Skin (46 page)

‘Do you not think I would have gladly traded my skin knowledge for just one moment
of the care you have known by your cursed Cookmother? From seven summers I was motherless
with none to replace her.'

I frowned, seeing the truth of it.

‘I have found friends enough to drink with but I have never known a moment's kinwarmth
since that day. Do you know what love has been to me, sister? It has been a man's
prick and the money he'll give to use me freely for its pleasure. This is what I
have known of love.'

‘And now?' I asked, suddenly exhausted. ‘Why did you come back?'

‘Justice,' she said. ‘After seven years of grieving Kerra, I woke up. The wrong needed
to be righted. I knew you should help me or suffer for it if you would not. That
is what brought me back.'

‘And what of me? Did you care nothing for me as your sister?'

‘Ay. I cared. I did not know—right up until the very moment I saw your face at the
door—whether you would be kin or enemy to me when I found you. But when I saw you
so rosy and tended and then not letting me have even a crumb of it, like I was less
than shit on your sole, well, I knew then you were no kin to me.'

‘But I
am
kin!' I cried. ‘I did not know—how could I have known?'

‘You, the knowing one! Did not even know her own sister. Not
then, nor months after.
Never until this moment. What kin does not know itself? No, sister. I say you knew.
You knew you owed me some life somehow, but it was sweeter for you not to grant it.'

I spun from her words, fathoming what truth they held, and stared into her face,
now seeing its echoes of my own. ‘And now?' I asked. ‘Am I your sister now?'

She would not meet my gaze.

I watched her profile. Now I saw more than the worn skin at her jaw, the lines gouged
in her brow, her sunken temple. Now I saw our story.

‘This has shaped me, Ailia. I cannot change what I am.'

I wanted to comfort her. I needed comfort from her. But the wrongs she had done me
had shaped me also and I was scarred from the knowing of her. Like hers, my cuts
could not be washed away.

We sat beside each other, locked in the chamber, listening to the rise and fall of
each other's breath.

Then, in the silence, Heka began to sing. A sweet, lilting song, in a voice made
husky from ale, that called to the wisdom, the loyalty, the kinship of the dog. She
sang it once. Twice. Three times.

On the fourth cycle I began to whisper, joining with her as she sang. My voice strengthened
as I learned the song, making it more precise, more true, each time I sang it through.
After many cycles, we were singing together in perfect unison.

The song soaked into my bones, finally giving shape to what had been formless. Naming
what had had no name.

This was our skinsong.

I was skin to the dog.

Our world is a braid, made up of three strands: our land, our laws and our rituals.

Take away any one of these, and our world will be altered beyond survival.

H
OURS
PASSED
AND
Heka drifted into sleep. Her body slumped sideways and her head
fell on my shoulder. I breathed her hair, musty, like the nest of a kitchen mouse,
and a wave of exhaustion rolled over me.

In the lull of half-sleep, something was stirring. The new parts of my story were
intermingling and fusing with those I already knew. Layers were shifting with the
birthing of skin. The change that had pressed so close but could not break through
in the forest, now entered me.

With skin, my sight came. My knowledge awakened. With skin, the Kendra was fully
born.

In my dream it was almost dawn. I was a raven, black and strong, soaring over the
fields and forests of my country. I was flying southeast
toward the vast water, nearing
Mai Cad. I passed over a tall ridge and there was the hilltown spread before me.
Straightaway with my raven's eye I saw something was wrong. The pink sky was stained
black with smoke.

I dropped forward to gain a closer view. Smoke stung my nostrils and eyes. A foreign
banner, bearing an eagle, flew at the eastern entranceway. I circled over it and
saw men with the close-cropped hair and red skirts of the Roman legions. There were
only a few, gathered around fires, laughing together as they ate from steaming bowls,
jovial with their success. Were the rest hidden in the tents, tired from their night's
work?

I dipped my left wingtip to turn and sail over the town.

Where were the huts? I dived in closer. Where were the tribespeople?

I flew toward the western gate and there the full breadth of this attack was laid
before me. The sight turned my avian bowels to liquid.

I came to perch on one of the tall posts that stood each side of the gate. The few
who remained alive were digging furiously, deepening the grave to hold the mountain
of dead beside them. They were digging with stones, branches, their hands, so urgent
was it that they laid their kin to rest before the daylight alerted the Romans to
their task.

I cawed in despair and a young boy looked up to see the day's first bird.

With a chest full of stone, I lifted off the post into the sky and began to fly back
to my home, where Rome would come next.

When I reached Caer Cad, no matter how loud I cried that the resistance must be ceased,
that we had to surrender to this force if we were to protect anything of ourselves,
no one could understand the bird. No one could hear me.

I awakened with a jolt, Heka still heavy against me.

Skin had given me sight in the hardworld and I had seen what would happen if the
tribe fought. I had ordered a battle we could not win, that would injure our people
beyond healing. I had to get word to Llwyd and Fraid. I had to tell Ruther that I
would marry him and concede to the Empire. I would do anything to halt the massacre
I had seen and that moved toward our township. To live by Roman law would wound the
Mothers, but the blood of whole tribes soaked into their ground would destroy them.

I wriggled out from under Heka and climbed the ladder to pound at the door. ‘Ruther!
Come!' I shouted. ‘I must speak with you!' There was no response. I shouted again,
pummelling the door with my fists till they ached.

Heka roused with the noise. ‘What are you doing?' She yawned.

‘I have made sight, Heka—I have seen the Roman attack on Mai Cad. I have to call
back our warriors.' I started hammering on the door again.

‘For Mothers' sake, shut up!' cried Heka.

I dropped down from the ladder and stood before her. ‘Listen,' I commanded. ‘I have
seen an attack more terrible than your worst imagining.' I paused, trying to gather
my thoughts. ‘If my vision is in true time, then we still have some hours, even days,'
I muttered. ‘Their soldiers must replenish and rest, then make footjourney from Mai
Cad. But if I was looking into old time, then…' I looked up and met Heka's gaze.

‘They may be upon us,' she finished, understanding me.

‘Help me,' I said. ‘Help me scream so that one of the servants may hear as they pass.'

‘Strange that no one has come with food or fresh water,' said Heka, getting to her
feet. ‘We have been here some long time.'

I glanced at the torch, burned almost to its base. She was right. Why had no one
come?

We locked eyes again and neither of us spoke.

Slowly I climbed the ladder once more, but this time I did not bash against the door
or cry out. This time I drew the underbolt closed so that it could not be opened
from above.

I did not know how long we waited, huddled together in the chamber. Without sun or
stars to guide us, there was no way of knowing if the moments were hours or even
days. We sipped what remained of our water and waited.

A sudden thump startled us both from a half-sleep.

Immediately my senses were sharp. There was anger in the force of the strike. The
thump was followed by a second that sent us cowering against the wall.

‘
Patefacite
!' The Latin command to open was shouted through the wooden door.

We clutched each other, my heart crashing, as showers of grit rained down from the
edges of the opening. Then, for a moment, all was quiet.

‘Have they gone?' whispered Heka.

‘Perhaps,' I breathed.

Another splintering strike sent us shrinking into a huddle. Now they were using a
tool.

Heka began to whimper, grey with fear.

‘It will be all right,' I heard myself tell her.

The axe was almost through. I saw the door bend and shudder under the blows and I
heard the sound of wood beginning to split. Two more strikes and I saw the glint
of the axe edge.

I stood and inhaled to draw up power from the earth, but it did not come. I remained
a mere girl. Against this enemy, my strength would not come.

They had made a hole in the door.

I was chanting, calling on the Mothers, drawing up from their deepest spirit. Why
would they not come?

Sandalled feet slid through the hole. Then the rest of the Roman: young, stocky,
dressed in the short tunic and leather skirt of the foot soldier. His face was partly
obscured by his metal helmet but his eyes shone, dark and aroused.

A second soldier dropped down behind him. They both guffawed at the discovery of
us, loosening their sword belts. From the words they exchanged I recognised only
‘
lupa'
, a she-wolf, and also a woman who lay with men for payment.

I stood before them while Heka crouched against the wall behind me.

Suddenly their swords were drawn.

‘What do you want?' I screamed.

They shouted back and the first soldier moved forward, pushing me away, bidding Heka
to rise, his sword at her throat.

She shook as she stood.

There was a shout from above. The second soldier bounded up the ladder in response
to it, but the first remained. He bellowed at Heka.

She stared back, uncomprehending.

Then he was upon her. He twisted her around, shoving her hard against the wall.

She lifted her head to scream but the soldier pushed it back down with a sickening
thud. He rummaged within his tunic, readying to take her.

I stared, frozen in horror. It was so fast. I saw the pale flesh of her
flank as
he wrenched up her skirts and forced her thighs apart with his knee.

Just as he was about to breach her, it finally came. A white blaze of rage. I drew
as I have never drawn. The full power of the Mothers exploded within me. I pulled
my sword from my belt and lunged forward.

The soldier leaned over my sister.

With all my strength, I drove the sword deep into his back. First high, to puncture
his lungs, then lower, into the orbs and pockets, twisting the blade to ensure he
would not survive it. To ensure I took his life.

He slipped to the floor.

Heka sank down beside him. ‘Thank you,' she wept as I crouched to embrace her.

I held her tightly with one arm, my sword in the other, as the soldier's blood pooled
at our feet.