Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter's Tales

by Greer Gilman

  But thou art mazed, sweet fool. The wood is dark,

  And I th’ moon's daughter in these rags of cloud

  Shall bear thee light.

  Another world. I dreamed not of greenwood nor of crowns of May; nor thought on bread, sweat, childbed. Only I would not be Thea, and my lady's cipher. So I saw my chance: a bird in hand, a passager; an occultation of the Nine. I took.

  Poor Kit. Wood with love of me. He mourned his fiddle; I do rue it now. His soul and livelihood and all. And yet he had of me a greater thing, unwitting. Not my maidenhead. Whatever ballads tell, ‘tis nothing, anyone's. An O. That which annihilates all else. No, Margaret: the game is toyish, but the stakes are souls. My love, we ate each other back and belly, and the heartstrings: which are music, which are gut.

  Ah, now the candle gutters. I am leaping; I am shroud and smoke.

  I snuff.

  * * * *

  "Here,” said the traveller. She stooped and they followed through a thicket of ice. The candle woke in it a flittering of lights; it chimed and rattled as they passed beneath it. “Rimes,” said Thea, half aloud to Kit. “Glass castle,” he whispered. “Did I not say?” Before them was a tumble of stones: hall fallen into hovel; a sill and dark within. At the door, the traveller stamped the clods from her boots. She set the lantern down; the fire made room. She turned in the doorway and said, “Walk in, awd Moon."

  Kit caught her rime, though not her meaning. “Wi’ broom afore, to sweep the ashes from the door,” he said, as if they came a-souling at the empty house. He plucked at Thea's sleeve. “Go on, love, ‘tis thy piece."

  She turned her small moon's face on him. “Will there be oranges?"

  "Thy lapful."

  "I know not the words."

  So Kit chanted, “Cold by the door and my candle burns low, so please let us in, for it's shrewd in the snow.” He bent and bustled all around her with his broom of air; so they went in.

  "Here's guising,” said the traveller. “A sword and a bush."

  Kit answered lightly. “So it ever was."

  "Then let's to yer bout and have done wi’ it. Smick smack, and up flies wren."

  Thea lifted her face, bright with mischief. “Ah, but you must hear us out; you've bid us in. You must hear Moon's verses, since she's crossed your door."

  The traveller looked them up and down: the tousled lad, all beak and bones; the girl in outlandish clothing, with her hair like braided fire. “Out o thy turning. If thou's Moon."

  "Out of thy sphere, if thou'rt fire."

  "Out of my depth,” said Kit. “As I am drowned."

  They clapped themselves and shivered. Dry within. No straw nor muck; but hay and heather, cut and heaped. Kit turned to and helped the stranger drag some branches to the hearth. It was bare enough, that ruin: a hovel for the lambing shepherds or the lasses binding broom. Kit whispered to Thea, “As for cakes and silver, we may bite old moon."

  The traveller lit a fire with a stump of juniper. It burned with a sharp smoke, curling; then was firestruck, its every needle cast in gold, consuming. By its light, they studied her, a little smutchfaced woman, dark and watchful, in a coat of black sheepskins, singed and stained about the hem with ashes and blood. She wore grey breeches and a leathern cap. Her hair was unbound about her shoulders, roughly shorn across her brows; a few strands plaited narrowly with iron charms. She crouched by the fire and stirred it with her knife. “My forge is drowned,” she said. The bough had fallen all to flinders, and the berries glowered in the ashes. “Get yer warm,” she said, and quirked her chin at them. Then she stood and rummaged in her jangling pack, and went out.

  They looked at one another, huddling by the fire. All the spanglings of the ice, their winter finery, had faded. There they sat in draggled clothes, ungarlanded, unwed. Bare strangers. By the wall where the bed had stood, a timeworn carving showed: a woman with a pair of shears, but what she sheared was gone. “I feel like a ghost,” said Kit.

  "How? Shadowy? Thou'rt blood and breath."

  "Uncanny on this ground. And you?"

  "No dwelling spirit. They do haunt; they have a bloodknot to this earth. A tale. And mine is all before me, all unmoored."

  "An elfin, then."

  "A waif. A soul unborn, and calling on the wind. Their tale is nothing: only, they are cold without, and would come in."

  "I'd let them in,” said Kit, “And warm them.” White and shivering, her wisp of spirit. And a glass between their souls. He longed to take her in his arms: so small and cold and straight, so quick of mind. A candle and its light, he thought. And then: the fire was his. To have the daughter of so great a lady run away with him—'twas beyond all marvels. And a flawless maid. A dazzlement. A goblin in him danced, exulting; knocked at his breeches. Ranted on his grave. He knelt. “Thea. If thou wouldst—"

  "Hush,” said Thea, as they heard the traveller's goatshod step. They sprang apart, a little awkwardly. The fire had flushed them, that was all; the wind had tousled them. The traveller walked softly toward them, and turned to Thea with a cup.

  "Here's to thy turning."

  "With my heart,” said Thea, with answering gravity. She took it in her hands and drank. “Oh,” she said, and turned to Kit. “Do they not say in Cloud, hallows wi’ thee?"

  "And wi’ thee,” he said, and drank. It was milk, still warm. “Ah,” said Kit, bemused. “Your lambs drop early, shepherd."

  "Twa and twa,” the traveller said. “T'ane black and t'other white.” She drank. “And all me ewes give cheeses turn themsels."

  "Cup and all?” said Thea.

  The traveller smiled at her, small and sharp. “At tree, it were. They'll have left it for Ashes."

  "Oh,” said Kit. “I see.” Though he did not.

  But Thea, pinning up a braid, said, “Ashes?"

  "Shepherds. They do wake her from her mother dark."

  "Ah, Perseis. I know that tale."

  "It's what I do,” said the traveller. “Walk out and see."

  Kit caught at straws. “You're late abroad."

  "Been hunting craws. To mek a soulcake on."

  "But where are your dogs?” said Thea.

  "Whistled home.” She unhooked an aleskin from her pack, and teemed it out in a stoup. She pulled her knife from the fire, glowing, and she plunged it in the ale. “Ye'll be starved,” she said. “Walking."

  "Wanting bread,” said Kit. “If you can spare."

  "As for that.” The traveller undid a rag and a knot and a clump of heather, and held out her scarred brown hand.

  Kit saw a handful of stones, black scrawled with white, white scribbled over with a sort of wintry runes, like stars and their ascendants, prophecies of light. “I know this tale,” said Kit. “You'll be wanting a bit of salt next. For the soup."

  "What thou will,” the traveller said. She chose a stone and thirled it with a pin and blew: a whorl of sun, widening, muddled with the ale.

  "Eggs,” he said, bewildered.

  "Aye,” said she, and tossed the shell away and broke another and another still, and stirred the pot. She teemed the ewe's milk in.

  Kit raked through the embers for the few flawed shales of night. White, like the moon in flinders. Black, with a sleave of stars. Were they owl eggs, then? Or nightingales? “It's eating music,” he said ruefully.

  "O breve,” said Thea. “Do they so in Cloud?"

  "With bacon. Do we not in Lune?"

  The traveller stirred the caudle round, with a race of ginger, knuckled like a witch's hand, a slurry of coarse sugar and a scrape of nutmeg. A pinch to the fire; it sparkled. “Wha said they'd hatch birds? Wha said they'd sing?"

  "In Law,” said Thea, “they do not."

  So grave? Kit glanced at her, and pulled a fool's face, innocent. “They say the Lunish witches eat owl pies."

  "Crack bones and craunch marrow, aye,” said Thea. Fire and shadow on her face. “But of late they've grown dainty and will nothing coarse: venture on a junket of maidenheads—"

  "Ah,
that slips down,” said Kit.

  "—with a boy for a bergamot."

  The traveller dipped her finger, tasted. “Aye, but seek as they will, their cupboard's bare. They may beg for't."

  "They've sails,” said Thea. In the silence, they heard the wind rise from the north and west, from Law.

  "I's keeled for them,” the traveller said. They looked at her, and at the eggshells, all shivered on the ground but one that whorled about the ale, and sank. “There's all their shallops."

  "Will they follow so?” said Thea softly.

  "But if their sails are souls, and all their riggins of thy hair."

  "'Twas never cut,” said Thea.

  "Ah,” the traveller said. “Reach to.” They passed the caudle round and drank in silence. From her pack, the traveller shared out a bannock, spread with curds and new sweet cream. As round as the moon it was, and a little charred beneath. Ah, thought Kit, here's some hob goes supperless, and all the kitchen in a cludder with his sulking on't. He gazed at Thea, silent by the hearth. Her eyes were elsewhere.

  Slowly, she unwound her scarf, unclouding heaven. Ah, but she was crescent, she was moonrise, even at the verge of dawn—O hallows—even to the rose.

  But not for him, this glory. Bending toward the traveller, she held the scarf: a light silk woven of the sky, it seemed. He'd thought of it as grey, but it was shining, warped with silver like an April morning. Rain and bow. She laid it in the outstretched hands. Kit watching saw it fall on them, and thought their earthgrained furrows would spring green.

  "For thy spell,” she said. “A sail."

  The traveller looked slantwise through her rough dark hair, her long black eyes unglittering. “A soul.” It shifted in her hands, turned silver and a flowing dark, like cloud before the moon. And cleared then to a moonless dark. The stars ran through it still like rain. “Well, I's a rag on every bush, they say.” She wafted it and caught it crumpled, bunched it in her pack all anyhow. “It's cawd without, thou knaws."

  Thea said, “It would not keep me warm."

  "It's thy petticoats are musty. Do them off."

  "For thy breeches,” Thea said. Kit looked at her, her bare throat white as thorn, her face alight. Her breasts—buds in January, whiter than its snow. No lad. She stood and paced, as he had seen her by the whiteskied windows of her mother's tower. Of darkest blue, her eyes, the night in which her fires burned. She turned on the traveller, fierce and cold. “Or thy cap or anything, thy hammer and thy sooty brat, so my mother would not see me in her glass."

  "Break t'glass."

  "It will not break, the moon. It goes with child unflawed, and of itself. And being full, itself devours, lighter of the dark. It gazes and it gnaws. I want to get back of it."

  Kit looked at Thea, like the heavens’ cold bright bow; and saw the dark that bent, that held her. There were walls he could not see.

  The traveller held her gaze. “There is a door, they say."

  "Then I would out of it."

  He saw her fury; though her hair was braided close, she blazed as whitely as a falling star. He felt his spirit rise to her. Arrow to her bow. “Love, let me in."

  She turned to him. “Crack the glass and I will."

  It was his heart that cracked; but like an acorn, that the oak might spring.

  He slipped the ring from his finger. “Thea. Love,” he said. “With my heart, ‘tis what I have.” His mother's ring of tawdry silver, black with years. A riddling posy.

  Thea turned it round and read. "Lief wode I fall, an light wode spring. Or this way, look: I fall and light: would spring leafwood." Round again: "Anne Lightwode: spring leaf. Would I fall?" She looked to him and smiled; she slipped it on her finger.

  O the falling star. ‘Twas in his hands.

  The traveller, watching as she would a play, took out her bacca and her bit of black pipe. “Key's under bush,” she said. “Look well to yer locks."

  And still Kit stood amazed.

  "As for yer guising.” The traveller undid her pack, and pulled from it a heap of leaves; she shook it out and there were sleeves to it, and dangling buttons made of horn. It was a coat in tatters. “Craws weren't having it,” she said. “What's ta'en is anyone's."

  "Is there a hat to it?” said Kit, recovering.

  "And feather,” said the traveller. She swung the coat round Thea's shoulders. It hung to her heels.

  Kit grinned. “Ah. Wilt thou go for a ranting girl?"

  "Aye, and bid them stand,” the traveller said.

  "Here's purses full,” said Kit.

  "I'll nothing but thy ring,” said Thea, whirling round on him. “Or will it come to swordplay?"

  "Wouldst kill me naked?"

  "And would die beside thee."

  He reeled her in. “And then I rise."

  "Oh,” said Thea. “'Tis my part. And I am of out it."

  "So I am in,” said Kit, and caught her by the coattail, laughing. “Turns,” he said; so she let him try it on. He flaunted in it, up and down. He looked all mischief, with his leafish face. And in the flaycraw's voice, the fool's, he said, “I'll riddle thee. What leaves and still it stands?"

  "A tree,” said Thea. “Turns?"

  The traveller shrugged. “For either, as it likes you. And if she's a lad, I's shears."

  Thea rounded on her. “Where?"

  "No,” cried Kit, dismayed. “I beg thee. Not thy hair.” He'd not yet seen it down, not played with it undone. It would unravel like a fugue. He thought of all the braided strands of it, the bright and somber and the burning strands, the viol and clarion. “And yet...” His token glinting on her hand: he dared. “I'd have a lock of it, sweet witch, for journey's sake."

  "In knots, as witches sell the wind?"

  "Aye, knotted: for undone ‘twould quicken stone."

  A parry and no promise: “Thou wouldst thaw my lady's glass?"

  "Like April snow. And all thy combs would flower, leafless, from the wood, and make of thy undoing, crowns of May.” A tendril, like a wisp of fire, twining by her cheek: he traced it, marvelling. So cold, so bright and cold.

  Not fencing now: the blade itself: “Wouldst braid thy gallows? Wear it?"

  "Nearer than my breath. I'll knot my soul in it.” It burned in him already, bright in every vein: a tree. He took her in his arms. “And being strung upon my bones, ‘twill play the same tune still, for sun and moon, and all the starry hey to dance."

  Her lips were colder than the moon's, and soft. He felt him falling in a drift of snow, bedazzled, over ears. Her lap, he thought, she lulls them in her lap. Moon and stars. He saw the burning bush. He saw the bird of her, flown up amid her branches—that he could not take. He shook himself, remembering the traveller's eyes, and shrugged the greatcoat off. “I'll go no more a-guising. ‘Tis the fiddler's turn to dance."

  "To pipe and drum,” the traveller said.

  Thea and the traveller took the coat between them, lofting it and laying it upon the springing heather, so it made a bed. They stood at head and foot of it, as in the figure of a dance; the traveller spoke.

  "What thou gets here, thou mun leave betimes."

  "I must bear it,” Thea said.

  "And will."

  "Undone and done."

  The traveller crouched and tweaked a corner of the coat aside, tucked something in, and rose. “What is ta'en here, cracks t'glass. What is tinder s'll be ash. Go lighter of it, intil dark.” She flung a pair of shears on the makeshift bed. They lay there open, like a striding stork. She turned and gathered up her pack. “I's off."

  They saw her go. They lay together on the coat, of leaves as deep as hallows. After a time, unspeaking, they undid her hair, and went into another night.

  * * * *

  O the dark. Thou hear'st not, Margaret. I will tell this to the darkness.

  I would not be Thea: so I did, undid. The thing of naught. Ablaze and all unhallowed in that night, I cracked the glass. Blasphemed my lady, that was Annis. That was all myself. Of my own will
, I overset her holiest of laws; I broke her will of me, her mirror and her chain. Set Cloud for Law, and darkness for her glass. Blood in the stone's place, the place of secrets. Rose for thorn.

  * * * *

  The traveller came to the stones. They stood looking out on darkness, on the bare white shoulder of the fell. That knowe is Law. The sky was starless; yet they mirrored in their O that constellation called Nine Weaving or the Clasp. The wintry mantle they had pinned was gone. Softly, she went in and out among them with her dying torch. All doors are hers; but these stood open. There was no one where the girl had been. The torch went out. The traveller turned among the empty stones, toward morning, sunwise.

  Ah! cried Brock. She saw the falling star, now, nowhere, in the wintry sky. Her seeing sained it. Wheeling round, she dropped the black end of the besom to the earth, ashes on the frost. She snuffed the wind. It was rising, high above the earth. The sky had flawed with stars, with scarves and spanglings of light. Her eyes were good; she told the eight stars in the Nine, and one beside. It danced with them. The ashes told its name.

  Beyond her lay the long bare fells, rimewhite, unwhitening. Through patches of the fading snow there pierced a greener white of snowdrops, that do spring in Ashes’ wake. Her flowers. Drops of Milk, the country folk do call them, Ashes’ Buds. They bring the light with them returning, rising from her mother's dark: all seely innocence. Yet they are death to pluck; and yet they must be gathered, woven for her crown by earthly hands. By Ashes. Not herself, but in her stead: a lass each winter who must wear the burden of her name, her silence, walking in her sleep. That godhead lights on whom she chooses: Ashes for her sake, her shadow, souling in a coat of skin. Her winter's lyke.

  As Brock walked on, she passed a windbare thicket leaning all one way, and saw the curled green shoots of bracken, green amid the scrawl of last year's leaves; she saw the tassels of the oak unbraiding. Saw the selving wood. A hare loped by her, giddy with the moon; she slung no stone at it. It danced in a dizzy spiral. At last she came to where the Clew was caught, like sheep's wool, in the branches of a leafless thorn. Nearer to the earth there hung a garland and a tattered coat, cast by. And at its roots, asleep in winter's lap, there lay a greenwhite girl. Brock bent and sained her, touching eyes, mouth, heart with ashes. Until the dawn she watched by the sleeping girl.