Skin

by Ilka Tampke

  She took a step toward me, staring. Her stance was unsteady and she seemed to struggle to make clear sight of me. But despite all this, there was a force in her that set my heart pounding. ‘You are she,’ she muttered. Her gaze steadied on my face. We both stood trapped in this reckoning of one another.

  I reached down to restrain Neha, but her ears were folded back and she nosed at the woman’s hand. ‘What do you seek?’ I asked again.

  ‘The townspeople tell me you’re a favourite of the Tribequeen.’ Her voice was rasping, too loud in the quiet night. ‘I need work and a bed to sleep. Will you ask the queen for a place in your kitchen?’

  I laughed. ‘I’m sorry, strangemaid, but I have no power to refer you. My own place is held by threads!’ My words were true, yet even if they weren’t, I would never commend this maiden. ‘Besides—there is no room.’ I lied to soften the refusal.

  ‘There must be room.’ Her voice sharpened. ‘I can do whatever needs to be done.’

  The weave of her tattered shawl was unfamiliar; she had travelled far and I knew, as she would also have known, that there was always need for tenacious workers in the Tribequeen’s hutgroup. Perhaps Cookmother would hear my petition if I made it. The scent of stale beer and piss rose from her skirts. ‘No,’ I said. ‘There is no room.’ I fought a stab of shame at another lie.

  She shrank back. ‘Where else might I ask then?’

  ‘Perhaps the warriors,’ I stammered. ‘Orgilos has not long since lost a daughter to fosterage.’ I clucked repeatedly at Neha, who, unfathomably, had settled at the woman’s feet and would not come.

  ‘The hound, at least, accepts me.’ She stooped to rub Neha’s head. ‘You know your own skin,’ she cooed.

  ‘You are skin to the dog?’ I asked. I had not yet met one of this totem.

  ‘Ay.’ She straightened.

  Where was the dog’s strength in this sorry maiden? I bade her farewell but she would not turn away. Her eyes dropped to the golden fish pin at my breast.

  ‘Take it,’ I said, tugging it free from my cloak. ‘You can trade it for food and shelter for a few days.’

  ‘How kind,’ she sneered, closing her fingers around it. Her nails were ragged and rimmed with dirt. As I turned away she grasped my wrist. ‘Do you not even ask my name?’

  ‘What is your name?’ I whispered.

  ‘I am Heka.’ Her nails dug into my skin. ‘Of Caer Hod.’

  It was an outlying hilltown of Durotriga, known for the purity of its chalk and the strength of its learning. How had she fallen so far through its web?

  ‘Is it true that you are without skin?’ Still she gripped my arm.

  What did she care of it? ‘Let go my arm.’

  ‘Answer me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She nodded slowly, her eyes not leaving mine. ‘It is your greatest suffering, is it not?’

  Now my heart thumped as though she were an adder before me. There was something in her that reached inside me and grabbed hold of the truth. ‘Yes,’ I whispered.

  The trace of a smile twitched in her mouth. ‘Stupid bitch.’ She released her grip. ‘You will regret not helping me.’

  I recoiled in shock. Name-calling was punishable by law of the journeymen. I could have told Cookmother, even Llwyd, and had her brought to justice. I said nothing.

  She turned and hobbled into the darkness.

  Neha returned to my side.

  ‘What did she want?’ Bebin joined me at the doorway.

  ‘To come into the kitchen.’

  ‘Her?’ said Bebin. ‘Look how she staggers in her step. She’s rotten with drink.’

  I peered after her. Indeed she was nothing more than a wobbling drunkard and I was right to deny her.

  Freedom in love precedes all other freedoms.

  I SAT ON a stool outside the kitchen in the morning’s first light, feeding the fawn milk from a jug. He was surer on his legs each day and starting to gambol around the kitchen garden. When he’d emptied the jug, he bounded away on milk-drunk legs, the early sun making a bright aureole of his downy coat. I laughed at the pride I felt at his growth.

  Neha ambled out of the kitchen. ‘Greetings doggess.’ I fondled the loose skin of her cheek. She sat beside me, echoing my love of the little buck.

  A crunch on the ground made us both look up. Next to the stable, across the courtyard, was the strangemaid from last night, Heka, watching me.

  Neha’s tail thumped on the ground. Why did she not growl?

  ‘Be gone!’ I called, rising to stand. ‘What business do you have here?’

  She held my eye before turning away.

  A few moments later, Cah emerged from the same passageway, carrying a bucket.

  ‘Did you speak to the rough girl?’ I asked as she passed me.

  ‘Yes,’ Cah sneered. ‘I gave her some milk.’

  ‘What is sweeter than mead?’

  My eyes were closed against the brilliance of the day.

  We lay on our backs on the grass, weary and river-soaked from my second lesson in the water. As the sun baked us dry, Taliesin tested me with a series of riddles.

  ‘Sweeter than mead?’ I mused. ‘A kiss?’

  ‘Wrong!’ I heard the smile in his voice.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Conversation.’

  ‘Ah yes.’

  It had been almost impossible to find my escape today. Cookmother’s eyes had narrowed with suspicion at my third day of harvesting. I knew I could not sustain these lies much longer. But Taliesin was worthy of the risk. His temper was buoyant and I left the subject of the Kendra untouched.

  ‘What is swifter than wind?’ he asked.

  ‘A warrior?’ I ventured.

  ‘Wrong again. The answer is thought.’

  I rolled onto my side to face him. ‘Ask me another.’

  ‘What is lighter than a spark?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘The mind of a woman between two men.’

  ‘True enough!’ I smiled.

  ‘What is blacker than the raven?’

  ‘Is it death?’

  ‘Your first correct answer.’ He lay with his forearms crossed over his face, shielding his eyes from the sun. I stared at the swell of his mouth, pressed against his upturned shoulder. Would that I could be that mouth. That shoulder.

  ‘What is whiter than snow?’

  ‘Life…?’ I murmured, my thoughts dissolving as I watched his lips form the words.

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘What then?’ I said, surprised at his vehemence. ‘What is whiter than snow?’

  ‘Truth.’

  ‘Truth,’ I repeated, propping up on my elbows to look over the river.

  ‘There is no greater power,’ he said, his eyes still covered.

  I agreed with his words, but I was flooded with confusion. For was it not he who had caused me to lie?

 
‘Only one in five correct,’ he mocked. ‘Do you want one last chance to redeem yourself?’

  My gaze caught on the trail of hair that halved his belly. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What is sharper than the sword?’

  I thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know.’

  He turned to face me. ‘Knowledge, Ailia! It was the easiest of them all. Knowledge is sharper than a sword.’

  ‘Taliesin?’ I sat up, resolved that there be some truths.

  ‘Ay?’

  ‘Are you a free man?’ I asked softly. ‘Or journeyman? Or other?’

  He was quiet before answering. ‘I am free in one place, bound in another.’

  ‘Yet another riddle. I wish for some understanding. I would know something of you.’

  ‘But you know many things. I’m a fine fisherman, a clever riddler, handsome as a stallion—’

  ‘With a colt’s conceit!’ I laughed. ‘But this is all dressing I can already see. Give me a truth. Tell me something of your history. Have you brothers or sisters? Are your people farmers? Traders?’

  Taliesin sat up. With a twig he began scratching small circles in the ground between us.

  ‘If you cannot tell me of yourself,’ I said, ‘then tell me of your people. Are you under Fraid’s queendom?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘So you are a traveller here. Were your kinspeople subject to Cunobelinus while he lived?’

  He frowned. ‘Now it is you who speak in riddles. I do not know these names.’

  My thoughts whirled. What class of hidden person was this who did not know the name of Britain’s first High King? Was he lawless? A forest dweller? An isolate? I could not have borne for that to be so. ‘What is the shape of you?’

  He threw the twig into the river. ‘You seek to know me by things you cannot see. I could tell you something, but would it be true?’ He turned to me. ‘This is my shape, clear before you. If it is not enough—’

  ‘Of course it is enough!’

  ‘Then do not ask for more.’ His shoulders slumped as he saw me flinch. ‘This is the best of me.’

  I silenced the protestations that sprang to my lips, for could I not have said the same of myself? I lowered my head. ‘There will be no more questions.’

  ‘Shall we agree on it?’

  ‘We agree.’ My eyes remained fixed to my bare feet. I felt chastised, adrift.

  After a long pause, he spoke gently. ‘There is one question I can answer…We spoke of it yesterday, and I answered glibly.’

  I looked up. ‘What question?’

  ‘You asked of my greatest fear…’

  The air was very still. ‘Yes,’ I murmured. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I will show you.’ Springing to his feet, he crouched beside me. ‘Hold your dog and make no sound.’ He walked to the river and, as he had done before, speared a young salmon, this time with his knife.

  ‘I am not hungry!’ I snapped, annoyed by the needless killing.

  ‘It is not for you.’ He tucked the carcass into his belt and walked several paces up river where he stopped, raising one arm above his head. Staring skyward, he stood unmoving, then, with his other hand, reached for the whistle at his hips and brought it to his mouth, piercing the sky with its shrill cry.

  I startled, perplexed, but soon enough there was a dark shape gliding and circling above us and, with another call from the whistle, a grey and white goshawk, solid as a fattened lamb, swept down to perch on a boulder at the water’s edge not five paces from where Taliesin stood.

  I was indeed impressed. The art of command of a wild animal was a privileged learning, one not easily bestowed. He had been long and well trained to hold this knowledge.

  Neha lurched forward under my grasp but I gripped her scruff, growling at her to keep back.

  ‘Greetings,’ called Taliesin, holding the dead salmon out before him.

  The bird’s brilliant yellow eyes darted from Taliesin to me, cautious, yet drawn.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ he cooed. ‘Would you like to feast?’

  Even I was transfixed by the seduction in his voice.

  ‘Ailia, come,’ said Taliesin steadily.

  Bidding Neha to be still, I rose and walked to his side. I had never stood so close to a hunting bird. My breath caught at its wild beauty, the ripples of grey on its white breast, its beak, sharp as a blade. ‘It’s magnificent,’ I whispered, flinching as it turned its head.

  Taliesin shook the salmon. There was fear in the quiver of his breath and the scent that rose from his skin. ‘Come,’ he murmured, never tearing his gaze from the bird, ‘come close and you will have your prize.’

  With a sudden beating of its mighty wings, the goshawk lifted and flew toward us, snatching the fish in its powerful claws, and carrying it into the open sky.

  Taliesin watched as it soared from view, then turned back to me, staring long and deeply at my face.

  ‘What is it that you fear?’ I asked, self-conscious under his scrutiny.

  ‘Your freedom,’ he said.

  ‘Freedom?’ I yelped. ‘I am bound as tethered cattle. I am beholden to the Tribequeen, to Cookmother—’

  ‘Yet your soul is free. You are as the hawk. You could lift me from the water. I would see what I have never seen. But it would mean my death.’

  I stared at him in confusion. ‘I could never harm you,’ I whispered.

  Neha barked beside us. A cool wind set up from the south.

  ‘Do you know goshawks mate for life?’ he said softly.

  ‘As do wolves,’ I muttered, not breaking his gaze.

  He leaned forward, his sun-dried lips catching as they grazed over mine. We were poised, unbreathing, barely touching. And then we broke.

  His mouth was deep and sweet as river water. I reached up, burying my fingers in his warm hair, drowning in the turned-earth scent of his skin. My chest and hips collapsed against his and I felt his moan of pleasure, his thundering heart.

  We paused for breath and he laughed.

  ‘Why do you laugh?’ I asked, frowning.

  ‘Because I am happy.’ He paused. ‘Aren’t you?’

  Then I quelled his wondering look with another kiss that rolled my senses so completely I did not know if I was seeing, touching, hearing or tasting him, only that he was everything, and life was all it needed to be if he loved me in return.

  I had intended to leave well before sunset, and yet I stayed with him, entwined, until the evening fell on the fields around us.

  We had spoken of all but ourselves. Whatever I had asked of the world between our embraces—animal-lore, forest craft—he had answered. It was clear that he had been deeply schooled, yet he wielded his knowledge humbly, less like a warrior and more in the journeyman’s way. He did not speak to me as if I were novice, but sought my thoughts, as if I were queen. His kisses eroded the banks of me, his words surging through the new paths and spaces.

  As darkness fell we stood, pressing together again, hungrier, and more urgent now that our parting was u
pon us. From the skin to the core of me, I craved to join with him. So different from Ruther, he did not help himself to my breasts and hips. I reached for his hand and placed it at my chest but he pulled it away.

  ‘Ailia,’ he said. ‘Do not hope for too much of me.’

  What is this? I began to plummet. Was this the love of the bard’s poems? This lurch from ecstasy to despair in moments. ‘Do you not wish—’ my voice was barely a whisper, ‘—do you not wish to meet me tomorrow?’

  ‘I will meet you tomorrow.’

  ‘When? How?’ I asked it of myself as much as of him.

  But he was shaking his head, suddenly impatient to leave. ‘You will find me.’

  ‘Will you walk with me, just a little way?’

  ‘I cannot. I am sorry.’

  ‘Are you expected elsewhere before nightfall?’ I implored. ‘Are there those who will worry?’

  ‘No questions,’ he said.

  When I looked up from tying my sandals, he had gone. I sped home with Neha on my heel, Taliesin burning on my skin.

  It was well after dusk when I slipped into the Tribequeen’s gateway. The compound was silent and cast in grey moonlight. Hastening my step, I conjured the reasons for my lateness: the thick-grown blackberry, the lost paths.

  As I approached the kitchen I saw that a bundle had been left on the doorstep. A festival offering for the Tribequeen? It was oddly shaped and there seemed to be a dark liquid around it. Only when I was quite near did the horror of it become clear. It was no bundle. No offering. It was my fawn. Slain at the neck and freshly so. And stuck sharp through the thin skin of its too-large ear, like some mocking adornment, was an object well known to me. My fish pin.

  This was Heka’s work.

  I sank down, resting my palm on his flank. The cool night had already stolen his warmth and he was cold beneath the dewy fur. I gazed at the delicate faggot of legs, at the gentle face, its eyes half-closed. Such evil I had never known.