by Greer Gilman
Gently, Grevil lays the body down.
The Fool picks up the Winter's sword and turns to Lightfast.
* * * *
Slowly, slowly, Whin that was Ashes strives against my lady's tide of rage. It runs athwart itself and baffles in its riddling rocks. She wades in it, waist-deep and oversoul: a turbulence of witches in a nightmare sea. Like weed they wind about her, red and brown and virid black; they importune. She's combed them, so they cling to her. She tangles in their greenwhite hair.
Bone weary: she would lie with them and drown. A solace. But her work's to do. She follows Annis in her fury, bright as moonblaze on the water. Clear path if she could ford a way.
Far far ahead of her, the Ashes that was Imbry dodges, dances in a blindman's hey. Well she may chance with lightning, being sea-born, so a hero by her birth. She's hunting Annis hunting blind amid a cloud of witches, in a labyrinth of self-made ghosts: the ruins of her mind. The goddess cannot see for voices.
Yet she runs and rages, streaming fire like a falling star. What's called her down, dishevelled, from her brooding?
Not the guisers. They're trumpery for Morag to dispose. No, she's bent on something else, a soul beyond all others in her avarice, a lust more jealous even than her daughter's braid.
A glass. Whin sees in Annis’ mind a child of crystal, firenew, still glowing from the blast; the reddest where she's broken off in shards. A vessel. Empty and unsouled. And all her lust is but to pour herself as mist into that void, possess it utterly. Whin sees the canting of the heavens in that narrow space, the swirl and settling of stars; and then the seal of godhead and the absolute of night. The child will crack of her.
Kit's lass's bairn. Whin's sworn to him; so she must stand for her, come what will.
Far off, she hears the lamentation of the guisers, mourning for the Sun. That's Ashes’ journey. Send she's not too late. But Whin sees, as she is cursed to see, forever and again, his death. She knows by heart his loveless birth; has waked with dreaming on his life. A chance brat, scatter-sown. A windclock whirled away. Her son.
* * * *
The Fool picks up the Winter's sword and turns to Lightfast. Fronts him. He will die, thinks Kit. I cannot bear it, death on death. But Grevil throws it down at Daw's feet. It falls clattering. It's wood—a painted prop.
The old god laughs. “'Twas a rare jest that the boy should bring his death with him. Expedient. And I unarmed.” He opens out his hands in mock transparency. Grevil says nothing. “Not the first thing of yours he's been spitted on; though much the hardest.” Nothing. A sly look, and that buzzing, balming voice. “Whores will talk. They carry tales like pox: no doubt he gave you mine.” Still mute. The god looks round. “What, no mystery? He will not rise? Your bush is belated."
"His death was not the wager settled. Still I dance the ay and O."
Is he mad? thinks Kit. But it is spoken well, good voice and good discretion. Noll touches his shoulder, sketches with his knee a hint of curtsey. Still he speaks in that clear well-measured player's voice.
"He will rise. I promise. As the sun will rise. Look now, the sisters come to dance for him."
I see, thinks Kit. He runs it backward: it is all to come. Another Ashes and another Sun. They've hinged over to the masque now, to the witches’ mystery. Tom's the heart of it; the hinge, the double-jointed paradox, is Ashes. In my coming I do leave; Death of dying I bereave. It's the play itself has power, not themselves. Like Ashes: in herself the girl who takes her on may be a fool, a rantipole, a scold, a slut; she may be giddy, greedy, vixenish; but in her hands are life and afterlife and death. The mystery works itself each time, it hallows nonsense, turning silly into seely sisters.
So: Brock's journeymen will play, ad hoc, apocalypse. A poor forlorn hope to storm so dragonish a citadel, but two are all they are. Kit holds himself in witch's wise, and takes his sister up; he curtsies to a ghostly gentle audience. "Be not affrighted, ladies, he will rise; ‘tis writ in the catastrophe. ‘Tis but a winter's tale: a dream of ghosts.” And saying, he would make it so: would write the script anew. We do it, so it is.
They go on with the masque of witches: playing sisters playing greater sisters, shadows of the light.
"His dreams do prick him and he flowers."
There is power stirring, they can feel it: as a blind man in a wood can feel the spring. And so can Daw: for circling like the stalking gallantry, he seeks to break the charm. A false knight at the crossroads, in his cockblack broken swagger, down at heel. At every turning, he is there: he holds a mirror to their inward littleness, to Noll and Kit.
"Here's players: swordless and unstrung."
Not wordless though. They shrug.
"So he would rise for a wench: not for thee.” The scythe swings at Noll.
The dancer leaps. “But I am Ashes; he will rise for me."
"A pretty love, to bed him on a gallows tree and hard him with a rope. He died despising thee."
A stagger, but a leap: it clears.
A swing at Kit. “Thou know'st I delivered up thy vixen to my lady's table, and my cully here did carve."
A leap in silence.
"But I gamed her first: we had good sport."
Kit sees his Thea as he saw her last, in labor: whitefaced, warping like a swelted candle, wrenched with pain. Dismissing him to save him. But the Witch says, “How came she lighter of a Sun?"
Closer, coldly at his ear: “Thy daughter's like her dam: fire at the fork."
Hands clenched, but still he plays.
"I had her in her mother's belly. And but an hour since. In company."
At that Kit's tempted to his useless knife, to stop that damned voice, and slash its smiling, cancel it; but as the Witch dissolves, he feels a flaught of fire at his back, a swirl and spiralling. The strings are flying to the fiddle: Thea's and another's, trebling her alto, making of his burden harmony, the three as one. Ah, she braids of her mother. It is strung in time, in tune. Will sing, itself and all alone: the one tale always. Truth in riddles. And it sings: He lies.
Yet Daw sees nothing; nothing hears.
Kit laughs.
Dismayed Jack Daw falls back a step: as if his scythe hit rock. Then he opens out his hands, aglow with rings, and in his honeyed voice, he coaxes. “Come, I'll trade with thee: which of these for thy broken kit?"
When an armed man bargains with a traveller, there is something that he fears. Kit shakes his head. “Too gaudy for the road: I would be set upon."
The old god turns to Grevil, wheedling, holding out a great ring with a tawny stone. “See, thine ingle's soul: and thine, to hang about thy neck and dandle; but for thy marrow's wilfulness. He would deny thee. Cheat thee of thy consolation and thy power. And for what? A toy."
Coal and jugglery, says the witch's glance. What he? Here is Silvry and Rianty.
They go on with the play
"Is the sorceress not here?"
The old god glances sidelong; barely, but they see him twitching. Ah, thinks Kit: so that's the way of it. He fears the cat. We mice do call her in.
"And happen at her book. I would not for the moon disturb her."
Brisk now, officious, the old god chivvies them. “Enough. Here's silver and thy door.” He stamps and the circle's broken.
"You must let us in,” says Grevil, setting by his part. He wries his signet on his finger; but he lifts his face: speaks truly. “It is law; and under Law most binding: your dominion as our realm of day is founded on it, dark and light. Forbid us and your night is forfeit: death will be no more."
We are come to her undoing.
Kit gapes in admiration. Daw parries easily.
"As guisers: but you masque. As journeymen you must be bid. Or hang as gallantry."
Grevil's caught off balance; but Kit stands. He remembers a hillside long ago in Lune, a moonish boy, half drunk: a fiddler coming from a dance. “Did not my lady's servingman come bid me play? And give me handfast of a silver coin? And seal it with his kiss? That holds."
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And Grevil, lawyerly: “But played you to this household?"
"Not a note. For my gear was taken."
"So by the rule of riddlery, ‘twas binding, yet is unfulfilled. He must pay his reckoning and hear you out."
They speak assuredly, but quail: a slender chance.
It holds.
"I bid thee—"
"Here's his word,” says Grevil.
"—to no Lightfeast."
"Aye,” says Kit. “A wedding, you did say—"
"But I hear the bride is fled,” says Grevil.
"—and an ashing of the bairn."
"Then take your gold and be gone,” says Daw.
"An if please you, that is not his suit: there was a play contracted, and as yet unplayed. By the huntsman's summoning, that bond is still between you. Signed and sealed."
"Then let you play to the kitchen; you are not for the hall."
The wasp likes not my lady's web, thinks Kit. Nor yet does Madam Flyblow.
And the fiddle sings: My lady will have him, for the smutching of her glass.
Grevil still is dry. “As my lady's seneschal, you spoke for her: let her sleep or wake, her audience is bid. And if the play displease her, yet the choice of it was yours."
Here is Law. I would be elsewhere, were it on a sinking ship, atwixt a bear and honey.
"And if I should refuse?"
"To wake the sun, having bidden it? The law is exact: you owe a sacrifice. A black cock's blood."
There are rings now on Daw's hand: a high king's ransom, were they not of snow. “Then give your piece: a masque or what you will, so not this farrago. It is unfitting for this court."
"Why, then a comedy,” says Grevil, bowing, white as paper and inexorable “If a wedding you want, then a wedding you shall get."
"And an ashing,” says Kit. “For here's a bonny sun a-borning, and a midwife to hand."
"What think you? Slae and Perseis?” And Grevil turns to Daw. “'Tis an old play, very choice in rhetoric, in old high Cloudish verse: it tells how Slae did carry off green Ashes for his bride in darkness; but the harper had her first to bed. He sang her out of Law."
But Kit is watching Morag watch the body. The stone-eyed servant's wordsick, circling the carrion and looking for an opening to stoop. Her argument is talons. For the huntsman's promised her her fee. Cock and eyes.
"And afterward,” says Kit, “an antimasque, a most lamentable comedy of the wedding of Jack Daw and Widow Maggot Pie. They sing it all about the norlands—it was made a ballad to the tune of ‘Babylon.’ No doubt you've sold the sheet?” He's babbling; but he wards the body from her scavenging.
"He put his hand all in his coat, and he pulled out a gay gold ring ... ” sings the Kit witch, and unpins old Mally's raven brooch. He holds it outward, beak between his knuckles; but he need not strike. She gazes, this way, that, admiring, adoring. The ring is Morag's mirror, and it holds her; as the witch holds onto it, but barely in his hand, for it wakes to her: outquilling, living, leashed. He holds it like a falconer: a raven, goddess-eyed; a great-winged woman, cold and perfect to the fork. She changes to its mirror, ravenwise; and wing to wing with it wheels round. Twa corbies. How she courts herself! Each gazes at another Morag, all of night and silver.
"Ah, see how she preens herself, the pretty lass,” he cries to Grevil. “How she flirts, the bonny bird."
"Alas, but she is handfast to a lord of land. All graves are his demesne, all dead his retinue. His train is numberless; they dance the Lyke Road, longways, to his tune: a crowd of bone."
"She will be married this night: to one who loves her least.” Kit turns to Daw. “And we promise you: you will not like your sheets."
"Now,” says Grevil.
And the First and Second Witch stand forth. Turn and turn, the witches speak:
"By the elding of the moon..."
"By the weird of night and noon..."
They conjure Annis: call her to the dance.
* * * *
Lief, lief, a shadow calls, re-echoing. Lief mother, let me in. The air is full of voices, leaves before a coming storm: fled prophecies. And pale and yellow mingling, dark and red, they fly, unleaving under Law. By rime and rune, I conjure you. The colder blows the wind. Wood rises: not as timber but a web of cracks. I call. I call. It flaws eternity.
At the heart of it, a bonfire dies.
The wind beats down the leaves, it quells the fire. It is death.
The witches are no more, nor men: but mere astonishment, the circles where a stone has fallen in a pool of dusk, outspreading, o and wider O. The waves will touch her edges; they will be no more.
The raven and her glass fly up into the branches.
Jack Daw stands. He has no power but his voice, to turn the self against itself, despairing. And a cord is at his throat, of tales: the hemp is memory, is fire.
Imbry hurls herself against the air, which now is stone.
Whin gazes at the boy, as bloody now as at his birth. But crying then and flailing, drowning in the air his enemy. Not now. A bonny boy. As she did then she learns him now again by heart: forever now.
The wave astonies them.
The blood in them is silver, running perilously bright and heavy in their veins. Imperative. All memory and all that's mortal vanishes: a smoke, an emptiness. Lost wax. Death casts them and will crack.
Who calls me to the dance?
The ripples die like echoes to the sill. An Ashes there, who speaks.
A journeyman.
Annis and her daughter's daughter, child and death. They come at once, they call each other into being, glass to glass.
Time stills. The air is tranced. Dark-dazzled, like a world enstoned in crystal: dark within, but lightedged, and refracting light. Green Ashes travels slowly, slowly in the timefrost, in the trance of light. A mote in Annis’ gaze. They see her as a crescent, heavy, like a raindrop streaming; but of fire. Ablaze but coldly now: a silver negative. She labors in eclipse.
Too late, thinks Ashes. I will be too late. Her atomies are all but still. The heart, breath, soul in her will cease to tell her threefold story: descant, burden, drone. Already Ashes that was Margaret is effaced, is palimpsest. What Annis sees, she is: a hole to fill. A tuft of red hair flickering about a cleft. A limbeck spilling smoke, a ruined alchemy, a phial of swarted glass: she sees it, canted over in the ashes of a smithy, crackling with the crow god's fire, infumed.
And in that glass, another glass inclosed: my lady's vessel is with stone.
Who let her rune of blood to run?
That howl is felt with other senses: as a shattering of blood, a boneshake. And the ghostly wood is felled, as if a scythe had struck.
My lady turns on the usurping huntsman in a bluewhite firestorm, annihilating with a word, a hand. But in her glassy dark, his doom creeps onward at a stone's pace, crack on crack of fire flaring out: a wickerwork of knives. Her lightnings inch, slow-scissoring. Anathema itself congeals. As slowly as it comes, he cannot flee his death. He watches it, agape, a shriek slow-tarnishing his face.
The greater fury now will fall upon her child's abhorred brat: the hole with legs, the whore, the anarch. Crow's meat, excrement begotten of a ruttish fool. His cockspawn. Her flawless glass made carrion. The goddess scrabbles at her wrist. She will unbind the fiery braid of hair, her daughter's whoredom, as a whip to flay this upstart Ashes, flesh from bone: each stroke eternity.
Not there. Not Thea's but another coil enwreathes her, this of night: wyrm-wound about her, endlessly engulfing self, as if the Road turned serpent. Frenzied now, she claws at it, as if she could unburn its blackness. It will not undo. The dragon eats herself.
The god cries out. Of that great howl of rage and loss, in Cloud a mountain cracks, an isle in Scarristack is drowned. Her cry eclipses light; it is an O that swallows up the sun. Eats Ashes.
Out of Ashes, in that utterness of dark, there shines a coronal of light. An ashing: silver like her father's mother's ring. Ashes tells herself.
"I am Ashes that was Thea's daughter. She is dead of me. I tell the stars."
And she upholds her lens, the last, and gathers up the sky in it. Draws Annis, night and Law, and all the heavens in one glass. A world incrystalled. She has thought to shatter it: a sacrifice, as dear to her as eyes. The breaking of the sky would serve. That last apocalypse of witches held, from shattering to now, nine thousand years. It set the world a-turning, moonwise; but it scarred. She puzzles. Ah, but if—And Ashes lifts her face, as to a snow of stars. I do it, so it is. Unbound the sky. Delighting now but solemnly, she holds the sky in little on her hand; she breathes on it, the pattern of the moveless stars dissolving like a frost, unfolding endlessly. She makes Law infinite, uncoils the serpent; she unstrings the stars.
* * * *
Crows light upon the gallows tree, the Old Sun dances on the air.
Kit sees a playing card, a woodcut in a woman's hand, alight. The fire glitters in her rings, reglows. She wears the Hanged Man's gold on every finger, and his tawny stones. His card consumes. She casts it down in embers, and the scraps of ash fly up: as ravens, coal-eyed, calling in their cynic voices. They are bodied like women, naked to the catch: white-bellied, welling blood. They're avid.
Imbry sees a straw man burning on the moor. The witches dance through him, and through and through. They rant and whirl and caper to the goatbagged pipe; they kick him, scattering sparks. Their shawm's of his legbone, their drum's of his fell. She leaps the fire and laughs.
Still gazing at the world between her hands, green Ashes heeds no play. She sees the light still travelling: a winnowing of worlds, their stories all untold. She sees the pattern of the Guisers whirled and scattered in the endless heavens like a broken chain of stones. She sees the Fiddler's belt unstrung. His sword is buried in a barrow-mound of night.
Noll Grevil sees a knot of swords of lightning at the monstrous throat. O strange and terrible: for he himself is dancing with the silent men, the weavers of the wyrd. They slash. The body topples, headless. Then it rises like a roke, if mist could bleed. The little music threads. They dance it, over and again.
