She
Tell me, I say to him one day. How can you die?
I ask because I’m worried. What would become of me if anything happened to you?
He
So that’s why she’s always so distracted. My wife has been fretting. I can put her mind at ease.
She
And here’s where the story goes all medieval again. He says it’s not easy to kill him with a blow. The spear that would strike him has to be made only when people are at mass on Sunday.
He
Nor can I be killed indoors, nor outdoors. Nor on foot nor on horseback.
She
Tell me, I beg him, how exactly you may be killed.
He
It’s a matter, I say, of acting out contradiction. I’d have to be under a sort of roof but out in a field. Then I’d have to be standing with one foot on the back of a goat, the other on the edge of a bath. If I were hit like that, I could die.
She
Darling, your secret is safe with me.
*
He
Nona? Are you there?
She
Mm… I’m half asleep.
He
So am I, but I’m thinking whose magic stipulations are these? It must be a stage of the game with a different series of parameters.
She
This tells me more about Lleu than anything before, and I’m married to him.
He
Like what?
She
Well, look how he’s already imagined his death in such detail.
He
But it’s a highly unlikely set of circumstances.
She
Lleu’s a balancer. Look at his uncle Math, who’s not to be touching the ground, but yet not in the air. Lleu could easily be knocked over.
He
Just as his life has been a balancing act between his mother’s curses and his uncles’ magic spells.
She
Exactly.
He
But this is nothing to do with Aranrhod’s hostility to Lleu. Where did it come from? It feels like we’ve missed a crucial part of the story.
She
Yes, like maybe a bit where, as a wedding gift, Math decrees that Lleu will be immortal, except in circumstances which only he shall know and which should remain secret, or the gift is voided.
He
Then why tell Blodeuwedd?
She
Have you never told somebody something you shouldn’t have? Something deeply personal? As part of a desperate bid for intimacy?
He
I can’t say I have.
She
Are you quite sure about that? I can sense…
He
Quite sure. Lleu’s life depends on keeping Math’s gift to himself. Why would he risk everything?
She
Oh, I don’t know. Maybe part of him wants to see what would happen if he stood in the riskiest place. Here’s a man whose life has been subject to conditions. He can live, but he’ll have no name. He has a name, but he’ll have no weapons. He has arms, but he’ll have no wife. At last he reaches full maturity, has his own home, so no wonder he wants to live like any other man.
He
But he’s not other men and he’s inviting Blodeuwedd’s betrayal. Why would he do that?
She
Imagine you’re married and you love your wife. There’s one thing you can’t tell her. What more precious gift could you give her than that, a token that you totally trust her with your life?
He
But Nona, do you think he can trust Blodeuwedd?
She
That’s not the issue, it’s what Lleu must do to make himself feel most alive. He needs a betrayer. Think! He drew his first breath and was denied by his mother. That’s the primal scene of his being. He loves his wife precisely because he’s not sure that she’ll keep his secret. It’s the only language he knows approaching intimacy. Ironic, he gives Blodeuwedd the secret of his own death and that’s the most married they’ll ever be.
He
Of course, his uncles have always saved Lleu’s hide.
She
So far. But any man would want to prove that he could make his way without being rescued time and again by his elders.
He
What does Blodeuwedd desire most?
She
To eat the light and be free to follow her nature. And what about Lleu?
He
He wants, I think, to be fully seen by Blodeuwedd, apart from his uncles’ conjuring tricks. His death is the best gift he can give her.
She
I’m feeling tired. Need to go back to sleep.
He
I’ll leave you alone.
She
Campion?
He
Yes.
She
You know you can trust me. Tell me your secret.
He
Bugger off. I’ll tell you tomorrow.
*
He
Can’t sleep. Keep thinking, going round and round this current scenario. Nona’s right, Lleu’s a balancer, he’s always walked a tightrope. They say such artists shouldn’t look down. But what if the thought of falling takes root in his mind? The air whistling around him becomes attractive and he wants to see the ground rushing up to kiss him with its real embrace.
After all, there can be safety in falling. What else is our orbit but a fall towards the surface of Mars at a consistent rate, so that we describe the arc of a circle?
Now I have to ask myself: What is my secret? I’m a man who’s lived alone. But isn’t the truth that I’d ditch the fortress I’ve built round myself in an instant if I knew that a person saw me, could imagine me whole, including my dying?
I know why Lleu’s crazy about his wife. She’s the only one who’s bothered to ask him the basic question. How will he die? Everyone else is so deeply concerned with making him live. Only Blodeuwedd can see that his death is the sole event he has under his control. And he chooses to give it to her; he loves her for everything that will happen now.
This investigation has entered a completely new phase. It would frighten me if I thought too long about it, but it makes me so alive that I can’t stop. This isn’t professional, nor even sane. But I’m willing to wager my own death to find out what happens. Will she?
I look to see if Nona’s sleeping. I catch the glint of an eye, but I might be wrong.
*
She
So I tell Lleu, You have to show me exactly how it could be done, so that we may avoid it.
In VR time it’s a year later. The hunter’s hidden in the woods, with the spear he forged each Sunday while people were at mass.
He
As Lleu, I’m enjoying the game, want to see how close I can come to the scenario of complete disaster without succumbing. After all, every time so far, I’ve survived.
She
I’ve had the arched roof made sturdy and thatched. And under it men have placed a tub, and filled it with water. Would you care to bathe?
He
I will, with pleasure.
She
So I watch Lleu wash. I admire him, how streams of diamonds fall from his body. I point out the billy goats grazing nearby. I invite him to see if he can stand on the tub and a goat. An experiment.
He
We laugh. Won’t be easy. The goat is skittish and pulls against the halter that holds him. I put my bare foot on his warm back and it falls into a reverie. I’m balanced on the bathtub’s ridge, not inside and yet I’m under a roof, standing tall between heaven and earth.
She
I turn to the woods and see a spear hurtling towards Lleu. It’s a shaft made of time. No man, however enchanted, can stand against it.
He
It surprises me utterly. I jolt awake to find the emergency alarm sounding, lights flashing. The hull’s been pierced by a javelin of light that hits me, stays in me, burns.
She<
br />
I find Campion in the docking module. He’s jammed against a tear in the seal between our ship and the wreck. I close the hatch manually, cutting off the leak, then haul him back into our ship.
He’s white as a sheet. Tenderly, I put him to rest in his sleeping net.
I wait.
*
He
Suddenly, I enter Lleu’s mind completely.
I leave the scene of my death, an eagle.
13
The Tree
She
Think, think what to do.
Yes, of course, a Mayday to the Department, they’ll send a relief vessel as soon as possible. But I need help now. Campion’s absent or, rather, his mind’s been taken by the VR. I’m in the virtual story too, so why don’t I turn to one of the characters there for help? It is an emergency. Who would know what to do?
Not Blodeuwedd. She celebrates with the hunter, rejoices that she’s free of her husband. Math? He’s perplexed and saddened that all his plans have come to this. He’s sitting in court, with his feet in the lap of a virgin. No good. Aranrhod? She couldn’t care less.
Gwydion’s the man. The one who’ll never give up on Lleu. He’s never discouraged and won’t take no for an answer. His magic will take on even the most hostile of circumstances.
Because he trusts his imagination.
*
He
I feel overwhelming shame. For telling all. For being betrayed and killed by Blodeuwedd. I fly up from my body. I should have died, but someone has rescued me with a spell for which I never asked. Gwydion or Math intent, as ever, on making me live when I choose to die, so I flee.
I rise almost vertically, with no regard for the Earth now miles below me.
I soar till I can hardly breathe, into the fierce winds of the stratosphere, up to the dark of night, the stars.
*
She
Campion, I’m coming! With Gwydion’s help.
I lie next to the old man in his net and hold him. I close my eyes, let Gwydion’s cunning take possession of me. We’ve gone so deep into this game that, it seems, we can choose our roles at will. Or is it that they pick us? No matter. It’s Gwydion I want, and Gwydion I get.
I see Campion and Lleu now as one mind. I search high and low for where he might be after that fatal blow. Am I looking for Campion or for Lleu?
*
He
I reach the zenith of my flight and hang there a moment in space. I’m perfectly balanced between two minds. Suddenly, I’m out in space, standing on nothing. I seem to float.
Campion looks down at the surface of Mars. Wind shadow streaks make craters look like comets. I take in Noctis Labyrinthus and the chasms bitten out of the rocks. Dust devils streak the rippled flats of Argyre Planitia. Phobos passes over the volcano Ceraunius Tholus.
Then I fall back into gravity. Lleu, the tumbler. A bird of prey, I stoop toward my end.
As Lleu I pick the most remote valley I can find on Earth. It’s a cwm with a waterfall. Thirsty mosses thrive in its spray. Dense sessile oaks hide the floor. I pick one whose branches can hide me, away from everyone. There I rest and grieve.
*
She
Where would a man who’s been betrayed go?
Out in the wilderness. Gwydion hunts him with his empathy and love. So I wander all over the region, using my mind to see how Lleu would perceive.
*
He
Better to be a dying eagle than an imaginary man, a character made up by others.
I hide because I hate the tricks that have kept me viable till now. Blodeuwedd saw through them because she, like me, was kidnapped by Gwydion’s plans. I love her still; she gave me the one way out, into reality.
*
She
When all else fails, turn to animals.
I stay with a peasant who has a pig of remarkable girth and health. At night, when she’s let into the house, the heat from her glossy flesh keeps us cosy. I ask my host where the sow grazes. He doesn’t know. I regard her eye, so human under its blonde eyelashes.
*
He
Except I’m finding it hard to die. My eye sees everything on the valley floor: voles and mice venturing out of cover, small flocks of songbirds feeding on insects in high branches, nuthatches creeping headfirst down trunks…
I refuse them as food and feel the wind pass through me.
*
She
I follow the sow when she’s let out of the house in the morning. She rushes into the woods and it’s hard to keep up with her, she’s so greedy.
I come to a hanging valley. In a grove one particular tree draws my attention and that of the sow. She’s standing under it eating – what? I look closely. The tree is flush with scarlet and deep gold leaves and yes, they fall, but with them are meat and maggots. The sow is feasting on flesh. I crane my neck, look up and there, in the foliage, I see the dark brown of a bird. It’s so emaciated that it’s scarcely alive. I’ve found the wounded Lleu.
He
Nona, that’s great that you’ve found Lleu, but I’m at the entrance to the interface.
She
This is the boy whose mother named him Light. He’s living his autumn. No magic of mine could ever have avoided that.
He
Nona! It was staring us in the face all the time!
She
These falling gobbets of flesh are Lleu’s flowers. Just as Math and I created Blodeuwedd, caused blossoms to become flesh, now Lleu is flowering into meat and I can’t stop it.
He
The answer’s in the characters that everyone forgot!
She
I must coax him down by talking. Can’t use a spell, he’s too weak. Besides, I think he’s had enough of that. I’ll tell him instead what he really is.
He
They’ve come together and have altered the rules of the game.
She
My darling, I see you as an eagle high in the top of the tree.
He
They are the context that make perfect sense of everything else.
Nona, I see Gwydion below me. His mouth is moving, but I don’t understand what he’s saying to me.
She
I see you Lleu, and though it’s good to be here for a while, you don’t belong in the forest.
He
Now I hear Gwydion’s voice. It makes me homesick. I hop down to hear more of its melody.
Nona, I need to tell you, everything we believed about this game is wrong.
She
I’ve hurt you. I’ve been too intent on having my own way. I beg that Lleu would come to my lap and forgive his uncle.
He
Oh, he speaks softly and I long to be close to this person who’s so warm. What I’ve seen is true but cold.
She
Gwydion strikes his nephew with his wand and makes him a man again, though pitiful to see, thin and wasted.
And Campion opens his eyes and screams, Nona, we need to get off this ship. I’ve seen its core. The meat tree is eating us alive.
She
He’s beside himself, so terrified that he makes no sense. He’s raving.
So I sedate him and take his place.
*
He
I talk to Nona in my mind. I try to warn her but she goes ahead, reckless as ever.
She
The meat tree. Where Gwydion found the wounded Lleu. But he meant something else.
Gwydion and Lleu return to court for Lleu to recover his strength and to think how to take their revenge. Blodeuwedd and the hunter are living openly together in Lleu’s own house. It’s a scandal.
As Nona, I return to the tree and stand there alone, listening to the rustles in the grove. Somewhere a woodpecker drills. Moss grows on the northern side of the trunk, a vegetable shadow. The birds decide I’m worth ignoring and begin to sing. The glade settles down and I hear a small cry, a death in the underbrush. I begin to see.
First, a fawn-like pair of eyes that become a young man. Then another boy, just to his right, with the blonde eyelashes of a hog. Then a third with the startling yellow eyes of the wolf. I’ve no doubt that, had they so chosen, they could have remained invisible to me. The three boys born in the forest, Gwydion and Gilfaethwy’s forgotten children: Hyddwn, Hychddwn and Bleiddwn.
And suddenly I think I know what Campion tried to tell me. It wasn’t Math who was the Mastermind behind the VR games but these three sons. I’m looking at the centre of the game, its authors. Still silent, they look at me with curiosity, as if I were a strange animal.
I’m feeling uneasy and I don’t know why. I saw these boys christened, so they should be no threat, nor even strangers to me and yet their stares are so alien that I feel my hands sweat. The boys seem to smell my fear and this brings tiny smiles to their mouths. One licks his lips. They circle me.
I should have waited for Campion. He’d know what to do.
He
Can’t you see that these three shouldn’t be here? They’re monsters that look like children. Gwydion and Math’s original sin is that they’ve mixed their stories with their own flesh and blood.
The Meat Tree Page 10
