Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter's Tales (62 page)

Ashes that is Thea's daughter, that was Margaret in another world, in Cloud: she gazes at the boy, astounded, grieved.
How came he with the guising, here?
And the crow's voice in her says,
Thy curse. That rope will not undo.

Grevil stands.
No right, no right at all to mourn. No kind of his. No lover.
Yet it's he who stoops to take the ring up, sandy on his palm, sea-clouded; and he turns to the Ashes at the crow lad's side, the elder of the three. “Will you tell a death?

Whin takes it in her hand. No more Brock's journeyman, but mistress Ashes. Only with a look, she stills them all: the shivering of the Fool, who's not yet wept, who when he does will break down utterly, heeled through; the Fiddler's sad bewilderment, his sorrow at his joy; Imbry's fury; green Ashes’ disbelief.

What I is, is Ashes. Same as earth is earth. Her coat that she put on.

The play's not ended yet.

Ashes takes the crow lad in her lap, she cradles him. But for Imbry's coat, she's naked, wearing naught but blood, as if she'd just then given birth. Her nakedness is office. And her part is silence. She slips the ring on his cold finger, where it gleams a moment like a raindrop, like the sun through sliding water: gold and gone. She sains him: brow and wound and gender; eyes, mouth, heart.

He stirs.

All others now are still: as if unbreathing they can give him breath. Out beyond, the sea breaks, birdless, on the shore.

"Will,” says Ashes. “Wake thee."

And he takes a shuddering breath. Another.

Done.

The blood runs shining from his side. The gash, gut-spilling, knits itself: an angry seam, a scar. She traces it. Death's nave.

Undone.

He wakes.

And all to do.

Will lifts a hand before his eyes, as if she dazzles. “Ashes?"

"Get thee up, lad. Thou's to dance another where.” She sits back on her heels. “It's all to do ower. All down t'Road."

Yet they linger a space, but to drink Unleaving. Whin's been kitted in the coat of sparks, laid by her Ashes coat for now; she's kindled fire of the thorn. The night is clarified by fire: the mirk turned deeper grey, but starless yet. Unblue. As restless as the flame, Will paces; the others hunch and brood. Here's nothing: but a space between sleep and waking, now and nowhere, sea and strand.

Whin's been mulling ale in Rianty's saucepan helm; she calls him. “Here's drink. Thou's a cup i’ thy tatters."

So he finds, having rummaged through the Cloudwood coat: a little wooden cup, wormeaten, so the lip is oakleaf edged. As thin. She fills it from Brock's bottle, nearly: she has that much left. Cloud ale.

Rising, Whin gives the cup to Kit. “Halse ye."

"And hallows ye.” He drinks of it, and all his life without is shadow. Here is light, the heart of it: pale fire, and the endless fall. Unleaving. He wakes wood. Still falling, leaf on leaf, he's earthfast, root and crown. Eternal, he is time. Through a tranquil storm, he turns to Ashes that was Thea's daughter. Light through leaves. His vision fades before her, cloud before the moon. He sees her mother's face in her, the old moon in the new.

Long long ago, a dazed boy took a cup and drank to eyes like these.
Is this the moon?
he said. A goddess: and he knew her as a lover, breath and body; yet he knew her not. But in the folly of their play they got this miracle.
Thy mother was my dearest love, my heart; and thou
—No words, no words.

But Grevil takes her by the arms. “Margaret,” he says, appalled.
Margaret,
thinks Kit: their mothers’ mother's name. “What scathe is this? How cam'st thou here in hell?"

"Here was I born. And thought to die here in myself; yet live, unkindly. I was Annis’ glass."

Kit then to Grevil in astonishment: he asks the least of it. “You know her?"

Grevil shakes his head. “Not as this—epiphany: but barely, if this dream be true. As Margaret, she is of my household; has been for this half year and more. I took her in, a waif. But you?"

"I never saw her face, nor thought to see it; yet her mother was to me still dearer than my soul. We were captives here; and fled."

Thunderbolt on bolt. Astounded, Grevil looks at them, from face to face, with doubt, with wonderment, with kindling joy. “By the ladle. Hand is not more like this hand. Ah, Margaret, here's thy father that has sought thee to the end of Law."

Still Margaret stands, as if amazed. “You were Thea's Kit? Who took the braid?"

Kit dies. “That he."

The stern young face—still childish—gazes through and through him. “Ill-done: for you did twist a halter with that hair. Her death and my captivity.” She gentles then. “Yet she did love you. In the end."

He cannot speak.

Bricks and timbers of the house still fall on Grevil's head. “O but then—thy father's Annot's
son.
Thyself's thy father's dame. Here's law confounded."

Gravely she looks on them, the newfound cousins, as she would a pair of gloves. “Then we are kindred. You are like.” She curtseys. Even swayed with weariness and battle, even marred—bruised face, cracked lip, the hacked hair like a carted whore's—she bears herself as Thea's daughter.

Kit takes her small hand, roughened by her journey; raises her. “You are like her. Like yourself: no other."

Then she takes the cup of him, and drinks.

She sees the old unshattered heavens, come together like the moon in water, all unflawed. An O. She journeys in the Ship, whose mast is rooted, flowering in stars; they fall upon her, white as thorn. She's standing at its very bow, that breaks the black night, voyaging: the Road's her wake. And there are islands ... But it fades.

Turning with the cup, she sets it on a rock. She beckons Imbry to the circle: Ashes bids Ashes. Yet she speaks as child to child. “I pray you: let me see your comb.” She takes it as a relic, turning it; her face is sorrowful. “They call you Imbry. Were you cast up from the sea?"

"Aye, and if?"

"We two are sisters then. Thy mother was my nurse. Her milk was salt for thee, with grieving for thy loss, her mourning boundless as the sea."

Imbry stands between doubt and blazing. She would scorn—
aye, throwed me to't fishes, and to worse, to dragging up by whores and witches
—but the comb says,
Kept thy soul alive.
She nods warily.

The other bends and whispers softly in her sister's ear: “Her true name in her tongue was Siorvar. She told me as they—told me once, so one might ash her.” Norni being dead, they'd given her her milk to drink: a cup of it, with certain blood. That guilt she would not tell. But stepping back, she says, “A windwife, a witch of Scarristack. She taught me somewhat of her art; yet I was young to practise it, and too much overlooked. She sang it as she dressed my hair; but I am shorn of it, of art and nursery. Sister, I would learn of you to braid."

She gives the cup to Imbry Ask, who drinks. At once that black imp's in a whirlwind, white on white, of snow and spindrift. Bending on, she sees a field of snow, and knows it for the sky, as yet unstarred. She sees the tracks of stars across it, godprints; sees the Hare's Trod and the Bear's Tread, and the Vixen's swift three Leaps. Then tumbles down and downward to the hearthfire and the dance. She's naked but a fell of stars. No music have they in the norlands, but the nimbling of the tongue, the struck skin's dub: mouth music and the tumbling of the drums.

And Imbry turns to Will. “Halse ye and halter thee. Thou bragfire raggamuff. Thou hempseed."

"Thou cattle-plash. Thou sough. Would thou gulp me?"

"Aye, skin and soul. But if thou eat of me."

Drink he must: and sees in it the Swords, slow-wheeling, turning ever to his hand.

He would give the cup to Margaret, but the ritual forbids. Self-crossed in love, he stands, and all his acts athwart and thwart him. He would look at her, cannot so much as lift his face. His inwit gnaws him like a bandogg's bone, old meat.

Here's Marget that he's fond on. Marget that he's fought for. Marget that is Ashes, eld of all, and Thea's daughter that he's sworn to serve. And Marget that he's meddled: pried her with his snotty fingers, and a rusty saw-knife at her throat.

So he's fought old Daddy Corbet for her sake, he's died for her; yet he's fallen and she's won.

The cup is burning in his hands; his heart is stomach, is a drabbled rag wrung out. He shrugs and mutters. “Then I's sorry. What I done."

But Margaret says, “I kept that snail's shell. In my box.” He lifts his face a little, curious: sees hers, unsmiling but alight. “But the lateworms I do keep in memory. And will."

"You'd not map those."

"I have not the calculus."

A ghost of old bravado. “Thou arain-web. Thou urchin."

"Chimneysweeper.” And she opens out her hands.

But Whin's seen Grevil hanging back, and draws him in. “Will. Here's one who's not drunken."

So he must face his judge; his trick; his fellow journeyman. A curt upward nod. “Noll.” All this while, he's fed on fury: on the sentencing, the truckling of the man to Corbet; on the cruelty for naught, for cowardice. He's glutted on contempt.
Aye, spur on, yer gentryship, I's jigged thee, naked as a worm, I's heared thee groan and whimper. Wiped my hands of thee on grass. I driven thee.

But what he sees within is Noll's hand on a book. He turns it to the boy.
There now.
And the page is full of images, bright painted creatures, birds and flies. All spellbound. And they bind the boy, who gazes.
Wouldst thou learn that art?
And,
Aye,
the boy says.
I could do that fine. That gressop's legs is all awry. Is't Lunish?
And Grevil:
I could teach thee. Give thee colors.
Lake and madder. Useless in the muck of byres, in the roofless wind and rain. All paper dreams. He'd drunk away the lead of silver.

The boy who speaks is half-remembered: young. “Could I keep hat?"

Grevil nods, as if his heart would spill. “—and feather."

Noll drinks: he sees the harvest field, a-dazzle through his tears. He drowns in gold.

That over with, the lad lopes off to the sea's edge, wading in to wash the blood away. He strips his shirt.

Grevil gazes. Shaken to the bone with beauty, he forgets his courtesy. The cup, unnoticed, still is cradled in his hand. Kit takes it gently, hands it on to Whin, full circle. She drinks her last of Cloud; what Whin sees, no one knows.

Whin sets the cup aside; looks up at Kit: and all is changed between them. In that moment is awakening, regret. A knowing of the other, soul and skin. A love autumnal: like the first bite of the first half-ripened russeting: sharp sweet, springing in the mouth. A harbinger of frost.

And yet they resonate: as if they two were fiddles, on a sudden set in tune: but will not play. As if the key has shifted and the canon overturned, as turn it must—and then breaks off. No cadence now. No chance.

Bending to her task, Whin gathers up the scattered properties. They'll take them all away: the cup, the staff, the knot of swords; the shirt, a little slashed, once fine, but stained now, bloodied with his death.

"If it's guising,” says Kit, “you're a bit few."

"A sword and a bush,” says Whin, nodding at Will and Imbry. “So it ever was."

Down at the sea's edge they're running, leaping overlapping waves. Imbry has the great black coat on now; she splashes Will, he lashes with the knotted shirt, he dodges. Exit, pursued by a bear.

"Two?” says Kit.

"Three. There's master: which I is."

The sea booms; the fierce young voices cry and challenge.

Running back along the sand, they edder Margaret, in and out. She walks along the shoreline slowly, stooping. She is getting shells and pebbles, turning them between her fingers, on her palm. Some she keeps, and others casts away. Beyond her is the ocean, undiscovered.

"No,” Whin says, though he's not asked. “Nobbut three.” She draws a crossing in the air: chiasmus. “We's skyward, and sworn; and thou and thine is earthfast. See, it's done here. And no more to do."

Nothing left beneath the moon, thinks Kit: he sees the round earth like an orange peel, sucked dry. “But why?"

"It's what thy lass did."

That stabs at him. He bows his shoulders, wries and rocks. “She meant no—"

"What she is. What she were born for. Same as I is Ashes.” She looks outward. “Late,” says Whin.

"There's never morning here."

"There's morning now: it's changed."

"Dark's all it is."

"Aye, and will be nowhere when ‘tis light. Time's turned and coming in. We's best away afore it whelms us.” And it's true: the dark is paling now, it thins. Out of nowhere, there's a little wind.

She's scavenged up the skywreck, bundled in a scrap of sail.

"If it's done—” he says.

"Done here. There's elsewhere all to do.” Knot on knot, she's tying up her pack: new stars for the otherworlds, all down the Road. “It's all in thy cousin's book, I'd wager. Witch stuff.” How she binds it, bowing to her work, half singing to herself. “
We'll riddle and we'll fiddle, and we'll make the sun go round
... It's a rare good play, t'guising: Sun dies in Ashes’ lap and rises up, himself. All bright i't sky. But nevermore i’ Cloud: there's none can raise him there. He's dead. Like I is.” Knot on knot, she binds it. “Like thy Thea: but will rise up shining, over and again. For ay and O.” And now she looks at him, holds out her hand. “Thy crowd."

Kit flinches; but the ghost of this has walked his heart:
no more.
And it is empty now: a shell with no sea in it, sung out. Unstrung.

He gives it.

And she takes. She looks as he's remembered her, a little greyed. “All over and again. I'd rather once."

A kiss like summer lightning: distant, bodiless, all light.

No more. The journeymen have gathered as she stamps the fire out, and quenches it with sand.

The parting's brief. All this interlude has been a maze of glances, gazes, weaving and withdrawing like the knot of swords. Cross and cross: and when it's made, it's all at once unmade, and brings the heavens toppling down.