Dreaming the Eagle by Manda Scott

see the patterns of things. You know that.’
    ‘I do. But I thought she might have done it before, when you were a child and she could still see.’
    ‘No. I didn’t know about the frogs then. They didn’t come to me before my longnights. Nothing came before then. I thought I was barren, that I would be coming back with nothing. I used to lie awake praying to Nemain for a dream, any dream, even if it was one that barely touched me, like Camma’s. The elder grandmother told me once that she thought I might dream the earthworm and I believed her. I couldn’t sleep for nights afterwards, thinking how bad it would be.’
    ‘She told me I was a wasp, that I would sleep through the winter and sting people in the summer.’
    ‘She has her own reasons. I think the worrying is needed, to leave you open for the gods. But you will dream. You must believe it. It’s just hard to wait.’
    ‘I know. I have no patience. But it’s better when we talk about it.
    It had been her utmost fear: that she was so close to becoming a woman and still the gods had sent no sign. It was good to hear that it had been the same for Airmid. The knot in her diaphragm relaxed a little. She sighed and shifted over on the rock, moving her hand on the other girl’s hip. A soft kiss brushed her neck. She leaned into it and let her fingers drift down, exploring. It was a day for new patterns, for exploring in the shifting shadows, for merging, sweat-glued, with another. The kisses became longer and more focused and their direction changed. At the pool, the kingfisher dived a second time, unwitnessed, and came up with a fish. High above, the kestrel slipped sideways over the water and began to hunt the rushes on the far bank. Across the river, in the horse paddocks, a boy and a hound whelp played with a leggy dun filly, taking turns to stalk imaginary monsters.
    The sun moved on and the shadows made sharper angles. Breaca lay with a palm pressed to Airmid’s frog-print and thought of childhood and what it would be to leave it. A new thought came, one that brought back the cold, differently. She rolled over, moving out of the shade. It did not make the thought better. ‘Airmid … ?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘What if I don’t become a dreamer, and you are called to go to the dreamers’ school on Mona? Would you go without me?’
    ‘What?’
    The older girl came upright, suddenly, frowning to make sense of the question. Looking her straight in the eye, Breaca said, ‘The training is twelve years, maybe twenty, if the elders ask it. Would you go without me?’
    ‘No, of course not, how could you say that?’ The frown was frozen on Airmid’s face. Her fingers, lacing through Breaca’s, squeezed until the knuckles were white. ‘It is not going to happen,’ she said. ‘Don’t talk of it. You will dream.’
    ‘But’
    ‘But even if I were called to Mona tomorrow, you could still come. Every dreamer must have a warrior as guardian and you are that already. You could come as my warrior and train in the warriors’ school.’
    It was the core of her fear. Since the day of her mother’s death, since Airmid’s gift of the redquilled feather, the shadow of it had darkened everything. Breaca closed her eyes. The cold engulfed her. In the darkness of her own grief, she said, ‘On Mona, the warriors are nothing. They haven’t been to war since the time of Caesar. It is the dreamers who sit in the elder council.’ It was an overstatement, she knew; warriors who trained in the school on Mona were accorded the highest worth but that was not the point.
    Airmid, understanding, did not correct her. Instead, she said, ‘The dreamers share their council with those born in the royal line of their people. You are the next leader of the Eceni. If I am called, there will be a place for you, too.’
    It was not what she wanted. Breaca opened her eyes. Airmid sat opposite, her face serious. Sand stuck in a feathered line up the length of her arm, like the rib on a leaf.