by Ilka Tampke
I stared at the rotting leaves on the forest floor. If our defeat was necessary, then should we succumb, without battle, to Scapula’s army? Should we sign a treaty without having heard the ring of even one sword against another? No. That would be a half-death, an impure sacrifice.
With a wave of horror, I saw what the Mothers asked of me.
Caradog would not fight if I told him the truth. None would ride into a doomed war.
I had to lie. I had to tell Caradog that we would prevail, that he must fight with every shred of his strength. For only such a battle would give us the song. The song of the greatest war king who had ever led the tribes. The song of the most noble battle ever fought on our soil. The song that would preserve the soul of Albion, like a dormant root in our dark earth, until our sovereignty could bloom again.
My task was not to silence this song.
My task was to ensure it would be sung.
Neha flopped at my feet, twitching as she settled, then laid her head on the ground. Could I do it? In anguish, I stroked her soft ear. Could I lie to my people again?
Then, with the same Mother’s grace that had allowed me to see what was yet to befall us, I now peered into my past with a deeper sight. And I saw that even that lie, that failing, was a verse of Albion’s story, the fall of her sovereign people, that they may be birthed anew. And I knew, for the first time, some true pardon.
There, in the forest’s late light, I wept with the cruelty of what the Mothers asked me: to re-live the very act I had repented since it was done. But now I understood it. We would be this land’s sacrifice. We would be its song.
I would tell my lie, but this time I would not allow myself to be hidden from its consequence. I would stand beside my war king in battle and play my part in this poem. I would give myself to this song.
To whomever survived to sing it.
If I sanctioned battle, Caradog would expect me to give him a day. I would choose one that was close. I could not carry the burden of this knowledge for any longer than a mother might be expected to carry the body of her dead child.
My legs were trembling but I knew they would not buckle. They would carry me back to my people and bear the weight of the falsehoods I would tell. I had been gifted a truth that I could not share with another soul.
I reached for my sack. I had forgotten the hare still within it. I loosened the opening. Spared of the sacrifice, it might as well run free. I tipped it onto the ground and watched it bound away.
Only when it had vanished into the undergrowth did I realise that Neha had not even roused at its scent. I nudged her softly with my foot. ‘Wake up, dogess.’
Blood smudged my toe. In a flash, I was beside her, searching her pelt for the wound. There was a swelling on her left paw and two bleeding punctures in her skin. A serpent’s bite. She must have run among them in the moments I had been gripped by change.
I knew the flowers and the treatments that could remedy an adder’s bite. But they were not needed now. Her muscles were limp, her eyes glazed.
Neha was dead.
I returned by late afternoon and spoke to Caradog in his tent. When we emerged, he called for a stump to be rolled up to the fire and set upright to stand on as he spoke.
The camp gathered at his cry.
I stood by his feet, but he hauled me onto the stump beside him.
‘My people,’ he began. ‘The Mothers have spoken through the voice of our journeywoman.’ He squeezed my forearm. ‘They have seen the Roman soldiers bleeding and weak. They have seen our triumph.’ A low murmur rippled through the gathering. ‘Prepare to feast and gather for an offering this night,’ he commanded, ‘tomorrow we will move to the battle camp. And on the seventh day of the next moon—’ his fingers tightened, ‘—we will fight.’
The crowd cheered and surged around Caradog as he leaped from the stump.
I dropped to my haunches and slipped down silently, watching the gathering as if from afar.
I could not see Rhain in the scattering crowd. After searching the journey-tents, I found him among the children, who were milling at the forest’s edge, gathering sticks for the feast fire.
‘Teacher—’ I said to his bent back.
He turned. ‘My queen!’
I laughed as we sat down on the grass, a few paces from the children’s ears.
‘The vision was clear?’ he asked with tenderness.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Very clear.’ This, at least, was not a lie.
He smiled. ‘I did not doubt you.’
I had learnt song at his side every day since we had left Tir Silures. Now I wanted to forge under his guidance before it was too late. ‘Rhain—’ I ventured. ‘Might I sing tonight at the feast? I have felt the Mothers’ blessing. I want to sing of it.’
He looked at me with one eye half-closed in shrewd appraisal.
I knew his face. I knew its weathers. But this time, I could not read him.
‘I will sing tonight,’ he said.
For some moments I stared at the ground in front of me, gouging ruts in the grass with a twig. ‘Rhain—’ I had never challenged him before. ‘—I want to sing of the power I have felt in the battle site, and the triumph I have seen…’
‘No, no,’ he said lightly, as if denying a child a second piece of bread.
I felt my breath grow tight. Then I asked what I had never asked. ‘Why not?’
Rhain simply smiled. ‘Not yet ready.’
Something burst within me. ‘By the will of the Mothers, Rhain,’ I said, my voice low, so the children would not become curious. ‘I am scarred by the Mothers. I am Caradog’s first advisor and wife. I bear this authority. What more must I do for you to allow me to sing?’
‘Good, good…’ he said, nodding. ‘You are almost there.’
The speckled mare stood treading and whinnying at the fire’s edge. The people of the camp and of greater Branovi had formed a circle to witness the ritual. I stood beside Caradog at the front of the gathering.
A temporary oak altar had been erected behind the fire. Two journeymen stood on each side of it, guarding the gateway to Annwyn so that the dead would not pour forth when it was opened. The mare was tied to the altar, her eyes rolling white, as golden seed oil was poured on her forelock.
The crowd parted to allow one of Branovi’s journeywomen to come forward with a knife. She wore a black feather cloak, the costume of all whose task it was to open the gates. I had been asked to wear it this night, but I had declined. I was too weakened by what I had seen to endure the rupture of sacrifice.
The journeywoman positioned herself before the mare, who snorted and strained at the ropes. She raised her knife. Two lesser journeymen mounted the platform and pulled the animal’s head back by her leather halter, exposing her tendinous throat. She reared and screamed, shaking the altar with the force of her resistance.
The flames surged as a journeyman fed them with branches. It was the art of the officiant to ensure that the mare’s blood would touch, but not douse, the flames.
Everyone stood in silent reverence. This offering was for all of us. To cleanse, to heal, to contain our terror.
I pressed my temple against Caradog’s shoulder. Only I knew how important this kill was, how greatly we needed to sense our land’s sacredness.
‘Mothers of Eryr,’ declaimed the journeywoman in the resonant tone of those trained in ceremony. ‘We offer you blood, in honour of your power. Let it make a river to Annwyn, by which your song will strengthen our weapons as we fight in your name.’
She brushed her blade across the mare’s flesh, opening her skin, her throat. The animal gurgled as the pipes of her neck spurted. Her legs gave way and the weight of her body shook the earth we stood on.
We moved to Emrys.
Caradog set the men to building the fortifications on the southern slope, the battle site. The natural embankments had to be widened with ramparts of tightly-packed stone. Gruelling days were spent carrying rocks and rolling boulders up from
the river’s edge. Stones inevitably escaped their handler’s grasp, crushing feet and snapping spines as they tumbled back down to their watery bed.
Caradog kept our spirits high, lifting the heaviest boulders himself, until the mountain face was an impregnable fortress of walls braced with timber containments, sheer drops, and hidden strongholds.
Behind each walled platform was a waist-high pile of fist-sized river stones, which we would hurl down on the ascending soldiers. To link the platforms, we built ladders and short bridges that would enable the warriors to move swiftly around the battleground, yet could be quickly withdrawn from an enemy in pursuit.
Caradog sent riders to the Ordovices, to the uncaptured tribes of the Deceangli and the Silures, even to the Demetae in Albion’s far west.
Within two dawns, the chiefs and their war bands began trickling into the camp on horses laden with spears, arrows and balls of iron. None brought their war chariots. This was not to be a spectacle, where golden painted war birds thundered over open fields behind sleek black horses. This was to be warriors in kinship with the mountain, killing as quickly as their stones would allow.
First came the Ordovices, many of whom had fought at Tir Dobunni and were eager for another success. Then came the Deceangli, scarred by the atrocitas, but no less hungry to kill. The Demetae warriors, small groups of wary-eyed men, were the first of this remote tribe to join the war. Their strange, rolling dialect was hard to decipher, but the clang of their swords against Caradog’s in pledge of their loyalty, was as clear as the autumn sky.
Lastly, amid tears of welcome, came the bands from the Silures, seething with hatred for the enemy who had only just entered their tribelands, thinning their numbers, but not their spirit.
‘What is known of Llanmelin?’ I asked one of the chiefs later, as we drank ale by our fire with these tribesmen whose land we had shared.
‘Lost,’ he said. ‘The Romans are thick as fleas on a dog, guarding it, although it is nothing more than a tomb.’
I sipped my ale and prayed for Manacca.
More arrivals filtered over the borders from the Cornovii and the Dobunni: foolhardy fighters who cared so greatly for Albion’s freedom that they risked capture at the enemy line in order to lend their spears to this battle.
Caradog was aflame, sleeping little by night, yet brimming with vigour throughout each day. I saw how he thrived in the task of preparing for battle, how standing proud as war king summoned what was truest in him. The loyalty of the tribes was his milk and he drank thirstily, offering hope in return.
While his spirit grew, my own shrank with every new arrival. Each dawn I sat alone on the cliff edge, asking myself if I acted in truth, holding my knowledge up to Lleu’s scrutiny, weighing it, re-living the vision, and enduring the grief of what it meant. Every day I came afresh to the same conviction: Albion would be renewed by this destruction, and I must not stop it.
At last the incoming bands ceased. There were almost twenty thousand warriors camped in the gullies behind the mountain. Môn had sent grain, dried meat, ale and coin for trade with the nearby craftsmen. The weapons were positioned.
We were ready. Now we would cease patrolling the paths and allow the people of the camps to burn large fires and gather openly in the valley. The Roman scouts would soon see the smoke, the weapons, the numbers, and Scapula would not resist the chance to meet his enemy at last.
Standing with Caradog on the bank of the rushing Glaslyn, I stared up at the craggy slopes of our mountain. The Romans would not be able to work their formations, outflank us or make use of their short swords. Their heavy shields would only be a hindrance when both hands would be needed to climb. We, by contrast, would be strong on the steep network of platforms, free to use the spears, arrows and long swords with which our warriors were most skilled.
It was hard to imagine that we would not triumph.
Caradog pulled me against him. He smelled of the mare fat he’d used to oil his leather shield, which now stood gleaming at the foot of the mountain with all the other warriors’ shields.
‘We have done it,’ he said softly.
I nodded, turning my face into his chest so he would not see my tears.
That night, a servant roused me from a restless sleep.
Euvrain’s baby was ready to be born. She asked for me.
I attended her in her tent as she howled and writhed with a pain I had not witnessed in a mother that lived. In whispered pleas, she begged to be released of it.
‘The child comes,’ I assured her, though I knew no certainty. ‘Do not abandon it.’ Kneeling between her legs, I gasped with relief as a bloodied skull began to bulge at the fleshy brink. With two earth-parting bellows, I grasped a tiny, purple girl in my hands.
I laid her on her mother’s breast, but the babe could only stare in round-eyed wonder, too wakeful to suck.
‘Look, how curious she is!’ I laughed as I severed the cord with my knife. ‘And she is fair, like you.’
Euvrain took my wrist. ‘Make sure she is safe.’
‘Romans to the south!’
I heard the watchman’s cry from within my tent. It was mid-morning, four dawns since we had opened the paths to await Scapula, one dawn before my chosen day of war.
Caradog and several other chiefs were already at the viewing platform as I mounted the ladder and looked out. There, blurred by distance yet unmistakeable, were the scarlet-clad figures of Scapula’s army, pouring into a clearing about two leagues to our east.
‘They are less than a half day’s march away,’ said one of the chiefs. ‘I will tell my men we will fight today.’
‘Wait—’ Caradog frowned as he watched the army. Smoke rose from their midst. ‘They are setting camp. They will move tomorrow.’
‘On the very day I chose,’ I murmured.
‘Do you see, Ailia?’ said Caradog. ‘The Mothers are telling this story.’
I watched him staring at the enemy from whom he had been hiding for seven summers. He looked at me and smiled. The sunlight caught his eyes, turning them green as young oak leaves.
‘Come,’ he said to the chiefs. ‘Let us send some riders out to reckon their numbers. Then we’ll speak to the fighters. Ailia—’ he called back from the top of the ladder, ‘prepare the plants to ready the warriors.’ He jumped off the platform, landing hard on his feet.
In allowing us to see him before he marched on our camp, Scapula had relinquished the advantage of surprise, giving us half a day to prepare. But he had claimed another, perhaps greater, benefit: time for our fear to take hold.
As the warriors paced through their swordcraft, an unease began to spread among them. I could smell it in their sweat as they parried one another. I could see it in the anger that erupted when a poorly-blocked swipe cut too deep into a shoulder or forearm.
With two initiates in assistance, I walked among them for all the hours of the sun’s descent, giving them goldenseal to release their fear, and nightshade to numb pain.
Tomorrow they would face an army that had enslaved most of the known world. Of course they were frightened.
The evening brought a second cry from the northern watchmen. Was this to be Scapula’s death blow? A late day ambush from the rear? Surely the scouts could not have failed to sight it. I found Caradog at the camp’s northern boundary, watching in disbelief as a stream of people emerged from the woodland. One final tribe had come to join the war band.
I gasped, half-laughing, as they walked towards us. Their dark green tartans and horsehair flags belonged to none other than the Brigantes.
Their leader dismounted and stood before Caradog. I recognised the chieftain from our travels through southern Tir Brigantes. He had been one of those who had sheltered us. He unstopped his flask and poured ale on the ground at Caradog’s feet. ‘We fight beside you, War King of Albion.’
Caradog took the chief’s hand and kissed it. ‘Has your queen released you to this war task?’
‘We are here with no blessing
from Cartimandua,’ said the chief. ‘We must succeed tomorrow. For when she learns we have come, we will find no welcome in Tir Brigantes.’
Caradog nodded. His war band was full of such landless fighters. ‘And Venutius?’
‘He sent us weapons and scouts to aid our passage.’ The chief paused. ‘He is still friend to you.’
I brushed my hand over Caradog’s back. He had been emboldened by every tribe that had knelt to him, but this—the Brigantes—was the gemstone in his crown. There were at least two thousand men and women gathered in the clearing before us. With this allegiance now given, he stood as Albion’s greatest war king.
He threw back his head and let loose a caterwauling war cry, ululating into the crimson sky. The chief laughed then echoed him, as did the Brigantes arrivals and all of Albion’s war band, until the entire valley filled with our sound.
Scapula could not have failed to hear it.
As darkness fell, Caradog dressed for ceremony in our tent. It was time to speak to the warriors, to inspirit them for what they must face on Lleu’s next rise.
‘I want you to come with me,’ he said as he fastened his cloak with a thick bronze fibula.
‘Of course.’ I handed him his chieftain’s torc. I had been dreading the request. I had no heart to walk among the men for a second time, to look upon their bodies, knowing that most would lie dead on the earth tomorrow. But I had no claim to the luxury of cowardice.
Grouped in their tribes, the warriors were spread throughout the gullies of the mountain’s rear slope. Caradog moved like lightning between them, charging the air with his final battle words, mocking the Romans and proclaiming his certainty that victory was ours. At every hearth he stood with flame light on his face, lit like a god against the mountain darkness, calling on the names of the ancestors who had defended Albion’s soil in Rome’s first attack.
Rhain stood at his side in bells and feathers, verifying the histories and intoning the bloodlines with rising pitch. He and I followed the War King from camp to camp, as he ensured that every warrior who had pledged to fight heard his call and drank of his spirit. After seven years of crawling in mud, lurking in forests and scrapping like wolves in the cover of darkness, we had reached this moment of light.