A Branch of Silver, a Branch of Gold

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

  He looks upon the vision of the past. The same vision which the girl herself glimpsed, caught up as she was in the timeless sylph’s arms. He sees the same woman running to the embrace of the great red mortal. Running to the arms of her beloved.

  My beloved.

  The shadow’s lip curls into a snarl. Even as the girl and her father vanish inside their cottage, he rises, turns, and runs through the dawnlight, across the fields, around the bogs, and on up to the Oakwood.

  A breeze follows in his wake, trailing bits of paper in twirls behind it.

  Watch them now, even as I do from my tower window.

  EIGHT

  The shadow loped across the fields, around the bogs, and on into the Oakwood.

  The Oakwood was the biggest patch of forest in Canneberges, spanning gloom-shrouded acres. Up close it might seem large, even menacing, but from a distance anyone could see that it was not a big forest as forests go. Modest at best, really.

  But within the shadows of the Oakwood, another Wood lay hidden. A much, much greater Wood. Bigger than all that can be seen from without, greater than anything mortal minds imagine.

  The Wood Between the Worlds.

  Into this Wood the shadow stepped, as easily as though stepping through a door. He knew all the gates leading from the Between into the Near World and back again, gates which were normally closed fast, preventing Faerie kind from passing through and preying on mortals. But once every generation or two of mortal lives, these gates would open.

  He knew where each gate was to be found. He knew when they opened. He had made this journey to and from the Near World many times before.

  So he crossed into the Wood Between. Entering the Timelessness of that vast realm was a relief to him. He hated the closeness of the Near World, the stink of coming death that so pervaded all. More than anything he hated the dying mortals who lived in that world, disgusting, crawling, time-bound things. He snarled at the very thought of them.

  The Wood Between, sensing his hatred, drew back from him on all sides, the trees pulling away their branches and roots like ladies holding up their skirts. No one, not even the majestic spirits of the Wood, wanted to deal with a hatred like his.

  The shadow came then to a place where great oaks sprang up from the soil like towering pillars. And they were pillars indeed, if one looked at them from a slightly different point of view, supporting high ceilings, lining great walls. But if the viewer’s gaze shifted a fraction to the left or the right, he would see only forest.

  The shadow saw it as he wished, unhindered by tricks or illusions. So he beheld a great house, part castle. It was, in fact, very like the shape and spirit of Centrecœur itself save that it was much larger and sometimes made up of trees and vines and moss rather than rock and stone and mortar. Its doors opened to the shadow, and he slipped inside to disappear among deeper shadows still. He liked shadows. They always felt friendly to him, welcoming even. As soon as he stood among them, he no longer bothered to conceal himself but walked in sinuous, silent grace.

  “Have you found her?” someone asked from the darkness.

  “Of course,” he replied in a voice of pure indigo.

  “He’s found her! He’s found her!” Many voices whispered to each other on all sides. “The time has come, and he’s found her again!”

  Fools, he thought even as he mounted a great wide stair and hastened up to the long gallery above. What did they think would happen? Only the same that happened every time and would go on happening for all the ages of the mortal world.

  But they were frightened by the Law. They did not know how to bend the Law to their own designs; that was a gift of queens, kings, and princes.

  The shadow passed through the gallery, made another turn or two (it hardly mattered, for the house in which he walked rarely kept to the same shape, and one could only navigate its corridors if one had complete mastery over its doings), and came at last to a final set of doors. These were very tall indeed, taller than five men standing upon each other’s shoulders. They were made of ebony, polished to shine, and carved in rich patterns of Moon and Stars and the beings of Night. No mortal hand could have rendered such carvings. No mortal hand would dare try.

  The shadow rose up then and took a different form, standing on two legs now rather than four heavy paws. He shook himself out, adjusting to the new shape of his limbs, and pulled back his wild mane of black hair into a neat, thick queue of many braids. Then he pushed wide the two doors and passed through.

  The floor was made of night sky. Unless it was made of polished onyx. It would be difficult to discern which. Either way, his feet made no sound as he strode across it. Curtains like the thick billowing of clouds moved gently in the enormous windows which gazed out upon a vista of more night. Overhead, on a ceiling so high that one could not guess at its dimensions, stars moved in patterns of dance and darkness.

  There was little light, but he required little; his bright blue eyes held light enough in themselves. A silver brazier burned upon a stand at the far end of the room. The coals in its bowl were also silver, and their fire glowed white. They looked like the hearts of stars, though surely this could not have been possible. Perhaps they were only the dreams of stars. Perhaps they were diamonds.

  Beside the brazier Mother sat upon her throne.

  The throne was carved of a single block of stone, but over its surface burned fire as white as that glowing in the brazier. The flames never harmed Mother. She was herself like one stone-carved, her limbs chiseled and polished to a gleaming perfection impervious to all flames, be they enchanted or otherwise.

  There was no softness to her, not like there had been in the ancient days. Back then she had boasted a bounty of glorious hair, but this was gone now, shorn away by her own hand wielding her own knife. And she vowed never to let it grow again until her victory was complete. So she was bald, and in her baldness she was more beautiful and more terrible than ever before.

  He made deep reverence before her throne. “Mother,” he said, “I have done your bidding. I have ventured once more into the Near World.”

  “Did you find her?” Mother asked. She did not open her eyes but sat in perfect stillness. Only the flames about her lips flickered, betraying the merest hint of movement. “Did you find the cursebreaker?”

  “I found her, Mother,” he said. “She is nothing but a child. She has only just met herself and is as yet unfamiliar with the power in her blood. She will not know what to do when the time comes. As ever, our gathering may proceed without fear.”

  “Well done, my son,” said Mother. “Go then and take with you those whom you need. Return to the Near World and bring back our tithe.”

  Son bowed again. Then he turned and leapt across the room, transforming to his wilder shape within three strides. He vanished out the far doors, and soon his roaring summons echoed deep within the great dark house.

  Mother sat a while longer in her perfect tranquility of darkness. Then, slowly, she raised her hands and clapped so that the white flames shot up from between them.

  Out of the shadows on all sides of the room, figures appeared. Pale, shining figures of white, clad in flowing garments. They were maidens, all of the same age, and their faces were the same as well, though a keen observer may have discerned a few small variations of feature. However it was, their expressions mirrored one another: empty save for a deep, solemn compulsion.

  Mother clapped again, a single burst of sound and fire.

  The eleven dancers came together in a circle on the floor of sky before the throne. They joined hands, but any observer could sense that one was missing, that a twelfth figure should stand in the center of that circle.

  Unseen, an instrument began to play one long, high, strange note, like a line of deeper darkness through the gloom. The line wavered, twisted, dipped, then soared even higher. Soon it was joined by the beating drums.

  One of the maidens began to sing:

  “Cianenso

  Nive nur norum.”r />
  One at a time, as the song continued, each maiden added her voice. And as each new voice joined, so they began to move, not in time to the beating drums but in weird patterns that worked first against and then with the beat, their feet stamping, their arms waving, the soft wafting of their garments twirling around them.

  Through it all, Mother sat upon her throne, her face turned to the dancers, her eyes closed. Not once did she look upon the figures performing before her with such strange grace. The lines of her face seemed to deepen like great cracks running through bedrock.

  Suddenly her hand shot out. Her fingers, flame-wreathed, closed upon nothing. And she dragged it toward her face.

  The sylph shrieked in surprise, its voice lost in the wild, rising music.

  Mother clutched the wind in her fist and squeezed. “I have honored the Law,” she said. “These many generations I have honored the Law of Night.”

  The sylph writhed. It twisted. It felt itself being crushed, though this was impossible. It shrieked again in an agony of terror that would have broken the heart of any who listened.

  No one heard but Mother, whose heart had broken long ago.

  “Tell your Dame,” she said, “the statutes of our Law are satisfied. She has no business with me.”

  With these words, she opened her hand. The sylph, still screaming, whipped away from her throne, threaded through the whirling dancers, and sped from that place with all the haste of a murderous gale.

  Mother placed her hands on the arms of her throne and continued to listen to the dance and never once open her eyes.

  She cannot hear me.

  It is my own fault. I pushed too hard, depleted my strength trying to help her, trying to show her that which came before. Though I ask you, how could I resist such an opportunity? How could I resist the distant prospect provided by the sylph, offering the girl a glimpse of the truth? There was always a chance that she might understand. That she might see the story as a whole, not as a part.

  But it was too much for her mortal mind. I do not know, as I sit here at my window, if she even remembers it. For mortals are cleverer than we like to think, and they fortify their minds against that which they do not want to consider. And it is such a big, big tale for such a small, small person!

  She cannot hear me. I sent my voice too far that night, and now I have little left. I must wait until Le Sacre Night.

  NINE

  Three days passed, and Heloise made absolutely certain not to see her reflection anywhere. Nor did she go outside after dark unless she could drag one of her brothers along. Nor did she go up to the Oakwood alone. She made fine excuses or ducked away before anyone could ask her to.

  “I’m worried about her, Meme,” Evette said on the second day, while she and her mother were out in the spinning shed, spreading flax and combing out the strands in preparation for spinning. “I’ve never known her to be so quiet. I think she might have had a fright that night when the . . . the fox got into the yard.”

  Everyone insisted it must have been a fox. No one liked to imagine what else could have caused such an uproar. The serfs of Canneberges weren’t an imaginative lot in any case.

  Meme shrugged off Evette’s concerns. “Perhaps she’s finally growing up,” she suggested. “Perhaps she’s acquired a touch of maturity. It’s about time, is all I can say.”

  Baby Clive began to cry just then, and Meme was busy for a few moments. By the time she returned, all thought of Heloise was far from her mind, and she asked her eldest daughter, “So, child, have you chosen who will escort you to Le Sacre tomorrow night? I saw young Briant Pigman stopped by yesterday. Didn’t he take a position with the Guard at the Great House? An escort in uniform would be a fine thing, though I suppose he’ll be on duty.”

  Evette sighed and let the topic of her sister drop, though she certainly didn’t forget.

  Now it was late afternoon, heading on toward evening: the evening of Le Sacre. The two sisters were up in their loft, Heloise sitting with unaccustomed quietude while Evette tugged and pulled at her thick mass of hair, taming it into its two fat braids. Afraid of what the answer would be, Evette gently asked, “Shall I pin it up, Heloise?”

  Much to her surprise, Heloise grunted and nodded. It wasn’t perhaps the most gracious response, but it was the first time this suggestion had received anything like an acquiescence. Evette, scarcely believing her ears, carefully wound the two braids on top of her sister’s head and secured them with a few wooden pins. It would be a miracle if they stayed up all night, but it was a start. “Will you wear your new cap?” she asked.

  Again Heloise grunted. She slipped a hand into her pocket and pulled out the folded linen cap with its border of cranberry blossoms. Evette arranged it over the braids, tying the strings in a limp bow under Heloise’s chin. She put an extra knot in the bow. “There,” she said, stepping back and smiling at her handiwork. “Don’t you ever look a young lady now? I’d hardly know you!”

  Heloise blushed and looked down at her hands. All that heavy hair piled up on her head was going to give her a headache, she could already tell; and the bow of her cap would never hold it all, extra knot notwithstanding. But if she moved very carefully, holding her head very still, it might last an hour or so.

  “Do you want to see in the glass?” Evette asked, moving toward the cedar box tucked away in the far corner of their loft.

  “No!” Heloise said hastily. She drew a breath and tried to assume a more demure tone of voice befitting her new mature appearance. “No, that’s all right. I’m sure it looks fine.”

  Evette frowned then nodded. “It does. You look very nice.”

  And very nice was as good as she was going to look. Especially since her good dress was still stained with pig-pen mud and she was wearing an older one several inches too short at the hem and several inches too tight at the waist. Very nice was quite an achievement under such circumstances.

  Papa called from below that they were going to be late, and the two girls hastened down the ladder to join their family out in the yard. The Flaxmans were not well-off enough to afford a cart of their own, so they must walk the long miles between their farm and Centrecœur—for Le Sacre Night was always celebrated on the square lawn enclosed by the courtyard of the Great House itself.

  Meme wore shoes. She had only ever owned one pair of real shoes, and these were too tight. She saved them to wear every year to Le Sacre, which meant she spent the whole of the next day groaning in pain at every step. But she would never dream of going either barefoot or in sandals, and she only wished her children owned real shoes themselves, too-tight or otherwise.

  “Evette,” she said, shifting baby Clive in his sling on her back. “Where is your escort?” She looked around as though expecting to see a farm boy or pig-keeper lad appear out of thin air.

  “I told you yesterday, Meme,” Evette said, bending to fix the drawstrings of Clotaire’s sagging shirt and not looking her mother’s way. “I’m going with all of you tonight. I have no escort.”

  Meme stared, mouth open. Then she burst out, “Nonsense! What can you possibly mean by that? You’re eighteen! You must have an escort to Le Sacre this year of all years! What will people say if you show up without a young man?”

  Evette continued to work on Clotaire’s shirt as though it were suddenly the most fascinating task to which she had ever turned her hand. Clotaire gulped and cast about for help from his brothers, all of whom stayed well out of reach for fear Evette’s determinedly ministering hand might catch one of them next. Evette smiled sweetly at Clotaire and switched from tying his shirt to rubbing dirt from his face with her finger.

  “Evette!” her mother persisted.

  “I don’t care what people say,” Evette replied softly. She straightened, taking Clotaire’s hand in hers with such a death grip that he would have struggled to get free had he dared. “I’m going with my family.”

  Meme’s mouth opened and closed several times, and everyone could see that she was worki
ng her way up to the great mother of all protests. Thank the Lights Above, Papa interceded; laying his arm across her shoulder, he drew her away beside him. “Come on,” he said, and set out across the yard. “If we don’t leave now, we’ll never get there in time.”

  “But it’s not decent! A girl of her age!” Meme objected even as she followed along. Heloise could not hear their father’s rumbling reply, but it didn’t seem to have much effect. She and her siblings fell into step behind their parents but kept a good many yards back so as to overhear as little of their argument as possible. Evette maintained her stranglehold on Clotaire’s hand.

  Heloise, walking a few paces behind her sister, frowned more deeply than usual. An insistent thought was working its way from the back of her mind to the forefront. For a moment she feared it might be thinking a thought she herself had not put there, as she had experienced three days before. She tried to ignore it, to shake it away.

  But suddenly there it was, clear in her head: I wonder what Evette wants for her life?

  Heloise paused. She had never considered this idea before, not once. Caught up as she was in her own angers and irritations, she had never stopped to wonder if Evette—perfect, sweet-tempered, composed Evette—might not be entirely happy with her lot, if she might not want to always be perfect, sweet-tempered, and composed. If she might not want to always do things as things are done.

  If she might not want to marry any of the farm boys, pig-keepers, and dyer-lads who came courting her with posies and pleadings.

  Heloise found that one of her hands had reached unconsciously to the edge of her cap to feel the flax-thread cranberry blossoms embroidered there. On an impulse, she untied the string and pulled the cap from her head so that she could study the flowers more closely. They really were quite well done, even though Evette was never permitted to use the finer thread-spinnings, only the rough stuff left over that the Great House did not want. And her needles were awkward, made of shaped and shaved bone.