Daughters of Fire. Barbara Erskine

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      Carta was standing looking down into the grave, tears pouring down her face. How was she going to live without her friend? How could she live with the guilt of knowing that Mellia had been killed because of her? She had never felt more alone.

      As Carta’s friend Mellia had been given a formal ceremony and interred with her broken spindle, her comb and mirror, her favourite strings of beads and bangles and a flagon of mead. With her went prayers and exhortations to the gods to guide her to the land of the ever young.

      Now it was over, as they stood around the grave in one final moment of silence after the eulogies ended, Carta raised her eyes to those of the woman who was watching her across the freshly piled soil. Medb of the White Hands was smiling.

      In her private bedchamber, one of many portioned off with wattle screens inside the wall of the women’s house Carta set up a new little shrine. Her belongings were comparatively few. Beside the bed box filled with softly scented, tightly packed heather, topped with linen sheets and soft beautifully cured fur covers, there were two chests containing her personal possessions. Her jewellery, her clothes, folded away clean with dried wormwood and sweet gale and wild mountain thyme to keep away moth and mildew. Her mantles and cloaks hung on pegs on the wall. Her comb and mirror lay on a small table with the lamp by whose light she went to bed. Now on one of the coffers she placed a figure of the goddess, carved in holly wood, a silver bowl in which she piled her offerings and the bundle of little carved ogham staves which she used for divination when there was no fire and there were no clouds and no birds to speak to her of the omens.

      Her Druid instructors had been thorough. She was a good reader. She could write and speak Latin and write in Greek reasonably fluently now as well as writing the Celtic language of her own people using both alphabets. She could recite poetry and sing and she knew something of the magic of the Druids, studying healing, divination and law.

      ‘You are one of us, Cartimandua,’ Truthac had said. ‘By birth and by blood, you are of the royal house, a descendant of warriors, a daughter of kings and queens, and of the line of Druids. You have been more than thrice blessed. Your destiny is written in the stars which later you will study, and in the rocks and in the waters which circle this land. You are a daughter of Brigantia. A daughter of fire. The portents at your birth were favourable and the auguries now speak of great futures and fame for all time.’ He laid a cool hand on her head. ‘You will outshine me, child. When my name is forgotten yours will echo in the words of the bards. It is not for me to tell you how to avenge the death of your friend. Consult the staves; through them consult your gods; listen to what you are told. But be sure that you divine the truth. Remember, what is done cannot be undone.’

      Rising from the stool on which he had been sitting he paused for a moment, looking down at her as he leaned on his staff and he nodded sagely as he saw the loss and misery in her eyes. ‘You are no longer a child, Carta, you are now a woman. The rising sun is behind you, the setting sun many moons in front. It will take courage to tread the path you feel is right. But you have that courage.’ Gravely he nodded once more. ‘You have more courage than anyone I have taught, Cartimandua. All you need to do is summon it.’

      She watched him walk away, dumbfounded. He had taught the king and the king’s sons. He was senior tutor to the Druid school. He examined bards and seers and Druids on their long journey to wisdom. And yet he thought her brave. She remembered her tears and her face burned. He didn’t know how frightened and angry and lonely she had felt; still felt in the secret dark of the night.

      And he must never know. No one must know.

      Except perhaps the goddess who knew everything and would give her courage.

      Carta stood for a moment longer before the shrine she had created. She was frowning. Sometimes she was so sure the Lady had heard her and would help. Other times it felt as though there was no one there. No one at all.

      It was late. Viv sat at her desk, writing without a break as the sun moved across into the west and sank out of sight. Outside it grew dark, and the street became more and more noisy, then quiet again as one by one people began to make for home. In her room Viv put down the pencil and stretched cramped fingers. Somewhere far below her windows a man shouted a drunken obscenity in the deep crevasse of the narrow wynd as he relieved himself against the wall. Behind him a group of young people, cheerfully rowdy from the pub, jeered and someone threw a bottle. Viv heard nothing. She was watching Carta. Who was watching Medb of the White Hands.

      Medb was nervous. It had seemed so easy to torment the king’s latest fosterling. Her naturally acerbic temperament and resentful nature had sought someone to pick on since the day she had arrived at Dun Pelder, the daughter of one of the king’s best warriors. СКАЧАТЬ