Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter's Tales (24 page)

It leapt at her. A furl of flame. Astonished, she flinched. But the candle was still there on the sill, unmoved. Her hand unburnt. ‘Twas but its seeming came to her. A fetch. She laughed in wonderment.
O my.

Again. “Come, fire.” And it flew at her bidding, like a hawk to her hand. A tassel. She held it, warped and haloed, in the glass. Let go.

Again.

Of its own, it guttered and went out.

Stalking and wheeling about her little room, she scried things. Her book, like a great moth to a candle. Her jug, like the moon.

She turned her gaze beyond her window, at the green fields of the sky below.
Come, fold.
It lighted. Here, to hand. And when she loosed it, far away. No stone within its puzzle lost. And not a blade of grass left bent.
Come, fell.
Who'd seen a hillside curtsey like a wave? It moved, removed.
Come, thorn.
Who'd seen a tree in leaf unroot and fly? Alight, without a ruffled leaf? Who'd seen a walking wood? And if a thorn, why not the Thorn? Why not the Sun and Moon?

Long since he'd dreamed of Annot; yet Noll saw her, stitching at a cloth he knew was heaven. Black on white, for it's the back side of the sky. She's taught him that, to read the the grammar of the stars. Strange constellations, yet he knows them all and their ascensions—see, the Owlet and the Urchin, garbed with fruit, the Bear with its bright honeycomb. They two have made them all, the stories of the sky on earth. They've made Unleaving. Now she unfolds another breadth of heaven, saying,
Here's room to fill. What wilt thou?

A mermaid with a glass. A tyger.

Her bright needle flies. Yet all the while he fears the hinderside of heaven, where the ravens are. The Wood is white on black; white leaves that fall from soulwhite branches. Ah, they've stayed too late—
Annot?

Grevil woke, half smiling, half in tears: for Annot, for the child she left. For the child she was. And puzzled: when did she wear spectacles?

Later Margaret sat with Grevil at his book. Rain as ever, and the soft scratch of their quills. Dip and scribble, pounce and tap. Her thought was elsewhere. She'd need a sort of conduit for light, a pipe. A roll of parchment? No. Heavier. Stiffer. She would need to fix the glasses: so. And so. Covertly, she looked about the room. A flute-case, a map-case. But he'd find them gone.

Outside the window, the gardener weeded and sang. “Hey, we to the other world, boys..."

In the widow's loft by her closet, there were older woodwinds: a reedless bombard, a shawm. An hautboy in a leathern case. ‘Twould do.

"Sir?"

"Eh?” Deep in time. Down the long pleached alley of his pear trees—long since winter-felled—his father walked, abstracted. White bloom falling on his bent head, his black doublet. A green thought in a green shade.... But the lass was speaking.

"In your lady's bower, might I handle the instruments?"

"That old virginals? ‘Tis lumber. What, to play upon?"

"...there, the Man i’ th’ Moon drinks claret...” sang the gardener.

"To study."

"As you will."

And the glasses fixed with sealing-wax?

Thou creeping mouse,
she thought.
Thou wainscot. Nibble at thy master's substance? Lumber. Trash.
Curled within her nutshell mind, she smiled.
Translation.

Broadlapped, Barbary sat shelling peas; they rattled in her bowl. The door stood open to the green and rain. She sang:

A pod of green sisters, a push with her thumb. Another shale. Out in the wet grass, under the apple trees, Doll chased the sidling ducks, crying, “Dilly, dilly, come and be killed."

From her bed, Margaret drew the moon down through her glass, as round as a drum-head. Tabor to her pipe.

A toy. Her glass was nothing here, thought Margaret: a swift horse hobbled that would run, a falcon seeled and mewed. Through her casement she could see but the skirts of heaven, draggled through the hills. And all above, unseen, the mystery and the wheel of heaven. Time's mill turning in the river of the Road. She must get out to it, beneath the naked sky. Must see.

But how? Not through the hall, past the slumbrous dogs, that at a step would rouse and hackle, rising stiff-necked from their bones. But go she must. Bent meekly to her master's book, or working under Barbary's eye, she brooded on her ways and means: with her stripped quill wrote ciphers of her flight; wound wool and longings in a single clew; weighed salt and stars equivocally. She made her wavering stitches with a double thread, of linen and desire, a piercing and a pull the knot did stay.

Window? Here the mullions were too closely barred; and there, the sills too high; from that other casement, she might drop, but never scrabble up again. She needs must come and go; and not be missed. No tower here to climb. Why had they no towers, when they had such skies? But at the foot of her winding stair, beside it in the wainscot, was a narrow door, a sort of stillroom cupboard, and at back of that, a doorway, giving on the orchard. Locked of course. Her key from my lady's tower would not fit; she looked with covetise on Barbary's ring. She missed a clear night; and another, anguishing.

Then on a grey wet afternoon, no hope of going out, by day or night—cloud muffled her chagrin—she set aside her hopeless needlework to climb her winding stair. No comfort in her narrow lodge, nor in the high chamber. Cold hearth, stripped bed, a dwindling store of withered apples: all familiar now. She blew upon the quarried glass; traced patterns in her fading breath. Pinched lavender and balm and borage for the scents. Turned back then with a winter pearmain in her hand.

Now atop the great cupboard, pushed under the eaves, she saw a small chest, like a workbox. Climbing on the chair, she hauled it forward, got it down. Then kneeling in among the lumber in the apple loft, she wiped the dust from it, put back the lid. Folded linen. Nothing strange in that. A needle still in it, half bright, still tethered to its trail of jetty silk: unfinished work. She shook it out, and turned it over in her lap. A smock. So nearly done: it wanted but a sleeve. It was broidered all with rainbows, arched from cloud to weeping cloud, as she had seen them now; but all in black on white.
A sort of book,
she thought.
A spell?
She puzzled at it.
After tempest, see, I come and go.
That much she could read. Snails, butterflies.
I carry my house with me;
and,
I light where I will.
Flowers, but she knew not what they meant. Urchins.
Shan't.
And in the empty room, she smiled. A ship—the Ship—for it was masted with a branching tree, and leafed with stars.
Unleaving.

For a space she sat and wondered, with the journey in her lap. Then lifted out the inlay with its skeins of silk, its thimble, silver-gilt, and its pillow of pins. Under that, another inlay with some pretty toys of horn and ivory, silver and delf—charms from a yearcake, had she known. A wad of paper, which unfolded was a ballad sheet: a woodcut of a ranting girl in cap and feather, sword a-swash. No more. Yet something shifted, rattled. With her nail, she lifted out a panel, shrunk with time. A key.

And Barbary called up to her, to bring her wardens from the loft.

Ghosted to the shoulder in a fog of flour, Barbary thumped and flicked her rolling pin; she pinched her coffins round. She glanced up at Margaret, wavering on the sill. “All this while for pears? Thou's walked til Babylon and back.” Beckoning, the mistress turned them in the frail and pinched. “Sleepy. But will serve.” Margaret, turning, tethered to her key and glass, was on nettles to be gone, but Barbary stayed her. “Wait on, and I'll look thy stitches ower. I's just hearing Suke her tally.” She turned to the child at the window, knitting.

"Twelve winds, eleven trees, ten sleepers. Say me what nine is."

Sukey puzzled at her wool. “Please you. This heel's all amux."

Ellender, trip-trapping to the dairy, said “It's cloven."

And Cat, “Is't for goats?"

"Monkeys. Same as in thy glass,” said Barbary. “Let be.” And to Sukey, “Thou's counting, sitha. Look. And let thy fingers mind.” Down fell the parings, and she pricked and pranked the pies. Leaves, lattices, a running wheel of hares. “And nine?"

"Nine's for't nine Sisters in a kist o sky."

"Aye, and eight?"

"I could say you three."

"No doubt."

Her needles in a dreadful knot. “Eight ... eight's Brock's keys and locks. Seven's for t'rainbow? No, seven's th’ Ship."

"Thou minds what they sing at Elding?"

"Oh, I mind me. An it's songs, I remember.” And she sang in her small voice, like dew on a cobweb, clearer than her clouded self: “The sail's o th’ siller, the mast's o th’ tree..."

"I's get thee a fiddle to thy school, and thou shall dance thy gramarye. And six?"

"Six for a Swordknot,” called Wick Billy from his corner. “And down falls t'Sun."

"Good,” said Barbary. “Say me what five is."

He rubbed his nose, all smutched with silver tarnish. “Pies?"

"Nay,” said Sukey, pink with assertion. “Five's for't Wanderers. Within and out, and roundabout, and cross t'River twice. And four's—no, twelve were t'winds—four's for't Gallantry where Summer is hanged. And three's for his Fiddlestrings, and t'stars in his Bow."

"Good. Margaret?"

Startled, she could make no tale but, “Madam, I was not so taught."

"No?” said Barbary. “They's strange ways i’ Babylon.” She unstopped the oven, raked the embers out. “So then. Twa's for't Ravens that bear our souls away."

A chain of stones that broke in running, whirled and scattered on the steps. Elsewhere. A hail of souls.

"And twa's for't Witches that came hither from hence, and bound my lady Moon to't wheel. Set winter turning."

Bound?
Was that in Grevil's books? And
hence
and
hither, never was
and
now,
changed places in her head. Turned inward outward like a glove. It giddied her.

Lifting up her peel of tarts, all gilded with egg, Barbary slid it into glowering dark. “And twa's Leapfire and Lightfast, that's ever at odds, t'ane and t'other, for't mastery o't year. Winter get Summer, and Sun against Sun.” She sealed the oven door. “But light and dark is one Moon. And her daughter's Ashes."

"Five for the wandering stars,” said Grevil. “So I heard it from my nurse.” He thought a moment, smiled, and spoke.

"Well enough,” said Margaret. “But they come not in a row, like Jack-a-clocks; but foot it in and out, like country dancers. Cross and cross.” Still gazing inward at her sky, that would be outward—O but soon, but even by the morrow. If the door unlocked. There was a glory in her, toward an end: an arrowing. The key hung next her body like the Swan down-diving on the Lyke Road. And the dance was in her, all ablaze. All the conjugations of the planets swift as language, swift as song: a carolling. Now rising, now retiring, at morn, at eve; swift, still; dim, dazzling; before, behind, and turnabout. Now here and nowhere. Tumbling in the sky. She laughed within, as if the key unlocked her. But bending to her page, she spoke most soberly. “They do vanish from the sky at whiles—at random, it doth seem; but never from the dance."

"Do they so?” He tried his pen. “I know them but by chance regard.
O look, ‘tis Hulver. See, he rises back of Arket's byre.
And,
Sets,
another saith.” He looked not at the room but elsewhere, at a sunlit garden, faraway. “We played a masque of planets at the university, before the lord of Perran Uthnoe and all his kin. ‘Twas for his wedding there to Lune, his eldest daughter."

"Were you Hulver?"

Grevil laughed. “Nay. Hulver had a leg; and much ado to get his lines. Our master striped him well for it. Yet he did leap—ah, thou hast never seen it bravelier. And sang like all the stars at morning.” On the lawn, the shadows fell. “He was Cloudish, of great family. There was hope of him; but on his going hence to keep his term—as I did not—his ship was lost.” He scratched a pattern in his margin, like a knot of hedges.

Margaret knew not what to say. “Is't written? I would read that play."

"'Tis in the elder tongue—but there now, thou art learned.” Now he looked at her, all at once shy and challenging. A mischief in his face. “I made the verses.” Scratching, scratching. “In a sort, the play did garner praise: ‘twas thought satyrical by those who slept through it.” He'd drawn a little cloud of asterisks. “I enacted Talith, of the Nine: for whom I'd writ a colloquy.” And now a creature in the maze, goat-footed. “Then to rouse the sleeping fellows from their after dinner, comes an antimasque, a dance of woodwos; and so enters Perseis, pursued by Slae: as in the tales."

"Are there tales? Of planets? Of the Nine?"

"Many.” Grevil gestured at the heaps of paper, spattering ink. “Hast thou not seen them? In this very book?” He looked about at the disorder. “So. In time, thou wilt, if we untangle. Of the boy who took Journeyman's boat to go a-fishing in, and caught his father's soul. Of Perseis, of course, that was the youngest of the Nine, earthfallen..."

"Is she not?” said Margaret. “Still a star?"

All in gold and violet, his starry cloak flung back, bright Hulver waits his cue. Stands tiptoe, all the stars a-tremble in his crown. On wires, so they nod his deity. His staff is tipped with light. On stage, the great astronomer, the greybeard, owl-eyed, has piped his invocation to the planets.
See now the Players’ Lamp, Ox-Turning Journeyman who mocks the nighted traveller ...
Noll Talith holds the book unopened, mouthing word for word. His own and meaningless. How strange that his delight in scribbling should have lit so many candles, branch on branch. The bursar has unlocked his hoard: the ends to go to poor deserving scholars. In the hall, it is dizzying: a blaze and roar, a fire fed on words. In this brilliant artificial night, the astronomer lies down, composing his woolgathered beard, to dream. But here in the withdrawing room, their Law, the real are half shadows: a confusion of stars and satyrs. On the table lie the shepherd's weeds the god will borrow of Tom o Cloud, his broad hat and his budget full of stars. A comet's tail of hair adorns the statue of a long-dead scholar. Wigless Perseis, her train of silver-gold tucked up to flaunt her kidskin thighs, her suit of nakedness, is dicing with the satyrs; Slae, a shy lad, paces, muttering his entrance; Morag, sticky-fingered with nimmed sweetmeats, has ado to tie her beak. Three of the Nine are playing mumble-de-peg; one reads, oblivious; four cuff and bicker like a huske of hares. And Master Wilton goes among them, finicking, exhorting, pinning up.
Seemly, seemly, you goddesses.
And,
Mark the caesura, Master Slae.
But to Hulver, he says only:
Thy dance is deity. O'erleap the night.