Gawain and Lady Green (13 page)

Light crowns Herself with Her own flowers and takes up Her barley sheaf.

The drums thump,
Come! Come! Come!

A walking golden torch, Light glides from the sad, dim hut, and turns toward Fair-Field.

Late in the morning, smoke still drifts up from the Midsummer Fire ashes.

Under tents and awnings all over Fair-Field, folk lie dead asleep. A woman carries water from the stream; another brings Midsummer coals to light a breakfast fire. A few children run the field with fewer, yipping dogs. Children and dogs are blessed famine survivors.

From the village, bearers carry a covered corpse on a bier. They avoid Fair-Field. Even now, festivities over, they lug their burden the long way around toward the distant Green Chapel, home of the dead.

Later I will deal with them, and with their burden.

Right now I sit just within the fringe of oak grove, across the stream from Fair-Field and a little above, with sleeping Dace in his basket, Merry, Merlin, and Merlin’s daughter Niviene.

I knew her for his daughter the moment I saw her small, dark face with his brows, and especially her fingers, even-lengthed like his. They lie idle, laced in her lap, while Merlin’s fingers stray restlessly over the strings of his harp, Enchanter.

Merlin did not introduce Niviene as his daughter, but as his “assistant mage.” They do not refer to their obvious relationship; so Merry and I do not either.

I have heard rumors of Niviene. She is almost as famous as Gawain’s witch mother, Morgause. Rumor says truly that she is the size of a twelve-year-old boy and dresses like one. Rumor exalts
her powers but does not add that her violet aura has nearly the breadth of Merlin’s white one.

Warm and pink, Dace sleeps in his basket beside me. Merry sits easily against an oak and watches the rest of us with tired, smiling eyes. Bright on his breast glints the silver medallion—I gave him it last Midwinter—engraved with a Green Man’s head swallowing— or vomiting?—leafy vines.

As Merlin’s music ripples, his aura shimmers, sun-shot. Enchanter itself seems to shine with its own, eerie aura. Merlin remarks, “The whole ceremony was right. Very effective, despite difficulties. The joust was a new touch!”

“New as the Square Table.” Merry nods.

“I noticed stirrups on the ponies. You must have learned that on your journey.”

Merry says nothing.

“Too bad the wheel broke.”

Enchanter whispers. Merry and I are silent.

Merlin adds, “But that made for excitement! And it’s not necessarily a bad omen, taken together with all the rest. The Green Men were most impressive!”

Merry’s habitual smile lurks.

“Especially the Dancing Trees.”

Merry cocks his head and grins.

“And look at your fields!” Merlin nods eastward at the oat, pea, and millet fields. “Knee-high already.”

“Aye.” Merry spits briefly to the side. “They were knee-high last year too. Now we cannot even offer you ale.”

“Have no fear.” Merlin strums more strongly. “Stars, birds, and standing stones predict a good harvest. And you have a good May pair. Who’s the girl?”

“Alva, from Spring-Field.”

“Fine, handsome King.”

Merry nods. “Willing.”

“A volunteer.”

“Right.”

“The best kind. Did you hear my new ballad about one of King Arthur’s Companions, who was once a May King?”

I startle. My eyes, which had been drifting closed, spring open. Merry snarls quietly. “How can a man have once been a May King?”

“This one was unwilling. Not a volunteer. He escaped.” Modestly offhand, Merlin adds, “The whole south now sings my ballad. I call it ‘Gawain, May King.’ ”

Merlin sits straighter, plants Enchanter more firmly on his knee, and sings.

“You northern knave, what do you here?

Ride your rough pony not so near!”

(“Remember, this is a southern song.”)

“We guard King Arthur’s portal, here.

Stand! Or you’ll maybe stop a spear…

That name again? Gawain?

Gawain!”

At the hated name, anger stirs like sickness in my deep belly. No longer smiling, Merry’s eyes meet mine.
Easy, now. Give nothing away!
For the rest of the song Merry looks east, I look west.

The song is long and insulting. (Merlin trusts us to understand bias, even against ourselves.) Untruly, it tells of Gawain’s escape by his own cunning and courage, and the trials and dangers of his journey home on a “rough pony” with only the knife in his sash. Looking away, I can hear Merry’s teeth grind. Fury churns my stomach.

At last the wretched song ends.

“Now bring the bowl about again!

Drink to the deeds of brave Gawain!”

That repeated name, repeated again, sickens me.

Merlin slaps a last resounding chord from Enchanter and beams at Merry and me. “But then, his escape brought a new, weird doom upon him.”

Merry sits up away from his tree. “Hah?”

“I call this song, ‘The Green Knight.’ ”

“By all Gods, Druid Merlin, sing it!”

“This way it goes…. Ahem.”

“To Arthur’s Dun on New Year’s Day

Came noble knights with ladies gay

To feast and fun, to sing and play…”

The Round Table sat down to feast. But Arthur would not let one bite be bit, until a New Year’s omen should appear. Abruptly, Enchanter whangs and thumps. Dace in his basket throws out startled, tiny arms and scowls.

“Into the hall there charged a charger,

Greener, grimmer, loftier, larger…”

Merry leans forward, silent laughter loud in his face. His aura spreads and shimmers, entranced.

Niviene meets my eye and smiles her closed-mouth smile.

“This ogre, green ax hefted high,

And his green charger, prancing nigh,

They must be Fey! But such have never

Darkened the door of King’s Hall, ever!

Never would dare those pagan sprites

To breach this hall of Christian knights.”

Knowing pours into my mind, like spring water into a pool. Niviene’s careful closed-mouth smile hides sharp-filed incisor teeth.

Small, dark Niviene is of the fearsome Fey. She comes here to us from the depths of an enchanted forest, from which no adventurer returns.

Ech, well. No such great surprise. After all, Druid Merlin himself is said to be a Demon’s child. How many hold that against him?

Not all of us choose our parents wisely.

“‘Come to my chapel, or coward be.

Knight of the Green Chapel, all men know me.

Seek me and find me, my chapel at morn.

Your head will my chapel fitly adorn.’

Gawain leaned on his ax, with Fey blood all green.

No grief or fear in his face to be seen,

No fear or grief in his heart to be found,

Gawain, the best knight that ever trod ground.”

Niviene tilts her head. Her eyes squint, then widen. I’ll wager she is studying my aura. With an effort I pull it in close, damp down any flaming color it may show.

With a final triumphant twang, Enchanter falls silent. Merlin twinkles at Merry. “You’re sure you’ve got no ale buried like gold?”

Merry grunts as his awakened aura collapses in around him. “Water.” He feels for the water bottle behind him, hands it across.

Merlin drinks deep. “Hah! Singing is thirsty work.” He wipes his beard on his richly embroidered sleeve. “Let me tell you, the knight is wonderfully brave under this doom. He eats, drinks, and jousts. In truth, he does not laugh. And his famous temper is a trifle edgy.”

Merry proclaims through his teeth, “No more than he deserves! Famine must have followed his cowardly escape.”

“True. That Tribe is thinner than before. But it survives. Even some of its herds survive! Indeed, led by an unknown chief, Demon or God, that Tribe is training an army!”

“Most likely to ward off the Saxons. They are becoming seasonal pests.”

Merlin agrees. “Most likely the army is for the Tribe’s own defense. But its intent agrees well with King Arthur’s intent.”

Merry shrugs. “Lynx and cat seize the same prey.”

Niviene speaks softly, abruptly, to me. I am a trifle slow to follow her strangely accented words. A moment I stare into her wide, perceiving eyes. Then the words catch up with me. “Gwyneth. I suppose you know that a Demon haunts you.” She sees the Demon in my aura. Merry once said he saw it.

“My grandmother said—”

I bite my tongue. Even now, Midsummer second morning, I will not mention death, or the dead.

A voice in the deep back of my mind whispers,
Get that May King back for us, Gwyn. We make you more powerful than Niviene.

That would be Power, indeed.

Gently, Merlin asks, “Your grandmother saw this Demon?” He squints at me, and shudders, seeing it himself. Both Merlin and Niviene expand their sparkling auras to guard against my Demon.

“Aye,” I mumble uneasily. “Gran—she warned me against it.”

Niviene says, “She was right to warn you. That Demon could take you over entirely, Gwyn. Own your soul. Your anger invites it.”

“That’s what…she said.”

“Do not feed it on anger. Once in its power, you could never be the Goddess again. You would be good only to blast unborn babes and crops, to call in plague and nail heads on oaks.”

“It…it promises me power.”

“Power to use for its purpose. Not yours.” Niviene sits straight and still, even-lengthed fingers laced in lap. She has hardly moved
since we sat down here. Only her violet aura shifts and shines, warding away my Demon.

Certainly, Niviene is powered by no Demon! Goddess Light gleams about her.

Merlin whangs Enchanter’s strings again. His hands seem as restless as Niviene’s are nerveless. “Gwyneth, I wish you could see Gawain, King’s Companion, when he thinks himself unseen! Then he turns so dark and dour, merriment would drive that Demon straight out of your heart.”

Merry laughs. Niviene and I smile. But I know well that Gawain’s dour-dark misery would only whet my Demon’s appetite.

Niviene remarks in her Outland accent, “You have a beautiful daughter.”

We turn and follow her gaze.

Whiteness gleams among oak trunks, shines in shadow. From the deep grove walks Ynis, erect and calm in her white festive dress (put on front in front, and almost clean). Her little hand rests on the neck of a white fallow doe that ambles beside her. Their two auras mingle and overlap, the child’s huge white mist and the doe’s small green mist.

Both feel us watching. Both look our way, and start. They stop still, side by side, heads high. Their joined aura flares up. A long moment they exchange glances with us. Ynis raises a hand to brush back her loose, dark hair. Then they move gently away.

Merlin comments. “Despite all, I see you still have your magic white deer; that promises prosperity.”

Merry says, “Their numbers began to rise. But this year they are seldom seen.”

“Did maybe hunger diminish the white deer?”

“Nay! Folk would as soon eat their children as those deer.”

“Ah, well. One bad year in ten bountiful…” Enchanter ripples.

Niviene remarks to me, “A wonderfully talented child. You must give thanks for her every day.” If any other woman spoke, I would suspect envy in her voice.

“Aye, Niviene. I give thanks for so much!”

Giving thanks in my heart, I look out over Fair-Field. The Midsummer sun stands high. Now, smoke and folk are rising. The children who ran with the dogs have returned to their breakfast fires; the dogs circle, waiting for crumbs.

These are my folk. I am thankful to be theirs. Despite my dreadful secret, I am still their honored witch. I give thanks for the powers for which they value me. I give thanks for the world around me, summer-vibrant, for my body, my soul’s home, already healing and rebuilding itself after the famine. I give deep thanks for my children.

Ynis’s gesture just now, brushing back her hair, is Granny’s gesture of mild surprise. It has a seductive look, unsettling in a child—and in a very old lady.

In his basket, Dace whimpers, stretches and wiggles pink toes. I gather him up in one arm and pull down my green gown.

Niviene murmurs, “He is not swaddled.”

“Nay. My—I was advised against swaddling my children. It would bind up their spirits.”

“Ah. Your beautiful daughter was never swaddled.”

“Never.”

Gently, she nods. “Where I come from, children are left unbound
from birth. They go entirely free younger than your daughter. It troubles me to see one bound up in his cradle.”

I swallow fear and whisper, “Where you come from…?”

“Very far from here, Gwyneth.” We let it go at that.

The men talk soft man talk, mumbling and snorting laughter. Niviene watches Dace and me. In any other woman’s face those deep, watching eyes would signal jealousy, but Niviene’s gaze is more like a blessing.

At Summerend, when ghosties go

Grieving and grumbling to and fro,

When food for them is spread on table,

Prayers prayed for them; and agile, able

Folk dare the dark, fearful of fable,

In mask and mien to fright the devil;

At Summerend, when rowdy revel

Reels in the road; but laughter’s hollow,

And feebly flickers flame in tallow;

At Summerend was grim Gawain

Fevered to find his fated bane.

“I know not where the place may be,

This Chapel Green where waits the Knight.

I must be near there, brave to see,

Buckled and bold, by Christmas night.

I must be there on New Year morn,

To die before the year’s well born,

Or for a coward be forgot,

Among the faint and failed my lot.

Merlin Mage, point me the way!

I must be there on New Year Day.

North?

You say North?

I must go North?

Not North! Not North! Not North!”