Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter's Tales (43 page)

"Thy regiment was ever coarse.” He turned to Whin. But I am curious of meat. Not eyes, but what they've seen, asleep or waking, are my delicates. Yon kite in petticoats but spits ‘em out. Crack bones and craunch marrow."

The old crow preened her apron. “Come, girl. My lady waits."

Whooping triumphantly, the rabble stormed the gaol. “Down t'wall!” But with turning round the smith swept clear a crescent in the uproar, as a besom sweeps a hearth.

Even with the keys, the door stuck, swollen; then exhaled a reeling stench. Death cold and close at once: the river's breath updrawn through years of drunken spew and piss, the loose unshovelled muck of terror. From within came a cracked despairing wail. “No. Cock's not crawed. Not yet.” And a frenzied clink and rattling of chains, as if shackled he had tried to fight. “Be still thou,” said the smith. “And comfort thee. Thou's not for hanging yet.” She haled the crow lad out, half-carried him; she stood him on his staggered legs, stripped off his fetid rags and flung them in the river.

Wretched past shame, he moved not to hide himself, no more than would a hunted hare. A poor thing, like an ill-made rush-dip. Naked as a worm.

The guisers howled.

Dazed and shuddering with larger air, he looked about: saw Ashes seeing him. Awe and horror on his stricken face, and now and only now he hid it in his arms.

"Thy death's not yet to tell,” said Brock. “Thou's got a hand yet in thy tale."

And turning to the girl, “Here's Ashes’ part. Thou keeps t'gate both ways: lap dead and hap living at their hour o birth. Thy mystery is souls."

Ashes looked in stony silence at the boy. What did she know of him, his soul? His fingers prying her, all slick with snot; the lateworm shining in his cave of hands.

"Soul's naked,” said the smith. “Thou swathe it."

Ashes looked up and upward at her impery of stars: at the Hanged Man swung above the fell. Tom o Cloud, they called him, Jack Orion: names like any naked man. What swaddling could he give Will Ashes? Not his coat of sparks. The heavens’ cloth of gold too fine for such tagrag.

All round the blur of avid faces: not a rag for charity.

And downward? Wet stones underfoot dissolved in lantern light, in glare and gilding, rucked and trampled leaves of gold; in puddled fire; dubs and runnels of the elements. A muddle like mankind. Like figures of a casting half-effaced. She could not read, but saw: a scrawl of glory on a slough.

She flung that mantle over him; spoke silently.
Be thou of mud and fire, Ashes’ Will.
And sained him, eyes, mouth, heart, with earth.

As if a spell on him were broken and he waked, the boy shook back his claggy hair. Himself: but all his swagger broken. When he tried to speak, his voice was faded to a raling whisper, a rattle of dead leaves, as if the rope to come had strangled it. “Leapfire's what I is. Slipgallows."

"Thy family is great,” said Brock.

The crowd was stirring from their trance. “But here's hunting of wrens,” she said. “Out o't whinnymoor intil hollybush, and out o't prickle-holly intil haws."

Two great-armed women, streaked with dyes to the shoulder, seized on him, and ducked him in the sheeptrough, through a lacewing of ice. A great splosh and a gasp as he rose flailing; and then a dousing and a sousing, as if they two were drubbing sheets. They fished him up and wrenched him out, and toused him in a sack to dry: if not as white as milk then sallow as a withy wand, but mottled as the dyers’ hands with bruise on bruise.

One gave a mouthful of spirits to revive him.

Another two or three shook out a bundle of fine clothes, now sadly bedraggled: Annot's petticoats that Ashes had doffed. They dressed him up in women's weeds and turned him round in the square, admiring.

He bore it sullenly.

"Here's a pretty ingling for a gentlemen's knee."

"Nay, a maid, so her mammy swears. Ne'er did it but standing."

"Afore if not behind."

"And here's an Outlune gentleman, come up from underhill, to wed thee with a ring.” A dozen more pushed Ashes forward. “Walk in, Master Magpie."

"Wi’ a ring in his neb."

"Aye, steals for his mistress. He's t'Queen o Elfin's bailiff."

"Black as any raven."

"As a chimneysweeper's snot."

"Aye, but cods full o gold."

A new uproar at the outmost edge. Raucous cheers. “Here comes awd Bird i't Bush. Way for Hodge Hedge!” A fubsy little man in his nightcap came panting up from the inn, with two frowzy-headed potboys to elbow him through. They were bearing jugs of huffcap and a noggin of burnt wine. “This'll kittle up yer courage.” Her groomsmen held it to Ashes’ lips; they made her drink, and drank.

"Here's to thy dawcock."

At which the remnants of her glory slid, awash in mustiness, and overgunnelled, sank.

The bride tossed back an endless gulp of the ale, with as much bravado as her dress allowed: a mistake perhaps.

A blustering bagpipe and a scrawny fiddle tuned, played snatches off key:
The Magpie's Bagpipe, Aprons All Untied.

"What's for their supper, then?"

"Old ling and oysters."

"Collops and eggs."

"And where s'll they be lodged?"

"At t'sign o't Moon, in Mall's featherbed,” said Brock. “In hallows.” And she set the wren's crown as a garland on the crow lad's head, and led them on. The wedding followed: Ashes in her coat the man; the crow lad, crowned with haws, the bride. A stalking, stealing tune began, a maze of turnings in a mist of air. Behind them, there came men and women dancing, longways now, by two and two. Sad mirth and solemn mischief now: all riot combed and carded by the winding music to a skein. They danced with great renown, to small pipes and the soultap of a heartpaced goatskin drum, the plaining of a crowd of bone. It played
Nine Weaving,
the beginning of the world.

"My lady,” said her servant.

Scarce Whin could look on her: so black she dazzled, even as the sun inverse. Lightblinded, she must see her still, her image stamped, restamped in burning silver deep within each eye. Her gaze engendered self on self. Outfaced by deity, Whin stood; but flinched her eyes.

And slowly then the god occulted, clouding with a moonwhite face: a woman's. She was old beyond imagining. And silver-new: the moon's last bow re-virgining its birth. As old as the moon is:
Thirteen at hallows,
as the riddle said. Uncounted aeons.
And not bled.
Yet there were lyke roads in her nightlong hair, unjourneyed streaks and sleavings of faint silver, wreaths of light. Unbound in mourning: widowed of herself, self-slain. Unchilded. She was all in velvet rags of night. Her virgin's body, slender as a thorn, was icebound, moveless in a cold despair. Self-broken in her self-raised storm. And wreathed about her rimewhite neck and heaped and braided in her hair, like shatterings of hail, were soulstones, vivider than any Whin had told. She felt the sting and fury of their sentience. But my lady was beyond her reach: no godwitch but a guising, an eidolon. And that wraith itself unstaid. Her semblance flowed from her like mist from ice, subliming in a silver fume, renewed. And still and endlessly renewed, from her abyss.

But at her wrist, Whin saw the braid like living fire. That alone was true: it burned her and it chained.

My lady roused from her brooding; bent her gaze on the captive. She acknowledged.

"Ashes."

"What I is."

"Thou ow'st me blood."

Whin held up her ringless hand, palm outward. “Cannot be held."

"No?” My lady raised her white hand, clotted with its rings, its gouts of soulstones. Beckoning to Morag, she took a cup of bone of her, blacksilver at the lip. “My daughter hath betrayed me; thou art Ashes in her room."

She held out her shallow cup to Whin. “Come, girl, by my knee. A pledge."

Whin shook her head. “Cry you mercy."

"Ah, thou art wise in tales.
Take nothing in the lykeworld: neither flesh nor wine.
But thy gossips have misled thee. Here thou art eaten. Thy heart like a pomegranate, slowly, seed by seed.” She tipped the bowl so that Whin saw an eyeblink of the draft. Blue milk. “Thy dam—” She raised it to her lip, and drank. “Thy dam, I think, scarce suckled thee. But cast thee naked to the sea as waif. A witch of the Unleaving—"

"Lish as an otter, aye, and fierce to bite,” said the huntsman. “Fish below the fork."

"But served.” Again my lady held the cup to Whin. “Now wouldst drink rebirth?"

Whin took the cup, old bone and brown as winter earth; she poured a little in her palm, swirled blood and milk and ashes. “To yer bonny hind,” she said, and spilled it on the earth as offering.

"And to the hunt,” my lady said; and turning to her servants, “Search her."

The huntsman caught Whin's arms and held her fast, with hands her blood remembered.
Gloves,
she told herself. “Turn and turn,” he said. “This time I bid thee. And I ride.” Morag set to work with her knife. She slashed Whin's jacket from her back, her shirt and breeches all to ribands; stripped her of her will and all. Turned out the Ashes bag disdainfully. No rings. A barren purse.

"Stop at flesh,” said my lady. “For now."

"I'll but redd her for the glass.” But Morag's comb undid, it ravelled will and memory and soul. Her nails cracked psyche as she would a flea.
A knot,
the witch's voice said, wasped within her ear.
Will I undo it?

Blood and milk. Her son lay naked on her breast, newborn, like bruised fruit trodden in the grass. White bloom on him, like sloes. Soft down. Her windfall.

Will I shear that?

"No.” A low cry, torn from her.

"Time enough for that,” said my lady.

"Will I set her to the glass?” said Morag.

"Anon,” said my lady. Beckoning, she bid Whin stand before her, naked in her rags. “Here's folly. Thou hast braved the wolfish sea, breached Law. Walked naked to thy weird. Didst thou think to put thyself into a song?"

"I's not so green as that,” said Whin. “Tale's eaten me, as is."

"What then? Prig stars to pounce the oversky? Befool me with a bairn of wax? Mine eyes are not yet glass.” Her voice darkened. “Or cam'st thou for my daughter's braid?” Stark now, of metal heavier than gold, than lead: bluefaced in her coil of cloud. All slag and cinders but her chain of fire. “To string a fiddle for her bawd thy cockpiece?"

"No."

"What then?"

Whin's tongue was heavy as a stone. Her mind a millstone cracked. Sea-drubbed and clapperclawed, amazed, she swayed a little as she stood. There was no earth, no sky, no otherwise, no in and out, no elsewhere—only Annis, castled in her mind. Herself in self involving, wick in winding sheet. Riddle in rune. And nought in all this wrack of others’ memory her own. But silence: and her six wits scuttling like rats in a ruin.

What's within but mirk and mist?
Long ago, Whin lay on fishnets in a wicker basket, while the guisers stalked and roared.
But I's a sun frae Mally's kist.

"I could tell a death."

The guiser in grey went before them with the wren's crown on a pole, pale ribbons floating out. When Ashes looked behind, the dance was shadows in a slow hey, endlessly enweaving to a faded music. Longways for as many as will; or that would be or that ever were.
Faint Starres and numberless.
And then had gone.

They were elsewhere, in a wood now, all unleaved but oak. A windthrawn straggled wood, aslant a hillside. On Law. Cloudrooted, it was kindred to the standing stones, but older far: had branched and drifted over them a thousand thousand times. Indwelt.

And wood within that wood, of gold, another wood unleaving. Still and still they drifted, leaf on shadow lighting, leaves on leaves: an endless fall of gold that silent spoke in leaves of prophecy; was fleeting still.
O Hallows.
By the Owlstone, drifted deep in leaves, there sat two sisters, close as moon and dark of moon, that wove one garland on their knees, of light.

O,
said Ashes silently. No tongue, no breath. All eyes.

Nowhere. And yet—

A soul. A soul,
called the guiser, knocking with her staff.
For it's cold by th’ door.

Lift latch,
said the latewitch crossly.
I's get me hands full.

The leaves whirled up around them; fell. And there was no one but the witch within. No light, no leaves, no hallows. Nothing but an out-at-elbow shabby wood. Setting by a clumsy wreath, the latewitch rose and bustled. Fierce and raggish in her tattered petticoats and leaf-red cap, her hair like a ravelled owl's nest: sticks, mutes, feathers, broken shells, and all.

Shut door; thou's letting wind out.

Leap fire, last fire, fire we sing,
the guiser chanted.

If it's guising, I's nowt brewed for yer. Nobbut small.
A shrewd glance at the crow lad in his silver mantle, walking in his sleep.
Sun's far astray. Should be wound on t'Spindle, all a maze.

Clipsed,
said the guiser, leaning her staff in a notional corner. Then sliding back into ritual, she chanted,
Owl's down and Fiddler born. Year's in Ashes. Will I kindle Thorn?

Kindling's wet,
said the latewitch.
Thou could try.

The guiser crouched and scuffled in the leaftrash, uncovering the ashes of a fire, cold out. She took a handful of black sticks and ashes, and she blew on them. A ravelling of smoke; a little twiring flame, a-dance within her hands. A hearthfire. She set it down and cosseted with sticks until it crackled. Rustling about, she found a crackpot, tipsy on its one leg, canted over. It was full of white rot and spiders.

Wassail,
said the witch.

Cold hail,
said the guiser, shaking out the pot.
Cold hail and sneck posset. Thou's ever been a clashy hussif. Crowdling wi’ thee's like ingling an urchin.

There's owlnuts and arains all up on t'shelf. If thou wants any more thou can sing it thysel.

Gi's thy cap, awd lass, and I'll scour pot.

Still Ashes gazed and grieved.

All amort?
The witch picked up the dwindled wreath; it dangled idly on her finger.
Lang making. Every year and all, for nowt.
She cast the O of branches on the fire. Even as Ashes cried out in silent grief, it blazed up in green leaves and fleeting flowers, brief as snow; then was russeted and rich with fruit; then firestruck, its every tendril cast in gold, consuming. It was ashes of snow.