The Fox (24 page)

Kenric and Finlay, with Haye’s hand on their backs, went into the large stone dwelling. The men of the clan followed, and the women gathered the children to help carry the prepared food. There would be stories and songs tonight for everyone in the clan.

A bent woman led the ponies into a stable next to the chieftain’s lodge. I followed. In the waning light, I noticed she wore the wrinkles of many years. Though small for this clan, she was four fingers taller than me. Her hair was not grey like my mother’s and other older women I knew, but long, white, and worn free. I stared at her. She noticed and laughed as she brushed her hair away from her face.

“I see you have noticed my hair. I have a long story about how it became white.”

“I have only time and would be honored to hear your story, wise lady,” I said.

“I will get a brand and light this space. We will talk when I return.”

She went into the large dwelling and returned with a torch while I stood outside the door of the stable. She entered and put the torch in a niche in the wall. We gathered some dried grass and fed the ponies. I made sure there was water in their buckets. She pulled a rope gate across the doorway to stop the wandering of the animals.

I rubbed the ponies’ backs and thanked them for carrying us this distance. I laid my cape on some of the sweet dried grass piled in a tiny alcove of the stable and sat down. All was well. I was warm, had water to drink and was ready to hear her story. She sat beside me and began in a soft, far away voice.

“It is not a story sang around the fire. It is the story of one life traded for another. Similar to the way the warrior Beathan’s life was given in trade for yours.”

The torchlight created long shadows as she leaned her body to rest on the wall. She groaned and straightened her legs. Her knees cracked as she stretched.

“Aooow! My knees ache all the time now, not just in cold. I cannot walk the distances I walked as a youth. My body sounds like rocks falling down a cliff with all its bangs and gurgles and clicks. Forty-three winters have worn this body down.”

I knew our world was filled with lives as tragic as mine, but I could not understand someone else surviving the same guilt I carried since Beathan’s death.

She wriggled her rump as if to soften the hard ground. Her long fingers ran through her hair and she started her story.

“It has been this color since I was a child. In the beginning, it was the color of Haye’s. Black. Not black like yours. Yours reminds me of a glimmering raven’s wing,” she said, touching a strand of my hair, lying on my shoulder. “No, my hair had ribbons of copper in it. Mmm. But, I stray from my story.

“When I was young, my parents died in a village three days’ ride from here. Raiders from the sea destroyed it. Only a boy and I escaped. Everyone else was killed by them.”

“Oh gods,” I said, beginning to understand.

“No, no, child. Do not be distressed. It was long ago. I am at peace with it now.”

She took a strand of white hair and began twirling it around her finger.

“We heard they were coming. A man ran in from a neighboring village. They had just been raided. My father decided to hide me in a hole he had dug in the field behind our home. As he lowered me, he saw the boy run by and grabbed him. My father ordered me to take care of him.”

She sniffed and rubbed her face as if to rub the memory away. “I did not want to take care of the smelly, wriggly boy who lived with the tanners. My father covered the hole with sticks and leaves. The dust fell through and got into my eyes.” She looked up as if looking for the roof of sticks.

“He finished the covering and told us to be very quiet. ‘Do not come out until I or mother come back to get you,’ he told me. Noise exploded around us and the ground shook with running ponies. We heard many screams, then one last woman’s scream. She called for her husband. Early in the raid the boy was in tears, and I feared he would cry out. I covered his mouth with my hand. He tried to break away from me, but I was bigger and had a tight hold on him. I was so scared we would be caught. My father told stories of the sacrifices of people caught in raids like these, and I did not want to die. The boy was struggling so I-I stuffed the hem of his tunic into his mouth and sat on him.”

I grew cold with a premonition of her story.

“After a few minutes he stopped struggling. Later, I heard the ponies and the men as they left our village. Father had not come yet, so I did not think it was safe to climb out. We stayed through the night. I fell asleep, sitting on the boy.”

She looked at me, her brows creased in concern and said, “He could still give us away, and I could not let him do that. When the sun came up the next morning, my hunger, my need to pee, and the ache in my legs would not let me stay in the hole any longer. I stood up, pushed the sticks off the top of the hole and turned back to the boy. The sunlight streamed in on the body that I had sat on all night. He did not move. I had traded his life for mine.” She stopped at this and murmured a short prayer to Bel.

“Now, I was alone,” she said. “I climbed out of the hole and walked to the front of the burned lodges, calling for my father and mother. I found them, the parents of the boy, and all the rest of my village. I found the bodies. Their heads were gone. My mother and father’s blood dripping heads now hung on the raider’s walls. I was the only one alive.”

As she spoke, a shadow came over my eyes. The smell of food and sounds of happiness around me were gone. I heard only the sword as it passed through Beathan’s neck and smelled Beathan’s blood as it poured over me. I steadied myself against the wall; I did not want this horror to overcome me. “No, no, no,” I whispered to myself. When my vision cleared, I saw that she noticed my distress. Nodding, she continued her story.

“I stayed there for two days, in shock, wandering around and eating what I could find. But, the need to live is powerful. I went into the forest to find food, eating grass and worms until I learned to trap small animals. I ran from anyone who came close, until the druid found me. He talked to me for days. I came to trust him. I told him my story. He and I lived together as husband and wife for fifteen sun cycles until his death.” She sighed. Her hand touched her hair, stroked it as if in memory, and confessed, “It turned white the first full moon after my parents’ death. He loved my white hair. He loved me.”

I nodded. She understood. She lived through a horror as great as mine. A sense of relief and perception filled my heart. My grief was lighter. I raised my hands to my face and tears came to my eyes. I could almost believe Lovern would continue loving me. I stopped crying and looked up to see her watching me with kindness.

She awkwardly rose to her knees and with a smile said, “As much as I enjoy the company of my family, sometimes we just need to be with quiet animals that cannot sing, talk or drink mead.” She leaned over to me and touched my chest where I had wiped the blood from my palms. A surge of energy came through the tips of her fingers to my heart. Her green eyes burned into mine, and her thin mouth broke into a grin.

“You are a healer,” she said. “I saw your decorated leather pouch. We are sisters. I am a healer too. My name is Rhona.”

“I am Jahna. Thank you for your story. It lifts a burden.”

“Life goes on, my child, life goes on.”

She walked to the opposite wall of the small stable, stretching as she moved. “We hunt bears and they are many this year. I know there are hardships to endure. The gods and goddesses have wars to fight, and we often are caught up in them. For now, my family is not in the sight of angry gods. I pray that it may be so for a long time.”

I shivered with the thought that came. “The slave who took me told me the Romans were coming our way. We can prepare for them and fight until they leave,” I said with hope.

“Sometimes, all the preparations we make cannot help,” she said as she handed me a skin filled with a liquid. “This is from my healing spring and is pure. Wash and drink. I will bring you an infusion I make from a plant brought from the seaside. It never fails to bring sleep.”

“If that is true then I will be in your debt,” I said, bowing my head in respect to her. “Thank you. I will stay the night here.” The loudest noises were the ponies munching their dried grass, a sound more inviting than the laughing voices I heard emitting from the dwelling nearby. “I do not want to seem inhospitable, but I do not think I can sit through the music and laughter in the chieftain’s lodge. Will you tell my whereabouts to Kenric and Finlay? Will Logan be looked after?”

“Yes, I will speak with your men, and the boy will have a place to eat and sleep,” she responded. “I will leave you here to make yourself comfortable, and I will bring food and the drink.”

“Thank you.”

She left. I heard the soft neigh of a pony and an echo in my ear.

“Sometimes, all the preparations we make cannot help.”

C
HAPTER
13

JAHNA

75 AD July

I readied the dried grass under my cape for sleep, Beathan’s bronze bowl next to me. Rhona brought back a small roasted fowl, bread, and two containers of drink on a wooden plank. A mug and a small cup of clear liquid sat balanced next to the food.

“Here is mead to quench your thirst and the infusion for sleep. I used only a drop of the oil as it can also cause death.”

“What is the name of this plant? There are many that cause death but few that will also allow sleep,” I asked as I ate.

“Hemlock. Tales of ancient use come with it. Drink it after you eat and are ready for sleep. It will come soon. The oil is bitter, but I mixed in honey to sweeten it.”

She pointed to the package on my cloak. “Is that the gift you take to Beathan?”

“Yes. I adorned it for him,” I said, handing it to her. “The oak was the tree he adopted for his family.”

She nodded as she unwrapped the soft leather. “It is a good gift. One that will honor him for all time.”

Rhona stayed with me as I ate and drank the bitter infusion. I laid down, enveloped in the odor of the ponies and the peat smoke from the dwellings that surrounded me. It was but a few moments until I fell asleep and dreamed.

I stood watching from a distance and saw the stone dwellings, the homes of Haye’s clan. People moved quickly. Gathered food lay in bundles, and weapons glinted, tied to the backs of ponies. Men and women were readying themselves for battle. Loud shouts rang from dwelling to dwelling Haye’s war chariot stood outside his lodge with two ponies throwing their heads in impatience. Haye stepped through his doorway and behind him came his son, Eanruig, and Haye’s wife, Nairne. Eanruig was older than when I saw him today, but not yet an adult. Both he and his father were bare-chested, and their faces and bodies dyed woad blue. Limewater stiffened Haye’s black hair. Bronze and leather shields, swords and dirks were strapped to them. I felt excitement and fear.

Hayes spoke. “The King has called us. We must go quickly, Nairne. I must take those who can fight, and I chose you to guard the children of those who go. We will come back when the battle is done. We will have a celebration to honor Morrigna, may the Goddess protect us. We will chase the invaders off the land and will be rewarded by our king. Be glad we go!”

In the shadows I saw the white hair of Rhona, Haye’s mother. I turned to face her. Bent in grief, she cried out, “Have I not given enough of myself? Must I lose also my son and grandson?” Many ravens flew overhead, and I shivered.

No one answered her. The stone dwellings were empty. Moss grew on the fallen rocks that were once walls. Roof slates fell into the centers of the lodges. Heavy dust covered the fire pits. A cruel winter wind blew Rhona’s white hair around her face to catch itself in her tears.