by Ilka Tampke
Llwyd sat at my right, closer to Sulis, who had not yet looked at me.
‘Mead!’ exclaimed the housewoman, striding to the hearth. She ladled steaming cups of honey beer from the firepot and passed them to each of us.
Manacca clucked at a woodfowl chick that roamed on the floor and Fraid hushed her. The room fell quiet, choked with questions, awaiting my word. Had Sulis told them yet of my marks?
‘How far away are the legions?’ I asked, stalling the news of my ascent. ‘How long do we have?’
‘They are camped at Hod Hill, throwing up new defences,’ said Fraid. ‘We do not know how long they will remain there or where they will next strike.’ Her cheeks hollowed as she sipped her ale.
‘But Hod is a foot journey of two days at most—’ I said.
‘Ay, they are close,’ said Fibor. ‘But some think they have Mai Cad in their sights before us. The riders bring different messages…’
‘Have you spoken with Cun?’ I asked.
‘Ruther controls all contact,’ said Fraid. ‘The petty tribes are ignorant of one another and Ruther would keep it so. It is too late to join together now.’
My anger flared. Who was Ruther to keep his people in such darkness? ‘Tribequeen, do you still hold the faith of the warriors?’
‘I believe so,’ said Fraid. ‘There are only five, maybe six, who side with Ruther. At least ten are still aligned to me but quieted by fear.’
‘And if I could convince Ruther to fight with us,’ I continued, ‘would your men join him?’
Fraid nodded. ‘The tribe would follow a leader into war. But above all else—’ her brown eyes glittered in the firelight as she lifted them toward me, ‘—they would fight for the Kendra if she commanded it.’
Now it had been spoken.
In the sudden silence, Sulis’s breath was a faint hiss. The housewoman pretended to busy herself at her spindle.
‘I…have sung with the Mothers,’ I faltered. ‘I return as Kendra.’
Fraid gasped. ‘This is welcome news indeed,’ she said. ‘But how have you come to skin?’
Fibor and Etaina turned to me, their faces bright with hope.
My cheeks burned hot. ‘I remain unskinned.’
Fraid’s smile dropped away. ‘Then how do you name yourself Kendra?’
I turned to Llwyd. We both knew it must come from him. ‘The Mothers name her,’ he said, unflinching. ‘They have marked her with the scar.’
He nodded to me. With a galloping heart, I unpinned my tunic and pulled it part open to expose the cuts.
Etaina snorted in disbelief. ‘Llwyd, this is madness! She makes these cuts by her own hand.’
‘She does not.’ Sulis spoke for the first time, her gaze locked to the flames. ‘I witnessed her as she hardened from journey. The cuts were fresh. They were Mother-made—’ she paused, ‘—they carry song.’
‘Impossible.’ Etaina shook her head.
‘I have heard it by my own touch,’ said Llwyd.
‘And I,’ said Sulis, her voice tight. ‘I heard it, yet I did not hear the skin in it. Her mark is true. But it is falsely got. She is no Kendra.’
My heart plunged. ‘Please, Sulis.’ I could not let her rob me of this. ‘When I tell you of my learning—’
‘I acknowledge your learning, Ailia,’ Sulis said. ‘I am humble before it. But the skin totem is the truest shaping of us. The tribes will not follow a woman whose soul is still without form.’
I closed my eyes against the truth of it.
‘It is so,’ agreed Etaina. ‘The tribe accepted Ailia as journeywoman initiate. But how can she wear the Kendra’s robe without skin? Surely the Mothers would forbid it.’
I turned to Llwyd. Would they heed their highest Journeyman? His eyes were lowered. Did he begin to doubt? He looked at them. ‘We can receive this Kendra,’ he said. ‘It does not breach the Mothers’ law.’
‘But skin is the Mothers’ law.’ Sulis’s voice trembled.
‘No,’ Llwyd replied. ‘Skin is our law. The Mothers are greater than skin.’
‘Llwyd?’ questioned Fraid, her face fraught with confusion. ‘Do you speak against skin?’
‘I love skin more deeply than ever,’ he answered. ‘But I have seen a shift in its meaning. We need skin, but the Mothers do not. And Ailia does not.’
I could not stifle my gasp. He had spoken too brazenly.
Sulis rose and walked from the fire, murmuring a low chant.
‘This is greater than me,’ said Fibor, also rising. ‘I am a man of sword law. I will wait outside until it is decided.’
‘Stay,’ commanded Fraid. ‘I want your ear on this.’
Llwyd took up his staff and looked to his tribespeople, his voice barely a whisper. ‘I am also deeply confused,’ he began. ‘But this woman—this woman without skin—has felt the Mothers’ knife at her chest. She has felt their song in her breath.’ He glanced at me, his staff trembling. ‘She told the Mothers of her lack of skin, but they did not protest it.’ He paused again. ‘They saw no lack.’
‘We will be punished for this,’ murmured Sulis from the darkness of the room’s periphery.
Fraid leaned forward, searching Llwyd’s face intently. I knew she had the fire of mind to hold this truth, but only if she was convinced. ‘Are you saying,’ she began, ‘that of all the generations of our journeywomen who have walked with the Mothers, none has ever discovered that the Mothers do not acknowledge skin?’
‘I have wondered of this,’ I interrupted. ‘I have no answer. Perhaps I was the first to test it, for I was the first to journey without skin.’
‘No,’ said Llwyd. ‘It is not this. Skin is a powerful light for the journeypeople. Perhaps those who are led by it have never been able to see beyond it. Perhaps it has taken one without skin to see the Mothers’ freedom from it.’ He looked directly at Fraid. ‘The Mothers have chosen this time to reveal their truth, and have sent Ailia as its messenger.’
Fraid looked shocked as she grappled with these words from her most trusted advisor. ‘So…do you suggest that we are to discard our belief in skin at will, then?’ she stammered. ‘Do we send any fringe-child to the Mothers now?’
‘Of course not!’ said Llwyd. ‘Skin is the thread that leads us back to the Mothers. It will always be this. But Ailia holds a knowledge I have not seen before. A knowledge so strong that it carried her to the Mothers when skin would not.’ He laughed in amazement. ‘Ailia alone has transcended skin.’
‘Mothers spare you, Llwyd,’ muttered Sulis, stepping back into the fireglow. ‘Even if she is truly chosen, she cannot transcend skin here, where the world is hard, where skin lives. It will tear our world open.’
‘But it will not,’ I said. Llwyd’s defence had strengthened me. I had to make them see. ‘We have never known an invasion like that which stands now at our doorstep. I bring a new knowledge from the Mothers, so that you may receive the Kendra they have chosen. It is I who will protect you, if you will let me. It is I who will teach you.’
‘What do you teach?’ Sulis scowled. ‘That skin is nothing? That it is weak?’
‘That it is beautiful!’ I cried, gripping the edge of the bench. ‘That it pours from the belly of the Mothers in infinite rivers to us, who name it and sing it back. That it is not rigid. It can bend and move. It can be cut and healed. It can hold more than we ever knew. Because it can hold unknowing.’ I paused. Every eye was upon me. ‘Llwyd spoke once that laws are true only when they are honoured in freedom. How can we truly honour skin if we are not also free of it? The Romans come. They will rob us of our skin and we must choose to fight for it. Only then is it true. This is what I teach of skin.’
Llwyd stared at me in wonder. ‘You are the flaw in skin that proves its strength.’
The only sound was the fire’s soft crackle and the clack of the spindle as the housewoman turned it nervously. I looked around at their troubled faces, wrestling with my words. I had given them almost enough. Almost, but not quite. There was one more truth to be shared and if this did not convince them, then I had nothing that would.
I rose to my feet and wrenched open my tunic, fully baring my marks. ‘Touch!’ I commanded. ‘Then you will know if I am your Kendra.’
‘You will grow too weak,’ Llwyd protested.
‘But they must hear,’ I answered. ‘They must hear what is within me.’ With the force of my words the wounds had split and were beginning to run.
Manacca whimpered at the sight of the blood.
‘Touch me, Fraid,’ I urged. ‘Tell me what you hear.’
Fraid stood hesitantly and walked to me, then laid her palm on my chest. I winced at the pressure. Again, there was a stirring, an ache, in the wound. The fire had burned down and the air was suddenly cold, but the housewoman did not tend it. All eyes were on Fraid.
Slowly her face broke into a smile. ‘It is creation,’ she whispered. ‘It is beautiful.’ She closed her eyes, pressing more firmly against my flesh. I fought a wave of dizziness as she drank of the sound that poured from my wound. ‘I cannot deny it,’ she said, withdrawing her hand, ‘you are right, Llwyd.’ She met my eye. ‘Kendra,’ she said and lowered her head.
Sulis moaned and sank to her seat.
The housewoman comforted Manacca.
One by one I commanded them all to touch.
Once Etaina had pulled her hand away, wet with blood, eyes shining with wonder, I slumped to the bench, gulping a long draught of mead. When I looked up, all heads but Sulis’s were lowered around me. Her blank stare held an unnamable dread.
Many moments passed in silence.
‘We will name you in the water tonight,’ said Llwyd.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked. River initiation had not been spoken of.
‘The Mothers have scarred you, but you must also be initiated in the hardworld as Kendra,’ said Llwyd.
Fraid drained her cup, enlivened by the hope that was gathering around this plan. ‘She will be recognised above even yourself as a knowledge-keeper, Journeyman. The warriors will find great strength in it.’
‘It will mark the end,’ said Sulis to herself.
Llwyd turned to me. ‘Will you permit me to initiate you, Ailia?’
My fingers tightened around my cup as I battled a surge of doubt. With his initiation I would be wholly born to the hardworld. But without the skin to know my place in it. I thought of the Mothers. This was their will. But would it tear yet greater holes in what they had created?
‘Ailia?’ Llwyd urged.
I carried the song. There was something sacred within me. Something powerful. My Tribequeen and her councillors could not deny it now, nor could I. There was no other way that my knowledge would be seen. ‘Of course,’ I whispered.
The night was cold and the moon well hidden.
It should have been done at the Cam, near Cad Hill, but it would have been too great a risk for us to go so close to the township. Instead Fibor, Etaina and I marked out a hasty circle in branches next to the Nain behind the farmhouse, while Fraid held a torch close by. Working quickly by its weak light, we buried meat and bread at the easternmost point of the circle and threw the last of Fraid’s gold finger-rings into the river.
Sulis stood at a distance, watching.
Llwyd began the chant. He took a long time to walk the many circles moonwise that would bind our ritual to the rhythm of the sky. But at last it was done and there, within that small, cramped circle of ground, he sang me the poems that revealed what he knew of the Mothers. Sloughed of any encasement in skin, the stories were still as beautiful and transforming as dawn.
They stripped my clothing and laid me on the ground where Llwyd cast handfuls of cold dirt over my skin. ‘This is the body of the Mothers, which is now your body,’ he said as I shivered. He handed me a horn of ale, gritty with antler scraped from the shrine.
As I leaned up to drink, the bitter liquid spilled from my mouth.
‘This is the spirit of the Mothers, which is now your spirit.’
Thick deer and cattle pelts were laid over me. I could not breathe beneath their smoky weight.
Llwyd’s voice trembled as he peeled them back. ‘From this moment you are born to the world and all knowledge is entrusted to you.’
I lay naked on the ground between them, the force of their gaze like a flame to my skin.
Llwyd led me to the river’s edge and bade me enter the shallow water. Sharp stones pierced my back as I was pushed down, my face held to one side so I was fully submerged in the icy flow. His voice was distorted through the water and I could scarcely hear the last of his calls, but when I climbed back onto the bank, shaking with cold, it was done. I was sister of the Mothers. Daughter of the Mothers. Kendra of Albion.
Llwyd stood beside me, weeping openly.
Fibor cheered and Fraid stepped forward, arms outstretched.
Fighting my own tears, I returned her embrace. Immediately I could feel a new edge, a new surface. But beneath it, something was not right. Something remained unaltered.
Over Fraid’s shoulder, I saw that Sulis had drawn closer.
As I had no skin talismans, Llwyd loosened the deerhide pouch at his belt and pulled out an amulet of adderstone. He kissed my forehead with cold lips as he handed it to me. ‘Daughter,’ he whispered. ‘You are born.’
Aided by Etaina, I dressed quickly, strapping my sword and the amulet to my belt. Was I born? Llwyd had called it so and it would be true for my people. But wisdom should know itself and I did not feel this knowing.
Sulis stepped forward to offer her grim acknowledgement of the rite. The moon broke from behind the cloud, lighting her face, and I could see in her stare that she saw: she saw my doubt.
We walked back to the farmhouse in silence. With each step my hesitation grew. I knew I was chosen; I knew I had sung. So why did I now feel the Kendra’s soul ebbing away?
Yet even as I wondered, I knew. The Mothers’ place was free of skin, but here in the hardworld I was bound by its laws. This birth was a layer, a cloak that would be seen by the tribespeople. It gave shape to my surface, but not to my bones. It was not true.
It was not skin.
We pushed through the doorskins and I gathered my cloak in readiness to leave. It
was too late now. I had to ignore my doubts. I had to be strong. I had to be the Kendra.
We recognise a speaker of truth by the words that flow from her lips.
Words are the power that brings all into unity.
ALONE, I WALKED the laneways to Cad Hill.
Only Heka could give me what Llwyd could not. Heka, who was lost to the light. Who had vowed to give me nothing. I forced thoughts of her aside as I strode up the ramparts and through the entranceway. However it had come, this new birth had strengthened me. I hoped that I had enough to protect the township, enough to cut free my love.
As I turned into the Tribequeen’s compound, music and laughter spilled from the Great House. Ruther was at feast, the townspeople hungering at his threshold in even greater numbers.
I darted behind the kitchen, stealing toward the sleephouse, unseen. It was not yet late. I had time to hide myself before he returned. Waiting silently for Cah to pass with a platter of cakes, I crept to the doorway and slipped inside. Praise the Mothers, no one was there.
I looked around the room in which I had attended Fraid for all my grown summers. It was different now. Weapons were stacked along the western side—the resting place—and the bed had been moved to the east, the place of light. Lavish new pelts and weavings lined the walls, and cups and jugs of Roman design filled the shelves. It was no longer a tribequeen’s house. It was full of the sharp smells of a man.
I hid myself behind the falls of cloth that lined the walls in the darkest part of the room and soon I heard Ruther’s ale-soaked voice approaching the door. As he entered, I heard a woman’s laughter. He was not alone. Had I to wait out his coupling?
‘The hungerers are stubborn, I’ll give them that,’ said Ruther to his companion.
‘Then disrobe!’ The woman laughed. ‘And let me feast if they will not.’
I startled, peering out from the cloth’s edge to confirm what my ears could not believe. The voice was Heka’s.