by Ilka Tampke
‘How long have you been sitting here?’
‘Not long. I was watching you in sleep. You are comic. And talkative. I heard several names—’ he paused, ‘even my own.’
I wriggled to pull my blanket over my under-robe, panicking at what I might have said. ‘Why do you thank me?’
‘For the river plants. You have worked a magic. There is improvement.’
‘There could not be,’ I said. ‘It takes weeks. It is too soon.’
‘And yet,’ he said, eyes shining. ‘I am released.’
I stared at him in disbelief. His whole being was transformed: brighter, taller, bristling with humour. ‘I have never known such a rapid effect.’
‘Nor have I.’ He laughed, though his eyes were grateful.
I leaned back onto the wall. It was good to have him back.
‘You will be my only physician, Kendra. Your arts are Mother-blessed.’
Just as I opened my mouth to protest, he leaned forward, took my face in his hands, and kissed me firmly on both cheeks. Then he jumped to his feet and began pacing a circle around the fire. ‘I will call council again today,’ he said, ‘We need to send scouts to Tir Dobunni immediately…’
He crouched down to my wood basket to take a log for the fire. His unfastened shirt hung loosely from his shoulders.
I felt yesterday’s fortitude ebbing away. Somehow it was easier when he was unwell. His struggle had become an intimacy for us. Now, like this, as warm and alive as a roaring fire, he belonged to everyone and no one. ‘Caradog, I…’
He looked up.
But my next words, whatever they might have been, were silenced by the clatter of my door bell and Euvrain’s face through the doorskins. ‘Ailia, I have come to tell you—Oh! Husband, I had not expected to find you here so early…’ Her eyes were confused through her smile.
‘Come in, sister,’ I said as I jumped from my bedskins and pulled on my cloak. ‘Join me for some elder tea—your husband is restored…’
The Romans were rebuilding their camps beyond the Habren.
With the first snowmelt of spring, Caradog started initiating skirmishes in Roman territory. The fight bands he sent were small—four or five men—who could slip through the forest, hiding in trees then ambushing Scapula’s soldiers as they rode between camps. They guarded the banks of the Habren, spearing any soldiers who dared to cross our most sacred boundary.
Soon there were many fresh heads at our gates.
Scapula drew more of his legions to strengthen these camps. His curly-nosed ships glided slowly up and down the channel, keeping close watch on our southern shore. Caradog’s plan was working. Scapula was wary of an attack in the south. This was where he was turning his gaze.
While we waited for Caradog’s instruction to move to Tir Brigantes, we tended the birthing ewes, sowed the spring crops, and held tight to the observances that bound the Mothers close.
I did not lessen my training in song, yet nor did I attempt to hasten it. If Rhain had noticed a deeper clarity of purpose in my learning, he did not remark on it. I held to my vow to push him no further to teach me to forge, to wait until my readiness was in no doubt.
In turn, I took Manacca out most days to the banks to learn plantcraft. With leather mittens on her determined hands, she dug through still-frozen earth to harvest burdock, setwall and mallow roots, then we spent many hours drying, powdering and preserving the medicine in my hut. I was transgressing Prydd’s command, but I hid our movements and carried on. Our knowledge faced a far greater threat than an unskinned child.
When day and night were of equal length, Caradog sent word to Venutius that he would ride north in one month, and the chiefs must prepare themselves to rise. The return message was favourable. It seemed that Caradog’s strategy would succeed.
One week later, the Ninth Legion attacked the Deceangli.
8
Duty
The Mothers will perish if we do not sing, over and over, the stories that attest them.
THE COUNCIL gathered in Hefin’s hall, bleary in the early morning.
‘Did the chiefs meet them in open battle?’ Caradog’s face was ashen. ‘By Lleu’s light, I pray they would not be so stupid.’
‘No,’ said the rider who had travelled through the night. ‘Some have submitted, others have fought by ambush on the paths, but—’ he paused, ‘—it has made no difference to Scapula’s strategy.’
‘What has been done?’ said Caradog slowly.
The rider stared at him. ‘The destruction is total. Settlements and grain fields burned, metals taken and cattle slaughtered. Elders are slain and women raped before death. Even babes are not spared…’
Euvrain’s moan was stricken.
Caradog met my eye, his face as stone.
I thought of the chiefs whose fires we had shared, who had laid their swords at Caradog’s feet.
The rider recounted the names of townships that had been destroyed, their people tortured.
I closed my eyes. The violence he described was known to me. I had seen my own townskin slaughtered in this way. With the rider’s every word the memory grew stronger, until I could taste the smoke, hear the hiss of burning hair, and smell the tang of opened flesh.
I leant forward with a wave of dizziness, gripping the bench to keep from falling. I had to leave before I vomited. ‘Forgive me…’ I gasped, stumbling as I attempted to rise.
Quickly Euvrain was beside me, bidding me sit and giving me sips of her ale. But it was Caradog who crouched before me, forced my eye, and told me, ‘Ailia. You are safe.’
I nodded. His voice, its certainty, was a branch I could hold to. My vision cleared, but my heartbeat would not steady.
‘What is wrong, Kendra?’ said Prydd, watching me. ‘So sensitive a soul feels the wounds of war keenly. Do you need rest or can you hold firm through the discussion?’
‘I am well,’ I said, my breath shaking. I could not allow Prydd to see this weakness, this shame.
The council returned to their places, but Caradog remained at my side.
‘Where are they now?’ I asked the rider. ‘By the settlements you have described, they are heading west…’
‘Ay,’ he said. ‘They are halfway to the ocean of Erin.’
‘So far?’ I gasped. They had moved like water.
‘What does Scapula mean by this?’ asked Prydd.
‘He seeks to cut off my pathway to the Brigantes,’ said Caradog.
The rider nodded. ‘He states it is retribution for the chiefs who have sworn allegiance to you. He promises the same for any other tribes who might follow.’
Caradog stared at the fire. ‘There is one light within this darkness.’ He turned to the rider. ‘Return to Venutius. Tell him to command the chiefs to rise now. Quickly. While Scapula is far from Tir Brigantes. Tell him I will come with men to make firm the uprising. This is our chance.’
Prydd frowned. ‘What of the Deceangli?’
‘When I command the Brigantes, we will claim back the Deceangli.’ He looked at me. ‘Do you agree, Kendra?’
My heart still pounded with the shock of the attack. But Caradog was right. There was no other way. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘The Brigantes are our only hope.’
‘War King,’ said Prydd, ‘The girl does not—’
‘Silence, journeyman,’ said Caradog.
I looked up in surprise.
Caradog had closed his eyes. Only when they opened did I see how angry he was. He turned to Prydd, barely holding his temper firm. ‘Ailia predicted this attack, while you called her unworthy. Now her counsel has borne true, and yours false.’
Prydd’s face was expressionless. ‘My counsel accorded with the wishes of Môn—’
‘I do not care!’ The room jumped at the roar of the war king’s voice. Such anger I had never seen in him. He set his cup on the bench beside him, his hand trembling. I saw how deeply he felt the wounds against his people, how determined he was to gain back the reins of this war. He rose to hi
s feet. ‘Prepare the men, Hefin,’ he said. ‘We leave for Tir Brigantes tomorrow at dawn.’
‘What of Llanmelin?’ said Hefin. ‘We are watched across the Habren as you well know.’
Caradog snorted. ‘Do you forget they are Romans?’ he said. ‘They will not move without their commander. While Scapula is in the north, the Silures are safe.’ He strode from the hall and the council followed.
Only Rhain and I remained in the hall.
‘It seems the war king begins to warm his hands at the flame of your authority.’
I gave a weak smile. He was right. By the horror of this attack, I had been granted as clear a recognition of my Kendra’s knowledge as Caradog had yet given. But now it had come, I could not accept it. Though my heart-pound had calmed, images of my township’s attack stained my every thought. It was beyond my endurance that any should suffer as they had suffered. As I had caused them to suffer.
I stood up. Despite my love of him, I could not sit with this man who esteemed me so undeservedly. I had not realised how deep this wound still was. It was not the fire of authority that burned in my chest, it was the hot embers of guilt.
It was a lean war band who rode at dawn the next morning. The strongest fighters, the swiftest horses. No carts, stock, or grain. When we joined the Brigantes chiefs, there would be supplies enough. Rhain came with us for he knew the way-songs. Prydd and Euvrain remained.
We made swift pace through the first hills of Tir Ordovices, gathering warriors as we travelled. On the fifth day a rider bore news that Caradog’s instruction had been heeded and the Brigantes chiefs had taken up arms against their queen.
There was a mighty cheer through the war band and no protest when Caradog commanded that we ride longer this day to reach them sooner. Though it had cost the blood of the Deceangli, this was our chance to harness the alliance of one of Albion’s strongest tribes. We could not let it pass.
I rode quietly, battling a fear that had been awoken by the attacks. A fear of what I had done. Of what I may yet do.
After we had set camp that evening, I left the fires while there was still some light, and followed a brook upstream for a few moments’ solitude. I came to a pool, part-hidden by ferns. It was black and deep, between shoulders of mossed stone. A stout brown dipper bobbed at its shallows.
Although the air was cold, I hungered to bathe. I shed my cloak, dress and under-robe, and draped them over a low bough. A fistful of leaf-litter would scrub the saddle-dirt from my calves.
Naked, I stood at the water’s edge, uncovered to the forest’s tingling beauty. I entered the pool, gasping with pleasure as the icy water closed around me. No matter how deeply I plunged, I would never be washed of my actions. Still I drank and ducked until the chill made my temples ache.
‘Kendra!’ Caradog stood watching from the bank.
‘What are you doing?’ I called. ‘Am I needed at camp?’
‘Hefin told me I stink,’ he said, pulling off his trousers and shirt. There was little modesty between us. I had seen his nakedness many times as he had dressed in our guest huts.
‘Did you follow me here?’ I asked, gliding backwards as he entered the water.
He plunged beneath the surface before emerging before me, water streaming from his face. ‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘You have barely spoken since we left Llanmelin. I wanted to be sure you were well.’
‘Thank you, I am.’
‘I saw your distress at the attacks on the Deceangli…’
‘Surely any tribesperson would be so distressed.’
‘It was more than that.’
‘It reminded me of what had happened to my township.’
He slid through the pool and settled against a limestone boulder. ‘You have never told me what happened.’
I shivered in the chill water. ‘You know they were slain…do not make me describe it.’
He frowned. ‘And how were you spared?
He had asked it. That which I could not answer. My purpose had been pure enough, but poorly, poorly judged. Was that not an equal failing? ‘By the Mothers’ blessing alone,’ I said, staring at my white hands, distorted by the water.
He sought my gaze. ‘Then what disturbs you?’
‘I wish not…to speak of it.’
‘Yet you have forced me to speak…and you have helped me,’ he said. ‘I would help you also.’ He stood chest deep in the river, his hair clinging lankly to his neck, his skin pale against the dark water.
My heart lurched with regret and longing. The past felt too heavy to bear. I slipped beneath the surface. When I emerged again, he was beside me.
‘Are you going to stay in here all night, little fish?’ he murmured.
Water beaded on his chest and shoulders. His body was smooth and solid, as if he were made of pieces of stone that shifted and gleamed with the slightest movement. But he was not stone. A soft heat rose off his skin.
‘Husband—?’ I had not used the term for so long.
He met my gaze. It should have been torture to stand before him, cold and naked, unspeaking of the love that pressed at my chest. Yet it was not. ‘I will tell you my story, when we are free of this war.’ I could not tell him now. Failing or none, I still had to stand with the tribes as their Kendra.
‘Whatever burdens you, know that I esteem you, Ailia.’
You would not if you knew what I had done, I thought.
He did not look away. In the day’s last light, his eyes were many shades of green and grey. For a moment, the war did not exist.
Then he heaved himself from the pool and shook the water from his hair.
The paths grew steep and our horses slowed. For four days we heard no news of the tribelands for which we rode. Then, when we were only days from the border of Tir Brigantes, a rider galloped into our camp, as we were building the evening fires.
‘Praise the Mothers I have found you,’ she gasped, as she swung from her horse. ‘There is trouble in the north. Scapula has learned of the uprising and turned the legion. They march for Tir Brigantes.’
Caradog stood unmoving. ‘Do you tell me that the governor has turned five thousand men on their heel and sends them back from where they have come?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘This is what he has done.’
‘Where are they at this moment?’
‘The message is two days old. They will be in Tir Brigantes now.’
Caradog lowered himself to a crouch, then, to my horror, began to laugh. ‘By Lleu,’ he said, chuckling. ‘How this man will dance!’
‘War King,’ I said, steadying his shoulder.
‘Do we ride on?’ said Hefin, for once unamused.
‘Let me think,’ said Caradog, his jaw rigid. He rose slowly. ‘What is your council, Kendra? Should we continue?’
I saw in his face that it was no test, no curiosity. He would do as I advised. ‘No,’ I said quietly. ‘We cannot yet meet the legion head to head. We must retreat. And find another way.’ I exhaled. It felt much safer withholding the command to war than giving it.
‘Tell Venutius that we return to Llanmelin,’ said Caradog. ‘But I have not forgotten my pledge. Tell him to keep strong his bonds to Cartimandua so that she does not doubt him. Tell him we will fight together—when it is certain to succeed.’
Just like Rome’s Ninth Legion, we turned on our heel and rode back from where we had come.
The banks of hawthorn surrounding Llanmelin were heavy with bud. As we approached the gate, children screeched and ran alongside us, newly freed of their winter cloaks. Rome could not halt the seasons.
A rider awaited us at the Great Hall’s fire.
Prydd and Euvrain were seated beside him. The news he delivered was worse than we feared. Scapula had borne his legion with an unworldly haste to the Brigantes, where he had swiftly disarmed the rebel bands. Using the Roman tortures that Scapula provided, it had not taken Cartimandua long to identify the chiefs who had incited the rebellion. She had them sla
ughtered in the town centre of Stenwic, witnessed by their followers, the township, and Scapula himself.
‘Did Scapula demand this of her?’ Caradog asked the rider. ‘Did he order the killings?’
‘No. It was by her order. She chose the punishment.’
‘Was it a tribesman’s death?’ said Prydd.
‘No,’ said the rider. ‘It was a Roman death. Forty chiefs were named. They were each scourged to near death, then lashed to a cross of wood and stood upright to bleed out.’
The hall was silent. Only the fire spoke its quiet, crackling comment.
I looked around the faces of Llanmelin’s council. Each one appeared lost, struggling, as I was, to understand the shape of these events. ‘Were they sung to Annwyn?’ I asked, remembering too clearly the anguish that lingers when there is death without rites.
‘No, Kendra,’ said the rider, with a tone of surprise that I would ask it. ‘The journeypeople cannot stand freely before the Romans. It is forbidden for them to ritual with song in any territory allied to Claudius.’
Intuitively, I fingered the stones and feathers of my belt. This was becoming a desperate, unholy battle, its fighters like dogs that no longer knew why they fought, but were driven only to leave each other’s necks torn. I had to ensure that the Mothers remained in this war.
Caradog rose and paced the circle around us. ‘I knew she held an alliance to Rome. I did not think she would defend it with the blood of her own people.’
‘Perhaps she is trapped,’ said Euvrain softly. ‘You have said many times how valuable the Brigantes are to Rome. It seems that Scapula will go to any lengths to keep it. Maybe she has no choice.’
Caradog shook his head. ‘There is always a choice.’
‘One thing is certain,’ said Hefin. ‘Whatever compels her, she stands with the full force of Rome at her flank. We cannot hope for support from Brigantes chiefs any longer.’
Caradog came to a stop. ‘And what of Venutius?’ he said to the rider. ‘Did any of the chiefs betray him to Cartimandua?’