Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter's Tales

by Greer Gilman

  And in the arras on the wall there stirred a dawnless wind. What's there? A glint of mirror. Shadows in the smoke. Were they wafts of her memory? Woven of her dreams? There, in the shadow, in the crouch and quaver of the torches—guisers? Faintly as the stars they played, slow-tumbling in an autumn mist, they glimmered in her eyes and faded. Look there, a knot of swords? A cage? And turning, she saw nothing there, a slashed web stirring in a draught. But there, the torches caught a splatch of weld, as ragged as a weed. White hair, as white as chimneysweepers gone to dust. The Sun.

  He turned to her from shadow.

  All in black. Unmasked. And smiling like a rennie fox.

  "Mistress Ashes."

  Tumult, as the roaring girls swept onward. “Ashes’ will!” they cried. They tanged their ladles on their pans, and blew their mournful threning horns. At every crossroads, and from every stile and stead and scattered cote, almost from every bush, they gathered up guised women as a river in a spate takes sticks. Ashes that was Margaret, dazing in the whelm and uproar of them, stumbled on through the endless night, haled on and hallowed.

  "...will. Her will!"

  Down and down they thundered, madded like sheep: sploshing hugely over moorland and moss, over leapstones and across a swift loud beck, down a green lane, down a sunken trod, walled and higher walled, the narrower the swifter: down a street. “Who is't?” cried voices. “Clapcraws that's to hang.” Their pattens clanged on stone; their voices rang, re-echoing from walls. “Will hang.” They spilled into a broader place, pent in. Lapping and cross-lapping, fanning out, like swift water in shallows. Dark: but for their lanterning.

  Three suns were dancing in the market square. Down leapfire, up lightfast, and round again the year to come, outleaping both; and like a candle flaring in its fall, as new and new again uprose.

  Still jostled onward, Ashes saw the guiser juggling cages of fire, the flames upleaping as their cages fell, the brighter for their downfall. A smith, by her leathern cap. She caught and quenched them, one two three: all but an ember that she pouched. A hail of coppers and a blare of horns. She turned to face the rout. “Here's a clatter,” said the smith. “Lang Meg and her daughters, come down frae't hills.” A woman by her voice: but breeched, like Ashes. Jangling as she glanced. But coatless: in a patched and singed and sooty jerkin, of as many greys as storm in February. Grey as any brock.

  A guiser called out, “I see yer a sleightful wench."

  "And if I is."

  "We's after a smith. Are ye learned of that mystery?"

  "Black and white."

  "A master?"

  "Aye, and mistress of journeymen."

  "Can yer break locks and bars?” said the striding woman with a sword. “There's a bird we'd spring."

  "Oh, I's keys til all locks.” She beckoned Ashes to her side. “Come, lass. Thou show me where he's laid."

  Uncharted here below. Ashes looked all round for the dark tower. None: a dark space, an off-square, set askew; a few bleared candles in the eaves of low houses. All abed? No. Watchful. At the far end where it narrowed ran a river with a stone bridge.

  There.

  By the bridge-end. A round cell in the marketplace, with a cap like a candle-snuffer. Like her lantern: but dark. Absurdly small and like its card, as if she saw it through her glass held backward: but not for laughter, no. Dank-walled and windowless: she knew that dark. That blindness of despair.

  From a coign behind it on the packbridge, Corbet and his henchmen rose with swords. All else was nothing.

  He was unmasked, half in guising: in a long robe of black sheepskins, with his vizard at his shoulder like a white crow, his familiar moon. Its hair like smoke and ashes. No scythe this meeting, but a naked sword.

  He bowed: as if they partnered in a dance.

  "Mistress Ashes."

  His rout was coming from the trances of the town. At her back she felt the swirl and counterswirl of guisers, men and women at odds.

  "Come, a dance at hallowfast,” he bade her. Gall and honey in his voice. “Will you have Cross my river to Babylon?"

  Ashes felt a pull at his bidding: as if his will like a raptor's talons tugged her soulstrings from her heart. But the juggler's sooty palm was on her shoulder. “Bide,” said Ashes’ champion; and faced him. “Off to thy mummery?"

  "At midnight: not without some certain dainties that this rabble would filch. And thou, smutch-bellows? Art thou her champion?"

  "I's come for't wedding. Heared there's a fiddler and all."

  "Mine? Is put off, they say."

  "Thy son and his mother's cockpiece, his daughter and her son. How many's that?"

  "I play not at riddles.” Hand on hilts.

  The guiser stood. “Twa then: Ashes and her will."

  "What, that crowsmeat? His bride-bed is a rope."

  "Criss-cross, and rope's a bed."

  "And a fell for a featherbed on him."

  "Sleeps light. ‘Twill cast it off as cloud."

  "Crows at his cradling."

  "And will swing his rattlebag, and flight them. Flaycraw's his trade."

  "Yet will hang, for his reckoning. His teind's to pay."

  "That ring was not thy gift but his. Witchmaster."

  "So the vixen laws it for the lamb.” The moonface at his shoulder smiled on Ashes, blind, unchanging in its pyre of hair. “The brat's for the gallows, and that greensick girl is mine."

  "Not for thy needfire: Ashes of herself."

  "Will this rout of hobnails have a Lunish stranger for their idol?"

  "Ashes lights on who she will."

  "What need? They could bear about a lolling puppet; and yet drink themselves sottish in her name."

  "They's ears."

  A dark low muttering behind her; a clenching in the crowd. And still she stood.

  His hand grew tighter on his sword; and yet he darted in his glance. His voice rose, reedy as a rackett. “Shall I not have law?"

  "Aye. And Law have thee."

  "I'll not change words with a juggler."

  He turned, disdainful, to the rabble, calling out in his shawm's voice: “Will you loose this dunghill rat to spoil your corn? Breed ratlings of your wives and daughters?” Silence. “Will you teach my covenanted wife to play the whore? To prank at midnight in a tinker's breeks?” Thunderous silence. “I will have whipped who hinders or defies me. She is mine to chastise for her impudence; he is mine to hang: I will take what is mine own."

  A woman in the crowd called out, “Which d'ye want, Maister? Lass or arse?"

  A storm of jeers and catcalls.

  "Breeches is hers by right: Ashes rides rantipole."

  "Go singe yer petticoats wi’ leaping fires: y'll not leap her."

  "First to bed's first wed, awd Craw, and Horn take hindmost."

  Still the witch gang held the bridge: a dozen men, well-armed. Uneasy in their arrogance. All drawn. No weapons in the crowd but clods and sickles.

  "Fire straw,” said Corbet's man, aside to him; but Ashes heard. He thrust his torch at a vent in the prison.

  Corbet stayed him with a hand. “My lady cracks no charred bones."

  He turned back to Ashes. “If thou comest not now by law, still later thou wilt come; and serve me, will or nill.” She stared back in mute fury. “Not a word? Thy tongue will learn its usage, soon enough. And if this night breed maggots in thee, still thou wilt serve. In stews or in kennel: tainted meat I give my pack."

  There were horses waiting in the shadows; they mounted, and away.

  * * * *

  "My lady's huntsman,” said Morag.

  "I do hawk for her,” he said. “But here's a black wench that I know, though she deny me.” He bowed ironically to Whin. “I knapped thy maidenhead. Thou spawned a brat."

  "Any mort's same as t'other i't dark,” said Whin. “So be it that she's cleft. If she'd a prick yer might remember her."

  "I mind thee perfectly. Thy glass a little breathed with country handling; but uncracked."

  "
There's a marvel, an yer mended it."

  "Thou wert Ashes, and bade me."

  "There's many been."

  "In Crawcrag, a reeky sort of goat-shagged slough."

  "They's souls."

  "Their Fool had a blue eye and a brown. And thou didst take me for thy will. Thy Sun. White hair, like chimneysweepers—ah, I see thou mind'st. What's a’ clock, thou saidst, and whift mine ear.” He laughed. “Ah, thou gaped for it. Thy milk sprang to my fiddle."

  "Y'd have met himself ont road,” said Whin. “I doubt men blab."

  "They do. Thy cries are commonplace as ballads, and thy knacks on every swagman's tongue; but I did cheap thee first of all. How thou didst game it! Ride-a-cock rantipole, a-gallop, being green. And touse it and mouse it, and tumble and mumble it. Come in, says cunny to the fox." Her voice, in mockery. “And thought it was thy choosing."

  He turned to Morag. “What would my lady with this haggard?"

  "Happen a lock,” said Morag.

  "No more than she's used to: stand and take,” he said. “But idle work. Thy ravens want a ninth. Let her be seeled and gentled."

  "That's as my lady bids,” said Morag.

  "Has she sport?"

  "Aye, when her chit's returned—young Mistress Manseed—then we'll hunt her father's soul, and feast her, and my chucks will have his stones."

  "Cold meat,” said the huntsman, with a glance with at Whin. “Her crop wants sweeter junketing.” Mock tenderly, he coyed her cheek. “There's word aloft that thy fondling's to the gallows. There's a pretty dish of eyes."

  He caught Whin's hand before it struck, and bent it backward, so she dropped her knife. “I do not mar,” he said. “Carve me or curse me, I am what I am."

  "Thou's no man, but a guiser: a thing that walks in men's bodies."

  "Worms must feed,” said the huntsman. “And nakedness be clothed. I do but change my coat of skin to please me, like burd Ashes. Has my lady Runagate not eaten thee?"

  "Aye. And so my bairn did in my belly, inward out. And I's here.” Whin sleeved her face, wearily. “Thou'd have got no child on me. Being ghostly."

  "Thy brat is father to himself, his mother's cockpiece. Of thy flesh."

  "His flesh is promised,” Morag said. “It is the ravens’ fee."

  "Thy regiment was ever coarse.” He turned to Whin. But I am curious of meat. Not eyes, but what they've seen, asleep or waking, are my delicates. Yon kite in petticoats but spits ‘em out. Crack bones and craunch marrow."

  The old crow preened her apron. “Come, girl. My lady waits."

  * * * *

  Whooping triumphantly, the rabble stormed the gaol. “Down t'wall!” But with turning round the smith swept clear a crescent in the uproar, as a besom sweeps a hearth.

  Even with the keys, the door stuck, swollen; then exhaled a reeling stench. Death cold and close at once: the river's breath updrawn through years of drunken spew and piss, the loose unshovelled muck of terror. From within came a cracked despairing wail. “No. Cock's not crawed. Not yet.” And a frenzied clink and rattling of chains, as if shackled he had tried to fight. “Be still thou,” said the smith. “And comfort thee. Thou's not for hanging yet.” She haled the crow lad out, half-carried him; she stood him on his staggered legs, stripped off his fetid rags and flung them in the river.

  Wretched past shame, he moved not to hide himself, no more than would a hunted hare. A poor thing, like an ill-made rush-dip. Naked as a worm.

  The guisers howled.

  Dazed and shuddering with larger air, he looked about: saw Ashes seeing him. Awe and horror on his stricken face, and now and only now he hid it in his arms.

  "Thy death's not yet to tell,” said Brock. “Thou's got a hand yet in thy tale."

  And turning to the girl, “Here's Ashes’ part. Thou keeps t'gate both ways: lap dead and hap living at their hour o birth. Thy mystery is souls."

  Ashes looked in stony silence at the boy. What did she know of him, his soul? His fingers prying her, all slick with snot; the lateworm shining in his cave of hands.

  "Soul's naked,” said the smith. “Thou swathe it."

  Ashes looked up and upward at her impery of stars: at the Hanged Man swung above the fell. Tom o Cloud, they called him, Jack Orion: names like any naked man. What swaddling could he give Will Ashes? Not his coat of sparks. The heavens’ cloth of gold too fine for such tagrag.

  All round the blur of avid faces: not a rag for charity.

  And downward? Wet stones underfoot dissolved in lantern light, in glare and gilding, rucked and trampled leaves of gold; in puddled fire; dubs and runnels of the elements. A muddle like mankind. Like figures of a casting half-effaced. She could not read, but saw: a scrawl of glory on a slough.

  She flung that mantle over him; spoke silently. Be thou of mud and fire, Ashes’ Will. And sained him, eyes, mouth, heart, with earth.

  As if a spell on him were broken and he waked, the boy shook back his claggy hair. Himself: but all his swagger broken. When he tried to speak, his voice was faded to a raling whisper, a rattle of dead leaves, as if the rope to come had strangled it. “Leapfire's what I is. Slipgallows."

  "Thy family is great,” said Brock.

  The crowd was stirring from their trance. “But here's hunting of wrens,” she said. “Out o't whinnymoor intil hollybush, and out o't prickle-holly intil haws."

  Two great-armed women, streaked with dyes to the shoulder, seized on him, and ducked him in the sheeptrough, through a lacewing of ice. A great splosh and a gasp as he rose flailing; and then a dousing and a sousing, as if they two were drubbing sheets. They fished him up and wrenched him out, and toused him in a sack to dry: if not as white as milk then sallow as a withy wand, but mottled as the dyers’ hands with bruise on bruise.

  One gave a mouthful of spirits to revive him.

  Another two or three shook out a bundle of fine clothes, now sadly bedraggled: Annot's petticoats that Ashes had doffed. They dressed him up in women's weeds and turned him round in the square, admiring.

  He bore it sullenly.

  "Here's a pretty ingling for a gentlemen's knee."

  "Nay, a maid, so her mammy swears. Ne'er did it but standing."

  "Afore if not behind."

  "And here's an Outlune gentleman, come up from underhill, to wed thee with a ring.” A dozen more pushed Ashes forward. “Walk in, Master Magpie."

  "Wi’ a ring in his neb."

  "Aye, steals for his mistress. He's t'Queen o Elfin's bailiff."

  "Black as any raven."

  "As a chimneysweeper's snot."

  "Aye, but cods full o gold."

  A new uproar at the outmost edge. Raucous cheers. “Here comes awd Bird i't Bush. Way for Hodge Hedge!” A fubsy little man in his nightcap came panting up from the inn, with two frowzy-headed potboys to elbow him through. They were bearing jugs of huffcap and a noggin of burnt wine. “This'll kittle up yer courage.” Her groomsmen held it to Ashes’ lips; they made her drink, and drank.

  "Here's to thy dawcock."

  At which the remnants of her glory slid, awash in mustiness, and overgunnelled, sank.

  The bride tossed back an endless gulp of the ale, with as much bravado as her dress allowed: a mistake perhaps.

  A blustering bagpipe and a scrawny fiddle tuned, played snatches off key: The Magpie's Bagpipe, Aprons All Untied.

  "What's for their supper, then?"

  "Old ling and oysters."

  "Collops and eggs."

  "And where s'll they be lodged?"

  "At t'sign o't Moon, in Mall's featherbed,” said Brock. “In hallows.” And she set the wren's crown as a garland on the crow lad's head, and led them on. The wedding followed: Ashes in her coat the man; the crow lad, crowned with haws, the bride. A stalking, stealing tune began, a maze of turnings in a mist of air. Behind them, there came men and women dancing, longways now, by two and two. Sad mirth and solemn mischief now: all riot combed and carded by the winding music to a skein. They danced with great renown, to smal
l pipes and the soultap of a heartpaced goatskin drum, the plaining of a crowd of bone. It played Nine Weaving, the beginning of the world.

  * * * *

  "My lady,” said her servant.

  Scarce Whin could look on her: so black she dazzled, even as the sun inverse. Lightblinded, she must see her still, her image stamped, restamped in burning silver deep within each eye. Her gaze engendered self on self. Outfaced by deity, Whin stood; but flinched her eyes.

  And slowly then the god occulted, clouding with a moonwhite face: a woman's. She was old beyond imagining. And silver-new: the moon's last bow re-virgining its birth. As old as the moon is: Thirteen at hallows, as the riddle said. Uncounted aeons. And not bled. Yet there were lyke roads in her nightlong hair, unjourneyed streaks and sleavings of faint silver, wreaths of light. Unbound in mourning: widowed of herself, self-slain. Unchilded. She was all in velvet rags of night. Her virgin's body, slender as a thorn, was icebound, moveless in a cold despair. Self-broken in her self-raised storm. And wreathed about her rimewhite neck and heaped and braided in her hair, like shatterings of hail, were soulstones, vivider than any Whin had told. She felt the sting and fury of their sentience. But my lady was beyond her reach: no godwitch but a guising, an eidolon. And that wraith itself unstaid. Her semblance flowed from her like mist from ice, subliming in a silver fume, renewed. And still and endlessly renewed, from her abyss.

  But at her wrist, Whin saw the braid like living fire. That alone was true: it burned her and it chained.

  My lady roused from her brooding; bent her gaze on the captive. She acknowledged.

  "Ashes."

  "What I is."

  "Thou ow'st me blood."

  Whin held up her ringless hand, palm outward. “Cannot be held."

  "No?” My lady raised her white hand, clotted with its rings, its gouts of soulstones. Beckoning to Morag, she took a cup of bone of her, blacksilver at the lip. “My daughter hath betrayed me; thou art Ashes in her room."