Consorts of Heaven (9 page)

She started at Huw’s, and after the formalities had been observed his wife said grudgingly, ‘For the friendship my husband bore your husband, Huw will take extra food that you and the stranger may share.’

From the second household she received the traditional cup of water and a seat by the fire, but with a child sick and the head of the household going off with the drove, nothing could be spared.

The third household she visited was Arlin’s. Arlin insisted on a blow-by-blow account of Sais’s recovery and gave Kerin a blanket for her pains, though she later found it was torn.

Finally she visited old Macha. Macha had lost her husband too, and had no son to care for her, only a daughter, who had married a man from Penfrid. Though their shared situation gave Macha and Kerin understanding, it had also led to an unspoken rivalry, as the village’s means were overstretched, having to care for two useless widows. Kerin was surprised when Macha offered her husband’s boots, which were old, but had plenty of wear left in them. ‘When your son ascends,’ said Macha as she handed them over, ‘I pray that the shame of his family’s past may finally be put to rest.’ There was no accusation in her voice, only weariness, and Kerin felt her eyes fill with tears.

When she returned to the hut, Sais’s gift of the fabric, and his promise to find her more, nearly had her crying again.

But she needed more than a pair of old boots, a damaged blanket and a length of fine cloth for the drove. As a woman she could not till the fields or tend livestock, for fear her own fertility might sour the growing grain or make the animals barren. Her hearth, however, was hers to give. The implications of this did not shock her: she already knew in her heart that she would not be returning to Dangwern after the drove.

So she visited households where a recent baby or new marriage had resulted in too many mouths at the same hearth - the falling fire would solve many such problems in its own brutal way, but people cared more about current discomfort than future pain. She offered her hut, and those possessions she would not be taking on the drove, in return for the remaining items she needed for the journey. Suddenly her welcome was far warmer. People hurried from hut to hut in her wake as those families who needed space to expand, or a spare loom, or new pots, began to trade with each other, trying to work out a deal by which everyone got what they wanted.

By the time night fell, she had a new pack, bedrolls for all of them, a large water-skin, even some spare clothes - all she needed for the future - because now she
had
a future: one that included Sais, perhaps. Though she would always love Neithion, she had made a virtue of loneliness for too long. Despite Sais’s peculiar ways - offering to help around the hut, professing ignorance of the oddest things - he had a good heart. Perhaps her dream of sharing his life was not so impossible.

For the final couple of days before the drove left, Kerin lost herself in preparations, though her mood soured when she went to collect her clothes from the bushes beside the stream: whilst Damaru’s spare shirts and breeches were clean and dry, her own skirts and shirts had muddy footprints over them. She washed the worst of the mud off and took the clothes back to dry on the shelves in her hut.

When she heard that Sionyn’s condition had worsened, and Fychan was to take his brother’s place as drove leader, dread settled on her, not just for whatever foolish choices the lad might make for the drove, but because he would be called to act as Damaru’s guardian. That was why Fychan had not spoken up against her in the council: he wanted her on the drove to control her son, a task that would otherwise fall to him.

She stayed away from the drovers’ farewell feast, and advised Sais to do the same, advice he was happy to heed. They heard raised voices outside, and at one point something soft thudded into the hut door.

Damaru left for an evening walk shortly afterwards. Sais asked, ‘Will he be all right? It sounds like people are getting a bit restless out there.’

‘They would not hurt him. He is a skyfool, remember?’ She wished he would not keep coming out with these odd statements, but his next words chilled her to the core.

‘Kerin, I still can’t remember anything about the Skymothers. Would you remind me, please?’

She would have been less upset had he said he no longer knew how to use a spoon, or how to dress himself. What if he
was
Abyss-touched, and her growing attachment to him had blinded her to his true nature?

‘Kerin? Are you all right? I mean, if you’d rather not tell me—’

‘No,’ Kerin swallowed. ‘I mean, aye, I will tell you. T’would be a sin not to.’ Where to start though, when such knowledge was absorbed with a mother’s milk? ‘Everything you see around us is the Creation of the Skymothers, pulled from the chaos of the Abyss by their will.’

‘And the Abyss is . . . below us?’

‘Tis a place of chaos, ruled over by the Cursed One, Melltith, a creature of unimaginable vileness that opposes all that the Skymothers are. But for their grace we would fall into its foulness, and become nothing ourselves.’

He nodded. ‘Right. And the Skymothers live in Heaven, above us?’

‘Aye. As we could see, if the sky were clear.’

‘You can see them?’

‘We see the lights that represent their grace, aye. Heaven itself is not something our petty souls can encompass. But each of the Five has a light to focus our prayers upon.’

‘So there’re five of them? What are their names?’

Such innocently asked questions, as though a man could live without knowing the answers! She fought to keep her voice even, ‘Frythil is the sower, the Seed Mother, and keeper of hidden knowledge; her time is dawn, her colour green. Medelwyr is the Weaver and the Reaper, Harvest Mother, ruler of dusk, and her colour is the orange of sunset; Turiach is the Mother of Mercy, who heals and watches over the home and hearth; she rules the morning and her colour is blue. Mantoliawn is the Mother of Justice and the guardian of travellers, who we must ask to bless us when we leave tomorrow; her colour is yellow and her time is the afternoon. Carunwyd is the night’s touch, Mother of Passion, mistress of chance and luck, and bringer of poetry and song; her colour is red.’

‘Thank you. I understand better now.’ Kerin had the worrying notion that he was trying to commit what she had said to memory, rather than reclaiming old knowledge. ‘And what’s that gesture you keep making?’

‘Gesture?’

‘You draw a circle in the air over your chest whenever you mention the names. I saw you do it before eating too.’

‘The circle of the world. Tis like . . . a small unspoken prayer.’

‘How does it go?’

She showed him, tracing the circle that showed Heaven and the Abyss with her right forefinger - perfection and corruption in one - then drawing her middle finger across to show the place between, the realm created by the Mothers for their children.

Though he asked no more that evening, perhaps sensing her unease, he practised drawing the sigil as though it were some sleight-of-hand trick.

 

It rained in the night, but the day of departure dawned fresh and clear. Kerin rose early and went to bid farewell to those few villagers she considered friends. Then she prepared their last meal, and made ready to leave. Sais tried to help in his inept way. Damaru was flustered and upset, constantly getting underfoot.

When they were ready, Kerin gestured for the others to go first. She paused on the threshold, taking a last look at her hut, already looking abandoned in the early light. The yearly departure of the drove had always been a bit of welcome excitement in Kerin’s life. This year, she was the one leaving, and she had been so busy planning her departure that she had spared little thought for what she might be heading into. At that moment she would have given anything to be able to live out a quiet, ordinary life in the only home she knew. If only the Weaver had not seen fit to make the cloth of her life so, born of violence and a cursed mother and losing her loving husband too soon. She shook her head: such thoughts achieved nothing.

She spoke a prayer to the Mother of Mercy that this hearth might be re-awakened to provide warmth and shelter for the family who would make their home here next. Then she picked up the water-jug and threw the contents into the flames, pulling the door shut on the hissing, steaming fire-pit.

As they walked down from the village to the milling mass of people and animals on the valley floor Kerin heard a high keening from the moot-hall. Sionyn was dead. She found herself glancing over her shoulder, half-expecting Gwellys to come running out to attack her.

No one appeared, and soon the familiar smoke-and-ordure reek of the village was replaced by the subtler smells of the moor: damp grass, bruised heather and the occasional sweet whiff of cloudberry flowers, their scent released by the night’s rain. The sounds of mourning were drowned out by the cries of the animals and the terse shouted orders of the drovers.

Kerin led them to the back of the drove, behind the sled. As they approached she counted nineteen men; in a normal year thirty or more would go. Fychan was at the front with two other council members: Cadmael, who had no family and who she expected to see; and Howen, whose presence was an unwelcome surprise.

The men near the back nodded to acknowledge them, though her decision to travel in her husband’s drove gear garnered her some odd looks. Still, she had no intention of walking to market in a skirt and clogs; whatever concern she might once have had for what others thought of her was disappearing like dew under the morning sun.

Arthen stood in front of the crowd of villagers who were staying behind. When the drovers had got themselves into some sort of order he called out in a voice loud and confident enough to carry over the sounds of the animals:

‘Bad times may be upon us, but they have come before, and will again. We will endure, as we always have. This year we are also blessed. We must all pray that the sky-touched child finds favour with the Cariad, and so may bring us closer to Heaven. Now, travel safely, trade well, and be an example to others as to the merits of our folk.’

He traced the circle of the world, and everyone - including Sais, Kerin was pleased to note - echoed him.

At the front of the drove, Fychan gave a high repetitive cry -
hi-hi-hi
- and with lows of protest from the cattle and yips and barks from the dogs, the drove lurched into motion. Everyone, drovers and villagers alike, sang the Drovers’ Hymn as they moved off. After their initial complaints the animals fell silent, heads down, fly-brush tails swishing as they plodded along. Despite herself, Kerin kept looking back as the village slowly receded.

Damaru capered ahead, taking no notice of the drove while managing to more-or-less keep pace with it. Sais trudged determinedly by her side, his face grey.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked after a while.

‘I - I think I’m going to find this hard work.’

‘The men say you get used to it after a few days.’

‘I hope so. Kerin, I was wondering . . . isn’t that boy with the scarf around his head a bit young to be in charge?’

‘Fychan? Oh aye, that he is,’ she said bitterly. Of course, she knew about everyone here, but they were all strangers to Sais. ‘He is Arthen’s son. Before, his elder brother has gone, but now Sionyn is - Sionyn caught the falling fire, so Fychan goes in his stead.’ Sais needed to know about their travelling companions, and so she quietly filled him in on names and trades and talents. Talking of such familiar matters gave her some comfort against the coming uncertainty.

Shortly after they lost sight of the village they passed the slight dip in the side of the valley that marked the narrow trail to Penfrid. She had walked that path just last year, when it was Penfrid’s turn to host the star-season celebrations.

This must have been the signal to stop for lunch as the sled-men stumbled to a halt. One of the dog-handlers gave a series of short whistles and the dogs wheeled round to the front of the herd. The cattle stalled, milled back on themselves and put their heads down to start foraging for grass.

Damaru showed no sign of stopping. Kerin shucked her pack and sprinted after him, calling his name. She suspected he saw only the pattern of the Skymothers’ Creation laid out and expanded before him. When she waved a water-skin under his nose he stopped to drink, then sat down on a hummock. She looked back to see Sais talking to Huw. As she watched, both men laughed.

Huw had returned to the sled, leaving food enough for the three of them, by the time she persuaded Damaru to come back with her.

‘Did he introduce himself?’ asked Kerin.

‘Huw? Yes. He’s - He was Neithion’s friend, wasn’t he?’

‘Aye. They were born but weeks apart, and had similar temperaments. ’ Like Neithion, Huw was one of the few men in Dangwern who did not hold the past against her. ‘What were you laughing about?’ she added.

‘He said that calling myself Sais proved I’d lost my memory. I said I know it’s an odd name, so perhaps if people call me it enough I’ll be encouraged to remember my real one.’

Kerin smiled at that.

They started off again, passing the path to Carregogh, even steeper and narrower than the one to Penfrid. This was as far as Kerin had ever been from Dangwern. Every step now took her further into the unknown.

By the first evening Sais was already looking back fondly on the tedium and foetid darkness of Kerin’s hut. If one day on the road left him this exhausted and footsore then it seemed highly unlikely he had walked to Dangwern, though he couldn’t imagine how else he’d arrived. At least his presumed status as a noble meant that the villagers didn’t expect him to take a turn carrying the sled.

It would take them a little over two weeks to reach Piper’s Steps, where they would meet up with drovers from the other mountain villages; then they had another five weeks’ travelling to reach the market in the lowlands. Seven weeks of hard walking: Sais knew he’d never survive.