Chapter Twenty-four
I feel as if my legs belong to a newly born lamb. I have to lean hard on my spear and wonder if that is why thoughtful Bethan gave it to me. Somehow I breathe better away from all those tribespeople. I am better off alone. That is not true: I am better off with Morcant. I could have stayed with Ger and still fulfilled my debt to Cassie. Bethan understood me well. My leaving Ger’s clan is less about Caratacus than about Morcant.
I won’t find Morcant on Ger’s chosen roads – on the old market tracks. If I want to find the wolf, I’ll have to travel through the wilderness, through the forests and the scrublands on the route west. If Morcant is still heading towards Mona, then that will be his path too. The Sabrina and the Sacred Isle are both west of here.
I should have borrowed a horse. I haven’t been walking long when I realise that my decision to walk alone through rough terrain without companionship is more insane than merely foolish. I am weary before the sun has moved in the sky. The Wild Weird are so numerous here I can barely see the ground. Most of them are so terrifying in appearance that I have to avert my eyes. I sing to distract myself, like a mad woman. My voice sounds rusty as an abandoned sword, ugly as a cry of pain.
I keep the sun at my back and pick my way through the dense forest. Sometimes it feels as if the Wild Weird are guiding me, herding me even. That is the trouble with being alone – fancies can become convictions all too easily.
I have to stop to rest, sooner than I’d like. I settle down to eat something and rest against the trunk of an oak tree. It is only then that I see it: a clear pathway lit by a wan, unearthly light that has nothing to do with the weak sun. It is so obvious it could be painted on the ground. The grass is faintly silvered as if rimed with frost and the mud glows with a soft inner fire. I shiver. I know what this is and it is something I never thought to see – the druids’ walk, the sacred path, the highway of the dead.
I’m sure now that the Wild Weird have been pushing me in this direction. What would happen if I were to walk that path? I know nothing of the mysteries, the ancient wisdom that might guide me. I’ve learned enough lore to recognise that the Wild Weird are unreliable allies and they could be urging me to my death. As I wrap my cloak more tightly around my shoulders, my fingers brush against the metal of Ger’s arm ring. I’d forgotten all about it. I work it down my arm to take a better look at it in daylight. Now I can see that it is far from being the plain gold band I thought at first. It is very finely wrought, of the most precious rose-hued gold, chased into intricate interlocking patterns; indeed, it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Didn’t Ger say it would grant me clear sight? I need that now more than ever before.
I struggle to my feet, using the tree trunk for support. My legs still tremble after any kind of muscular effort. I stumble, right myself, but the precious arm ring rolls from my grasp. It hasn’t rolled far. It lies in that section of the ground that was illumined by eldritch light, but now there is no light, no path and no grey folk cavorting at my feet: there is nothing but the dark wood and an eerie silence broken only by my loudly beating heart. I don’t know how I failed to grasp the obvious truth. It was not madness or my prophetic power that let me see the grey folk and the druids’ walk: it was Ger’s gift, that is the clear sight that Ger’s druid granted me.
I pick the arm ring up with more care and reverence than I bestowed on it before. As soon as I touch it the path beneath my feet flares into brightness like a pale flame and a swarm of grey folk are gathered round my feet. I push Ger’s arm ring higher up my arm and tighten it so that it will not work its way loose. It was a great and terrifying gift that he gave me. Did the druid intend me to walk the druids’ walk?
I can’t help but rest my hand on my sword as I start my journey again. As soon as I place one foot on the path, the world beyond it dissolves into a blur of greens and greys. I pray that this is the right decision and take a step.
I am somewhere else. Here I am in the summer country. It is warm and the light is golden so that the grass and trees along the way glow like gems: the green of emeralds, the brown of amber, while the path itself has a dazzling diamond glitter. I have seen this place in visions. I want to run from its strangeness and at the same time I never want to leave.
The sound of running water draws me. It is a kind of music in all the quietness. I’m thirsty but I don’t drink. I have shown myself to be witless all too often recently but I’m not that much of a fool.
All the trees here are oaks and when I look around me I find that my escort of grey creatures has disappeared. I see the reason at once. Among the trees are seven carved statues, faceless and eyeless – the guardians of this place. At the feet of the nearest carved god I can see the yellowing bone of a human skull stripped bare of flesh, nestling there along with a crown of mistletoe. This is a sacred grove used by the druids. I feel the hairs on my arm stand on end as if I am watched. The statues do not move, but I can feel the life in them. It is a silent pulse, a motionless breath, a vibration in the air: an immanence. It is hard to say what is that intangible difference between the faces of the living and the dead, but everyone knows it when they see it. I see it now. These statues live and the beings within them are ancient and demanding. I am in the presence of a great and terrible power. The statues want something from me and I don’t know what. Their nature demands sacrifice – why else would they be present at this place of sacrifice? They wait. The air is heavy with an awful expectation. It is hard even to breathe here. It is as if a physical weight presses against my chest, suffocating me. I can’t speak. I’m no druid; I know no charms to beguile these waiting ones, no clever words or incantations. I have few choices. It is the decision of a moment. I draw my sword and kneel at the foot of the largest statue. The green moss that grows there is soft under my knees, like a cushion made to bear the precious flesh of offerings. I don’t hesitate. To hesitate would be to falter and to falter would be to fail. I raise my sword and slice across my palm with its razor edge. It is a clean cut, a thin skein of scarlet yarn, a minute crack in the fabric of myself. The pain is sharp. The blood wells dark against my white hand. I lie down at the foot of the tree so that the blood drips into the greedy ground and wait.
I wait for some sign that this might be enough, that they don’t want all that I am. I don’t listen with my ears but with that other inner part, the part that sees visions and knows what ought to be unknowable. I strain, focused on what I cannot hear and what, even with Ger’s gift, I will never see. I wait. What more do they want of me?
I don’t know how long I lie there, prostrate on the ground, along with the skeletal remains of other, earlier sacrifices. It happens as slowly as my blood drips, develops like a distant song that grows ever clearer and louder and more joyous. I barely noticed it building, but now it has come I am overwhelmed by an unexpected feeling of wellbeing, an inner warmth surging through me. It is enough. I have done enough. They are satisfied. I cut a strip of cloth from the bottom of my tunic, bind up my hand and heave myself back to standing. There is barely time for any feelings of relief for I am left with the most terrible thirst and an uncontrollable urge to drink from the clear water that flows through the sacred grove.
I stagger towards the bank on legs that seem more unwilling than ever to do my bidding. I try to kneel again by the gushing, crystal water and, like an idiot, lose my footing. I grope for the bank for something to grab hold of but it is as if the river itself pulls me in and I am dragged to the deepest water, spluttering and fighting for breath. Invisible hands, strong as ten men, take me and draw me down into the dark underworld of the river. I am submerged, held fast like a fish in a net, floundering and gasping. The water is beyond cold. It fills me up. It is in my mouth, my ears, up my nose, everywhere. It numbs every part of me and I think my brain might freeze. Is this the sacrifice they want – my death by drowning? It doesn’t seem so. That same unseen hand grips and propels me upwards, forces me out into the air like a babe from its mother’s womb, and like a babe I emerge learning to breathe again, coughing and crying, reborn. The goddess of this water does not want me dead. Is it her hand which steers me on to the gentlest slopes of the bank some distance downstream? I don’t know.
I make a graceless landing, but I manage to haul myself on to dry land without too much trouble. I am so cold my teeth chatter. I strip off my clothes including the mail shirt which should have drowned me had I not been in the river’s care. I disrobe slowly; my hands are too cold to do otherwise and it is as if I am peeling off the skin of an onion, layer by layer, until all that is left is me, Trista. My skin feels as raw as if I have been pared down right to my core. I am gasping for breath and laughing hysterically. I am no longer trembling: my limbs are lean but strong again. I hold out my arm and it is steady as stone. My bruises have disappeared, my sliced palm is healed, my slave mark is gone. I am clean and cold, whole and free.
I can’t quite believe it. I lay my clothes on the bank to dry, wring out my hair and dance around for a while in joy and celebration and more practically to get my blood flowing so I don’t die of the cold. It is as if I have never been a slave. I am the woman I was before I was enslaved: strong and fit. When I am dry, I drop my mail shirt, Lucius’ helmet and the Chief’s sword into the fast-flowing current in gratitude. It is a suitable offering – more or less everything that I have. All I keep are those things that have been given to me. It is not seemly to give away gifts so I keep my clothes, my spear, my wolf ring, the druid’s gift and the message for Caratacus. I have been washed clean by a sacred river and all I have to give should be given. In any case those things that are tainted with blood and acquired through other people’s sacrifice properly belong to the gods; they do not belong to me. I say a brief prayer that is more or less incoherent, and watch my stolen tools of war sink into the sacred water. I am Trista, a warrior seeress, and I pay my debts.