Songwoman

by Ilka Tampke

  Euvrain shooed them away and sat beside me. Despite the sweat that beaded her forehead from standing over the cookpot, she was calm as polished stone. ‘Your hair becomes you.’

  ‘I must have washed three cups of mountain dirt into the bucket.’

  Euvrain smiled. ‘You will answer the council tomorrow, will you not?’

  I nodded.

  ‘So then,’ she said quietly, ‘are we to share a husband?’

  ‘I will not make the marriage with Caradog,’ I said, ‘if you do not bless it. Some marriages are more than the laws that bind them, and if yours is such a marriage, then I would not betray it…’

  ‘You are kind to think of it.’

  ‘I know what it is to love.’

  ‘Do you?’ She gazed at me, then folded her hands in her lap and straightened her shoulders. ‘I have told you before that my husband is a man of turbulent tempers. If a marriage to the Kendra will anchor him, then I can only welcome it.’

  I thought of the bleakness that had imprisoned Caradog this morning. In marrying me, Caradog would be chosen king by the very ground he would rule. But I did not imagine it would console him when the ground of his own soul began to crumble. I glanced at the woman beside me. ‘I am sure that none could steady him any better than you.’

  She took my hand. Her skin was cool. I felt a rush of comfort. How I missed a woman’s touch and sisterhood.

  ‘Marry him with my blessing,’ she said. ‘Help him win this war so we can go home.’

  There was burst of movement through the doorskins, then a howl of pain as her boy tripped on the entrance stone and fell on his hands. In a moment, Euvrain had gone to him, scooped him up and brought him back to the fire, where she cradled him as she kissed his grazed palms.

  My numbed heart was awoken by the sight of it. It was not only the warriors, but tribespeople like her who were the strength of this resistance, nourishing their child kin, even as they had been torn from their homelands and did not know if they would ever return.

  I met Euvrain’s stare over her son’s shaking shoulder. I knew why she blessed my marriage to Caradog. She believed it would hasten what she desired above all else: an end to this war.

  ‘Let this bring us close,’ I whispered. ‘Let this bind us. We are united in our desire.’

  She released her son from her lap with a kiss on his cheek, and turned to me. ‘Would you like me to dress your hair?’

  I gasped with the honour. ‘Very much.’

  She walked to a set of shelves and returned with a basket full of combs, braiding sticks, ribbons and oils.

  Standing behind me, she began to segment my hair. I closed my eyes as her fingertips brushed against the nape of my neck.

  ‘I ask but one thing,’ she said.

  ‘It will be granted,’ I murmured, languid with the strokes of her comb.

  ‘Marry him, strengthen the tribelands…but do not allow yourself to love him.’

  My eyes opened. ‘Euvrain, there is no danger…’

  ‘Ensure it remains so,’ she said steadily. ‘Otherwise, you will betray not only me, but all of Albion, for the fate of the war cannot rest on the eddies of love.’

  I said nothing more. She had no cause for concern. Taliesin was gone. I would not love another. My heart beat now only in service to the Mothers.

  When she had combed and divided my hair, Euvrain began weaving the braids. They were firm and tight and foreign to my scalp. Yet even the sharp tugs could not mar the pleasure of being tended.

  The children were asleep in their beds when Euvrain touched my shoulder to tell me she was finished. I lifted my hand and felt the rows of smooth coils that wound around my head and snaked down my shoulders in green-ribboned tendrils.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, standing to face her.

  Her eyes widened and she smiled. ‘I have fashioned a queen.’

  I laughed. ‘This queen is weary. I will sleep before I take our decision to Prydd.’

  Caradog was behind the smith’s hut, bent over a bronze cup with his punching tool poised, and did not seem to hear me as I approached the next morning.

  ‘War Chief—’

  He looked up, radiant with the pleasure of his hand-work. Then he frowned. ‘You have dressed your hair.’

  ‘Your wife has.’

  ‘For what purpose?’

  ‘Because…’ I paused. I had dressed my hair because I was no longer mourning someone I loved. ‘Because I will accept you in sacred marriage.’ I felt a wild embarrassment, as if this were my own desire and not a command I had been given.

  He set down his metalwork and I sat beside him.

  ‘This is a gift to Albion,’ he said.

  I nodded.

  ‘And to me. You are gifting me sovereignty.’ He took my hand and pressed it to his lips.

  I closed my eyes against the warm current that shot through my blood. I knew that he did not yearn for me, nor I for him. It was just the parts of me that Taliesin had injured, searching indiscriminately for comfort. I drew back my hand and placed it in my lap, before glancing at his face. He looked tired, but the anguish of yesterday morning seemed to have lifted. ‘I wish to ask you, War Chief, are you—?’

  ‘Do not ask about yesterday morning,’ he said, felling my question. ‘You should not have pursued me.’

  ‘I did not pursue you, I—’

  ‘Besides, there is no question to be answered. The temper is nothing more than some strange breed of drunkenness. It passes in time. I cannot shed it by will.’

  ‘But what is the ale that produces the…impairment?’

  He seemed to flinch at the word. ‘None. It is merely the pestering of a wrongful spirit.’

  ‘But War Chief—’ I ventured, although it was clear he had no wish to discuss it. ‘Sometimes there is meaning in such a spirit.’

  ‘There is no meaning,’ he insisted. ‘When it comes upon me, I seek solitude until it is defeated.’

  I heard the battle in it. ‘I can treat you, with herbs—’

  ‘No.’ His voice was sharp. ‘I don’t need herbs.’ He looked at me. ‘Do not speak of it to others—not Hefin or Prydd. And do not speak of it to me again.’

  I nodded. I was not welcome at the hearth of his struggle. ‘I won’t.’

  But I did not believe his despair was simply a drunkenness or a crafty spirit that descended unbidden. I believed that it arose, just as it had in Taliesin, from a mind that knew great depths. It was part of his strength.

  I had seen, in his darkness, the glimmer of questions that needed to be asked. Could we win this war? Was it worth the cost to us all? They were precious questions and I wished we could bring them into the light.

  Prydd was alone in the journey-hut, awaiting my arrival at the highsun hour we had arranged. ‘Very pleasing,’ he said, staring at my hair as I entered the room. ‘Far more the likeness of the Kendra now.’

  I wanted to remind him that I was the Kendra, whether or not I held the likeness of her, but I murmured my thanks and took a seat by the fire.

  ‘Ale?’

  I shook my head. ‘I come only to give you my answer.’

  ‘Good then.’ He sat beside me, pleased to dispense with the flourishes of statecraft when there was no audience to admire them.

  When I told him my decision, his lips drew back in a rare smile. ‘Thank you, Kendra.’

  His warmth took me aback. In his relief that I had done his bidding, he was almost affectionate. ‘This will seduce the loyalty of the tribes. Few will deny a king who is Mother-chosen.’

  I nodded, yet felt disturbed. The tribes were worthy of truth, not merely seduction.

  Prydd lifted his hand and placed it on top of my head. ‘You are doing a great service.’ He met my eye. ‘You are doing the will of the Mothers.’

  I dipped free of his touch. He may have known statecraft better than I, but he had no place giving voice to the Mothers. This, at least, was where I had greater claim. ‘When will the marriage take place?’<
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  ‘As soon as possible. Midwinter, if we can make the journey in time.’

  ‘The journey?’

  ‘To Môn,’ he said, frowning. ‘This is where you will wed.’

  I saw the art in it. To wed on the holy isle of Môn would cloak the union in great glamour, and would embed the marriage in Albion’s law. I did not wish to sour his good temper, but was I always to be commanded like a trained dog? ‘Journeyman,’ I said. ‘If my Kendra’s title is to be put to this use, I would be grateful if my counsel was sought in the design.’

  Prydd raised his eyebrows. ‘As you wish,’ he said at last. ‘You are the Kendra. I may not command you…’

  ‘In truth, you may not.’ My boldness surprised me.

  He stared at me then he gave a quiet chuckle. ‘I see what has occurred,’ he said.

  ‘What amuses you?’ I asked with irritation.

  ‘It seems, perhaps, that in your innocence,’ he said, ‘you have misunderstood the nature of the Kendra’s power.’

  My belly tightened. ‘I understand the Kendra’s power.’

  ‘Then you would know that it is just as a babe’s: beguiling, enchanting, hope-giving. The babe calls forth the strength of others, but she, herself, has no actual strength. She is dependent on those who act in her thrall.’ Now his laughter was gone. He stood. ‘Do not mistake the power of a babe for that of grown men.’

  I was locked in his gaze. There was so much to say against him, but this small, hairless man had rendered me silent as surely as if he had cut out my tongue. Was he correct? Was this my only power—a bright star to which pilgrims might orient their path, but lacking the heat of the sun or the pull of the moon? Now I saw why he had been so willing to bestow on me the title of Caradog’s wife—he saw it as nothing more than the king’s embellishment. I reeled from his words. ‘Forgive me, Kendra, I must to the temple.’ He walked to the doorway and unhooked his cloak.

  Still I could not speak. A hollowness yawned in my chest, as though I had been gutted. I gazed at the flames, barely noticing Prydd bow and slip out through the doorskins. Where were my words, my knowledge? Why did they abandon me now?

  Gradually, as breath hissed hot through my nostrils, an anger kindled.

  Speech was the Mothers’ tool. Robbed of it, I was indeed no stronger than a wordless babe. Prydd had taken my voice. He had taken my authority.

  I stood and pushed my new braids behind my shoulders. There would be no trust now, no hope of a bond of any kind between us. Prydd was an enemy to my purpose.

  With Neha at my heels I made for the fringes where it did not take long to find Manacca, playing with a pup outside the northern gate. She ran to my embrace.

  ‘Would you like to see where the Mothers live?’ I whispered into her matted hair.

  All the way to the Castroggi, she clutched my fingers, babbling without breath about the dark spirits she had seen among the fringe tents on the night of Winter’s Eve, and squealing with horror and delight when I told her how many Romans I had slain in Tir Dobunni.

  On the same bank where I had farewelled Taliesin, I bade her sit beside me and drew her fledgling’s shoulders beneath my own cloak.

  I gave her a thick strip of smoked mutton I had stuffed into my belt pouch and watched her eat hungrily. Then, as winter sun sparkled on the river, I taught her of the first lesson of journey-law: nothing endures but by death.

  I told her that her body will perish, but that her soul, like the sun, is indestructible.

  It was simple law, known by instinct to anyone in the tribes, for it was embedded in our daily libation, our festivals, our all. But to hear it spoken with the precise words that named it clearly, gave it sharpness for a skinless girl who had never been taught.

  She frowned and fiddled with a stalk of nettle near her feet. ‘Does it mean I will never die?’

  I squeezed her tiny bare calf, warm and hairless. ‘This will die, the part you can see. The part you cannot see, the part inside—’ I touched my palm to her chest, ‘—will live forever.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why does my leg have to die?’

  I smiled. ‘So it can walk in Annwyn for a while and come back a little faster!’

  She looked up at me, her brown eyes curious. It pleased me to see them grow wide, then darken with the weight of knowledge. She reached up and fondled one of my new braids. ‘Pretty,’ she murmured.

  ‘Shall I do yours later?’ I asked.

  Manacca nodded.

  I chose to teach this skinless child. She would be transformed by my teaching. Reborn.

  Prydd would not silence me.

  5

  Winter Solstice

  We fear the longest night.

  Yet if we attend the darkness, the sun will return.

  As every soul also rises from the night of its death.

  AS I stirred the next morning, floating in the sweet waters between dream and waking, I was again a kitchen servant, basking on

  a riverbank with a lover whose face I could not see. But then, at a rooster’s gargling call, I was once more alone, I was the Kendra, and the warmth beside me was no lover’s but Neha’s.

  I rose and looked through the doorskins to observe the hour. Rhain expected me at his hut after libation. I had found him in the apple grove yesterday afternoon and asked that we continue our lessons in haste, that I might glean as much as I could before departing to Môn.

  I splashed my face with unheated water and rubbed a little calf’s fat on my cheeks to protect them from the cold.

  The sky was winter heavy. Rhain led me on a familiar path along the Castroggi, but as we approached the forest, he took a fainter trail that clung close to the bank and entered the woodland on stonier ground. His gait was swift and we had climbed almost an hour before we reached a turn in the river where he called me to a stop.

  I had not walked this part of the forest. The ground was steep, the river tumbling between limestone boulders. Sprawling oak boughs formed a canopy overhead, entrapping the moisture released by the water’s churn. In such wetness every surface pulsed with growth, every stone and log was vivid with moss, beech ferns, spleenwort and lichen. We had entered a threshold. We were close to Annwyn.

  I crouched at the bank to drink. I could reach out my fingers over the water and touch the hand of the Mothers in the fine mist spray. Here, deep in the land, I knew no doubt. My Kendra’s knowledge was as true as the cold water in my cupped palms. Why was it not so when I walked among the tribes?

  I watched Neha, sniffing furiously at the river’s edge, scenting otters or trout.

  Rhain sat on a stone beside me and drank from his water skin. ‘You are troubled,’ he said.

  I glanced at him. ‘It is only Prydd,’ I answered. ‘It matters not what I do. He awards no true authority to my title.’

  Rhain nodded. ‘Authority cannot be gifted,’ he said. ‘It must be claimed.’

  I sighed with exasperation. ‘How do I claim it?’

  He shrugged. ‘Be the serpent. Shed a skin.’

  I groaned and Rhain laughed. ‘We will begin. What is the first part of song?’ he asked.

  ‘Memory,’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘And there are many ways to make it strong. From the beads that we carry to the patterns on our staffs. But the most powerful way to remember is through the land itself.’ He stood and began walking upstream towards a ledge of limestone, over which the river flowed.

  I jumped up to follow.

  Standing close to the stone, he placed his hands on its surface, motioning me to do the same. ‘See its shape, its colour. Feel its temperature.’

  His breath was warm and unscented by ale. I was glad that for teaching he safeguarded his fine wits. I pressed my palms against the cold rock.

  ‘I am going to teach you some of Caradog’s history. It will be a praise story of warriors and their wisepeople, the battles they have fought and the territories they have gained. To this stone you will entru
st the first verse. Then we will walk back, and to each boulder or trunk or bend in the river you will assign one other verse. When we are home you will know the story.’

  I nodded, still unspeaking. I had learnt short poems of leaf and berry lore, but I had never learned a sequence of an hour’s duration.

  ‘We will walk this path many times over many days until you render each verse at each place without prompting. Then, without coming here, you will recall these places and walk them in your mind, as you have done in body, and you will remember. When this is done we will begin again with another poem.’ He looked at me. ‘You will need strong foot wraps.’

  I laughed.

  ‘But hear this,’ he said, now serious. ‘Once you make this bond between poem and earth, then you are bound to this place. The land will hold the poem for you, but you must come back to renew your memory and to honour the bond.’ He placed his palms over mine and pressed them firmly against the stone. ‘For as the land gives you the song, so too must you give it the song.’

  He stood close, his hands warm over my numb fingers.

  Pilgrimages binding words to the land were walked by journeypeople throughout all of Albion—I saw yet another layer Rome’s swords had cut.

  ‘If we lose this land,’ I murmured, ‘there will be no more places by which we will remember.’

  Rhain nodded, holding my gaze. ‘This is what we fight for.’

  I smiled. ‘Caradog says it is the metal.’

  He shrugged. ‘Song. Metal. They are the same. Rome would steal one and destroy the other.’

  I took a deep breath of the watery air. ‘Speak then,’ I said. ‘Give me the story.’

  He laughed, then inhaled and began to incant the history poem that told of Caradog’s brave ancestors, their branches of lineage, the territories they had ruled.

  I closed my eyes to listen. The ribbon of his voice held both lightness and grit. In the pull of these opposites, the story spun.