Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter's Tales

by Greer Gilman

  Broadlapped, Barbary sat shelling peas; they rattled in her bowl. The door stood open to the green and rain. She sang:

  How can I come down,

  in the dead of the night,

  When there's no candle burning

  nor fire to give light?

  A pod of green sisters, a push with her thumb. Another shale. Out in the wet grass, under the apple trees, Doll chased the sidling ducks, crying, “Dilly, dilly, come and be killed."

  There's smocks in your coffer

  as white as a swan;

  Light down the stair, lady,

  by the shining of one...

  From her bed, Margaret drew the moon down through her glass, as round as a drum-head. Tabor to her pipe.

  * * * *

  A toy. Her glass was nothing here, thought Margaret: a swift horse hobbled that would run, a falcon seeled and mewed. Through her casement she could see but the skirts of heaven, draggled through the hills. And all above, unseen, the mystery and the wheel of heaven. Time's mill turning in the river of the Road. She must get out to it, beneath the naked sky. Must see.

  But how? Not through the hall, past the slumbrous dogs, that at a step would rouse and hackle, rising stiff-necked from their bones. But go she must. Bent meekly to her master's book, or working under Barbary's eye, she brooded on her ways and means: with her stripped quill wrote ciphers of her flight; wound wool and longings in a single clew; weighed salt and stars equivocally. She made her wavering stitches with a double thread, of linen and desire, a piercing and a pull the knot did stay.

  Window? Here the mullions were too closely barred; and there, the sills too high; from that other casement, she might drop, but never scrabble up again. She needs must come and go; and not be missed. No tower here to climb. Why had they no towers, when they had such skies? But at the foot of her winding stair, beside it in the wainscot, was a narrow door, a sort of stillroom cupboard, and at back of that, a doorway, giving on the orchard. Locked of course. Her key from my lady's tower would not fit; she looked with covetise on Barbary's ring. She missed a clear night; and another, anguishing.

  Then on a grey wet afternoon, no hope of going out, by day or night—cloud muffled her chagrin—she set aside her hopeless needlework to climb her winding stair. No comfort in her narrow lodge, nor in the high chamber. Cold hearth, stripped bed, a dwindling store of withered apples: all familiar now. She blew upon the quarried glass; traced patterns in her fading breath. Pinched lavender and balm and borage for the scents. Turned back then with a winter pearmain in her hand.

  Now atop the great cupboard, pushed under the eaves, she saw a small chest, like a workbox. Climbing on the chair, she hauled it forward, got it down. Then kneeling in among the lumber in the apple loft, she wiped the dust from it, put back the lid. Folded linen. Nothing strange in that. A needle still in it, half bright, still tethered to its trail of jetty silk: unfinished work. She shook it out, and turned it over in her lap. A smock. So nearly done: it wanted but a sleeve. It was broidered all with rainbows, arched from cloud to weeping cloud, as she had seen them now; but all in black on white. A sort of book, she thought. A spell? She puzzled at it. After tempest, see, I come and go. That much she could read. Snails, butterflies. I carry my house with me; and, I light where I will. Flowers, but she knew not what they meant. Urchins. Shan't. And in the empty room, she smiled. A ship—the Ship—for it was masted with a branching tree, and leafed with stars. Unleaving.

  For a space she sat and wondered, with the journey in her lap. Then lifted out the inlay with its skeins of silk, its thimble, silver-gilt, and its pillow of pins. Under that, another inlay with some pretty toys of horn and ivory, silver and delf—charms from a yearcake, had she known. A wad of paper, which unfolded was a ballad sheet: a woodcut of a ranting girl in cap and feather, sword a-swash. No more. Yet something shifted, rattled. With her nail, she lifted out a panel, shrunk with time. A key.

  And Barbary called up to her, to bring her wardens from the loft.

  * * * *

  Ghosted to the shoulder in a fog of flour, Barbary thumped and flicked her rolling pin; she pinched her coffins round. She glanced up at Margaret, wavering on the sill. “All this while for pears? Thou's walked til Babylon and back.” Beckoning, the mistress turned them in the frail and pinched. “Sleepy. But will serve.” Margaret, turning, tethered to her key and glass, was on nettles to be gone, but Barbary stayed her. “Wait on, and I'll look thy stitches ower. I's just hearing Suke her tally.” She turned to the child at the window, knitting.

  "Twelve winds, eleven trees, ten sleepers. Say me what nine is."

  Sukey puzzled at her wool. “Please you. This heel's all amux."

  Ellender, trip-trapping to the dairy, said “It's cloven."

  And Cat, “Is't for goats?"

  "Monkeys. Same as in thy glass,” said Barbary. “Let be.” And to Sukey, “Thou's counting, sitha. Look. And let thy fingers mind.” Down fell the parings, and she pricked and pranked the pies. Leaves, lattices, a running wheel of hares. “And nine?"

  "Nine's for't nine Sisters in a kist o sky."

  "Aye, and eight?"

  "I could say you three."

  "No doubt."

  Her needles in a dreadful knot. “Eight ... eight's Brock's keys and locks. Seven's for t'rainbow? No, seven's th’ Ship."

  "Thou minds what they sing at Elding?"

  "Oh, I mind me. An it's songs, I remember.” And she sang in her small voice, like dew on a cobweb, clearer than her clouded self: “The sail's o th’ siller, the mast's o th’ tree..."

  "I's get thee a fiddle to thy school, and thou shall dance thy gramarye. And six?"

  "Six for a Swordknot,” called Wick Billy from his corner. “And down falls t'Sun."

  "Good,” said Barbary. “Say me what five is."

  He rubbed his nose, all smutched with silver tarnish. “Pies?"

  "Nay,” said Sukey, pink with assertion. “Five's for't Wanderers. Within and out, and roundabout, and cross t'River twice. And four's—no, twelve were t'winds—four's for't Gallantry where Summer is hanged. And three's for his Fiddlestrings, and t'stars in his Bow."

  "Good. Margaret?"

  Startled, she could make no tale but, “Madam, I was not so taught."

  "No?” said Barbary. “They's strange ways i’ Babylon.” She unstopped the oven, raked the embers out. “So then. Twa's for't Ravens that bear our souls away."

  A chain of stones that broke in running, whirled and scattered on the steps. Elsewhere. A hail of souls.

  "And twa's for't Witches that came hither from hence, and bound my lady Moon to't wheel. Set winter turning."

  Bound? Was that in Grevil's books? And hence and hither, never was and now, changed places in her head. Turned inward outward like a glove. It giddied her.

  Lifting up her peel of tarts, all gilded with egg, Barbary slid it into glowering dark. “And twa's Leapfire and Lightfast, that's ever at odds, t'ane and t'other, for't mastery o't year. Winter get Summer, and Sun against Sun.” She sealed the oven door. “But light and dark is one Moon. And her daughter's Ashes."

  * * * *

  "Five for the wandering stars,” said Grevil. “So I heard it from my nurse.” He thought a moment, smiled, and spoke.

  At eve, the keeper of the day,

  Bright Perseis, at morn;

  At noon, the leaper in the hay,

  Great Hulver with his throng;

  By moon, the reaper in the corn

  To sheave us all, Old Slae;

  Too soon, the gleaner in his swath,

  Will reave, Red Morag in her wrath;

  And sleighting Brock who picks all locks,

  And thieves them clean away.

  "Well enough,” said Margaret. “But they come not in a row, like Jack-a-clocks; but foot it in and out, like country dancers. Cross and cross.” Still gazing inward at her sky, that would be outward—O but soon, but even by the morrow. If the door unlocked. There was a glory in her, toward an end: an arrowing.
The key hung next her body like the Swan down-diving on the Lyke Road. And the dance was in her, all ablaze. All the conjugations of the planets swift as language, swift as song: a carolling. Now rising, now retiring, at morn, at eve; swift, still; dim, dazzling; before, behind, and turnabout. Now here and nowhere. Tumbling in the sky. She laughed within, as if the key unlocked her. But bending to her page, she spoke most soberly. “They do vanish from the sky at whiles—at random, it doth seem; but never from the dance."

  "Do they so?” He tried his pen. “I know them but by chance regard. O look, ‘tis Hulver. See, he rises back of Arket's byre. And, Sets, another saith.” He looked not at the room but elsewhere, at a sunlit garden, faraway. “We played a masque of planets at the university, before the lord of Perran Uthnoe and all his kin. ‘Twas for his wedding there to Lune, his eldest daughter."

  "Were you Hulver?"

  Grevil laughed. “Nay. Hulver had a leg; and much ado to get his lines. Our master striped him well for it. Yet he did leap—ah, thou hast never seen it bravelier. And sang like all the stars at morning.” On the lawn, the shadows fell. “He was Cloudish, of great family. There was hope of him; but on his going hence to keep his term—as I did not—his ship was lost.” He scratched a pattern in his margin, like a knot of hedges.

  Margaret knew not what to say. “Is't written? I would read that play."

  "'Tis in the elder tongue—but there now, thou art learned.” Now he looked at her, all at once shy and challenging. A mischief in his face. “I made the verses.” Scratching, scratching. “In a sort, the play did garner praise: ‘twas thought satyrical by those who slept through it.” He'd drawn a little cloud of asterisks. “I enacted Talith, of the Nine: for whom I'd writ a colloquy.” And now a creature in the maze, goat-footed. “Then to rouse the sleeping fellows from their after dinner, comes an antimasque, a dance of woodwos; and so enters Perseis, pursued by Slae: as in the tales."

  "Are there tales? Of planets? Of the Nine?"

  "Many.” Grevil gestured at the heaps of paper, spattering ink. “Hast thou not seen them? In this very book?” He looked about at the disorder. “So. In time, thou wilt, if we untangle. Of the boy who took Journeyman's boat to go a-fishing in, and caught his father's soul. Of Perseis, of course, that was the youngest of the Nine, earthfallen..."

  "Is she not?” said Margaret. “Still a star?"

  * * * *

  All in gold and violet, his starry cloak flung back, bright Hulver waits his cue. Stands tiptoe, all the stars a-tremble in his crown. On wires, so they nod his deity. His staff is tipped with light. On stage, the great astronomer, the greybeard, owl-eyed, has piped his invocation to the planets. See now the Players’ Lamp, Ox-Turning Journeyman who mocks the nighted traveller ... Noll Talith holds the book unopened, mouthing word for word. His own and meaningless. How strange that his delight in scribbling should have lit so many candles, branch on branch. The bursar has unlocked his hoard: the ends to go to poor deserving scholars. In the hall, it is dizzying: a blaze and roar, a fire fed on words. In this brilliant artificial night, the astronomer lies down, composing his woolgathered beard, to dream. But here in the withdrawing room, their Law, the real are half shadows: a confusion of stars and satyrs. On the table lie the shepherd's weeds the god will borrow of Tom o Cloud, his broad hat and his budget full of stars. A comet's tail of hair adorns the statue of a long-dead scholar. Wigless Perseis, her train of silver-gold tucked up to flaunt her kidskin thighs, her suit of nakedness, is dicing with the satyrs; Slae, a shy lad, paces, muttering his entrance; Morag, sticky-fingered with nimmed sweetmeats, has ado to tie her beak. Three of the Nine are playing mumble-de-peg; one reads, oblivious; four cuff and bicker like a huske of hares. And Master Wilton goes among them, finicking, exhorting, pinning up. Seemly, seemly, you goddesses. And, Mark the caesura, Master Slae. But to Hulver, he says only: Thy dance is deity. O'erleap the night.

  The viols and the hautboys ravel out their braided music. Hulver coils himself to leap. And at the threshold of the stage, a star falls, chiming, from his crown. Noll runs to pick it up, to pluck his sleeve. Too late. The sackbuts call him. He ascends.

  * * * *

  Far in the night, Margaret crept down the winding stair, and tried her key in the orchard door. It fit; and with attending to the lock—an owl feather oiled, from her bundle of pens—it turned.

  She dared not, yet she must. The glass was in her skirts.

  Softly now, she slipped the latch, stepped out among the inky trees. She stood a breath, dissolving in the sound of the river and the scent of green; slipped into it, as water into water, night in night. And ring on broadening ring, she felt the pupils of her soul enlarge. Still stood, attuning to the wider dark. No cell, but shadow to the far horizon. From beyond, there blew a little wind that set the wood astir, that shook the watery leaves. They spattered down on her, small drops of rain. Waked circles to the shore of night. Greywhite on grey, she saw the rabbit on the lawn that stilled and shivered, twitched and stilled; she saw the trembling of the grass. The boles of trees were paler than their leafage, ghosted by the waning moon. A wraithlike blue, limned in lichens, and the burden of the mossblack leaves. An owl belated spoke. So bounteous a dark. When she was brimmed with it, so that a drop would overspill her silence, she looked up.

  A star.

  One only in the rifted cloud, adrift before the moon; and blotted ere she raised her glass. But there, a dappling of stars, swift-clouded by the shifting heavens. Round she turned. And there and there, a glint of sky, like glimpses of a body in a ragged smock, a shoulder fire-moled, a blue-dark breast. Like islands in the rush of tide, still drowning in the rack. Silently, she called on them, O stay. And heedless ran after, through the gate with its stone boys, round the drowsy manor to the upward road. No thought, no longing but to see the open sky, away from the hulk of chimneys and the crowding trees.

  Irresistibly, she was drawn to the hilltop and the ring of stones. There the sky would come round again, she half-believed. Envisioned: as a lantern that doth make a world about it, or a silver glass that she had seen in Law that drew a ship from a swirl of colors, as a wick draws fire out of puddled oil. It was the focus. Round it all the riddled heavens would be drawn together in their perfectness, still turning in their wheel of fire.

  So she ran, but only to the turning in the hedge, the stile; and there she halted, and she sleeved her face. Looked down at her plashed petticoats, her bare legs striped with grass. Looked up again. No use. The hill was steeper than her onset, and the dark too fleeting for her ardor. Already there were voices in the leaves, a charm and bickering, an endless even plaint. The night was in half mourning, turning back the veil of cypress from its brow. No tint of morning yet—unless in shadows were a ghost of green?

  But see-saw, see-saw in the hedgerow, like the hinges of the rusty sun—dull vaunt of day—a cuckoo sang its mock.

  * * * *

  They were all at breakfast in a flood of sunlight. From the doorway, she was dazzled. “Thou's late abed,” said Mistress Barbary.

  "Cry you mercy,” said Margaret, curtseying. “I slept ill."

  "Aye, ‘twas a feather in her bed,” said Cat. A smirk and elbowing, all round the board. Wick Billy sucked his spoon and goggled.

  "Didsta now?” A long considering look.

  "Indeed but scantly.” Not at all. She'd slipped through the wainscot door as the house was stirring; made frantic rough amendments to her draggled clothes. She dared not drop her eyes; but Barbary's, she thought, missed nothing in the searching light: the stiff-dried petticoat, the damp shoes, rudely scraped.

  "Happen thou wants physicking. Thou's have a dish o mugworts to thy supper."

  The maids wried their faces. Margaret dipped her submission.

  "Come, break thy fast. Quick now. Here's all to do."

  Barbary turned to the others. They rose to her nod, in a flurry of napkins. “Day."

  Margaret sat, and cooled her cheeks with a long draught of buttermilk. Her porridge
was stiff in the bowl.

  Barbary was already up and clattering; called over her shoulder. “T'master's rid out til Summerlaw; but thou's weary o thy book, I's warrant."

  Seeing Margaret's dismay, the maids overcrowed her.

  "Here's out o thy book,” said Cat.

  "Nay, there's moonshine i't almanac,” said Doll.

  "At turn o't moon will be our shearing,” said Nan, lordly. “And Hob Hurchin's to pipe."

  Ellender smiled. “And Tam Sledger's to dance wi’ Is Oddin. All night."

  Nan tossed her head. “He may please himsel. And what he's brewed, may drink."

  "Clip ale,” cried Doll. “'Twere brewed this Hallows past. And cakes."

  "And delicates,” said cat-sleek Ellender. “Dowsets. Curds and cream."

  "Thy tongue's to turn it,” said glowering Nan. “Thy face would posset milk."

  Doll galloped on. “Twelve hundred's to be sheared, says Tom. Then fall to dance."

  "Last year I's etten nine cheesecakes,” said Wick Billy, unstopping his spoon.

  "And were sick on thy long-coats,” said Cat. “Thou pollywog."

  Sukey, clearing dishes, looked up at Barbary. “An't please you, mistress, will Marget be t'lady at feast?"

  "What, yon gowk's egg?” said Cat, “Is she to queen it?"

  "What's she?” said Barbary. “Kit Crowd's mother?"

  "Madam Mim there. Margery Daw."

  "And why not?” said Barbary. “'Tis not a part that begs discernment.” Secure in her ministry, though a cloud of May-fly ladyships should fleet away, she unlocked the spice cupboard. Nutmeg and ginger, saffron, pepper and cloves. A spar of sugar.

  "Who is't then? Tell us.” A nest of gaping beaks about her. “Have ye choosed?"

  "Nan's eldest,” said Barbary. A toss of the head. “But Cat Clapperdish is boldest.” A caper and a clap. “Doll's bonniest, and likest to a gimmer-lamb.” A squeak. “Nell's nimblest—aye, she'd keep her shoes fair in a sheep-dub, an she trod upon another's loaf. And Suke—"

  "Nay, I couldn't.” Twisting her apron.

  "Suke's our piper's daughter and may call his tune."

  And she set them all to work.