Beginnings

I stood in useless outrage amid the twisted broken forms of those who had been my charges, my wards, my sisters and my daughters. Already were the black birds of Macha circling, diving to peck and steal the empty flesh that once was warm, to lift in gnarled claw some wet bright eye that had only recently twinkled in joy or mischief when catching my own. Black things of destruction they were, and for that moment I saw them as hateful, ugly feathered things so unlike the silver, gold, and green plumes of my own Lady’s lovely companions as to be necessarily of some other race altogether, and not possibly to be placed together and called the one name of “birds.” But even as I thought this, I chided myself; hateful they may be, at times, but they only serve their purpose, and clear the dead to make way for the living. My tempers, vented upon the hapless creatures, were misplaced; it was not they whom I wished to charge, not they who should be frightened and scattered and made to leave this place, but those others--those hateful others, in their bright burnished armor and red-plumed finery, those others who came with foreign swords and foreign ways, whose eyes were filled not with simple destruction, but with hate and malice and glee in death. Those were they whom I wished I could yet pelt with stones and make leap back as even now I drove away the Macha’s simple-minded servants. Rome . . . the very sound of the word was hateful, and I cried my impotent rage to an empty sky, hating even my own warm heart that beat strongly while all those other beloved hearts lay still.

Mine were not all who had perished, but the vile men who came and left had drug away their own--I could see the markings of the task--and left mine broken, empty, scattered. I kicked at the places where those other bodies had fallen, wishing upon them the viciousness they had inflicted upon my companions. But this gesture, too, was as useless as my hoarse screams, for my feet found only red mud and innocent empty dust; I kicked no Roman bodies that day. Why had all this fallen, when I was away, and not here to add my defenses to the others’? And, had I been here, would I have been enough to bring an outcome more different than adding my own corpse to these others? Never could I know, now, when all was past.

For I had been a half-night’s furious ride away, when my gut twisted and wrenched with the knowledge that many of those I loved were in horrible danger. And though I leapt from the table, startling and confusing some of the younger learned men and women there, seeing reflected in the eyes of some others my own stark terror and sense of wrongness, and fled into the night, it was not enough. The hell-ride through the darkness, the scratches of limbs and brambles ignored as I pressed my poor mount racing through places where she’d not otherwise have dared to walk, in the cold dark night--was not enough. Though I sent my fury ahead of me, twisting and screaming like a banshee, faster than any mortal mount could ride, it was not enough. For when I and my exhausted horse arrived at where we should have been the night before, only the gray dawn greeted us, a land the color of an old woman’s hair, who knows that life is past and coming, but is not now. Colorless it was, and bleak, but silent neither to ears nor nose. For the birds cried loudly, as they hopped about in the wake of battle, and the scent was still the scent of sweat, of blood, of excrement and death.

I cried, then, not in grief but in frustration, frustration that all had already come to pass, and I not here to give my all to stop it. Hot, angry tears I cried, and hot, angry words as well, words of such heat and anger that they are best forgotten, though they remain etched forever in my mind.

I cried out against all who could have helped--were our gods not as powerful as their gods? Why should the vile Romans be allowed to violate our land, our bodies, our lives, to take and to kill and to destroy all that we had held dear for generations?

I moved, too, among the bodies of the fallen, seeking some low moan, some fluttering pulse, some sign that not all were lost. But I found none, and determined then to do what little was left, to those who had entrusted their lives to my care, and lost them.

There were none to sing me a shield as I guided them, but guide them I would. The black smoke of a pyre might draw back their slayers, but a pyre I would give them. Those who had come to me had sworn a family’s allegiance to our band, trusting in one another to guide and protect and avenge, should such be needed, and if I alone was left, then I alone would fulfill this last remaining trust. If this effort cost me my life, then I would pay that cost, but only if I achieved it fully, and only if I was no longer to be of any use to my people.

And because of that last, I stopped, and breathed, and forced myself to think rather than only to rage. Was I truly of no use, without my companions? I had lived long, and trained many. Long it had been since first I began to learn the ways of power, the ways that had excused me from learning those of the sword. It was said, when I was a child, that one person could not master both, but this long war and my band had proved that belief mistaken--many of my companions had come to me as straggling swordswomen, women who had fought, and lost much, but still lived to fight again. And though they came to me, I could show them nothing of the arts of sword or chariot, though I could speak words to make their horses race or their swords strike home. Those other arts, though, they could learn from one another, with effort, and it was love and mothering they needed from me. But, when faced with their wounds more numerous than I alone could heal at once, when forced to bring a silence on our camp that we may escape notice, when the need for true power came upon us more times than I dared trust myself to provide--then I began to teach them all the ways I knew, as well as their own. And when one, and then another, straggled in to us, who knew of my ways and not theirs, I gave her, and her, and her, weapons and armor, and told them to learn what I could not teach, what I now felt too old to learn. And, learn they did, the ways of the Mother and Grandmother, and the ways of the Warrior too, ways once thought impossible to mix. And so our rebuilt family, made so long after the loss of my own, became needed by our people, and strong; we slipped in where others could not, learned plans other ears could not hear, destroyed--when destruction was necessary--that which no one else could take apart. All this, because we combined what even the hateful Romans thought could not be combined. When a shadow moved, and it was not a man, they set themselves to defend against shadows. And when another shadow moved, and it was one of us, she had only to slip the metal of a sword through a shield that could hold back only shadows, and slip away, and all was done. Yes, I had been useful, and contributed, not only to those in my care, but to the whole of my People.

But after this, I had at last not been alone. There was also She . . .she who had come so late to me scarred and weary, and found her strength in becoming the source of so much of our own Strength. She had appeared in our camp, disfigured, ashamed, cast out from her father’s lands because of the shame that was not her own. How had this happened, among our own People? I cannot answer that, save to say that even those to whom I devoted the whole of my life, sometimes understood little of who they were that led me to offer myself to them. But this woman , this simple woman who had come to me, brought with her a beauty unlike any other I have known. Her physical scars were as nothing, and faded in time until others too saw only the bright lively sparkle in her eye, the fire that overcame her in battle-lust or in that other stormy passion that eventually was mine alone to know. The other scars ran deeper, but they too began to heal as she shared with us her own unique knowledge--she who had never before been fully accepted, who had spent her life fighting for her place, and now came into our midst with blades flashing. A thing from the Otherworld she seemed in battle, and I at times almost believed she was precisely that--wielding her heavy blade in both hands with no woman’s strength, or sending her matched pair of knives dancing through some mesmerizing pattern no other could hope to mimic . . .what would we have been without her? Less than we were, surely, for her skill was shared with open heart, and both the best and least among us could have asked for no surer teacher than they found in her. She was indeed my complement, the Warrior whose Art was not my own, my right hand when my left had always been my strength.

But could I be useful again, now, alone? I alone of us all had never mastered both arts, I who thought myself too old, I who believed the teaching and learning of Power to take too much time to take up a sword. Or, perhaps, I had only been unwilling to be seen as inept, I who was called Mother, to whom so many hopeful eyes turned for reassurance, confidence, and hope, I who must remain strong in appearance, for them, even when my innards ran like water murky with fear. I could, perhaps, teach again, in some place where only my own Art was taught--such places still existed, to the North, and across the sea to the West, and might welcome me. But my ways would be seen as aberrent, frightening, and the more so because those in my care had fallen--how could I explain that I had sheltered these women, taught them my Art and asked them to learn the skills of the Warrior as well, not because of any philosophy or insight but through simple necessity? And how could I hope to convince anyone that we had been in the right, when I alone had survived, and I alone had not mixed what should not be mixed?

Even she, so skilled with blade or without, had taken up my craft, had in fact excelled as a healer; she knew the need of such skills in the tight places in which we survived, knew the woods and the moors intimately and had taken so very little teaching to open her ears to the voices of the life within that offered their healing secrets to her touch. And so she who taught us the ways of Death knew also the ways of Life, and I loved her as dearly as I loved my own devoted Lady, this woman who was no goddess but a simple being like myself, and yet was so much more as well.

These thoughts, memories both light and dark, I pulled across me as my own shield as I moved among those I had loved, moving them with no strength but my own to where I could guide them one last time, trying not to look into the open shining sightless eyes, needing to recognize them and speak their names but needing also to distance myself from the stench and sorrow that was here and now. I tore apart what remained of our tents, our supplies, anything that would burn to make their pyre, for I would not be able to gather the proper woods alone, and could think of no better fuel for their fire than all that had been our lives together. I myself needed nothing; the land and my People would provide for what little it would take to sustain me if I survived this day, and I could not bear to take with me anything from this life that was lost to me now, forever.

Forever? With this thought the bile rose from the depths of my being, rose screaming from my throat as painful words that shrieked across the fields, caught up in the air and swirled with it into a black nothingness that reeked of my own deepfelt loss as sorely as the physical landscape reeked of death and offal. My curse I saw manifest in the very energies around me, and even as I watched it take shape I could not halt the cries that issued from my being . . . I was but witness to my own act, a cowering listener with inner ears covered against the savage sound of my own voice crying out against those who had brought all this to pass. But my words bound me all the same, bound me and them together, bound those others who had committed the atrocities against my people to share with me the Fate I cast for us all. Every one of them, I swore, would come to know the truth of their beloved Roman Empire, every one would fall before the sword that he had wielded with such hubris . . . but more . . . every one of them would not only fall, but rise again, rise to look me in the eye and answer the truth of the pain they knew. And when I heard that truth, when each in his turn had fallen and no longer held the power of armies behind him but fled instead in their path . . . I would offer solace . . . I would accept the responsibility of earning and giving them love, and would stand by each as he made himself anew. If each one took a thousand lifetimes to heal, heal him I would, at whatever cost to my soul, and thus drive him from the Empire more surely than could any sword or oath of loyalty. I would not be satisfied with death and vengeance; I must complete the cycle and know rebirth and healing, must take each broken man by the hand and guide him myself to become all that had been his potential before the Roman corruption infested him. Killing these tyrants would but free them to a new life; instead, I would offer myself as guide and companion until the monsters were monsters no more. Thus it was not these men alone, but Rome herself who would know my vengeance, as I stole these men from her one by one as she had stolen my beloved companions from me. However long it took, whatever shape the Empire became, these men would be mine, devoted to my People and to themselves *as* selves, and I would spend a thousand lifetimes with each if it took it to exact my vengeance. My camp lay in ruins, all those I had loved lay broken upon a bloody field, but it was Rome that had fallen this day, and I would see it happen.

And even as the last of my words were torn from my throat by grief and anger and sheer hatred, I saw her, she whom above all I had not wanted to find, had needed to find, and my blood ran cold. It had to run cold, for it pulsed through her veins, was moved by her heart, and her heart was still as all the others; I was left with nothing. As I bent to touch her brow, to close her eyes, I marvelled that it had been her touch alone more skilled in healing than my own--at least for the sorts of wounds that claim lives in pools of blood--and now her hands were lifeless, her great talent laid to waste before me, and she could not bring back the light to her own eyes. Were these the eyes that had laughed into my own when I rode away, a few days or eons past, and teased me so for missing her before I’d left? Were these the hands, the skillful healer’s hands, the Warrior’s hands, that had reached for my most intimate places in merry jest as I mounted my eager horse to ride away? Were these the smiling, teasing lips, these the exuberant dancing feet, these the beloved hips that rose pleading to meet me in the darkness of a still night? I could not think, could not remember, could not contemplate. And although I could not do these things, a sudden realization came to me, of what I had done, to myself, to her, to us, in those hateful shrieking words that had escaped my throat but moments before. Binding myself to vengeance I had cost us both our love, for how would she ever have me if I were joined to each of those many men in turn, leading each away from Rome and onto whatever path best suited his spirit? If it took me a thousand thousand lifetimes to accomplish that task, it would take yet one more before I could hope that she would have me again--and with this realization my spirit broke, and I crumpled upon her lifeless form and cried, sobbed not only for the lost life within the broken form, not only for the twinkling eyes I would never see again in this lifetime, but for the true sister-lover of my soul who would touch no body I wore for . . . how long? Not even the gods could know how long the task I had set myself would take, and I had made my oath to it, could not now violate it without violating myself, and that I also could not do--not and hope to keep this woman who was more to me than life, more to me than spirit, more to me than any love I had ever had, in any sense save that for my Lady.

She had fallen, I could see, not to sword but to that which I should have shielded her from, while she opened herself to reach out in healing touch--to whom? I could not know this last, for all around her lay the possibilities as still as she. She had never hesitated to do this even on the field of battle, for she knew my shield would weave itself around her, and I would never leave her vulnerable--but I had not been here. Had she risked herself this way knowingly, considering her options and choosing this course as the best of what was then available? Or had it been simple instinct, born of a false security in what should have been here and was not? Either way, I had failed her as I had failed them all. And so she lay unmarked, still bearing no scar born of blade save that one remaining mark of a childhood better left forgotten, but cold and still all the same.

I do not know how long I lay across her corpse, wracked by sobs, alone with Death. I know only that after some time I became aware of movement, of wary wolves and plucking crows, of the subtle stirrings of those who had fallen, and gathered, fearful to undertake any journey without the sacred smoke to guide them, without a living soul to walk with them and return. And so I roused myself, and haunted the wolves from the field myself, and tore back into this final task I set for myself. What I would do would be the last act of this life, for if I survived it I would be someone born anew, would take a new name and a new home and never return to this place, to this life. If this body remained it would yet be something reborn, for I could not bear to keep with me any shred of what had been.

And so it was that I stepped into the Abyss that once unshielded, without a firm tether, without caring if I returned from whence I Journeyed or not. The pyre I had made burned bright, but there were no drums, no wailings, no sound at all save its cracklings to secure me here when my own bonds were at their weakest. Together this final time we rode across a landscape known, but unknown, all the hills and waters and growing things alive, familiar, but subtly different, too, as in quiet procession we travelled as a company again. She rode beside me, at first not choosing to meet my eye, perhaps angry herself--I could feel her anger at what I had done, to her, to us, to me--but then I saw her stiffness subside, and she paused, and did look into my eyes, to forgive and love with a silent fullness that was more than I could bear . . . and I pressed my heels into my horse’s flank, and raced away from her, from all of them, riding far ahead, wanting to lose myself in this terrain that was not my place, wanting to ride and ride through the endless landscape and disappear into it, into some secret place where healing was simply oblivion. But I could not, because I had begun this Journey as their guide, and all I did by racing away was to tax their strength in keeping pace with me; they *could* not be left behind, for such was not the nature of this journey. And so I slowed, and rode again, but could not meet her eyes, could not see there the love that forgave what I could not forgive, the acceptance and understanding that I could not offer to myself or comprehend in her.

We reached the river, where stood the Washer, and she offered each of my companions in turn a clean suit of clothes, while I watched, haunted by the longing to find my own garments among them. When I could bear no more I tore the shirt from my breast, and plunged it into the water where She stood, offering it to her, begging her, but she stood stony, ignoring me, and did not see. And then they rode across where I could not follow, and I was alone, and even the Washer was no longer there, and I turned my back and rode away, freeing the reins of my steed now for the hell-ride I had spared my companions before. The pounding hooves echoed those that had pounded only a night before, and indeed they bore me to the same place, save that now I returned to a scene complete, where nothing was left for me at all.

And even without any tether, even without any desire to return, I found myself lying upon the cold damp ground in the grey dawn, the embers beside me reeking of burnt flesh and broken bones. I gazed at it for a long moment, my eyes held by the now-misshapen scabbard that lay where She had lain, resting empty on bones I never wanted to see laid bare. She was so much younger than me, I should have been spared the sight of her blackened bones lying on cooling embers--and if she had fallen in battle as a warrior should, at least her sword should have been in her hand, clasped in black bony fingers even now. But the hated Romans had taken even that from her, had claimed her sword among their prizes, and so she had lain with only her dull empty battered scabbard across her chest--and now there was not, truly, even that.

How I wanted her back again! I wanted all of them back--all those whom I had loved, who had become to me the family of my heart! And my own lips had uttered the curse that would keep me from them even after this life had passed, would bind me to its fulfillment at any expense to my very soul. Was this a sacrifice I would make again, consciously? Or was it something that could only have come from the depths of anger and grief? I could not know, for hate and sorrow and anger had torn themselves from me and become tangible before the bright east wind had brought clear thought. All I could know was that anger had cost me love, and somewhere deep inside, perhaps from almost as deep as that other oath had sprung, a new resolve took shape, a resolve that anger would for me be henceforth a thing unknown, would never again rule my spirit when love or reason might act as kinder guides in its stead.

I felt, then, a slight pulsing in the ground, a subtle movement that would have been beyond detection if all were not so still around me--but even the crows seemed silent and fled, and this portent was not lost on my senses any more than was the minute rhythmic pounding of the earth beneath my bare feet. I looked, then, at the thin tendril of black smoke that rose still from my pyre, and I knew, knew that what would come could not be otherwise. Too late it was to throw myself on the burning embers beside me, for they would never consume me in time, and I had not the strength left to seek a slow death when I could find a fast one. My own tiny blade I could not by oath turn upon any who did not threaten, even to take my own life, and there were no other shards of steel remaining; the Romans had taken them all, and I had already destroyed any that might have been left behind as unworthy even of pillage.

And so I stood, and dropped even my cloak . . .stood naked to face the approach of that pounding as it grew more insistant. I knew that they came, if not how many, and I would not stand against them. If they saw no more than a naked old woman beside a pyre, and suffered her to live, then live I would, albeit in a new place with a new name. And if they freed my life from this empty husk I would be grateful, for it was no more than I longed to do myself, and could not. Either way, I would be reborn this day, and the I who was I, would not walk away from this place. Odd it seemed that the gray dawn had not progressed further, that only a day and a night ago I had sat weary at council . . . but such was the way of things, and life was only life if it was lived without fear of death, even for those of us here.

Would I ever return to this wall, to this place where so much had transpired? Perhaps, but it might be a thousand lifetimes from now before I could let myself remember it. Even as the first muted shape appeared on the horizon, I wrapped all my memories, all my loves and hates and all the rest, inside my cloak, and cast it on the glowing remains of the fire. It sparked to life beside me, and bathed in its sudden glow, my last thought was to wonder when the time would come at last to reclaim all that I thus preserved, as I turned naked to the dark horse that rode out of a gray dawn, and wondered why it approached.

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