Highland Raven

Chapter 7

“Come. There is much to discuss,” Epona said. She took my hand and led me around the back of her house. We followed a worn path through the woods.

“I want to tell you a few things so you feel more comfortable and understand more of what will happen in the next few days,” she explained. “First, you will be renamed. This is the hardest for some to deal with so I want you to get used to the idea. Also, let me tell you why you will be renamed. Here, we worship the Goddess. The names we take are our Goddess names. We take them in service of the Great Mother. Do I need to explain her to you?”

I shook my head. We all knew the mother of the land, the lady of the earth and hunt. She was our Goddess before the White Christ came.

“You will be renamed according to which aspect of the Goddess best fits you. It will be your Goddess name. Use it only amongst us. Your name is special and powerful. Anyone who knows your true name holds power over you. All of the other women here have been renamed except Ludmilla. Like you, Ludmilla has not had a renaming ceremony. I was named Epona because of my love of horses. As well, medicine, fertility, crops, language and divination all fall under my thumb.

“Uald is named for a Goddess who was a weaponsmith, a hunter, a forester. Druanne, as is obvious from her name, is Druid-taught. She is one of the last of the old kind. Aridmis is of the silver wheel; she reads the heavens. Bride, named for the cheerful spirit of the spring maid inside her, now belongs to the Crone. She has performed the Croning ceremony, an ancient ritual done by women who have ceased their menses. Taith, who we call Tully, you have not met. She is our scout. She travels from hidden coven to hidden coven, keeping a network amongst us alive. She won’t be back for several months,” Epona explained.

“And the ninth?”

Epona and I reached a spring that ran out of the side of one of the steep hills surrounding the grove. The water fell first onto a little rocky ledge and then into a large pool that was several feet deep. Coins and jewels lay on the ledge.

“Feel free to drink or bathe here, but give thanks to Anwyn, the lady of this spring, when you do.”

Bending down, I pulled a small silver band from my pinky and laid it under the water with the rest of the treasures. In my mind, I whispered a greeting to the Goddess and then took a drink. The water was cool and metallic tasting. It felt icy as it slid down my throat.

Epona drank as well, offering a whispered prayer under her breath.

A rustling came from the brush nearby, and much to my surprise, a woman with brown hair that stretched to her feet fell out of the bushes. Dressed in a mishmash of animal skins and woven cotton clothing, she looked wildly about her and appeared to be talking to the incorporeal air. Her hair was knotted and full of leaves and twigs. Her face, while beautiful, was very dirty. She stopped suddenly as if someone had addressed her and, turning her head quickly, she looked at Epona and me.

“Our ninth. I wanted you to meet her without the other women around,” Epona said quietly. “She is…different,” she added then, turned to the woman. “Come, Sid. Meet your new sister.”

The woman she called Sid rushed toward us. When she reached the spring she fell to her knees. Muttering, she took a quick drink from the spring then looked up at me, water dripping from her chin.

“Darkness has come. They saw you near the loch,” the woman said to me.

I raised an eyebrow at her. “At the loch? I saw no one at the loch.”

Sid laughed, her eyes glimmering. “The dragonflies…of course, they were not really dragonflies…it was their sharp eyes that spotted you when you came the first time with Mad Elaine. They were afraid you would fly down with your raven beak and snatch them up. And you picked snowdrops, which made them afraid.”

Puzzled, I didn’t know what to say.

She took advantage of my silence. “They’ve seen her flying,” she told Epona.

“To where?”

“Through the night. On the silver thread.”

“Yes, but to where did they see her go?”

“They will not say. They say,” Sid said, then paused and tilted her ear as if to listen, “that you will learn soon enough.”

Epona frowned.

“They will forgive you for taking up snowdrops if you will leave them cream tonight and come with me to the barrow at sunup,” Sid told me.

I looked to Epona.

She nodded. “Fine.”

“Ah, darkness, they hear your cries already. But you are an avenger, so what can you do?” Sid asked. She hopped from stone to stone across the small creek to me. She came close beside me and took my hand. She looked at me with sympathy. “I love them but they knot my hair,” she whispered in my ear. She stopped and looked suddenly at her shoulder. “Not you, love, the brownies.”

“Where have you been?” Epona asked her.

“The Seelies are holding court.”

I knew the brownies. They were the riders of the pine marten; they were the six-inch-high brown-haired fey. And there was not a child alive who didn’t know who the Seelies were. They were the fair-folk of the mound, the barrows, the place this strange woman wanted to take me the next morning. They were the faerie people who had walked the land before our kind—mankind—had come.

“What of the Unseelies?” Epona asked.

Sid sighed heavily. “First they would not come, though they thought they might. Then they sent Rhiannon. Then they all came. It was a joyous and merry event. We celebrated a good many days.”

We turned again and headed back toward the houses.

“Sister, you must be sure to eat. We’ll join in the house at sundown. Be sure to come,” Epona told Sid when we reached grove.

Sid nodded. “I am told my house is a mess and mischief will be afoot if I do not clean it.”

Without another word, Sid rushed off speaking harshly with…her shoulder. Ludmilla, who’d gone back to working on the fire, watched Sid skeptically.

“Well?” Epona asked me. She looked in the direction of Sid.

She seemed mad. Talking with apparitions, dressed like a mad woman, speaking of old things, Sid showed all the signs of madness. Yet by the old ways deep within me, I knew she was not crazy. “She is in communication with the faeries.”

“Sid was a victim,” Epona said as she sat down on a wooden bench in front of her house. “To the normal eye, she does appear mad. Long ago, a courtly lady took pity on her. They found Sid when she was just a girl, naked, in the woods. She was taken to court, cleaned up, and sent to the kitchens. Sid spoke hardly at all, and when she did speak, it was in this same distracted manner. The lord of the house took kindly to her form, I’m sure you noticed she is striking under all that mess, and begot a bastard child on her. She birthed the child then bashed it on the hearth until it was dead. She was taken from the castle, flogged, and sold to a group of traveling entertainers. They kept her in a cage; she was left talking nonsense as she did in the beginning, and people paid a price to see her. They tortured her for amusement. She still bears scars.

“I found her on one excursion into Wales. I purchased her, mended her wounds, and brought her back with me. It took me awhile to help her reconcile what she saw and the voices she heard to what I, and you, see in this world. She has bridged a large gap.

“Her trips to the other side, however, leave her physical body in a state of disrepair. She has been gone nearly two weeks. I doubt she has eaten human food. When you go with her to the barrow tomorrow, be prepared for an unusual experience,” Epona told me.

“About the child she killed. I understand her anger, but—“ I was aghast.

“Perhaps, one day, she will tell you the tale, and you can decide for yourself how you feel about such an act,” Epona said with a sigh. “She has borne another child since. It was, she tells me, to the Seelie King. I saw the child after it was born but have not seen it since. She tells me he lives with his father.”

“You don’t travel where she goes?”

Epona shook her head. “No one has ever been able to follow Sid.”

I nodded. My competitive urge splashed up.

“Ah, I see it in your eyes. I hope you can. Sid would thank you for it.”

Uald joined us. “Perhaps we should see to your horse now?”

I nodded and stood.

“Come for dinner thereafter,” Epona said and went within.

I followed Uald to the little wooden barn that sat on the right of the grove entrance. A small, fenced pasture was behind the barn; two mares grazed there. Toward one side of the barn was a smithy with stone half-walls and a wooden roof. Behind it was a little room where, it seemed, Uald stayed.

“I do metal working. Are you interested in such things?” Uald asked.

“I’d love to learn.”

“I’d love to teach you…Elaine’s foster daughter. If you ever need anything, want anything, you can always come to me. Your aunt is very special to me,” Uald told me with a smile then pushed the wide barn door open. I led Kelpie inside. The other animals neighed excitedly at the sight of a stallion. My horse, smelling the mares around him, pranced and snorted. I grinned at the lot of them and then put Kelpie out to pasture to meet his new friends.

We left the horses to their prancing and went into the smithy. Uald had been busy hammering spoons and swords. Metal tools hung from the walls and rafters and equipment sat lined up neatly on a table. Carefully piled wood and kindling for the large fire pit lined the wall.

“I sell some of what I make in exchange for the things we need,” Uald said, then lifted a sword off her workbench. It was a fine weapon. The hilt had been decorated with engraved leaves.

“It’s beautiful.”

“I made a dagger for your father once. It must have taken me a hundred casts to get it right. I molded a small raven figure to sit on the hilt. Did you ever see it?”

I thought back, scant images of my father bubbling up in my memory. I did remember him having a fine dagger he wore on his belt. “Maybe…”

“I always wondered what happened to that dagger. I hoped you had it. Perhaps it will find its way home to you some day.”

I smiled. It was easy to see why Madelaine, who, like me, had grown up with genteel ladies, liked Uald. I doubted that she had any patience for talk of babes and sewing. “Did you know my father?” I asked.

Uald smiled, her lips pulling into a smirk again. She looked away from me and stared out into the forest. She smiled then nodded. I could tell her mind was busy. “Boite the raven. Yes, I knew him well, but that’s a tale for another day. Come on,” she said, then led me back to Epona’s house.

The sky was turning red. I couldn’t believe the day had passed so quickly. Night was coming, and I could feel it in my bones. The puppy scampered from the door frame of my new home. I picked her up and carried her to Epona’s house.

Sid emerged from her cottage. She had rid herself of her furs and wore a plain gray dress that was far too large for her. Her hair, however, remained as I had seen it earlier. I set the pup down and joined Uald in washing my hands in a basin near the door. The fuzzy pup went to Sid.

“Oh my, oh my,” she said as she bent down to scratch the pup’s head. “Better get a talisman,” she said to Epona who stood in the open doorway.

The white-headed woman nodded.

“Why?” I asked.

“Oh, the little meddlers are always up to mischief,” Sid said then scolded her shoulder. “No, no, not you.”

Inside, Ludmilla, Druanne, Aridmis, and Bride had already seated themselves. I sat beside Sid. Her face looked quite sunken, and her body was very thin. Despite her peculiarities, or perhaps because of them, I found I liked her both instantly and intensely.

Epona, who had taken the head seat, looked at each of us and then bowed her head. I followed her in the gesture.

“Mother, we thank you for providing us with food, and we thank you for bringing our ninth to us. Guide us in your will. Protect Tully, who is far from us. Use us, Mother, for your ends. We are your daughters. Blessed be.”

The women stirred, and I opened my eyes. I was filled with warmth and light, the comforts of the hearth. They passed flatbread and crocks of stew around the table. Honeyed butter perfumed the room. Everything looked and smelled wonderful.

“I hope this meager food is to your taste, My Lady,” Druanne said then.

At first I did not realize she was speaking to me. Everyone at the table grew still. I looked up to find Druanne’s eyes on mine.

“You must be used to more sophisticated tastes,” she added. She smiled weakly at me, but her eyes were cold.

I saw Uald shift uncomfortably. She passed a glance to Epona, but the white-haired woman held her tongue.

“Nothing tastes better than a meal made by the loving hands of a mother or sister,” I replied, feeling the warmth I’d felt only moments before leave me. What reason did this woman have to dislike me? I’d only just arrived.

“Droll, droll. Like a beetle clicking. Pick a new tune, Druanne,” Sid said then shoved a bite of bread into her mouth.

Uald chuckled.

Aridmis cleared her throat. “When will we begin planning for Beltane?” she asked Epona.

Druanne looked away.

Epona smiled. “Is your blood stirring?”

“Me?” Aridmis said with a laugh that sounded like a chiming bell. “If I recall correctly, last year it was you who disappeared with that bald-headed Druid into the night.”

Everyone, save Druanne, giggled.

“True,” Epona said. “True enough,” she said with a wink. “You’re right. We should begin our plans. Balor and his men, including a new student, will be coming for the festivities. I have also asked the bards of the North to return. They seemed pleased at the invitation.”

“Of course they were pleased,” Uald grunted.

“Who is Balor’s new student?” Bride asked.

“A very promising acolyte; his name is Banquo.”

“Will you be here, Sid?” Aridmis asked.

“I should, but you know the barrows.”

“So when you say you’ll be back at Beltane, it means we’ll see you at the festival of Lughnassadh?” Uald said with a laugh.

Sid grinned at Uald.

“Will we have a maypole?” Ludmilla asked.

Druanne nodded. “As is customary. Pardon me, Epona, but I have already put together a list of tasks that need to be completed for the celebration. I will, however, need to make some adjustments since I didn’t know you invited additional guests.”

Epona only smiled then turned to me: “Druanne is in charge of the holiday celebrations. As one of the last female acolytes of the Druidic ways, she can best teach you the mysteries of the high holy days,” Epona told me.

“When will I begin her training?” Druanne asked Epona.

“She is going with Sid tomorrow, so I don’t know when she will be back. When she returns, however, I’d like to place her in Uald’s care until Beltane. By then, Ludmilla and Corbie will both be ready for their name-taking.”

“She will begin with Uald? Are you sure that is the wisest—”

“That is what we shall do,” Epona replied, cutting Druanne off.

Sid, arguing with the phantom of her shoulder, distracted us all. After some heated discussion she said, “I am told Corbie’s goddess has already revealed herself, that she already has a name.”

Epona set her spoon down. “And?”

Sid frowned.

“They won’t tell you?”

Sid shook her head.

“Come, Nadia, tell us,” Epona said, addressing Sid’s shoulder.

“They are forbidden to speak,” Sid answered.

“Who dares forbid our Good Neighbors?” Epona asked, looking very upset.

The other women looked from Epona, to me, to Sid.

I listened.

“You know who. Who has the courage and power to dare?” Sid replied then turned back to her food.

Epona looked at me then frowned. “Well, we will learn soon enough.”

One by one, each of the sisters departed after their meal. Druanne, I noticed, left in a huff without speaking to the others. Bride was still finishing her meal and chatting with Uald and Epona when I rose to leave. I filled a cup with a little cream, as Sid had suggested, then wished everyone goodnight.

Outside, I spotted Aridmis sitting at the side of the well. She held a large piece of parchment in her hands and was drawing on it as she looked toward the heavens.

“What do you see in those stars for me, seer?” I jested.

“Under what moon where you born?”

“I was born of the water bearer in the year 1010.”

“Let me look,” Aridmis said and peered into the night’s sky. She scribbled on her paper. “What do you want to know, fair or foul?”

I shrugged. “Often, what’s fair is foul and foul is fair.”

“You will wear a crown.”

“A crown?” Quite involuntarily my hand drifted toward my head.

“It’s not so bad a fate,” she said, looking again to her papers.

“But wed to whom? To Duncan?”

Aridmis smiled. “That I can’t quite see. But I do know one thing about Duncan.”

“What’s that?”

“He should beware of valkyries.”

Speechless, I stood quietly at her side for several minutes.

“Goodnight, sister,” Aridmis said, looking up. Her voice prompted me from my stillness.

“Yes, goodnight.”

I would wear a crown. What crown? At the side of what king? My mind boggled at the idea.

That night I dreamed I lay in Sid’s bed and cried. I saw Epona’s white hair and could hear her comforting voice, but I could not see what was the matter. All I knew was that I was hurt. Some part of my body ached terribly, and the room seemed very hot. It seemed to me that Madelaine was there, but I could not be certain. I heard Druanne chanting, her dry droning voice calling the Goddess. My body was soaked with sweat.

Then the pain cleared, and I was in a soft bed with rich coverings. I rolled over to find a pure white back in my face, masculine muscles curving smoothly. My hands roved upon his skin. The man turned to look at me. He had raven-black hair and clear blue eyes, and those eyes were filled with love.