Chapter 6 #2
That agreed, we mounted again and turned our horses to the north.
The coastal path wound worryingly close to the edge and though Weasel’s hooves were steady I couldn’t help but worry.
Riding along the cliffs made my human stomach flip-flop like a landed trout and I gripped the reins with white knuckles.
It was a relief to trot down the winding goat track towards the village.
The houses were tumbledown, shutters flapping in the wind. Wood pigeons cooed down from threadbare thatch as we trotted between the houses towards the sea. A half-sunken wooden jetty floated in the water, tied to posts with rotting ropes draped with seaweed. The village was completely empty.
“There’s no one here,” Belis said, twisting in her saddle. “How long ago did you say you were here?”
“Fifteen years,” I said. “Maybe twenty. No longer than that.”
“The villagers must have gone,” she said, jumping down and looping her reins over a gatepost. “Take a look around. They might have left something.”
I hitched my horse next to hers and began to peer into the houses.
They were all completely empty: no furniture, no log piles, nothing but drifts of leaves and spiders’ webs.
I found the shards of a clay cup in a smaller hut near the beach, the old wine stains still spattered on the floor.
I leafed back through my memories, trying to remember the inhabitants of these houses.
It was useless: they had barely registered at the time and the years had merged the thousands of human faces into one.
I knelt down to peer into a small alcove beside the fireplace.
A lump of bone sat inside. I reached in and picked it up, bringing it outside into the light.
It was a crudely carved figurine of a woman, circles etched into the torso for breasts and a triangle just above where her legs parted.
I recognised it, having seen similar idols many times before.
A tiny mother goddess, wrenched from her little altar.
I turned it over in my hands, wondering why it had been left behind.
They were rare these days and whoever had carved this had not been especially gifted.
There were echoes of past effort, though, in the charcoal rubbed into the engraved lines and in the faint smell of animal fat that had been used to polish it.
Belis called my name from the beach and I turned to go.
Then I paused and propped the figure back in her alcove, wishing my unknown sister goddess well.
When I returned to the beach, I found Belis dragging a rowboat out onto the sand. Her arms were covered in scratches and there were cuts on her face. Her headscarf had come undone but she looked triumphant.
“What happened to you?” I asked, hurrying forward. She blew loose curls out of her face and grinned at me.
“Found it hidden under an overgrown blackberry bush. I reckon whoever left it must have meant to come back but never did.”
“And you decided to go in after it yourself?” I asked, incredulous at her injuries. “You’re all scratched and cut up!’
“Well, it wasn’t going to get out on its own.” Belis saw my expression and touched her cheek, wincing as her fingers found a particularly deep scrape. “Don’t worry, Vatta taught me a good spell for this. I’ll patch myself up this evening.”
I went to help her flip the boat over so we could check it for holes. It was covered in algae and moss but the wood beneath felt strong enough and I couldn’t see any obvious damage. When we turned it back over an oar fell out. Belis picked it up and drove it into the sand next to her spear.
“One oar is a bit light for a twenty-mile sail. I don’t suppose you remember what the currents around here are like?”
I didn’t: such things were generally beneath my notice. Belis wandered back to the bushes and emerged happily gripping the second oar. There was a fresh cut above her eyebrow, beginning to dribble blood around her eye socket and down her cheek.
“That’s enough. Go and sit down,” I said. “We can do the rest tomorrow.”
“You’re very worried about a few scratches. Aren’t you the Goddess of Death? Surely a little bit of blood shouldn’t upset you.”
“This is different. I get upset if one of the dogs get a thorn in their paw, too.”
Belis began to complain but I took the oar off her and stuck it beside the other in the damp sand. She shrugged and followed me back up the beach.
“We should camp here in one of the old houses tonight and set sail tomorrow. If we hug the coastline ’til we get back to where we were this morning do you think we’d still have time to reach Grassholm by tomorrow night?”
I considered this. I wasn’t sure how fast Belis could row, or if she would be expecting me to help. I doubted I would find long-distance rowing any easier than walking or riding.
“Let’s see how long it takes to get back to the cliffs, then we can decide.”
She dropped her pack and dug around in it for her waterskin.
She began washing sand out of the scratches on her arm.
Next, she traced a finger over the worst of them, a long red line that ran from her elbow almost to her wrist. She muttered something too low for me to hear.
As I watched, the flesh began to mould back together until the cut had completely vanished.
Belis looked pleased and began on the next.
“I’m glad to see it works. I’ve never tried a healing spell before.” She frowned in concentration as her skin repaired itself.
“What about Cati?” I asked.
Belis stiffened and stopped her muttering. “Apart from that.”
“That’s quite a spell to forget. It’s the reason we’re here, after all.”
“It wasn’t strictly speaking a healing spell,” Belis said, prodding her arm with her finger and not looking at me.
“Then what was it?” I asked, alarmed. “What were you trying to do?”
“It is not important.”
I stood up, resting my hands on my hips and glaring down at her.
“Tell me the truth!”
Belis looked down. Her finger pressed against a scratch, causing blood to pool around her nail. I grabbed her hand and pulled it away, smearing her blood on my own hands.
“Tell me!” I said, still holding her hand.
“The spell I was doing, I learned it from a druid, like I told you.” Belis hesitated.
“But it wasn’t a healing spell. It was a spell of sacrifice.
It takes life from one source and gives it to another.
I saw them kill a goat once to try and make the crops grow.
I remembered the words. I heard the chief of the Trinovantes had three slaves killed to save his own life. I thought it would work for me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You truly don’t know?” She gave a short laugh. “I thought you had figured it out. Humans really all look the same to you, don’t they.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Belis dropped my hand and lifted up her tunic. The skin of her stomach was pale and freckled, but a jagged scar sliced across her abdomen. It had almost healed to a fine silvery line.
“Cati wasn’t the one who was injured in the battle. I was. She and my mother carried me to the clearing. My mother took poison.”
At first I didn’t understand the implication of what she had said, but then it struck me like a blow from an axe.
“You – you used her life force to heal yourself? You weren’t trying to heal her, you were trying to kill her!”
I tried to keep my voice steady, but it wavered.
I was surprised by how shocked I was at her confession.
I had seen horrifying things in my thousands of years of life, acts of violence between lovers, parents, siblings.
I had thought there was no horror left to shake me, but all those nameless, numberless bodies had been nothing to me and this was Belis, who had become a comrade to me.
She hung her head, the words spilling out now as if she had broken some internal dam.
“I didn’t mean to kill her. At first I was trying to pull from the trees, from the life around us, but it wasn’t enough.
The spell was already in progress and I was so desperate to live.
I tried to pull at my mother. She had already taken the poison by then.
I thought she wouldn’t care either way, but Cati was right beside me.
Once I’d realised that I had grabbed onto her instead.
I thought to just take a little of her life.
Just a little. But then I couldn’t stop. ”
“Couldn’t?” I said softly. “Don’t lie to me, Belis.”
“I…” she gasped. “It was a mistake at first but then I didn’t want to let go.
I didn’t want to die. Oh, gods, Mallt! I wanted to live so much, more than I loved Cati, more than I wanted to make my mother proud, more than anything else.
I clung to life like a rat. I didn’t know that it would kill Cati, but I don’t know that it would have made a difference. I was too far gone to care.”
I sat down beside her again, looking out at the sea.
“I thought a chance at life was worth any price. Now I have nothing but shame and regret.” Belis turned to me, grabbing at my hands. I tried to wriggle free but she was stronger. I stared at her face, struck by the pain in her expression.
“I’m tortured by my sister’s face. I see her everywhere, her hair in the burnished leaves of the autumn trees, her eyes in the mossy stones, her laughter in the bubbling streams. I was her other half and I betrayed her.
I was supposed to be the oak that sheltered her, but I let my fear choke me and now I am hollow.
I cannot go on without Cati. I will journey to Annwn and offer my own soul for hers and then go gladly into death. Only then can I find peace.”
She glanced over at me. “And that doesn’t even cover what I’ve done to you.”