Skin (9 page)

I smiled, confused by his praise. ‘Still it does not bother you that I am without
skin?'

‘No.' He propped on one elbow and stared at my face. ‘You know so little of the world.
In Durotriga you all live as you have lived for thousands of summers. But the eastern
tribes are leaving the hills and are settling in river towns—large towns that are
already shaped by the Empire. People of all skins fill these cities. The ties of
skin are loosening there. Does that not interest you, Doorstep?'

‘By the will of the Mothers, I am blessed with a name. Will you use it?'

He laughed and rolled back, pulling me onto his chest.

What he described did interest me. How could it not? But it frightened me also. The
laws of skin had denied me much but I knew in the heart of my bones that they were
true. It unsettled me that Ruther did not see it so.

He yawned. ‘You should come with me to the Empire lands, Ailia. Journey with me and
see for yourself what I have spoken of.'

I chuckled. ‘How could I come?'

He wriggled up to sitting, roused by the idea. ‘You will come as my servant.'

I sat up, our spell broken, and began to dress. ‘It is too soon for me to leave Cookmother.
She needs me for her work.'

‘The herbs? Any girl can help her with that—you are meant for something greater.'

I flinched. ‘You'll not say that when my poultice saves your limb should you come
to me with battle wounds.' I strapped my sandals.

‘Where are you going?'

‘To my bed.'

‘Will you not return with me to my house?'

‘As your servant?'

He frowned. ‘Forgive me, is that not what you are? Have I done wrong to call you
so?'

I sighed and softened. ‘No, you haven't. But I would rest in my own bed this night.'

He drew a deep breath of my scent. ‘You've pierced me, Doorstep. When I was not battle-ready.'

I kissed his mouth then slipped out onto the moonlit courtyard. As I walked to the
kitchen, my eyes stung from sleeplessness and my body hummed with a sweet, dull ache.
But I was glad to have run the threshold of Beltane, glad to discover what lay beyond.

All wisdom lives in our rivers.

The brink of water is where knowledge is revealed.

T
HE
MORNING'S FIRST
light showed Bebin's bed was empty.

As I wandered out to collect
fresh water, I met her stealing through the Tribequeen's gate, still in her feasting
dress. I led her to the back of the kitchen, where we could stand in the warmth of
the rising sun and talk without being heard.

‘Where have you been?' I whispered.

‘With Uaine,' she murmured, heavy-lidded.

‘He is pleased to return then?' I smiled.

‘Ay.' She turned to me, her brown eyes brightening. ‘I think he will sing me his
song.'

I nodded. Wordless. I was not prepared for how deep it cut.

The skinsong. The betrothal. An invitation to join with another as kin. It was how
we knew if the Mothers blessed the union. When
the skinsong was sung, the one who
listened could remain silent, declining the bond. Or they could sing their skinsong
in return. It was in the blending of songs that the singers knew if they were favoured
to marry. If the harmonies shifted the soul, the bond was true.

Bebin had sung me hers, once, in friendship and, of course, I had heard Cookmother's
many times. But I would never hear one from a tribesman in betrothal. Because they
would know that I could not return it.

I kissed Bebin's cheek and wished her happiness.

Ruther and Uaine returned mid-morning to prepare for their departure. They would
take some of Fraid's best horses and many of her dogs and hides.

I found cause to pass Ruther many times in the stables and storehouses until eventually
he pulled me into one of the grain huts, pulling the door closed behind us. ‘How
can a man prepare for travel,' he said, kissing my throat, ‘with such a bird flying
past?' He loosened his belt. ‘Must I show you once more, my feeling for you?'

I took a strange pleasure in luring him from his task, testing this new power I held.
My back was pressed hard against the storehouse wall when the door swung open and
Bebin stepped in. She stopped when she saw us, then turned and left.

I found her in the Great House, straightening the skins that covered the benches.

‘May I speak, Ailia?' she said, as I joined her.

‘Of course.'

‘Think on your intention with Ruther. The union of man and woman is a life-giving
act. It summons magic in one way or another—use it cleverly.'

I fondled the tattered edge of a boar skin, shamed by her wisdom.

‘But Ailia—'

I looked up.

‘Do not think I am displeased that you are favoured so.' She smiled her quiet smile.

I glanced at her sideways. ‘You are still not impressed by him?'

‘No, no, he is a fine man indeed,' she protested. ‘I hear he even employs a history-keeper
to travel with him and sing praise-songs as he walks into new townships, like a king
into battle.'

We both spluttered with laughter at the arrogance of it.

Smoothing my fingers over the animal skins, I marvelled, as always, at the variation
between them: the soft, patchy pelts of the cattle, the spiked shiny bristles of
the boar, and the deep lustrous fur of the reindeer, in which I buried my whole hand.
Each held its own beauty and worth.

The sun had just begun its descent when a small group gathered at the southern gateway
to farewell Ruther and Uaine.

Ruther's last kiss was sweet but I was relieved as I watched him ride away. I could
return to the kitchen's steady rhythm and settle my thoughts.

Cookmother busied all of us with harvesting early berries from the Tribequeen's gardens,
but when I could not even sort the green from the rosy without error, she took pity
on me and went to fetch a delivery of medicine. ‘You are useless to me here, sex-drunk
and giddy,' she said, handing me a muslin-wrapped bundle and a small bottle of honey.
‘Take these to Dun's farm. Tell the woman there to heat the powders and honey with
sheep's milk, drink it, and rub a little on the chest. Throw what remains on the
ground to the south of the
house. Tell her there's enough within for four days.'

I committed these instructions to memory and called Neha to my heel.

‘Keep clear of the Oldforest,' said Cookmother as I packed the bundle into a basket
and checked for my knife.

‘Yes, Cookmother,' I droned in response to the warning I had heard a thousand times.

To the east of Caer Cad lay a forest that was forbidden by lawsong to all but the
journeypeople and their highest initiates to enter. To get to Dun's farm I had to
walk the river path until it met the Oldforest, then along the track that skirted
its western edge.

Late sun warmed my shoulders as I walked upstream past the last of the farmhouses.
Neha bounded beside me, barking at the insects that hummed near the water. The river
spirits were restless and the very earth seemed to prickle with life.

The grazing pastures gave way to wild grasslands clumped with meadow flowers, and
soon we drew close to the dark edge of the Oldforest. Before the pathway left the
river, I crouched down to fill my waterskin.

The Cam flowed right through the heart of the Oldforest. It was said that the water
journeyed to the Mothers and back again before it emerged, sweet and cold and full
of secrets from its passage.

I looked out over the river as I drank. It was wide here and sharply banked. A thin
mist trailed over its surface. Strange, when I left Cad the day had been clear, but
now the water was dark under low cloud. I stood, knotting my waterskin back onto
my belt, when I heard a long moan.

Neha growled and I heard it again. It came from upstream, near the forest's mouth.
Neha darted toward it. I followed her and peered over the bank where she had stopped.

There, crouched in the shallows, not five paces away, and hunched
in pain, was a
man. He was unclothed to the waist, his dark hair spilling over his bare shoulders,
and he was rocking as he moaned.

‘Are you…in need?' I called.

He looked up in surprise.

‘By the Mothers,' I whispered when I saw his face.

A large iron fishhook was pierced through his lower lip. He stared at me from dark
brown eyes, trembling.

‘What a wicked wound!' I dropped my basket and splashed into the water. ‘Let me help
you.'

But he startled, like an injured animal, jerking his face from my touch.

‘Hush,' I said, crouching before him. ‘I cannot help you if you don't let me look.'

Slowly he turned toward me. He was barely beyond learning age—perhaps three or four
summers my elder—but his beard was thick and he was finer than a king, with searching
eyes, hollow cheeks and the ripe, brooding lips of a displeased god.

Neha had followed me in. She whimpered, licking the brown skin of his shoulder. Only
now did I notice that she had not barked.

My soaked skirts billowed around me. ‘Are you a fisherman?' I asked, bewildered.
‘Where is your shirt?'

He went to speak but flinched with pain.

‘Let me try to free it,' I coaxed. ‘I am trained in wound work.'

He paused then shifted toward me.

I eased open his lip and inspected the hook. ‘You'll have to come back with me to
the township,' I told him. ‘It will take a smith's tool to cut it cleanly.'

His eyes flared and he shook his head.

‘You will not come?'

He shook again.

I stared at him, wondering at his stubbornness. ‘This wound will
catch heat if you
do not clear the implement,' I explained. ‘If you won't come, then I shall have to
cut it now.'

He searched my face, making some kind of reckoning of me, then nodded.

‘Be steady,' I warned, loosing my knife from my belt. ‘There is a ring at one end
of the hook and a barb at the other. I will enlarge the piercing and slide it out.
Can you hold?'

His eyes widened but he nodded again.

‘I have some knowledge of surgery. It will be quick.' I gripped the knife close to
the blade. ‘Ready now,' I said. ‘Hold here about my ankles and squeeze if the pain
is too strong. I've helped a few women in birth, so I can take some squeezing.'

A trace of a smile flickered in his face as he braced himself against my legs.

I stretched his cheek flesh taut with one hand and positioned my knife with the other.
‘There!'

He gasped as I sliced deftly. Deeply. Through the crimson surge I opened the cut
and tugged hard on the hook, taking care that it did not re-lodge in his flesh as
it passed. Proudly, I held it up for him to see.

‘Mother of earth,' he gasped, blood streaming down his chin, ‘you have the touch
of a slaughterwoman!'