Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones (9781101614631)

by Wolf, Jack

  “My Service?”

  “Seven Generations shalt endure, in my Service, Caligula.”

  For the second Time my trembling Knees gave Way. I fell before her, on the silver Grass. “No!” I cried. “No! Oh, I beg you, Viviane, if you have any Mercy in your Heart. I cannot pay you thus! I cannot! I have a Wife, and she is with Child! I cannot leave her!”

  “Cursed, then, be.”

  In my Mind’s Eye I saw Katherine, beautifull and lost and very much in need; and I knew that if I were to be gone, she would be on her own, exiled within her crystal Shell, the which I had penetrated with so little Effort that I had forgotten it was there. Oft had I pondered whether I would live without her—but would she live, I thought, without me? Who would tell her what to do? Then I remembered again my poor innocent unborn Child, and the Apprehension woke within my Breast that it was indeed a male, upon whom Viviane’s Curse would fall, and fall the heavier for its Lack of Desert; and I wondered how I could consider letting such an Event come to pass.

  Nathaniel now rose up from his Knee, and came once again to my Side. He bent over me, and putting both his Hands upon my Shoulders, stared into mine Eyes. “Come with us,” he said. “Come with us, and we shall hunt together, Brother with Brother, Yeare by Yeare, until the Sunne grow cold and the Stars revolve no longer in the Firmament. There is naught to fear. My Lady’s Service is neither arduous nor displeasing. What a great Jest it shall be! What Mischief we shall make! What Wonders we shall see! What Joys! What Marvells! What untold, incalculable Delights!”

  If I had been an Hero, if I had been an Hercules or a Theseus; or if I had been sung about in any of Nathaniel’s Ballads; if I had been bold Jack the Giant Killer, or the Brother of Bluebeard’s darling Wife, I should have in that Instant stolen me Nathaniel’s own silver hilted Dagger from his Belt and plunged it right thro’ his traitorous Breast, and thus avenged us all, my Katherine, My Self; but even as I thought it thus I knew I had no Power left in me to slay my dearest Friend. I could not do it. I could not. I loved him.

  And I wanted to say Yes. And I understood, tho’ I would have torn my Tongue out sooner than admit it, that I wanted to say Yes not only because I wanted to save my Son, but because I wanted to leave with Nathaniel, to join his Gypsies—or his Faeries, for such they really were—for My Self; that I need never again think about Viviane, or Joe Cox, or Annie, or Lady B.——; or my poor Father, or Erasmus, or little Simmins; or my Sister and her dying Marriage and her Mother-in-law and Barnaby and the half ruined willow Wood. I remembered those bucolic Dayes spent a-walking with Nathaniel in the Country about Collerton and Shirelands Hall, and I wished, more than ever I had wished anything, for their Return. I had been vice-less, then; vice-less and free of this great and present Grief that rolled over and over mine Heart like a Millstone. I looked into the verdant Glitter of Nathaniel’s Eyes and I wanted to forget that he, Nathaniel Ravenscroft, who had been to me closer than a Brother, was Raw Head. He was Raw Head, and he had ravished Katherine, my Katherine. He was Bat’s Father. But – and I heard, rather than I thought it—but—there had been Wine and Laughter on his Lips, and mayhap he had intended no Harm. Mayhap, being Nathaniel Ravenscroft, he had intended nothing at all, and had merely acted, rashly, capriciously, without Reflection, without Reason, without Thought.

  I had been rash also. I contemplated my too-soon Marriage, and my coming Boy, and how unready I was to raise him; and all at once it seemed to me that both he and my Katherine would be far better off if I was gone. My Son had a Murderer for a Father. What would happen if the Matter came to Court? I had slain an innocent Man; innocent, at least, of the Crime for which I had contemned him. Perhaps, I would not hang, since I could perhaps plead Benefit of Clergy and Defense of Self besides; but it would be a terrible thing for Katherine, that I should stand Trial; and the Shame of it would kill my Father.

  Mayhap Nathaniel had made Katherine’s Child a better Father than I would.

  “But I do love Katherine,” I said. “And she me.”

  “Then so much the Better,” Nathaniel said, “that you come away with us now, and spare her the Ordeal of your facing the Assizes for the killing of this verminous Lout.”

  His hand moved to his Dagger’s Hilt.

  The white Mare stamped her Foot impatiently, and the Bridle rang out sharp against the violet Dawn. Bat ran her clawed Hand tenderly down the Creature’s nearside Leg, bidding her softly to be still and patient just a little while longer. Then she turned her Attention, like a steel Lance, upon me, and for the first time, her grey Eyes met with mine from beneath the black Hood of her Cloak. The Force of her Look shattered my Phantasy, as if ’twere Glass.

  They have Laws, Katherine had said. Laws that cannot be broken. I had promised Bat that I would take her home if she fetched Nathaniel to me, and because she had fulfilled her Part of that Bargain, the Conclusion that I would fulfil mine was as inevitable as the End of Sunnerise. I must take Bat home. Not thro’ any Dictate of Honour, or even of Love, but because if I did not, then it would never have been possible that she had done her Part. Time had reversed itself; the Consequence had been prior to the Cause—and yet impossible as this ought to have been, it was not only possible, but Fact. What other Things, I wondered, might happen thus?

  I shook My Self. “I must go home, Nat,” I said. “I must go home, and take my Wife’s Daughter with me. I have given her my Word.”

  The white Sunne froze upon the far Horizon. There was Silence. Then, Viviane said: “What?” The Aire shook. “What?” she repeated. “Bat! Come forth!”

  The little Bat scuttled tentatively forward over the wet Ground. For the first Time, now, since she had been a Baby in Mary Fielding’s Kitchen and in mine Arms, I perceived clearly her Visage and Shape; and even as mine Heart skippt for Love of her, my Stomach lurched.

  Katherine’s Eyes, Nathaniel’s Face; yet the knotted Hair that spilled rough around her sharp Cheekbones was dirty yellow in Colour, and her long, pointed Ears violently twitched at every tiny Rustle in the Grass or in the Aire. Not an Human Child; no, no; despite all that I had said to Mary, despite everything I had believed. Her Hands were nut-brown, as were her bare Feet, and from the Tip of every Digit projected a sharp, black Claw of astonishing Length. But most disturbing of all was the Method of her Locomotion, for she did not walk, or even crawl as an Infant might, but crept upon her four Paws as if she were verily a Bat upon the ridge-Pole of a Roof, and her black Cloak folded and dragged beside her like the membranous Wings I knew lay underneath it. As she approached Viviane, I saw her Mouth fall open and her Lips draw back in a fearful Gesture of Appeasement, and I perceived her Teeth as needle sharp and multitudinous as they had been in her Babyhood. She eats Insects, I thought.

  An obscene Horrour ran thro’ me. Could I take her home? Verily, how could I do it? How could I return this rape-born Freak to Katherine, who without her—Nathaniel had been right—was not shamed, let alone ruined, but respectable and happy—and expect that she should mother it? The Bat was horrible, monstrous, an Hag in Infant Shape, a Grotesque, a Parody of Maidenhood; of Humankind itself.

  Viviane stared hard at the Bat. A Mask of violet Fury spread itself slow and thick over her beautifull Countenance. Her black Eyes glittered like Star-spun Jet. “Ungrateful Brat,” she said. “Three Times now you have tried to leave me. You will not try again.” She raised her Hand.

  And it seemed that it was not the little Bat who cowered shivering before her on the Blood-smeared Green, but my Katherine; Leonora weeping herself into a Tree. Brat and Bat, I thought, separated by an R.

  A yellow Anger ignited in my Gut, and my Thoughts began to swirl and ream like Smoake.

  How dare he! Ravenscroft, Raw Head, whoever he be! How dare he! I care not if he is my dearest Friend! What he hath done—what he doth now—is beyond Contempt. What Goblins have I left to slay, what Monsters? I prised my left Knee from the Earth, forced the Sole of my Foot to lie flat where it had lately been. My Leg trembled.


  You were wrong, Nat. I thought. You were more than wrong, when you said that you knew not what would have happened had I been with you upon Christmas Eve; you were wicked—for Monster that I am, I would not have harmed a Maiden of her Yeares, and tender Virtue. Had I been with you, Katherine would have been safe, and Bat, my little Bat, would not ever have come to be. But I was not, and she is Katherine’s Child, Katherine’s; and that makes her mine. If Bat be Monster, I am Monster too, and if I make a poor Father, better be that than a Father whose only Claim is Force. You feel nothing for Bat. You traded your Heart to Viviane for a Drum, and now the only Beat you hear is heartless Musick. You did not take Bat away from Katherine out of Duty, or even Kinship, tho’ you would pretend it so, for you did not take Rebecca Clifton’s Child. No, you took her because Viviane, your Faerie Queen, wanted her, like a Toy; and Viviane hath no Intent to let her go. But she hath no Power to prevent it. The Thief owns not his stolen Bounty. Goblin Knight and Faerie Queen both, be damned.

  I stood up.

  “Strike her not, Viviane!” I said. “She is not yours to harm. You stole her from her Mother, and that Mother loves her, and misses her, and would have her returned. You shall not strike her.”

  Viviane had not sent Bat to torture me. She had not sent Bat to me at all. It had been at Viviane’s Order that she had been stolen back; but the Infant Bat had come, by herself, by her own free Will and fay Enchantments seeking the mortal Man whose Name she had never forgot; the Bloody Bones her Mother loved, who should have been her Father: Tristan Hart.

  Why ever had I thought it otherwise? The Bat was not an Human Child; in her Spirit and Mind she was as antient a Being as the Changeling who had never seen Water boiled in an Egg-shell; but in her Body she was still a Babe, and she needed Love. Love of a Species, I thought, that was as alien and incomprehensible to Nathaniel and Viviane as their own was to me.

  Viviane turned again upon me, and her Face was as white as that of the Chalk Horse itself, or of the Owl she had so very lately been.

  They have Laws, Katherine had said.

  “You have not her real Name,” I said, hoping, as I said it, that ’twas true. “You have it not, even as you have not mine. You cannot curse me, Viviane! You have no Power over either of us! Bat is not yours. You must surrender her. You must let us go.”

  “What!” cried Viviane. “Ha!”

  For an Instant it appeared, and verily I thought, that she should wrap her Gown up into Feathers and fly away again, in Rage. Her black Eyes seemed as if they would burst from her Head, so wide and furious were they, and her Lips became as thin as silver Wires.

  Nathaniel held up an Hand. He glanced in a questioning Manner at the Countenance of his Queen, and then, seeing perhaps therein some Assent: “Wait,” he said. “Have Care, Sir. ’Tis true that my Lady’s Curse cannot touch you. But consider what it must mean to you and yours, to the very Land of which you shall be Lord, if you incur upon your Family seven generations’ Enmity with my People. Also, consider that the Bat is not, and hath neither the Behaviours, nor the Appearance of an Human Child. If you take her into your House, your Servants will panick and your Neighbours will shun you.”

  “Egad,” I said. “They do that already. I do not mind it.”

  Nathaniel shook his Head, in a wondering Fashion. “What a fascinating Being you are,” he said. “An Houre ago you tore open a Man’s Chest because you thought, mistakenly, that he had fathered a Bastard upon your Wife; yet you would take that same Bastard into your Family, and raise it as if it were your own.”

  I glared at him.

  “So,” Viviane said. “So. You will not come, and we will be Enemies. Is that your Decision? Consider your Reply, Caligula, for I have asked three Times and I shall never ask again.”

  But my Mind was tired, and I could not perceive how I might answer otherwise. I was certain that Viviane’s Ignorance of my real Name would somehow protect my Family from her direct Wrath. But Nathaniel was right. If I did not hang, then when my Father died, I would be Squire of Shirelands. I saw it plain: Viviane’s People, and her Followers amidst the Bees and Creatures of the Field and Hill, would no longer buzz and flutter amid the Crops and Trees. Every creeping, crawling, slithering thing, every Snail and gnawing Worm that cankered the Heart or strippt bare the Leaf, would turn against us. Shirelands Estate would starve, and its Tenancy fall victim to as much Disease and Misery as the Inhabitants of St Giles in the Field; whilst I, the Cause of it, would dwell untouched within the four Walls of my Study, studying Medicine to cure Humanity of its Ills whilst Men died for me in Droves; and all the Time being afraid, horribly afraid lest Viviane or any of her Ilk should come a-creeping in, and by some Sorcery learn, at last, my Name. And after seven Generations of such terrible Decay, what Estate, what Humanity, would be left?

  I remembered how I had taken the Blame for Nathaniel in his Father’s apple Orchard.

  “Tristan,” said Nathaniel’s Voice, distant in Memory. “It is possible. It is real. Look thro’.”

  CHAPTER SIX-AND-THIRTY

  Look thro’. Virtue and Vice, Right and Wrong, Life and Death. Verily, it doth seem to us that these things stand opposed, each facing the other across a trackless Void, like Images reflected in a window Pane; but the Truth is that this Seeming is dependent upon the Place in which we, the Watchers, stand. One small Movement upon our Part, one Step to the right or the left, and the Illusion is dispelled. Take but another Step, and then another, and what seemed before in Opposition stands conjoined. One last, and both have ceased to be.

  * * *

  And at last I remembered my Mother; and she was, this Time, neither a Voice in a Poem, nor an Image in the flickering dream-Vision of Infantile Memory, but my real Mother, clear and present and profound as if she had been that Instant in my physical Sight. I remembered her as she had looked, when she had sate before the changing Window, thinly drawn, no longer laughing at the Shaddowes, trying one last Time to capture with her Brush the faint Impression of the fading Light.

  “Come here,” she said. “Come here, Tristan. Look. Do you see? Do you see this Flower? ’Tis a Primrose, Tristan, the earliest little Flower. Dost perceive how delicate are its Petals, how tender its Perfume?”

  “I see a Flower, Mama,” I said, with a Shrug.

  “Whence came the Flower?”

  “Our Lord made it.”

  My Mother put her Arm around me. “Listen,” she said. “Listen well, but tell no one; especially not the Rector Ravenscroft; but do not ever forget. When I was a Girl in Amsterdam, my Uncle Jacob told me of a Man whom he had known in his own Youth. A Man of great Courage, Tristan, who made Lenses, so that People might see thro’; who dared to say, even to write, unspeakable things. And he told my Uncle a great Secret; which is great because it is true; and my Uncle told it me, and I am telling you. This Flower was not made by God, Tristan, because it is Part of God. It is the living Body of our Lord, the very Form of his Name. All things are One.”

  For th’ Atomies of which we grow,

  Are soules, whom no change can invade.

  And then I perceived that betwixt Matter and Spirit there is, truly, no Difference; that the Difficulty we identify regarding Mind and Body, the Impossibility of their Interaction, which seemeth an Interaction betwixt two independent Substances, is a Fallacy arising from our Use of Words: for what we call Matter, and what we call Mind are really two different Properties of the same Substance, which lies at the very Fundament of all Reality. And some even call it God, and some the World, and some Faerieland; and it matters not, for all these, anyway, are Human Terms, mere Words, Names; falsely boundaried and constrained by Human Rationality and Human Conceit, and as such none of them can hope to comprehend the Nature of the thing.

  Matter and Spirit, One; God and Aether, One; Sky and Heaven, One; Heaven and Earth, One; Mind and Body, One; Dream and Conscience, One; Love and Pain, One; Life and Death, seeming opposing Faces in a Mirrour, that one small Step will reveal as merely two Points upon
one continuous Line.

  I looked up at the stoppt Sunne in the East, and I knew that to Viviane and her Kind, seven Generations was as the Blinking of an Eye, and the Differences betwixt Life and Death, Presence and Absence, as meaningless as Human Words. And this was so because of what they were, which was not Mortal, not Human, but Entities timeless and unboundaried as the whole, intelligent, World; like Sylphs, or Ideas, or Dreams.

  “I shall not die,” my Mother said. “I shall become the Soil and the Aire, the Barley and the Green, the brown Wren and the Nightingale. I shall be Part of Ha-Shem, still, even as I am Part of Him now. I shall not die.”

  Whatever happens, I shall not die.

  Leave my Katherine? No. Abandon my Son? No. Betray my Bat? No. Allow Ruin to descend upon my Land, that compasst within it the Body and Soule of my beloved Mother?

  I am the Red Kite. I traverse the high Heavens, and the Whole of my green Valley is in mine Eye. Mine House, my Family, my Meadows, my Woods, my Fields, my Chaffinches, my Chalk, my People; all mine to protect or to destroy, but never to forswear.

  But even as I formed the Image in mine Imagination, some other, half submerged Part of my Mind cried: No! Death might be meaningless, to a dying Woman in search of Comfort, or to a Faerie, or to the Earth itself; but ’tis not so to me!

  I want my mortal Life! I want to see my Son grow up. I want to become a Surgeon, to battle against Death, and control Disease and Pain. I want Katherine, Katherine, Katherine.

  They may hang me, I thought, but—

  “My Lady Viviane,” I said. “Help me, I beg you. I would repay you, if you would allow me Time. You have no Power over me. You can neither Curse nor Compel me. But I mislike much the Idea that mine Heirs and mine Estate must suffer for a Mistake that was mine only. If you will but stay your Hand against my Fields, as I have stayed mine against your Goblin Knight, and permit me to choose the Service I shall render you, then I swear that you shall have it.”