Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter's Tales

by Greer Gilman

  "Elinor Selby wrote this? When?” Madam snatched the paper.

  "When Annot first bled,” said Barbary.

  "But that—"

  "Were last week, aye."

  Madam studied. “I had not thought—"

  "She'd be wick enough to bid to't wedding? Nay, an her servingmen carried her, she'd have come, were it back o't moon. And will for Annot's bairn's ashing. Fair fond on young Annot, she is. Would have matched her with her daughter's son."

  "A younger son. Died penniless,” said Madam. “Master Corbet is a lord of men. She bears me no ill will, I hope."

  "'Tis not my place to tell yer, Madam."

  "I bid thee."

  "An yer will. This marrying in huggermugger likes her not. Wick as she ever were, is Madam Selby. A great lady. She were Ashes twice."

  Madam folded the letter in her needlecase.

  "And sent nine pound o candles for us lanterns. All virgin wax."

  Beckoning Sukey for the keys, Barbary unlocked a kist, took out the stout surrendered shoes. “I s'll just take and dubbin these. Way's mucky, and it's a shame to spoil yon cork-heeled pantoufles."

  * * * *

  Bent beggarstaff, a crookback moon trudged slowly down the sky, clad fustily in rags of cloud. Annot walked by its halflight, over moss and moor; half ran, and stumbling, fell. This country was unknown to her, a borderland; her only road, away. Toward moonset there came a sharp cold spattering of rain. Shivering in her stolen silk, her city gallant's doublet and hose, she cast about her for a refuge. Just beyond a little beck stood a hill barn. She'd shelter. Sleep in straw.

  At the sill, she halted. A rustling within. Rats? Peering, she saw only moonspill in the dust. A shaft of bleak light caught a sickle bound in straw. Sacks. Flails. A grindlestone. A tipsy cauldron, spilling dark.

  A laugh.

  She swung about. Crouched in among the barleystraw, three hooded women drank. They passed one cup from hand to hand.

  "Lost thy knife?” said one.

  "I'd not run, boy,” said another, as Annot wheeled about. “Dog hunts.” A lurcher girned and loured at her feet, all fang and sinew.

  And the third: “How it shivers, poor startlin hare.” She drank. “Knap it neck."

  Kin to Madam's Grieve who gamed with cruelty: she knew it in her marrow, which was turned to bloodred ice. She'd taken her false lover's sword when she ran from him; knew not its manage. Two held her, flung it clanging to the ground. No guise. The first to speak drew back the slide of their lantern. Flare and shadow.

  Whores. Annot knew that now. She saw red shoes, a bruised pale breast, a broad hat with a draggled feather. The glint of a knifeblade. “Let me go. I have nothing for you.” Shrill bravado. How ill she boyed it.

  A black mort, with a blue and scornful eye, leaned forward. Haw as death. “But we's summat for thee."

  "Word,” said a sluttish drab. Hacked yellow hair. Pissed petticoats and trodden shoes. A limp goose lying at her feet. Spoil. “Thy kindred..."

  A breath indrawn. The boy that was Annot could not mask her sudden hope.

  "Nowt for nowt,” said a roaring doxy, a tall wench in a soldier's cap and feather. “What's in thy breeches?"

  The Black Mort groped her. “Cunny."

  "Eggs,” said Pissabed, rummaging and seizing all her store. Yolk running down her chin: she slobbered as she sucked.

  "Cockseed,” said the doxy; then to their captive, “Cut his purse next time. He's filled thine oft enough."

  "Cut his throat,” said the Black Mort. “Take his cully for thy pimp."

  The doxy fleered. “Aye, teach yer grandam to grope ducks."

  But the Black Mort held Annot's eye. “Here's word. Thy kindred casts thee off as whore. They's banned thy name and burnt thine ashings. Thou's to die untold."

  Black silence.

  "Or thou will, but if..."

  No breath to speak. “If...?” said Annot at long last.

  "If thou can show us where thy cully's laid."

  "He's craws’ meat,” said the striding doxy. “Will be hanged i’ Law."

  "He'll have stolen summat. Say, a chain o gold."

  "Or chance a bracelet will be found on him."

  "He'll have ta'en a ring. My lady sees to it."

  So Madam saw to things. A cheat. Annot said, “He took nothing."

  They laughed. “But thou given it."

  Annot looked sidelong out of downcast eyes. The knifeblade glinted shrewdly; the rough beast crouched and snarled. No rift. No running. “I know not what you mean."

  "Thou liest, vixen's whelp. Thou's trysted wi’ a fool."

  "If I travelled for a space in company, I saw no ring."

  "Think that's why he's to hang?” said Cap-and-Feather. “For a tawdry?"

  "For his blue eyes,” sang Pissabed.

  The Black Mort leaned closer still. “He's to hang for what he took o thee: a ring for his blind finger. That toy were Master Corbet's.” Bared teeth: she saw the elfshot strike. “Ah, that bites thee."

  Black Mort gazed hard at her. “Not clouded; yet she's cracked."

  "There's rare game o that sort wi’ us. If it like thee."

  "A pretty play.” The pale drab swayed and whirled. “Will you have Aprons all untied? I'll show thee. Or Cross my river to Babylon."

  Caressed with nettles. Their words stung like scorpions, like honeyed maggots heaved and coiled. If she spoke she would spew.

  Cap-and-Feather leered and licked her fingers with a sharp red tongue. “Thou's a vixen twixt thy legs, same as we has."

  "'Twill dance,” said the Black Mort. “An it's called and fiddled.” She caught Annot's face between clawed hands, and whispered with her charnel breath. “Did it frisk when he kittled thee?"

  Fury whelmed fear. Annot wrenched at her captor's hands, but the Black Mort held her fast. She pinched the slight breast scornfully. “There's coin for that. If thou wilt play."

  Silence.

  Now they closed on her, all three. Red, black, and white.

  "Thou's cast away what t'quality would haggle o'er, t'breaking of thy glass."

  "Thy fortune."

  "But thou's yet unpoxed. Thou's turn a pretty penny still."

  "We's a bawd will school thee in gallantry."

  "In coining wi’ thy purse."

  "Thou's slept soft i’ featherbeds ere now. Supped sugared wine. Wouldst again?"

  But it was comforts of the mind that Annot rued. Sleavesilk and her needlework, undone: she saw her needle in a half-made rainbow, like a slash of rain. Her virginals, the song unlearned; her book, the page turned down. Oh, she was longing for her narrow bed, a book and candle by. For Damaris to lie beside her, silly sisters as they were. For Noll, and winter's tales of ghosts and witches, by a hearth. “I would live honestly, my lone."

  They laughed like a rookery. “Whore's what thou is. Thy choice is hedgework or haggling."

  "Go, keep thyself. Suck ploughmen and be paid in bruises."

  "Fleshmeat thou's have in plenty now. Undressed."

  "Raw cream and strokings of a herd o stirks. ‘Twill curdle i’ thy belly soon enough."

  "A ditch for thy bower. Nettles for thy goosedown. Hap-harlot for thy sheets."

  "Any man's thy rug."

  "And whip's thy breakfast,” crowed Cap-and-Feather.

  And the Black Mort twisted a great handful of her captive's hair. “Thy choosing. Common whoredom and infamy. Or give thy cully to be hanged, for silence, and thy lot is with our Master Daw."

  "Wouldst have thy kindred see thee carted, cry thee whore?"

  Still silent, though she clenched her fists until her nails bit. Annot saw not Madam's face but Damaris her sister, pale and sorrowful, arisen from the grave: she held her small son gazing in her lap with great round eyes, as at a masque. O Noll.

  "Venge thysel. Thou wouldst, for thy ruin."

  Would I?

  Cap-and-Feather preened her knife; lunged suddenly at air. “An thou wilt, he gangs to't gallantry..."


  "But tell us where he lies."

  "...wi’ a fiddler afore him, Hallows morn."

  "He'll dance Daw's Jig."

  "Eyes til t'craws."

  "Bones til t'heather."

  "Soul til my lady's crown."

  "And we's to have his flesh,” said the Black Mort. “So my lady bids. But say."

  And Cap-and-Feather crowed. “A green stick for a witch to ride."

  Eyes closed and rocking, swaying, Pissabed crooned. “Ride a cockhorse..."

  "No,” said Annot, dry-voiced. “Death gives nothing back to me."

  "Not hempseed for thy cockerel? Is thy palate daintier? Then chose what end thou wilt for him."

  "There's one teared by dogs."

  "That's one. And which is thine?

  "One drownded i't ice. Run after sun, he would."

  "Is't thine?"

  "There's one falls burning frae a mast."

  "That likes me. Is't thine?"

  They were chanting, ecstatic. Annot struggled in vain. They'd wound and bound a spell about her, a caterpillars’ clot of nest.

  Now the pale wench set her eggshells in a tub, she tipped it this way and that. She stirred it with a fork. “Here's a cockboat. And another. For my lady to fleet."

  The Black Mort picked a witchknot from her crawling hair. “That's one. And here's a wind.” It raged in little on her hand. She huffed and sent her tempest onward. In the wooden O, the eggshells rocked.

  Another knot. “Will I undo?"

  "Thou do. Undo."

  A storm swirled in the tub, a whirlpool. Lightnings. Laboring, the eggshells spun. By one and one, they heeled and sank. Now eight, now five, now three, now two...?

  Down in the farmyard, the grey cock crowed. Their dog sprang up, a-bristle, barking. The Black Mort swore and seized his collar, flailing at him, but her spell had snapped. Annot leapt for the cockloft, and pulled the ladder up behind. Lay shuddering.

  "Fire straw,” said Cap-and-Feather below.

  No breath.

  "My lady cracks no charred bones,” said the Black Mort. “Shift."

  As the trulls took to their heels, a gabble of hounds took up the basso. Hue and cry. Men called. “Hoy, Bandogg! Ho, Beldam!” Annot peered through a windeye, warily. A rout. Below, the dogs howled and snapped, the shepherds hallooed. “Out on ye! Thieves! Out, whores!"

  Too late. Harsh and rancorous, a far voice mocked them. Halfway up Law, Cap-and-Feather turned and flashed her sullied arse, she waggled the gooseneck at her naked fork.

  Long after, broad morning, when the clamour had faded, Annot climbed down. The drabs had faded like an ill dream, leaving nothing but a stench and scuffling in the chaff. A scattering of eggshells. But the sword was gone. Out on the high moor, out of sight, she waded in a beck. Shaking, she scrubbed and scrubbed where the trulls had pawed at her, a taint ingrained as ink.

  * * * *

  Margaret was earth, she could not wake. Unsinewed, powerless, she could not will herself to rise, to beat with bloodless hands against the rubble and the rock that held her. Could not speak: her tongue was a twisted stump, dry rootstock, in a gorge of stones. No voice; no breath; no sight. Though she lay openeyed, no light would enter and ensoul her grave. The stars forever lost. She lay beneath a fell of dark, and roke and fire rose from her, unwreathing in a coil of cloud that blotted out her sky. As if she burned, but coldly, unconsumed. Slow tumult in the windless air, a blood-brown dusk. A black frost on her naked breast, her shoulder. At her fork was moss and marish, bleeding, bleeding in a bitter spring, a syke. And inmost, burrowed in her secrets, burring out, there grew a clinch of crystal. She was under Law.

  ...blood ... said the raven, perching on her brow.

  ...of stone ... said its marrow, lighted on her flank.

  The crows at her cradle. In the windless storm their voices came in scraps.

  ...another Annot is...?

  ...not Annis...?

  A smear of light. A star, she thought. The first of them to fall—

  A scald of fire on her breast.

  She woke in the pale bed, in the nightless tower. Under Law. And could not breathe for Morag, hulked upon her body, mantling with her ashy wings. Her talons griping in her belly. They bound her with a braid of fire. And my lady held the glass. But she would not look in it, although the cards fell burning on her body. Ashes of her stars. And which next shall I take? Thine eyes? Thy choosing. It will make a game. My lady—

  And she woke in this world, drenched and shuddering, unselved. And lay, her blood resounding on the stithy of her heart. There was a drowsing evil in her blood, an overpowering; they'd drugged her, when she would not taste their wine, with a fume of poppies, with a cold infusion in a drenching-horn. It took her will, her understanding; left only naked terror and her shame. They'd rifled her. And all her power lay in holding back a greater power: as if they'd brought their candles deep within her, where the powder slept. That fury wakened could annihilate herself, beside her enemies, and all this house. The earth, as once the sky.

  Now slowly, she remade a world about her, time and space. Her narrow bed. Her wall. Herself: but recollected slowly, wound about her nakedness. A sheet of soul; a counterpane of stars. A blanket, as she shook with cold. A pillow huddled to her chest, to rock herself awake. Between her fingertips and thumb she pirled and pirled the drop of candle wax, the fallen star.

  * * * *

  "She will do,” said Grieve; and lowering the candle, snecked the door.

  "Aye, another's blood were best,” said Rue by the fire. “But our mistress here doth venture much, since none may twice. All others that conceived by Law have slipped ere they had quickened. None were brought to bed."

  "If all miscarried, they were false,” said Grieve. “There's but one true hailstone left, and hers.” She set the candle by the coffer. “It is the last. All eight others hath she sought and studied; it is sure."

  "So she would spend it? On that posset-faced puling chit?” said Rue, and handed up a glass. “As good play duck and drake with diamonds in a sump."

  "So it be swilled, the earthenware's as good a vessel as the gold: a hole to fill.” Grieve took the dram of her and drank. “And there is witchblood in the chit, I warrant you. And none to meddle for her sake. Our mistress dotes on her commodity, despites her, flesh and soul. The smockfaced nephew—"

  Rue laughed scornfully. “Is no warden of her honor. Fatherless and friendless, aye. But will be husbanded. Corbet—"

  "A beard for her breeding. He will serve us well enough."

  "He is no fool, that scythesman. Will he not suspect?"

  "A lover? Of that mooncalf? He will find her virgin. And conceit will father it.” Grieve unpinned her apron. “'Tis well. Our mistress has her heritage; and the master his game."

  "And coney is a pretty dish, they say. That I'm to dress.” Rue drank. “I go with her to Corbet: as a gift."

  Grieve set the pins straight in her cuff; spoke quietly. “To dress, but not to mar. The governance is mine."

  "Is ours—"

  A footfall on the winding stair, a shadow and a scent of wax. The servants rose and curtsied. “Is't done?” said Madam Covener.

  "Aye, madam, slab and sharp,” said Rue, and stirred the pipkin on the hearth.

  "The girl?"

  "Asleep,” said Grieve. “And ripening."

  A jangle of keys at Madam's waist, as she unlocked the coffer.

  * * * *

  Two witches huddle by a fire of thorn. The cup goes to and fro.

  "Here's meddling,” says Brock. “Will she bear?"

  "Aye, happen.” Mally drinks. “Herself; or yon hailstone."

  "Could be harrowed out."

  "Oh, aye.” The small witch holds a garland on her knee, of grey and withered leaves, or none. “Just here's a bitter little herb her mam has plucked for her, when she would rid her belly of yon brat. I's kept it whiles."

  "A draught?"

  "In time. And if.” The witch pours out
her cup; the fire flares and dies. “Her grandam wants her glass to fill. Come hallows will she hunt."

  "Scent's cold,” says Brock. “My journeyman confounds her. For a time."

  "Has sailed?"

  "At hallows. And herself?"

  "Will find herself. Her belly full."

  A click of talismans, a flick of smile. Brock's silent else.

  "Where one is, two cannot,” says Mally. From her cauldron rises up a fog, a frost-hag: they are rimed with it. Below, beyond—there is no word for it—Whin's boat is swallowed up. Blind, open-eyed, she journeys, and the storm begins to rise.

  Margaret wakes drenched.

  And white in white, the witches fade, black moorland and the winter tree, all but the embers of the fire. Their voices whisper in the sticks.

  "...and in her glass..."

  "...is not..."

  * * * *

  Alone in her high chamber, Madam laughed. So it was done: the girl invitrified, and to be wed Ash-morrow. She herself had studied since the last fled Annot; had refined the art. All other witches had miscarried of their stones; had quickened, aye, but then the god-in-embryo had eaten up her vessel from within. Some few had lived a space in agony, half-glass, half-grub: the larvae of transcendence. Some had bled away, some mortified. Some preyed on children and were slain. And all were dead, their souls annihilate. No Ashes of this earth could tell them. Madam closed her empty coffer, lock on lock. But her creature, unborn Annis, would be nourished on the sun, on Corbet's seed. His lust would feed her lust for power, her insatiable dark; until voracious, she had used him up. Drunk down the sun. Then Madam would discard the shrivelled skin of him, sucked dry through his great cock, and reign with widow Annis in his tower. She had staked my lady's soul on it.

  * * * *

  Will hang, said a still voice to Margaret.

  She was on a skyless hill, bent onward, neither west nor east, but wading to the knee in shadow. There was something that she'd lost: a knife among the weeds, a stone from off her ring. Her name. No stubble here, nor grass, but swiddened moorland, and the sift of ash long cold. It fell like shadow into shadow, sparse. Around her lay a sprawl of stones, half fallen in a maze of thresholds, perilous to cross. Whatever way she turned was inward.