge her: you?’

  Jiya chuckled, rubbing the trepanned indentation on her crown. ‘Aye,’ she said, ‘when I need another hole in my head.’

  23

  It was early morning when the small boat rounded the spur and hove into view of Kylerhea. A mist hung round the hilltops and, in the half-light on the hazy shore, the only witness was a reindeer snuffling the edges of the abandoned playing field.

  ‘My arms is near off, Bartok,’ one of the three men in the boat complained. ‘We better be getting sleep soon as we makes land.’

  ‘You're never anything but asleep,’ Bartok answered. ‘I could've rowed here quicker with one hand than you pair with four of them.’

  As they approached the jetty, keeping close to shore so the current wouldn't pull them past, the other man scoured the misty slopes.

  ‘You sure there's no crazy folk about?’ he asked. Nightmares of flaming arrows and fiendish shrieks still haunted him. A movement on the hillside made him jump, clattering the oars. It was a fox, leaping on some prey too small, at this distance and low-level light, to see. In his past, he'd found cause to fear. A slash cut across his left eye, causing it to droop, the bulb of it unseeing white. Behind his droopy moustache lay a mouthful of broken teeth.

  ‘We'll soon see.’ Bartok stood to loop the rope around the post. ‘Might be one of them left behind, forbidden to attend for fighting or not repaying a debt in time.’ He climbed the step up to the jetty. ‘If there is, we're just passing.’

  The first man, the youngest and only clean-shaven one of the three, stepped on to the jetty behind him. Tall and lean next Bartok's bulk, dull eyes unblinking like a shark's, he played his thumb on the blade of a dagger pulled from inside his coat. ‘Innocent travellers,’ he agreed. ‘Till I gets close enough to stick them.’

  The murmur of voices woke Skaaha. Early sun glowed yellow through the tented skins. She stretched, but there was no warmth of Ruan's body beside her, just empty space. Thin shafts of light carried columns of drifting dust. She raised her head, looked around, but he wasn't at the hearth, shaving or dressing. Her head dropped on the pillow. He'd be back soon. A shiver of delight, which had become a feature of her life, wriggled through her flesh, making her shoulders circle in their sockets, her skin tingle. A smile, which had also become an habitual expression, spread across her face. She closed her eyes, and could see every detail of his face, the look he wore when gazing at her. Another shiver shifted her shoulders.

  ‘I can't do this,’
Ruan said. ‘You ask too much of me.’

  Skahaa's eyes flew open. It was Ruan, but he spoke outside the hut.

  ‘It's you who asks it of yourself.’ A quiet, softer voice – Suli.

  ‘Then I'll ask no more.’ He was pacing, quite unlike him. Now Skaaha strained to hear. Words drifted, becoming lost. ‘Let me go. I fulfilled my task.’ Fear scrambled Skaaha to her knees, crouched close to the skins, listening. ‘I can't be with Skaaha, not like that, not any more.’ A pain like a blade twisted in Skaaha's gut, doubling her over.

  ‘Then what will you be?’

  ‘I don't know,’ Ruan groaned. ‘Send me away. Send me to Cul Bhuirg, or anywhere, but don't send me back to that.’

  ‘A sabbatical might help,’ Suli mused. ‘Walk with me.’ Feet moved away, rustling grass and leaves. Their presence just beyond the skins faded.

  Skaaha clutched a cushion to her belly, biting her other fist, rocking back and forth. She could not have heard what she did. Yet she had. It was a wounding worse than one that bled. Tears stung but did not fall. Life should end now, if it could hold such pain. Summer had filled her heart, warmth had reached her bones, light – her head had filled with brightness – and all of it was gone, was not real, had never been. They'd used her. He had used her, just as she first suspected. It was lies – his words, mouth, touch, even his body – all lies. With a great howl of agony, she tore the cushion apart with her hands, slapping feathers everywhere. Standing, with down drifting on to her naked back, she bent, grabbed and tore another, then another one.

  Suli and Ruan walked below the twisted elder trees for some time without speaking, without sound except the crack of twigs underfoot, the peep of birds. When they reached the small stream that sprang from the well of Annait, Suli rested on a bent branch, its shape telling of its frequent use as seating.

  ‘In this world or the next, there is pain,’ she said. ‘It can help us grow.’

  ‘And sometimes it tells us to move to a place beyond its reach.’

  ‘You know this place?’

  Miserably, he shook his head. ‘But it's not in Skaaha's life, advising on her lovers, ministering to her marriages, trying to help her live through childbirth.’

  ‘You're a priest.’

  ‘I'm a man.’ The words were torn out of him. ‘A man who loves her.’

  ‘A man discovering the desire to possess another.’ Suli's voice was firm, hard. ‘Love doesn't seek to own.’

  ‘That's unfair. I'm asking to leave, to let her go.’

  ‘And this will help who?’

  Eefay groomed her horse, preparing it for the warriors' parade that afternoon. She had been wakened by news from Glenelg. Donal's elderly, sick mother had died. They returned tomorrow to a wake. For Eefay, the celebration would be two-fold. The school passed to her keeping now. She would ride at its head in the parade, mistress of Glenelg, her father relegated as tutor to second place.

  There were few other grooms about this early. It was her favourite time, the grey mare nuzzling her face, dunting her shoulder if she went too hard or slow, quivers rippling through its muscle when pleased.

  ‘If you're very good,’ she told it, ‘I might braid your mane.’ The mare flared its nostrils, began to chew on her hair. ‘And if you don't behave,’ Eefay said, jerking her head away, ‘I'll braid your tail. Make you feel a right nonce.’

  In the far corner of the paddock, there was a disturbance. A saddle was slung over a Kylerhean pony. Eefay pushed through the other horses, crossing the paddock. It was Skaaha, mounting up, dressed in ordinary clothes. A few white, goose-down feathers wafted in her dark hair.

  ‘Have you been plucking birds?’ Eefay asked. It was hardly goddess work.

  Without a word, Skaaha snatched up the reins, nudged the horse forward with her knees. Her face was set, teeth clenched.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Eefay asked.

  ‘Home,’ her sister said, easing the horse through the stock towards the gate.

  ‘But why, what about tonight, the end-of-festival eat-drink-fuck till you drop party?’ Eefay walked alongside, without thinking, even opening the gate. ‘Don't tell me you wore out the lusty priest. There's a cart-load more up on the rise if…’

  ‘Shut up, Eefay.’ Skaaha's eyes glinted. ‘Tell Ard and Erith, so they don't worry.’ Her voice choked up. ‘I'll see you tomorrow before you cross the kyle.’ She kicked the horse away over the grass.

  ‘Hey, I've something to tell you,’ Eefay called, but Skaaha, quickly out of earshot, didn't stop. ‘Maybe not,’ she muttered, and went back to her mare.

  Suli let a few moments pass so the stream could speak. ‘This fire between you may burn out. Or it may burn through the ages, and have done so. Skaaha will know many men. How does that diminish you?’

  ‘It doesn't,’ he admitted.

  ‘As her priest, you might be with her till her last breath in this life, if hers comes first. You can help her grow and learn and become all she might. You will ease her pain, tend her sickness, calm her fears, soothe her sorrows and guide when she is going wrong. Is that not love?’

  He hung his head. ‘My fears seem small indeed.’

  ‘Not so small when even gods are jealous.’ She put a hand on Ruan's shoulder. ‘I've lived almost three times your five and twenty suns. Desire burns less brightly, but Beltane's message is the same. It's in acts of love that we learn what it is to be, by not being.’

  ‘Put self aside,’ he murmured, ‘if you would know the way.’

  Suli nodded, not necessarily to agree, but as if she listened to another voice, from elsewhere. ‘Come,’ she stood, gripping her staff, ‘we should walk back.’

  At the hut, they stopped outside. ‘Love is the law,’ Suli said. ‘It's not gentle in its demands. If you can't fulfil it, you're not druid. So ask yourself what love demands from you, but don't seek tomorrow in today.’

  ‘Blessings on you, Suli,’ Ruan said. That was exactly what he'd done, conjured tomorrow to torment himself. With or without him by her side, Skaaha would love other men. It was the way of things. If he couldn't, yet, let go, he could at least set it aside. This day, Skaaha was alive with questions and spirited enough to argue or disbelieve. They tested and nourished one another. This day, when she woke, she would wrap arms and legs around him, her bed-warm body drawing him in. Lifting the flap, he stepped into the hut.

  ‘Thought we was getting some sleep.’ Stick sat astride Kylerhea's outdoor anvil putting an edge on his dagger with a rubber. They'd found the larder first, ate salted herring and cheese while checking out the houses. But day was normally for sleeping through. Stick paused from sharpening to gulp ale from the jug beside him. The night's rowing began to tell. ‘What is we here for?’

  ‘To get a woman.’ Bartok stood with his thumbs in his belt, looking round.

  The younger man glanced around the deserted village. ‘Should've stayed at Torrin then. They's all there.’

  ‘They'll be back.’ He kept his plans close, telling only what the other two needed to know. They'd learn the rest soon enough, except who the hirer was. He'd keep that to himself. No point risking double-cross. ‘She'll be with them.’

  ‘Do I gets to stick it?’ The blade flashed in the sunlight as Stick turned it.

  ‘When I say. We have to get her first.’ Bartok scratched his ear. ‘We'll camp over there.’ He pointed to Alba, to the other side of the crossing. ‘Close enough to watch.’ They'd have to learn her habits, when she'd be alone. It wouldn't be easy. Blacksmith, Mara had said. Pity. A herder or charcoal burner was easier to get at. ‘What you got there, Cut-eye?’ he called.

  Cut-eye was on his bony knees at the foot of the slope, digging earth with his bare hands. ‘Stuff,’ he shouted back. ‘Stuff they hid before they left.’

  Bartok hurried over. ‘Leave it be,’ he said. ‘We don't want them knowing we've been here.’

  ‘We just ate,’ Cut-eye said, pulling up a pair of iron fire-dogs. He nodded his blind eye towards the open l
arder door. ‘They'll know somebody was, and we can trade these.’

  Bartok wondered. Beds and ready food appealed more than sleeping rough. They were safe here till late tomorrow, could take food when they left. The contents of the larder would last the three of them a whole moon easy, and there was ale. Life was tough for outsiders. They could hunt or fish, but tools and clothes were easier got by theft. So they island-hopped between the uninhabited and those they could steal from. Warriors were often on their trail. The only respite was to travel the mainland as traders, goods provided by robbing festival-emptied homes.

  Bartok had several caches hidden away. No reason why this job shouldn't add to those. Evidence of robbery wouldn't interfere. The villagers would think them been and gone. Thieves didn't hang about waiting to be caught. The warriors would search, but not in the vicinity or just across the water. No, they'd scour deserted hideaways, all well away from here, leaving a safer, clearer coast to get the girl and be gone.

  ‘You're more than a pretty face, Cut-eye,’ he said. ‘We just got ourselves a nice place to be at home in.’ He turned, called back to Stick. ‘Go find a bed. We're stopping here for the night.’

  ‘And I can have these?’ Cut-eye asked, wielding the fire-dogs.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ Bartok agreed. ‘I'm for more of that fine ale, and sleep. Put them in the boat, and anything else you find. We'll ship everything across the kyle before they get back tomorrow.’ It would mean finding a good place on the mainland to hide the bounty for collection later. But, with that part of a plan in place, there was only the girl to worry about. He'd do that when he woke.

  Ruan ran towards the Kylerhean tents, a blur of brown leggings and yellow shirt, sling strapped to his thigh. No red cloak. Ard was at the cart, packing it for travel next morning. The druid veered towards him.

  ‘Is Skaaha there?’ he called as soon as he was close enough.

  ‘Not with us,’ Ard said. ‘Might be with some of the others. Is she wanted?’

  ‘Something's wrong.’ Ruan glanced around, hoping to spot her. ‘She wrecked the tent. I thought she'd come here.’