Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter's Tales (6 page)

The night was uncompassed. Far off, they heard an endless rampage, not a shuttle but a reel of sound, cloud spinning into ice.

"What's that?” she said. “'Tis like the sea unmeasured."

"A river,” he said. “Houses?"

So they set out for it, stumbling into brakes of thorn and bogs and pitfalls, snagged and mired. They went blindly, now toward and now astray. The roar grew louder in the dark. The hills re-echoed with the rush of it, behind, before, and everywhere. Above, a nightcrow cawed, once, in its coaly voice. An omen. Thea stilled.

"What is't?” said Kit.

"The clouds have eyes."

"An I had my fiddle, I would play them to sleep."

On the hills, the foxes yowled and yelped, as if their blood ran green. An eerie sound, that keening. Thea shivered.

"The hills have tongues. They wake."

"They wed. I'd light them with a dance.” And wheeling backward, sliding—"Oh!” cried Kit. She caught his jacket as he stepped on nothing, on the brink of tumbling in a foss.

"Now what?” said Kit. “I'm for a glass castle and a bout with goblins. Or a ghost, or what you will. As we've tumbled in a winter's tale.” He sat among the lashy thorns and rubbed his shins. “Ah,” he said, and fumbled in his pockets. “Here.” She felt a handful of nuts. “From thy mother's table, as I passed. We may sit and crack them while the crows take counsel."

"Or match them with a goblin, shell for soul."

"Unless he'd like a gingernut?"

"To cross his river?"

"Aye.” Kit rose. “'Twill narrow upstream, far enough."

In the dark beyond the river, there and gone, they saw a fire.

Kit caught at Thea's arm. “A light. A house?"

"A torch,” she said. “It moves."

"Thy mother's horsemen?"

"No. They bear no light."

He said, “Belike some lantered shepherd. Or a fiddler from a dance."

Stumbling toward the light, he called out, “Hallows!"

An answer, lost in tumult.

"Hey! Where's this?"

"Crawes Brig,” called the voice. “Wait on.” They saw the wavering fire and the world made round it, swayed and ruddy. On the farther bank, a roughclad knarry shape held up a torch. It shuddered in the little wind. They saw the wolf-black water, snarling white; they saw the way, from stone to stepping-stone to span, the lighter as they leapt. A clapper bridge, a cromlech. They met on the span. “Here. Gi's that.” The stranger took the lantern, thrust the torch in it alight, and latched the door; then hurled the brief end, whirling fire, in the beck.

They stood within a burr of light that brindled in the rushy dark. There was no other where. The stranger stared at them with long dark eyes, quirked mouth. Kit saw the hunch of shoulders bearing up the jangling pack. A traveller, he thought, a tinker or a tain by kindred: breeched and beardless, swart and badgerly of arms. And grey as any brock: with winters or the hag, he knew not. By the small harsh voice, a woman, so he guessed.

"Yer late abroad,” said Brock. “Come on."

The candle wavers. Ah, thou frown'st, as if my shadow fell across thine elsewhere. I will spell this in the margins of thy book. Mine, once. See, Margaret, here the leaf's turned down where Perseis gave up. Her grave is Law. But I see thou read'st her spring, her journeying. The lady speaks:

Another world. I dreamed not of greenwood nor of crowns of May; nor thought on bread, sweat, childbed. Only I would not be Thea, and my lady's cipher. So I saw my chance: a bird in hand, a passager; an occultation of the Nine. I took.

Poor Kit. Wood with love of me. He mourned his fiddle; I do rue it now. His soul and livelihood and all. And yet he had of me a greater thing, unwitting. Not my maidenhead. Whatever ballads tell, ‘tis nothing, anyone's. An O. That which annihilates all else. No, Margaret: the game is toyish, but the stakes are souls. My love, we ate each other back and belly, and the heartstrings: which are music, which are gut.

Ah, now the candle gutters. I am leaping; I am shroud and smoke.

I snuff.

"Here,” said the traveller. She stooped and they followed through a thicket of ice. The candle woke in it a flittering of lights; it chimed and rattled as they passed beneath it. “Rimes,” said Thea, half aloud to Kit. “Glass castle,” he whispered. “Did I not say?” Before them was a tumble of stones: hall fallen into hovel; a sill and dark within. At the door, the traveller stamped the clods from her boots. She set the lantern down; the fire made room. She turned in the doorway and said, “Walk in, awd Moon."

Kit caught her rime, though not her meaning. “Wi’ broom afore, to sweep the ashes from the door,” he said, as if they came a-souling at the empty house. He plucked at Thea's sleeve. “Go on, love, ‘tis thy piece."

She turned her small moon's face on him. “Will there be oranges?"

"Thy lapful."

"I know not the words."

So Kit chanted, “Cold by the door and my candle burns low, so please let us in, for it's shrewd in the snow.” He bent and bustled all around her with his broom of air; so they went in.

"Here's guising,” said the traveller. “A sword and a bush."

Kit answered lightly. “So it ever was."

"Then let's to yer bout and have done wi’ it. Smick smack, and up flies wren."

Thea lifted her face, bright with mischief. “Ah, but you must hear us out; you've bid us in. You must hear Moon's verses, since she's crossed your door."

The traveller looked them up and down: the tousled lad, all beak and bones; the girl in outlandish clothing, with her hair like braided fire. “Out o thy turning. If thou's Moon."

"Out of thy sphere, if thou'rt fire."

"Out of my depth,” said Kit. “As I am drowned."

They clapped themselves and shivered. Dry within. No straw nor muck; but hay and heather, cut and heaped. Kit turned to and helped the stranger drag some branches to the hearth. It was bare enough, that ruin: a hovel for the lambing shepherds or the lasses binding broom. Kit whispered to Thea, “As for cakes and silver, we may bite old moon."

The traveller lit a fire with a stump of juniper. It burned with a sharp smoke, curling; then was firestruck, its every needle cast in gold, consuming. By its light, they studied her, a little smutchfaced woman, dark and watchful, in a coat of black sheepskins, singed and stained about the hem with ashes and blood. She wore grey breeches and a leathern cap. Her hair was unbound about her shoulders, roughly shorn across her brows; a few strands plaited narrowly with iron charms. She crouched by the fire and stirred it with her knife. “My forge is drowned,” she said. The bough had fallen all to flinders, and the berries glowered in the ashes. “Get yer warm,” she said, and quirked her chin at them. Then she stood and rummaged in her jangling pack, and went out.

They looked at one another, huddling by the fire. All the spanglings of the ice, their winter finery, had faded. There they sat in draggled clothes, ungarlanded, unwed. Bare strangers. By the wall where the bed had stood, a timeworn carving showed: a woman with a pair of shears, but what she sheared was gone. “I feel like a ghost,” said Kit.

"How? Shadowy? Thou'rt blood and breath."

"Uncanny on this ground. And you?"

"No dwelling spirit. They do haunt; they have a bloodknot to this earth. A tale. And mine is all before me, all unmoored."

"An elfin, then."

"A waif. A soul unborn, and calling on the wind. Their tale is nothing: only, they are cold without, and would come in."

"I'd let them in,” said Kit, “And warm them.” White and shivering, her wisp of spirit. And a glass between their souls. He longed to take her in his arms: so small and cold and straight, so quick of mind. A candle and its light, he thought. And then: the fire was his. To have the daughter of so great a lady run away with him—'twas beyond all marvels. And a flawless maid. A dazzlement. A goblin in him danced, exulting; knocked at his breeches. Ranted on his grave. He knelt. “Thea. If thou wouldst—"

"Hush,” said Thea, as they heard the traveller's goatshod step. They sprang apart, a little awkwardly. The fire had flushed them, that was all; the wind had tousled them. The traveller walked softly toward them, and turned to Thea with a cup.

"Here's to thy turning."

"With my heart,” said Thea, with answering gravity. She took it in her hands and drank. “Oh,” she said, and turned to Kit. “Do they not say in Cloud, hallows wi’ thee?"

"And wi’ thee,” he said, and drank. It was milk, still warm. “Ah,” said Kit, bemused. “Your lambs drop early, shepherd."

"Twa and twa,” the traveller said. “T'ane black and t'other white.” She drank. “And all me ewes give cheeses turn themsels."

"Cup and all?” said Thea.

The traveller smiled at her, small and sharp. “At tree, it were. They'll have left it for Ashes."

"Oh,” said Kit. “I see.” Though he did not.

But Thea, pinning up a braid, said, “Ashes?"

"Shepherds. They do wake her from her mother dark."

"Ah, Perseis. I know that tale."

"It's what I do,” said the traveller. “Walk out and see."

Kit caught at straws. “You're late abroad."

"Been hunting craws. To mek a soulcake on."

"But where are your dogs?” said Thea.

"Whistled home.” She unhooked an aleskin from her pack, and teemed it out in a stoup. She pulled her knife from the fire, glowing, and she plunged it in the ale. “Ye'll be starved,” she said. “Walking."

"Wanting bread,” said Kit. “If you can spare."

"As for that.” The traveller undid a rag and a knot and a clump of heather, and held out her scarred brown hand.

Kit saw a handful of stones, black scrawled with white, white scribbled over with a sort of wintry runes, like stars and their ascendants, prophecies of light. “I know this tale,” said Kit. “You'll be wanting a bit of salt next. For the soup."

"What thou will,” the traveller said. She chose a stone and thirled it with a pin and blew: a whorl of sun, widening, muddled with the ale.

"Eggs,” he said, bewildered.

"Aye,” said she, and tossed the shell away and broke another and another still, and stirred the pot. She teemed the ewe's milk in.

Kit raked through the embers for the few flawed shales of night. White, like the moon in flinders. Black, with a sleave of stars. Were they owl eggs, then? Or nightingales? “It's eating music,” he said ruefully.

"O breve,” said Thea. “Do they so in Cloud?"

"With bacon. Do we not in Lune?"

The traveller stirred the caudle round, with a race of ginger, knuckled like a witch's hand, a slurry of coarse sugar and a scrape of nutmeg. A pinch to the fire; it sparkled. “Wha said they'd hatch birds? Wha said they'd sing?"

"In Law,” said Thea, “they do not."

So grave? Kit glanced at her, and pulled a fool's face, innocent. “They say the Lunish witches eat owl pies."

"Crack bones and craunch marrow, aye,” said Thea. Fire and shadow on her face. “But of late they've grown dainty and will nothing coarse: venture on a junket of maidenheads—"

"Ah, that slips down,” said Kit.

"—with a boy for a bergamot."

The traveller dipped her finger, tasted. “Aye, but seek as they will, their cupboard's bare. They may beg for't."

"They've sails,” said Thea. In the silence, they heard the wind rise from the north and west, from Law.

"I's keeled for them,” the traveller said. They looked at her, and at the eggshells, all shivered on the ground but one that whorled about the ale, and sank. “There's all their shallops."

"Will they follow so?” said Thea softly.

"But if their sails are souls, and all their riggins of thy hair."

"'Twas never cut,” said Thea.

"Ah,” the traveller said. “Reach to.” They passed the caudle round and drank in silence. From her pack, the traveller shared out a bannock, spread with curds and new sweet cream. As round as the moon it was, and a little charred beneath. Ah, thought Kit, here's some hob goes supperless, and all the kitchen in a cludder with his sulking on't. He gazed at Thea, silent by the hearth. Her eyes were elsewhere.

Slowly, she unwound her scarf, unclouding heaven. Ah, but she was crescent, she was moonrise, even at the verge of dawn—O hallows—even to the rose.

But not for him, this glory. Bending toward the traveller, she held the scarf: a light silk woven of the sky, it seemed. He'd thought of it as grey, but it was shining, warped with silver like an April morning. Rain and bow. She laid it in the outstretched hands. Kit watching saw it fall on them, and thought their earthgrained furrows would spring green.

"For thy spell,” she said. “A sail."

The traveller looked slantwise through her rough dark hair, her long black eyes unglittering. “A soul.” It shifted in her hands, turned silver and a flowing dark, like cloud before the moon. And cleared then to a moonless dark. The stars ran through it still like rain. “Well, I's a rag on every bush, they say.” She wafted it and caught it crumpled, bunched it in her pack all anyhow. “It's cawd without, thou knaws."

Thea said, “It would not keep me warm."

"It's thy petticoats are musty. Do them off."

"For thy breeches,” Thea said. Kit looked at her, her bare throat white as thorn, her face alight. Her breasts—buds in January, whiter than its snow. No lad. She stood and paced, as he had seen her by the whiteskied windows of her mother's tower. Of darkest blue, her eyes, the night in which her fires burned. She turned on the traveller, fierce and cold. “Or thy cap or anything, thy hammer and thy sooty brat, so my mother would not see me in her glass."

"Break t'glass."

"It will not break, the moon. It goes with child unflawed, and of itself. And being full, itself devours, lighter of the dark. It gazes and it gnaws. I want to get back of it."

Kit looked at Thea, like the heavens’ cold bright bow; and saw the dark that bent, that held her. There were walls he could not see.

The traveller held her gaze. “There is a door, they say."

"Then I would out of it."