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“About men,” she began, and stopped. Epona waited, digging with one forefinger at bits of grain caught in her teeth.
Rigantona tried again. “Do you know what men expect of women?”
“Certainly. To protect the lodgefire so it only needs to be rekindled at the start of each new year, to fight as warriors if needed, to cook and weave and sew and salt meat and dry herbs and …”
Rigantona cut off the flow of words. “What about bedsports? What do you know about that?”
The girl’s cheeks were bright pink. Like all the people, she caught fire easily. “I know everything about bedsports. Our family shares one lodge; I’ve seen men and women together all my life.”
“Seeing something done and experiencing it yourself are not the same thing, Epona. You can watch me eat the thigh of a pig and if you had never eaten meat you would not know what I was tasting. Until a man enters you the first time you know nothing about bedsports—or men, either.”
Epona resented her mother’s patronizing tone, but the topic was causing an inexplicable wave of shyness to wash over her, turning her skin hot from the inside. She asked in a voice barely above a whisper, “Then what is it like? Tell me.”
“That depends on the man. Some are like pigs, rutting; others have all the artistry of a bard playing the lyre. If you learn bedsports with a skillful husband you will come to enjoy his body and your own; if not, it is your right according to our custom to find someone who pleases you better, just as soon as you have given your husband one living son.”
Epona gazed at her mother earnestly, a frown creasing her sunny freckles. “How can I be certain of having a good husband?”
“Foolish girl! You are of the family of Toutorix; you will have your pick of the most outstanding men from every tribe of the people within thirty nights of the Blue Mountains.”
Epona looked away, across the commonground. “And suppose I don’t want a man from some other tribe? Suppose I choose to stay here, married to one of the Kelti?”
Rigantona’s jaw sagged with shock. “You can’t! Our men always bring their wives from beyond the mountains, and our
women always go to other tribes to form alliances for us. That is part of the pattern, Epona. About that, you have no choice.”
Yes, I have
, Epona said within herself, setting her jaw. She watched with unseeing eyes as some women removed grain from a storage pit, while others stacked firewood on the north side of their lodges. A work crew moved around the outside of the baking house, patching holes in the earthen wall. Suleva was combing her goats in one of the livestock pens; Kwelon and two of the smith’s apprentices struggled to fit a red-hot iron tire to the rim of a cartwheel made of mountain ash. Above the bustle of everyday activity could be heard the voice of the
drui
bard, or history singer, Poel, accompanying himself on his lyre as he taught a collection of children the tales of their ancestors.
Epona’s eyes followed her people about their tasks but did not actually see them; her thoughts were only on herself.
“Why can’t I do things differently if I want to?” she wanted to know. “Women of the Kelti are free, are they not? As free as their men? How can we be free if we are enslaved by some pattern?”
Rigantona was accustomed to her daughter’s outbursts of rebellion, recognizing in them something of herself. But of course they were not to be tolerated. “The pattern protects, as you know, Epona,” she reminded the girl. “It does not enslave. The pattern governs all that we do, and the
druii
interpret it for us, since they are more sensitive to its limits than the rest of us. It can sometimes be tugged into a new shape, but that is strictly
druii
business and not for us to attempt. The important thing is to keep the pattern intact; it must never be broken. Never! The
druii
tell us that would make us vulnerable to forces beyond even their control.
“But what makes you even suggest such a thing, girl? Is there some Kelti man who has drawn your eye?”
“Goibban,” Epona whispered, keeping her eyes lowered.
“The smith, is it? Hai! Your choice does you credit. But of course it’s impossible, a childish notion. Just remember your high standards when the time comes to choose from
among those who offer us gifts for you. A woman of the people must never give herself to any man but the best.
“That’s another thing we must discuss. I almost forgot it, and it’s very important. By our custom, a girl must wait until her marriage bed before her first lifemaking, but later, if she does have reason to share bedsports with another man, she must be certain he is at least of her husband’s rank. Listen to me, Epona!
“Give yourself only to the bravest and most gifted. The children you bear must bring honor to your husband’s family. The history singer must never say of you that you engaged in bedsports with a man of lower status than your husband, for that would be an unforgivable insult to the man you have married.” Her mouth twisted. “Of course, that might limit you to your husband’s brothers, if they have no women of their own and ask for you. But perhaps you will be lucky.”
Epona heard herself asking the question that had haunted her since she was a small child. “Did you think it was lucky to go with Kernunnos?”
Rigantona drew back and stared at her. “How could you remember that? You were so little!” The woman was surprised to find the memory still caused a crawling in her vitals, even after so many seasons.
He took me dry
, she recalled, shuddering,
and his hands were like talons, ripping my flesh. The things he did … he always enjoyed it most when I screamed.
Epona saw her mother’s face turn as white as the memory of snow, and the slippage of Rigantona’s controlled mask shocked her. “I followed you once,” she related, “when you went into the trees with him. I always thought he looked so … frightening … and I suppose I was worried about you, even if I was very little. Then I heard you scream and I ran away.”
Rigantona’s face seemed to have turned to stone. “I quit going with the priest long ago,” she said in a remote voice. “Once I thought it would be a great honor to share bedsports with him; I thought a shapechanger would do things that other men could not.” She curled her lip in disgust. “I was right
about that, I suppose, but now I wish it had never happened. It is not a memory I cherish, and I don’t want to talk about it with you.
“But I did learn a valuable lesson, and that I will pass on to you. Bedsports, though they may be pleasurable, can cause you great pain. There are more satisfactory pleasures than a man’s body, Epona.”
“What are they?”
“When you have borne as many children as I have, you learn to appreciate those things that are quiet and make no demands. Gold and amber and ivory, those are the real pleasures, believe me. I enjoy the way they look and feel and the way they make me feel. That delight never fades. They do not cause pain, nor do they turn away and leave a woman cold in her bed. They never stink of stale wine in the morning.
“Don’t expect too much of men, Epona, and do not waste time sighing for creatures you cannot have, like Goibban the smith. He is probably not as good as you might imagine anyway. Give your affection instead to things you can count and carry, Epona, for they will never disappoint you and they are all that lasts.”
She sighed, a long, drawn-out sigh. “Things you can count and carry.”
Rigantona was silent for a long time. Epona was reluctant to break into her thoughts; she spat on her finger tips and gathered the last breadcrumbs on her damp skin. When the silence had become intolerable, Rigantona summoned one last piece of advice.
“Have as many children as you can, to increase the strength of your husband’s tribe,” she told her daughter. “Whoever he is, he will reward you well for that. And keep your teeth in your head as long as you can. They start falling out when you start having babies. You will have to seek aid from the
gutuiters
of your new tribe if you want to keep them. When you accept a husband, be sure you look at his teeth first and don’t take a man with bad ones. His breath will stink in bed. Toutorix at least has strong teeth.”
She could think of nothing else to say. Life was to be
learned by living it, and each person had to make his own discoveries. She was not fearful for her daughter’s future; she was not even very interested in it. Not all trails through a forest reach the same destination.
Her duty discharged, Rigantona stood up. “You can go to the bakehouse now,” she said. “I just saw Sirona leave, so her oven will still be hot. Think about what I told you and do some more growing; there is not enough flesh on your bones yet to interest a man anyway.”
She strode away, back to her loom and her own life. Epona watched her go, trying to sort through tangled thoughts and feelings. Rigantona was right, she was bony still, like a yearling calf; another summer and winter might turn her into someone Goibban would really notice. Surely an exception to the pattern would be made for someone as important as the smith of the Kelti, if he wanted to marry a woman of his own tribe.
It had to be that way. Throughout the long, dark winter, had she not walked with Goibban in the dreamworld?
The bakehouse waited for her. The village rang with the voices of the women, the noises of the livestock, the clear hard striking of the anvil. Across the commonground, Mahka and Alator and some others were racing in a furious game of stick and ball, slamming into each other and shouting with laughter.
Epona cast one look at the bakehouse, then gathered her long skirts in her hands and ran to join them. “Hai!” she cried. “I challenge you all to a race! I can run faster than any of you!”
W
ith the advance of sunseason there was more light for longer days of work. Goibban the smith lay sleepless on his bedshelf at night, his mind whirling with ideas, his large hands unconsciously shaping designs atop his blanket. The iron was an endless source of inspiration. To work it was a sacred act of creation: bending, beating, capturing a thought and making it tangible with the melted essence of the ore.
As a child, Goibban had loitered around the copper smelters on the long blue evenings when the smoke rose high above the mountains. He loved watching as the miners raked out the smelting pits, banking fires at the lode faces of the mine galleries so their heat would split free the ore to be mined the following day. He dreamed of the time he would work with metal; he never wanted to do anything else.
But copper and bronze did not satisfy him, and gold was too easy. It did not offer any resistance to his great strength, but formed itself to his desire like an overwilling woman, without spirit. If he forgot himself and did not work with the
utmost delicacy he could destroy the shape he sought to create.
The old master smith died and Goibban, his chief apprentice, took over his lodge and forge in the days of Toutorix, the Invincible Boar. There was always plenty of work to be done but it did not exhaust his vast reservoirs of energy. He fell into the habit of making little toys in the evenings, models of weapons and household goods for the children to play with, and soon he had a crowd of youngsters around the forge whenever he worked. He would glance up occasionally and reward them with a fond, if distracted, smile.
Then Toutorix had taken a load of iron ore in return for a few casks of salt, and Goibban had found a challenge worthy of his ability. He lost interest in copper and bronze. He wanted only to pit himself against the most unyielding opponent he had ever found, the star metal. Something in the integrity of the material appealed to something deep inside himself. Properly handled and correctly judged as to its temperature and tensile strength, iron could be made obedient. But the slightest mistake could turn it brittle and useless. It became a competition between the man and the iron, and it was the competition Goibban loved. For years now, he had thought of little else.
When Toutorix called on him for an inventory of work in progress, Goibban announced with pride, “We have enough extra tools to offer some more in trade this season.”
“Beyond our own needs?”
“Yes, and we still have raw ore from that lot you got from Mobiorix last sunseason. Fine quality, that. I’m putting together a few items I think the Etruscans and Illyrians might find especially desirable: tweezers, shears, household knives, even a couple of iron plowshares I’ve made according to my own design.”
“Last season the Hellene traders asked if we had any iron weapons,” Toutorix remarked, avoiding an outright inquiry.
Goibban stroked his mustache. “We have scythes and chisels, and I’ve been experimenting with some files for sharpening and a kind of toothed knife for cutting wood.”
Toutorix gazed around the forge, considering. Once he had enjoyed the intricacies of arranging trade based on the bounty of the Salt Mountain, and his dealings with such distant tribes as the Boii, the Belgae, and the Treveri had earned him fame among all the people. This in turn had drawn new traders from the east and the south, the music-obsessed Thracians and the dainty Etruscans with their language like birds twittering. Wagonloads of luxury goods had given the Kelti a taste for gold ornaments and red wine, expensive merchandise they would soon be importing from as far away as the land of the Hellenes.
But that was long ago, when Toutorix was rightly called the Invincible Boar. His strength was fading now, though he admitted it to no one. There were times when his mind seemed to have lost its agility and he found himself fumbling through a negotiation, unable to get the best of an opponent. He now preferred to barter with old acquaintances still respectful of his reputation.
Like the Hellenes who wanted iron weapons.
“How is your supply of daggers?” he asked Goibban.
“Enough to last for a generation.”
“And swords like the one you made for me, with the metal folded back upon itself and layered in the blade? Thin as it is, it is the strongest I’ve ever used, and it keeps its edge. Have you made more of those?”
A light came into Goibban’s face as when a mother is asked about her favorite son. “There has never been anything to equal that one, except those I’ve made since. With one slash they can bite through a bronze shield.”
“The Hellenes would pay dearly for them, then,” Toutorix said. “The warriors of Sparta are reported to be invading Messenia; they will have use for good weapons.”
Goibban scowled. “Would you sell iron blades to those not of the people? I don’t think that’s so wise …”
Toutorix threw back his head and looked down his nose at the smith. “You have been overpraised, Goibban; it has given you the idea that you are a thinker. I am the thinker. I am the warrior, and I am the best judge of such matters, until the
tribe elects someone to replace me because I am no longer competent. When that day comes my replacement will be a warrior’s son, not a craftsman. Remember that.”
The two men eyed each other. The lord of the tribe was old, and felt every night of his life in his bones. Goibban was bigger, and younger, with no sag to his skin. His eyes were a hot blue, like the flame of his forge.
Discretion had begun to replace reckless courage on Toutorix’s list of survival skills; he throttled his temper and added, in a more placating voice, “Just prepare some weapons for me to show, in case there is a market for them. You will be amply rewarded, and you can trust me to see they are not put into the hands of potential enemies.
“Besides, the Hellenes already have some iron weapons, you know; the material is not unheard of among them.”
Goibban snorted. “They have brittle metal, an inferior product they get from the Assyrians or some such people. It is nothing compared to ours; they do not have the secret.”
“We will keep the secret and the best weapons for ourselves, always,” Toutorix assured him. “Am I not the lord of the tribe?”
Meanwhile, Epona was practicing the new arts of womanhood, finding her place in the interlocked pattern of life. There were moments when she felt the pride of her sex and race flooding through her and she walked with new dignity, but then a change of mood would overtake her as patches of brilliant sunlight and purple shadow followed each other across the face of the mountains, and she thought herself nothing more than a child, pretending.
She listened hungrily for the voice of the spirit within, and was relieved each time it spoke to her, not with words but with an intuition in the blood, commands direct to the muscle and bone. She heard without ears the voice older than time.
Go this way, not that way. Bow down before this stone. Do not eat that. Turn your bowl over and smooth its base with your hand to honor the craftsman who made it; his spirit watches and will be pleased.
I guide,
the spirit within told her.
You listen and follow. I tell you how to live thislife.
It was well past midday, and her share of the work was done. She spent the morning helping Brydda wash wool for dyeing, feeling the strain in her back and shoulders, though she did not complain. A woman of the people should not complain of physical discomfort; it was a point of honor. Men might make a big show of small injuries on the sports field or in the mines, but women bore pain in silence. That was their strength.
Now, with the afternoon before her to spend as she chose, she decided to go to the livestock pens. She never tired of being with the animals; she always felt most comfortable when in their company. Their natures, unlike those of humankind, were constant and comprehensible. She even enjoyed the smell of the pens, the combined odor of fodder and churned earth mixed with dung.
Grazing animals were herded long distances to steep upland meadows, but some animals were always in the pens, for convenience or special care. There were usually working oxen and the stocky draft ponies purchased from the Cimmerians to pull carts, which were also modeled on the Cimmerian design. Light passenger carts, elaborately carved, more suitable for display than for hard usage. The oxen pulled the big wagons filled with salt.
In one corner was the pair of little horses that had grown old pulling the chief’s cart on ceremonial occasions. They stood together companionably, head to tail, dozing as the sun crept westward to warm their aging bones. They were good friends of Epona’s. The young woman climbed up on the fence and hooked her elbows across the top so she could enjoy a leisurely chat with them. At her call, her favorite, the bay with the crooked blaze across its face, lifted its head and came toward her. It was a shaggy, broad-shouldered animal, with big-boned legs but a meager rump. What beauty it possessed glowed in its brown eyes.
“Sunshine on your head,” Epona offered fondly. The bay met her eyes and their two spirits greeted one another. The
pony lifted its face to hers and exhaled a warm, grassy breath. She blew her own gently back into its nostrils. Understanding flowed between herself and the animal. They were intensely aware of each other, their communication unhampered by the awkward construction of human words. They belonged to dissimilar races but shared the common experiences of life and death, and each enriched the other by existing.
The bay pony stood quietly, absorbing the tension from the girl and giving back a sense of tranquillity.
Smell the air. Feel the sun. Be, just be,
it seemed to tell her.
She let her eyes smile at the little horse, for it would not perceive bared teeth as a friendly gesture. “Yes,” she agreed, acknowledging its wisdom. “You are right. I have nothing to worry about. Goibban will …” her voice trailed away, not finishing the thought, but there was no need to finish it. Not with the horse; the horse understood.
Epona dangled one hand over the fence and twisted her fingers in the pony’s shaggy mane. The two stood for a time in peace and understanding, sharing existence.
Gradually Epona became aware of something through her sense of touch; an awareness as strong as the voice of the spirit within. She closed her eyes, concentrating. Her inner self merged with that of the horse and she realized that the bay was old, and tired. Flies were annoying his soft underbelly and he lacked the energy to dislodge them. Dry skin itched around his withers and along his level spine, and the flesh sagged from the bone, seeking reunion with the earth mother. The cartpony was a weary creature who had endured too many harsh winters and would not last through another. He and his companion had finished their lives.
“I’ll speak to the
druii
about releasing your spirits soon,” she promised them. “You won’t have to be old much longer. At Samhain, the start of the new year, when the great bonfire is built, we will let you go. Before the worst of the winter. Just enjoy this one more sunseason first.”
“You can talk with the animals, Epona?” said a voice just behind her, startling her. She slid down from the fence and turned to face Kernunnos. The priest was standing very close,
his pointed canine teeth showing through his thin lips. His voice was sibilant, the whisper of snakes’ bellies over stone.
She tried to edge away without being rude, but her back was against the fence and he moved with her, like a shadow.
“I like animals,” she said as politely as possible, giving him nothing. His proximity repelled her.
“Do you like men, too?” Kernunnos asked. His voice contained the insinuation that something so natural was somehow twisted and ugly, with hidden meanings. She had the distinct impression that to answer him truthfully would give him a sort of power over her.
“I like animals,” she said firmly, tossing her head to show him her spirit was hers alone.
The priest’s mouth gaped open, showing a red and pointed tongue. “Hai! Have you ever seen … through the eyes of an animal? Can you do that?” He grabbed her wrist, clutching it tightly, his hot eyes attempting to bore into her secret self. “Tell me, girl: Have you ever had dreams in which spirits came to you and offered you gifts? Do you see things others cannot?”
She tugged but he would not let go. He rocked back and forth on his heels without loosening his grip, humming to himself. His slitted eyes closed, then flared open. “I feel it in you!” he cried. “There is a strength … you are the first woman of the Kelti in my lifetime to have such a gift …” His face closed and became cunning, greedy. “I could speak to Toutorix and offer to instruct you myself; it would be an honor. There are things I could teach you that you cannot imagine, Epona. You are sensitive to the world beyond the eyes and ears; I could show you so much, girl. So much.” His voice was not overtly threatening, it had become more dangerous than that. It was seductive, soft as smoke, filled with promises of things unseen. Things she did not want to see.
She raised her wrist with an abrupt gesture and twisted it out of his grasp. “I don’t want you to teach me anything,” she told him, rubbing her arm where his nails had bitten into the soft flesh.
“I could make something very special of you,” he insisted, moving toward her again. “I have always suspected it …”

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