Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter's Tales

by Greer Gilman

  "Stay,” said Grevil. “A word with you."

  He turned, as if he were a card: that face all mystery and malice; this, the lord of high estate, all arrogance. Master-Mistress. “If brief. I have business elsewhere."

  "That boy they call the crow lad: he is sorely bruised, beyond all measure of chastisement."

  "What care is it of thine?"

  "That care I take of any creature on my land, that it be not abused. He—"

  "What he? It is an Ashes brat. There's game in it, no more."

  Grevil drew a breath, but his voice shook. He was losing. “For shame. The boy is kinless; but is of your kind."

  "For all I know, he's of my getting.” The witchmaster shrugged. “Leave thy fence, Noll Grevil; I know thy care in this. Thou coyst him and he cozens thee; but he is mine.” A flicker of the card. “Of earth and of my mystery, and at my will. As thy vixen is thine."

  "What vixen is that?” Lost utterly.

  "That nameless maudlin thou hast taken to thy bed—Aye, hand to hilt, thou'll not kill earth with iron—"

  Mad. But as a dog is, killing with his mouth.

  Sheer, smiling enmity. “Aye, she. Noll's fey. Now there's a liking I'd not guessed in thee. Whence came this tooth for cunny? Or dost thou use her as a boy?"

  "Crows eat thee,” said Grevil. “And thy lying tongue. And all thy slanders. These are tales of naught."

  "Tales? Are they not thy mastery? Here's law before thy books were made: what's masterless is held in common. Haws in every hedge. But I tell thee: I will give thee thy crow lad for a turn if thou wilt barter. Boy for girl."

  To Grevil's shame, his impulse was to flail at him—scratch out that smiling face. A womanish, a weeping fury. Futile. As good score adamant, outstare the sun. When he had mastery of his hands and voice, he said, “Go, play thy vilest fantasies: but on thyself. The girl is innocent; the boy is neither mine nor thine, but hath his will. I do not take.” He looked now at the mask of flesh, the face of ivory. Was there a crack? Was there a difference? Nothing in the eyes. “And even nameless, they have souls."

  "Do they?” Suddenly the witch's face was mischievous. “Does thy crow lad? I do wonder where he keeps it hid.” And whistling up his dark hounds, tall as thunderheads, he strode away.

  * * * *

  Getting crawcrooks on the moor for Barbary, Margaret heard a low-breathed whistling in the heather, changing to a stormcock's angry rattle, rising, and the white-haired boy fell in with her. Said little, circling back and back to her, and to and fro, like one of Hulver's moons. But he showed her where the owl had built, the feathers and the bones; and where the imbers grew, blood-ripe, miraculous: at once whole and hollow. Pierced. She set them on each finger's end. He dug where he had left a merlin buried in an ant-heap, skull and body in their perfectness, want-polished, white as elfshot. Each his own garner.

  By and by, they came among grey trees, an orchard run to wild. Thrawn trees, flawed apples, windfall in the tangled grass. Thick as stars. The wood below. Margaret knelt to scry it, sorting through the heaps. Sitting back on her heels, she cradled—heft and sweetness—sniffed, and bit. Sharp-sour, leaping in the mouth. The crow lad, stooping for his share, said, “Here's bonny."

  Leaves in her lap. All round, the bare green hills, cloud-mantled; water, wind. Behind her in the orchard, scarved in mist, knee-deep in tangle, lay a low-browed cottage. Asleep. No eyes in it. “Whose...?"

  "Awd lass.” He knelt in the deep grass, tearing hanks of it. “Gi'ed me bread, times."

  "Is she dead?"

  He shrugged.

  The house empty. “None came here?"

  "Witch."

  An apple fell; birds cried. He was weaving grass between his hands. A bauble turned and rounded, bristling. Too green: it flagged. “Tellt me stars. What she called t'wood above."

  "Stars like mine?"

  "Thou stocking bur. Aye, stars like thine, that light mooncalves to mischief.” He tossed the bauble to the wind. “Thou's another such teasel as yon twitch-rake. Scritch scratch like a pair of wool-combs. Thou braids of her, awd Jin."

  A glint on gossamer. Up and upward into air. She traced it with a crawcrooked finger, dreamily. Blue hands. Far off, a sheep bell clanked.

  "Witch?"

  Hands flung heavenward, he toppled backward in the knobbly grass. “Aye, witch.” He lay looking upward through the leaves. Through his backturned hand, as if the faint sun dazzled him. “She were Ashes."

  Kneeling up, he felt amid his rags and tatters for a twisted rag of pouch; undid the string. Raddle and ashes. He smudged a fingertip, and on a stone he dabbed a swift scant pattern: a glyph of stars she knew. The Witches.

  "What she tellt me."

  He sat back on his heels, the stone between his hands.

  "Once afore t'moon were round, there were sisters, Craws Annis and Mall Moonwise. And they span t'moon atween ‘em, turn and turn on ae spindle, light and dark. Ae thread. And ilka clew they span a month; and ilka twelve and one, a year."

  "What did they spin?” said Margaret.

  "For Nine to weave, thou windegg. Yarn."

  "But of what?"

  An inchworm silence, blunting at air.

  "Shorn lateworms?” she said.

  "Snick up, I's telling thee.” But his mouth quirked; then statelier, he said:

  "But Annis, she were high and proud. Thowt ower much on her white hands: so she span no more. And that were Year at far end. She thowt much on her glass. Fair as frost, she thowt hersel. So she's rived her shadow frae hersel, and bound it in an iron brooch, and hid it, lock and key, i’ kist. And that were Night fast. And she thowt as Sun would get new shadow on her, so she's cut him down wi’ her sickle, sleeping. And she's ground him in her quernstones and she's boiled him in her pot. Tongue and teeth it has, atween her legs. And that were Day drunk up. And she band her sister in a bush o Thorn. And that were Moon lost. And t'Stars she fastened in her glass."

  "Not now,” said Margaret.

  Another silence, needle sharp.

  "Lang syne,” he said. “So it were Lightfast evermore, for ay and O."

  "And then?"

  "Twa witches come out o't Otherwhere, fire and frost"—he touched the stone, two fingers to the brighter stars—"and swore that Annis should be bound."

  Chin on knees, she was gazing at him. “And?"

  He tossed the stone away. “They did."

  "Did the sky crack?"

  "Aye. Riddled down like rain. Like hailstones. It were stars til t'eaves."

  "And the year turned?"

  "Like a whirligig."

  "And—” She could not say it. Annis?

  Greendark beneath the branches now. The crow lad sees another dusk beyond it, dawning, and the shadow of the crows. A cornfield. Now he shakes with cold and clacks his rattle, and the cold mist eats his cry. He is hoarse with shouting, but he must. Craws! Annis crouches in the hedgerow, waiting; if a crow lights, she will pounce and tear him with her iron nails, and hang his tatters from the thorn.

  He leaned to Margaret, whispering, “Eats children."

  * * * *

  White morning, like a new leaf, all unwritten. Silver on the lawn by sunrise. Gossamers. An edge of gilding on the trees.

  Autumnal, Margaret thought.

  They'd taken up their scattered work: a heap of Grevil's notes, unthreshed, on flyleaves, foolscap, scrawled in margins, lay before her, interleaved. Her quire of pages, squared and sorted, weighted with a pebble, to her hand. She tried her pen and mended it.

  Across the table from her, Grevil stood and read a folded sheet, cross-written, with a haws-red broken seal. Not work. He wore his coat, but no bands; he'd been seeing to the threshers in the great barn, in and out. Let them glean who want, he'd said: 'tis garnered. I'll not stint. All beyond the trees and rising to the stones of the fellsides, the clouds’ edge of the sky, there lay shorn fields, unmantled of their summer dignity. He looked out on them. Pale straw a-prickle through the bare brown earth. White-hea
ded. Back and shoulder for the stroking. Like a cropped lad's neck, he thought, and stirred. The nape a-shiver to the hand.

  Margaret drew a little Ship. Autumnal. And a new word, Hallows. She could taste the curve and edge of it, the quickening: the great stars rising and the whirl of leaves. A larger night laid bare. Unleaving. She forefelt it even in her spirit's marrow, great with dark.

  A stir and shaking in the orchard leaves, but no bird's voice: Doll asway in the treetops called down to Nan below her, with her apron full of pears.

  "Half ripe,” called Nan. “There's better higher up."

  Bending to her paper, Margaret wrote:

  At Lightfast is the Sun in Ashes; for the which oure Learned Wives do say that she is great with Time. But the lewder Sorte will haue it, that Hee dyes in her, and rises in her Lappe.

  "Do thou tent thee and I's toss.” The shaking of the boughs and scrabbling, the plump of fruit.

  "O a wasp!” cried Nan.

  "But the one, I hope,” said Grevil, leaning outward. “I have had them smoked, but the windfalls draw them. How they dote."

  Another margin.

  They will let the Sunne no stay in Law, though in sooth it lies a Twelve-Night in that House: they say the Guisers call not at that doore. I have heard oure countrey Fellows tell that Law is Ashes’ Bagge, wherein the Soules of all the Dead are gather'd, Coyne untold. Some others name it not; or else, the Riddles that are endlesse Falling or her Cauldron that is fulle of Bones; or in the Lunish tongue (a Traveller at Stallbrigg once), her Virgin crants or Garlande; by the impious, her thing of Naught.

  The Scythe...?

  Turning from the open window, Grevil said, “Of what age are you?"

  "Sir?"

  Looking up, she saw a swirl and settling of birds, like ashes, on the bristling field. A shovelful of cinder-crows. Three gleaners moved aslant the furrows. Slowly, stooping as they scried and harvested. A straw, another straw, to swell the meagre bundle in the hand.

  "I know not. Not fourteen, I think."

  "Thou gravity.” He folded up the letter in his hand. “And of what name? What birth? Will you not swear that you were such a one—Joan's Jin of Askrigg, that was stolen from her cradle while her mother keeled the pot, or daughter of the king of Lune?"

  "I am Margaret still. As still I rose. And of no house but this, and at your will: I sojourn here.” She saw, as though between her hands, my lady's toy, her spheres: the sun of amber sliding round and round the felly of the year; the moonstone twiring backward through the turn and topple of the stars; the planets in and out, threadneedle, through the starry hey. Time is where.

  "I see. You are planetary."

  All the branches now bore girls. He glanced again, as if distracted, at the green. “My father had those trees engrafted. Luning on an older stock, and all the sweeter for the imping out.” Distracted still. He picked up, set down the pebble on a heap of papers. “As thou knowest, I am childless. Makeless. And mine aunt—” Stone, paper, knife. “Well, there are lands. There is a name. And she—I tell this ill.” Knife, paper. “This world is unkindly. My name and privilege do ward me from the worst of cruelties, but thou art bare. Beyond these walls, beyond my tutelage, thou wouldst be shelterless from harm.” Paper, stone. “I would not see thee slighted at my death. Cast out.” Now he looked at her. “So then, Margaret of Nowhere, Margaret Perseis, I would name you as a foster-daughter, as my ward. As Grevil."

  As if she'd fallen from the Ship: no up nor down, no earth, no anywhere. No breath. The rush of fires in the dark. “Sir, I—"

  "Margaret?"

  No answer. What she saw was wing on wing of nightmare stooping on the house: her mother's mother and her bloodnailed servant. They would snatch her from its ruins.

  Softly now. “But I have spoken all too suddenly. I see I have amazed thee."

  "But ... your aunt?"

  His mouth wried. “I have told to her my will. She likes not the alliance.” Paper, knife. “But liking must be servant to the law. I can draw such papers that she may not break. Aye, and seal them.” He twisted round his massy ring. “This is Grevil's will.” Now—only now—he touched her, lifting up her chin. “The land is given: that I cannot change. But I would leave to thee my books."

  No words.

  "And you? What is your will?"

  "I dare not dream of such felicity. If—"

  "And if?"

  A silence and the stir of branches. “Nothing. Only I would go on working."

  "Enough now. The page is dry. We will parley.” He sighed. “Get you to the kitchen, hence. They'll want you garnering when Doll hath broke her crown."

  * * * *

  Owlset. The Ladle sunken to the rim in stars, like a tin scoop thrust in grain. The Scythe sunk deeper still, but barely embers in the grass. Nine rising. Starring out like thorn.

  "Fiddler?” said Margaret. “Fool?"

  A shifting in the dark beside her. “Mmm?” His mouth full of stubble goose.

  "Thy guising on the Road. What stars?"

  He sprawled back in the heather. “See, they's hunting yon Wren.” With gnawed wing in hand he traced the sprawl of them across the sky. “There's poor awd Hobby Horse ‘at's welted ower on his back. There's Room where they rime."

  The great square of the Threshing Floor.

  "And Wren's Cage, sitha, brave wi’ ribands, and t'Awd Wren hanged."

  That whorl of light unspun: she knew it in my lady's Chain. The Clasp.

  "Yon's Fool wi’ his Knot o Swords. Tabor at his knee. He's one o't heroes. And there's a kemping atween ‘em, Leapfire and Lightfast. Sun and his son. Stark battle wi’ bright swords. Thwick thwack! And t'Awd Year tumbles down.” He flourished with the bone. “And Fiddler's lagged. He's lantered, see, i't Thornbush. They go tumbling round and roundt sky, drunk as owls. And they never catch Wren, and he's catched long since."

  "Wren?"

  "Aye, well, he's setting there. Aback o Noll's barn."

  Margaret called to mind the airy card. A bird in a thornbush. “Why do they hunt?"

  "So year is."

  For a space they were silent, gazing up at the sky. Giddying. At last the crow lad said, “What d'ye call Fiddler then?"

  "The Hanged Man,” said Margaret.

  Wind in the heather.

  He sat up. “Thy folk'll be lating thee."

  "Not here."

  "Oh aye. Thou's waiting on thy rade to fetch thee under. Bridles and all."

  "And back of him, about the Gallows Tree—? Not Witches. Crows,” she said. “To pick his bones. They quarrel for his eyes. And there—” Westering. “There's another, swooping down with his soul."

  "Fiddler,” he said, and hurled his goosewing in the heather. “Thou blindworm. Up there's t'Crowd o Bone that he's lost at a wager. And he's seeking it ont Lyke Road. They stringed it wi’ her hair.” His voice shook: whether out of fear or triumph, in the dark she could not tell.

  She'd not ask. But, “Ashes?"

  "Aye, they clipped her for a whore.” Rolling to his knees, he pointed. “Yonder on her back, aspraddle. Allt Road atween her legs."

  "No,” said Margaret.

  "Seed full and sack open. Threshed."

  "No."

  "Aye, and her belly roaring full o flesh. Big wi’ Sun's brat. Or any."

  "No.” She looked where Ashes lay, light-stranded at the verge of Law, the Lyke Road streaming backward like a braid of hair unbound. Her Ring, unseen, beneath her. That way the Hallows tide had borne her, to that darkward shore. Time's shipwrack. Going naked into dark. “No, they took her. Under Law. My lady's ... her servants. The Light Horseman. And her Brach."

  "There's none such stars."

  "Beyond that hill,” she said uncertainly. “They would have set. The Hunstman and Hound?"

  "Flittin round thy head, more like. Hawk and Handsaw."

  "The Swift?"

  "Oh aye. And t'Whirlygig. Doll's Dawcock.” Here and there, at airy random. “All that nest o maggots i’ thy mawky brai
n, thou windegg."

  She sat brooding her knees. “And the Hare?"

  "Atween thy legs. Thou fond."

  "It would be rising,” she said. “I've seen it rising. And the Tower.” They were in her pack. She'd dealt them out a thousand times. And in that Tower, in its maze, within its hedge of iron thorn. Beyond that sea. The strangeness of their absence shook her: not her knowing but her sense. As if ascending on a stair she felt a falling. All of these were cards my lady took from her, and all were void: their patterns faded out of memory, their tales burnt out. As if they'd never been. And yet the cancelled stars could still be reckoned in her glass, be counted yet untold. “I could show thee. I'd tell."

  He laughed. “There's nonesoever i’ this earth has see'd yon stars; but thou has. Digged for them, thou sky-mole. Under Law."

  "'Tis where they go; and some do rise again.” Her finger traced the fell. “There's Ashes’ Ring beneath yon hill. Her soul. They took it of her at the gate—"

  "Thou witch.” A whisper: but it touched her secrecies. “Uncanny's what thou is."

  Colder now, a small wind shivering the heath. “As they will—"

  Silence. Even as she spoke, she saw his riddle, rhymed him with a lost card of her pack. ” ... a star thou's not spied." And she'd given it to burn. A harvest field, a hailstorm threatening; a reaper bending to a Sheaf that was a boy of barleycorn, white-headed like himself. And in his outflung hand, a star. Called Leapfire. She knew it for the seedcorn of the sun renewed. Against the stormdark sky, white crows were rising. Seven. And the brashest carried off a something shining in its beak. Seven for a secret never to be told.

  The card was burning in my lady's hand; the ashes fluttered to the floor. Thy choosing, Madam. It will make a game. Margaret got up. “You can have the cake, I don't want it."

  * * * *

  The flower between the leaves was faded, pale as the moon by day. The imprint of it lay across the page, faint shadow on the faded ink: ” ... as Childgrove, which is death to fell..."

  "Her book?” said Margaret. A play of Perseis, outworn with reading. In a margin in a brave small hand, much flourished: Annot Fell.

  "For epigraph.” The fled girl's nephew sighed and smiled, remembering. “It was the first I read that set me thinking on the metaphysics, on the stories of the sky on earth.” (The shepherd Damasin arose and drew her bodkin, crying out, Avaunt ye! Hags of night! And Noll in his black petticoats, a hatchling crow, assailed her fiercely, shrieking out declensions in the old tongue, till she turned him upside down. They tumbled on the floor.) “Above all else ‘twas marvellous: there was a star danced in a wood, Unleaving, that did take a shepherd for her love.” He pulled his heap of notes toward her. “From here,” said Grevil. “Where ‘tis marked."