Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter's Tales

by Greer Gilman

  He's lying in a lap. Another, darker cloud looms over him. Not mist but firesmoke and fog. Wet ashes. Drops rain down on him, they sidle. Will you drink? the ghost says, echoing. He hears a stamp and jingling, of his waiting horse? A whickering dance? But he remembers now, they bring the hobbyhorse. He hears the cockcrow, or the bagpipes mocking it. And O, it breaks his heart with light. It draws him up and up, still struggling, into ritual: a room of smoke and firelight and rumour. Hobbleshow.

  Then the drum beats, and he must awake, away. He rises up to dance.

  * * * *

  Looking up, tranced Margaret sees a flint of sun, struck glinting from its wheel: another sun. And then, another and another sun, the fellies of its wheel of frost; but still. It is the year's cross, quartered in its turning. Three suns, beside, aside, above the sharp white sun, at hilt and hilt and pommel of a wintry sword. It dazzles in her eyes. The sword is in the starry hill; the witch is sleeping, naked in her bones of frost, blacksided in a coil of cloud. The white sword's pierced her through. And Margaret stretches out her hand to it and sees that it has cut her bonds. The ends unravel from her wrist, a bracelet of bright hair, plaited as the living blood; but cold, as cold as hail, and darkened as iron in an ashy forge. Then she's slipped. She sees herself the bright hawk balanced on the rimy wheel, the wheel about to turn. I have flown myself, she thinks. And dazzled, staring at the three, five, shivered suns, she winks. The windgalls vanish in the sky; the hill is stone.

  * * * *

  Will is riding on the nightfell, upward from that silent shore. His mantle of the burning gold flares out behind him as he wades the river: bright a moment, dusk and ashes as he mounts the sky. He's clad in sunrise and its setting, and the black of night between them; but his bones are of the earth. New-fallen snow lies next his body, whiter than a weft of linen, finer stitchery of frost; his coat's the mirk black rain. He wears a windgall at his breast, and at his back, a moonbow, arrows of the sleet. Upon his hand, he wears a stone of fire. Hailshod and unbridled, he is horsed upon the wind. His spurs are January.

  When it lightens, we do say he rides. There's thunder in his gait.

  He rides by the gallows where the sun will hang. All paths lead ever to that crossroads, to his shadow self, his day. That other strode the heavens, bright and ragged, in a belt of stars. But he is silver that was golden once. He scatters brightness. Ah, like this, says Ashes, like a chimneysweeper. Leaning to her listener, she opens out her hands, she whiffs. He comes to dust. Forever he is whirled away, unsilvered, in the windrush of his riding. Still he scatters, he is endless. Slash him: all within is light. The falling stars are called his seed.

  On bitter nights, you cannot see him, sky in sky, but for the glinting of an edge of silver, like the turning of a crystal in the moonlight, like the limb of fire on a glass new-blown, still fiery from the blast. Her breath ensouls. And in him, edge on edge refracted, is another sky aslant: the Ship, the Gallows, Ashes at his heart. The Road's within him, and his riding. See, a littler horseman with a ring upon his hand, epitome: and in that stone, another heavens. All the stories of the world are in him, starry in his veins.

  Fading from her lips, he clouds a little. Crazes. There is salt of blood in him, his flaw: he cracks with it. His shattering is storm. A white hag rises from him, streaming from his horse of air, subliming. He is silver on the trees.

  Look for him riding on the scar of heaven, on a black moor rimed with stars. Night's horseman.

  He will take you up behind.

  * * * *

  Unleaving

  Cold sunlight, clean linen. Comfort: down and fire, and a fall of snow without. An absence—ah, the soft weight and the winding of her braid along her body, coiling and consoling her. Margaret woke remembering.

  A presence. There was a stranger at her bedside reading. Or was reading but a moment since: with a finger in his book he looked at her. An anxious pleasant face, but overwatched: as if she were an apparition in the heavens, long-awaited, clouded over and now clear. He'd Master Grevil's slate-blue jacket on, ill-fitting him; a fairish beard and hair, not sorrel. Like and unlike. Grevil's cousin. Thea's Kit.

  He smiled. Swift-chasing light and shadow in his face: an April visage, had she known the month.

  "Good morrow, daughter."

  She blinked in the light.

  "Mistress Barbary would have thee shuttered; but I argued thou wouldst wake to sky."

  The chamber was not hers: she was in the great bed, in the loft.

  "Madam—?"

  "Fled."

  Shadow chased light. A silence. She turned, half sat, to see what book he read; he held it up. “Perseis. ‘Twas my mother's—Annot's—book she left here, long ago. She oft did speak of it, regretting: though she had it all by heart. And played it to me as a child in coats, so I did learn it of her, leafmeal. But in game: and so more surely than I got my grammar.” He smiled, reminiscent. “Though chiefly I did beg of her the masque of bears."

  Inwardly, she saw the frontispiece, the woodcut: Perseis appearing to the wondering Shepherd in the wood, the wood unleaving. Oddly drawn: the toyish trees scarce higher than the lovers’ heads, the leaves in folio. The lady naked but a scarf of rainbow, black on white, a garland of the stars outblazing in her comet's tail of hair. As if she'd fallen from an almanac. And he long-coated, with a broad hat and a crook. His budget at his belted side. His black dog at his heel. From a window in the heavens, in a curling of cloud, the Eight upheld their hands.

  She spoke for him. "O rare Cosmography—"

  He took her up. "Let fall my lantern. Thou art only light..."

  "But thou art mazed, sweet fool. The wood is dark..."

  And turn and turn they played the scene, forgetting here and there, uplifting on the wave of measure, carried by the tale. The lovers meet in greenwood, in the fall of leaf. They spring. The play's a winter's tale: it draws towards darkness, to a storm of grief and partings, even to the deep of hell; and yet will end in reconciliation, lightly, with a dance.

  * * * *

  "In another Tale she dyed,” wrote Grevil in the autumn after. “For their meeting was by Chance: as when a Starre falls. We doe say, The Nine are weaving; but their Weft is gossamour, it drifteth by the Wind. In otherwise, her Shepheard swain had tarried on the hill, or slumbering late had dreamed a lesser Faire than he had lost a-bed: so waking was bereft of her. Or else, new-fallen Perseis had met not Tom o Cloud, that should have hail'd her, but a loitring Man in black, a rabble of his Drabs behind: so she was fallen utterly.” He paused, biting his pen. How the light danced, flickering at the edge of sight. He rubbed his weary eyes. “The Warp is sett; our lives, light as Shuttles, fly and fall. I have seen young Countrie lasses play at Ninestones, casting up and catching pebbles, very featly. As they play they chaunt a Rime, as Talith, Tiphan to the East, &c., two Sisters to a wind: there being Eight by their reckoning. The ninth is Chance."

  * * * *

  Leaves whirling down, a crossroads. Long ago. Too late the boy saw the journeyman, saw the swirl of his long coat and hurried by, head down.

  Past. Don't look. Keep walking. But a staff swung round before him, tripped him up and barred his way; a strong hand caught his shoulder: not unkindly but inexorable. Hauled him up and turned him round. “Here, boy. How cam'st thou by that jacket?"

  "It were given me.” Wried shoulder, ducked head.

  "By?"

  No answer.

  "Thy name?"

  "Aiken Drum, sir."

  "Well then, Master Drum. That's Crowd Catling's good silk doublet and his murrey hose. And as I wager thou'st not killed and eaten him, I take you for a thief. Hast thou not bid him stand? And standing, spill and die?” Head down and turned. A shake. “He gives the offcast of his bravery to none but minions. Yet would not this suit, for he plumes himself on it. And least all would he adorn thy whey-face with his scarlet. It goes ill with thy sorrel pate."

  A moment, and the whispering fall of leaves. The journeyman raised the lad
's chin, gazing at his face. He whistled softly. “By trod. ‘Tis Ashes’ governess, the maker of plays.” Her blush betrayed her. Gentler now, but no less stern, he loosed her collar. “Were you not at Low Askwith, Lightfast last? And taught that pretty child his interlude?” She remembered that voice: Tom o Cloud's. “Speak, lady. ‘Tis your cue."

  No answer but a bitten lip.

  "So you're Covener's niece? Corbet's handfast?” His arm dropped to his side. “We'll be hanged, boy and all."

  "No.” That startled her to protest. “No. What I have done is my fault only."

  "What, took your own maidenhead? Or rather, Corbet's: for it is his in law."

  "I know."

  "There are broadsides up at every crossroads, nailed in every inn. Gold offered for your taking, aye, and retribution sworn. Look. Here.” He showed a paper like a ballad sheet. A woodcut girl. “If this is laid on us, the quality is damned. For which I thank you, Madam Minx."

  She folded up the page, quite small. “If they find me, then my kin will—burn me?"

  "They'll not deal kindly with you. No."

  "They would wed me to my grave, to January. Is that kindly?"

  "No. I would not give a rat to Corbet for his dog to worry; I've heard tales of his cruelty. But what of us? Shall we hang for your heedlessness?"

  "And if I sheltered with a silly widow? Or a gang of begging children? Should they hang? Their lives are dear to them as yours to you."

  He looked at her. “An argument. Yet such would spare your honour: which is all your worth."

  "I must deal somehow with mortals; else I die. I would not kill myself."

  "So went you with a common journeyman?"

  "Are you not?"

  "I offer no enticement. But with this rattlepate, this fiddler?"

  "Not for his sake.” Annot twined a lock of hair about her finger, bit it; raised her face. “I would away at a venture, for I could not stay to wed. At Maying, for ‘twas only then I'd leave to walk abroad: that once. And met him in the wood, as Ashes had foretold me, pat upon his cue: I broke the thorn.” A treeful of small birds rose all at once in fret; they flocked another tree, as bare. They leaved it with their plaint. “Like you, your fellow did remember me; he praised my verses—and my outward self, my mouth and eyes, but that I counted less. And yet I plumed myself. He flattered as the fox the crow.” Again the birds unsettling. “And being green, I did believe him. Could I go with you to join the gallantry? I said. For I would study how to guise. Would boy myself. And he said he would prentice me.” She wrung her feathered hat. “Oh, I am a fool, a fool."

  To leave thy featherbed? But with a wolf in't. Softer now. “Were you in love that you lay with him?"

  "Fifteen,” she said, “and had a tryst with story. I would put myself into a song."

  "'Twas they who put the grey hawk's feather in her bed," said the journeyman. “All know that we steal wives and daughters. Did you dream on us?"

  "I fled a nightmare. There were none would speak for me against that match, but my brother Grevil, who is timorous. My dearest sister, who is dead. Here is Law, I thought, nor am I out of it: so bid an Ashes tell me of my fate, forspent my prophecy. As they will do, this Ashes spoke in riddles. Thy ship's i't forest, she did say. Its shrouds are fourfold strung. I saw his fiddle and I thought—"

  Her listener did not sing: Then touch but her smicket and all's your own. He bit his tongue. “And so he told you pretty tales of love, and sighed and swore? He toyed you and he teased?"

  "He asked no leave of me, but took.” A silence. “Having once, he said, I must henceforth. To pay my lessoning.” Annot thought of the bedding. It was all a dark confusion in her mind of shame and stirrings, awkwardness, sharp pain, rank sheets or mast and nettles, twinges of uncertain bliss. It cloyed curiosity.

  Gently: “May it was and now October. So he's left you by the highway? He'd a friend?"

  White then red, and white again. “I would not."

  Too far. He'd gone too far with her, in anger at his friend. “I do pray your pardon, mistress, for my ill-considered speech. My brother has foredone us all; I hold you faultless of his crime."

  He knew his fellow player: fathom-deep and babbling, for a time, of love and goddesses; then up he'd spring, dry-dolphining through other's tears. Still lighting on the next divinity, and then the next. He made ducks and drakes of maidenheads; he feasted on young hearts like cherries. Surfeited. But like an orchard-thief, well-willing, he would share his sweets. His fellows held their drabs in common like their books and their bacca pipes, their stockings and their souls. ‘Twas even generous to her, he'd think: a virgin spoilt is but a penniless green girl. She'd be fortunate to have him find a spark for her, a gallant. One a trifle marred perhaps, not outright tainted. At any rate but one, not anyone: she'd not come yet to standing work in alleys and the cart.

  "So you ran?"

  "Aye, at midnight. I took for my recompense his sword and bravery; and left him sleeping, with my smock and petticoats."

  "Would I had seen him wake.” Tom o Cloud heeled over laughing. “Petticoats! And provincial petticoats, what's worse."

  "Do you players not woman it in coats?"

  "Catling will not: so is but a fiddler. Let him frisk it in his Cloudish smock.” He lay back on the grass, still green, and looked up into the leaves. “Now then, Master Not Annot. We journeymen go everywhere and all at once, like moonlight. We are made of tales; our livery is broidered all with tongues and eyes: in brief, we are your only rumourers. What say you if we noise abroad that you were stolen by the fays? They took you—hapless child—from the greenwood and under hill to dwell. ‘Twill be news in every inn and market, aye, from Scarristack to Lune, and ballads sold of it."

  There was mischief in her eyes now. “I would make them, an I may."

  "Would you so? To what measure?"

  "You may sing it to the tune of ‘Babylon.'” She stood and walked a pace; then turned. “How she rose amid her maidens all, and combed her yellow hair—not red, ‘tis not poetical—and in the greenwood met—"

  "A lord of elfin?"

  "No. The queen herself, and all her courtiers, her rade, in crowns of blackthorn that is mother to the slae, and mounted on black hares—"

  "'Twould play well, an ‘twere staged.” He rose and turned on her, all frost and flowering thorn. His look would wither May, downcast the stars. “How durst thou break a branch of mine?’”

  "The wood's my own."

  "It springs of us. ‘Tis rooted in our dark."

  "And reaches to the light.” She casts her handful of bright leaves to the wind. “And so they take her crown, her maidenhead. Her tongue.” Her back was to him. “Think you that would sell? We'll get a man to cry it, street to street."

  On a sudden grave again, he said, “You must away from Cloud. For tales or none, your folk will hunt you. I can walk with you to Luning Haven. No further: I am sworn to meet the gallantry—among them your betrayer, he whose windpipe I would gladly throttle, and whose blood I may not spill. We meet by Hallows, for our winter tour."

  "Walk with me?"

  He held his dagger with its point to him. “By the Moon and Ashes, I do swear: I will touch not a button of you, not a hair, but by your leave."

  "I do hold you by that oath.” She curtseyed. “But with me? Is that not perilous?"

  "They look not for my prentice, Master Drum."

  A fleeting smile; then fret. “I have no silver for the crossing; nor honest means to get it. I took nothing when I fled from home."

  "Sell his frippery."

  "'Tis stolen. I do wear it of necessity, but coin it I will not."

  A turn and scuffle through the leaves, then back to her. “Make us a masque: of what mystery you will, so it be shaped for four men and a boy. I have ink and paper for the writing of it, and will pay for it your passage to Lune."

  "I could do that.” And her February face unclouded. “I would like that."

  "Then your quills shall fledge y
ou. Will I see you to the ship?"

  What her legs knew was a curtsey. But Tom o Cloud laid a finger to his lips; he sketched a bow: half in homage and half prompt.

  She bowed in turn, most courtly in her prentice part: all footpage, all aglow.

  "And Master Drum—?"

  "Sir?"

  "Are you with child?"

  As if he'd struck her: but it must be said. He would not now see her left, a stranger, unprovided. Annot shook her head uncertainly, then nodded; shook again. She didn't know. She didn't know how she could know.

  "If falls, ‘twill fall.” He gathered up his bundles. “Come then. We've miles to walk by nightfall, if we'd lie not at the Nine."

  As he turned to the crossroads, back toward Fallowing, she saw the fiddle at his back. He looked at her, over his shoulder. He smiled. “Most journeyman can play a crowd. I second."

  * * * *

  In her lantern-room toward morning of another Lightfast, turning from her new glass, Margaret wrote: “...clowding to the North: the Ship, the Vixen Dancing veil'd in snow. The Crowd of Bone...” Her sister woke and cried; was danced. The footsteps came and went below. “...at rise. The old Moon joyeth in her Riddle; as the Sunne in Ashes lap doth labour to his Joye.” Drowsy, she leafed backward through her notes and ciphering. No moment when the sky had changed, yet all had. “Perseis hath changes, even as the Moon herself; doth maske—or Seemingly—in all her Figures, now as one and now the Other goddesse: but the lighter, great with Dark.” Still backward, to the winter of another year. “The Witches wade the nightshore, in the shining of the Road. The Sheath and Knife cast up like sea-wrack, lost and found; the Kist long buried in the Sand. Rash Hulver in his falle..."

  * * * *

  "I like not this moon,” said Pipe-and-Tabor. “I would die abed."

  "In a boy's mouth and a bacca pipe in thine,” said the Second Witch.