Greenwode

by J Tullos Hennig

Gamelyn wished the floor would swallow him up, found himself perversely grateful for Johan’s tight hold.

  “And a bit of a fool, it seems,” Johan murmured.

  “You’re gaming me, a fine-dressed fool playing a daft game….”

  Shut. Up.

  “I do not intend to return,” Gamelyn said. It was quiet. Beaten. “Until you have need of more medicine, of course.”

  Sir Ian nodded. “I think that would be for the best, considering. And if there is need for your return there, son, your behavior must be exemplary. It would be ill done to return Mistress Eluned’s courtesy with a lack of self-control. It is… difficult to be your age, my boy, but you are no animal. Granted, peasants can be wanton, heedless as any brute beast. Their scope is limited, like small children. It is ever your responsibility to see that you do not mistreat them, even regarding their indiscretions.”

  So it was his fault… but in the end not?

  Was Gamelyn the only one who could make no sense out of what his father had just said? He looked around at his family and suddenly wondered how this had happened, where he had come from, how he had come to be related to these people, how he had been denied the dubious grace of being like them.

  There was no answer to be had here. The internal maelstrom had only ramped itself tighter, more furious. He should have gone to the chapel. Confession would help. Prayer would give him solace, guidance.

  Absolution.

  Alais was serving their father, and Sir Ian was tucking in; Gamelyn didn’t realize Johan had drawn him slightly away until it was too late.

  “Hearken what a fine game you play,” Johan said against his ear.

  Game? What game?

  And why did he only hear Rob’s voice, a furied echo of the contained threat in Johan’s voice: “Don’t play with me, Gamelyn….”

  Shut up… shut up shut up!

  “And it won’t work, do you hear?” Johan’s grip on his nape, deceptively friendly, nipped hard and flowered pain up into the base of Gamelyn’s skull. Leaning closer, Johan whispered, “You may be the old man’s favorite, but you’re an afterthought. An aging man’s last attempt to prove his virility. Why he loves you so much despite the fact that birthing you killed our mother?” It was not the first time the accusation had been flung his way, but Gamelyn had never heard it spat with such venom. “I’m the eldest, petit lapin. Never forget that. When Papa is buried, it is I who will own your destiny. I who will say what shall be yours and what shall not.”

  “I’m unlikely to forget,” Gamelyn snarled back, low. “For you never give me the chance.”

  “Even so.” Johan loosed him. “Then we understand each other.”

  “Boys!” Sir Ian ordered. “Come eat.”

  Gamelyn slid his gaze to meet Johan’s. Johan smiled, then shrugged and walked over to their father.

  IT WAS a magnificent dagger. One could think it too delicate, with the wide, filigreed quillion and the long, slender blade. But it was serviceable as well as lovely.

  Like its owner.

  For that was the most important thing, that it had been Gamelyn’s.

  The moon was setting over Mam Tor, a waning sickle beyond the stark gray stones surrounding him, descending into the black shadows of the forest’s treetops. Rob was kneeling amidst the ring stones. With a touch of the pommel to his lips, he passed the dagger, hilt to tip then tip to hilt, through the fire he had lit upon the center stone.

  His father would not approve. His mother would fork an evil eye at him—likely right before she boxed his ears. And Rob was frankly positive that Cernun, did he discover his protégé preparing a dubious blood rite on a hallowed doorstep of the Barrow-lines, would kick his arse and starve him in the caverns for a month. But Cernun was nowhere to be found, and Rob had to know what none would tell.

  He laid the knife edge upon his unbandaged left palm. Better to hear Marion’s fussing than to lame his good hand as well as the other, but for this he had no choice. Any left-hand path was a chancy one, but it was, after all, Rob’s stronger hand….

  Suddenly there was a shadow on the stone, nigh eclipsing the fire, and rage in a low voice. “What do you think you’re doing, boy?”

  A boot kicking the fire, smoke and ash scattering across the altar, and a wiry hand grabbing his tunic and shoving him back. Rob went sprawling, as much from shock as the strength of the shove, and rolled to his hands and knees before Cernun.

  “You canna—uh!”

  With uncanny speed and strength, the old man lurched forward, grabbed Rob’s tunic front, and yanked him close. “Are you now thinking to tell me, boy, what I can and cannot do?”

  Before the rage in those clear eyes, Rob had no answer.

  “Did you really think you could do this, on my doorstep, and I would not know?” Cernun growled, and shoved Rob back. “You are powerful, young stag, but not that powerful. Do you think there is anything—anything!—that happens in my forest of which I am unaware?”

  “Then where were you two nights ago?” Rob shot back, stumbling to his feet. “Where were you when Will needed you? When I….” He choked off.

  “Will is no longer of our covenant.”

  “He—”

  “And what happened between you and the young lordling ’twas what brought me here!”

  Rob fell silent, trembling all over, gripping tight the hilt of Gamelyn’s dagger.

  “What were you thinking?” Cernun gave a snort. “Now that I ponder it, you weren’t thinking, two nights ago or now. Unless what’s in your cod-wrap now does your thinking for you! You would call a blood rite… you? A stripling barely come to his power would think to hold the Wheel still or even turn it back!” He leaned forward, roared, “Why?”

  “I want answers!” Rob snarled back. “You speak in riddles, my father waint speak of this to me, my mother canna even See my future…!” Rob’s voice cracked, uncertain.

  Cernun crossed his arms, gave Rob somber regard. “What would you ask of Him, then?”

  “He speaks to me. More and more. And Gamelyn has seen the king stag, an ivory one. He saw what you See.”

  “Nay, lad.” Softer. “What the nobleman’s son sees is very different.”

  “But no one Sees him as I do. Do they?” Rob shot back. “Why?”

  “None ever sees the Horned Lord the same.”

  “That’s no answer and you know it!” Three quick steps, and he was standing a hand’s width from Cernun. He was so much taller than the old man—he didn’t remember that before, and it both gratified and disturbed him. “Tell me, then. Can you See what lies ahead for me?”

  “The future is never easily kenned, young stag. To have the uncertainty of a rent in Time’s fabric is not unknown. Particularly when things have so recently come adrift—”

  “But she couldn’t See before, either. Come adrift? Because of Gamelyn…?” He trailed off, then said, “And why would it be because of him?”

  “I think you know the answer to that,” Cernun said, almost gentle. “Or you would not be here now.”

  Rob closed his eyes, brought the heels of his hands up as if he could scrub away both sight and Seeing. “I… know him. I… touched him, and I never meant it for owt. It was just a lark, just a possibility… but then it lit somethin’ beneath my skin and in my veins, cold fire… sweet Lady, I’ve never known the like!”

  “Did you think the winter does not love the summer? And the summer the winter? They are a part of each other; how could it be otherwise?”

  Rob snorted; he couldn’t help it. It sounded so suddenly and inexplicably mad. If there was such a thing as mad in a world of magic, of gods that walked the earth like strange half-beasts. “You talk like I’m part of some story. Like what me mam used to tell me for bed.”

  “Your father did you no service by only giving you truth in careful and chewed mouthfuls.” Cernun opened his hands as if to hold the weight of air and earth upon them. “We are the story, young stag. You know the spirits live amongst us; they also live t
hrough us. It is all one.”

  “Not to him. I know what his people are,” Rob persisted. “Cernun, I never meant for it to be like… this. I didna want this. I know what stands behind him, what I should run from, never think to touch… but that’s not all of it. I know it. I know him.” Rob clenched his fists, slid them down to his breast, thumped. “It’s here, in me. I canna get away from it. I can still feel him, breathe the breath of him, close my eyes and See it, swirling, in my Sight. He’s in my blood.”

  “The both of you are edges on a spinning triskele, flung apart yet held together. You are not the first, nor the last, not even the only in this story, this time. All of us have this knowledge, deep within us, like a seed. Few of us see it sprout, much less bear fruit. But those of us in which it does?” Cernun shrugged. “It is never easy, and there are not always easy answers.”

  More riddles. Rob hunched his shoulders, took a few half steps toward the altar, looked down at it. Ash and grit and a few embers, dying. “Easy or no, I have to know. I have to know what this is, and I know the Horned Lord knows. He’s… watching me. Waiting. I have to know what I must do. I have to know why.”

  “You can’t help but understand the attraction of it, the knowledge that one doesn’t exist without the other… but you.” Cernun shook his head. “You are a mystery, wrapped in a riddle, and there’s not a one of us who can pace you, find you before you act. And now you would scorn a Maiden’s touch, would spin the Wheel widdershins, take your rival as your lover. Rob, you cannot.”

  “It seems,” Rob said, wavering, “I already have.”

  “And so you have given him the means to betray you. To betray us all.”

  “I will not believe that.”

  “He is of the ones who’d see us dead. ’Tis time for waking, aye, and you have set it spinning wild as any storm. You have waked the Oak, tangled and twined him in Holly, but neither of you, in the end, can deny what you are. He is your rival. It is what he was born to be and there is nothing you can do about it.”

  “Are these your words?” Rob asked. “Or the Horned Lord’s?”

  “Are we not the same?”

  “Not always,” Rob whispered, and the moment he spoke, he knew it for truth. “Not anymore.”

  Cernun was staring at him, almost puzzled, and he seemed… vulnerable, for the first time since Rob could remember. He was an old man, growing worn, growing hag-ridden with the unchancy nature of his god’s power.

  “There may be truth in what you say,” Rob persisted. “But you canna answer with His truth. Not without Him.”

  “He comes, possession or visitation, when and if He chooses. One does not bid the Horned Lord to heel like a hound.”

  “He shall answer me.” Rob brought up the knife, put the edge to his palm.

  “Rob—”

  “Datgelu’r eich hun,” Rob growled—

  Reveal yourself—

  Sliced.

  And all the sound went away. Time filled, then spilled out from behind his eyes, timing itself to the beat of his heart, then slowing it to a slow thrum and thud. The blood welled through his fist; Rob turned it, squeezed. Watched it drip down, dance and steam on the altar stone as if it were an iron pan over roasting coals. Leaned forward to place the blooded knife upon the stone. His hand, extending, was slowed to a quarter of normal. Pressure laid itself upon his skin, popped his ears, pressed behind his eyes. As if he were swimming deep underwater….

  Underwater, with echoes and ripples and the ever-present echo and hum of sensing, and space.

  The knife tried to slip from his fingers; he held to it, forced control, set it lightly as a feather on the stone. The stone gave, wove and wobbled, shimmering like threads in a loom, floating.

  A blood rite sinister, eh? You want this badly, youngling.

  Rob looked up. Across the altar stone, the trees had gone black, and there were no stars. A shape, both beast and man. It dropped before him, swift as arrow flight, to crouch on the south edge of the altar, a hooded, faceless figure with ivory horns and eyes that glimmered hot.

  You have courage. That has never been in doubt. But did your rival steal what sense you were born with? The black fingered itself toward him, tynged silk-weave turned deathly web.

  “He’s not my rival,” Rob husked. “You canna make me fight him.”

  A glint of eyes within the hood, and a mocking chuckle. And there speaks your ignorance, Princeling.

  “If I know nowt, ’tis because you’ve not told me!”

  And why should I tell you anything?

  Rob opened his hand, laid it, bloodied palm down, upon the knife blade.

  Said again, “Datgelu’r eich hun.”

  Watched with dry eyes as the Horned Lord shuddered, gleaming eyes drawn to the altar.

  “I will know,” Rob said. “No more riddles. No more half-truths. You say he is my rival, but you will tell me why.”

  I think you already know that, little pwca. The new religion would crush the old, and how fitting is it that the two born into this breath of the Wheel would be on opposite spokes? Yet you. A chuckle, grim, then almost sung. You would scorn a Maiden’s touch, would spin the Wheel widdershins, take your rival as your lover… The Old One has it right, you are Fool, indeed! Again, the mocking singsong: A mystery, wrapped in a riddle, and there’s not one of us who can pace you… The Horned Lord bent closer. I will pace you. I will ride you until you drop.

  “How am I the fool?” It was pure bravado, no more, but it served to shatter the fear icing Rob’s veins. “I’m what I’ve always been. ’Twas you made the choice of me, slicked the magic over my birth-caul. Who, then, is daft as a ha’penny?”

  The Horned Lord bared the white canines of a predator, snarled, What you are, child, is heir to an ungentle and ruthless Kingship. What you will be is the one to wear the cowl of death, to contest for the right of life, to dance the eternal return. Such things are not won with stolen kisses and empty scabbards.

  This was no gentle, loving Summer of warm days and velvet nights, but the gales of Winter, the frost and flood and famine. Rob cowered down despite himself, snared too hot and close for bearing. The golden eyes blazed; the horns upon His brow were hung with tattered velvet. The Horned Lord smelled of green and damp, blood and sex, heat and fury.

  Then He gave a sudden, deep laugh, the undercurrent pressing deep against Rob’s ears. Ah! I see! You would make the pact: wed yourself soul and heart’s blood to our sweet green Wode, defend the virtue of our Lady, give our body to our challenge. But you, arrogant little pwca, think you can twist my tail. You would play the game by your rules, not mine, and throw a gauntlet at my feet, dare me to stop you. You would see yourself the Maiden’s twin, not Her husband, and have your rival struggling in your arms after another fashion, send a thousand little deaths toward the one Sacrifice. The laugh sobered into silence, heavy and heady. Then:

  You intrigue me. It is not… unthinkable.

  Rob tried to voice a reply, could not. He was panting, sweating, shuddering with the nearness of the god, with His intemperate fury and passion.

  Aye, now you begin to see. A hot breath against Rob’s forehead. I will have you both, one way or another. Your rival Sees what is before him, feels the calling. He no longer has the choice. The question remains: Will he submit or will he fight? Your little rabbit has gone to ground in cold stone walls, into that bleak hole of doubt and betrayal into which the priests of the White Christ have corrupted those teachings. Do you really think yourself so skilled—or him so ignorant—that you could cozen him once more into the holly? He has already drawn back a scratched and bleeding hand.

  “I….” Rob staggered. He could feel his body, somewhat, pinned to the altar. Blood and tears, spittle and sweat; all binding him there. Holding him.

  Here is your quandary: if you submit, or die, or fail, then you will be the last of your kind. Summer will reign and twist the world into light that never dies, that burns itself into destruction. Or. A pause. If you bid him sub
mit to you, Winter’s reign will steady itself in the darkness. We have had peace, yet it has become stagnation, and the flames of insurrection have been left unfanned too long.

  Eyes rolling up in his head, blood steaming on the stone, shuddering…. Rob had left his body unkept too long, yet he could not wrest free, not return.

  Do it! Give yourself to the Wode, young stag. Take the horns, reach forward into what is yours and break your father’s tines. When the Son is born, so dies the Sire, and Son grows to Sire… let us be done with this nothingness and slavery, call Hunt upon the trine of all worlds and bring the Ceugant into being, here and now!

  For you could, you know. You could.

  “Hear me, Hob-Robyn.” It came, whispering and wavering through the black; first a tug, then a command, curling and lifting in the language of the Barrows. “Hear me. Breathe me.”

  The Horned Lord straightened up, scented the air. Rob found that spirit mimicked body; he was laid out on the slab, shuddering in uncontrolled waves. The Horned Lord crouched over him. Both of them held Gamelyn’s knife. Yet as they watched, another hand joined theirs, running down the blade, blood dripping warm down the fuller with the scent of hot smoke, burnt reeds and sandalwood. And the summons, again.

  Cernun was there, white hair unbound, free hand reaching out, touching the Horned Lord’s tines. He opened blue eyes filled with gold, whispered a name. Ebon rippled, streaked with ivory where he touched, and the Horned Lord’s head dipped, as if gentled.

  The Horned Lord took the dagger, laid it, with Rob still holding it, gently across Rob’s stomach. Then He bared his canines once again, gave a bow.

  Wisped away.

  “Anadlu!” Cernun held him closer. “Breathe, Rob. Breathe! Lady, find Your son… answer me, Rob!”

  With a huge gasp and hoarse cough, Rob fell back into his body. Felt his heart speed, his lungs burn, his body flatten with the press of Time itself, the dagger still cradled in his blooded hands like a child, and Cernun’s arms still fast about him. There were tears in Cernun’s blue eyes. It startled Rob; he’d never thought the old man cared for him all that much. “He will take you, lad, if you let Him,” Cernun said. “You must not let Him.”