Skin (2 page)

In the kitchen we slept abreast, close to the crackle of the hearth. Sometimes one
of the girls would sleep in the stable if the night was hot or the human smells were
too wretched. But I would never sleep alone. I needed the comfort of fire and a body
against me.

Despite my affliction, Cookmother's rugged care never wavered. She told me always
that fear could be fought with a curious mind.
Hold questions like a torch before
you.

After evening porridge was eaten, my favourite stories were those of the skin totems.

‘Speak of the deer!' I would bid her, curling in her broad lap.

‘Graceful. Gentle. They are kin to the woodlands and survive best by quietness.'

‘And the salmon?' I urged.

‘Ah, the queen of all skins,' she proclaimed, for she was salmon-skinned. ‘Keepers
of wisdom. We hold the past, and the seeking of homelands.'

‘And what of mine?' I wound my small arms around her neck.

She would tell me each time that I belonged to no totem. That I belonged to nothing
but her.

Though she nursed almost every one of the warriors' children, there was no blood
youngling who had ever called her Mam. I was the one, she whispered to me each nightfall,
who was truly her own.

She called me Ailia, meaning light.

I was seven summers old when my life was spared for the second time.

It was midwinter. The Gathering. The people of Durotriga had come together, as they
did every seven years, to remake the union of our tribe. For six nights we had woven
together our tribelands in song, called forth our animal kin, and eaten and drunk
together. Now it was the seventh day, when we would offer the gift that spoke most
deeply of our gratitude to this country and to the Mothers who formed it, the gift
that would hold our ties strong until we next met.

I hoped to the Mothers it would not be me.

The near-dawn was bitter as we gathered in our hundreds around a large, raised mound,
surrounded by fires. Cad Hill was to the south of us. We were on Mothers' land now,
the most sacred ground of Summer, deep-sodden by our northern river, the Nain, which
kept the Mothers close. Many had journeyed days to come here; we had only to pass
through our northern gateway to reach this place. The land had been felled and cleared,
but it was not permitted for beast to graze it, or tribesman to walk upon it outside
of ritual time.

This was the turning of the winter. The journeymen worked quickly to be ready for
the breaking of light over the far grey hills. They called for girl children born
in the year of the last Gathering to come forward. Braced by our closest kin, or
whoever loved us most, we approached the space before the crowd.

Tethered horses steamed at the nostrils and gave off a strong blood heat from the
slabs of muscle on their flanks and necks. I flinched
as they stamped and twitched
in the cold. They'd been whipped and taunted. They were ready to run.

I stood at the end of the row, gripping Cookmother's hand. When I glanced sideways
I saw a line of only ten or twelve wide-eyed faces, fewer than one would expect among
so many tribespeople. No doubt some tribeswomen had kept their daughters hidden,
had not heeded the Mothers' call, each knowing that their daughters would now never
be truly of the tribe because they were not willing to give them to the tribe.

Llwyd, the Journeyman Elder, highest trained of our wisepeople, paced our number
and one by one sent girls back into the crowd. They scurried and tripped, collapsing
into their families' joyful sobs. One by one we were rejected if our health, our
strength, our radiance of spirit were not sufficient for the Mothers.

At last there were two of us. We could hardly have been more different to look at.
I was tall and well grown with a vine of light-brown curls escaping my braids, whereas
she was small and slight, her dark hair smooth as water.

Llwyd came to me first.

‘She is half-born,' said Cookmother. ‘A foundling. She has no skin.' Her voice was
steady but I could feel her legs trembling through her skirts.

‘Unskinned?' said Llwyd. He looked up and down the length of me. ‘She is otherwise
perfect—perhaps the Mothers want her anyway. After all, they know her skin.'

‘Please—' Cookmother's voice cracked. ‘I'm training her for plantcraft. Let her
serve us in another way.'

Llwyd crouched before me and squeezed my arms and legs. Although I had been told
countless times of the honour this gift would bring to my soul, I started to rock
with terror.

Llwyd took my hand. ‘Will you be our gift?'

My legs weakened but I did not fall. ‘Yes,' I whispered.

Llwyd stood.

All watched, awaiting his word.

He walked to the other girl. She must have been far-born as I had never seen her
at markets or festivals. ‘Is there any reason, why I should not choose
this
girl?'
he asked.

The girl's companion was no older than fourteen summers. Too young to be the child's
mother. ‘This is my sister,' she said, ‘and last of my kin.'

‘She, also, is perfect,' said Llwyd. He looked out to the gathering. ‘We will give
the child with skin.'

‘No!' The sister grabbed the girl, who had begun to wail.

Now my legs buckled and Cookmother lifted me into her arms.

‘You will be honoured for your gift,' said Llwyd, reaching for the girl.

It took two journeymen and the Tribequeen's first warrior to wrench the child from
her sister. The air was jagged with the older girl's screams.

Cookmother hurried me back to the safety of the crowd and kept me clasped to her
chest. Nightshade was thrown onto the fires and my nostrils flooded with its dizzying
smoke.

The journeymen and -women started to sing down the songs of our tribe in powerful
harmony. I could sense the expectation in the gathering, the pulsing of hearts and
the coursing of blood. This ritual was part of our story, part of our truth, but
the terribleness of it was never forgotten.

The chosen girl's sister still screamed. The warrior held her, his arms spasming
with the force of her struggle.

The girl was led between the fires to the top of the mound. The ovates poured henbane
down her throat. Soon she would feel no pain. The singing became louder. Cookmother
squeezed me closer.
I wanted to hide my face in her tunic, but I knew all must bear
witness to this giving. Especially me.

The ovates took off the girl's under-robe. Unclothed, she was as fragile and veil-skinned
as a baby mouse. Water, dark with plant steepings, was poured over her blue-cold
skin, the trickle of shit wiped from her thighs, and she was called to be ready.

I was lost in the wondering of how this would be the greatness of her body's growth.
That the fresh folds and twig bones of her would never know the height nor flesh
nor wisdom of a woman. As I stared, she met my gaze. Though she had nothing of my
high forehead or my pointed nose, her wild green eyes were a mirror of mine.

The ovates began to circle her as the first lip of light emerged on the horizon.

Llwyd stood on a platform before us and called the dedication: ‘Mothers, receive
this lifegift as tribute and request. Let the spread of this new blood soak into
your earth, flow into your rivers. Let it nourish your body and ease your hunger.
Let what we give you now, torn apart, be returned to us as whole.'

As he spoke, the lesser journeymen were tying the ropes around the child's ankles,
wrists and neck. These in turn were fastened to the ropes that trailed behind the
horses. There were nine horses for the task. Two for each arm, two for each leg,
the largest and strongest for her head.

The journeymen positioned her; she was already halfway to the Otherworld with the
herbs. They kissed her and stepped away.

She stood with limbs outstretched and tears on her face. The singing reached a wailing
peak. It was time. She was, for a moment, creation, the rising sun itself, before
the riders mounted, the journeyman shouted, and the horses surged with unstoppable
force, to the north, south, east and west of her.

At first there was chaos. A void without form.

Then the Mothers began to sing.

AD
43

I
STIRRED
WITH
the crow's first cry, instantly awake. It was the day before festival;
tonight the fires would be lit for Beltane and I had been sleepless half the night
in anticipation.

Despite the cold morning, I was damp with sweat in my bed, pressed on one side by
Cookmother and the other by Neha, my beautiful grey-and-white bitch. She was the
final born from the last of Badger's litters and the most like her in temperament:
wary of any who stroked her. But to me she was as devoted a protectoress as could
ever be wished for and I would not so much as empty the nightpot without her by my
side.

I lifted Cookmother's arm and rolled out from under it, reaching for my grey woollen
tunic that hung over a stool by the bed. The other kitchen girls still slept, Bebin
and Ianna curled together. Only
sour-tempered Cah slept alone. The fire in the hearth
was barely smouldering. It was Cah's turn to keep it last night but she had clearly
forgotten again. I stoked it quickly. It would bring great shame on Cookmother for
our house fire to die.

As I tied my tunic with my leather belt, Neha brought me my sandals. ‘Good girl,'
I whispered, lacing them firm. I tugged a comb through the tangle of hair that spilled
down my shoulders, then I grabbed a basket and we slipped out through the heavy cowskin
covering the door.

Outside, the air prickled with spring. Past the Tribequeen's low stone gateway, the
path was dotted with festival offerings of cheese, eggs and milk left in small rock
hollows or poured straight onto the cobbled ground. Some had left bread or jugs of
ale. Each gave back the best they could.

Soon the winding pathways of the warriors' houses gave way to the open streets of
the town centre, where our craftspeople worked. Caer Cad was already awake. Smoke
poured from the house peaks and the open forges were lit. Many makers were already
bundling their metals and pots into baskets for market, restless, like me, with the
promise of festival. Most greeted me as I passed, but some looked away.

I turned into a narrow path where the rich smell of roasting wheat told me Mael's
bread was ready. Inside his bakehouse, I leaned against the warm oven while he chose
his largest loaves.

‘Take care when you attend the Tribequeen today,' he warned. Mael had grown heavy
on his own graincraft and had a great fondness for the foretelling of ruin. He was
mocked for both of these, but I always offered him a ready ear and in return he was
free with the news of the township.

‘Why so?' I asked.

‘There was a rider from the east last night. The Bear is fallen.'

‘Slain?' I questioned. There had been no news of war.

‘Nay. Died in his bedskins. An old man's death, bless his soul to have reached it.'

The Great Bear, Belinus, king of the Catuvellauni, whose rule spread over most of
the eastern tribes of Albion. He was greatly admired, even by those beyond his reign,
like us.

‘Who will wear his crown?' I asked.

‘This is the question.' Mael bent down and swung open the door of the oven. ‘Togodumnus
has claimed the capital but his brother, Caradog, will want his share of the tribes,
and he is a flaming arrow. Whatever smooth waters Belinus has sailed between Britain
and Rome, Caradog is sure to whip up.'

I could not help smiling at his prophecy. ‘I think we are safe from the Romans here,
Mael.'

‘Are we?' He dripped with sweat as he pulled out the bread stone. ‘The Bear knew
how to throw a bone to the Roman dog. He gave them all the skins and the tin they
could want and kissed their fingers for the privilege. They had no reason to attack
again. With that young cock Caradog crowing about Britain's great freedom, who knows
what Rome will do to subdue him?'