Stone Cold

Seven

Beside the spring, where sweet water bubbled up from the ground in a pool that was as blue as the ocean and where irises proliferated in early summer, a young girl laid down her bucket, kicked off her clogs and approached the shrine in her bare feet.

'Great goddess whose name means Winding River, hear me,' she whispered. 'Thou who doth nurture and protect, listen to my prayer, I beseech thee.'

She craned her ears for a sign that the goddess had heard her. Perhaps a rustle in the trees as she came on the breeze? A coo of her sacred dove? But the only sounds in the woodland were the usual chirrups and squawks accompanied by the soft, bubbling music made by the nymphs of the spring.

'Forgive me,' the girl whispered. 'I know I should not approach thy holy place for fear of offending thee with my presence.'

Only the Druids were allowed inside the shrine. Worshippers had to content themselves by making their devotions at the beech tree.

'But my prayers have not carried to thy divine ears, and unless thou canst hear me, how canst thou help?'

Many nights had passed since her sister set off to collect berries and didn't return. Her father had been furious, her mother distraught at the shame Brigetia had brought on the family by running away, but Latuna did not believe the Druids when they insisted her sister had had misgivings about her forthcoming marriage.

'She and Orix were always squabbling,' she told the goddess in a hushed undertone. 'It does not mean Brigetia did not love him.'

But the Druids were far from convinced that Brigetia had cared so deeply for her betrothed. In a tribunal conducted a quarter moon ago, they had listened to the villagers' testimonies, including that of Brigetia's future husband and mother-in-law, and declared her to be a self-serving minx who was only marrying Orix to advance her own social standing. Latuna had jumped up in protest.

'Surely that makes it all the more logical for her to proceed with the wedding?' she'd argued.

Her own father had slapped her down. 'Hold your tongue, child! You've heard how your sister went round Santonum, telling everyone who would listen that no place was far enough away from the tannery for her taste. And you've heard how she was down by the Carent that morning, flaunting herself around the sailors and-'

'All the villagers talk to sailors when they go into town,' Latuna replied hotly. 'That's how we've come to learn about rafts made of reeds and seas made of sand, of lumpy creatures with humps on their back and horses with black and white stripes-'

'Hush, girl! There's enough dishonour heaped on our family, without you disrupting the hearing,' her mother had hissed, adding that they both knew full well Brigetia was perfectly capable of taking off with any man who promised her a better life.

'Is that true?' Latuna implored the goddess. 'Did Brigetia really run away?'

If she'd had an accident, been gored by a boar for example, there would have been blood, the Druids argued. A thorough search of the area had revealed no signs of struggle, no flattened ferns or churned earth to suggest violence of any kind, and her basket had not been found, either. The only possible conclusion from such incontrovertible evidence was that Brigetia had used berry collecting as a pretext for eloping and, in her absence, she was solemnly sentenced to shunning, should the wicked creature ever decide to creep back with her tail between her legs.

'O, great goddess whose name means Winding River, send me a sign. Give my heart peace, I beseech thee, with a sign that my sister is in good health and no harm has befallen her.'

As Latuna kneeled before the wooden shrine, her hands laced so tightly that the knuckles shone white, sharp eyes watched her every movement.

They watched her lay a carved image of a fawn, the goddess's holy emblem, on the threshold of the shrine and cover it with a garland of flowers.

They watched the heave of her young breasts.

The shine of her hair.

The long, slender fingers that brushed away the tears from her eyes.

No birthmarks, no blemishes, she was straight of limb and free of fault, but, alas, she was not perfect. The Watcher stared at the tight little nipples straining against the soft fabric of her chemise. In a year, perhaps, this girl would be ripe for the plucking, but not now.

The woodland floor was still soft and springy.

The Watcher's feet made no sound as they padded away.