by Ellen Datlow
When he saw the crow, his split lips painfully formed a smile, for he knew the creature was an emissary from the witch of the forest. The black bird thrust its head between the bars of the window and dropped something small and round from its beak onto the stone floor of the cell. “Eat this,” it said. Then the visitor cawed, flapped its wings, and was gone. Moren held out his hand as if to beg the bird to take him away with it, and for a brief moment, he dreamed he was flying out of the tower, racing away from the palace toward the cool green cover of the trees.
Then he heard them coming for him, the warder’s keyring jangling, the soldiers’ heavy footsteps against the flagstones of the circular stairway. He ignored the pain of his broken limbs, struggled to all fours, and crept slowly across the cell to where the crow’s gift lay. He heard the soldiers laughing and the key slide into the lock as he lifted the thing up to discover what it was. In his palm, he held a round, green seed that he had never before seen the likes of. When the door opened, so did his mouth, and as the soldiers entered, he swallowed the seed. No sooner was it in his stomach than he envisioned a breezy summer day in the stand of willows where he had first kissed his wife. She moved behind the dangling green tendrils of the trees and when a soldier spoke his name it was in her voice, calling him to her.
With a gloved hand beneath each arm, they dragged him to his feet, and he found that his pain was miraculously gone. The noise of the warder’s keys had somehow become the sound of his daughter’s laughter, and he laughed, himself, as they pulled him roughly down the steps. Outside, the midsummer sunlight enveloped him like water, and he remembered swimming beneath the falls at the sacred center of the forest. He seemed to be enjoying himself far too much for a man going to his death, and one of the soldiers struck him across the back with the flat side of a sword. In his mind, though, that blow became the friendly slap of his fellow warrior, the archer Lokush. Moren had somehow forgotten that his best bowman had died not but a week earlier, along with most of his other men, on the very field he was now so roughly escorted to.
The entirety of the royal court, the knights and soldiers and servants, had gathered for the event. To Kairn, each of them was a green tree and their voices were the wind rippling through the leaves of that human thicket. He was going back to the forest now, and the oaks, the alders, the yews parted to welcome him.
The prisoner was brought before the royal throne and made to kneel.
“Why is this man smiling?” asked King Pious, casting an accusatory glance at the soldiers who had accompanied the prisoner. He scowled and shook his head. “Read the list of grievances and let’s get on with it,” he said.
A page stepped forward and unfurled a large scroll. Whereas all in attendance heard Kairn’s crimes intoned—sedition, murder, treachery—the warrior himself heard the voice of the witch, chanting the beautiful poetry of one of her spells. In the midst of the long list of charges, the queen leaned toward Pious and whispered, “Good lord, he’s going green.” Sure enough, the prisoner’s flesh had darkened to a deep hue the color of jade.
“Finish him before he keels over,” said the king, interrupting the page.
The soldiers spun Moren Kairn around and laid his head on the chopping block. From behind the king stepped a tall knight encased in gleaming red armor. He lifted his broadsword as he approached the kneeling warrior. When the deadly weapon was at its apex above his neck, Kairn laughed, discovering that the witch’s spell had transformed him into a seed pod on the verge of bursting.
“Now,” said the king.
The sharp steel flashed as it fell with all the force the huge knight could give it. With a sickening slash and crunch of bone, Kairn’s head came away from his body and rolled onto the ground. It landed, facing King Pious, still wearing that inscrutable smile. In his last spark of a thought, the warrior saw himself, a thousandfold, flying on the wind, returning to the green world.
All but one who witnessed the execution of Moren Kairn that day believed he was gone for good and that the revolt of the people of the forest had been brought to an end. She, who knew otherwise, sat perched in a tree on the boundary of the wood two hundred yards away. Hidden by leaves and watching with hawklike vision, the witch marked the spot where the blood of the warrior had soaked into the earth.
Arrayed in a robe of fine purple silk King Pious sat by the window of his bedchamber and stared out into the night toward the tree line of the forest. He had but an hour earlier awakened from a deep sleep, having had a dream of that day’s execution—Kairn’s green flesh and smile—and called to the servant to come and light a candle. Leaning his chin on his hand and his elbow on the arm of the great chair, he raked his fingers through his white beard and wondered why, now that the threat of the forest revolt was eradicated, he still could not rest easily.
For years he had lived with their annoyance, their claims to the land, their refusal to accept the true faith. To him they were godless heathens, ignorantly worshiping trees and bushes, the insubstantial deities of sunlight and rain. Their gods were the earthbound, corporeal gods of simpletons. They had the audacity to complain about his burning of the forest to create new farmland, complained that his hunting parties were profligate and wasted the wild animal life for mere sport, that his people wantonly fished the lakes and streams with no thought of the future.
Had he not been given a holy edict by the pontiff to bring this wild territory into the domain of the church, convert its heathen tribes, and establish order amidst this demonic chaos? All he need do was search the holy scripture of the Good Book resting in his lap and in a hundred different places he would find justification for his actions. Righteous was his mission against Kairn, whom he suspected of having been in league with the devil.
Pious closed the book and placed it on the stand next to his chair. “Be at ease, now,” he murmured to himself, and turned his mind toward the glorious. He had already decided that in midwinter when what remained of the troublesome rabble would be hardest pressed by disease and hunger, he would send his soldiers into the maze of trees to ferret out those few who remained and return them to the earth they claimed to love so dearly.
As the candle burned, he watched its dancing flame and decided he needed some merriment, some entertainment to wash the bad taste of this insurrection from his palate. He wanted something that would amuse him, but also increase his renown. It was a certainty that he had done remarkable things in the territory, but so few of the rulers of the other kingdoms to the far south would have heard about them. He knew he must bring them to see the extraordinary palace he had constructed, the perfect order of his lands, the obedience of his subjects.
While he pondered, a strong wind blew across the fields from out of the forest, entered the window by which he sat, and snuffed the flame of the candle. At the very moment in which the dark ignited in his room and swiftly spread to cover everything in shadow, the idea came to him. A tournament—he would hold a tournament and invite the knights from the southern kingdoms to his palace in the spring. He was sure that his own Red Knight had no equal. The challenge would go out the following morning, and he would begin preparations immediately. The invitation would be so worded to imply that his man could not be beaten, for he, Pious, had behind him the endorsement of the Almighty. “That should rouse them enough to make the long journey to my kingdom,” he whispered. Then he saw the glorious day in his imagination and sat for some time, laughing in the dark. When he finally drifted off to sleep, he fell into another nightmare in which a flock of dark birds had rushed into his bedchamber through the open window.
The witch of the forest, doubly wrapped in black, first by her long cloak and then by night, crouched at the edge of the tree line, avoiding the gaze of the full autumn moon, and surveyed with a keen eye the field that lay between herself and the palace. She made a clicking noise with her tongue, and the crow that had perched upon her shoulder lit into the sky and circled the area in search of soldiers. In minutes it returned with a report, a low g
urgling sound that told her the guards were quite a distance away, just outside the protective walls. She whistled the song of a nightingale, and a large black dog with thick shoulders padded quietly to her side over fallen leaves.
She pulled the hood of the cloak over her head, tucking in her long white hair. Although she had more years than the tallest of trees looming behind her had rings, she moved with perfect grace, as if she was a mere shadow floating over the ground. The dog followed close behind and the crow remained on her shoulder, ready to fly off into a soldier’s face if need be. The same memory that gave her the ability to recall, at a moment’s notice, spells containing hundreds of words, all of the letters in the tree alphabet, the languages of the forest creatures, and the recipes for magical concoctions, worked now to help her pinpoint the spot where Moren Kairn’s blood had soaked the earth three months earlier.
When she knew she was close, she stopped and bent over to search through the dark for new growth. Eventually she saw it, a squat, stemless plant, bearing the last of its glowing berries and yellow flowers into the early weeks of autumn. She dropped down to her knees, assuming the same position that Kairn had the day of his execution, and with her hands, began loosening the dirt in a circle around the plant’s thick base. The ground was hard, and an implement would have made the job easier, but it was necessary that she use her hands in order to employ the herb in her magic.
Once the ground had been prepared, she started on a circular course around the plant, treading slowly and chanting in whispers a prayer to the great green mind that flows through all of nature. As she intoned her quiet plea in a singsong melodic voice, she thought of poor Kairn and her tears fell, knowing she would soon join him.
From within her cloak, she retrieved a long length of rope woven from thin vines. Taking one end, she tied it securely around the base of the plant. With the other end in hand, she backed up twenty paces and called the dog to her with the same whistled note she had used earlier. He walked over and sat, letting her tie that end of the rope around his neck. Once the knot was tight, she petted the beast and kissed him atop the head. “Stay now, Mahood,” she whispered and the dog did not move as she backed farther away from it. Then she took four small balls of wild sheep wool from a pouch around her waist. Carefully, she stuffed one into each of the dog’s ears and one in each of her own.
The moon momentarily passed behind a cloud, and as she waited for it to reappear, the crow left her shoulder. Eventually, when the moon had a clear view of her again, she motioned with both hands for the dog to join her. Mahood started on his way and then was slowed by the tug of the plant. She dropped to her knees, opened her arms wide and the dog lurched forward with all his strength. At that moment, the root of the plant came free from the ground, and its birth scream ripped through the night, a piercing wail like a pin made of sound for bursting the heart. Both witch and dog were protected from its cry by the tiny balls of wool, but she could see the effects the terrible screech still had on Mahood, whose hearing was more acute. The dog stopped in his tracks as if stunned. His eyes went glassy, he exhaled one long burst of steam, and then sat down.
The witch did not hesitate for a heartbeat but began running. As she moved, she reached for the knife in her belt. With a smooth motion she lifted the exposed root of the plant and tugged once on the vine rope to warn Mahood to flee. Then she brought the knife across swiftly to sever the lead, and they were off across the field, like flying shadows. She made for the tree line with the crow flapping in the air just above her left shoulder. The bird cawed loudly, a message that the soldiers had heard and were coming on horseback. The hood fell from her head, and her long white hair flew out behind her, signaling to her pursuers.
When she was a hundred yards from the boundary of the forest, she could hear the hoofbeats closing fast. The mounted soldier in the lead yelled back to those who followed, “It’s the crone,” and then nocked an arrow in place on his bow. He pulled back on the string and aimed directly for her back. Just as he was about to release, something flew into his face. A piece of night with wings and sharp talons gouged at his right eye. The arrow went off and missed its mark, impaling the ground in the spot where the witch’s foot had been but a second before.
Mahood had bounded ahead and already found refuge in among the trees of the forest. The crow escaped and the witch ran on, but there was still fifty yards of open ground to cover and now the other horsemen were right on her heels. The lead soldier drew his sword and spurred his horse to greater speed. Once, twice, that blade cut the air behind her head and on both passes severed strands of her long hair. Just when the soldier thought he finally had her, they had reached the boundary of the trees. He reared back with the sword to strike across her back, but she leaped before he could land the blow. The height of her jump was miraculous. With her free hand, she grabbed the bottom branch of the closest tree and swung herself up with all the ease of a child a hundred years younger. The other soldiers rode up to join their companion at the tree line just in time to hear her scampering away, like a squirrel, through the dark canopy of the forest.
The black dog was waiting for her at her underground cave, whose entrance was a hole in the ground amidst the vast stand of willows. Once safely hidden her den, she reached beneath her cloak and pulled out the root of the Mandrake. Holding it up to the light from a burning torch, she perused the unusual design of the plant’s foundation. Shaped like a small man, it had two arms extending from the thick middle part of the body and at the bottom a V shape of two legs. At the top, where she now cut away the green part of the herb, there was a bulbous lump, like a rudimentary head. This root doll, this little wooden mannikin, was perfect.
She sat on a pile of deerskins covering a low rock shelf beneath the light of the torch. Taking out her knife, she held it not by the bone handle but at the middle of the blade, so as to have finer control over it. The technique she employed in carving features into the Mandrake root was an ancient art called simpling. First, she carefully gouged out two eyes, shallow holes precisely equidistant from the center of the head bump. An upward cut beneath the eyes raised a partial slice of the root. This she delicately trimmed the corners off of to make the nose. Next, she made rudimentary cuts where the joints of the elbows, knees, wrists and ankles should be on the limbs. With the tip of the blade, she worked five small fingers into the end of each arm to produce rough facsimiles of hands. The last, but most important job was the mouth. For this opening, she changed her grip on the knife and again took it by the handle. Applying the sharp tip to a spot just below the nose, she spun the handle so as to bore a deep, perfect circle.
She laid the knife down by her side and took the Mandrake into the crook of her arm, the way in which one might hold a baby. Rocking forward and back slightly, she began to sing a quiet song in a language as old as the forest itself. With the thumb of her free hand she persistently massaged the chest of the plant doll. Her strange lullaby lasted nearly an hour, until she began to feel a faint quivering of the root in response to her touch. As always with this process, the life pulse existed only in her imagination at first, but as she continued to experience it, the movement gradually transformed from notion to actuality until the thing was verily squirming in her grasp.
Laying the writhing root in her lap, she lifted the knife again and carefully sliced the thumb with which she had kneaded life into it. When she heard the first peep of a cry come from the root child, she maneuvered the self-inflicted wound over the round mouth of the thing and carefully let three drops of blood fill the orifice. When the Mandrake had tasted her life, it began to wriggle and coo. She lifted it in both hands, rose to her feet and carried it over to a diminutive cradle she had created for it. Then looking up at the crow, who perched on a deer skull resting atop a stone table on the other side of the vault, she nodded. The bird spoke a single word and flew up out of the den. By morning, the remaining band of forest people would line up before the cradle and each offer three drops of blood for the li
fe of the strange child.
King Pious hated winter, for the fierce winds that howled outside the palace walls in the long hours of the night seemed the voice of a hungry beast come to devour him. The cold crept into his joints and set them on fire, and any time he looked out his window in the dim daylight all he saw was his kingdom buried deeply beneath a thick layer of snow the color of a bloodless corpse. During these seemingly endless frigid months, he was often beset by the thought that he had no heir to perpetuate his name. He slyly let it be known that the problem lay with the queen, who he hinted was obviously barren, but whom, out of a keen sense of honor, he would never betray by taking another wife. The chambermaids, though, knew for certain it was not the queen who was barren, and when the winds howled so loudly in the night that the king could not overhear them, they whispered this fact to the pages, who whispered it to the soldiers, who had no one else to tell but each other and their horses.
To escape the beast of winter, King Pious spent much of the day in his enclosed pleasure garden. Here was summer confined within four walls. Neat, perfectly symmetrical rows of tulips, hyacinths, roses, tricked into growth while the rest of nature slept, grew beneath a crystal roof that gathered what little sunlight there was and magnified its heat and light to emulate the fair season. Great furnaces beneath the floor heated the huge chamber and butterflies, cultivated for the purpose of adding a touch of authenticity to the false surroundings, were released daily. Servants skilled in the art of recreating bird sounds with their voices were stationed in rooms adjoining the pleasure garden, and their mimicked warblings were piped into the chamber through long tubes.
In the afternoon of the day on which the king was given the news that the first stirrings of spring had begun to show themselves in the world outside the palace walls, he was sitting on his throne in the very center of the enclosed garden, giving audience to his philosopher.
