Gavin Smith - The Age of Scorpio

‘You know,’ he said. ‘You’ve felt his touch.’

‘How could you give in like this?’ Britha demanded. She had not liked his words. ‘You have slain yourself, what you are, for dreams. Who willingly allows themself to be conquered?’

The old man shook his head sadly. ‘You can no more fight the moon sickness or death than you can the sea. We followed false gods. Now all of Ynys Prydein belongs to death and madness. Can you not feel it?’ It was the first time she had ever heard of Ynys Prydein. She could not, however, deny that something inside her but not of her was pulling her to the south. The man was smiling at her knowingly. She turned from him and started towards the fort.

Fachtna and Teardrop had built a fire. They were on the shores of the bay trying to keep as far from the kneelers as they could. Fachtna was cooking the last of the salted deer meat, with some wild vegetables that Teardrop had found. They would have to forage and hunt again soon, particularly if they kept eating as much as they had been. That would slow them down more. The black ships and Britha’s people would slip further from them.

Britha was sitting away from them, hugging her knees, not really feeling the cold from the fresh clear windy night. Her spear was next to her on the ground. She was looking up at the hill fort. She could see the flickering glow of fires. There were roundhouses behind the palisade walls. Some of them had been damaged, but the intact ones looked very welcoming to her at the moment.

They had gone up to the hill fort but the Goddodin would not let them in. There had been a shouted conversation through the gate while slingers and warriors with casting spears covered them. Fachtna had not helped by cursing them for cowards who were too afraid to offer hospitality. Teardrop had sent the warrior away.

They’d had the bare bones of it. The black curraghs had come and with them giant demons from the sea. They had landed warriors further up the beach. The giants had climbed the cliffs while the warriors had attacked in a disciplined formation the likes of which the frightened warriors in the hill fort had never seen before. To hear them tell it, they had bravely fought off the Lochlannach, but Britha agreed with Fachtna: had Bress wanted the fort he could have taken it. Still, she had to admit these god-slaves had done better than her and her people, though she saw no Lochlannach bodies.

Without hospitality they had the choice of moving on, though it was growing late, or risking a camp close to the kneelers. Their keening and chanting were an annoyance, and their continued murder of themselves was shocking. A few had tried to speak to them. Britha had become so angry that she had set about them with the haft of her spear until she realised that they would have welcomed death at her hands. When Teardrop had threatened to curse them with everlasting life, they had fled.

‘You wish you were up there, warm?’ Fachtna asked. Britha had only just heard the warrior’s approach. She sighed to herself – she could guess what was coming.

‘I don’t relish the company of cowards and fools who cannot tell friend from foe and break that which should never be broken,’ she said, referring to the law of hospitality, without which there could be no trade, no diplomacy and peace could not be brokered after war. ‘But I would welcome a roof above me and a fire near,’ she conceded. ‘Of course it doesn’t help that your friend looks so strange. Where is he from?’ she asked, not caring but trying to forestall the inevitable.

‘From very far away, like me.’

‘You are from very different people,’ Britha said for want of anything else.

Fachtna nodded but Britha wasn’t looking. ‘I could keep you warm and tell you tales of the Otherworld,’ he said. Neither of them noticed Teardrop over by the fire turn to look at them.

‘No,’ Britha said.

‘You will not lie with me for knowledge?’ Fachtna asked. She could hear the smile in his voice. ‘Then it will just have to be for the pleasure of it.’

‘If I was going to lie with someone for power and knowledge, it would be with your friend,’ Britha said, still not looking at Fachtna because she was pretty sure that she would have to hit him if she did. She did not see Teardrop smiling as he turned away from them to look back into the flames. ‘As for pleasure, you already bore me. That is not a good start.’

‘I like a woman with spirit,’ Fachtna said.

And I’d like a man who could sing a different song , Britha thought. She tried not to think about Bress. She was not blind to his evil but there was something there, a sadness that had somehow touched her. And he was beautiful.

Fachtna broke her from her reverie by grabbing her arm and pulling her to her feet. ‘Let’s find pleasure together!’

‘Look, I’m sure this works with young landswomen—’

Fachtna covered her mouth with his. Britha was momentarily surprised. Then she felt his tongue against her lips. She opened her mouth.

Fachtna cried out and staggered away from Britha, his mouth bloody. He looked up at her, anger in his eyes. Britha spat his blood into those eyes. Momentarily blinded, Fachtna did not see the punch coming.

His nose felt much harder than she was expecting, but he was from the Otherworld, she reminded herself. She was, however, both surprised and satisfied by the strength of her punch. She heard the crack of the nose giving under her knuckles. The force of the blow picked Fachtna off his feet and he hit the ground by the shoreline hard.

Britha jumped on him. Landing sideways, she jammed a knee into his throat and tore her sickle out of her rope belt. Fachtna was starting to move, to counter, when he felt the blade of the sickle against his nether regions.

‘You are no warrior!’ Britha spat through bloody lips. ‘You are a childling grown large and I have gelded men for less! I lay this geas on you: if you ever touch a woman again without her words of permission, what little manhood you have will shrivel up and roll down the legs of your trews to be eaten by worms from the earth! Do you understand me, boy?!’

Fachtna opened his mouth.

‘That’s enough,’ Teardrop said quietly. Britha turned to look at the swollen-headed man, his skin reminding her of smooth varnished wood. ‘Britha, please.’ Something in his tone made her anger subside. She got to her feet and grabbed her spear, stalking past Teardrop. ‘He would not have—’ Teardrop started.

‘He touches me again, and I’ll cut the fingers off that did it and then the cock that made him want to.’

Fachtna watched her go. Teardrop moved to his prone friend and stood over him, leaning on his staff.

‘She is quite a woman,’ Fachtna said through a mouthful of blood, seemingly ignoring the pain. Teardrop just nodded. ‘I think I’m in love.’

‘You’re not in love. You can’t have her, and that makes you moonstruck.’

‘No, it’s love,’ Fachtna said, relishing the thought of the pursuit.

‘We’ve been friends for a long time now,’ Teardrop said. Fachtna nodded. Teardrop rammed the butt of his staff into Fachtna’s groin.

Fachtna howled in agony.

‘Don’t touch her again,’ Teardrop said, leaning down towards Fachtna as he rolled from side to side clutching his groin.

Britha heard the cry of pain, she suspected everyone in the harbour had. She did not look back but she did smile.

Teardrop stared over at the fort on the promontory. Beyond the gap in the rocks all he could see was darkness, a black sea and a black night. This country had beauty, there was no denying it, but he missed his home. He missed the wide-open plains, the thick woods teaming with game, but after his wife and his four children it was the sun that he missed the most.