Five
More ice, and the lake is frozen hard. But ice in the black month is treacherous, the water still warm from the summer. A pair of village boys, lured by the hope of skating to the islands, fell into the water. One died, the other did not. The lake was not so warm, after all.
In less suspicious times, the Folk would have seen the thing for what it was – an accident. But now, with the slightest thing taken as an omen, the ants are ready to attack anything that stands in their way.
I watched the funeral from afar. The church bell rang its mournful toll. And the ants, in their black coats and winter bonnets, clustered in the churchyard, all encircled with wedding-ring gold. The death of an old man – even a laird – is natural enough, they say. But a healthy boy of nine, who would have grown strong and handsome . . .
That is more than a tragedy to a community such as this. The mother of the dead boy wails like a cat. His father is bearlike, and angry. The other children, awed into compliance by the presence of Death, stand wide-eyed around the grave. Death has taken one of them. Death could have taken any of them. The fairy tree is hung once more with ribbons and with offerings.
I see them. I take them. A silver spoon; an earthenware pot, a shard of steel, a lace handkerchief. These things can be sold, so long as I take my business further afield. The money will buy me bread, cheese, a flagon of wine for the winter nights. But I must tread carefully. I will travel to the town. There is a monthly market there. I can make it on foot in two days. Two more days to walk back. Two nights of sleeping rough – in a bothy, in a barn – then back to my hut, and safety. And I have other things to sell: charms against the fever, lavender sachets for linen. The townsfolk will buy them, I know that.
Tomorrow I shall set off at first light. No one will see me as I go. No one but the white-headed crow who serves as my protector. She tells me when strangers approach; when my fire throws up too much smoke; when the wind will bring rain, or the wolves prowl close. She will come with me to the town, to see what lies on the road ahead, to warn me of danger approaching. The white-headed crow is my guardian, most faithful of my people. Alone of them all, she has chosen to stay with me over the winter, to watch over me, to help me survive. And if she sometimes walks as a wolf, and slaughters the sheep in their paddock – what then? If only I had my powers again, would I not do the same?
December
The Month That is Also Black
With good ale, good bread and peace at home –
If the snow comes, then let it come.
North Country proverb
One
I begged a ride on a dairyman’s cart for the last six miles of the trip, and so, reaching town by nightfall, I was able to spend the night in an inn, high under the eaves in a room that I shared with two other women – one a nun, the other a whore – which boded ill for my night’s sleep.
I slept long nevertheless, and awoke to the sound of activity. The white-headed crow was perched on the roof underneath my window and, looking out into the square, I saw the traders and journeymen setting out their carts and their stalls, while the tinkers and gypsies and folk such as I stood by, awaiting their chance of a place.
There were beer sellers, oystermen, butchers and bawds: pie-men selling Fat Boys, and onion pasties, and frumenty pie. There were sellers of wool and sellers of hay, and wine, and seaweed, and leather, and gloves. There were cheese-men, and ragpickers, and shrimpers and spooners, and skinners and all manner of merchants and traders, as well as pipers, fiddlers, cutpurses, thieves, storytellers, pickpockets and other such magpies of the trade.
I looked over my merchandise. Four silver spoons, two earthenware pots, a blanket woven from rabbit fur. Sixty-two sachets of lavender, made from a muslin petticoat stolen from a washing line. Charms against the fever, the plague; a broken heart, a barren womb. All things that I could sell here, starting with the silverware, down the road of the goldbeaters and bronze founders and silversmiths.
The spoons fetched less than they were worth. But the man asked no questions. Thence to the market, where I sold a dozen of the sachets and spells, and told some fortunes and read some palms, so that my purse was growing fat—
There was a woman in front of me, looking at one of the nearby stalls. She was standing half-turned towards me, wearing a bonnet of black silk. Her pale hair was tied in a long braid; I had a chance to observe her face as she looked at the display of fruit. Then she looked up, and saw me—
Fiona has grown fat since I saw her last. Her face is as round as the full moon. She was wearing a shapeless black coat that came down almost to the ground, but even so, I could see her rolling gait, and the way her waist had thickened. The woman beside her, I told myself, must be the chaperone. But now that I saw her more closely, I knew her. A spinster, with a cleft lip, who served as the village midwife—
Fiona recognised me at once. I saw her blue gaze sharpen. She turned her head. She spoke in a voice like a volley of quail breaking cover—
‘She’s here!’
And then there was William, and everything stopped. The sounds of the market dropped to a hum. Fiona’s voice was silent. Everything was silent – except for the circle around us both, a circle that was wedding-ring gold, spinning like a wheel of light.
He was wearing a coat of dull yellow wool, with a collar of shaggy, pale fur. His hair was clean and tied back. His eyes were everywhere but on mine.
He took a step forward. ‘Malmuira,’ he said.
‘That’s not my name,’ I told him.
Fiona, emboldened by his presence, waddled to his side. I said: ‘Does your uncle know she’s with child?’
He did not have to answer. His eyes told me everything I needed to know. Bad enough that the young laird should have promised marriage at nineteen to a village girl with nothing more than a pretty face as her dowry, but now that she was no longer virtuous, the uncle would never give his consent.
I smiled. ‘I wish you joy,’ I said. ‘But there will be no christening. This child you carry will be as nameless as any one of the travelling folk.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Fiona.
William’s eyes danced here and there, like fleas on a hot griddle.
I laughed. ‘I think you know what I mean.’
Fiona said: ‘How dare you!’
I laughed again, and told her: ‘Even if he married you, you’d be a widow by May Day.’
Her pale face grew paler. ‘What do you mean?’ she repeated.
I said: ‘I am the coldest, whitest of grain. Thus do ye reap, and thus do I sow.’
‘It is a curse,’ said Fiona, her blue eyes widening.
William stood there, not looking at me. He looked very young, and I wondered how I could ever have seen him as a man. I’d thought him so much older than I, so much more worldly. But now I saw that he was a boy, fresh-faced, almost beardless.
‘What do you say to her, William?’ said Fiona querulously. ‘The witch, the witch has cursed us! Call for the parson! Call for the nurse! I feel unwell. I may faint, I may die—’
‘Malmuira, please,’ he said. ‘No more. You are upsetting Fiona.’
No, I am upsetting you, I thought, and smiled once more to myself. His eyes were on me at last, and I knew that he was wondering how he could ever have thought he loved a girl so brown, a girl so wild, a girl so unlike him in every way. I looked at him through the rags of my hair, all braided through with feathers. I said:
‘Cast not a clout until May be out, for on that day, I shall dance on your grave, and soar like a lark above you. On that day, you shall know my name, which is known only to the dead. And on that day, I shall be free, and the sky will ring with my laughter.’
Fiona gave a little scream, and fell into the midwife’s arms.
William took a step backwards. ‘I’m not afraid of you,’ he said, in a voice that was trembling. ‘You may have bewitched me once, but now I see you for the common slut you are.’
That made me angry. ‘I was
a maid. Fourteen years a maid,’ I said, ‘until I gave myself to you.’
He sneered, sensing my weakness. ‘A common slut and a liar, too,’ he said. ‘An ugly witch who deserves to hang.’
I laughed again, though my heart hurt. So this is what he thinks of me. This is what remains of his love, gone like the knots on the fairy tree, like the first call of the cuckoo. What a fool I was to think that a boy of the Folk could know my heart. The Folk are weak, and fickle, and tame, and they do not deserve our notice.
‘Look for me when blackthorn blooms,’ I said. ‘I shall be thinking of you.’
And then I turned and left them there before they could see the tears in my eyes, and with my pack and my white-headed crow, I left the marketplace and the town, and began my walk home by the high road, so that, when William drove past in his coach, he would not see me crying.
Two
I spent the night in a bothy, with the white-headed crow as my sentinel. War, War, comes her harsh cry, and now that dawn is here, I can see the first sprinkling of snow, high on the tops of the black hills.
It will be good to return to my hut, and the forest, and my firepit. It will be good to sleep all day under the softly settling snow. The sky is heavy and overcast. It is not snowing yet, but it will. The wind is from the north, but when it comes from the east it will bring snow. The wise among the Folk will then cover their strawberries in hay, and take in their swine, and chop their wood, and feed their bees with honey-water and rosemary.
Today is the eve of St Lucy. Lucy light, Lucy bright: the shortest day and longest night. In fact, we are still some days away from the shortest day of the winter: and yet this morning feels like dusk although it is still early. The sky is low, and rolls like a drum, and the clouds are like dirty water. I quicken my step, hoping to outpace the snowclouds as they roll, but it is dark by the time I reach the narrow path to the village.
And yet, there is a glow in the sky. Not sunset, nor yet dawn, but a glow like firelight. It comes from the woods, and with it, a scent of woodsmoke, and distant cries of excitement.
A bonfire, for St Lucy’s Eve? The forest seems like a strange place for that. Too easy, even on such a day as this, for the fire to spread, and burn the woods. And yet, that is what it looks like: and the fire is already spreading, while men of the Folk, in coats and hoods, move up and down the forest path.
I cannot go into a hare, and watch them from the bracken. But I can move quietly through the woods, and, leaving my pack safely hidden under a blackthorn bush by the lake, I set off to see what is afoot.
I know in my heart what is happening before I reach the path to my hut. The path is narrow, hedged by gorse, but even now I hear them. The Folk are often clumsy, often loud, and tonight, they are armed with torches and wooden staves, their voices raised in anger. I hear them cry – Witch! Hang the witch! – and I draw back into the shadows. No one will see me under the gorse. No one will hear my trapped heart.
And so I watch as my home burns, and listen to their drunken cries – for these are men of the village, made bold by numbers and by pints of ale – and I know who led them to this place. Only two people knew of it. And as the crow calls – War! War! – I feel the wind turn, and shift to the east: and with it, I think I can already feel the falling of the first flakes of snow.
Three
Soon it will be Christmas-tide, with mistletoe charms on the fairy tree, and church bells ringing, and carolling, and holly wreaths on the doorstep. Christmas, time of peace and goodwill, and of fat geese roasting on the fire, and chestnuts, crab apples, furmenty; puddings, cakes and sweet wine . . .
Not that I shall see any of this. The rich will give their penny in church, and pay for absolution. But money is like a great door that shuts inwards on the heart of a man. The poor will starve this Christmas, as the poor folk always do, and the rich will dine on venison, and sing their songs of redemption, and light their candles against the night, and try not to think of the darkness.
In the castle, Fiona will fret at her wedding embroidery. William will look out at the snow that lies now almost twelve inches deep, and think of me, and of himself, and wonder that I have not been found.
It snowed on the night of my return. Perhaps that is what saved me. They had dogs to hunt me down, but the falling snow had dampened the scent, and by the time they understood that I was gone from the forest, the snow had covered everything, with not even a footprint to show my trail.
They will take this as a sign of witchcraft, of course. Only a witch could disappear without even leaving a footprint. Only a witch could hide away, deceiving even the hunting dogs brought by Master William. But even a travelling girl alone can find a way, if needs must. And, with no other refuge in sight, I made my way across the lake to the largest of the islands.
These islands form a necklace across the dark throat of the lake. There are only two of any size to allow me shelter: the rest are nothing but broken teeth. Only one was still linked to the shore by the ice, and I crawled across on my hands and knees, testing the ice every inch of the way.
Thus I managed to reach the near shore, then climbed up the bank with my pack on my head. No footprints marked my passage. No scent would remain for the dogs to find.
The island was maybe three hundred feet long, a hundred across. A few dozen trees: some tumbled rocks, a shallow cave at the foot of them. I had some food in my market pack, and my woven blanket against the cold, but even so, without shelter, I knew that I could not survive. I found some bracken and broken trees, and managed to make a rough lean-to against the cave mouth, but it was too damp to light a fire, and besides, the smoke from a bonfire would certainly have betrayed me. I wrapped myself up in the blanket, and pulled the bracken over me, but I slept very little, and fitfully, and when I awoke, some time before dawn, I was aching with the cold.
Most people die an hour before dawn. It is the point of least resistance to the pull of the darkness. An hour before dawn, you can see the pale seam of the night sky starting to unravel: you can hear the birds as they awaken; there is hope. And that is the moment at which they fade, the old ones and the babes-in-arms, the ones that slip gently into the dark and those who struggle till the end. I have struggled for so long, I thought. And now my William wants me dead. And it would be so much easier to go in silence with the dawn, and the snow falling like petals—
And then I heard a low growl from outside the cave mouth. Forcing myself to move, I looked out to see a lean, grey shape facing me with bared teeth.
It was a wolf. A big grey wolf with eyes like jack-o’-lanterns. And behind it, another, as black as coal, with a single pale stripe across its head.
I felt a sudden blaze of fear, and with it, a sting of amusement. Clearly, I was not quite as ready to die as I had thought. I started to struggle to my feet, knowing that a wolf will sometimes pause in the face of a more imposing prey. But I was too weak; I fell to one knee, helpless in the bracken.
The grey wolf gave another growl, but did not attack. Instead, and to my surprise, it pushed its muzzle through the wall of bracken and came to lie down beside me. The black wolf did the same thing, its head resting on my shoulder. And as I felt their warmth begin to bring my frozen body back to life, I understood that these were no wolves of the ordinary kind, but the travelling folk, come to help me.
Who they were in their other life, I did not know. Our people rarely communicate outside, in the open. Some live as I do, in the woods; some herd sheep in the mountains. Some even live among the Folk, keeping their true nature secret: doing as the Folk do; hiding themselves in plain sight. The wolves did not speak, but only lay alongside me in my shelter. I felt their fur against my skin: smelt their not-quite-doglike scent. From time to time, I felt a rough tongue against the nape of my neck; a soft muzzle against my face. Little by little, I felt the cold, and with it that sense of hopelessness, recede. William wants me dead, I thought: that alone should be enough for me to survive. The grey wolf and the black wolf slept,
twitching and snuffling in their dreams. And finally, I too went to sleep; and when I awoke, it was snowing.
Four
Snow cherishes the ground, they say, and anything that be sowed in it. And so, to survive, I must be like the seeds that sleep under the white-capped earth. By digging, I have expanded the cave, lined it with dry moss and bracken, and thus I have made my shelter as comfortable as such a place can be.
It could be worse, I tell myself. I have clothes, and food, and wine. I still have my knife, and my wedding-ring charm, and my box for striking tinder. Not that I dare light a fire as yet, but this damp weather will not last, and soon I will dig a firepit, and keep it banked and smokeless.
The two wolves come to me every night. Together, we sleep in safety. And under the snow that covers the land, we are hidden, we are warm, and we wait for the hunt to be over. Sometimes my friends bring me meat from their hunt. Rabbit, still warm; and its pelt will help to line and waterproof our den. Or a haunch of mutton, dragged from the hills, or a fish from the river. I cannot cook the meat, of course. But this does not disturb me. I have eaten raw meat before, as a wolf, as a bear, as a vixen. I eat with the wolves. I sleep with the wolves. And though I still cannot travel, I can sometimes forget who I am, and dream that I am one of them, and in dreaming grow stronger.
Five days have passed since they burnt my hut. Does William still hunt me? The dogs have been silent since yesterday. In the snow, the scent has been lost. The ice, too, is melting, from white lace to black. Soon this will be an island once more. And the dogs will not go near the wolves. Their scent covers mine, and keeps away any who wish to harm me.
A Pocketful of Crows Page 7