The Horse Goddess (Celtic World of Morgan Llywelyn) Read Free Page A

and fell silent. The voice of Kernunnos shrilled upward into a final ringing note and one exquisite stab of pain lanced through Epona.
    The women shouted in triumph.
    The girl lay panting on the floor. They did not hold her now; they stood at a respectful distance, smiling down, and Nematona extended a hand to help her to her feet. Tena and Uiska, Voice of the Waters, came closer to caress her fondly. It hurt to move but she would not let them see her wince. Why give way to pain now, when the worst was over? She was surprised to realize the smoke had cleared away completely, and the lodge of the priest was just a warm room with a friendly fire blazing in the circular firepit.
    She stood swaying, vaguely aware that the women were sponging her body with heated water. As her vision cleared, she realized the priest’s lodge was far different from the luxuriously furnished home of the lord of the tribe. The dwelling of Kernunnos resembled an animal’s lair.
    Every bedshelf was covered, not with soft fur robes, but with whole skins bearing feet and tails. The heads had polished pebbles for eyes. The hides of larger animals, such as stag and bear, were pulled into lifelike postures by leather thongs suspended from the lodgepoles that supported the thatched roof. Dead birds, their bodies gutted and packed with salt, roosted in every crevice and spread their wings against the walls in startlingly lifelike flight. Rams’ horns and stags’ antlers were fastened on every available surface, creating a forest of horns. Boars’ tusks and the bleached skulls of
wolves were lined up around the hearthstone, crowded amid the pots and jars.
    Only the priest was missing. Epona could not remember his leaving; he was just not there anymore.
    The three women moved around her, kneading her flesh with melted fat, making little clucking sounds when her thighs quivered involuntarily. “You will be all right now,” said Tena in her hot quick voice. “You are a woman thisnight, and from now on your spirit will guide you wisely. You passed your test very well.”
    It was the first time one of the priesthood had spoken to her as an adult. She tried to answer in a voice too quavery to trust, then cleared her throat and tried again.
    “It wasn’t bad. It didn’t hurt,” she told them.
    The gutuiters exchanged glances of approval.
    “You are brave,” said Nematona. “You have proven fit to be the mother of warriors.”
    What was it Suleva had said? “You must not show fear. An awful thing will happen.” Suleva, She Who Bears Only Daughters.
    Epona flushed with pride, but the insatiable curiosity that was part of her nature prompted her to ask, “Why is it so important to bear warriors? We are never attacked here in the Blue Mountains.”
    “Not in your lifetime, no.” Nematona passed her knife hand across her eyes in the classic sign of negation. “But that is only because the battle reputation of Toutorix discourages other tribes from trying to capture the Salt Mountain. Yet we have fought before, and doubtless will again. We must all be capable of defending what is ours.
    “But the children you bear will never have to fight for the Salt Mountain, Epona, because they will not be born here. Men will come from distant tribes of the people and give Toutorix many gifts in order to ask for you as wife. You will be highly prized, not only because you come from the chief’s lodge but also because you are a strong, healthy young woman with courage to pass on to your sons—sons who will take their first meat from the tip of your husband’s sword and
serve as warriors in his tribe, wherever that may be.”
    Nematona’s words reminded the girl of another cause for concern, now that the ritual of woman-making was completed. Like all women of the people, she was free to choose her own husband from among any who might ask for her, but the man she selected would make her part of his tribe in some place far from the Blue Mountains.
    No, Epona said