Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter's Tales (38 page)

Now slowly, she remade a world about her, time and space. Her narrow bed. Her wall. Herself: but recollected slowly, wound about her nakedness. A sheet of soul; a counterpane of stars. A blanket, as she shook with cold. A pillow huddled to her chest, to rock herself awake. Between her fingertips and thumb she pirled and pirled the drop of candle wax, the fallen star.

"She will do,” said Grieve; and lowering the candle, snecked the door.

"Aye, another's blood were best,” said Rue by the fire. “But our mistress here doth venture much, since none may twice. All others that conceived by Law have slipped ere they had quickened. None were brought to bed."

"If all miscarried, they were false,” said Grieve. “There's but one true hailstone left, and hers.” She set the candle by the coffer. “It is the last. All eight others hath she sought and studied; it is sure."

"So she would spend it? On that posset-faced puling chit?” said Rue, and handed up a glass. “As good play duck and drake with diamonds in a sump."

"So it be swilled, the earthenware's as good a vessel as the gold: a hole to fill.” Grieve took the dram of her and drank. “And there is witchblood in the chit, I warrant you. And none to meddle for her sake. Our mistress dotes on her commodity, despites her, flesh and soul. The smockfaced nephew—"

Rue laughed scornfully. “Is no warden of her honor. Fatherless and friendless, aye. But will be husbanded. Corbet—"

"A beard for her breeding. He will serve us well enough."

"He is no fool, that scythesman. Will he not suspect?"

"A lover? Of that mooncalf? He will find her virgin. And conceit will father it.” Grieve unpinned her apron. “'Tis well. Our mistress has her heritage; and the master his game."

"And coney is a pretty dish, they say. That I'm to dress.” Rue drank. “I go with her to Corbet: as a gift."

Grieve set the pins straight in her cuff; spoke quietly. “To dress, but not to mar. The governance is mine."

"Is ours—"

A footfall on the winding stair, a shadow and a scent of wax. The servants rose and curtsied. “Is't done?” said Madam Covener.

"Aye, madam, slab and sharp,” said Rue, and stirred the pipkin on the hearth.

"The girl?"

"Asleep,” said Grieve. “And ripening."

A jangle of keys at Madam's waist, as she unlocked the coffer.

Two witches huddle by a fire of thorn. The cup goes to and fro.

"Here's meddling,” says Brock. “Will she bear?"

"Aye, happen.” Mally drinks. “Herself; or yon hailstone."

"Could be harrowed out."

"Oh, aye.” The small witch holds a garland on her knee, of grey and withered leaves, or none. “Just here's a bitter little herb her mam has plucked for her, when she would rid her belly of yon brat. I's kept it whiles."

"A draught?"

"In time. And if.” The witch pours out her cup; the fire flares and dies. “Her grandam wants her glass to fill. Come hallows will she hunt."

"Scent's cold,” says Brock. “My journeyman confounds her. For a time."

"Has sailed?"

"At hallows. And herself?"

"Will find herself. Her belly full."

A click of talismans, a flick of smile. Brock's silent else.

"Where one is, two cannot,” says Mally. From her cauldron rises up a fog, a frost-hag: they are rimed with it. Below, beyond—there is no word for it—Whin's boat is swallowed up. Blind, open-eyed, she journeys, and the storm begins to rise.

Margaret wakes drenched.

And white in white, the witches fade, black moorland and the winter tree, all but the embers of the fire. Their voices whisper in the sticks.

"...and in her glass..."

"...is not..."

Alone in her high chamber, Madam laughed. So it was done: the girl invitrified, and to be wed Ash-morrow. She herself had studied since the last fled Annot; had refined the art. All other witches had miscarried of their stones; had quickened, aye, but then the god-in-embryo had eaten up her vessel from within. Some few had lived a space in agony, half-glass, half-grub: the larvae of transcendence. Some had bled away, some mortified. Some preyed on children and were slain. And all were dead, their souls annihilate. No Ashes of this earth could tell them. Madam closed her empty coffer, lock on lock. But her creature, unborn Annis, would be nourished on the sun, on Corbet's seed. His lust would feed her lust for power, her insatiable dark; until voracious, she had used him up. Drunk down the sun. Then Madam would discard the shrivelled skin of him, sucked dry through his great cock, and reign with widow Annis in his tower. She had staked my lady's soul on it.

Will hang,
said a still voice to Margaret.

She was on a skyless hill, bent onward, neither west nor east, but wading to the knee in shadow. There was something that she'd lost: a knife among the weeds, a stone from off her ring. Her name. No stubble here, nor grass, but swiddened moorland, and the sift of ash long cold. It fell like shadow into shadow, sparse. Around her lay a sprawl of stones, half fallen in a maze of thresholds, perilous to cross. Whatever way she turned was inward.

She had never gone so far.

Beyond her fled a white hare like a furl of fire leaping from a brand, but paler than the waning moon. Like fire it flared and wavered; and went out.

That card was burnt,
she thought.

Then she came to the Gallows Tree and saw the crow lad hanged.

He dangled, naked and atwist, agape. She saw his bound hands, writhen struggling against the knotted hemp; she saw his stonebruised feet, now restless, dance on air. She saw his pricket like an angry thorn. His silver hair flared out about the bloodblue face, as if his death eclipsed him. There was something in his tongueless mouth. A stone? And then he twisted and it fell. An egg.
S'll harry thee a howlet's nest,
he'd told her once.
I knaws ae tree.
Stooping she picked it up: unbroken, strangely heavy in her hand. It was cloudblack and scrawled with white, with crossings intercrossing. Runes of stars. What tree? For as she gazed, she saw it fathomless, awhirl with light; she saw unfolding galaxies, feathering like frost. She saw the leaves unscattered of the book of heaven.

They were burnt.

To Ashes.

Barbed and hooded, masked as for a play, my lady's women brought Margaret down the winding stair. The dream still tranced her, sliding in her blood like sublimate: a bright envenomed clarity, a swaling heaviness. It was the eve of Hallows Eve. So dark a morning still, at noontide, that they bore a branch of candles. Beeswax, as befitted Madam Covener.

"Rare play we had of it,” said Grieve to Rue. To Margaret, “The hunt was up, thy lord and all his pack."

"Afoot and riding."

"Earth and air."

"When thou'rt his lady, thou shalt ride with him."

The girl spoke not, but Grieve answered. “Aye, we took."

"A white hare, and alive."

They crossed the empty parlour, shadows and the ghost of flowers, to the high dim crowded hall. It smelled of winter, with a tang that caught her throat, of smoke and damp and mortal dread. Like Morag's kitchen, with its larder of souls. They had dressed her bravely, as befitted Corbet's property; she felt the silver mantle as a tarnish, like a shadow that would slide and leave her naked as the moon. Hard faces turned and stared and mocked.

She knew them; they had leapt the scythe.

Then she crossed a cold threshold, and she knew the place. They stood in Law. About them, silent, there were grey-cloaked women, in the places of the stones, the stars.

Before them stood the crow lad with his hands bound, ringed with scythesmen. Still alive; but the dream had foreshadowed him. Her sullied moon would slide before him; he would flare and die. He seemed now but an afterimage of himself, a scar on sight. Had this poor wretch bestrid her with a knife? Undone the ranting goblin at his fork? Not burning now but quenched. Corbet's men had beaten him; she knew too well that flinch of body, and that bruised despair. Mere pelt and bone and stinking rags, like something that an owl had cast.

He would not look at her.

But Corbet sat asprawl, at vantage, like a gallant at a play. No: like the play itself, a masque of old Slae, he that ate the newborn Sun; and Perseis his bride. He beckoned her; she needs must go. They set her by his knee before the company, brought cakes and wine. Flaunting her, he toyed her bare neck with his civet hand. He whispered with his cold breath, musk and charnel.

"Noll wavers,” said Corbet. “See. But he will find for me."

Grevil sat on the dais, with a silver chain about his shoulders, and a scythe against his chair. Before him on the table lay a ring with a great tawny stone. Law's child, she knew it for a soul. As he did not. That puzzled her. She saw it clearly: insubstantial and more real than bread or stone or fire. Real as Law. He turned it in his hand, as if it were a rotten orange at a banket: meat he had no stomach for. And by it, like a crumpled napkin, lay a shirt: a little slashed, once fine, but stained with earth and ashes, and a darker stuff. With blood. And beneath that, bright and scattering—her heart clenched—lay several of a woodcut pack of cards. Not hers, but like.

"Thou nameless known as Crow-lad, masterless. Of no age. Else called Rattlebag; else Clapcraws, Cloudborn, Ashes-got. These things were ta'en on thee,” said Grevil to the lad. “Dost thou deny them?"

The boy said nothing. His warder cuffed him. “No.” Sullen, defiant. Another buffet. “No. Master."

"Let him speak or be silent,” Grevil said. “Now, boy, Madlin Flint has sworn by lief and law that she made this shirt for Master Corbet; and Nan Fell that she washed and mended it not three days before thy flight, and laid it in his chamber, in a press."

The crow lad's voice was small and harsh. “He gi'ed me yon sark."

"What he?"

"Yon dawcock.” He jerked his chin at Corbet. “Him smiling.” Margaret saw again the witch's carven mask, the summer lightning of his striding blade.
He
knew. And if he knew her birth? The scythesmen stirred.

"Gave thee?"

"For a jig.” He raised his face to Grevil. “My awd jacket were outworn."

"Take care, boy,” said Grevil. “Lest thy tongue betray thee.” He slid the cards on the table, brooding. “Of what color were his hangings?"

"I were never in his bed. He'd not clart his sheets wi’ me.” He tried to wipe his snotted face on his shoulder. “Said he'd threshing, at Cock Moor. So I went."

"As whore?"

"Not what I is, it's what I's done. For bread. I'd be elsewhere."

"
For bread,
thou sayest. But a holland shirt? A ring?"

A waggish knave called out, “A lord might tryst wi’ a pisspot, at need, but he'd not pay gold to quaff it."

"That man,” said Grevil. “Take him out.” He composed himself. “Whore is no excuse for thief, if proved upon thee. For the stealing of a shirt, thou shouldst be whipped; for breaking of a chamber, branded; for bearing tales, thy tongue be slit.” He paused; and turned the great ring in his hand. “But here is graver matter."

"Ring's mine own,” said the crow lad hopelessly. “By Hallows and t'Nine, I swear it."

"Thou? Nameless, masterless?"

"It's what I is."

Margaret watching saw curiosity, doubt, compunction flicker on Grevil's face. He leaned forward. “Has any seen this thing upon thee? In thy keeping? Hast thou spoken of it?"

I's a star thou's not spied.

Still he would not look at Margaret. “No."

And if she spoke? But Corbet whispered and caressed her. Filthy things. His cold breath stirred his earrings at her cheeks. It tarnished even gold; it woke them, scorpions to sting. He owned her. He would kill them both.

"Wouldst not have sold it? For that bread thou lack'st?"

"And wha'd believe it mine?"

"None yet,” said Grevil. “Thou must prove. How cam'st thou by this ring?"

"I's never had it. Always."

Gibes and catcalls. Grevil stilled them with a hand. “Go on."

"It were given me.” Struggling as if the bonds he tried were Grevil's. “See it's not a ring, but when it is. And then yer see it like a ring. Or owt. An orange."

"It is gold,” said Grevil. “Valued, and of such-and-such a weight. The stone is adamant.” He squared his papers. “It would buy a plough of land, and all its harvests."

Corbet's waiting-man, a sly fellow, called out, “Here's a bold ratlin. I have seen yon ring on Master Corbet's hand before this ditchborn dog was whelped, or ere his mother or her mother whored."

Two scythesmen caught the crow lad as he twisted and spat.

But Grevil looked coolly at the servant. “What hand?"

"Why, his left, sir. By his heart."

"Wouldst thou swear it?"

He would. And a respectable dame, Corbet's linen-woman, swore that he had it of his first wife, at her death. An heirloom of her family, said a third. His old nurse. But of late it grew small for him, and so he kept it in his closet, in a coffer, locked.

Grevil beckoned to his clerk. “Here's a paper of his steward's hand, and sealed.” He broke it with his thumbnail. “On his oath, he swears the ember ring was ever on his master's swordhand."

A rustling, as of wind in barley.

Corbet rose drawing with his left hand, swiftly as he'd scythed; then turned his dagger hiltward to the judge, and bowed. “My masters trained me well,” he said. “I fence equivocally, with either hand."

He sat, and in the rumour, leaned toward Margaret. “Thou shalt wear it for our play,” he said. “And nothing else."

Unwilling Grevil rose. “So. Redesmen and riddlewomen: you have heard..."

But the crow lad said, “There's cards.” A half silence. “I ta'en that pack o them. For gaming wi’ a vixen whore. And what I rue me of, is not your charge; and what you'll hang me for is what I is."

In the long withdrawing, Margaret stared at the cards, left scattered on the board. The Hanged Lad. The Horseman. No turning them. They'd not painted Slae like her own: not the Old Year in amongst the guisers with his ivy wreath, but with a billhook, by a leafless hedge. He lopped and plaited it about the winter wren, the Sun. Behind him on the wintry skyline stood a pole with a dangling thing on it, a scarecrow or a hanged man. Crowsmeat. They were all about him, rising in the air. And scattered on the fallow field were drops of silver. Coins. Or seed.