Skin

by Ilka Tampke

  The warriors broke into smiles and cheers.

  I stepped off the bench with trembling legs. I knew I had done the right thing. They had to believe in their strength. This would be enough.

  In the hum of chatter and strategy that followed, I gathered with Fibor and Llwyd.

  ‘We will prepare this night,’ said Fibor. ‘There will be little time to dress and paint—’

  ‘Ruther must be distracted,’ said Llwyd. ‘He still commands several warriors—’

  ‘And we cannot risk him sending scouts to the Roman camps,’ said Fraid, who joined us.

  Fibor exhaled with a grunt. ‘He must be detained and his men told not to disturb him. Otherwise the risk of discovery is too great.’

  ‘I will distract Ruther.’ My steady voice belied my knotting stomach.

  ‘No, Ailia,’ said Llwyd, ‘we need you with us.’

  ‘But she is the only one,’ said Fraid, ‘who can weaken him.’

  ‘Commence the preparations,’ I said, fastening my cloak. ‘I will make sure Ruther is mine until dawn.’

  ‘Go now,’ said Llwyd, kissing my cheek. ‘We need every minute.’

  As I stepped out of the warm farmhouse into the dark spring night, I was met with an overwhelming dread. Of all the fears I had known in my lifeturn, this moment felt the most ominous. A brutal force lay in wait, seeking to tear us from our roots. The people of Albion were no strangers to battle. It was the way of the tribes to fight for their boundaries, to display their bravery. But this was not battle sport. This was an attack on our very existence. We must defeat it or we would not survive it.

  I quickened my step. I had to keep my wits sharp now.

  One of Ruther’s men stood at the sleephouse door and I bade him tell Ruther I was there. I drew up, taking on a small glamour, while I waited to be admitted, not too much, lest Ruther be suspicious. I was called through.

  He looked weary as he drank by the fire, but straightened at the sight of me. ‘What brings you back?’ he asked.

  ‘Does the girl Heka share your bed this night?’

  ‘No. She is cast from my favour.’

  ‘Good.’ I dropped my cloak and moved toward him.

  To deny our kin is to disturb our soul.

  I AWAKENED JUST after first light. The cries of the smiths drifted up from the craft huts and I wondered if their night had been fruitful, if I had bought them enough time.

  Ruther murmured and I watched him sleep, the same fine face that woke me from my first Beltane. His eyes flickered behind closed lids, dreaming perhaps of his beloved city. I opposed him but I could not hate him. In his own way, he acted in truth.

  I placed my lips on the ridge of his cheek, then sat up, reaching for my under-robe.

  In a flash he had roused and pulled me back down. ‘Do you think I will let you go now you have come to me?’

  ‘I cannot stay,’ I protested, wriggling from under him.

  ‘So you have not changed your mind?’ He propped on one elbow as I dressed. ‘You did not come to stay?’

  I shook my head. ‘Last night was my farewell gift.’

  ‘Ailia—’ His tone became grave. ‘In truth, it is best if you do not go. Let me hide you until the danger is passed.’

  ‘Never,’ I said as I stood. ‘I will not be hidden away.’

  ‘You must trust me. You will not be spared.’

  ‘For how long would you have me hidden?’ I scoffed, strapping my sword to my belt.

  ‘Until I have gained their trust. There are scouts from the legion in the township already, surveying the land, seeing who is dangerous. Please let me protect you.’

  ‘Impossible.’ I pulled on my cloak, eager to be gone from him. He was too insistent now.

  ‘If you will not see sense, then I will see it for you.’ In the blink of an eye he had sprung up from the bed and was pulling me across the room. Gripping me around the waist, he kicked away the basket that covered the opening to the storepit beneath.

  ‘Stop—’ I struggled against him but he was as strong as a bullock, determined to force me into the narrow opening. I fought, raking his skin with my fingers, but he held my arms like a vice.

  With his final shove, I tumbled down the ladder. I sat, shocked, on the dirt floor, scratches bleeding on my hands and legs.

  ‘You will have food and drink—you will be safe!’ called Ruther from above.

  ‘And when will I be released from this cage?’ I shouted up at him.

  ‘When it is done and I have their trust. Then I will release you.’

  ‘No!’

  But he was drawing the bolt of the trapdoor and my scream was deadened by the damp earth around me.

  The storepit was cold, airless and entirely black until Ruther opened the door and descended the ladder with a torch that he fixed into a wall bracket. In the weak light of the flame, I saw there were blankets on the floor, a pot and a jug of water. He had prepared for this. He had intended to trap me and I had walked straight to him.

  ‘You snake,’ I whispered in disgust.

  ‘You will be grateful.’ He turned to the ladder, then back to me. ‘Give me your sword.’

  ‘No.’ I panicked. He could not take it. ‘I will cause no further trouble if you leave it with me. This is my promise.’

  He stared for a moment then snorted with indifference. ‘There is little harm that can come of it here. Tidings, Ailia.’ He climbed the ladder and shut the trapdoor beneath him.

  I heard the iron latch slide shut and I sank to the floor. The warriors would think I had abandoned them. They would doubt their strength. ‘Fight,’ I urged them with my mind’s voice as I sat for hours in the dank silence.

  Later, one of Ruther’s attendants brought food, but would tell me nothing of what was happening in the township. I begged and cajoled him but he handed me the bread and stew without a word and latched the door again.

  What torture it was to be powerless in wait, while the tribespeople were working to face the darkest enemy we had yet known. What kind of Kendra was I who allowed herself to be hidden and protected while her people put their lives at risk? Who could not even give them the seeing that was needed?

  I could not eat the food. It was as though my body was making Troscad of its own will, protesting the confinement that I was neither strong nor clever enough to protest myself.

  Again there was scuffling above me and the sound of the latch being drawn. Strange, it was only moments since the attendant had left. Was he back for my bowl so soon? I stood, ready to pass it to him, untouched.

  A woman descended the ladder. The fine hairs on my neck bristled. It was Heka. ‘What are you doing here?’ I whispered. ‘Does Ruther know you have come?’

  She pulled the door shut above her. Her business would have to be swift or the servant would find it unlocked when he returned. When her feet touched the floor she turned to me, her eyes glittering in the torchlight. There was mud on her skirts and her hair was strewn with straw. ‘He does not know,’ she said.

  She looked to the bowl by my feet.r />
  ‘Take it.’

  She crouched on her haunches, devouring the meal. ‘You have come to greatness, Ailia,’ she said, chewing a large mouthful of stew. ‘Or must I call you Kendra?’

  ‘The news has spread quickly,’ I said.

  ‘This is not all I know.’ She scraped the bowl with her fingers. ‘You have been with Fraid and the Journeyman. I know you have sanctified a plan to fight.’

  I was astonished. ‘How can you know this?’

  ‘We are not so far from one another as you would wish,’ she said. ‘I followed you to the farmhouse. I have heard your talk.’

  Once again, I was shocked by how brazen, how sly, she was. If she used this against me, Ruther would not spare Fraid or Llwyd, or any of those who had pledged to fight. ‘Heka—’ My voice was low. ‘For the final time, I ask you: what do you want of me? Why do you pursue me?’

  She set down the empty bowl. ‘The Roman army comes. They are hours away and I do not want to be among the dead. I need a horse and cloak and coin to escape. Give this to me or I will go to Ruther.’

  I stifled my laugh. ‘Coin? And where, please tell, will I get your coin?’ I motioned around at the chamber. ‘Do you see a horse here between us?’

  ‘Ask Ruther, when he comes, to arrange it and I will wait for it—’

  We both looked up as the door creaked and was tugged open. The servant had come to take my bowl.

  Heka caught my glance and her eyes flared with panic.

  ‘Quick,’ I whispered. ‘Lie still under the blanket. Stay there!’ I called to the servant. ‘I will pass up my bowl.’

  ‘Why was the door unlocked?’ he growled as he reached for the bowl. ‘Has Ruther been?’

  ‘No,’ I answered quickly. ‘You must have forgotten to draw the latch.’

  The servant grumbled as he hauled himself up from the opening. ‘I will not forget it now.’ The door thudded shut and I heard the bolt slide.

  Heka threw off the blanket. ‘Now I am caught here, curse you!’

  ‘Good then.’ I sat beside her. ‘This may serve us both.’

  Like any journeywoman, I did not have much by way of metals, but I had the favour of those with wealth and could easily have her provided for. My only treasure was Taliesin’s love. As long as I had this, I could promise her anything. ‘I will give you coin, Heka. I will give you horses. I will give you all that I have to give. But first you must tell me the truth. You must tell me my skin. You must tell me everything you know of my family. Not just one question answered, but all. Without this—tell Ruther what you will—you will have nothing.’

  She looked at me and I saw she was startled by my boldness. ‘What promise do you make me,’ she said slowly, ‘if I tell you all?’

  I took deep breath. My words, when they came, were raw and meant. ‘You will have what is mine, Heka, or you shall own my freedom.’ It was a form of geas that I offered. Under it, I would be cursed if I acted outside her will: a debt of obligation that surpassed all others.

  ‘You would put yourself under my geas?’ She was stunned.

  ‘Yes. Even my freedom is useless without skin,’ I said. ‘I am nothing without skin.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Who are you, Heka?’ I murmured.

  ‘Ay then, I will tell you.’ She turned from me and spoke into the darkness, her voice softly rasping. ‘I first came to Caer Cad when I was seven summers old. It was the time of the Gathering. I came with my father and mother. She was huge with a babe. They offered me for the gift. Perhaps it was the shock of the ritual or the relief that I was not chosen, but Mam’s pains started early, and soon it was plain that she was going to have the babe that night. There was a birth hut in the town, but Mam wanted to be near the river. She insisted on it. So we all went down: the midwife, me, others as well. I was scared,’ said Heka.

  ‘Two girls came from Mam that night.’ She paused. ‘The first was Kerensa. Mam was still strong after her, lying on the riverbank and smiling at her sweet face. But when the second child set to follow, Mam started twisting and crying to get into the water. She kept screaming, “Let me under”, and trying to crawl in. The river was icy. But maybe she thought the cold would ease the pain, so we helped her in, me on one side, a woman on the other, and the midwife in front to catch the child.

  ‘She tore right open with the coming of it. The night water ran black with her blood and when the babe was lifted out of the water, she was so slippery that the midwife lost the grip of her ankles and she was washed downstream where she lodged on a log. Nearly drowned in her own mother’s blood, before I got to her.’ Heka turned to me to see if I understood.

  ‘It was me,’ I whispered. ‘I am the child in the river.’

  Heka nodded.

  I could not breathe. Heka was my sister.

  ‘It was I who hauled you out and laid you on the grass next to Kerensa, while our mother bled to death in the river. You came hard and stole her life to buy your own. If it were only Kerensa, Mam would still be alive. She was whole after Kerensa.’ Heka closed her eyes for a few moments before she spoke again.

  ‘You were not sameling twins; you were odd. When we got back to the camp, my father said we could keep only one and the other had to be left somewhere to be safe and fed.

  ‘I begged him to let me keep you both: the two bits of life left from Mam, but he knew—and he was right—that with only seven summers, I could carry one babe and still be helpful with the cattle, but not two. It was no difficulty to choose whom to keep. Kerra was the most likened to Mam and the one whom had left Mam well. The other—you—I took to the Tribequeen’s kitchen door on the night you were born.

  ‘I cried when I farewelled you, despite all. There was a newling’s loveliness to you in your own way, though, even then, you had the look of one who would fight for herself.’ Heka paused once more.

  The scowl scored in her face began to make sense.

  ‘I did not forget you. Not for one day. Every sun turn I thought of the sister who was growing in Fraid’s town. And I worried, too, that you might not be growing. If you had died or gone to fosterage I would never have known of it. And I did not forget either, that you did not know your skinsong and you would be suffering the lack of it.

  ‘When I saw you again it was seven summers past, at the next Gathering. I had dreaded and craved that day all at once. The moment we arrived I wanted to find you and tell you that you had kin and let you meet your womb sister. Our father was dead by then—but I was kept on by the farm that he had worked, and we cared for each other greatly, Kerra and I. We wanted you to come home.’

  ‘What happened then?’ I asked. ‘Why did you not find me?’

  Her face twisted. ‘Because it was Kerensa who was given, torn apart that day.’

  I reeled back as if struck in the chest. ‘That was my sister,’ I gasped, remembering the child who had been chosen as the gift, ‘and you were the one with her.’

  Heka’s eyes closed against the memory. When they opened again they were burning. ‘It was you the Journeyman chose for the gift that winter. You were the most pleasing, the special one, but because you were with the Tribequeen’s woman—ay, I
saw her speak for you—they took my Kerra instead. The most precious thing I would ever know. You bought your life a second time by taking one of mine.’

  I was silent. Reliving that unspeakable day. Was it as Heka charged? Had my life been wrought by others’ deaths?

  ‘I had some sister’s love for you when I came that year, but it was nothing next to my love for Kerra. If I had been given the choice between you and her—there would have been no question in it—I would have kept my Kerra.’ Her eyes bore into me and I saw her face begin to twitch and change with the anger that shaped it from the inside. ‘What did you whisper to the wiseman to buy your life?’ she growled. ‘What words bought the death of my sister?’ Her face crumpled as she slumped against the wall.

  I said nothing more.

  She was my kin. I felt the earth shift to make room for the knowing of it. ‘Why did you not tell me? Or Cookmother?’ I asked.

  Heka stared at me in disgust. ‘Because both of you killed my sister. I felt nothing but hate. Cookmother must have seen it in me because she drew you close and turned away as I passed her after the giving.’

  The torch flame flickered. It would not bring us light for much longer.

  ‘But you didn’t turn away,’ continued Heka. ‘You looked straight at me with those round eyes, full of innocence. The same strange colour of sun in muddy water. You have none of the heart of her but your eyes are all Mam’s.’

  And with those words a ribbon of wind drifted into the core of me, gently awakening the knowledge that I had come from a mother—my mother. Now I knew that I was born to a woman who had gifted me the colour of her eyes and may have gifted me the world’s love if she had lived to do it. I was bound to other souls, dead and alive, and now sitting here before me.