Songwoman

by Ilka Tampke

  ‘By sending men?’ said Caradog.

  ‘If not men, then metals. And grain so they might spend the spring preparing their defences, instead of their fields.’

  Rhain nodded, as he stared at his hands folded in his lap.

  ‘They will not move on the Deceangli.’ Prydd’s voice was shrill, his humour gone. ‘It is remote, difficult terrain, and far from the man who Scapula claims to pursue. Forgive me, Kendra, but your youth betrays you.’ He looked to Caradog. ‘This is not worthy counsel.’

  ‘Yet the idea is not unimaginable,’ said Caradog. ‘Scapula has shown himself to be vengeful.’

  Prydd’s jaw tightened. ‘War King, I have served as your first advisor for several years before we were blessed with the arrival of this child of the Mothers.’ He glanced at me. ‘I am sure you will not forfeit my counsel now. After all,’ he paused, ‘I cannot continue to represent your campaign to Môn for funding if they do not trust that you follow my guidance.’

  I nearly gasped. Surely Caradog would not tolerate such brazen purchase of influence. Cartimandua was right. The journeyman’s title was no promise of honour.

  Caradog stared at Prydd. ‘Then what is your guidance?’

  ‘To send supplies north, with no possible reason for it, will be costly. Môn’s grain stores and metal stores are deep but not endless. I have negotiated over many months to direct them here, where they are needed. We must act prudently and where we are certain we will have most effect.’

  ‘A war-cry to raise the blood,’ said Hefin gloomily.

  Caradog looked at me, at Prydd, and then to the fire. When he looked up, his face betrayed the black sorrow I knew had not left him. ‘I know not whose counsel is truest, and it matters not. I will be in Tir Brigantes by the summer. Scapula will not act before then.’

  ‘You showed boldness in the council,’ said Rhain as we walked to the cook hut for bread. ‘You showed authority.’

  ‘Caradog did not hear it.’

  ‘But I did.’

  I looked at him. There was a riddle in his voice. ‘Do you say what I hope you say?’

  ‘Certainly, perhaps.’

  ‘Yes, Rhain!’ At last he deemed me ready to forge.

  He smiled. ‘We shall go tomorrow.’

  ‘Can we go today?’

  ‘Are you not tired from travel?’

  ‘I want to begin.’

  ‘Very well. Gather your pouch and staff and meet me at the northern gate.’

  We walked the Castroggi to the base of the mountain, where Rhain turned away from the river path we had trodden so often, into thicker woodlands of oak and ash. I knew this route into the bowels of the forest and I knew the destination to which it led.

  ‘Why here?’ I asked when we reached the grove.

  ‘Because here you must be strong.’

  Even in winter bareness, the grove seemed close, the air unsettled by growth and rot. The bloodied altar seemed alive in this grotto, a beating heart in the forest’s breast.

  Rhain entered and crouched at the altar. ‘Come,’ he called.

  I took a few steps forward. No birds perched on the branches of this nemeton. No creatures scurried from my step. I felt naked, wary within the ring of oaks. But why should I? It was only the Mothers who prickled my skin.

  Rhain finished murmuring a low chant, then called me to his side. His absence of laughter was not helping me to find my ease. I sat beside him on a log and made my own hushed tribute to the bones and dried clots that adorned the altar.

  ‘Are you ready?’ he said when my chant had ended.

  ‘Yes.’ I had waited four moons for this. Why did I feel so unsure?

  ‘Then summon a battle.’

  ‘Which…battle?’ I frowned.

  ‘Your choice. A fearsome battle. One where the Silures knew a mighty victory.’

  ‘The battle of Caerau?’ I ventured.

  ‘Good, good, yes,’ he said. ‘Now recite it to me.’

  I turned to the altar, pulled out one of the strings of stones from my pouch, and ran my fingertips over the first smooth bead.

  Here is the declamation of a brilliant poem of immeasurable inspiration,

  concerning a brave and authoritative chief, from the stock of—

  It was only the fourth line and I had faltered.

  ‘Again,’ said Rhain, without emotion.

  I started from the beginning, but the grove had unnerved me. I stumbled again.

  ‘No,’ said Rhain. ‘You are not with the song. You are elsewhere. Be only with the poem.’

  I tried again. The stillness—not even a leaf swayed on this windless eve—the gloom, even Rhain, all seemed to be judging me. I could not speak two lines without an error.

  ‘To which path have you bound this song?’ asked Rhain.

  ‘To the river path, as it flattens near the first field.’

  ‘Then take yourself there, Kendra. Pass each rock and bend in your mind to see the places that conjure the memory…’

  I closed my eyes and spoke again. But try as I might, I could not summon the poem. My voice grew fainter with each attempt, my mind clouded with my failing.

  Rhain stood and picked up the staff he had laid before the altar. ‘It is not possible,’ he said. ‘We cannot heat metal that is unstable…’

  ‘Let me try another…The Song of Wind?’

  ‘Another song will not disguise that you have failed to remember this one. It is my error. I was too hasty. You are not yet ready after all.’ He smiled at last.

  ‘Rhain—’ I could not bear that I had disappointed him. ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘Tell me this, Kendra,’ he said, sitting back beside me. ‘Do you still wish to become a Songwoman?’

  ‘Above all else!’ I startled at my own words. I had not realised, until I said them, that they were true.

  ‘For what purpose?’ said Rhain.

  ‘Because…’ I hesitated, staring at an oak root that had snaked around the base of the altar-stone. He had asked me this question once before. My answer had hinged on my Kendra’s title. But now it meant even more than that. ‘Because I…wish to be heard,’ I stammered. As soon as I had uttered it I heard the weakness in it.

  Rhain shook his head. ‘I do not train you in service of pride, Kendra. We have been five summers at war. The tribes are weary. They need someone to tell them what will come to be.’

  I frowned. ‘But who can tell them that? No one knows how the war will end.’

  ‘We tell them.’ He stared at me. Never had the bones of his face, his brown eyes, seemed so beautiful.

  ‘How?’ I whispered.

  The very forest seemed to pause for his answer.

  ‘By remembering. Whatever story we remember will determine what endures. This is your purpose. There is no other.’

  The boughs stirred as the trees exhaled.

  His claim was strong but I knew it was true. I had seen it in his song for Caradog. I had felt it in the scars that marked my chest. ‘I understand you, Songman.’

  ‘And yet the smallest drop of my judgement robs you of your memory. How can you give Albion a future, if you cannot be trusted to remember its past?’

  I looked to the ground, wincing at his brutality.

  ‘This morning you spoke of the future to the council. I saw your authority. Now it is gone.’

  Still I stared at the leaves that covered the grove floor. ‘Perhaps I am not strong enough.’

  ‘Self-doubt is a vanity, Kendra, as is pride. Both will erode your authority. Think less of how you are seen and more of what you see.’

  I could not speak. Yes, I had been drawn to his craft because of the power I hoped it would give me. There was pride in me. And doubt. Each birthed the other.

  I looked at my hands, strong-knuckled, pale from the winter, grasping the knotted cord that held my songs.

  Rhain was right that I saw myself too readily through the eyes of others, imagining their judgement before I had fully shaped my own. But whose was the
approving gaze I sought? Whose was the judgement I held in such deference? It was not only Prydd’s. It was not only Caradog’s. It was not even Rhain’s, although it aligned with all of these men and others.

  I lifted my face and looked at my teacher. I saw at last what he must have always seen. The judgement was of my own conjuring. A weapon drawn against myself. Suddenly I saw the impairment it inflicted. As if I cast out an eye to gaze back upon myself, unaware that it left me half blind. Finally I glimpsed the authority of which he spoke.

  ‘Do you understand?’ pressed Rhain.

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered.

  We sat for a moment, unspeaking.

  ‘Rhain,’ I said. ‘May I try once more?’

  ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘Learn your songs. Speak them with authority. Then you will forge a future.’

  I returned to my hut by nightfall. Euvrain was waiting at my fire. Her pale eyes lifted to mine. The skin beneath them was shadowed.

  ‘What is wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘My husband…’

  ‘Is he taken with illness?’

  ‘Of a kind.’ Her forehead was scored with a frown. ‘I cannot soothe him…’

  I slipped onto the bench beside her. ‘You are his greatest comfort, Euvrain. Surely he—’

  ‘He will not speak to me this night.’ She stared into the flames. ‘He asks for you.’

  For a moment I did not speak. ‘I am sorry,’ I said. ‘There was nothing between us, sister…Beyond the ritual, we did not—’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘He kept his promise to me, as I knew he would.’ Her fingers tightened around the knot of her shawl. ‘But did you, Ailia? Or do you begin to love him?’

  Truth would serve no purpose now. Caradog had made his choice and Euvrain deserved no torment. ‘I love him as my king. Nothing more. He asks for my herbs, perhaps—’

  ‘Then go to him,’ she said, her shoulders softened. ‘Heal him if you can. For all our sakes.’

  The children had been banished and the room was dim and quiet. Caradog lay alone in his bedskins.

  I walked to the edge of his pallet. His shirt was soiled and his eyes were closed. The air around him was thick with his sorrow. What could I offer him? My heart had been all but emptied in the grove and I felt weary of all thought.

  I wished I could lay down beside him, but it was only my healing he sought. Not my heart. I sat on the bottom of his bed.

  His eyes opened. ‘Ailia.’

  ‘What disturbs you, War King?’

  I waited for him to answer. His ailment took none of the lustre from his skin nor strength from his shoulders, but it stole his voice. The deep-bellied tone that could win any favour was flattened like a harp stuffed with wool. ‘I can do this no longer.’

  ‘Do what?’

  Again he lay unspeaking for some time. ‘Force this reckless war—’

  ‘It is not reckless.’

  ‘Many call it so.’ He paused. ‘My father calls it so. He condemns me from the grave. I feel it.’

  ‘He did not face forty thousand men claiming sovereignty of his tribelands. Only you have done this.’

  ‘He would have called me foolish for it. It is the lack of his blessing that weakens me. This is why we cannot gain a foothold in this war. For my every step is in betrayal of my family.’

  I had never seen his struggle grip him so tightly. Yet how could I console him? I had known neither father nor mother. I knew nothing of their pull. ‘Family is much, but not all. You have not betrayed Albion.’

  ‘Perhaps I have.’

  ‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘You have kept us free.’ I regretted that I had gone with Rhain this day, and not gathered the herbs for the medicine that would bring him relief. ‘Tomorrow at dawn I will harvest, and you will have your tincture. It will restore you, I am sure of it.’

  He nodded blankly, without faith.

  I needed to leave. It was a suffering of my own to be so close to him and yet unable to hold him against my chest.

  As I moved to rise, he took hold of my wrist.

  ‘What is it, Caradog?’ I asked. ‘I do not know how else I can help you.’

  ‘Sing,’ he whispered. ‘Sing as you sang as we rode from Tir Brigantes.’

  Tears threatened to come in place of my words. ‘I am not in good voice…’

  ‘Sing that I may know why I must fight.’

  I sat back down, drew breath, and began the first line of the battle of Caerau, which I had attempted in the grove. I drew my thoughts away from the quiver of my breath and the question of whether he still esteemed my voice. I gave my thoughts only to the song and what it told of our courage, and the deep roots that held us in this earth.

  Every word was perfect.

  ‘These leaves are better, Manacca. See how they are newly-opened, and deeper in colour?’

  We were harvesting at the shores of the Castroggi, near the lakes, where cattle and washing had not worn the banks. Only the fewest nettles had begun to shoot spring leaves from their wintry stalks, but these frosted buds would be all the more potent for their newness. Mixed with setwall and dried wort, they would make Caradog a powerful tincture.

  ‘Careful!’ I told her as she reached her small hand straight for the leaf. ‘Use the blade or the plant will sting you.’

  ‘Who is the medicine for?’ she asked.

  ‘The war king,’ I told her. ‘To make him strong.’

  ‘Can I give some to papa?’ she asked.

  I thought of the man I had glimpsed lying on the floor of their hut as I collected her this morning. His twisted back spoke of a bone ailment that no plant could heal. By the smell from the hut, his skin had become infected from being trapped in his bedskins. The nettle would at least dispel his fear as he passed to Annwyn. ‘Of course,’ I assured her. ‘We’ll take him some when it is made.’

  Manacca looked up at me, her cheeks red with cold. I was in breach to have brought her here. I had sung to her and told her simple truths. But to teach her the skills to draw medicine from plants was a power to which she held no claim. Yet had I not been given such a chance? And had she not run so joyously into my embrace when I had come to her doorway at this day’s first light? The only harm would be in Prydd’s discovery.

  Dawn mist coiled off the water. I felt unexpectedly peaceful. I thought of the man for whom my basket was filling with stems and leaves. My love for Taliesin had almost drowned me. My love for Caradog was a small, persistent pool of longing that lapped at my edges. But it would not drown me. I could withstand it.

  Manacca hummed tunelessly beside me as she picked.

  ‘Shall we try another bush?’ I asked, wishing to leave this one a little of its growth. The banks were abundant with nettle and we soon clutched baskets that could hold nothing more.

  We took the southern road back to Llanmelin, towards the main entrance. Walking down a hedged lane with a child’s hand in my own, it was easy to forget that an enemy watched like an eagle barely three days ride from where we stood.

  Manacca stared up toward the walled township as we drew closer. ‘You can hardly see Llanmelin from this side,’ she said, squinting into the morning sun.

  I smiled. She was right. Though it was one of the largest tribal centres of western Albion, it appeared barely more than a hill on the horizon. Its walls were of earth and chalk: a summoning of the land, not a conquering.

  ‘Perhaps Rome will not see it, either,’ she said.

  ‘Perhaps not.’ I squeezed her fingers. ‘They are not good at seeing what is hidden.’

  ‘Then why are you scared of them, Aya?’

  I stopped and crouched before her. Her question was honest and she deserved an honest answer. ‘Because when they take our towns and forests, they do not know that they also take our song places.’

  Her brown eyes suddenly brightened. ‘But they cannot take our songs!’

  I opened my mouth to correct her, then shut it again and stared at her.

  Within her calf-soft g
aze was a simple truth I had never seen. They could not take our songs.

  In those few words, this untaught child showed me, for the first time, what had drawn me to learn Rhain’s craft. Not because of its allure, nor for my own standing, but because it held a hope for Albion that neither the warriors, nor even the Kendra, could ensure.

  Rhain had said the song’s purpose was to shape the future. What if the future to be shaped was far more than a battle outcome, the success of a chieftain or the fate of a township? What if it was the future of Albion itself?

  I drew Manacca to my chest and kissed her cold cheek. ‘Thank you, pup.’

  She giggled and bounced on her bare feet as I let her go.

  We walked on. I would push Rhain no further to hasten my training. I would not ask to forge song until he deemed me ready. I would learn with as much diligence as I could summon. For when I was ready, I needed to create a song powerful enough to hold all our land’s knowledge, even if the rivers were guarded by Roman gods and the groves were burned to ash.

  Was I strong enough to create such a song? I possessed the Kendra’s knowledge, the bone-deep memory of our land’s forming. If I were not strong enough, no one was.

  We brewed plants in my hut, where Manacca might easily scurry behind the blanket box if Prydd called at the door. Once I had returned her to her home, I took the fresh tea to Caradog’s house.

  ‘Tidings, Ailia.’ Euvrain kissed me at the door. ‘I won’t ask you inside.’ She leaned closer. ‘He sleeps…he has barely roused all this day.’

  She frowned as I explained what I had made and pressed the clay jar into her hands.

  ‘Has he agreed to take it?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  Euvrain looked surprised. ‘You have altered him, sister. He has never taken medicine by my counsel.’

  ‘Have him drink half now and half upon waking,’ I told her. ‘I will bring more when it is made.’

  The sense of someone present roused me from sleep the next morning. I opened my eyes to a smirking face not one arm’s length from my own.

  ‘Caradog!’ I sat up with a jolt. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I came to thank you,’ he said. ‘But you were so restful, I did not want to stir you.’