I’d met Dreon’s offspring. A wild pack of stoats, more like.
“Well,” I said, “seeing as you’re such a master of your own fine progeny, perhaps you’d like to try a hand at fostering mine.”
“Nay.” He frowned. “And rob you of the joy?”
I waved him off and found Gwenddolau and Angharad crouched at the water’s edge, looking upstream.
“We call this water Wildburn,” Gwenddolau said, bending to splash his face. Droplets clung to his golden beard, and when he stood, he shook the water from his head like a dog, smiling at his niece.
“Wildburn.” Angharad looked about. She’d drawn the black feathers from her cloak and clutched them like a doll. “Uncle.” She turned to me. “Is it true there’s a ring of stones nearby?”
“Aye. Just beyond that rise.”
Her face brightened, a joy to see. “May we go there? May we go now?”
“Indeed,” I said. “I’m to train you as a Keeper, am I not? Here you are, eight winters, and you haven’t yet stepped foot in your first ring of stones. Come now, and we shall see them.”
“The midges will be upon us,” Gwenddolau called after us. “Mind that Angharad has some salve.”
“Seems I’m not the only mother hen,” I said beneath my breath. Stopping at my horse to take the ointment from my saddlebag, I smiled at Angharad and dropped it into my satchel.
The Dragon Warriors were moving through the rhythm of setting up camp: laying out bedrolls, watering the horses, and rinsing in the burn, while the youngest men gathered fuel for the fire and unpacked the cook pots. My twin sister had sent us away with great flats of dried beef and a bounty of summer crops, perfect for a stew of wild game, but her face had been ashen as we said farewell that morning. And as we’d ridden off through Cadzow’s gates—I with her youngest child before me in the saddle—I’d looked over my shoulder to see Languoreth standing on the platform of the rampart, watching us depart. It was enough to wound her that I was taking Angharad away. But her lover, too, traveled in my company.
“No ale before supper,” Malegwn called to the men. His jaw was tight as he joined Gwenddolau beside the stream. Each of us had left Cadzow carrying our burdens, it seemed.
Yet Angharad was no burden. Languoreth and I had been so very close when we were children, before our fates had compelled us to live kingdoms apart. Now, with her daughter at my side, I felt the rift somehow mended. Angharad threaded her fingers in mine as she so often had upon my visits, when she and I would walk the woods together, naming things. She had my sister’s tawny-red hair and the winter-gray eyes of her father, Rhydderch.
It felt right, in that moment, that she should be with me. That I should be training her in the way of Wisdom Keeping, raising her as my own. I felt my confidence return, pointing as we drew close. “See it there? The ring of stones lies just beyond that rise.”
But Angharad had already spotted them. “Oh,” she breathed. I wondered if the ring was quite what she’d expected.
Far to the north, I’d visited the ancient, imposing stones of Pictland—towering behemoths that brooded against molten silver skies. I’d sat within vast circles of sixty stones or more that rose amid thick sprays of heather. I’d walked, enthralled and nearly seduced within intimate stones, places where the rocks had been weathered so round that their curves resembled the finest bits of a woman’s body.
Each circle felt different, and rightly so. For buried deep at the root of the stones were the ashes of men and women who had come before, awake and then sleeping with the shifting of stars and the rise of the moon. Though flesh had failed them, rock had become their new earthly body. Now their spirits were ever present. I could feel them regarding us now, as if the stones themselves were breathing.
These stones were not set in a circle. They formed instead the shape of an egg, sunk into the moor in perpetual slumber, rimmed protectively by a gently sloping dyke. The tallest among them was scarcely the height of a man, while the others stooped, irregular and hobbled. Still, they beckoned with their own particular enchantment, and Angharad made to enter swiftly before I caught her hand.
“It is ill luck to enter without seeking permission,” I said. “These stones are guardians—men and women of old. They do not take kindly to trespassers and can cause all sort of maladies if they wish.”
Surely your mother has taught you as much, I nearly said. But Languoreth was no Wisdom Keeper. There was a time when she’d wished more than anything to train, as our own mother had. As I was Chosen to do. But Languoreth was not Chosen. The gift had fallen instead to her youngest daughter. Languoreth had known Angharad was marked. That the child possessed gifts was evident—a thought that stirred excitement in me even as it raised protectiveness in my sister.
But I, too, had seen things as a child. Things that frightened me. Things I could not understand. It was enough to make old spirits out of young ones. Perhaps this was the reason I felt so compelled to teach Angharad how to wield her gifts—so they would not become a burden. So they could not break her.
“Some Wisdom Keepers are showmen,” I told her now. “They would have our people believe that spirit speaks in great booms, like thunder. But spirit speaks in whispers. The best Keepers understand this and keep quiet so they might hear. Close your eyes and be still.”
Through the joining of our hands I could sense her, alert as a rabbit. A little fearful. And beneath the surface, sorrow issuing in a foul and muddy water. I could take it from her if I wished. Draw it into myself, and she might experience some relief. But the source of such wellsprings ran deep. Water will find its way—it would only rise up again. Better to let her come to it in her own time. Her own way.
“Be still,” I repeated. Angharad’s eyes flared with frustration, but she closed them, her cinnamon-colored lashes settling against her freckled cheeks.
I waited until her face began to soften. She had found her way to the quiet, the place where deeper meaning could reside.
“I will teach you the blessing Cathan once gave me,” I said. “Commit it to memory. The words will serve you well.” I moved through the old chant twice, then once more for good measure. “Tomorrow we will return, and those words will be yours to speak. Yes?” Angharad nodded and I released her hands. “You may enter now. Touch the stones if you like.”
“Sunwise?” she asked.
“Aye. Isn’t that the way of it all?”
A summer wind played, flapping at the corner of Angharad’s gray cloak as she stepped into the stones—a gentle sort of greeting. As she began to explore the circle, I told her what I knew of their story.
“This ring was built by your ancestors, those who came to this great island and first dwelled in the north. I speak of a time long ago—time out of memory. What you see are not only stones. They are your people, your clann. Their alignments track the course of moon and sun. The sunrise at Midwinter, the movements that mark the quarter year, too. In this way they are Time Keepers. Cathan brought me here—to this very circle—when I was but a boy. I saw for myself how this stone pairs with yonder hill.” I pointed to the slope that rose in the distance. “If you stand just here on Midwinter sunset, there is a cairn upon the summit that marks the grave of an ancient king. You can watch the evening sun slip down its curve like the yolk of an egg, until it disappears into the earth.”