‘I’ll not accept hospitality from the likes of you,’ Fachtna told Tangwen. Teardrop look pained. Britha watched Tangwen’s expression darken and saw the look of anger on the other warriors’ faces.
The blow landed so solidly because Fachtna had not been expecting Britha to hit him. His nose flattened itself against his face and squirted blood down over his mouth and bearded chin.
‘What was that for?’ the genuinely aggrieved Fachtna demanded.
‘I don’t care who these people are to you,’ Britha told him, using her left-handed voice, the sinister tone, the one designed to frighten and curse. ‘If you don’t want their hospitality, then refuse it. If you want to fight, then challenge them. What you do not do is behave with the manners of a diseased dog in my presence, because what you do affects Teardrop and myself as well. They do not fear our swords or spears so you should not fear their food and drink! Do you understand me, boy!’
Fachtna looked furious. Britha was sure that he would at least strike her, perhaps even draw his sword. She was prepared to use the spear. The warriors of the People of the Snake and the folk under their protection watched. Chagrin replaced anger on Fachtna’s face. Whatever he might have been, he did know how to behave with respect, and he knew that he was in the wrong, much to Britha’s relief.
Fachtna knelt by the little girl.
‘I am sorry,’ he told her in her own language. Like all other languages he could speak it, and like all others Britha found herself able to understand it. Fachtna picked the bread from the ground, found bits of meat, barley and vegetables and put them back into the trencher. Then he ate it all. He handed the girl the wooden cup. ‘If you would be prepared to get me another drink, I would drink it and with thanks. I would understand if you did not.’ The little girl stared at him fiercely. He met her look, but she fetched him another drink. Fachtna thanked her and then stood up.
‘I apologise. Please do not judge my companions on my behaviour. I will meet you over meat or metal as you prefer,’ he said to Tangwen, who nodded her acceptance. Finally he turned to Teardrop and Britha. ‘I apologise to you both.’
Teardrop shook his head, looking bemused. Britha nodded, accepting the apology though still angry. It was clear to her that the Naga, whoever they were, had done Fachtna a great wrong in the past. She had gratefully accepted her trencher and cup. It was good to taste normal food again, not the strange stuff they had given her on the Will of Dagon, which had done terrible things to her bowels.
‘We are safe now,’ she said as they accepted the protection of the law of hospitality by sharing food and drink with the People of the Snake. Perhaps Fachtna was right: perhaps these people were the lowest of the low, oath-breakers who would break the law of hospitality, but she knew that for her part she would not reject it.
Britha now understood why Fachtna had wanted to fight. This was neither natural nor right. She too felt the urge to drive her spear through the abomination of their hosts’ living god.
Her people respected the serpent. It was a powerful animal. They invoked it on stone, in paint and in their woad tattoos. It was the symbol of the ban draoi, the female symbol of power, which was why it was tattooed across her back. What she saw before her, however, was nothing more than a mockery of the serpent she respected.
The chamber was large and lined with stone. They had entered from the shaft through a crawl space following a shallow stream. There was a dirt mound in the centre. The shallow stream surrounded the mound. Some kind of silver-coloured crystals covered the dry-stone walls. They crystals had formed in similar patterns to that made by wax as it melts down the side of a candle.
Set back further in the chamber, in the shadows thrown by the free-standing bronze braziers that lit the room, was the entrance to another chamber. Through the darkness Britha could make out the second, much smaller chamber. It was also lined with the crystal. There was a strange-looking sleeping pallet on the floor of the room. Something about it made Britha think of a nest. The air was thick with the smell that she had always associated with animals. As ban draoi she shared in the meat and milk provided by the livestock kept by the rest of the tribe. Her roundhouse had to be kept as a ritual space, however, and as such she had never had to share it with cows, sheep, goats or chickens.
On the mound was a handsomely carved wooden chair. The designs on it were strange to Britha’s eyes. They seemed to flow and run into each other, hinting at some story that was beyond her ken. Next to it was a similarly designed table; it too looked ancient and strange. On the table were little tear-shaped fragments of crystal. Teardrop was looking at them with interest. They looked different to the crystals on the wall, more refined, or made from a different material.
Fachtna’s face was made of stone. Britha could respect the effort he was putting in to remaining calm. Tangwen had said that their god had wanted to see them on his own. She had left the warning of the consequences of harming him unsaid.
‘You have met my people before, I see,’ the creature said. The S wasn’t as drawn-out as she had expected, but it was longer than she was used to.
It was the very human-looking robes that disturbed Britha the most. They were not of her people nor any of the tribes of this island, but they would not have been out of place on some of the more outlandish traders she had met in her time. They had been colourful, once, finely made of some thick material that Britha could not identify, and fur-lined. They were also old and very worn.
To see clothes worn by such a creature seemed like a mockery. Its head was elongated, almost like an arrowhead. Its eyes were vertical yellow and black slits. Its skin was a patchwork of scales, mostly an unhealthy off-white colour, though with black patterns running down them. Its legs and hands were wrapped in rags but even disguised they looked wrong, unnatural. Long black nails poked through the rags at the tips of its fingers and toes.
Strangest of all was the long tail, also wrapped in rags. This strange creature looked very, very old.
‘Do you have a name?’ Britha asked.
‘A number – I have been alive for a long time. You would be capable of pronouncing few of them. The people of the swamp call me Father. I misliked it at first but have come to appreciate it. People as disparate as they and I coming to have such a close bond.’ When it spoke its long forked tongue flickered out in a way that Britha found unsettling. Behind the tongue she could make out wicked-looking teeth that folded up into its mouth.
‘I think not,’ Fachtna spat.
‘They call you a god,’ Britha said.
‘That is no doing of mine.’
‘Are you a dragon?’ Britha asked. The creature hissed at her. It took her a moment to realise that it was laughing. Teardrop was as well. That earned him an angry glare.
‘Would you like me to be?’
‘I’d like you not to make sport of me with your forked tongue.’
‘Then I am not. I am as you are. We have the same mother.’
His explanation posed more questions than it answered.
Fachtna grunted derisively, a sneer on his face.
‘Do you seek death?’ the warrior demanded.
‘I allowed you in here armed as a show of good faith, of trust, as a result of your friend’s mindsong. You look like a warrior from here, but you are unscarred, as are your armour and shield, and I sense you carry weapons of –’ it glanced at Britha and then back to Fachtna ‘– ancient power. You are not from here, though your people once were or may be again, I am not sure which.’
Teardrop was looking around the cave at the crystal, a look of intense concentration on his face.