Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter's Tales

by Greer Gilman

  Thea slept and she was kindled: all within her side the star became a knot of stars, a congeries, a cloud, a soul. It waked within her turning sky. Her hair unwreathing was the red of dawn.

  Kit woke to see his new-made lover squatting naked in the ashy coat, her shorn hair flickering about her skull. So white, her goblin face. So young. What have I done? he thought. O dark, what is she doing? On the hearth lay the long sheaf of her sundered hair, not fading like shorn grass, but fiery. Bright as bracken in the rain, as bright as copper molten in a forge, a riverspill of fire on the muddy stones. She was burning it, strand by strand. Crouching, she stirred the embers with the shears.

  "No,” he said. “Thea."

  The child witch turned to him. White as frost, as frail. Blood and ashes on her thighs; the tuft of small fire that a breath would blaze. All naked but the coat of skin. She rose and held a ring to him, white-gemmed, as if she gave away her tears. She spoke in a child's imperious voice. “Go your ways. You have well served me."

  Coldstruck, he stared at her. The eyes saw no one. Mad?

  She crouched again, to riddle through the ashes with a rusty sieve.

  He caught her. Sharp and soft, a thornbush deep in snow. Like branches she recoiled, and all her witchcraft fell away, like snow, like scattered snow. She crouched amid the shards. “Not done,” she said. “I was not done."

  Kit knelt beside.

  "Thea. Love. Wake up.” He stroked the hackles of her hair, so cold, so cold. “Thou'rt dreaming."

  In his arms, she changed, thawed, cleft. His goblin rose.

  And afterward, she slept at last. Lying watching her, the slight moon, turning always from his gaze, he saw a fireglint beyond her: a long strand of her hair, caught shining on a splint of wood. The last. He ran it through and through his hands. He saw the girl in the wintry garden, turning back to call him on; he saw the lantern of her hair. Again and yet again, he played the fugue of its undoing. Heartstrings. Not for burning. With his fiddler's hands he wound it round and round, and tucked it safe beside his heart.

  * * * *

  "Gone,” said Kit.

  Whin said nothing; she could see it still, or the ghost of it: a bracelet of bright hair about the bone. Like stolen fire. He'd wear it to his grave. Beyond, she thought. Would string his stars. She shelled another mussel for the broth, another; tossed the leavings on the heap. Clack. Click. Clack. At last: “And wha'd take that and leave rings?"

  "Crows. Her mother—I betrayed her. In the end."

  Whin cracked and thumbed another mussel. Knife-edge and morsel. Weed. “Ah. Craws wi’ beards."

  Kit turned his face. Not yet, thought Whin. And yet he'd tell.

  * * * *

  Wet underfoot. Burnt moorland or bare stone; bracken, bent or tussock: all were underlaid with squelch. “A world warped with water,” Thea said, and wrung her coat skirts. Water curling from the cloud, like raw wool from a carder's combs. White water at a ford, frayed out, like torn lace at a roaring lad's throat. Fine icy water in the air. “At least,” said Kit, “it's not raining.” He did not say: we cannot lie in this. “There'll be a barn,” he said. But now he could not tell if they were climbing, if they'd come this way before. Bright and brighter blazed the rust of bracken in its mockery of fire. The color of her hair, the color of desire, flickering on nothing, on the barren moor. Could water burn?

  Her face turning back at him was like the moon from cloud; he leapt to it, it hooked him through the heart, the bone-caged heart.

  "Look,” said Thea, beckoning. “A walker on the hill.” She called out, “Stay, thou shepherd!” And she ran. Kit ran after, calling, “Wait.” And there was no one there: a waystone, squatting in the bracken like a hussif at her hearth. Thea touched the stone, her face between dismay and laughter. “See, she looms. ‘Tis her weather."

  "Hush,” said Kit. “I doubt another day she brews.” And fumbling beneath his pocket flap, he found a bit of bread, their last, and left it in a hollow of the stone. “There, awd lass. For a skein of sun."

  And to Thea, “There'll be houses, wait on. We can barter and lie snug as hobs. Curds and barley straw."

  "What way?” said Thea.

  When they turned from her, the stone was fogbound, roofed and walled with cloud; they saw no way. “Away,” said Kit. “'Tis all one.” They heard the clank and rattle of a sheep on stones, a bird's disconsolate cry. And then a tap, a tapping, gathering like rain: a hammer on a forge.

  "A fire,” said Kit.

  And stumbling, sliding down a track, they found a trod, stones driven edgewise for laden hooves; a wall, a fire in the mist. They tumbled from the old girl's lap, as if they'd been shaken from her apron, out of cloud and into rain.

  And out of rain and by his fire sat a tinker at his work, his anvil driven in the ground, his lean bitch skulking by his side. A sere man, spare and shaggy, like a twist of tobacco. His dog, the mingled grey of ashes, smoke. He'd a tussy of coney skins hung to his tentflap; a jangle of saucepans and riddles and shears.

  "How d'ye do?” said Kit, doffing his drowned hat. “Well, I hope, sir."

  "What d'ye lack?” said the tinker.

  "A knife,” said Kit. “A cookpot. And a flint and steel. That blanket."

  Clink! went the hammer on the rounding can. “A good cloak, is that. Awd bitch whelped on yon cloak. What d'ye give?"

  Kit unfolded Thea's starry mantle.

  The tinker eyed the velvet shrewdly; pinched a fold with black nails. “Molecatcher, ista? Owt else?"

  "A glass."

  An eyebrow. Then a shrug. “Gi's here.” He ran his thumb round the frame of it, tilting his eye at them; considered; spat. “Done."

  Kit knelt to bundle the stuff. A good knife indeed, well-hefted, sharp. “Yon road?"

  "Goes longways.” The velvet cloth had vanished in his pack. “And there's folk and not. Dogs."

  "What honest work for strangers?"

  A shrewd glance at Thea: draggled silk and drab russet, and a started vixen's brush of hair. “Whoring. Thieving."

  Kit flushed. “Not while I've breath."

  "Brave words to starve on. There's begging o course. Any trade in yer hands?"

  "I could fiddle—” Kit began. And turned his palms up ruefully.

  "And I could ride pillion, if I'd a horse and a whip."

  Thea slipped the rings from her fingers. “Would these not bring us silver? For a crowd and a bow?"

  "Aye, and a dance on the gallantry. Wha's to say they's not been thieved?” The bright eyes slid sideways at Kit. “I can see yer not to drown."

  "They're not—” said Kit, and stopped. They were.

  But Thea held a ring up, flicked it shining at the heather's roots. “If thou'd not stoop for it, then let it branch and bear silver."

  There it lay. He looked at her, and spurned it with his toe. A swift unwreathing, a flicker in the grass and gone. A silver snake. “I'd keep dark yon bits o tawdry,” he said. “There's folk'd cut throats for less. Thy stockings. Or a game or nowt.” Thea nodded. “And if thou's a lad, thou doff thy hat, see. More to't than pissing upright.” Then he bent to his camp and ferreted, set out a horn cup and a handful of coarse grey salt, a charred bird bound in herbs. “Hovel top o't trod."

  "Thanks,” said Kit. “My thanks. Hallows with ye."

  "Sneck up,” said the tinker.

  Thea bowed.

  As they started off up the trod in the closing rain, he called after. “If it's a fiddle thou's after, thou ask at Jack Daw."

  * * * *

  "The fiddle. Ah.” Kit gazed at the fire, pale in the wintry sun. No more than shaken air. “'Twas my father's. So my mother said. Of Cloud, as he was.” He bit his lip. “I tell this badly."

  "So yer no one's brat?” said Whin.

  "Hers. Lightborn, we do say in Lune. We grow, like missel, in the air.” His face was bright; then dark. “She died."

  Whin drank, and passed the cup. A white bird tilted on the wind.

  "Mine uncle—I
was prenticed clerk. And fiddled at the wakes, and chafed."

  "So yer went a-begging of a witch?"

  "I was ta'en. By her servant."

  "Ah."

  "Coming from a dance,” said Kit. “On Hare Law."

  "And yer went with my lady's huntsman? Mad as a March hare, thou is."

  "Drunk,” said the fiddler, ruefully. “And thought I was in love."

  * * * *

  Cold, toward moonrise, and the stars like rosin. Whirling. Not so drunk, he'd thought, but flown with fiddling. Ah, he'd never played so well as with Ned Hill, his serpent coiling in and out, and with Tib Lang's rowdy pipes and reed flute. They'd all the earth and heavens dancing to their tune, and half of Kempy Mag's great barn. Like hedgers laying thorn, they'd worked; and by some passing spell, their hey was quickset, green even as they wove, and flowering. A garland for a queen of May. That lass—ah, well he minded her, that straightbacked girl in green, triumphal, with a comet's tail of hair. In and out the mazes of the dance, he glimpsed her, arming with this shepherd and that scythesman, but fencing always with his tune, his air her make. As the music ended, she bowed to it: no partner but the air. His air. He lowered his bow and watched her as she coiled her tumbled braid, the bone pins in her soft stern mouth. The swift stabs. His heart. “Wed,” said Tib drily. “Next month, to yon lame blacksmith. Get thee drunk."

  And he had.

  Five sets and six pints later, there was that other lass, at his elbow as he tuned. A brown girl, filching pears and russets; a green chit, all unripe. She'd a brow like a bird's egg, flecked and flawed, and mocking, shrewd grey eyes. “Why d'ye pull those faces, playing?” she'd said. “Toothache?” So he'd had to eat his hunch of Wake-bread, to show her he cared not, and had won a tiny leaden pair of shears, amid the crumbs. A mayfly toy. “They'll serve you for the wars,” she'd said. “With a needle for spear.” Afterward, he'd found a lady apple in his pocket, flawless, with a leaf.

  He'd idled when they'd paid him, talking random, looking sidelong at the door until the girl in green went by. She'd turned at the threshhold, going, with a glance, half mockery and half challenge. Then he'd packed his fiddle up and walked on alone.

  Not drunk. Unbounded, that was it: with darkness after fire, sky for rafters, silence for the stamp of boots, the clatter, and the clack of tongues. Light with love. As light as the Hanged Lad, Jack Orion, setting sidelong in his belt of sparks. Toward dawn, it was. As late as that? Well he defied his master's clock. Kit bowed to the skyclad fiddler, and doffed his hat, calling out, “Measure for measure, lad. Will I outplay thee?"

  He walked on over Hare Law, his head a muddle of tunes, bright lasses, bowls of lambswool. Cross my river to Babylon. His nose sunk in froth. A bright and a dark head glancing up at him, then ducking low to laugh. His russet coat, Tom's old one turned, scarce worn. New buttons to it. ("Here's a flaycrow in a field goes bare,” the brown girl said.) Ginger and marchpane. A leaden shears. The green girl whirling at his bow's end. Out of sight. Ah, still he played her over in his head.

  Had passed the branching in the road long since. By Crowcrag, then, the gainest way. That striding bass. Mall's Maggot. Syllabub and damson cheese. Dull wool bales in the morning—ah, his head. Sand. Goosequills. Figures on a page, untallied. In and out the hey, and couples for another dance. Nine eight and longways. Silver in his pocket, ninepence, that made seven and a bit, near enough for Askwith's Atomie of Starres. For ribands—No, a carven glass. With verses round. A comb. New strings, though, call it six and coppers. All the broken cakes. And at the end of Nine Weaving, how the green girl raised her candle to him, like a sword, and blew it out. An apple with a leaf. And again, the tumbled braid, the coiling hands. But they undid; the long skein fell for him alone, unbraiding like a fugue about her moonwhite body.

  He was on the high ground now, a puzzle of white stones.

  "Lightwood?"

  Whirling round in a blaze of stars, Kit saw no one. His coat-skirts settled; he felt the soft bump of his pocket, crammed with cakes, against his thigh.

  Stars still dancing.

  He'd heard no rider; saw no horse. Yet on the road stood a horseman, spurred and booted: a stranger. Soberclad but richly, like a servant in a great house; yet outlandish. “Master Lightwood. Of Askrigg?"

  "Sir?” When he stood the room spun, candlelight and dancers, whin and stars.

  "I heard you fiddle at yon hobnailed rout."

  "Ah.” Had he seen that back amid the dancers? With the brown girl? With the lightfoot grizzled farmwife? Or with the lass in green?

  "Small recompense among such folk."

  Broken cakes. Lead trinkets. “They've ears."

  "And so my lady has. And jewels to hang in them. She sends to bid you play for her. A wedding."

  "Have you no fiddlers in far Cloud?” This was not going well.

  "None of note."

  Kit stood. Some wind, toward the morning, twangled in his fiddle strings.

  "Nor time to further send. ‘Tis by this next moon. I will bring you.” A glint of silver. “Come, a handfast. To wet the child's head."

  "Thought you said it was a wedding?"

  "All the same."

  "Ah,” said Kit wisely. “'Twas ever thus. Brought to bed, either way.” The stars were fading, paling to the east; he could see the long rise of Hawker Fell. “Little enough dancing for the bride,” he said. “And the bairn his own piper."

  "Brave company,” the stranger said. “Here's one will look for you.” He held a bone hairpin in his dark-gloved hand. “By this token, you are bid."

  Kit took it in his hand, bemused. “Did she give—?"

  "Is't yes?"

  "Aye, but—"

  Then the horseman sealed his bidding with a cold kiss, full on his mouth. Tongue, teeth, and all. Kit knew no more.

  * * * *

  The wind is braided in my lady's hair.

  Margaret. As thou sleep'st, a storm is rising. Ah, thou hear'st it, even in thy dream of Cloud. But thou art fathomless, thy sleep is ocean. Cowrie'd by thy cheek, thy hand curls inward, closing on the dream that spills away like starry sand. A shutter claps. The hangings of thy bed conceive; the clawed rings inch and jangle. Nearer. On thy coverlid, thy book, left open, stirs. The leaves lift, turning backward in the tale. Unwintering. Again, the dead girl turns and speaks; she plays in greenwood, in the spring of hope.

  How cam'st thou by thy book? Dost know? I tell thee, there are rare things in thy bower, which is all thy world. See, that orange by thy pillow. Pith and bittersweet and curving. And when broke, a puzzlebox of sweets. Thy bedgown, of an antick fashion, rich but sadly tarnished with the salt. That rod of shrewd whalebone, that also I felt. Thy comb. And not least, the drowsy wine they gave thee. Aye, the physick and the cup.

  All tangled in her seine.

  But seldom now.

  I have seen my lady with her braid undone, all naked in her glass.

  Here's a knot, says Morag with the comb.

  Thou do. Undo.

  Another.

  Seven. And no more.

  And with each knot, the wind rose, howling, and now and now the lightning slashed, it winced and slashed, and then the clouts of thunder jarred. By the sixth, it was beyond all noise: one lightning, and a judder in the bones. And when the waves broke—It was Annis falling. It was burying alive in shards of sky.

  I have seen ships cracked like jackstraws.

  I have found things, walking by the sea. A coffer, cracked and spilling cinnamon and mace. A virginals. A bacca pipe, unbroke. The Nine of Bones. And sailors: drowned and shattered, drowned and frozen, trodden into sand. And some that Morag finished. I have found an orange lying by a tarry hand.

  * * * *

  Thea blew her nails and huddled, pinch-faced. Kit rubbed his legs and sighed. So much for begging. Stones for breakfast and a long draught of Cloud ale; stones in shoes; dog's music at the last three farms; and brats at the packbridge with a hail of clods. And now they'd tumbled down a scree. He'd g
o home if he knew where home was. They were nowhere, halfway down a fell, and sliding from its bony knees. The tops were hid in dour cloud. “Here's kites,” said Thea. Higher up, they saw a shepherd, stooping with his burden of a creel of hay. His crouching, prying, flying dogs made bow-knots of a bedlam of sheep. Querulous and unrepentant Maudlins all, a-burst with bastard lambs, and fellowed with their doting Toms, the crazed and kempy wethers and the horn-mad tup. All trundled to fold. “On dirty toes,” said Thea. “Same as us."

  To the north, they saw the bruised sky blacken, and the bentgrass flinch and shiver in the rising wind. “Coming on bad,” said Kit, standing. “We'll lay up.” Even as he spoke, the snow came, like a fury of ghosts.

  Nowhere.

  "Hey!” cried Kit. Stifled. Gloved hands of snow laid hold of him, clapped eyes, mouth, ears. Seen out by February's footmen, to a ditch and crows.

  "Hush,” said unseen Thea. They could hear the sheep rattle and the shepherd call.

  "Way here! Way here, Maddy. Come by, Gyp."

  Kit caught hold of Thea's wrist, and scrabbled up the hillside toward the voice. Not far, they'd not get far in this. “How far—?” bawled Kit.

  A lean ghost, swathed in sacking. “Get by, thou bloody fool! Down dale."

  "Where—?"

  "Dog'll tek thee.” Something like a hollybush leapt the wall, already chiding at their heels. The shepherd called after, “Thou ask at Imp Jinny."

  Down along an outcrop, rising into drystone wall; crook left, and down a stony track between two walls, out of wind; past the shepherd's pony, like a dejected chimney brush, beside his sledge of hay. The black bitch saw them through the gate.

  Trees, low and windbent, lapped and laden with the ghosts of leaves; a lantern at the door, that turned their branching to bright webs.

  "Hallows,” called Kit, and beat muffled hands against the door.

  "Will Shanklin?” called a woman's voice. “Owt wrong?” The door opened. A small-faced strapping woman, knitting furiously. Sharp and brown as a beechnut, with a beech's frazzled foliage, an old tree's knotted hands. Blue as speedwell, her eyes. She looked them up and down. “If it's guising, yer a bit few. And late."