Empire's Daughter by Marian L Thorpe

Author:Marian L Thorpe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: saga, series, lgbtq+, feminist, alternative history, alternate history, historical fantasy, dark ages, medieval
Publisher: Arboretum Press
Published: 2015-02-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

We did not find our man that afternoon, or that night. Late in the afternoon, we lit the pyre at the water’s edge. Gille escorted Kolmas, shackled like all the other men, to the site, so that he could speak a few words over his dead kinsman and bear witness to the flames. He surveyed the pyre, and the bodies, nodding solemnly.

"This is good," he said. "We burn our dead, or, if death finds a man at sea, we give him to the waters. They will go to our gods this way. I thank you.”

He said a few words in his own language, raising his shackled hands up to the sky, as far as he could, then bowing to the ocean. Gille strode forward to push the lighted torch into the wood of the pyre. Drenched in oil, it caught quickly. The wood crackled. Smoke rose, almost straight up. For a while, it smelled only of wood. Then a smell of roasting meat overpowered the clean smell of the woodsmoke, and I could hear the hiss of fat. Around me, women turned away with hands over their mouths. I swallowed the rush of cold saliva but did not move.

The stars shone in the western sky before the pyre had burned to the strand. The incoming tide would wash the beach clean. Tomorrow, we buried our dead.

I slept for a few hours between dawn and mid-morning. When I woke, the first of the heavy autumn fogs hung, grey and cold, over the village. I washed in cold water, shivering, and dressed in clean clothes before walking up to Tice’s cottage. Salle met me there, along with Casse and Dari, who had volunteered to be the other two bearers.

"I spoke to Gille and Sara about postponing the burials because of the fog," Casse told us. "They debated it and decided we must go ahead. The fog could last for days, and we need to bring the mothers and children down from the caves. They cannot stay there indefinitely.”

"They’re guarded," I said, "and Cael does not know the village. The fog will provide protection for us.”

"Let us hope so," Casse answered.

We wrapped Tice’s body in a woven sheet of deep blues and reds, the colours of her pots, and placed it on the stretcher. Then, each taking one corner, and, guarded by Aline and Camy, we carried her up to the burial ground. We walked carefully and slowly, gauging where we walked by the familiar curves of the path and the shapes of trees and boulders that loomed out of the fog. Focusing on my steps took my mind away from our burden.

As we neared the burial ground, I heard the voices of other women.

"Lena?" I heard my sister ask.

"Here," I answered, stopping. Kira stepped out of the fog.

"Let me guide you," she said, glancing down at the stretcher. "The graves are to your left. Come up higher, this way." We followed her, laying the stretcher where she indicated. The other dead lay in place.

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