Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter's Tales (30 page)

"But the one, I hope,” said Grevil, leaning outward. “I have had them smoked, but the windfalls draw them. How they dote."

Another margin.

They will let the Sunne no stay in Law, though in sooth it lies a Twelve-Night in that House: they say the Guisers call not at that doore. I have heard oure countrey Fellows tell that Law is Ashes’ Bagge, wherein the Soules of all the Dead are gather'd, Coyne untold. Some others name it not; or else, the Riddles that are endlesse Falling or her Cauldron that is fulle of Bones; or in the Lunish tongue (a Traveller at Stallbrigg once), her Virgin crants or Garlande; by the impious, her thing of Naught.

The Scythe...?

Turning from the open window, Grevil said, “Of what age are you?"

"Sir?"

Looking up, she saw a swirl and settling of birds, like ashes, on the bristling field. A shovelful of cinder-crows. Three gleaners moved aslant the furrows. Slowly, stooping as they scried and harvested. A straw, another straw, to swell the meagre bundle in the hand.

"I know not. Not fourteen, I think."

"Thou gravity.” He folded up the letter in his hand. “And of what name? What birth? Will you not swear that you were such a one—Joan's Jin of Askrigg, that was stolen from her cradle while her mother keeled the pot, or daughter of the king of Lune?"

"I am Margaret still. As still I rose. And of no house but this, and at your will: I sojourn here.” She saw, as though between her hands, my lady's toy, her spheres: the sun of amber sliding round and round the felly of the year; the moonstone twiring backward through the turn and topple of the stars; the planets in and out, threadneedle, through the starry hey.
Time is where.

"I see. You are planetary."

All the branches now bore girls. He glanced again, as if distracted, at the green. “My father had those trees engrafted. Luning on an older stock, and all the sweeter for the imping out.” Distracted still. He picked up, set down the pebble on a heap of papers. “As thou knowest, I am childless. Makeless. And mine aunt—” Stone, paper, knife. “Well, there are lands. There is a name. And she—I tell this ill.” Knife, paper. “This world is unkindly. My name and privilege do ward me from the worst of cruelties, but thou art bare. Beyond these walls, beyond my tutelage, thou wouldst be shelterless from harm.” Paper, stone. “I would not see thee slighted at my death. Cast out.” Now he looked at her. “So then, Margaret of Nowhere, Margaret Perseis, I would name you as a foster-daughter, as my ward. As Grevil."

As if she'd fallen from the Ship: no up nor down, no earth, no anywhere. No breath. The rush of fires in the dark. “Sir, I—"

"Margaret?"

No answer. What she saw was wing on wing of nightmare stooping on the house: her mother's mother and her bloodnailed servant. They would snatch her from its ruins.

Softly now. “But I have spoken all too suddenly. I see I have amazed thee."

"But ... your aunt?"

His mouth wried. “I have told to her my will. She likes not the alliance.” Paper, knife. “But liking must be servant to the law. I can draw such papers that she may not break. Aye, and seal them.” He twisted round his massy ring. “This is Grevil's will.” Now—only now—he touched her, lifting up her chin. “The land is given: that I cannot change. But I would leave to thee my books."

No words.

"And you? What is your will?"

"I dare not dream of such felicity. If—"

"And if?"

A silence and the stir of branches. “Nothing. Only I would go on working."

"Enough now. The page is dry. We will parley.” He sighed. “Get you to the kitchen, hence. They'll want you garnering when Doll hath broke her crown."

Owlset. The Ladle sunken to the rim in stars, like a tin scoop thrust in grain. The Scythe sunk deeper still, but barely embers in the grass. Nine rising. Starring out like thorn.

"Fiddler?” said Margaret. “Fool?"

A shifting in the dark beside her. “Mmm?” His mouth full of stubble goose.

"Thy guising on the Road. What stars?"

He sprawled back in the heather. “See, they's hunting yon Wren.” With gnawed wing in hand he traced the sprawl of them across the sky. “There's poor awd Hobby Horse ‘at's welted ower on his back. There's Room where they rime."

The great square of the Threshing Floor.

"And Wren's Cage, sitha, brave wi’ ribands, and t'Awd Wren hanged."

That whorl of light unspun: she knew it in my lady's Chain. The Clasp.

"Yon's Fool wi’ his Knot o Swords. Tabor at his knee. He's one o't heroes. And there's a kemping atween ‘em, Leapfire and Lightfast. Sun and his son. Stark battle wi’ bright swords. Thwick thwack! And t'Awd Year tumbles down.” He flourished with the bone. “And Fiddler's lagged. He's lantered, see, i't Thornbush. They go tumbling round and roundt sky, drunk as owls. And they never catch Wren, and he's catched long since."

"Wren?"

"Aye, well, he's setting there. Aback o Noll's barn."

Margaret called to mind the airy card. A bird in a thornbush. “Why do they hunt?"

"So year is."

For a space they were silent, gazing up at the sky. Giddying. At last the crow lad said, “What d'ye call Fiddler then?"

"The Hanged Man,” said Margaret.

Wind in the heather.

He sat up. “Thy folk'll be lating thee."

"Not here."

"Oh aye. Thou's waiting on thy rade to fetch thee under. Bridles and all."

"And back of him, about the Gallows Tree—? Not Witches. Crows,” she said. “To pick his bones. They quarrel for his eyes. And there—” Westering. “There's another, swooping down with his soul."

"Fiddler,” he said, and hurled his goosewing in the heather. “Thou blindworm. Up there's t'Crowd o Bone that he's lost at a wager. And he's seeking it ont Lyke Road. They stringed it wi’ her hair.” His voice shook: whether out of fear or triumph, in the dark she could not tell.

She'd not ask. But, “Ashes?"

"Aye, they clipped her for a whore.” Rolling to his knees, he pointed. “Yonder on her back, aspraddle. Allt Road atween her legs."

"No,” said Margaret.

"Seed full and sack open. Threshed."

"No."

"Aye, and her belly roaring full o flesh. Big wi’ Sun's brat. Or any."

"No.” She looked where Ashes lay, light-stranded at the verge of Law, the Lyke Road streaming backward like a braid of hair unbound. Her Ring, unseen, beneath her. That way the Hallows tide had borne her, to that darkward shore. Time's shipwrack. Going naked into dark. “No, they took her. Under Law. My lady's ... her servants. The Light Horseman. And her Brach."

"There's none such stars."

"Beyond that hill,” she said uncertainly. “They would have set. The Hunstman and Hound?"

"Flittin round thy head, more like. Hawk and Handsaw."

"The Swift?"

"Oh aye. And t'Whirlygig. Doll's Dawcock.” Here and there, at airy random. “All that nest o maggots i’ thy mawky brain, thou windegg."

She sat brooding her knees. “And the Hare?"

"Atween thy legs. Thou fond."

"It would be rising,” she said. “I've seen it rising. And the Tower.” They were in her pack. She'd dealt them out a thousand times. And in that Tower, in its maze, within its hedge of iron thorn. Beyond that sea. The strangeness of their absence shook her: not her knowing but her sense. As if ascending on a stair she felt a falling. All of these were cards my lady took from her, and all were void: their patterns faded out of memory, their tales burnt out. As if they'd never been. And yet the cancelled stars could still be reckoned in her glass, be counted yet untold. “I could show thee. I'd tell."

He laughed. “There's nonesoever i’ this earth has see'd yon stars; but thou has. Digged for them, thou sky-mole. Under Law."

"'Tis where they go; and some do rise again.” Her finger traced the fell. “There's Ashes’ Ring beneath yon hill. Her soul. They took it of her at the gate—"

"Thou witch.” A whisper: but it touched her secrecies. “Uncanny's what thou is."

Colder now, a small wind shivering the heath. “As they will—"

Silence. Even as she spoke, she saw his riddle, rhymed him with a lost card of her pack.
” ... a star thou's not spied."
And she'd given it to burn. A harvest field, a hailstorm threatening; a reaper bending to a Sheaf that was a boy of barleycorn, white-headed like himself. And in his outflung hand, a star. Called Leapfire. She knew it for the seedcorn of the sun renewed. Against the stormdark sky, white crows were rising. Seven. And the brashest carried off a something shining in its beak.
Seven for a secret never to be told.

The card was burning in my lady's hand; the ashes fluttered to the floor.
Thy choosing, Madam. It will make a game.
Margaret got up. “You can have the cake, I don't want it."

The flower between the leaves was faded, pale as the moon by day. The imprint of it lay across the page, faint shadow on the faded ink:
” ... as Childgrove, which is death to fell..."

"Her book?” said Margaret. A play of Perseis, outworn with reading. In a margin in a brave small hand, much flourished:
Annot Fell.

"For epigraph.” The fled girl's nephew sighed and smiled, remembering. “It was the first I read that set me thinking on the metaphysics, on the stories of the sky on earth.” (The shepherd Damasin arose and drew her bodkin, crying out,
Avaunt ye! Hags of night!
And Noll in his black petticoats, a hatchling crow, assailed her fiercely, shrieking out declensions in the old tongue, till she turned him upside down. They tumbled on the floor.) “Above all else ‘twas marvellous: there was a star danced in a wood, Unleaving, that did take a shepherd for her love.” He pulled his heap of notes toward her. “From here,” said Grevil. “Where ‘tis marked."

With a blade of barley, awned but empty of its seed, a husk. Margaret turned the book a little toward the fading light, and wrote.

"The earth may bee divided as the Heavens, into fields. As these, in our demesne of Cloud, call'd Bare Bones, Dearbought, Come by Chance; Cold Hallows, Hanging Crows; Sheer Ash; or Babylon. So likewise do we map the heavens Sphaere, take fallowes of the Element and garths of Law, as these: the Bonny Hind, the Hey (wherein the Nine are bower'd); the Fiddler and his Bitch at heel; the Riddle and the Shears; the Ship.

"Now
Perseis
,” said Grevil, turning to the leaf-shadowed lines. “Where first he speaks."

"O rare Cosmographie—"

What voice? She saw another's shadow on the book, the leaves blown backward. Nothing. A wind in the ivy, a small bird's plaint.

"That wee may cry (as doth the Shepheard in the play, that lookt upon the fallen Perseis, amaz'd), O rare Cosmographie, that shar'st the commons of the Night in steads of fyre, stints of Ayr. Of these (for the greater part) their History is a tale of Nothing, mere Obscurity, but for the Cadence of a starre, chance Fyre; yet some be hallows of the Sunne and Moon. That the Heavens are indwelt in Woods, springs, standing Groves was
credo
to Antiquitie, who raised them Monuments in upright stones: which carols are the starres’ Epitome; the standing houses of the Moone her progresse; Stations of the Sunne.

"Yet needs the scion of the Light
(scilicet)
Barleycorn no vaulted Monument. On going to his naked bed, bare ground, his Seed doth hallow it. His Acte is all. Of his Solemnitie is made our winter's Mirth, that Maske wherein hee's headed and doth rise to dance: the Earth his Tyring-house, the Threshing-floor his Inne wherein his tragedie and Jigg is play'd. The Guisers cry him Room. They bear him in the Sheaf, in
Effigies;
the Old Moon sweeps the way before, and Ashes in her suit of mourning stalks behind. At every Door, they drink his Wassall, of his Bowle, drink down the Sunne..."

She bent to dip her quill; Grevil, mending his, stared silent at the rain, his knife in hand. A thought, like water into water: troubling, mingling with her soul.
Time runs here; he will die of time. And I...?

The ripples faded out. She wrote.

"...drink down the Sunne that will them wake: in his remembrance is Oblivion.

"Wee go not the Sunne's way into shadow, endlesse round to rise; but walk our longways on that paly Road, from earth to Ashes, fallows to the Scythe. We are but Clouds of Earth, instarr'd. The Heavens are indwelt in us: the Sunne that is our marrow, and the scything Moon; the Ship and every wandering Starre. In every Soule is Ashes. In our Nativity is sealed our Death; in every Child his waxe, the Impress of the Sky inlayed: his Lyke Road and his rising, and the journey of his mortall Starre."

So early dusk. Already now the even of the year, its equipoise: the light ensilvering, the gold ingathered to the barns. And Margaret was late.

There was harvest on the high moor, hurts and crawcrooks. She'd leave to pick with Doll; but Doll had spied a shepherd lad, and slipped away. A moment, she had said; but when the bush was bare, she'd still not come and Margaret, wearying of idleness, had strayed on to the next. But only this spray and that beauty, barely out of reach; this handful, just to even out the frail. They led her down the far side of the fell. And still with her night-quick eyes she saw new garner in the hedgerows, hips and haws and rowans, sloes and brambles, clustered thick as stars. Hers for the picking, for Barbary's winter gallipots.

Now she hurried with her laden basket, shifting it from crook of arm to wrist to shoulder, side to side; she culled it to her bluestained breast. Her garner. Her excuse for dawdling, and her offered recompense for ravelled sleeves, bedraggled petticoats, spoilt shoes. But in her haste, she jounced the berries, and they scattered in the trodden way. Were burst. So she went: halting and hurrying; flurried and dallying; belated and beguiled. Astray.

A moment since, the light lay dazzling aslant a field, pale bright with straw, and climbing to a slate blue sky. They'd counterchanged: the sky was silver pale now and the broad earth shadowed. This was nowhere that she knew: a coign in a crowd of stony fields. She stood.

Long shadow at her feet. Behind her, on the shoulder of the fell, it still was day, still glowing with the embered sun, white ash; but all the sunken path before her lay in shadow, turning always from her way. She felt the glow of her success and flurry fading in her cheek. Cold now with doubt.