The Fox (20 page)

When he was done, he lifted off me, his penis small and drooling. He rolled back to his corner and sat up.

“Please, more water. My wound. I need to drink,” I whispered.

He lifted the corner of the wall that was his door and left. In a few minutes, he brought back the flask and gave it to me. It was full, and I drank it all. I vomited.

“Gods curse you. This place is small enough without your messes.” He untied the cord from the iron ring, leaving it attached to my wrists. He tugged and I crawled, forced to move like a worm, leaving the tatters of my green dress behind. He was unhappy at how slow I moved and when we were outside, was angry.

“You are not worth all this trouble. I will kill you soon and leave. The Romans are not far away. They will find me if I stay.” He tied me to another iron-ringed peg pounded into the ground near the cave entrance.

“If my clansmen find you first there will be nothing for the Romans to find.”

He stood and kicked me in the stomach.

“Shut up, bitch.”

I vomited again and fainted.

He was on me when I awoke. Finished, he rolled off, stood and pissed. I don’t know why he told me bits of his story. I hated his voice and wished he would choke while he talked.

His voice was gravel in my ears. “I was once a great warrior for Queen Boudiccea.”
Lovern’s queen,
I realized. “When she killed herself, I tried to escape but they caught me and cut off my finger.”

Was his story supposed to make me feel sympathy for him? It did not. If I could have reached my dirk, I would have cut his throat and drunk his blood with no regrets.

“I shoveled Roman horseshit. Me, a warrior! I hate them. One night, the guard drank too much. I got hold of his dirk, slit his gut, and ran. I have been running for days. Hunting and eating when I could. I built this shelter. I was hunting when I found the best game of all—you. Now it is time to go. I will not like leaving you but you will slow me too much. Pity. You are beautiful and a good fuck.” He was done pissing but started to rub himself. He was getting stiff again.

I forced myself to think. Something echoed in my head. He would not stray far from his protective cover to hunt. We were not far from the meadow. There was a chance of discovery. My soul lifted. I knew now I had a chance to live. Hope began to rekindle.

He laid on me again and I bit his ear. The metallic taste of his blood heightened my thirst. He pressed my dirk next to my cheek and threatened to slice my eyes if I did it again. He pushed into me and I traced my labyrinth in my mind.

The second night, I started shivering. Still outside, I lay on the cold ground. The skin near my wound was red streaked. Blood poison. My body was heating from inside. My goddess was warring with my soul. I concentrated on my labyrinth and Lovern. I must not cross the river of death yet, but I would die if I did not get away soon.

My mind, deep in meditation with the labyrinth, allowed the shivering of my illness to take over my body. The third day he gave me just enough water to keep me alive, nothing more. My soul came to the top of my body, to cross the deep and fast river, twice.

To let go and cross the river of death would have been easy.

“No!” said the goddess. “You cannot go. You have more pain to live through for me. You have more to sacrifice. I will not let you go, yet,” she told me.

My blood poisoned pus odor mixed with his putrid fungus smell, and gagged me as I inhaled. I flew into my passage dream with the stench of rot in my nose. Three small ponies stood shuffling their feet on the sand. Callum and Braden packed bags of dried seaweed. Then I knew. I was in Lovern! Morrigna granted me one last wish. Startled by my visit, Lovern hesitated, and sat on the beach with his eyes closed. It was different this time; I gave him my message. I sent him my fear. I relayed my anguish. I begged for his rescue. I cried for his return. My pain tore through his heart and when he opened his eyes, I heard him tell Braden and Callum, “Go for the ferryman. We must leave the island, now!” He ran to his pony. I left his mind. Lovern knew. My dream was over.

Time stopped.

On what I learned later was the third day, a vision appeared. A giant bear stood tall over me, growling. His fangs glistened. He dropped to all four feet, and called my name. How could a bear know my name?

“Jahna, do not speak. I am here to take you home. You are safe,” the bear said.

My mind was not clear. Who was here? Beathan? I remembered the man telling me he was going hunting and would be back soon. My voice would not come. There was no moisture in my body. I could not speak more than a frog’s croak. Beathan’s dirk slipped under the cord tying my hands and the sky behind him exploded.

Sound and motion rushed in, and Beathan, caught on his knees, twisted away from me into a man who would kill him. Beathan fought using the dirk. He lunged forward. His dirk plunged into the triangle between the man’s legs, cutting the tool that had done so much damage to me. I screamed with the pleasure of seeing the blood and pain of this animal that had tortured me. The shrieking man straightened and raised his sword. Beathan tried to stand and stumbled. He was half crouched when the sword swooped down. The world fell silent for a breath. Then a victory screech tore into my ears.

Beathan’s blood washed over me. His body fell to one side and his head to the other. I stared into his eyes as his soul crossed. For an instant, I was without thought. How could our chieftain, our
ceann-cinnidh,
my brave Uncle, be dead? But he was. I closed my eyes and prayed.

“Cerridwen. Take our
ceann-cinnidh.
He was brave in battle. Make his crossing easy.” I could not think of more to say.

The trees around me came to life. Our clan war cries, branches, and blood rained down. Finlay and Kenric were here. They sliced the man into small pieces before he fell to the ground. His blood mixed with Beathan’s on my body. His dead eyes stared into Beathan’s. And my world changed.

When I awoke I smelled puffball fungus. A clean, healing smell. Its spores fought blood poison in wounds such as mine. I was laying on a bed in our hospice, Sileas bent over me. Tears coursed down her face as she raised my head to sip the tea she held to my lips.

“Drink, it will help you sleep. It is what is best for you now. Do not remember, just sleep.”

“Beathan,” I whispered after I took a sip of the warm elixir.

“He thought he alone could rescue you. He told Finlay and Kenric to wait. It cost him his life. But he died in battle. His head was buried with his body, so his soul has crossed. He is at the Long Table of Chieftains, ready to fight for the right to carve the joint and drink his fill of mead,” she said, crying as she spoke.

My eyes closed, and his dead face filled my mind. “May you find peace, Beathan. I owe you my soul. I will honor you,” I prayed. “My memory bag?”

“Here.”

She put it in my hands. I trembled as I opened it and slipped my fingers inside. Our hair still mingled. I pulled it out, and the light picked up the bronze glitter of Lovern’s hair.

“He is coming,” I said and smiled, my heart beating fast at the thought.

She helped me get our tangled locks of hair back into the bag, and I held it close to my heart.

She bade me sleep. I held my bag up to see the labyrinth. This pattern kept me from leaving my body and dying. I followed its trail with my finger as every muscle in my body relaxed, aided by the drink. One small vision appeared before I slept. I held my baby up to the skies. I heard her cry. I prayed, please let it be Lovern’s child.

Do not let the monster leave a mark.

C
HAPTER
10

JAHNA

75 AD J
UNE

Spirits haunted me day and night. I was afraid to be alone.

With Sileas and Harailt’s care, my body was healing. My mind was not. My blood moon came. Thank Morrigna. I was not carrying his child. I hobbled, walking aided with a stick, while my leg wound healed. I spent most of my time in Finlay’s smithy or his home with Eiric, his wife. I needed to rest where I blended into the background. In the house, Eiric managed their five children. She seemed to always be in motion. Her four girls helped with the chores and watched the baby boy. Now ten moons old, he was beginning to walk. I tried to hold him, but he wriggled out of my arms faster than I could move to catch him. He made me smile when it hurt to smile.

The toddler, Broc, looked like both his mother and his father. His father’s sky blue eyes sparkled with the laughter that bubbled out of him, and his mother’s blond hair was just becoming thick enough to be seen on his head. Whenever Finlay came into his house, he would smile and rub the boy’s head as if making sure he was still there. After four girls, he finally had a boy child and I saw his pride.

“I will make his first sword and take him hunting,” he said. “He will make a fine warrior for the chieftain. My girls will marry warriors and hunters. I can ask no more from the gods.”

Kenric, my other cousin and Finlay’s older brother, was now our chieftain. I spent little time in his dwelling. He and his family had moved into Beathan’s home. His wife, Caitrin, managed the two boys, the feeding of the family and all the warriors and others who came to eat with the chieftain. I could not help as much as I had earlier, and I felt underfoot.

There was another reason I did not go there. Beathan was in every corner and I saw blame in the eyes of the men who were now Kenric’s warriors.

I did not have the energy to work at the hospice. Sileas, Harailt, and I would discuss the illnesses, injuries, and treatments. They followed what I suggested in Lovern’s absence.

I was also unwilling to sit and weave with my mother. She wore the grief of losing Beathan in her eyes, but even worse, I saw Lovern in our home. Lovern was at the fire, mixing medicines in our room, and drinking mead at the table. I could not sleep in our bed. His scent was gone.

Most nights I trembled in a corner by the loom, the putrid smell of the badger filling my nose. In my mind, I went back to the hut, wondering if I could have stopped him in some way. The gods did not give me an answer to this never-ending question.

Confusion, always nearby, reigned over me. Mother spoke of Lovern coming home. She missed the druid and his medicines. I prayed for and dreaded his return. My passage dream had alerted him, and he was coming, I was sure. But when he arrived, how could I tell him that the man who had taken me also beheaded our chieftain, his friend Beathan? Even that seemed a small concern when I worried about how he could still love me after my taking. Another man had used me.

The idea of Beathan’s gift had started the day I sat near Finlay’s stone workbench on a small wooden stool. Buckets of water stood ready for dunking the hearth-heated metal. Pieces of leather used to work bronze were lying on the bench. Tools hung from the beams or lay on the ground near the hearth. Here, Finlay had crafted the small oak pins that Beathan declared represented our family. He had honed and engraved Beathan’s swords on this workbench, the blades now buried with Beathan. He made plows and sharpened knives here. I felt safe. The heat, the smell of charcoal, and the rush of work in the smithy wrapped around me like a woolen shield.

Finlay had started work on a bronze bowl the day before. I watched him hammer the metal into shape and pictures drew themselves in my head.

“What will it look like when you finish?”

“I have no design in mind.” Finlay stopped hammering and reached for a mug of mead. “How would you decorate it?”

“I would use an oak tree and its acorns.” I picked up a stick and drew it in the dust on the floor. A shaft of sunlight streamed through the hole in the wall of the smoky room to the center of my picture. “There are strong branches, able to carry many responsibilities. Here, acorns, ready to grow into adults, and finally the heart of the oak, pure. It burns with the fierce heat of bravery.” As I traced the tree, I cried for the first time. I cried for Beathan. I cried for the loss of my life as it had been.

Finlay put down his mead, walked around the workbench, and sat beside me in the dirt of the smithy floor. The alder charcoal fire in his hearth was hot on our backs. My tears mixed with his sweat as he hugged me, his heavy leather apron stiff against my face.

“I am sorry for Beathan’s death. It was because of me. If I had not gone out that day, Beathan would be here.” I sobbed into his shoulder.

“Beathan died saving your life. But remember, Jahna, he died in battle, as a chieftain. He is in the next world, on the council, making decisions for others. You are the one who reminds us that we all die. Some go easily in sleep, some go with a difficult sickness, but we sing songs about those who die in battle.”

I looked to his face, his misty eyes belying his words of strength.

“I have started a song for Beathan that will keep his memory alive for many generations,” he said. “Our clan will remember him as long as we are a clan.”

“A s-song,” I stuttered. My tears stopped. I wiped my face and nose with my dress. “A song for a brave warrior.” Finlay stood up and shook out his tunic, lifting the wet spot I had created on his shoulder away from him. He nodded, and I continued, “I would like to decorate this bowl and take it to Beathan. Will you teach me to work the metal?”