A Novel

by Signe Pike

  “You and your brother have been visited by the stag, the spirit of your ancestors,” he said. “This is a mighty thing.”

  “But what does it mean?”

  “The antlers of the stag arch into worlds unseen. This is why he is seen as a messenger. Perhaps he came to offer comfort. Perhaps he came to show you he is a power that may be relied upon. Perhaps he was only looking for a quiet drink.” His eyes sparkled with humor. When he did not find the same reflected in mine, he bowed his head. “This message has come unto you. You and your brother. But I can tell you one thing of importance. Spirit does not choose to show itself lightly. Spirit cannot be commanded. It comes to those in need, when it is needed, and, most important, in its own time. I can promise you that should you desire to know the stag’s true message, you will discover it when the time is right, and not a moment before.”

  I let out a sigh.

  “Do not sigh like a servant who’s burnt the pudding,” he said. “I have not finished, you know.” He lifted a finger. “Most important, the stag comes to tell you of a journey that is about to unfold.”

  “What sort of journey?” I asked.

  “Oh, an epic sort, always. Filled with dashing heroes, a wicked villain, battles, enchantment, and lionhearted feats of bravery. This is the stuff of stories told round the fire.” But as Cathan looked at me, his smile waned.

  “It’s the living of it that’s the hard part,” he said. “There may well be shadowed days. The stag comes to signal the beginning of a new journey you must take. And so the path of this adventure has been laid at your feet. Yours and your brother’s. Soon, I think, you will be asked to walk it.”

  The journey to Partick. The Wisdom Keeper’s words had taken something once enthralling and hung it with a cloud of doom. I shook my head, eyes stinging with a fresh swell of tears.

  “Eh, now,” Cathan said. “Have I not been at your side, all these years? I who foretold your and your brother’s coming? I have bent my life to the task of your learning, Languoreth, and not only from the tenderness that grows for two young babes. I have seen the shadows of the times that lie ahead. You and your brother have roles to play in the events that must unfold. And I mean to arm you to the teeth for battle in ways perhaps only a man such as I am able.”

  “Lailoken may have a role, but what role have I?” I challenged. “I was not chosen to become a Keeper like Lailoken. And I was born a girl. Neither will I be allowed to fight!”

  My role was to marry and someday bear children, but I could not say those words because they sickened me.

  “Do not envy your brother, Languoreth. It is true, the Gods have not chosen you for Keeper. And, as a young woman, neither can you become a warrior like Gwenddolau. But you will have your own influence, as is your fate. You will come to understand that each of us has the power to fight.”

  He meant to encourage, but Cathan’s words nearly sank me. I did not choose to live in such shadowed days. For generations our land had been torn by violence. Now Cathan spoke of more battles to come, of the roles I and my brother must play, as though we were little more than game pieces on a wooden board.

  And to what end?

  Because there were men in the world with black hearts who brought pain and gore to this place of clouds and trees and swift-moving rivers. Who brought slaughter and death to our timeworn mountains and the people working to carve their abundance from the hardened earth of our fields. A shiver coursed through me and Cathan draped his thick white cloak about my shoulders, engulfing me in warmth. We sat that way for a while, the Wisdom Keeper’s strong arm about me and our eyes fixed upon the hills that slumbered in the north. Twilight was falling. The lowing of a cow sounded in the faded grasses and against the purpling sky, while a hawk circled beyond our ramparts. Cathan watched it keenly before turning to me.

  “If you are afraid, then you are wise,” he said softly. “But you have nothing to fear, for I will be with you. Now come with me, Languoreth, daughter of Morken. There are trunks to be packed and provisions to be seen to. Your journey awaits.”

  CHAPTER 7

  * * *

  Gwenddolau had gone.

  I sat numb as Crowan pressed me onto the stool to rake through my tangles, setting to work on what she muttered was the “disgraceful, fiery lark’s nest” that had become my hair. Around us, servants bustled, folding the last of my belongings into my trunks as Crowan plaited my hair into delicate strands, pinning them into a coil at the nape of my neck. The shine of Partick was a faded thing. I wanted nothing more than for Crowan to finish with her fussing so that I might slip away to the stables to be with Fallah, to lean my face against the smoothness of her neck. I hadn’t had time to ride since the coming of the people of Bryneich and Father’s return, and I longed for the comfort of her dark, soulful eyes and creamy white lashes. Crowan must have sensed this, for she sent to the kitchens for a bannock and tucked it firmly into my hand.

  “Off with you, then. I can’t do more with you now.” But her hazel eyes were full of understanding.

  The grass along the stable trail was spiked with frost. Spring, it seemed, was a fickle thing, but with any luck the mist and chill would burn away by late morning. Ariane had gone to the healing hut to pack the leather satchel she wore at her waist with a fresh supply of remedies. We would be leaving soon: Partick was a half day’s ride at a good pace, and far slower with the carts. The barn was heady and sweet with fresh-lain straw, the clean scent of pine planks mingling with the earthy musk of horses. Fallah turned her head as I slid back the bolt on her stall, nickering softly in greeting as I ran my hand along her velvety white flank.

  “Hello, beauty.”

  Father believed a horse chose its rider as much as a rider did their horse. Fallah had been no more than a shaky-legged colt when she appeared one afternoon beside the stables to nudge the baby girl my father held in his arms. Now, in no hurry to reach for her saddle blanket, I wrapped my arms round her neck and she bent her soft muzzle to my ear, letting out a hot, wet breath that sent shivers down my back.

  “You know that tickles!” I ducked away, but she’d succeeded in making me laugh and she tossed her head lightly.

  “No more snorting,” I scolded, checking my hair and my woad-dyed dress for horse drool. “We’re traveling to Partick today.”

  Fallah blinked her long lashes impassively and I brushed a strand of her mane from her face, reaching to lay the thick saddlecloth over her back. The rhythm of tacking her always soothed me, and I liked to do it myself rather than leave it to Macon—whose hands I knew were becoming arthritic and pained him—or submit Fallah to the overly boisterous new grooms. Saddle skin, saddle, girth, and bit. Unlike Lailoken’s horse, a stubborn brute precisely deserving of my brother, Fallah’s girth never needed tightening. She bore my work patiently and never distended her belly like other horses in hopes of making it looser round her middle.

  I looked at her lovingly. “Crowan would find you a better lady than me, I’m afraid.”

  I heard a laugh and turned to see Macon smiling, his flaxen hair pasted to his forehead with sweat.

  “My pardon, m’lady. I only meant to tell you your father and brother wait in the courtyard.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “For what it’s worth,” the groom said, helping me walk Fallah out, “I think you’re a fine wee lady just as you are.”

  I bowed my head as we led Fallah along the stable path. “Thank you, Macon. You’re a kind friend.”

  In the courtyard Father and Lailoken stood in their riding cloaks and stout leather boots, waiting beside their mounts in what seemed a fragile peace. Father’s face was grim and Lailoken’s yet stubborn. But as Lail shifted his weight to avoid his injured foot, his eyes softened and he said, by way of apology, “You look like a lady, yet we stand here waiting for my sister.”

  “Oh, do be quiet,” I said, forgiving him. Gripping the saddle, I pulled myself astride.

  “Let’s be under way,” Father said, “
for I know Cathan will insist on stopping within moments for his midday meal.”

  Cathan sputtered something about an unjust accusation—which I could not understand, given his mouth was stuffed full of bannock. As Ariane drew her horse up behind Fallah and the rest of Father’s retinue eased onto their mounts, I urged my horse forward with a squeeze of my calves. Already the mist was causing loose strands of hair to curl waywardly about my face, and I reached to flatten them, self-conscious.

  “You do look pretty,” Lail said in earnest, guiding his horse beside mine. I glanced at his stirrup where his boot was laced loosely, his foot resting unnaturally on the iron rung.

  “How is your foot?”

  “Broken. My toe, anyway.”

  I knew his toe was fractured because my own had been swollen and throbbing since the evening before. Damn being his twin. I wanted to say it served him right, but Lail looked so tender then, his lanky form dwarfed by his monstrous gray horse, even with his jaw thrust out like a strutting cockerel’s. Beneath it all we swam in currents of the same ocean. His uncertainty and fear sloshed within me, mingling with my own.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  The gate closed behind us and we rode in silence, Fallah’s easy walk and the rich smell of earth soothing my jittery stomach as I sank deeper into the sway of my saddle.

  The road to Partick was a muddy ribbon that wound west, high above the Avon Water as it passed beneath towering oaks and shady pine forests. Alder, ash, and birch found light closer to the pastures as we turned north, where the trees gave way to fields and open wind. In the distance the pastures rose with the mounds of my father’s ancestors, the sleeping dead. We joined the main road and looked out over the great river Clyde, where flat-bottomed boats floated downriver toward the capital carrying stout barrels of ale or swaths of timber for the shipyards of Partick or for Clyde Rock, the fortress of the high king at the mouth of two rivers. Much of our wealth came from the taxes my father levied on these boats as they passed through our checkpoint on the upper reaches of the Clyde. The river and our cattle were the staples of our power.

  A few miles passed beneath our horses and the mist burned off. Shafts of spring sun struck the roadside grasses with slivers of gold, and I stripped off my cloak, draping it over Fallah’s pommel, my eyes traveling to the front of our caravan where Father and Cathan rode side by side, deep in conversation. Brodyn and Brant rode ahead, scanning the way with watchful eyes.

  To be a king of the north was to be ever on guard. Picts could at any moment raid Strathclyde over their steep mountains in the north, or take to their boats, sweeping like a fiery tongue from the western sea. There were many who might seek to usurp my father’s claim on his fertile lands nestled southeast of Partick and north of the Roman Wall. Our lands had belonged to my father’s kin as far back as any Keeper could remember, before the Romans came, back to the earliest memory, when my ancestors had come and tamed the white cattle that were now chief among our fortune.

  Fallah’s gray-flecked ears bent back and I straightened suddenly, listening. Someone was approaching on the road. I heard our men call out an alarm as three warriors left their places in our caravan to circle back, spears lifted and shields gripped at their sides.

  “Keep on, Fallah,” I soothed her. Craning my neck, I spotted two cloaked riders approaching on sluggish horses from behind. Our warriors halted them and, upon recognition, parted the wall they’d made with their mounts. The men wore the brown woven hoods of Christian monks. These were not the full sorts of robes our Keepers wore; rather, their hoods were knit and pulled over their heads, so that they wore simple cloaks or tunics of their own choosing. One man rode farther ahead, and as the stranger drew closer, he gave a broad wave.

  “Brother Telleyr!” I called out.

  The monk slowed his horse to walk beside mine. “Young Lady Languoreth! You and your kin are a sight to be seen.”

  It had been many seasons since Brother Telleyr had last paid us a visit at Cadzow, but he and my family had always enjoyed the most spirited conversations. Before he’d become a devotee to the Desert God, Christ, Telleyr had been a Wisdom Keeper. His dark eyes swept our company in anticipation.

  “And where is your mother, the lady Idell?” he asked.

  The stab was swift at the sound of her name. “She died this past winter,” I said.

  “Died?” The monk’s face fell. “Oh, no. Oh, Languoreth. I am so very sorry.”

  Brother Telleyr’s sorrow was so evident, I wanted to stop my horse right there and speak of everything: about how the sickness had come back to Cadzow so unexpectedly, decades after the last family had perished from the boils; how I had helped her that very morning, folding hot baked bread into the basket to take to the miller and his wife, whose little girl had fallen sick. And yet I knew I could not bear it.

  “You’re coming from the wrong direction,” I said instead. “South rather than from the north. Are you coming from the Wall?”

  Telleyr’s eyes softened with the realization I did not wish to speak of my mother, and he nodded, wiping the sweat from his brow.

  “Aye. I’m returning to Partick,” he said. “We heard news of the Angle attack. Britons along the Wall have much need of help in rebuilding their homes. My brothers and I have spent some time in the Borderlands. In fact, four of my brethren have stayed behind.”

  “But you did not wish to stay?”

  “I dare not keep too long from my duties,” Telleyr said. “My work at the monastery is consuming. We have only just cleared some swaths of land and built a few wattle huts. We have plans for a stout church made of timber and stone, and in my absence there is no one yet equipped to aid in giving sermons.”

  “There are no other monks who can speak to your people as you do?”

  Telleyr thought on this. “We do have one man, recently come from Culenross. His passion is unmatched. But he is undergoing a period of silence just now. When he emerges from his seeking, he may prove himself a charismatic priest indeed.”

  Telleyr glanced behind him. “In any case, I am glad to have come upon you. I’ve had a long journey home with my fellow Brother, Fergus, and my patience is worn thin as a mare’s hair. He’s ill, you see, and quite cross. I’m afraid you shall meet him all too shortly.”

  I flashed what I hoped was a sympathetic smile. Telleyr was forever making light of difficult situations. He was tall and strong, only a few years younger than my father, and he’d been busy clearing land for a new monastery on the outskirts of Partick for many seasons now. “Monks,” he once said, “are as well equipped for tilling soil as they are for wielding a sword.”

  We’d been wary of Telleyr when he first appeared at our hall, a middle-aged Wisdom Keeper who’d traded his white robes for the earthy-brown hood of the Christian faith. But he delighted in discussing healing and tending the land with Mother, and Cathan held a measured respect for the teachings of the man called Jesus. I’d always taken great pleasure in the news he brought, for he often kept company with King Tutgual and his retinue both at Clyde Rock and at the high king’s hall in Partick.

  Telleyr looked at me now, his dark eyes bright. “I gather you and your brother are bound for your father’s hall in the capital?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, I must say it’ll be refreshing to have you and your brother in residence. Partick is overfull these days with great hordes of puffed-up chieftains and their retinues who are too preoccupied with toasting one another and getting drunk on barrels of ale to discuss anything of meaning—save your father, of course,” he added. “I suppose talk of war draws to it a certain sort.”

  “Have you any news from the Wall? Have you heard anything at all about a man called Pendragon?”

  “Indeed I have. I’ve heard in fact that Emrys—the one they call Pendragon—will be arriving to Partick any day now. He brings with him no fewer than forty of his armed guard for his meeting with the high king. There were many I met in the Borderlands who spoke of his brav
ery.”

  Tutgual had summoned Pendragon to Partick? I could hardly believe my luck. Perhaps at last we would catch sight of him.

  “He is a hero, and Lailoken and I would be quite happy to meet him,” I said, unable to keep the excitement from my voice. “Do you think we might?”

  “To be certain,” Telleyr smiled. “Partick may be the capital, but it is not so large as all that.” He shifted in his saddle as someone called out from behind.

  “Brother Telleyr!”

  At the sound of desperation in the other man’s voice, Telleyr squinted as if he’d been suddenly struck with a headache. I turned to see a heavyset man with shifty eyes trotting toward us on a sad, arthritic pony.

  “Christ grant me patience,” Telleyr murmured, then turned to me in earnest. “I must warn you, Brother Fergus is a bit of a zealot. He may well say something foolish.”

  Fergus, who’d caught up to us, overheard this and shook his jowls, indignant.

  “I am no zealot, Brother! I am a devoted servant of God. And I would say to you that in the very least it is not I who spends my time pandering to wolfish lords and chieftains. For the day will come—”

  “Oh, Brother Fergus, I beg you . . .” Telleyr dipped his head. “Don’t take offense, Lady Languoreth. It’s likely one of the more complimentary things Brother Fergus has said of your father.”

  Fergus’s eyes grew wide as gourds as he realized who he’d come upon, and I stifled a laugh.

  “Brother Fergus, meet Languoreth, daughter of that wolfish chieftain I pander to. Morken’s clan has long been a family that keeps the counsel of many gods.”

  “Greetings,” Fergus said loudly, as if we did not speak the same tongue. His several chins waggled in his cowl.

  “Fergus is a seventh son,” Telleyr said. “And so we at the monastery have the obsequious good fortune of hearing Brother Fergus prophesize on a daily basis.” He leaned closer. “He fancies himself a visionary.”