by Signe Pike
“I hope their properties are not depleted,” I whispered to the half-empty room.
The plant I sought would not grow until midsummer. I would have to rely on what scant supply I’d set aside before the turning of the year. Too little and it would not affect me. Too much and it would stop my heart. I tucked the wolfsbane gently into the hidden pocket of my gown, and my fingers brushed my little green ring.
I thought of Maelgwn and my brother standing beneath Caer Gwenddolau’s ramparts as they witnessed the slaughter of their men.
I thought of my son.
I knew there was no other course that might achieve the right ends.
There would be slaughter. Blood after blood, and now, in my failure to stop the raid, the blood would wet my hands. But Cathan had once told me all leadership was blood.
And this was not revenge. What Lailoken sought was justice.
Rhydderch must not know. He must never know.
Latching the shutter, I ducked from the healing hut, closing the door behind me.
I told Eira alone what I planned to do.
Together we kept awake trying to figure a way we might warn Rhian and Elufed. It was impossible. They were at Partick, I knew, not at Clyde Rock. I could only pray that they’d stay. Anything I did could mark me a traitor, and I did not want my children to have to suffer my death.
The wolfsbane’s effects would be immediate, and the journey to Clyde Rock was nearly a full day downriver on favoring tides. Knowing as much, I waited seven days, fear gnawing at my stomach. What if I delayed my sickness too long? What if they did not come? What if Rhydderch sent Cyan, but pressing matters kept my husband to the rock?
At last it came time to prepare the wolfsbane. I took little more than I would give to one who truly needed it. But it struck quickly, making my insides burn and my heart race, then falter, in my chest.
The pain was worse than I imagined.
A feeling of dread overtook me as I doubled over, getting sick in my washbowl. Aela must have heard and came in search of me, only to find me leaning over the bowl upon the floor, my body in tremors. Her face blanched. “My lady!”
“I’m unwell,” I said. “Tell Torin to send for my husband. I want my husband and my boy.”
“You need a healer,” she said.
I nodded and waved her off. “Please, Aela. Just do as I say.”
Do not die. Don’t you dare die, I commanded my body. Time altered. Eira came with my guard, lifting me to my bed. Sound came in waves and absences. My body was weak now, but within it, my spirit was a mountain. The plant was not my adversary. The plant would deliver a blessing: my loved ones would not die. And so I became a servant to my sickening. Days slipped away, but it could not have been more than three sundowns later when at last I heard Cyan’s voice.
“Mother?”
I opened my eyes with effort. Safe, he was safe. But my boy’s face was stricken. I could scarcely lift my arm. What use was this body if it could not soothe him?
“Come.” My voice was a rasp from beyond the veil.
Cyan took my hand, and I then saw Rhydderch standing behind him. Strathclyde’s future king.
Safe.
Rhydderch came and placed his palm gently atop mine and Cyan’s. It was cool from the out-of-doors, and it brought me comfort.
“How long have I been ill?” I asked.
Rhydderch blinked as if to clear his thoughts, his face lined with worry. “I cannot say. We came as soon as we got word. Two days, it has been, since you fell sick.”
Relief washed over me. Tomorrow it would be done.
“Stay with me,” I whispered.
“We will stay. Rest now. Only rest,” Rhydderch said.
I let my eyes close.
There were deeds I would carry to my grave.
This was one.
CHAPTER 32
Angharad
The White Fort
Glen Lyon, Kingdom of the Picts
Samhain
31st of October, AD 573
Angharad followed the footpath as Eachna had instructed.
It was the eve of Samhain and the thinness was unsettling. She could feel the yawning gap between this year and the next, the eagerness of the dead to make themselves known. Trees knit their fingers in a tunnel overhead, and she spoke to them as she walked to ease her sense of dread.
I am the daughter of Rhydderch and Languoreth, she told them. Even now a messenger travels to Strathclyde. Any day they will come for me. Any day I will go home.
The branches rustled in the wind. Low clouds raced. Angharad spotted the ford Eachna had told her of and took the path down to the water, stepping carefully over water-slick rocks.
I was the foster child of Lailoken. Memory kicked, the Chi-Rho marked upon doors, and the sting and choke of charred, bitter smoke.
She thought of the bright-hearted people of Cadzow, whose huts lay scattered in the fields and woods around the fortress, her mother’s kin. How long until torches came seeking them, too? She tried to picture her father, but he felt like a stranger.
I am a blood daughter of the Cruithni, she ventured.
It felt like trying on one of Elufed’s fine dresses, sleeves and hem pooling.
She thought of Briochan, Bridei’s counsellor, and the curious sensation of wandering in fog.
Her mother had told them tales of an isle west of Gaul, where nine priestesses dwelled who could raise terrible storms or calm an angry sea. It thrilled Angharad to think Britons once knew such mysteries. Now she wondered if the Britons might have learned such secrets from the Cruithni.
A mother otter with her kit scurried over a fallen log. The flowing river was soundless, creating an eerie silence, but in thinking of the spirits of the river, Angharad no longer felt afraid. She encountered no other person; not a single currach passed her by. It was as if she moved within some strange sort of dreamtime. It was colder here, in the heart of Pictland, and fewer leaves fleshed the trees. Winter would soon entomb these great hills in snow.
It will be quite beautiful, she thought. It is a pity I won’t see it.
The path that ran along the river Lyon became a cowherd’s trail. It ambled through pasture before skirting along the bottom of a hilly, wooded glen and dropping onto a rocky streambed, where Angharad had to pick her way over boulders.
Eachna had promised she would know the waterfall when she came upon it. And as her ears picked up the rush and chortle of running water, she came at last upon the falls.
She stopped a moment, listening.
Water tumbled in a series of cascades from a cataract up the wooded hill, where hazel and birch rose from a steep bed of boulders speckled silver with lichen. The roar of the water was like the churn of the firth in a summer storm, unaffected by wars and the worries of men. It felt like a secret, the way the pools at its feet were quietly breathing.
The river it gushed into was a dark channel the color of steeped roots, too deep and swift to cross, save at the ford Angharad had traversed downriver.
She closed her eyes, seeking permission, as her uncle had taught her. A presence drew near, exploring in return, but then withdrew. It was older than the trees, and if it did speak, it was not in any tongue Angharad knew. Yet she sensed she had not been given the right to trespass. She stood a moment, watching the white tumble of water, uncertain she would be able to complete the task Eachna had set for her.
Always they come here, always they are seeking, the water seemed to say in a sigh. Angharad felt a little shameful, for she, too, had come seeking.
She had come seeking three stones. A round stone. An oblong stone. A stone in the shape of a triangle.
She did not yet know what their purpose would be, only that Eachna had bade her fill the wooden cup with water from the falls, then collect three stones, placing them in the cup, for the water was important. But Angharad dared not do this without the water’s permission.
She sat upon a nearby boulder. Wrapping her cloak around her knees to w
ard off the cold, she inhaled a deep breath of freshwater spray.
They come seeking because you clean them, she told the water. It isn’t your fault you’re magnificent. You are a god. You cannot help your nature.
She was not certain the water welcomed it, but the way it fell from its mossy shelves was so graceful and not altogether unkind, so Angharad decided she would offer her own nature to the waterfall in a quiet series of rememberings. Splashing in the river Avon in the shadow of her mother’s fortress, spinning with her arms out beneath Cadzow’s trees. Days on end following the tracks of wild creatures. Pressing her ear to her father’s chest to hear the pulsing of his heart.
She did not mean to remember all the things that came after—leaving Cadzow upon her uncle’s horse, warriors scaling the fortress walls, bloody spears, vacant eyes, the sound of Eira screaming. The memories were punishing, delighting in her suffering. Water fell from the height of the wooded glen, beating against rock.
She looked at the pool at the base of the falls. It had not grown or shifted, not to any mortal eye, yet suddenly, the water seemed to open the circle of its arms, as if inviting her to peel off her clothing and plunge into its icy embrace.
But that’s mad! It wants me to swim, Angharad thought. It is Samhain and nearly November. Surely she would freeze.
She looked round, wondering if she might trust it, for some water spirits were known to be devious, delighting in luring people to their deaths.
At first glance, the pool was not deep, but the waterfall was commanding, its wildness complete. It neither tricked nor made promises. But then Angharad realized the rocky bottom of the pool was a trick of the eye. In truth, beneath the layers of earth and of stone, the pool was bottomless. An entrance to another world.
Yes. Travel deeper, something urged. A voice? No. A Knowing.
She followed, and the veil between worlds dropped away.
The spirits of the falls circled the pool, though she could not see them when she looked with her eyes. Only through the mist in her mind could she begin to make out their shapes. Long and lean, made of water and of light.
Fear raced through the cracks in her. They could take her if they wished. It was Samhain. Boys and girls were stolen with alacrity this time of year. These spirits were ancient and far more powerful than she. Eachna had promised Angharad she had nothing to fear. How could her hennain have sent her here?
She spun round, certain something stood, breathing at her neck.
You are not real, Angharad said. But it was. And it was not. Heart racing, she glanced to the river path, wondering if she should scramble back over the rocks the way she had come. But she was weary to the bone of weeping, of feeling afraid.
“I will not fear you,” she shouted over the roar of the water. “Do you hear me? Angharad of Strathclyde is not afraid!”
The pool was breathing. The waterfall stood vigil. Angharad’s voice was carried away by the impatient rush of water.
Would she dare to step in?
She felt the glen beyond, vast and vacant. Angharad clenched her jaw, stripping off her clothes.
Her skin met the air and turned to gooseflesh as she edged toward the pool, testing the water. Minnows darted, and the water swallowed her pale white feet in a thousand tiny needles. Rotted leaves and a silky layer of silt made the stony bottom slick. She took a step farther. The jolt of cold was so blinding that for one blessed moment, Angharad’s noisy and haunted mind tipped, blackness sloshing out like an overfull bucket.
Plunge, the waterfall seemed to beckon.
Plunge, it commanded. For only then might she clean her spirit of its sludge.
Angharad took a breath before she could question it and dunked beneath the surface.
The cold slapped the breath from her lungs, her skinny body convulsing. But beneath the water’s skin, she felt scarcely the weight of a fish scale. The roar of the waterfall muted to a whisper. Cold seeped through in a liquid fire of blazing light.
So much sorrow.
So much death.
It was possible she would never be entirely free of it.
But she understood, in that moment, the gift this water god offered.
A new beginning.
Angharad found purchase on the slippery bottom and pushed, bursting through the surface with a gasp. Her body was shaking, her skin tight. The water came only to her navel here.
She stood, looking across the river, the waterfall at her back.
The trees stood in sharper relief, as if cut by a smith’s tool. She had not been dragged into the nether world, though she felt its invitation pulse beneath the leaves and silt that swirled at her feet. Her hair was wet and smelled of stream water. She felt bright and at peace.
Angharad wanted to linger in the newness, but her body kicked, demanding survival. She scurried to the boulder where she’d piled her clothes, drying her wet body with her cloak before dressing. It was only as her shaking subsided that she was reminded of her task. She’d been given so much, she hesitated to ask. May I?
Angharad waited. A breeze ruffled the pool, and the boughs of a young oak in the streambed bent as if to nod.
Angharad bent to fill the wooden cup with water and found her three stones quickly.
Head. Body. Heart.
Dropping them gently into the cup, she pressed her fingers to her lips in thanks.
The presence of the place retreated. Angharad wondered when she might visit again. There would be time yet, she told herself, before her mother came to fetch her away.
She would be thankful for each day she had among the priestesses of Fortingall, for she did not know if she should ever return. And Angharad had so many questions—questions that women like Eachna and Fetla alone might answer.
She found the women in the temple, circled round the hearth in silence, palms resting in their laps.
Eachna looked up as Angharad shut the temple door behind her. “Come,” she said.
The Samhain fire had been lit in the hearth. The air was thick with waiting and smelled sweet and herbaceous, like dried herbs and bracken. A mat of reeds lay beside the hearth, and Eachna gestured for Angharad sit. “Do you wish to be whole, then, Angharad?”
The priestess’s wintry eyes burned with fire. The women waited, eyes closed. Fetla was watching.
Before this day, it seemed impossible. The thorns had bedded too deep. But the waterfall had opened her, and this small stretch of land buried in the hills felt a world apart from weapons and men. Something within Angharad was shifting.
“I wish to be whole,” she said.
“And have you the stones?”
Angharad offered up the wooden cup. Eachna drew them out carefully, reserving the water and cup, as the women began to hum a deep and haunting tune. Taking up the tongs, Eachna scattered the hot, glowing wood, smoothing the coals into a bed and laying the stones upon it. The song of the priestesses swelled until the stones glowed like dragons’ teeth.
One by one, Eachna removed the pebbles from the fire, dropping them into the wooden cup. There was a hiss of steam, and the water crackled. Eachna peered into the liquid, lips pressed tight with concentration. But as the round pebbles dropped, water sizzled up and out of the cup, splashing onto the hearth’s edge and nearly scalding Eachna’s leg.
“Heart and body suffer, but worst off is the mind,” Eachna murmured. “Lie back and close your eyes.”
The hearth fire warmed Angharad’s skin as Eachna knelt, placing her hands upon Angharad’s feet. But it was something other than the hearth that warmed the priestess’s hands, for slowly they grew hot, like Angharad’s cheeks when she was struck by fever.
A pulsing came, a heartbeat. It traveled in waves from her feet, up Angharad’s skinny legs, and into the trunk of her body, gentle as water.
Water can carve away even rock, her mother used to say.
Beyond the temple walls, the yew tree was listening. Angharad felt its roots beneath the temple floor, cradling them all. Roots below, the pr
iestess above. But as the waves from Eachna’s hands traveled through Angharad’s body, they built, filling her small vessel to the brim. Now the waves were met with resistance as Eachna shifted, placing her hands upon Angharad’s stomach. So much had roiled there. She felt nausea rise and churn like a kick in the gut. The pulsing persisted, soft but unrelenting. Angharad felt the swift prick of sweat and rolled onto her side just in time to be sick. She scrambled to her hands and knees.
A bucket came beneath her. Angharad heaved and heaved. The humming kept on, making her head swim, and she wanted to shout at the women to stop, but she was a slave to the convulsing of her insides as they turned themselves out.
Eachna’s hands were on her back, and Angharad tried to swat them away, but Eachna would not remove them. Fetla held Angharad’s hair, her voice coming low in her ear. “Give it back, Angharad. Give it back. This is not yours to keep…”
Spit it back upon the beast.
Was that Fetla who spoke, or a whisper from the tree?
The roots of the yew were holding her up. The roots of the yew would drink Angharad’s poison. The sacrifice of the tree moved her to tears. Tears and vomit fell into the bucket. The pulsing was going to break her. To free her.
But Eachna had not yet reached her head.
“Breathe, Angharad,” the priestess said. Then she moved her hands to the back of Angharad’s skull.
A piercing came like that of a spear through her eye. Angharad screamed, thrashing with pain. She wailed and wept, but her hennain did not remove her hands from her head. Angharad broke apart. Fetla gripped her shoulders.
She knew, in her way, the priestesses of Fortingall were battling the beast.
She knew they would not stop until she had recovered body, mind, and heart.
The pulsing came again and again. And then, gradually, the vomiting ceased.
The bucket was cleared away.
Angharad was empty.
She collapsed, boneless, onto her stomach. Her lids were so heavy. The temple floor held her up. The pulsing was there. It came now from innumerable hands pressed upon Angharad’s body. Her arms and shoulders. Knees and chest. She gave herself over completely to their care. After some time, the sensation stopped.