Gawain and Lady Green (21 page)

“Keep the girdle, Gawain. Let it remind you.”

“Of my falsehood, treachery—”

“Of your imperfection. Only God is perfect.”

“Ah. You are right.”

“Overweening pride is a sin. Not so?”

“So the priests say.”

“Go now, and sin no more. As Merlin would sing.”

Gawain longed to go, to be away from Sir Green/Lord Bright and his grisly chapel. He longed to be alone and able to weep out shock and terror, shame and relief.

He stepped forward to retrieve helm and shield from stones now sun-bright again. But paused. “Lord Bright. Why have you tested me thus?”

“Aha. Maybe you know this song.” Lord Bright raised his ringing voice and sang till the cliffs echoed.

“You northern knave, what do you here?

Ride your rough pony not so near.

We guard King Arthur’s portal, here.

Stand! Or you’ll maybe stop a spear.”

Softly, Gawain groaned.

Sir, if you sinned against Honor with Lord Bright, you sinned far worse, earlier, against our dear Lady Green.

Lord Bright broke off the song. “I see you’ve heard it. That song tells of a May King who escaped his doom. He cheated the Goddess and the crops, and a hungry tribe paid his price. You know that man.”

“Aye. Aye.”

“Then said the Goddess, ‘Bring me his head! Or his pride.’ ”

Mary shield!

“Need you hear more, Sir Gawain of the Round Table?”

“Nay. I think not.”

“Take you the green girdle to remind you for always. I take your pride to the Goddess.”

The Green Knight’s words sliced through Gawain’s mind as cleanly as an ax. As through a wide-opened skull he saw a new world around him, a world of which he might have heard but had never taken seriously. Like heaven, or Fairyland, a country spread, newly visible.

Honor was not the One Way. Chivalry was not the One Pearl of Price. Lady Green and her tribe and Gods followed another Way, equal even with Honor. Northern savages, pagans, women, lowly knaves, followed Ways Gawain had never considered.

He had been half-blind, like Doon One-Eye.

Now he saw clearly with both eyes.

He bent, picked up and donned his helmet, hoisted shield over back. The Green Knight rumbled, “Sir Gawain. Good-bye.”

Sunshine swept over the barren valley. Gawain bowed his head to Lord Bright. He turned and strode toward tethered Gringolet, who tossed head and neighed greeting. Gawain took the rein and mounted. He glanced back toward the Green Chapel.

The Green Knight had vanished.

Gawain turned Gringolet in a wide circle around stones. They headed back toward the upward “trail.” Fast-fading sunlight glinted on whiteness under the cliff.

There stood a white fallow doe. Slender legs trembled, uncertain whether to run; but the doe stood still under the child’s sheltering arm.

Lady Green’s strange, almost disturbing little girl lifted a lock of dark hair back over her shoulder. Her solemn gaze followed Gawain as he rode slowly by. Not long ago, he might have passed her without a sign of recognition. But now he rode in a new landscape.

Sun faded. Snow spit from heaven. Sun chased snow. Gawain lifted a gloved hand in greeting as he rode away.

“You have wept.”

“I never weep.”

“Your eyes say different.”

“I did not weep when Granny died. I did not weep to be born!”

“Just now, you wept for him.”

“Show me his head.”

“Love, look not so savage! You frighten me.”

“Is his head in your sack?”

“I’ll show you. Wait while I dump out…”

“Oh. Your costume.”

“Costumes. Green’s mask…Bright’s beard…Bright’s hair…I am a man of many masks, many parts. And every part I play, every mask I wear, that I become.”

“Well I know your magic.”

“As true a magic as druid ever worked in the world! You worked your own share of it, and excellent well! You even changed your voice.”

“Bright’s gloves were my idea, remember…”

“Oh, aye! So he never saw the true size of my hands…”

“I did what I had to do…as almost always I have done what I had to do…”

“Nay. No more tears, Love. Look at me. Can you see me?”

“Like a Fairy seen through rain.”

“Here. Dry your eyes on Sir Green’s sleeve. See me now?”

“Like a God seen in dream.”

“I am neither Fairy nor God. I am Druid Merry, chief of the Square Table—that same Square Table that the High King now trusts to guard the north.

“I am Knight of the Green Chapel, cruel Fey. Rider of the great green charger. Bearer of the great green ax.

“I spoke with mysterious Merlin and his mysterious daughter. I promised them our Square Table alliance. They helped me with their cunning arts: music and mystic smoke.

“I spoke to crowned King Arthur on his dais, and all his proud Round Table. When that one sliced off my head I reeled; but I picked up my head and spoke through it, and all their gathering listened.

“Nay, Dear, hold you still. Hear me out.

“I am Lord Bright, cheery, generous host. I order—Food! Fire! To horse!—and all obey. To the lonely, lost wanderer I give shelter, bed, clothing, dinner. And I play him like a fish on my line. For I do love to laugh, Lady. As you know.

“Lean close, now. For this I must whisper.

“I am the Green Man.

Who is the Tree,

That shades and shelters

Mortality.”

“Look at me, Dear. I am Merry, Genius Druid, father of your so talented daughter.
I am the man for you
.”

“Show me now…let me see…his…head.”

“Where do I carry it, on my belt? Naught there. In my sack? Empty.”

“You…you did not bring me his head?”

“I did not. What! More tears? You will drown yourself!”

“He rode away?”

“Safe and whole, to his own world. But it may look different to him now.”

“My magic girdle went away with him?”

“To bind up the wounds of his pride. By all Gods, dry your eyes!”

“And the medallion I gave you?”

“Naturally, I expected to bring it back with his head. Since I did not, it’s gone. May it serve him well.”

“I don’t deserve you!”

“What?”

“I should have demanded his head and nothing else! But I saw the Demon.”

“At last!”

“It promised me prophecy. Healing. More power than Merlin’s daughter has. More power than Ynis will have!”

“Holy Gods! It never meant to keep that promise.”

“But I saw the horror of it…I drove it away. It left me alone with my heart. And now I don’t deserve you.”

“Dear. Your own good heart is all I want.”

“Can I believe that?”

“I told you I would never wed that Demon! Had you demanded his head and nothing else, I could not love you.”

“I did not know I took that chance! Would you have brought me my demand, even without love?”

“Aye. I would have. And then, you would not have loved me.”

“That one who rode away with my girdle…”

“You can say his name.”

“Gawain. I swear, he will never come back. Not even in my dreams.”

“Kiss me.”

“…Like that?”

“Did you kiss him like that?”

“When I was Lady Bright.”

“I love your laugh, Dear. Now kiss me the way you kissed him when you were Lady Green. Ah, yes. Like that.

“My Dear, shall we two now be truly wed? Kiss me to say, Aye….

“Aha. Shall we two birth us a son, a seed in the dark, to grow like a green tree through wind and rain and sun to the stars?

“Aha. Pearl of Price! And shall we two lead the dance for a while together, all clad in green?”

“Aaaah. Goddess!”

Anne Eliot Crompton grew up in a college town in the 1940s, a time when women’s roles in myth were less acknowledged than today. When she married and moved to the country to raise children and animals, she realized how much heavy lifting had been done by women throughout human history. Part of her life’s work has been to shine light on their immense contribution to the human story. Having come full circle, she now lives in a college town in Vermont.