Skin (14 page)

Freedom in love precedes all other freedoms.

I
SAT
ON
a stool outside the kitchen in the morning's first light, feeding the fawn
milk from a jug. He was surer on his legs each day and starting to gambol around
the kitchen garden. When he'd emptied the jug, he bounded away on milk-drunk legs,
the early sun making a bright aureole of his downy coat. I laughed at the pride I
felt at his growth.

Neha ambled out of the kitchen. ‘Greetings doggess.' I fondled the loose skin of
her cheek. She sat beside me, echoing my love of the little buck.

A crunch on the ground made us both look up. Next to the stable, across the courtyard,
was the strangemaid from last night, Heka, watching me.

Neha's tail thumped on the ground. Why did she not growl?

‘Be gone!' I called, rising to stand. ‘What business do you have here?'

She held my eye before turning away.

A few moments later, Cah emerged from the same passageway, carrying a bucket.

‘Did you speak to the rough girl?' I asked as she passed me.

‘Yes,' Cah sneered. ‘I gave her some milk.'

‘What is sweeter than mead?'

My eyes were closed against the brilliance of the day.

We lay on our backs on the grass, weary and river-soaked from my second lesson in
the water. As the sun baked us dry, Taliesin tested me with a series of riddles.

‘Sweeter than mead?' I mused. ‘A kiss?'

‘Wrong!' I heard the smile in his voice.

‘Then what?'

‘Conversation.'

‘Ah yes.'

It had been almost impossible to find my escape today. Cookmother's eyes had narrowed
with suspicion at my third day of harvesting. I knew I could not sustain these lies
much longer. But Taliesin was worthy of the risk. His temper was buoyant and I left
the subject of the Kendra untouched.

‘What is swifter than wind?' he asked.

‘A warrior?' I ventured.

‘Wrong again. The answer is thought.'

I rolled onto my side to face him. ‘Ask me another.'

‘What is lighter than a spark?'

‘Tell me.'

‘The mind of a woman between two men.'

‘True enough!' I smiled.

‘What is blacker than the raven?'

‘Is it death?'

‘Your first correct answer.' He lay with his forearms crossed over his face, shielding
his eyes from the sun. I stared at the swell of his mouth, pressed against his upturned
shoulder. Would that I could be that mouth. That shoulder.

‘What is whiter than snow?'

‘Life…?' I murmured, my thoughts dissolving as I watched his lips form the words.

‘Of course not!'

‘What then?' I said, surprised at his vehemence. ‘What is whiter than snow?'

‘Truth.'

‘Truth,' I repeated, propping up on my elbows to look over the river.

‘There is no greater power,' he said, his eyes still covered.

I agreed with his words, but I was flooded with confusion. For was it not he who
had caused me to lie?

‘Only one in five correct,' he mocked. ‘Do you want one last chance to redeem yourself?'

My gaze caught on the trail of hair that halved his belly. ‘Yes.'

‘What is sharper than the sword?'

I thought for a moment. ‘I don't know.'

He turned to face me. ‘Knowledge, Ailia! It was the easiest of them all. Knowledge
is sharper than a sword.'

‘Taliesin?' I sat up, resolved that there be some truths.

‘Ay?'

‘Are you a free man?' I asked softly. ‘Or journeyman? Or other?'

He was quiet before answering. ‘I am free in one place, bound in another.'

‘Yet another riddle. I wish for some understanding. I would know
something
of you.'

‘But you know many things. I'm a fine fisherman, a clever riddler, handsome as a
stallion—'

‘With a colt's conceit!' I laughed. ‘But this is all dressing I can already see.
Give
me
a truth. Tell me something of your history. Have you brothers or sisters?
Are your people farmers? Traders?'

Taliesin sat up. With a twig he began scratching small circles in the ground between
us.

‘If you cannot tell me of yourself,' I said, ‘then tell me of your people. Are you
under Fraid's queendom?'

He shook his head.

‘So you are a traveller here. Were your kinspeople subject to Cunobelinus while he
lived?'

He frowned. ‘Now it is you who speak in riddles. I do not know these names.'

My thoughts whirled. What class of hidden person was this who did not know the name
of Britain's first High King? Was he lawless? A forest dweller? An isolate? I could
not have borne for that to be so. ‘What is the shape of you?'

He threw the twig into the river. ‘You seek to know me by things you cannot see.
I could tell you something, but would it be true?' He turned to me. ‘
This
is my shape,
clear before you. If it is not enough—'

‘Of course it is enough!'

‘Then do not ask for more.' His shoulders slumped as he saw me flinch. ‘This is the
best of me.'

I silenced the protestations that sprang to my lips, for could I not have said the
same of myself? I lowered my head. ‘There will be no more questions.'

‘Shall we agree on it?'

‘We agree.' My eyes remained fixed to my bare feet. I felt chastised, adrift.

After a long pause, he spoke gently. ‘There is one question I can answer…We spoke
of it yesterday, and I answered glibly.'

I looked up. ‘What question?'

‘You asked of my greatest fear…'

The air was very still. ‘Yes,' I murmured. ‘What is it?'

‘I will show you.' Springing to his feet, he crouched beside me. ‘Hold your dog and
make no sound.' He walked to the river and, as he had done before, speared a young
salmon, this time with his knife.

‘I am not hungry!' I snapped, annoyed by the needless killing.

‘It is not for you.' He tucked the carcass into his belt and walked several paces
up river where he stopped, raising one arm above his head. Staring skyward, he stood
unmoving, then, with his other hand, reached for the whistle at his hips and brought
it to his mouth, piercing the sky with its shrill cry.

I startled, perplexed, but soon enough there was a dark shape gliding and circling
above us and, with another call from the whistle, a grey and white goshawk, solid
as a fattened lamb, swept down to perch on a boulder at the water's edge not five
paces from where Taliesin stood.

I was indeed impressed. The art of command of a wild animal was a privileged learning,
one not easily bestowed. He had been long and well trained to hold this knowledge.

Neha lurched forward under my grasp but I gripped her scruff, growling at her to
keep back.

‘Greetings,' called Taliesin, holding the dead salmon out before him.

The bird's brilliant yellow eyes darted from Taliesin to me, cautious, yet drawn.

‘Are you hungry?' he cooed. ‘Would you like to feast?'

Even I was transfixed by the seduction in his voice.

‘Ailia, come,' said Taliesin steadily.

Bidding Neha to be still, I rose and walked to his side. I had never stood so close
to a hunting bird. My breath caught at its wild beauty, the ripples of grey on its
white breast, its beak, sharp as a blade. ‘It's magnificent,' I whispered, flinching
as it turned its head.

Taliesin shook the salmon. There was fear in the quiver of his breath and the scent
that rose from his skin. ‘Come,' he murmured, never tearing his gaze from the bird,
‘come close and you will have your prize.'

With a sudden beating of its mighty wings, the goshawk lifted and flew toward us,
snatching the fish in its powerful claws, and carrying it into the open sky.

Taliesin watched as it soared from view, then turned back to me, staring long and
deeply at my face.

‘What is it that you fear?' I asked, self-conscious under his scrutiny.

‘Your freedom,' he said.

‘Freedom?' I yelped. ‘I am bound as tethered cattle. I am beholden to the Tribequeen,
to Cookmother—'

‘Yet your soul is free. You are as the hawk. You could lift me from the water. I
would see what I have never seen. But it would mean my death.'

I stared at him in confusion. ‘I could never harm you,' I whispered.

Neha barked beside us. A cool wind set up from the south.

‘Do you know goshawks mate for life?' he said softly.

‘As do wolves,' I muttered, not breaking his gaze.

He leaned forward, his sun-dried lips catching as they grazed over mine. We were
poised, unbreathing, barely touching. And then we broke.

His mouth was deep and sweet as river water. I reached up, burying my fingers in
his warm hair, drowning in the turned-earth scent of his
skin. My chest and hips
collapsed against his and I felt his moan of pleasure, his thundering heart.

We paused for breath and he laughed.

‘Why do you laugh?' I asked, frowning.

‘Because I am happy.' He paused. ‘Aren't you?'

Then I quelled his wondering look with another kiss that rolled my senses so completely
I did not know if I was seeing, touching, hearing or tasting him, only that he was
everything, and life was all it needed to be if he loved me in return.

I had intended to leave well before sunset, and yet I stayed with him, entwined,
until the evening fell on the fields around us.

We had spoken of all but ourselves. Whatever I had asked of the world between our
embraces—animal-lore, forest craft—he had answered. It was clear that he had been
deeply schooled, yet he wielded his knowledge humbly, less like a warrior and more
in the journeyman's way. He did not speak to me as if I were novice, but sought my
thoughts, as if I were queen. His kisses eroded the banks of me, his words surging
through the new paths and spaces.

As darkness fell we stood, pressing together again, hungrier, and more urgent now
that our parting was upon us. From the skin to the core of me, I craved to join with
him. So different from Ruther, he did not help himself to my breasts and hips. I
reached for his hand and placed it at my chest but he pulled it away.

‘Ailia,' he said. ‘Do not hope for too much of me.'

What is this? I began to plummet. Was this the love of the bard's poems? This lurch
from ecstasy to despair in moments. ‘Do you not wish—' my voice was barely a whisper,
‘—do you not wish to meet me tomorrow?'

‘I will meet you tomorrow.'

‘When? How?' I asked it of myself as much as of him.

But he was shaking his head, suddenly impatient to leave. ‘You will find me.'

‘Will you walk with me, just a little way?'

‘I cannot. I am sorry.'

‘Are you expected elsewhere before nightfall?' I implored. ‘Are there those who will
worry?'

‘No questions,' he said.

When I looked up from tying my sandals, he had gone. I sped home with Neha on my
heel, Taliesin burning on my skin.

It was well after dusk when I slipped into the Tribequeen's gateway. The compound
was silent and cast in grey moonlight. Hastening my step, I conjured the reasons
for my lateness: the thick-grown blackberry, the lost paths.

As I approached the kitchen I saw that a bundle had been left on the doorstep. A
festival offering for the Tribequeen? It was oddly shaped and there seemed to be
a dark liquid around it. Only when I was quite near did the horror of it become clear.
It was no bundle. No offering. It was my fawn. Slain at the neck and freshly so.
And stuck sharp through the thin skin of its too-large ear, like some mocking adornment,
was an object well known to me. My fish pin.

This was Heka's work.

I sank down, resting my palm on his flank. The cool night had already stolen his
warmth and he was cold beneath the dewy fur. I gazed at the delicate faggot of legs,
at the gentle face, its eyes half-closed. Such evil I had never known.