Songwoman

by Ilka Tampke

  When it was done, I sat in silence, taking my first unsteady breaths of the world without him.

  Caradog had kindled a fire in the mine and was sitting beside it.

  I stood just inside the entrance. ‘They have retreated and taken the prisoners. Only the slain remained.’

  ‘Was Euvrain among them?’

  ‘No.’ I paused. ‘But your Songman was.’

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘Yes, Caradog, he is dead! He has fallen to this Mother-forsaken war.’

  Caradog stood. ‘Do not raise your voice against me. It was you who said the Mothers were with us. It was you who commanded the fight.’

  ‘I know.’ I put my face in my hands.

  ‘Perhaps your power is not as strong as I thought.’

  ‘Perhaps it is not.’ I walked to the fire and crouched to its warmth. His strike did not wound me. I had heard the voice of the Mothers. I understood the greater sacrifice. But understanding it had not prepared me to live it.

  Caradog sat beside me and I flinched from his touch. We sat for several moments unspeaking. Then I saw that he grieved as much as I. He had loved Rhain as I had. I put my hand on his back.

  ‘Where shall we go now?’ I asked.

  ‘We have to leave here or Scapula will find us.’

  ‘And what of Euvrain?’

  He paused. ‘The only way I can retrieve her is to win the war.’

  I stared, incredulous. ‘We lost the battle, Caradog.’

  He frowned. ‘Scapula won today, but he will not hold this new front.’

  Stunned, I listened as he spoke on, erratic with strategy.

  ‘He is rash…He has no forethought. He has stumbled into these mountains after me, but now he is left with a frontier that he cannot possibly defend. Think of it, Ailia. His line will need to reach from Eryr to Llanmelin, through the most difficult mountains of Albion. He will need to build camps and roads for their supplies. It will take him months and he will stretch his men thin to do it. They will be weak while they are building, and we can inflict much damage.’

  ‘Who, Caradog?’ I asked, disbelieving. ‘Who will inflict the damage?’

  ‘Do you think it is only I who would fight for this land? While you were at camp I found the men of the Silures. They are not yet tamed. They are ready to continue with the night attacks and hidden strikes that you yourself have always claimed are our greatest power.’

  ‘And what will you do?’

  ‘I have already told you. I will go to the Brigantes.’

  ‘To the southern chiefs?’

  ‘No. To Stenwic.’

  ‘You cannot—Why do you make sport of Cartimandua’s warning?’

  ‘Because I need Venutius. Scapula is vulnerable there now that half his forces are here in the western mountains. If I can harness the Brigantes, then we can attack from the east, while the free tribes stand in the west.’

  I looked at him, speechless. Before his tribeskin’s bodies were cold, he had wrought a strategy to slay yet more. ‘And the warriors are in agreement?’

  ‘Those I have spoken to. I have asked them to send messages so that all the western bands know I have not abandoned them.’

  I was too exhausted to think further. I tended the fire, then lay on my back while he rested his head on my shoulder.

  ‘Can Venutius be trusted?’ I asked.

  ‘I do not know,’ said Caradog. ‘But we have no other course.’

  This was the recklessness of a wild horse, surrounded. I lay unspeaking.

  ‘I will never give up, Ailia,’ he said softly. ‘While I live, I will fight for our freedom.’

  It was his shape and I could not alter it.

  The Mothers had told me that Emrys would be our sacrifice. They did not tell me that there would be more.

  I had survived the battle. The Mothers had preserved me to protect the song.

  No longer Rhain’s, but mine.

  It took three weeks to reach Stenwic.

  News of the defeat at Emrys had travelled before us, and there were fewer chieftains prepared to harbour Rome’s most wanted enemy. We were forced onto the least-known woodland paths, for the main roads of Tir Brigantes were crawling with soldiers in search of the war king. Despite his victory, it was clear that Scapula would not rest until he had severed the head from the serpent of resistance.

  Caradog grew as bleak as I had ever seen him. He refused to speak of the defeat on the mountain. Each night as we lay in farmers’ barns, or wild beneath the northern stars, he would not be drawn by my comfort or counsel. Yet by day he remained bold. ‘I will harness the Brigantes,’ he told every tribesman who still had heart to hear him. ‘Our war chariot will ride again.’

  His sadness did not bridle his courage, but birthed it. Perhaps this had always been true. Perhaps only one who knew true despair could find hope in hopelessness.

  At last we rode into the moorlands that surrounded Stenwic. Our destination was a farmhouse, half a day’s ride from the township. The farmer’s eldest son had ridden out to meet us at dusk. This same boy had borne a message to Venutius’s private stables this morning as the prince prepared for his daily hunt.

  When we walked through the farmhouse doorway, we saw Venutius himself sitting by the fire. He greeted us with nervous gladness, but grew more settled as we drank a thick marrow broth and shared news of the west.

  ‘The men are wounded but still strong,’ said Caradog. ‘They fought like the hounds of Annwyn. They need only to know that the forces of the Brigantes are prepared to rise and they will take up their swords once more.’

  I said little. The warriors of the Deceangli and the Ordovices had been culled to obliteration. Only the Silures and southern Brigantes had retained enough fighters to be called a war band. And of those we had passed in hiding in the forests, shivering in fireless and hungry huddles, few could be described as strong.

  Venutius glanced at the farmer and his wife.

  ‘We need wood,’ she said rising. ‘Husband, help me split it.’

  ‘I have been thinking of nothing else since news of your battle reached our hall,’ said Venutius, once they had taken their leave. ‘The tribes of the north, especially those of my homeland, are ready to complete what you have begun in the west.’

  Caradog smiled. ‘Then are you ready to break from your wife and stand beside me?’

  I heard the seduction in the word beside. Where Hefin had once stood, now there was space for another.

  Venutius looked at him. ‘I may not have to move against Cartimandua. She has known some kind of alteration since the news of Emrys. In the quietness of our bedchamber, she speaks favourably of the strength of the warriors and questions Scapula’s intrusion to the west. I believe she is ripening to another view. Though she cannot say it at council, lest the procurator catches her new scent.’

  ‘What has turned her?’ I said.

  ‘I cannot be certain, but I suspect it is the new governor,’ said Venutius. ‘Plautius understood her power. Scapula shows little respect for the rule of a woman. She is angered by the guards he has placed here since the uprising. The Roman treaty does not taste as sweet to her as it once did.’

  The fire crackled as Caradog digested this news. ‘Then tell her,’ he said, ‘that if she desires it, I will come to her and show her the honour she is owed. Tell her I will fight under her command to restore her queendom—to her rule alone.’

  I stared at him in shock. Never had I heard him offer to yield to another’s command. ‘Caradog,’ I said, ‘do not chance with her warning.’

  ‘It may be too soon.’ Venutius cradled his soup cup against his chin.

  ‘Tell her,’ said Caradog, ignoring us both. ‘Do not reveal where I am. Just make my offer and return with her response.’

  After we had watched Venutius ride away, I turned to Caradog in fury outside the farmhouse door. ‘Abandon this war if you will, but do not hand yourself to Scapula on a platter.’

  ‘She is my sister, Ailia
. We are forged of the same father. She has had two summers under Scapula’s whip. She will come back to me.’

  ‘Did you even intend to remain hidden, or were you simply soothing me like a child?’

  ‘You are no child. My intention was to work by stealth, but Venutius’s words offer hope that she is not so lost to us as I thought.’

  We stood in silence beneath the stars, as I grappled with this new circumstance.

  ‘I could lead the Brigantes against their own queen,’ said Caradog. ‘But imagine how much stronger our war band would be if she stood beside me at its head.’

  Caradog knew Cartimandua better than I did. I had no choice but to honour his judgement. I knew, however, that was she was not a leader who willingly shared her rule.

  And nor was her brother.

  Venutius returned the next morning. He tethered his hunting horse behind the barn, where it would not be seen from the road, and we gathered again by the hearth.

  ‘She has heard your proposal,’ said the prince.

  ‘By your lips?’ I asked.

  He nodded. ‘I told her that your messenger had been sent to me, in respect of the warning she had given.’

  ‘Well designed,’ said Caradog. ‘And her response?’

  ‘She took some time in her bedchamber and returned to me with this.’ From his belt pouch Venutius pulled out a metal ornament and held it out to Caradog. ‘She asked that I give it to the messenger to return to you.’

  Caradog took the circlet and held it in his open hand.

  ‘She says that she withdraws the threat made against you,’ said Venutius. ‘She offers you this as a pledge of her loyalty.’

  Caradog stared down at the jewel.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Our father made it,’ he said. ‘I watched him cast it and cut in the design. He said it would adorn the breast of his successor. I was barely five summers old, but I did not forget it. He gave it to Cartimandua when she left his fosterage.’

  I leaned forward and picked up the relic from his palm. It was a bronze cloak-pin with a Roman-style fastening, but its tiny swirling face of three interwoven hounds was a design of the tribes. It bore the imperfections of the maker’s hand. It spoke of the love of kin.

  ‘She has asked you to come to her hall at your ease. She will receive you.’ Venutius laughed softly. ‘There was water in her gaze when she gave it to me. I have never seen her weep. It seems the war is not over yet.’

  Caradog nodded, strangely quiet. ‘I will come tonight.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I said.

  ‘This token was more precious to her than her crown itself. I have no doubt.’

  I closed my hand around the jewel. For all her consorting with Rome, Cartimandua was the most forthright creature I had ever encountered. I, too, gave my faith to this metal.

  ‘I will tell her to prepare,’ said Venutius.

  We waited until darkness, then followed the farmer’s son through an unguarded gate in the town’s northern wall. Venutius was waiting outside the hall.

  ‘Who attends?’ whispered Caradog as he led us through the vestibule.

  ‘Only the queen and her house servants,’ Venutius answered.

  We pushed through the hides of the inner doorway. The room was as hot as a bread oven.

  Cartimandua walked forward to greet us. My memory had done her no justice. She wore a black dress with a hammered gold caplet around her shoulders. Her loosed hair spilled over the metal like dark wine. ‘Brother,’ she said to Caradog, ‘thank you for your trust, even while mine has wavered.’

  My muscles began to soften as I watched them hold each other in a long embrace. Despite all that had gone before, there was love between them.

  She turned to me. Her face was thinner, but unchanged was her stamen scent as she drew me against her. ‘I have hoped for your return.’

  I glanced around the hall as we took off our cloaks and handed them to the servant. Torches flamed between the heavy drops of patterned cloth that lined the walls. Unlike most roundhouses, there was no second doorway opposing the first. The fire was built too high for a hall of this size, and I felt a sheen of sweat dampen my temples.

  ‘Eat!’ she said, motioning to a table laid with platters of meats, sweetmeats and soft cheeses, abundant enough to feed ten times our number. We each filled a bronze plate then joined her at the fire.

  ‘I mistook you both when we last met,’ she said. ‘I thought you would be captured before you reached Tir Silures. But you have led our Romans on a lively dance and I have enjoyed the tales of it.’

  Caradog laughed. ‘You always did.’

  She smiled. ‘And now, despite Scapula’s every attempt, you have evaded him.’ Cartimandua looked at me. ‘Your Kendra has protected you, after all, brother.’

  I took a small bite of a ground nut cake. ‘You believed the title to be little more than an ornament.’

  ‘I was wrong. You have kept Caradog safe. You speak the land’s will and I no longer wish to act against its command.’

  ‘Then hear my advice,’ I said.

  ‘If your advice is to take back the reins of the Brigantes from Rome, then I am well-minded to hear it.’

  ‘What of Scapula?’ said Caradog.

  ‘Scapula is a boil of a man. And a fool. He will not meet with me alone, but demands Venutius. He is terrified of speaking with a queen, as if my cunt would swallow him whole. He brings me documents to mark that would hand over half my queendom to the Empire on my death. What does he think I am?’

  ‘I cannot imagine.’ Caradog smiled.

  ‘Plautius had foresight and wits. While he kept off my council benches, I enjoyed the fruit of his friendship. But I will tolerate no man claiming what I alone have built. They have had their fun here. Now the feast is over.’

  ‘What of your citizenship to Rome?’ I said.

  ‘Bonds to a nation outside your birthplace are earned, not given. How can I value something so easily bestowed?’

  She was right, and yet the change seemed too sudden.

  Caradog’s leg began to tap with excitement. ‘What is the mood of your chiefs?’

  ‘You know as well as I do that most of them oppose our treaty. It has been an unending struggle to soothe their disquiet. They will rise in an instant.’

  ‘Are they well-metalled?’

  Cartimandua laughed. ‘This is the Brigantes. Of course they are well-metalled.’

  Caradog took a small chunk of white flesh from a platter that a servant had brought before him. He frowned as he chewed the first bite. ‘What is this delicacy, sister?’

  ‘Something I am told is highly-prized in the dining halls of the east—serpent. Adder from the forest floor.’

  Blood slowed in my veins.

  Caradog laughed and took a second mouthful. ‘It is like fish and hare at once,’ he said. ‘Delicious.’

  ‘What of the adder’s poison?’ I muttered.

  ‘It is not held in the flesh,’ said Cartimandua. ‘Surely the Kendra knows such simple truths of animal lore.’

  ‘Eat no more of it,’ I said to Caradog.

  ‘Why not?’ said the queen, taking a large steak herself. ‘It is sweetly flavoured.’

  ‘What is wrong, Ailia?’ said Caradog.

  He doesn’t remember, I thought. The marriage geas. The prohibition. ‘Perhaps the heat,’ I murmured. My pounding heart was obscuring my senses. I drew a deep breath. I needed to steady.

  Cartimandua was staring at me. She drew an iron firestick from the wood basket and prodded the logs into an eruption of sparks. Then she tapped the iron several times on the hearthstones.

  One of the curtains rippled with a draft I could not feel.

  Caradog fingered the bronze pin, which he had fastened to his tunic. ‘Scapula has incurred heavy losses at Emrys,’ he said. ‘We should strike quickly, before he has a chance to replenish his numbers.’

  Suddenly, I smelt the sharp sweat of bodies poised for command.


  ‘Fair counsel,’ said Cartimandua. ‘We will make our attack after your journey.’

  ‘Caradog…’ I murmured.

  ‘What journey?’ said Caradog, ignoring me.

  Cartimandua looked at him. ‘Your journey to Rome.’

  I met Caradog’s eye. There was one heartbeat of stillness—a flash of understanding between us—before the room came to life and the Roman guards surged forward, conjured from the room’s periphery like salmon rising from a river’s depths.

  ‘Run, War King!’ I screamed, but the door was already blocked.

  Caradog jumped to his feet, reaching for his weapon, but fifteen soldiers encircled him, their swords pointed inward like some terrible inversion of Lleu’s rays.

  ‘Caradog—’ My voice was shrill with panic. This could not be. They could not have him.

  ‘Hush, Ailia,’ said Cartimandua, still seated on the bench. ‘It is over now.’

  ‘You!’ I screamed at her. ‘You are the boil! You are the sickness on this soil.’

  ‘Be still,’ she said, her eyes flaring. ‘I promised you that I would hand him to Scapula if he came here again. Did you think I did not mean it?’

  ‘But your trickery…’ I gasped, unbelieving.

  ‘Has he not been breaking his fingers to trick me these past two years? Do you think I don’t know half of southern Brigantes joined him at Emrys?’ Her voice spat like flames. ‘The rulership of my tribe is the most delicate of arts. I can no longer have this man kicking up wasp nests. He is condemning the tribes to war and death. That is no love of Albion.’

  Caradog stared, unmoving, at the queen. ‘I curse you, sister.’

  She nodded. ‘Where is the Governor?’ she said to the soldier at the door.

  ‘He awaits outside,’ he answered.

  ‘Then bring him,’ said the queen.

  The guards pulled open the doorskins to admit a plain man of middling age and height. He seemed even slighter without his breastplate, his hair tightly-curled. He walked towards the fire, placed an iron tool into the embers, then commanded the soldiers to part their circle. ‘Hold him.’