Julian Rathbone - Kings of Albion

And with that she turns and, tottering like a rotten tree in a storm, she stumps and stumbles her way from us, out through the smoke to whatever bed she's been wakened from.

By Hecate I understand her to mean Kali.

They look at me with wonder.

'Are you really Marry Gyp?' they ask. 'Will you dance for us? Please dance for us.'

I look out beyond them, this small group of women, to where the rest are jigging and stamping to the beat of the drums and the twisting music of the raucous pipes. Every now and then they wave their arms above their heads and holler. 'Hey-ho, silver moonshine,' thus invoking the Queen of Heaven. Over by the tables beer is being drunk from the barrel, most of it direct from the bung, the young men catching the stream, which looks like nothing less than a stream of pee, catching it in their mouths the way a dog will catch milk squirted from a cow's teat. Others are eating slabs of pig-meat wedged into lumps of grey rye bread. Clearly no one's going to watch me dance with any serious attention. I'll look a fool gyrating in a corner while the others stumble about the place locked in their own worlds of booze, food, their own revelry.

'Later,' I promise.

And 'later' comes in an hour or so, but meanwhile I've persuaded my friend Erica to take me to her hut where I make my preparations. Inside there's a small fire of white charcoal, and a baby hangs in a basket from the roof. There's no man about, so either she's a widow or she's been caught out by some other woman's husband. She has no jewellery except for some copper bracelets, which she dips in sour beer to give them a gold-like shine. I prefer copper anyway, it's Parvati's metal, and I have my small bag of pearls hidden away… I'm not saying where – no, it's not rude, just that it's good to keep a few secrets, you know?

We scout about and, taking a big risk, she gets us into the church. They only see a priest once a month, but he's left some vestments in a chest. Erica uses flint, stone and a tinder-box to light some candles, and while she goes through the chest I take one and have a look around. There's a damp smell about the place, cold stone sweating the body fluids of the dead. There's Jesus, all taut muscles and corpse pallor skin, stretched on his cross, silly bugger, and his mother too in a side-chapel, holding the baby, a gold-leaf halo round her head. But where's the mother in all her glory? Should be the babe looking at her with adoration, not the other way round.

I return to the vestry and pull my robe over my head. Erica gives a little gasp. I take her hand, rough from washing clothes and field-work, and make her stroke the flat part of my chest above my breasts, then my breasts, my shoulder, my back and my buttocks, and she sighs with wonder at their smooth, gleaming darkness in the candle-light. Then, out of an amice nicely embroidered, with strings and all, we improvise the little skirt or apron temple-dancers wear.

Normally I would matt my hair with ghee and pile it up in a jewelled crown, but now, of course, it is still growing out of its shorn state and is far too short, so we rip up a white and gold chasuble too, and heap that up like a turban. I paint my face with charcoal mixed with butter, shaping my eyes like almonds, thickening my eyebrows and eyelashes, and use red clay and butter for my lips. Finally I draw spiral and dot patterns round my nipples, which I also paint with red.

Thus decked out, in tawdry imitation of the figure I would have been at home, when I would have worn a girdle, necklace, diadem, anklets, ear, toe and finger rings, all made of gold and set with precious stones, I look grand enough, numinous even, for Erica to fall on her knees, clasp my thighs and bury her head in the amice.

'You really are the Marry Gyp.' she moans, 'you really are.'

I put my tiny finger-cymbals on my third fingers and thumbs, bend my elbows in front of me, crook my little fingers, and let her hear the silvery chime.

In the hall things are much quieter now. Only a block-flute from amongst the pipes is playing, and the drummer is using his fingers on the skin instead of beating it with his palms. Five couples sway to his beat, locked in close embrace, the rest are strewn about the earthen floor or giggling in the piles of hay, mostly in couples. There is less smoke and the big barrel on its table is leaking a slow dribble, which an old man, prostrate beneath it on his back, attempts to catch in his mouth. Needless to say, a silence spreads out from where I am until the whole hall is as quiet as a desultory snore here and there will allow, and all open eyes are upon me.

I give the cymbals a ping or two, and head tilted both forwards and to the side, swing one knee up and out before bringing the sole of my foot down with a tiny stamp. Then the other side, the other foot. My arms swing, my fingers straighten and curl. Ping, ping, and the drummer, who is wide-chested, has arms like elephant trunks and a black mat of hair across his chest, picks up on my rhythm with his fingers and his friend with the flute, tall and thin with yellow hair, ventures a little run. And round my feet the incense Erica has brought from the church softens the bite of woodsmoke and sour beer.

Presently, in the Teluga tongue, I sing.

Oh, Goddess Minakshi

whose lovely body has a deep blue sheen

with long eyes shaped like a carp

Goddess who provides release from the fetters of life

who resides in the forest of kadaniba trees

esteemed one

who conquered Shiva

grant me bliss.

And later, the drummer adds his ditty:

Such a one did I meet, good sir, such an angelic face who like a sprite, like a queen, did appear in her gait, in her grace…

Prancing and swaying, I swing down the hall and the clouds of incense part around my thighs, my brown feet raise the dust. Copper and pearls flash and glow in the embers of a fire and the stir of my passing makes the flames on the tapers shudder. My naked breasts promise more than pomegranates, my buttocks are peaches.

Eyes turned up at me gleam and flash and no one moves except to sigh in pleasurable pain. I cannot dance for ever, and already they know they'll not see my like again.

Flute and drum are getting to know me. Messages flash between us. The first flutters like breath in a baby's throat, the second quickens in a lovelorn pulse. I turn on a toe, pummel the floor with my feet, fling my arms in windmills of desire about my head, and without taking their eyes from me every he and she there reaches for his or her other. The sweat glistens on my shoulders, runs between my breasts, my thighs, and the wind I've raised begins to gust about the corners of the room, the sacking over the entrances fills like sails, and the gale, a warm wind with rain on it, rushes in, gathers me in its arms and blows out the lights.

There is plenty of the long night left. In the dark Alan, the drummer, is the first to find me, but he's a noisy brute and his groans and shouts soon lead David and his flute to the comer we're in. The hay is deep and soft and still smells fresh, even of the summer flowers that mingled with the grass when it was mown. They're nice, they take the edge off my hunger, but Eddie they are not. Better, or as good, when they at last fall silent, or almost silent apart from thunderous snores from Alan and sighs and whistles from David, Erica finds me, takes my hand, and leads me to her bower where her boy-child swings from the roof in his cradle and charcoal still glows in the centre of the floor. She sponges me down with rags soaked in warm water, gives me cold spring water, cheese and bread. She makes me lie in her cot with her and rocks me to sleep in her arms with her lips in the crook of my neck, her breasts that leak a little milk against mine, and her strong legs crooked on my waist and lying across my thigh.