Spilling Ink
Ink is thicker than blood.
It is the greatest honour.
It will please the ancestors.
It will save my people.
Blazing sparks shear from my hammer as I work white-hot iron’s edge. Each clang shivers up the bones in my arms, the scent of burning charcoal familiar, if not comforting. My master, the blacksmith Macdara, watches each turn of the handle and blow of the hammer. With the completion of this sword, I will be apprentice no longer. I cannot afford to make a mistake.
‘More heat, Ciar.’ His gruff voice rumbles through the crackle of flame. I do as he says, and plunge the glowing red sword up to the hilt into the coals as he takes over the bellows. It’s nearly done. A few more strikes.
‘Food in Fergal’s house, boys,’ my cousin, Mairenn, calls, leaning over the workshop hatch. We are always the last to hear, being furthest from the houses to prevent fire. I don’t look up, deep in concentration, but I know she’s winking at us. Bounce, strike, bounce, strike, bounce, strike.
I head for the water, sword in hand, expecting Macdara to stop me and tell me to keep working, even if it means missing a meal, but he doesn’t. I dunk the newly crafted weapon and swerve away from the hiss of steam. It’s finished.
Mairenn waits for us. We walk to the chieftain’s house together.
‘I need a new cauldron handle, when you’re ready to take a rest from grand weapons,’ she says, hooking her arm through mine. She’s practically skipping, but I’m dog-tired, and let her pull me along.
Inside the roundhouse, even though those gathered hold a steaming bowl of my cousin’s mutton stew, the mood is stale. Fergal sits on a carved oak seat, black from years spent by the fireside. On the ground, children sit cross-legged chewing their meat, and behind them, many stand. Most of the tribe is here, somehow packed into one roundhouse. We are almost silent. So we aren’t here to celebrate my succession to smithy.
‘The rains fell for too long this season,’ he begins. One child swallows with a gulp. ‘The barley and rye have failed.’
Expressions sour from concern to maudlin.
‘We head into the forests, as our ancestors did, to reap its bounty,’ Elisedd, a dear friend of mine, finds the courage to speak.
‘And our neighbours will do the same. There will not be enough for everyone,’ Fergal says. His sharp grey eyes rove over us, snaring us one by one. He speaks from experience. ‘Our scouts hear talk of war in the hills, and we must be ready.’
Dozens of jaws work the food as we speak idly of death. My mouth waters at the smell of grease while my stomach churns.
‘There is but one way to ensure victory in the battle to come,’ Sláine, our wise woman and advisor to Fergal, says. She has a series of seven black dots under each eye. The oldest of the tribe and the only one to remember the last time we were in this situation, she strokes her scars to emphasise the point.
‘We must vote. The chosen must be of value to the tribe. A sacrifice worthy of our ancestors.’ Fergal hangs his head. It’s not his fault, although I cannot help but blame him.
‘You must be of fighting age, unwed and without children to be eligible,’ Sláine says. That leaves six. My bowels turn to water. She places six empty cups arranged from youngest to eldest on the long table, and hands everyone, even the children, a bone counter. I should have asked Aífe to marry me when I had the chance, but I was focused on my craft. No amount of beating iron can help me now.
In the heavy, smoky air, strong with the musk of the furs, the still simmering bone broth and body odour of my tribe, we wait. One by one, bone clanks into wood, and the vote is cast. When it is my turn, my legs shake, hands feel numb, clunky. My bone drops for the eldest, Brendan, which seems fair to me. I am second eldest. I meet no eyes on my way back through the crowd. The children seem to vote at random – no one tells them what to do.
When it is over, the tribe leaves, and the six of us, Fergal and Sláine, remain. The wise woman counts in front of us. Five chests breathe out relief. I fall to my knees, unable to control myself. At a charge, Fergal grips my tunic at the chest and heaves me up so we are face to face.
‘Do not fear it, Cian! You are the best of us, the hope for our future. You were meant to be our smith, but now you will be the force that guides us through the winter.’
‘I would rather fight. Wield the sword I crafted,’ I say.
‘No, you would not.’
I have seen the wounds that skirmishes leave on flesh. The way scars twist the skin. At least they are alive.
At dawn, Macdara, Elisedd and I set out to find my killer. We carry short knives, empty foraging pouches and full water-skins. Elisedd carries a bow and arrow should I try to escape, but he will not shoot me. If I run, he will fire and miss, even though he can hit a hare in the snow at thirty paces. He is a good man. Running would lead me into the territory of our enemies, or deep into the woods alone. An outcast. Maybe I would have fallen in the battle to come. This way, I will be remembered forever in the stories of our people. I must believe.
After skidding down the steep grassy banks of our fort, the way evens out. Jogging, we cover ground quickly, through mud that failed to sprout our crops, over streams that whip by, overfull, and into woodland. We slow to search, crouching, gaze scouring the forest floor. I flip moist logs, bark sloughing away at the touch, rotten wood breaking apart. Tiny creatures scuttle away from the light.
Tangled roots force us to pick a careful path, follow the game trails to the bloated river, lapping at the banks that should curve down to a beach. Everything is drowned. Macdara offers me his hand to pull me back up the slippery, leaf-strewn hillside. It is warm, calloused. I hope he lives long enough to train another.
At noon, the weak sun remains hidden, and low clouds threaten more rain. The trees halt before a pond framed with burr reeds, where the mud is so thick I sink to my ankles, squelching as I walk.
The three of us see it at once. The crow’s blood mushroom. Two hand spans tall, with a delicate grey and white shell-shaped crown. It glistens with moisture beading on the stalk, perfectly still, mocking me. Elisedd offers me the hilt of his knife, but I shake my head. He stoops to snip it from the ground and places it reverently into his pouch. Macdara clamps my shoulder in his great palm.
‘We always find one. Or they find us,’ he says. ‘This was meant for you.’
The hunt that carried such weight of expectation, such mounting fear in my belly is over, and we trudge home into a headwind.
Preparations have been completed in our absence. The outdoor fire-pit is revived, space cleared for the ceremony, and seven women wear white wool robes. Fergal’s face streaked with ash as a symbol of both mourning and transformation.
My hand yearns for their hammer, and the jolt of iron striking iron. Instead, I clench nothing, feel the blood pulsing through my fists. I am alone, watching the gathering. Mairenn is the only family I have left, her twinkling eyes little consolation. She cannot help me face this. I am sacrifice and saviour.
Darkness oozes over us, and the fire is stoked higher. Drums beat out a steady rhythm as the women in white sing, calling to the spirits and the ancestors to pay attention. They are enraptured, heads lolling, arms spread wide. The rest of the tribe masses in deadly silence, swaying to the beat, clutching children to their sides. They shrink back from me, like I am the sun and they are the beetles who love decay.
Sláine presents the mushroom to me, stalk radiant before the flame, but the cap already black, a void. She is announcing blessings over me, the other women chanting a prayer. I hear none of it, only see their faithful mouths moving. Breathless, stuck in their looping drum dirge, everyone watches. I must believe.
‘Now, you must eat, Cian,’ she says, brushing the fungus over my forehead, down my nose, to my lips.
All I have done, all that I am, comes to this.
Soft flesh bounces between my teeth and releases bitter juice, coating my tongue, flooding the back of my throat. Sláine hovers, waiting to force it down if I can’t swallow. Imagining it is just an under-ripe blackberry, or Mairenn’s infamous dandelion and sorrel tea remedy, the mushroom sludge slides down my gullet. A primal reaction flings me onto all fours to retch, but Sláine pulls me up, clamps my lips closed.
Mead is passed around, the beat accelerates, and feet stamp the wet ground. Soothing hands lift me onto a woven wicker seat set on a leather sheet when I can no longer stand. Already, the blood slows in the veins that rise on my hands, up my arms. Bulging like leeches in springtime, the cords under my skin run black, are tender, spongy to the touch. I pull up the sleeve of my tunic to see the veins throb with their poison. I want to leave, turn away from the fire, intolerably hot in the dank night.
‘Water! Sláine, Mairenn, water!’ It is the rasp of a man dying of thirst, and yet, I was not thirsty before. I need to soak, submerge. To be cooled by the flow of a stream. I tear my tunic off, toss it onto the flames, which subside a fraction under the damp wool. No one heeds my call for water. Eager hands guide me back to the seat when I try to move.
Rummaging my fingers over my scalp, I’m rewarded with great clumps of ruddy hair that smudge and drop to slime. Sweat that beads and drips from my nose is murky grey, darkening by the minute. And the singers wail louder, and the dancers stomp harder, and the fire ash rises in a vortex towards the stars.
I watch my useless legs turn black from the toes up. The digits soften like ripe fruit, curl and liquify into thick, tarry gloop. Feet that stalked the forest melt, then shins that shimmied up trees slip away. Skin loosens around me, an uncomfortable restriction, a cage. My lungs heave, panic and denial setting in.
My moans are masked by the howls of the ghostly choir swaying on the opposite side of the fire. All the while, the puddle beneath me grows, and I shrink, drop by drop. Soon, there is nothing to hold my trousers on, and someone tosses them into the flames. Black silky ink collects on the leather mat. This is the weapon that will lead us to victory.
Tomorrow, what was me will be collected into a stone jar. Our best warriors will receive seven dots of me under each of their eyes, there to watch out for them until the gods take their spirits. Everyone else who fights will streak me across their skin as shield and warning. I will guide their swords, their feet, their hearts. I give them my body.
Until then, I slump from the chair, which is swiftly burned. I lie in my own inky puddle, staring at the sky. Floating embers from the bonfire look like the sparks that used to fly from my hammer.