Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter's Tales

by Greer Gilman

  And like the stone of it, he sees the huntsman, all his harness traced in fire, and his mantle of the burning gold upflung. His mount's a roil of smoke and agony. His red-eyed hounds are scattering like a shovelful of sparks; their master falls apart in flakes of fire—a spur, an eye, the flinders of a mouth—still curling inward on himself.

  The crow lad drowns in fire, wakes with shrieking.

  See, a card is burning in the witch's hand. The last: the Hare, cast down in embers on the ashes of the pack, the Huntsman and the Hound.

  In the tale, the Moon-Hare's rising out of Law is liberty; he lopes amid a rime of stars. See there, the old wife says. That star? And that? He's running, and they's never catch him. Nobbut Brock will, for her bag.

  That tale is lost.

  * * * *

  Scant light for sewing. Close within the kitchen window, Barbary bent to her needle, frowning, turning Margaret's ruined tawdry in her clever hands. She'd given threads to Margaret to unpick, to save the gold inwoven; but the girl was elsewhere, gazing past the rain-lashed window at the fell. The work lay idle in her lap. While she was caged these endless weeks, the year had turned toward winter, shedding leaves with her blood. The trees laid bare the sky: for naught. Beyond the whirl and slant of wind-torn leaves, her crown of stars moved on unvisited, unseen.

  Light mirrored made a second prison of the world beyond, cast all behind before: the fell was white with swags of linen, winter-hedged. Reflections. High in the air, Doll and Nan tripped neatly to and fro about their work: glazed linen slid beneath their skating irons, flakes of lace fell lightly from their goffers, making frost of fire. As she worked, Nan Shanklin sang, abstracted, mournful. ” ... of his needle, he made a spear, Benjamin Bowmaneer..."

  Her breath had dimmed the glass; she wiped it.

  And in sad antiphony, Doll sang, "My father was a gentleman, a gentleman was he ... “ A shirt, a collar. Thump and glide.

  A smock. ” ... and th’ proud tailor rode prancing away..."

  "...but he's wed me til an awd man o three score years and three..."

  Herself was time's mirror: a glass ghost-misted. Spirits’ breath that will not stir a feather yet may stain a soul with longing, with regret. They clouded her, her ghosts. The leaf on stone, the leap of fire that was Thea's voice. Ash of driftwood that was Norni's tang; her salt wind singing to the cradle rocking, empty on the stones: Imbry's cradle, who was dead for Margaret's sake. The lost girl shivered, skyblack on the moor. Her hand was in the frost. And now, beyond that skeining work, Margaret saw Lyke Moor, with its lost souls wandering. ” ... of his thimble, he made a bell ... “ She saw the crow lad, black as starless night, starve-naked, with his hair like cold fire blown about him, unconsuming. Saw him still behind her eyes.

  "...to ring that flea's funeral knell..."

  A golder fire in the air sprang up. He burned in it. Another. And another.

  In the room behind her, they were lighting candles, whispering.

  "...he's gone intil a hare and hunted, Mab says..."

  "...slipped..."

  "...come full o't moon, they's take..."

  Margaret turned from the ghostly hillside; spoke to blot the voices. “Will you go?"

  Pursed lips, drawn brow. Counting stitches. “Sayst?"

  "Hie, Jeannie, hie..."

  "Will you seek Ashes? At the stones?"

  Barbary bit her thread. “That's done wi'.” Then sleaving new silk, she said less tartly, “I's beyont moon now. Ashes mun bear."

  "...and sing low, Jeannie, low..."

  "Oh,” said Margaret. “I see."

  "Is thy needle a bill-hook? Thou's not lifted it twice this hour."

  "Ye can never mak’ a singin bird out o a hoodie craw."

  Margaret took up her handwork, bristling with pins, and drew them; stuck them in a clot of cushion like a heart. Barbary shook out her ravaged breadth. “Here's cats’ knittery. ‘Twill do for a stomacher.” She called to the serving maids, “Y'd best bring candles up. They'll be darkling."

  Fain to be flitting, they clipped out.

  Dusk in the kitchen, unghosted of its smocks. Rain spat in the chimney, rattled at the pane.

  Barbary chose her strand of silk. “I were never Ashes.” Another thread, a knot. Swift stitches. “I wanted.” Even in her own despair, Margaret heard the longing in the other's voice.

  "Why?"

  "Not for mastery, but for—” The needle poised. “—draught of light. I wanted Ashes, same as tree wants light. Rain and rooted earth, aye, fairly; but ‘tis light in grain. I would knaw that law, that dance; and now I never s'll."

  * * * *

  There was a shutter still undone. Only for a glimpse, Margaret looked out on leaves, on endless leaves, wind-paling; at the starless sky, cloud-curded, and the rounding moon. Rain-curtained now the Coffer and the Keys, the ember of the Raven's Eye. Then the servingwoman pulled it to, and latched it. “Go now. Madam waits."

  * * * *

  Cold haily night. All folk indoors. Cowering and curing in their chimneynooks like so much bacon. Withered apples in a heap of musty straw. And wanting only fire and fleet: the caudle on the hob; the hangings drawn against the October storm, against the rattle and the sting of sleet. The glory shuttered out. Above them in the smoke, ungazed at, lay the vault of heaven, underdrawn with cloud: the stars in their lightless rafters, hooked. Like so much kitchenry.

  * * * *

  Still there, thought Margaret, kneeling at the sill. And set them in the sky in order, like a child with her babyhouse. Toys and shadows. Here a cradle of a nutshell; there a thimbling jug of delf. A saltspoon for a ladle: horn. Sad pretty trinkets from a yearcake, a child's wealth long ago: a spindle whorl of bone or ivory, like an ear-bob, wound with tow; a tawdry ring, a cheat of brass and glass for gold; a riddle and a shears of lead.

  In the high chamber, Annot's kists lay open, spilling rich and thrifty odors mingled—orris root, ambergris, wormwood and camphire—and outmoded finery. They were remaking her in Annot's image. All her clothing, though excellent, was quaint; and after her long wandering—Madam said—ill fit her.

  Madam Covener herself, with Rue her waiting-woman, had the fangling of a bodice. Grieve stitched at linens: fine whitework, as for a bridal or a shroud. Beside her, Ellender, entrusted with a nightcap-in-ordinary, bent demurely to her work. Her bright new thimble glinted. Nan came to mend the fire and clear away, remembering—but only just—to bob.

  Then she bent over Margaret's shoulder, frankly gazing at the toys. “Eh now. Isn't they bonny?” She poked the cradle gently with a roughened finger. It rocked. “All this while shut up i't dark. They must been young Annot's—Aye well, thy—” Grieve coughed. “Yer eldins,” said Nan. Hands ostentatiously behind her back.

  "Are they trinkets? Or what?” said Margaret. Her voice seemed small and cracked to her.

  "Disn't thou knaw eldins? Thou has been away in faerie."

  "Mistress Annot well remembers,” said Grieve. “As thou, girl, dost forget thyself."

  "No harm in maids prattling, an they work,” said Barbary, coming up with Madam's burnt wine. “Here's not a lyke-wake, Mall be thanked.” She glanced at Margaret's dish, uneaten. “And I's not be having one. T'lass is dowly. She could do with a merry-making, lass amid lasses."

  Madam snipped her thread. “I see my nephew keeps unruly servants. Annot's governance is mine."

  Unspoken in the air hung Barbary's retort: Aye, and she fled yer. “And by yer leave, Madam, servants here is mine. They swears to me. And I answers to't Master.” As she spoke, she tidied all the snippets of silk and velvet. “Nan, see thou to't candles while thy tongue is clacking. Ellender, yon thimble's not a diadem. Thou needn't preen."

  "Sleeve,” said Rue, bristling up with a cockling of conceited velvet and a wristful of pins. “Thine aunt would see the fashion on it."

  Margaret stood, and unresisting let the bower-woman turn her this way and that. Breathed ambergris—and now and here were lost. Tip and tilt in
memory, the cradle rocked and Norni sang, to speed the voyager to shore. Nan took a knifepoint to the candle-ends.

  "Elding now, we kept afore yer come. At seedtime. But o course yer knows that, Not Marget. That's when t'Nine is under Law, locked up i't Lady's kist, and Eldins—she's lallest o't Nine, and shyest, and not to be spied—she seeks ‘em through bushes and briars, and right down under earth. She braves Law, does Eldins. And she's getten a sun fra’ Mally's kist to light her down, and all Brock's keys."

  In and further in, the fire wending in the dark. The scent of stone, of myrrh. The cold mist and the crying out of souls. As if she stood upon her prison's threshold, come to raise herself from dark. See, Marit. And she is that child again, my lady's captive, curled in Norni's lap. No warmth, no weight in memory, but O the scent of her, of smoke and ambergris. Her shadow on the hearth, gold-dappled through her drops of amber. With a fingertip, she draws the stars for Margaret to name. A sigil of swift dabs in ashes; then as swift, a rubbing out.

  The Whale, he sounds.

  And this?

  The Bear. She comes not under Law. Like Imbry.

  Aye, she'll win away. For she's wrapped in her eldmother's skin.

  And her kist's of the Cloudwood.

  This?

  The Selkie.

  Aye, a southern star. He keeps the shoals of Law, cove-haunting. Ay and O my lady's ta'en him as her thrall and ay he slips away. Swims up into the night sea.

  Up from here?

  Aye, he'll have found where his fell is hid. And this?

  The Nine.

  See, a kindle of kitlins, and the Vixen comes and goes...?

  Rue's pinches called her back to Cloud, to Annot's bodies. But a moment had passed. Nan dug at the wax, still prattling. “So then o course she finds her sisters and she sets ‘em free—that's when they rises, May morning. And then they all sails off i't Ship. There's a guising on't."

  "For clownish folk,” said Ellender. “And babbies."

  "Thou mimsy. Thou's romped it thyself not six moons since.” Nan took new candles from her apron. “Aye, it's merry times we has. T'bairns all gets eldins. Tops and tawses. Hoops. Painted whirligigs.” She smiled, as at a memory. “Our Doll and me, we was kempions at ninestones. Had dibs in real delf one year, till we hadn't. Cracked."

  Still no answer. For the first time, Nan looked at Margaret in her one sleeve. “Will I learn yer to play?"

  * * * *

  They walk on, the cold rain turning to a white whirl and a skirmish of snow. The owl-witch Malykorne has kitted Margaret in the tatters of a tinker's coat, the patchwork from her hovel sleeved and skirted; she huddles in it, like a hedgehog in a heap of leaves. Rag coat and slipshod boots, ill-mated, odd and odd. The witch walks quickly. Margaret hurries after, skid and slither, hop and stumble on the clodded coat-skirts. She holds her end up of the creaking wicker basket. It thwacks her shins, persistent as a peevish child; the handle bites like an attercap. With her other elbow crooked against the swarming, stinging snow, she turns her face from the wind. Over her shoulder, sharp and swift, she sees a whisk of fire and a flurry of ice: a creature dancing. Four charry legs, a plume of flame. Jot and flourish. The wind effaces its writing.

  "Vixen,” says the witch, and tugs onward.

  They halt nowhere. Whirl and white.

  The witch bites off her mittens. “Reel's running out,” she says. Walking she has changed. She looks absurdly young and fierce, like an owlet in an ivy bush. Like a slip of waning moon. “I'll set thee to a place. Thy road's from here."

  "Away,” says Margaret carefully. Naked to my lady's crows?

  "Til t'Nine. I's not there.” The witch rubs her spectacles. “Nor's she. And after, til Cloud. Where she's not when she isn't."

  "Here's like my lady's garden,” says Margaret. “Cold."

  "Untidier,” the witch says dryly. “No walls."

  Margaret considers. “It's all one way. Turn and turn, like a maze."

  "There's doors, if thou's canny. What's in thy pocket?"

  "Snow,” says Margaret, divining. “And sticks."

  "Toss it up,” says the witch.

  With bare blue hands Margaret claps and moulds it: a sleety urchin of a ball. The witch's wry mouth forbids questioning. Clumsily, she tosses it skyward: with a whirr and flacker it unfolds wings, rises, white in whiteness, with a cry. Gone.

  Still gazing up, she feels her sleeve tugged. “Will it rain cakes, then?” The witch crouches, rolls another ball, in widening, winding circles in the snow; lays bare a maze of earth. The sky turns backward. Margaret follows. Round and rounder grows the ball, as moonwise turns the path: hand-high, knee-high, knocking on a wall of stone. The snowball shatters.

  "Back door,” says the witch, and shakes her skirts. “Too low for my lady.” The basket is there on the doorstep, white with snow. Then she rattles the sneck.

  Madam's crows were ever at her back, the one and the other one: like gate-stones, like a threshold that she might not cross. They perched at her hause-bane, and quarrelled for her eyes. Margaret turned her prickling neck to them, and pressed her brow against the windowglass. Beyond the quarrelled panes, she saw slabbed courtyard and a whirl of leaves. Swirl and skitter, rise; unravel, slack and fall. And stir again and scrabble in a hectic gyre, unavailing. No way out. Beyond the cold chimneys and the huddle of slates, she saw bare trees, burnt moorland, the false green gone that had bespelled her to this Cloud: it was winter coming, and the world that she had known. No comfort, but in knowing where she stood: on iron ground. Yet living air.

  "Come, Madam. They wait on thee."

  At the door of the wainscot parlor, Grieve drew her laces tighter still, half-bared her childish breasts; Rue slapped her pale cheeks, pinched her nipples: so she went a mockery of rose-lipped breathless budding.

  Even as she crossed the sill, she caught the stench of sorcery, a tang of iron in the blood. And she knew the stranger even as he turned: the witch, the guisers’ lady at the stones. As he knew her—O blindness, he had spied her out. He had doffed the bone mask, bland and pitiless, but his smiling still was mask, his swift regard his scything; and herself the grass that bowed. As he swung round, so must she curtsey, as the lads did leap. That was the dance.

  They sat at table, at the wine, all three: wan Grevil and his whitely aunt; her suitor. He was old. Old and harsh, like salt-scarred iron, like a sword sheathed in ruined velvet; old and dangerous. Slaked ash, yet glowering: he still would blaze. No age at all, she saw. Whiteheaded but unwithered. All in black. Hunched as a hoodie crow, but sleek, as if he preened with marrow, plumped on eyes: if winter, then a glut-green January, charnel-crammed. He fed on carrion, but daintily: cracked marrow with ringed hands.

  "Master Corbet,” said the Mistress. “Here is Annot that was lost; and found."

  Round went his knife blade, flecking peel from an orange. Dispersedly before him, lay his broken meats: an eel pie like a castle fallen, battlements in ruin; dregs of wine, sucked marrowbones, disjointed birds. He looked with Morag's eyes at her: contempt, avidity, and cold appraisal. Held her gaze as he would a twisting leveret, ere he knapped its neck. He chose and split a fig with blacknailed thumbs. Still green. Imbibed it.

  When he spoke, his voice was wasp honey. “Here's a delicate,” he said. “By my neb, the fairies keep a pretty larder. I have heard they feed on mince pies made of children; but never that they candy maidenhead."

  "Intact,” said Madam Covener. “I warrant you."

  "I doubt you not,” he said dryly. “But here's a new way to keep cherries ripe. It is a dish that likes me, this preserved virginity, this marmalade. I've had three such green wives stale, ere I laid them in coffer."

  Not Death, but Death's pander.

  "Sir,” said wretched Grevil. “She is young. Could not you give her time?"

  "If young, then she will bend,” said Madam Covener; and with a shrewd glance at her nephew, “As well thou knowst. Wouldst have it known?"

  Down went his eyes. He would n
ot meet her gaze, nor Margaret's; but drew patterns in the salt. “There can be no covenant against her will..."

  "She is sold,” said Master Corbet, in that oakgalled voice. “And thou hast reaped, shorn, spun her dowry this three-and-thirty years. Signed and sealed.” He tossed a coin on the table. No, an amulet, a little golden face wreathed round with corn. It smiled at her, at anyone. “On this,” he said; and turning to his stricken host, “A rarity, is't not? A charm, most ancient in my family, of finding and of binding."

  "Come, girl.” Grieve and Rue impelled her to his side. He tore a crust of bread, a pinch of salt, and held it to her lips. “Come, Madam. ‘Tis thy part to open."

  In her ear, she heard Barbary: Feign; or they will bind thee.

  My oath? Will that not bind me?

  Unwilling, she must taste his fingers: blood and marrow, and a something charred. Soot-bitter. And with that tang, she tasted knowledge. He would lie upon her like a weight of snow, her grave; mouth, eyes, and every cleft intruded, as roots of yew will break a coffin, and the worms usurp.

  No true knot, if the cord be false.

  Now she to him; and must endure his tongue and teeth. He bent to whisper in her ear. “For a bridegift. Thou shalt see thy cully hang.” And his salt tongue flicked her bloody ear lobe. Then turning to the company, he cried, “A handfast. I will hap her well."

  A voice spoke. Her own, cold and small. “But halse thee I will never."

  * * * *

  Grevil in his study brooded. He had worked whatever sleights and strategems he could devise; prayed fortune for a wind. He could no more. The witch was subtle, and her servants all were spies. Subtle, aye; and cruel as Law. He grieved for Margaret. But she was mewed. He saw her not since that wretched handfast, but in Madam's company. Could not send Barbary to her. Nor slip a note of comfort in a book, for fear of rifling; nor send the book itself but Madam turned it back. “Thou mar'st the girl—as she did thee—with toys of idleness. Her tutelage of late has been neglected; I do school her in her duties."