Daughter of Black Lake

by Cathy Marie Buchanan

  “Fox knows what she saw,” Sullen says.

  “He chooses what he believes,” Seconds says.

  “Maybe he isn’t coming back,” Sliver says. “Maybe he’s been cut down.” Her eyes are on me, her eyebrows lifted with the question she does not speak: In the vision of the massacre, had I witnessed Fox’s demise?

  I shake my head. That vision had revealed nothing of Fox. He was not on Sacred Isle but rather in Hill Fort, hounding Luck, when news of the massacre arrived. With that small shake, a newly proven prophetess puts to rest for an entire settlement any notion that we are rid of Fox.

  “Chieftain should be told what Hobble saw,” Carpenter says. “He should know rebellion will end in catastrophe.”

  “Not even Chieftain will cross a druid,” Hunter says.

  “He could rally the other chieftains,” Carpenter says. He turns to Luck. “You’ve got a horse. Hill Fort is just beyond Timber Bridge. You could convince Chieftain to come at once to Black Lake.” He sweeps an arm toward the gathered crowd. “All of us could vouch for Hobble. All of us know she foretold the sea turned red at Sacred Isle.”

  Luck holds up a palm. “Wait,” he says. “You’re saying—” His fingers reach but stop short of my shoulder. “You’re saying Hobble foretold the druid massacre? You’re saying she foretells the defeat of their rebellion?”

  Carpenter nods amid a flock of bobbing chins.

  “You’re certain?”

  “As certain as wanderers’ star,” Carpenter says.

  Luck looks to my father. Without my father’s confirmation, I remain a maiden soothsayer in a remote settlement, with a narrow audience, narrow credibility.

  “Smith?” Luck says. “Hobble is a seer? Is it true?”

  The tiny hairs at the nape of my neck bristle straight.

  My father nods a whisper of a nod.

  30.

  HOBBLE

  Fox returns at nightfall. He does not speak—neither as I bring him a cloth and a bowl of warm water so that he might wipe the dust from his face, nor as he swallows the mead my mother puts before him. My father’s eyes follow him as he sits—glowering—then stands, then circles the firepit, then sits again. The hand holding the cloth falls to a table, as if cleaning himself is too inconsequential a task for such a night.

  “It is as Hobble described,” he finally says, “my brethren cut down on the shore of Sacred Isle.” His eyes fix on my father, and he continues: “The Romans, after that slaughter, moved like a giant net over the whole of Sacred Isle, its wheat fields and low hills and cliffs plunging to a blue sea without end. They clouted doors from hinges, toppled looms so that blankets mingled with the entrails spilled onto earthen floors. They hauled thatch into the sacred groves, set aflame the ancient oaks, the pyres of piled druids. The druid who found me, who chewed my meat—an invalid, without the strength to lift himself from a pallet—his limbs were severed from his body and his fingers, too. They were shoved into his mouth.”

  He gets up, makes his way to my father.

  “You!” Fox hammers a finger against my father’s chest. “You and your Roman tent pegs. You are as responsible as any Roman.”

  My father slowly lifts his shoulders in imitation of a man ignorant of Fox’s accusation, ignorant of Roman pegs.

  Luck had not lingered after my father answered him. He said he would go to Chieftain and left at a gallop, without first embracing my father, who knew him only as a news bearer as far as the bog dwellers were concerned. My father stood a long moment afterward. Then he steered my mother and me into the forge and bolted the door shut behind our backs.

  He pried open two crates of finished pegs, loaded those pegs into a dozen linen sacks. He lifted his tunic, strung a rope around his waist, affixed four laden sacks to that rope, and then smoothed his tunic back into place, roughly concealing the bulk. Once my mother and I had copied the effort, the three of us set out and, at the far end of the causeway, dumped the sacks’ telltale contents into black water. As we turned to leave, my mother touched my arm. Together we put the heels of our palms to our foreheads and murmured, “Hear me, Protector.”

  * * *

  —

  Fox takes a fold of my father’s tunic into his fist. He makes as if to thrust, as if to hurl my father, but in his fury, the druid has misjudged the heft of so muscled a man. He leans close, spits, “To your forge! Now!” When my father offers no objection, Fox’s eyes narrow. “You’ve unburdened yourself,” he says and flicks his hand free of the clasped wool.

  My father makes no comment, only breathes his long, steady breaths.

  A slow grin comes to Fox, the pleasure of a man who has not been outdone. “Hunter will make a declaration. I’ll get him now.” He hesitates a moment in the doorway. “You’ll pay, Smith,” he hisses. “I promise you that.”

  As my father turns to pacing, my mother crouches alongside the bins holding our remedies and selects a small, sealed vessel. As she scrapes the beeswax from the vessel’s mouth, the stink of black henbane taints the air. She glances up to see me watching, lays a finger across her lips.

  I know black henbane—its urn-shaped pods, the tiny wheat-colored seeds. When I was a child, she had shown me the plant cupped in her palm. “A tea made with the leaves is enough to set a man soaring,” she had said. “The strongest magic is in the seeds, though. A dozen and a spirit lifts to Otherworld. More than that and the spirit won’t return.”

  She tilts several dozen seeds from the vessel into a mortar and works her pestle. I watch, frozen, as she taps pulverized seed into the silver goblet, as she fills the goblet with mead, as she returns it to the low table where Fox usually sits at the firepit. Her hands, all the while, remain as composed as the gliding moon.

  * * *

  —

  When Fox returns with Hunter, I do not like the tribesman’s face. His chin is lifted, and his cheeks are held rigid as though resisting a satisfied grin. Fox orders the men to the firepit. My father lowers himself to the prized spot on Fox’s left, and the druid launches a belly laugh as false as water captured in cupped hands. “There,” he says, indicating the spot on his right.

  Once Fox is seated, he puts a hand over the goblet’s base, as though he might at any moment slide his fingers to the stem and deliver the mead to his mouth. I bite my lip, glance toward my mother—wide-eyed, though dropped onto her knees beneath Mother Earth’s cross.

  Fox clears his throat. “Hunter has made a serious accusation against Smith—an accusation of treason,” he says. “Tonight he will speak his accusation openly, and in doing make his declaration in front of four witnesses.” He beckons. “Devout, Hobble, come close.”

  As we shuffle to the firepit and seat ourselves, his thumb and index finger slide over the goblet’s stem, up, then down, then up again. Drink the mead, I holler inside my mind.

  Fox sweeps a hand toward Hunter. “Speak,” he says.

  Hunter nods deeply, as though acquiescing, as though the choice to point a finger were not his. “I saw tent pegs exactly matching Smith’s—strange pegs with the blunt end curled into a loop—in the marketplace at Hill Fort. I made inquiries and was assured the pegs are Roman.”

  “The pegs are superior,” my father says. “Tribesmen have adopted them.”

  “He deals with a man called Luck”—Hunter glances from my father to Fox—“a trader widely known to supply the Roman army.”

  My father wags his head in slow denial.

  Hunter raises his chin further. “Why, then, did that very trader call at Black Lake this afternoon?”

  As the grooves in the druid’s face deepen, my mother blurts, “Loyal,” and his attention snaps to her. “The one who came was called Loyal.” She continues, voice quivering, “He was from Timber Bridge and came with news of the massacre.”

  “And left,” Hunter says, “with the intent to tell Chieftain about a maiden proph
etess who foretold that massacre.”

  The druid is on his feet now, fingers clenched into fists. “Luck or Loyal?”

  “Luck,” Hunter says. “A nose like a buzzard. I’ve seen him at Hill Fort.”

  “And what would be the point of this Luck speaking to Chieftain?”

  “To entice him to Black Lake.”

  “For what purpose?” Fox’s knuckles protrude, as smooth and white as bone.

  Haltingly Hunter says, “So that the bog dwellers might convince him Hobble is a true prophetess.” His eyes dart to the door.

  With that the druid crosses the firepit, squats in front of me. He balances there, fingers tented, his flush face radiating hostility.

  I attempt my father’s steady breathing, attempt any breathing, but only manage to suck air as though through a wet cloth.

  Then Fox grips my shoulders. He shoves, then yanks, causing my head to jerk forward, then backward. “What did you tell Luck?”

  “Nothing. I said nothing.”

  Hunter’s palms push the air, as though urging restraint. Too late, I think. Too late to decide better than to turn a druid against the maiden who prepares your dandelion draft, who brings ease to your mother’s old age.

  Fox leaves me, returns to Hunter. “What else does Luck know?”

  He wags his head back and forth.

  Fox’s lips draw back from gritted teeth. Eyebrows lower toward his rutted nose. He threads a hand though Hunter’s hair, pulls as Hunter’s backside parts from the bench. “You deny a druid!”

  Hunter twists to face my father, and in doing so, his head tilts. Wet overflows the rims of his eyes. “I am not a brave man,” he says and then lifts his face to Fox. “He knows she prophesied defeat. The idea is to sway Chieftain.”

  A further yank. “To what end?”

  Hunter winces, sputters, “So that he might rally all the chieftains against rebellion.”

  Fox sets Hunter loose with a mighty heave that topples him backward from a low bench to a crumpled heap.

  Fox kicks his foot hard into the rushes and then into the underside of a bench, toppling it. When will he grow thirsty, take the mead? I want the goblet drained now, before he topples the table holding it.

  He overturns a second and third bench, chest heaving, and then suddenly halts, as if transfixed by some moment that is not now. He circles the firepit in silence—once, twice, three times. Then he looks up from contemplation. “We will not delay further,” he says. His mouth twists. “Now is the time.”

  I grip the bench beneath me.

  He continues, explaining that four legions of Roman warriors occupy Britannia, that two remain on Sacred Isle, that another is stationed in the south, and the fourth in the northeast. In their arrogance, the Romans have left their largest town unprotected, ripe for attack. Camulodunum, that place they had named their capital and settled in large numbers, brimmed with advancement—paved roads, according to Luck, and stone temples and marketplaces, a hall where the Romans bathe in large groups. Camulodunum, Fox spits, is a debauched colony of veterans—the worst dogs. The closest Roman legion, he says, that one in the northeast, blights the land a full eight days’ march from the town.

  As Fox harangues, my father sidles nearer to where my mother and I huddle on the bench.

  Fox paces more, thuds his fist into his palm. His face quivers rage as he describes how the eastern tribesmen have long despised the veterans who robbed them of their farmsteads and spat on them in the street. And now one of the eastern chieftains—a mighty woman called Boudicca—has been publicly flogged, her two maiden daughters raped, her male kin chained and hauled away to be sold. Her great offense: speaking out that half of her newly departed mate’s estate belonged to his daughters. “This, when he had willed the other half to Rome,” he bellows. “This, when he had been a loyal chieftain, one of the first to swear allegiance to Rome. Her abasement is the final kick. Obedient hound has turned against master. Tribesmen flock to follow Boudicca into battle.”

  My father drops beside me on the bench. He reaches around my back to my mother and draws both of us snug.

  The eastern tribesmen, Fox says, are hungry for the vengeance they are owed and are already gathering in camps and making ready to descend on Camulodunum. “Tomorrow we march. We will unite with our eastern kin.”

  The gods turned back Julius Caesar, his flocks of warriors, his hundreds of ships; but first, I remember, in every settlement a runt—a human runt—was bludgeoned, garroted, drowned, and bled. I sit still, negotiating with the gods. I will pitch any further tent pegs my father forges into the bog, join my mother in the liberal portions she allots Mother Earth, drop more frequently to my knees. I wait, fingers clenched, body taut.

  “I’ll make the rounds, command the others to prepare,” he says.

  “You’re exhausted,” my mother says. “You must rest. I’ll fetch your mead.”

  “We will make good with the gods at daybreak, before we set out,” he says. “With blood we atone for our failings as a people”—he turns, directing his words to my father—“failings that are without precedent.”

  I swallow. Blink.

  “What are you saying?” my mother asks, her voice thin as a reed.

  And then, like leaf quitting bough, his gaze falls to me. “We will look to the old ways.”

  How long, how diligently I have clung to the idea that I possess a gift, that I am unique, not because I am a runt, but because I see what others do not. I am chosen, I told myself, and waited to see the splendor that would unfold. “You’ll outdo me as healer,” my mother had said. “You have your gift.” And Seconds—his face had radiated wonder, admiration that I could foretell what had not yet taken place. But he had turned to saying, “That prophecy—if anyone asks, say you made it up.” Through foretelling, I have made myself the enemy of a druid, a druid who will not risk his rebellion halted, who will not permit Luck time to rally Chieftain, who will at daybreak rid himself of a final threat to achieving his rebellion. This is the last moment of my innocence, the last moment before I swallow the truth. There is no benevolent hand, no triumph on the far horizon. This is the moment when I know the reality of my visions. My curse.

  My father leaps up. “The fields will sprout in Fallow before anyone is laid out on cold stone.” His voice cuts with the severe edge of a sharpened blade. Nostrils flaring, he thrusts his fist into his palm, and I look away from a man I do not know, a man, in this moment, so much like Fox.

  The druid’s palms turn heavenward. “Don’t you see, Smith? It is the will of the gods. They have spoken, and it is divined.”

  With that he lifts the goblet.

  But then his nose wrinkles, his face shudders, drawing back from the tainted mead. On his way to the door, he pauses at the tribute vessel and turns the goblet, spilling its contents onto the day’s collected slop.

  I look to my mother, find her dropped from the bench onto her knees, rocking now, hands over her heart. “Forgive me,” she says, bowing at my feet.

  But what am I to forgive? What grave offense stirs her to say “Hobble’s imperfection is my punishment” and puts torment on her face and hardens her from accepting my father’s love?

  What has my mother done?

  31.

  HOBBLE

  My family enters Sacred Grove as though wading through the thick murk of the bog. The low branches of the ancient oak reach like gnarled fingers. The globes of mistletoe protrude like diseased joints. The canopy above smothers, dense, unrelenting. Moss clings thick and black to the oak, the rotted fallen trees, the boulders marking the perimeter of the place. Darkness hangs at Sacred Grove.

  As we take our places in front of the stone altar, I look from bog dweller to bog dweller—my fierce father on my left; my quaking mother next in line; Carpenter and then Tanner after that; scores of weary faces; and last, Fox’s, set as iron. He looms o
n the altar’s far side, his skin wiped clean of yesterday’s streaked dirt, his body cloaked in an immaculate white robe.

  The Shepherds come into the grove, and I count all six sons. As I endeavor to catch sight of the ewe that I know will not follow the boys, I notice others straining to glimpse a trailing ewe and understand that my family is not alone in its fear. My mother grips my father’s arm.

  My gut roils as my eyes wander over the chiseled slab of cold gritstone, and then over Fox’s pristine robe, his hard face. He lays a golden sickle, a square of folded linen, an ax, and a garrote on the altar, and I wonder whether a sickle made for hacking mistletoe would cleanly slit a man’s throat. Would it be as useful as the dagger hidden inside my father’s breeches? Yes, it is true. Never mind that blades other than those used in sacrifice are not permitted in Sacred Grove, a dagger rests against his hip, held at the ready by his woven belt.

  After Fox announced a return to the old ways and left the roundhouse, my father straddled a bench, and took up a sandstone in one hand and that dagger in the other. He sharpened the blade, tested its mercilessness with his thumb, returned to circling stone over iron. Then, finally through with the dagger, he shifted to instructing my mother. “Appear to make ready.” he said. “Let the druid think the men will set out in the morning.”

  I wrapped hard cheese and three loaves in linen, cut slabs of salted pork from the bone, all the while my mind reeling, deliberating a scheme I could not fathom. My mother collected his second pair of breeches, warmest tunic, and two woolen blankets, bound the lot inside his skin cape. The chill had not yet left the turf, and I wondered whether that cape would provide enough warmth as he slept. In my stupor, I had misplaced the idea that my father plotted, that in his fervent mind Fox would not lead the bog dwellers east to unite with the assembled tribesmen.