by Signe Pike
A look passed between us. Lailoken had been in exile for seven long years. And in all this time I’d been forbidden to see him, I had been waiting for this very moment to come.
“Do you remember your promise?” I asked.
“Yes, Languoreth. I swore to you that when I was made king, I would ask your brother to be my counsel and so bring him home. I intend to keep my word.”
My mouth suddenly went dry. “Please. Go on.”
“It seems that Lailoken has amassed a great following somewhere in the wilds of the Caledonian Wood. I know you have not visited him, but I believe you may know where,” Rhydderch said.
“I do not know where, precisely, but I have some idea.”
Lord Archer, Fendwin had said. I had never forgotten it. I would have disobeyed Tutgual’s decree in a moment and sought him out sooner had it not been for Fendwin’s warning that I would only bring danger to the door of the Dragon Warriors.
“Take Torin and your guard. Go in secret—we must keep his whereabouts safe for the time being—but tell Lailoken I wish for his counsel.”
I would take Eira, of course. Rhydderch knew of her handfasting with Lailoken, and we had long since given Eira her own lodgings. She must know right away. Rhydderch’s eyes were warm in offering this long-awaited gift. But gifts from men in power always came with a price.
“I am not ungrateful, but how do you mean to accomplish this? He is a man of the Old Way. You will curry too much upset with all your Christian lords.”
“You are right,” he said carefully. “And this is why I would send you to meet with Lailoken. For we cannot bring one man from exile without also bringing another.”
“Whom do you speak of?” I closed my eyes, for I already knew. It was the look upon Rhydderch’s face. The shadow of guilt. Of resignation.
Mungo.
“You cannot consider it,” I said.
“Lailoken has gathered a following. These past years Mungo has built a monastery at Hoddam, and he has done the same.”
“A place of zealots, no doubt! Do you not remember what he and his followers have done? Desecrated a hill holy to the Wisdom Keepers. Assassinated a rival priest. Robbed my father’s granaries. Scarred my brother’s face. Murdered Cathan, head Wisdom Keeper of Strathclyde. Mungo has been our enemy since Lailoken and I were children. And now you would have me and my brother play a role in inviting that wickedness back in?”
“Languoreth, the Angles are massing in Bernicia. By all accounts, they soon will attack, and still my people are divided. If Strathclyde is to remain a land of the Britons, I need the retinues of each and every petty king and chieftain in this land. They must all come together at the side of the high king. The divide has only grown greater in the years my father was in power. Now we must show them a new way, you and I. If we cannot envision it, who else shall try?”
“Find another Christian,” I said. “Surely there must be one. Why not Father Natan?”
He sighed. “The Christian lords have already come to me. They demand Mungo.”
“He has seen to it! Can you not see? He has visited them in private!”
“Yes,” Rhydderch said. “Mungo has returned. That is the fact of the matter. It was my father who exiled him to pacify the people of the Old Way, and now my father is dead, and we must pacify the people of the New. It is Mungo they want. We have no choice but to bring him into the fold.”
I shook my head. “Who is commanding whom? Do you rule the lords of Strathclyde, or do your lords rule you?”
“I swore an oath to the land and all its people, no matter their faith. I will not disregard it. Your brother took up arms against Strathclyde. He is privileged to be granted an opportunity to return home.”
“I am going to be sick,” I said.
“I pray you recover quickly, as you must be hale for your journey.”
I lifted my head. “You do not ask, then. You command.”
“Yes,” he said. “I command.”
“And how do you mean to control him, the man who murdered my father’s counsel, who raised a mob against my father, a king? I watched Cathan choke and go blue as he swung from the bough of a tree!”
“I have not forgotten what he has done.”
“A man who murders Keepers, and you would set my brother in his path?”
“Yes, Languoreth, I would. For Lailoken is one of the few men I believe capable of helping us control him. I hear Wisdom Keepers from Scotia gather to hear him speak. I hear tales of pagan warriors massing in the wood.”
“Do not use that word. You have never before used that word. Am I now your pagan wife?”
“Apologies.” He bowed his head. “I hear it used now far too freely.”
“It stinks of Rome, and of small-minded, capital-dwelling zealots. They have called the people of Cadzow as much. Or didn’t you know?”
“I am aware. And I do not think it right. But Christians must feel they, too, have a voice. I ignore the Christian lords at my peril. I would keep Mungo close. I would benefit from his ambition. Let him convert those who wish to be converted. We have always been a people who safeguard our freedoms. Christians, too, have their right to choose. The path is now forked, Languoreth. You must make way for change.”
“I will seek out my brother and ask his return. But you, husband, must be prepared for what this shall mean. Lailoken and Mungo in the same court? One will end up dead. And as long as I have breath in my body, it shall not be my brother.”
“Believe me, wife. I understand what I ask. Please. Go to the Caledonian Wood and relay my message to your brother. I have spared his life once already. Now I offer him yet another. Tell Lailoken not to be a fool.”
CHAPTER 35
Angharad
The White Fort
Glen Lyon, Kingdom of the Picts
March, AD 580
The grinding of the quern stone sounded like the ocean. Not the lazy slap and tumble of fair-weather waves, but the low and scouring churn of a winter sea. The stool beneath Angharad teetered as she reached into the sack of grain to sift another handful into the mill. The light half of the year was beginning, but the sun was still a lamb upon shaky legs. Angharad stopped to wrap her shawl more tightly around her before gripping the wooden handle again.
Turn, turn.
Change was coming. The air of the mill shed was with thick with it. Did Angharad summon it?
She did not know her own strength. This was what Fetla said.
Eachna was made of water. Wind and weather pushed water about. When Angharad visited the waterfall, it reminded her again.
Why do you show me this? she asked, but received no answer. She did not understand it. Angharad was not unhappy. Her days were a circle, just like the turning of the heavy quern stone. Waking. Prayer. Calling in and graining the horses. Porridge. Instruction. Contemplation. Grinding grain into flour. Tending the need-garden. Always, Angharad was listening, for that was what she’d been taught. The women of Fortingall listened, for they were students of the many tongues of spirit. And in listening, Angharad had grown wise, Fetla said.
Far wiser than her sixteen years.
In this way, seven winters had passed since the siege that had become known as Cad Arderydd. The Battle of the High Lords.
Her mother and father had never come for her.
The messenger had returned, his expression bearing the shame he knew awaited an unwanted child. Eachna relayed her mother’s reply: Languoreth had wept for joy upon hearing that Angharad lived. She could scarcely believe Angharad’s rare fortune. She wished nothing more than for Angharad to continue her training with the priestesses at Fortingall until she earned the title of priestess herself.
Angharad knew when her mother was young, she’d desired to become a Keeper. This was the reason Angharad had gone with Lailoken, in part. Because she saw the mark of her mother’s wound and sensed if she could achieve what her mother could not, her mother might finally feel whole.
Eachna had held her the many nights she’d cr
ied, murmuring words of love and healing. Angharad had not forgotten about the life she had lived before, in Strathclyde. It was only that Eachna had taught her how to release it, how to bless it. Fortingall was a holy place. A place of ritual and vision for young women with strengths to come into their power. In the evenings, by hearth light, they recited their kennings. This was the place the Picts came to dream: A mother who’d lost a baby and wanted another. A man without use of his legs. They slept and woke to tell Eachna of their dreams, and Eachna divined their meaning. Eachna laid her hands upon them and gave them healing.
Angharad knew how to prepare the dreaming draught. She’d learned the meaning of birds and their flight, but such things were thick-footed and clumsy. Angharad did not need a dreaming draught to aid one who was troubled—she need only peer into their eyes. And why commit to memory what a sparrow hawk dipping west foretold, when one could simply ask the sparrow hawk itself?
When she said as much to Eachna, the old woman merely nodded, as if this was something about Angharad she always had known.
Since then, though Angharad had not yet been made priestess, Eachna brought her to administer those in search of cures. Now that Imbolc had come and gone, and the light half of the year was upon them, more people were arriving. Even now there were ten. Last summer the high king, Bridei, their patron, had arranged for the building of a new hut.
With the gifts given in thanks, they wanted for little now. Eachna had sent two women to the market some days ago, and they’d returned with fine cloth for new robes.
In seven winters Angharad had never left Fortingall—she wore the robes of a novice. But she did not miss the broader world, for all worlds were visible when she closed her eyes to dream.
“Angharad.”
The voice stirred her from her thoughts, and she turned to see Ora, a fellow novice, standing at the door.
“There is a woman here, a stranger. She is asking to see you.”
Angharad’s pulse quickened. After all this time, she still imagined that someday her mother might come. “A woman? What does she look like?”
Ora wrinkled her nose. “Dark hair. Fair skin. She wears a blue cloak.”
Angharad hid her disappointment. “I don’t know any such person.”
“Well, she’s come, and she’s waiting with the others.” Ora looked guilty.
“What is it?”
“I haven’t yet told Eachna. The woman asked to speak only to you. She waits in the first cell of the nearest hut.”
“Ora! Very well, I am coming. But you must go and tell Eachna. We do not harbor secrets.”
Ora hurried off as Angharad stood and brushed the last dusting of flour into its sack. A gust of wet wind assailed her as she closed the door to the mill shed. The weather had shifted. Angharad could smell snow coming from the north. She stopped hurriedly to take up the feather that blew against her skirt, holding it between two fingers so as not to damage its appearance. Owl. How curious. She would add it to the big wooden box she kept next to her bed. There were hundreds of them now—robin and raven, kestrel and dunnock.
Her mother had once told her that feathers were signs of her love. But in listening, in growing wise, Angharad had learned a feather in her path was nearly always an omen. She glanced uneasily at the three circular huts where guests dwelled in their seeking.
People came in need, asking for her. Word had traveled that Angharad had Sight. Likely this woman was no different. Yet Eachna was renowned for her abilities. It was strange the woman wished to see Angharad alone.
The dreaming huts were candlelit places of whispers. Angharad lifted the latch quietly so as not to disturb the ailing. Within their little cell, they would be resting or in prayer, perhaps even dreaming.
A fire burned in the center hearth pit. She glanced at the seven small chambers to ensure all was well before reaching to slide the woven reed panel that served as a door, stepping into the first cell. The room was lit by a single oil lamp. Angharad could see the outline of the woman perched upon the simple wooden bed, still wearing her cloak, but could not make out her face.
Angharad slid the door shut behind her, squinting as her eyes adjusted to the dim. “Hello.” She greeted the woman in Pictish, the tongue that came most readily.
“Hello.” The woman’s answer was low and perfunctory.
“Ora tells me you’ve asked to see me, but I am not yet a full priestess, so I have summoned our Lady Eachna.”
“I wish you had not done so. I wished to speak to you alone.” There was displeasure in her voice.
“You wish to speak to me?” Angharad asked. “Do you mean to say you have no ailment?”
“I have no ailment.” The woman stood. “I have come to discuss a matter of much importance.”
She stepped into the light, and Angharad saw two sapphire eyes fixed steadily upon her. She had dark hair, nearly black, and skin pale as moonlight. Her face looked familiar, as if Angharad might have seen it in a dream. But so often these days she was dreaming, and most dreams were not her own.
“Are you a messenger, then, sent by Strathclyde?” She heard the excitement in her own voice even as she felt shamed by it. Strathclyde was no longer her home. Eachna was her mother now. The wound had been healed and she would not reopen it.
The woman tilted her head. “I am a messenger of sorts. But not from the place you imagine. I am a Wisdom Keeper. I have come from the north. I would speak with you about your training.”
Angharad took a step back. “My training has been done here, these past seven winters, under the careful tutelage of my hennain, a most renowned Seer. I am only one winter away from earning my place here as priestess.”
The woman opened her mouth, but just then the reed door slid open and Eachna stepped in, her damp white hair curling about her face like a fury’s. She seemed taken aback at the sight of the woman, her eyes flickering with surprise.
“Eachna.” The dark-haired woman bowed, but not deeply. Eachna came to stand beside Angharad, and as she did, Angharad sensed a strange feeling emanating from her hennain.
Fear.
“What brings you here?” Eacha’s back was straight as a rod.
“I have come about the girl.”
“And now you have seen her. Angharad is hale, she prospers. Fortingall is the child’s home.”
“She is no longer a child. She is a woman now.” The dark-haired woman spoke to the priestess, but her eyes were upon Angharad. “You say she is hale, but I do not think this is the case. You have not done right by this child, Lady Eachna, and it has come to our attention. Aside from that, she has outgrown you. You do her a great disservice in keeping her here.”
“Not done right by this child?” Eachna’s voice was shrill. “My own blood. Did I not keep her on when her mother desired her to stay here? Do I not love this girl as if she were my own? I have trained her as well as any high priestess might.”
“Nay, Eachna. You have kept the truth from her.”
Angharad turned to her hennain. “What is she speaking of?”
“You overstep your bounds,” the priestess warned.
“Save your curses, Eachna. I do not fear you. Will you not tell her, then? Or are you too fearful to offer her a choice?”
Eacha stood stone-faced as the woman waited, then huffed with impatience. “Very well. If it must be so. Angharad, did it not seem strange that your mother did not desire you to return to Strathclyde with all haste when she heard you were well?”
“Stop, I say!” Eachna commanded, but the woman carried on.
“This woman made you a promise many winters ago that she would send word to your mother and father that you were safe in Fortingall. Yet no message was sent.”
Angharad sank back, astonished. “But the warrior… I watched him ride out. I saw him return—saw the look upon his face!”
“The warrior was sent to feast with Bridei and journeyed no farther than his fortress on yonder hill. Your grandmother wished to keep you here at Forti
ngall. I understand her coffers have grown quite full due to your Sight.”
Eachna stalked toward her, indignant. “How dare you say such things? You know nothing. Do not heed her, Angharad. These Keepers from the north have slippery ways of speaking. Her tongue is deceitful; it will spin you false.”
“Be mindful how you speak to me, Eachna,” the woman said. “Whispers on the wind. You cannot conceal your deeds. I have it from one of your own. And now that all Tayside is talking of her, I cannot imagine you thought to conceal her for long.”
Angharad rounded upon her hennain. “Is this true? You never sent word to my mother and father? Tell me, is this true?”
Eachna thrust her chin proudly. “Everything I have done, I have done so that you might become who you are destined to be. Search yourself, little bird. Who would you be if I had left you broken? I healed you with my own hands. What might have become of you had you returned to your home? You never would have left your mother and father again to carry on with your training. You cannot deny the gift you have been given. Do, and it will consume you. I did not give you a choice, Angharad, but I gave you your life.”
“You lied. All of this time…”
Eachna frowned. “Long ago, I gave Strathclyde a daughter. And with your arrival, the Gods saw to it a daughter was returned. Your place is here, with me.”
“Nay,” the dark-haired woman said. “Your mother never would have left you had she known you yet lived.”
“And what do you know of my mother?” Angharad asked sharply.
“I was her counsel many years ago.”
“Now I know you are false. My mother had no counsel,” she replied.
Something flickered across the woman’s face. Sadness, or perhaps surprise. But she guarded herself closely, and Angharad could not read any further.
“Enough,” Eachna said quickly, sliding back the reed door. “You have seen the girl. She is well. We have no need of you. You will leave.”
“You have no power here, Eachna. Not in this,” the woman said.
Angharad looked between them, anger boiling. “I am not your gaming piece!” she shouted.