I visit the badger each day, when Ywain and my lady are otherwise occupied. Today I find him on the floor of the root cellar, snuffling at the crack below the door, ill-tempered and ready to be free. I sympathize. I am whatever the Great Mother makes me, yet this life is artificial and cloying compared to the vastness of my other world. There I can feel the wind sighing through my outstretched boughs, new life growing within the belly of my soil, water sluicing over the rocks, my bones.
The badger has no patience for me to stroke his head today. He is well enough and I open the door and give him his freedom, wishing someone could do the same for me. He waddles through the courtyard and I follow, to make sure no one harms him before he escapes the castle grounds.
We pass near the huntsman’s cabin on the way into the woods. The huntsman has recently returned, and I hear Ywain finishing a conversation on local game and he and the chamberlain taking their leave. The door opens as I pass, the badger scuttling before me. I nod and point to the creature, saying I’m shooing him back to the woods rather than the truth that I escort him.
“My lord,” the chamberlain says as I pass the far side of the cabin — already he calls him “lord.” He speaks loudly enough for me to hear, intentionally, I’m sure. “Do you see the truth of my earlier words? She is not a natural woman. The badger is a familiar.” He is unaware that his lies contain a grain of truth. I am no ordinary woman, though I am more natural than he could ever know.
Ywain waits to hear more and the chamberlain obliges.
“I worry for you, my lord. She is fickle. And powerful. Her influence with the lady has grown out of all normal bounds.”
I cannot linger without seeming as suspicious as he paints me, but the chamberlain’s prattling continues to reach me over my quiet footsteps.
“If the wind changes and she turns against you, my lord, she could turn the lady against you — if not with words, then by other means. It is dangerous to keep her near. And there is only one way to deal with such as her.”
The badger and I are into the woods now and I cannot hear the final words, though I know what they will be: “You must burn her.”
The badger waddles on into the ground cover, disappearing without a glance of thanks. It brings to mind the previous Black Knight, of the qualities of nature that he possessed that made him such an excellent guardian of the fountain.
This Ywain yet wears his white and silver, thinking it courtly and impressive. He has no true connection to the fountain, though he visits it more frequently each week, intrigued by the mystery of the flowing waters without beginning or end. I must find a way to bind him soon. His ties to the fountain must be as enduring and loyal as his ties to his king.
§
In the end, it is only the chamberlain’s men who come for me. Landowners are a law unto themselves in these times when foreign nations have abandoned control of the isles, and the multitude of kings sprouting in that fertile ebb are little more than pillagers and land barons. Those who escort me to my prison are Elwyn the woodcutter, Cynbel the chamberlain’s assistant, Maddox the huntsman, and young Huey, the stable boy.
Neither Ywain nor my lady have shared with me that I’ve been accused, nor come to ask my defense. I’m unsurprised by this; Ywain will not risk any barriers to his desires, real or imagined, and strength has never been the Lady Laudine’s suit.
The chamberlain gloats as I’m taken past him and locked in the same root cellar where the badger was kept. Thankfully, the animal’s blankets are still there to help stave off some of the chill. Perhaps I should revel in the cold air, though, for I fear I will not be cold much longer.
From the cellar I can hear Elwyn hewing logs and the men stacking my pyre. I trust my Great Mother and yet it’s hard not to doubt. What does it mean that I haven’t accomplished all I should? The fountain is essential to the land, but the Great Mother moves in such wide circles that a tiny part of Her, such as I, may go unnoticed. Perhaps I’ll die without intervention, overlooked in Her greater considerations of eons.
Late in the day, my lady comes to me at last.
With a retinue outside the door objecting, she enters my dark cellar alone. In that moment of light she is haloed in glory, more beautiful than ever, before she closes the men and the light out behind her. I wait for her to speak.
“You have been a strange and distant girl, Luned,” she says, “and I was convinced by my betrothed that we should do this thing. But as the hour grows near I find I’m less sure.”
Less sure maybe, but she will never demand the sentence be remanded. “When will it happen?”
“At dawn. I have come to say goodbye.”
I wait in the darkness.
“Is there anything I can bring you to ease your last night?” she asks.
“No, lady.” I am thirsty but perhaps, like a tree, I will burn faster if I am dry. “There is one boon I would ask, though.”
“Ask then.”
“Sir Ywain has ordered the death of your innocent and loyal servant. Would you request that he honors me by wearing black at my burning?”
She considers. “I will do this for you.”
The lady leaves, and I harbor a tiny hope in the darkness.
§
In the morning, they remove me from the cellar. The sun is not yet over the horizon but the stars have faded from the heavens and the autumn sky is bruised with the coming dawn.
My hands are bound behind me and I’m led to a stack of wood and lashed to the upright stake in the center. The chamberlain is there early, but my lady and her knight emerge from the castle last of all.
She is in pink, as pale and delicate as the dawn clouds on the horizon, but Ywain is all in black. My heart soars with this small victory. Another step has been taken. I can see the pride in his bearing that wearing the daunting and unfamiliar color brings, and I know he will not put off the black again. It is not enough to bind him to the fountain, but I’ve done what I can.
The chamberlain himself lights the wood at my feet. It catches slowly at first and then burns faster. My lady returns to the castle, unable to watch. The chamberlain, my accuser, is eager. Ywain, my judge, stoically sees through what he has decreed. The others watch in fascinated horror, even young Huey.
They expect me to scream. I, too, expect to scream, but I don’t. The Great Mother protects me as she takes me back to her bosom. She has not forgotten me after all.
The heat is tremendous but I burn with a terrible dryness, not the agony of flesh and nerve. The flames begin at my feet and quickly blaze to my knees. My dress catches and flares in a golden burst of greedy fire. It finds my hair.
I wither like burned grass. I sear like a charred tree. I scorch like the earth. My thirst becomes unbearable as I parch and desiccate, and yet I’m as protected from pain as bark, or soil, or rock.
Ywain watches without expression. Dressed all in black, so emotionless, he resembles the previous guardian of the fountain strongly now.
My skin blackens and flakes but my awareness remains. With the last of my eyesight, I see the ash of my flesh float on the wind the fire engenders. It drifts toward Ywain and beyond him to the fountain. My ash dusts his light hair and skin, darkening them slightly. Bits of myself enter his mouth and nostrils and I feel myself breathed deeply inside him. I appreciate anew my Great Mother’s wisdom as my nature becomes a part of this new Black Knight.
The rest of me scatters to the forest, to rest for a time, returning me to what I love. The Great Mother regenerates her children constantly, using them in many ways. When there is a new Black Knight someday, perhaps I’ll return again to this form.
Perhaps I always do.
§§§
Watch for “The Halfblood War” an epic fantasy by L. Deni Colter, coming soon from WordFire Press
Due to a varied work background, Liz has harnessed, hitched, and worked draft horses, and worked in medicine, canoe expeditioning, and as a roller-skating waitress. She also knows more about concrete than you might
suspect. Liz is a 2014 winner of the international Writers of the Future contest and has multiple short story publications to her credit spanning a wide range of science fiction and fantasy sub-genres. Her novels, such as A Borrowed Hell
, written under the name L. D. Colter explore contemporary fantasy and dark/weird/magic realism, and ones written as L. Deni Colter venture into the epic fantasy realms she grew up reading and loving. Her website can be found at: https://www.lizcolter.com/
The Deaths of All We Are_a short story Page 2
