Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter's Tales

by Greer Gilman

  With a blade of barley, awned but empty of its seed, a husk. Margaret turned the book a little toward the fading light, and wrote.

  "The earth may bee divided as the Heavens, into fields. As these, in our demesne of Cloud, call'd Bare Bones, Dearbought, Come by Chance; Cold Hallows, Hanging Crows; Sheer Ash; or Babylon. So likewise do we map the heavens Sphaere, take fallowes of the Element and garths of Law, as these: the Bonny Hind, the Hey (wherein the Nine are bower'd); the Fiddler and his Bitch at heel; the Riddle and the Shears; the Ship.

  "Now Perseis,” said Grevil, turning to the leaf-shadowed lines. “Where first he speaks."

  "O rare Cosmographie—"

  What voice? She saw another's shadow on the book, the leaves blown backward. Nothing. A wind in the ivy, a small bird's plaint.

  "That wee may cry (as doth the Shepheard in the play, that lookt upon the fallen Perseis, amaz'd), O rare Cosmographie, that shar'st the commons of the Night in steads of fyre, stints of Ayr. Of these (for the greater part) their History is a tale of Nothing, mere Obscurity, but for the Cadence of a starre, chance Fyre; yet some be hallows of the Sunne and Moon. That the Heavens are indwelt in Woods, springs, standing Groves was credo to Antiquitie, who raised them Monuments in upright stones: which carols are the starres’ Epitome; the standing houses of the Moone her progresse; Stations of the Sunne.

  "Yet needs the scion of the Light (scilicet) Barleycorn no vaulted Monument. On going to his naked bed, bare ground, his Seed doth hallow it. His Acte is all. Of his Solemnitie is made our winter's Mirth, that Maske wherein hee's headed and doth rise to dance: the Earth his Tyring-house, the Threshing-floor his Inne wherein his tragedie and Jigg is play'd. The Guisers cry him Room. They bear him in the Sheaf, in Effigies; the Old Moon sweeps the way before, and Ashes in her suit of mourning stalks behind. At every Door, they drink his Wassall, of his Bowle, drink down the Sunne..."

  She bent to dip her quill; Grevil, mending his, stared silent at the rain, his knife in hand. A thought, like water into water: troubling, mingling with her soul. Time runs here; he will die of time. And I...?

  The ripples faded out. She wrote.

  "...drink down the Sunne that will them wake: in his remembrance is Oblivion.

  "Wee go not the Sunne's way into shadow, endlesse round to rise; but walk our longways on that paly Road, from earth to Ashes, fallows to the Scythe. We are but Clouds of Earth, instarr'd. The Heavens are indwelt in us: the Sunne that is our marrow, and the scything Moon; the Ship and every wandering Starre. In every Soule is Ashes. In our Nativity is sealed our Death; in every Child his waxe, the Impress of the Sky inlayed: his Lyke Road and his rising, and the journey of his mortall Starre."

  * * * *

  So early dusk. Already now the even of the year, its equipoise: the light ensilvering, the gold ingathered to the barns. And Margaret was late.

  There was harvest on the high moor, hurts and crawcrooks. She'd leave to pick with Doll; but Doll had spied a shepherd lad, and slipped away. A moment, she had said; but when the bush was bare, she'd still not come and Margaret, wearying of idleness, had strayed on to the next. But only this spray and that beauty, barely out of reach; this handful, just to even out the frail. They led her down the far side of the fell. And still with her night-quick eyes she saw new garner in the hedgerows, hips and haws and rowans, sloes and brambles, clustered thick as stars. Hers for the picking, for Barbary's winter gallipots.

  Now she hurried with her laden basket, shifting it from crook of arm to wrist to shoulder, side to side; she culled it to her bluestained breast. Her garner. Her excuse for dawdling, and her offered recompense for ravelled sleeves, bedraggled petticoats, spoilt shoes. But in her haste, she jounced the berries, and they scattered in the trodden way. Were burst. So she went: halting and hurrying; flurried and dallying; belated and beguiled. Astray.

  A moment since, the light lay dazzling aslant a field, pale bright with straw, and climbing to a slate blue sky. They'd counterchanged: the sky was silver pale now and the broad earth shadowed. This was nowhere that she knew: a coign in a crowd of stony fields. She stood.

  Long shadow at her feet. Behind her, on the shoulder of the fell, it still was day, still glowing with the embered sun, white ash; but all the sunken path before her lay in shadow, turning always from her way. She felt the glow of her success and flurry fading in her cheek. Cold now with doubt.

  Field and fallow now to either side. Rooks quarrelling to their blotchy beds. And in the air, a waft of something sweet and melancholy that she had no word for, that was autumn. Overcrowed then by a shrewder whiff of smoke. She turned about. Upwind of her, a whited field. Like rime. But it was white with ashes: they were burning stubble. Scarecrow figures bent with torches to the straw. Before them ran a rake of fire, a swift scrawl, meteoric: a night, a century of nights of starfall at a blaze. In its wake, great plumes of smoke, white grey as heronry; then dying, darkening in braiding rows, like manes. And the horsemen leaping fire, driving it, all grey with ash.

  But the fire only deepened dusk: and there, beyond the fields, was Nine Law, wrongside round. Its haunchbone: in its lap would be Grevil's steading and his hall. They'd not chastised her yet. But then she'd never yet been missed away; was ever snug abed when she was waked. Whipping she could bear, though not before the maids’ disdain; but dread of their displeasure—of Barbary's just reproof and Grevil's fret—still daunted her. Best get it over with. No path. But if she cut across the fields, aslant ... Yes, that was gainest; and here was a stile.

  Lowering her basket to the far side first, she clambered over. She kilted up her petticoats, pinned up a flagging braid; then plunged across the ploughlands, startling a hare. The wraiths of straw that looked so frail, that dithered in the barely wind, bit deep. Sharp stubble and uncertain footing, powdery and plodgy. She'd not gone a furlong, not a quarter of a half, before her shoes were clagged, great formless whelps of clay. As if she grew earthfast, like a standing stone. Or waded to the knee like Ashes, in the dark upwelling from the nightsprings of the earth; as if the fallowed earth bled Law.

  A field, it might be, where an Ashes child was spilled; where he might rise, unsowing from the ground, to dance amid the furrows, with his white hair like a wisp of fire. Nameless—but she'd read his litany in Grevil's book: call'd Bare Bones, Dearbought, Come by Chance ... Like fire, she saw him leaping, stalk to withered stalk, from now to never was to will. So brief a span: green-bladed, bearded in a summer's space ... Cold Hallows, Hanging Crows ... and hoary-headed, doddering, with the sickling of another moon ... Sheer Ash ... His cradle is a scythe, the frost his ashes ... Babylon.

  So brooding unaware, she stumbled on a cairn of stones, half-hidden in the weeds; cried out in falling as her basket spilled. Vexed half to tears, she crouched to gather what she could. Went as still as any hare.

  Cold at her hausebone, a shadow and a reek. A something loured at her back, it rounded her: a stench and sentience that walked. A bonebrown woman, all in rags. She bent among the stubble, scrabbling at the clodded earth, as if she'd lost a ring, a knife among the weeds. A gleaner? But of nothing: there was nothing in her seeking hands. A garnering of dark. Still Margaret crouched and willed her on, away, like sleet or sickness or a dream of Law. But the gleaner turned to her and squatted in the furrows, lifting up her ragged skirts as if she pissed. O nothing. Naught: held open like an old sack in a barn.

  Margaret turned her face; but only to the chaffwhite face, as in a glass, as if the glass had caught her in its stone. The trance in it was hers: the glint in shadow of the eyes, the mouth agape. The hag of hair, earthbrown, ashwhite, as if the fire had overswept her. There were clags in it like mice, like wasps.

  "Moon's put wormwood til her dug,” said Ashes. “And she's barred us out her belly. But I knaw a way. Away.” Her voice had once been beautiful; was ruined, like a knife corroded in its sheath, a clouded mirror cracked. Like grave goods. “For he's to gang and she mun gape for him. I's ride him cockhorse til my mother's tower,
and his cock sall knock her door.” She leaned still closer, whispering. The black had swallowed up her eyes. “They's hanged him halter-sack i't stars, yon Gallowsclapper, but I's cut him down. And snaw's his shroud.” Her hand, outstretched and beckoning, held crawcrooks. “I sall tell him for his pretty eyes."

  "I must go. They wait me."

  But Ashes caught her with clawed hands, held fast: a look of cunning sharpening her face. “My lady's made thee all o glass. I see'd thee scrying o't seven stars up Lawside—aye, and at Lad rising. Gazing on thy back.” A hawking laugh. “There's a pretty worm he gi'ed thee. There's a hook for it to fish. My lady sees."

  No answer.

  "He'll have ta'en a ring. My lady sees to it, she's sworn. He'll dance Daw's jig for me, up horse and hattock! And I's ride him tilt moon."

  "Let me go.” No voice. Her tongue was dry.

  But the hag held fast. She groped with Morag's prying hands. Margaret cringed. The memory of them still was fastened in her flesh like ghostly talons. Blacknailed, blood-ingrained. Her iron rings. “Here's a ring for his lickpot. I’ thy soulbag.” She whispered. “Did it frisk when she kittled thee? Thy granny's craw?"

  Bonechill and black sway. Margaret crouched silent. The hands still were busy. They pulled the child's hand to her own foul body, to her nothingness. “Here's teeth and tongue. They slit it, for to gar it speak.” It touched. “Will I tell thee?"

  No. Margaret wrenched away, fell sprawling backward.

  Straddling, Ashes haled her up and held her face—O blackness, would she kiss her? suck her breath?—between her own cracked hands, as if she drew her from the dark, from drowning in her glass. How cam'st thou by my face?

  The hag unsheathed that ruined voice: true metal if corrupt. It pierced and rang. “Rid Ashes, did thy goslin. For a game. Spurred and spilled. Eight held her down for nine to jig. Turn and turn. T'bright wheel's burning i't air, all swords, and down and down they fall.” Her breath was earthy strong. “But Ashes cursed ‘em, aye, she cursed ‘em all. I did. There's one will dance Daw's jig for thee. And t'fiddler gangs afore. Here's siller for his bow. They's stringed it wi’ his yellow hair. That's one. So pretty, but it come to dust. I's laid him at my breast. No more."

  And still Margaret shrank from her; and still the Ashes held her fast.

  And then the men with fire overswept them, shouting. Rakes and torches in their hands. They caught up Margaret, lifted her away, all unresisting as a sack of corn. They clodded stones and fieldmuck at the Ashes. But she ran not like a pelted beast, but stood and mocked. “I's knowed thee, Hoy Bawdrick, aye, I's knowed yer all. I's stood yer. Cock and eyes.” Flinging back her fell of hair, she ranted like a queen. “It's what I is, is Ashes. Same as earth is earth. An if I tellt yer, I could dwine yer cocks and blind yer eyes. Set cankers in yer marrybones. I knows yer deaths, and all yer crowd o kindred, and yer spawn. And what I tell, it is."

  "Come away,” said a man to Margaret. “Here's not for t'like of yer."

  At the door stood Mistress Barbary, scouring a knife in her apron. Behind her on the dresser lay a limp grey goose. Sukey's nemesis. “Thou's been missed,” she said. Her cool eyes glanced at Margaret's spattered gown, her stained basket. “Fell?"

  Margaret kept her gaze level; yet the world jumped and twitched, as in her glass. “I saw a vixen. I was started."

  "Aye.” Barbary still held her gaze. “Doll's fault, and she's been lessoned; but the next is thine. Fell's not thy study. Thou think on that."

  "I will."

  "Get thee washed. Thy master waits on thee for supper."

  Margaret curtseyed and went.

  On the narrow stair she stopped, unseeing, letting maids with a kist of apples bump and sidle past her, downward. Doll went up with bright red cheeks, a wicker basket at her hip. In the broad bare loft, they were making up the bed, lifting and lofting the sheets. Blind with misery, Margaret slumped into her sideslip room and snecked the door.

  No use. Her walls were breached, wind-haunted. All about, the air was filled with motes and whispers. Ganging til a dance? The crow lad fell like thistledown, he spilled. Pinch-ripe, said Morag, groping as my lady watched. Whore's blood like her dam. A stark bare woman writhed and cursed beneath a crowd of men, a spill of bloody froth across her belly. ... til a dance? Again, and over and again, he fell and twisted in a storm of crows. Wryneck and agape. Black tongue. ... a dance? His slow feet turned, to northnorthwest, northwest. Pike out his eyen, cried her corbies. Now my lady held a card: the Vixen, burning like a leaf. She cast it down in embers on the floor, and bending, smutched the ash on Margaret, there. Grey ash, white belly, tuft of red ... Thy secrets, said a dead voice, whispering. Thea? Ah, but changed: insinuating, coarse. A hanged lad's thine only cockhorse. In among the fallows, Ashes fleered and beckoned, lifting up her skirts.

  Sisters?

  And they called to her, Come down. But one was Barbary.

  "Anon."

  Behind her dazed eyes, glimmering, she saw a sea of stars; she longed to plunge in it, to wash away the prying hands, the voices. Water? Jug. She spilled it, pouring out. She scrubbed herself: but could not wash the Ashes from her soul.

  * * * *

  Still uncertain in his new guise—cropped head, stiff breeches, swordlet—Noll watched the new maid Barbary weigh out her leaves of violet, a white stone worth. A book lay open on the table beside her, though she couldn't read. He'd asked. An old important book with latches, fat and floppy as a toad. He liked its croaking invocations. Rx drachm ix. That would be a king of dragons, curled about his gold. Barbary was old as Annot—a chit, so his nurse said, but Imp Jinny's kindred; she'd studied arts. Could draw bee stings; spell coins where teeth were laid; could lick sharp specks from under eyelids with her cool and clever tongue.

  "What is't?"

  "A cordial.” Just so. “For thy father."

  Of rose leaves, borage, bugloss, each a double fist; a flake of gold; a coin's weight each of ambergris and hart's horn. Frowning now, she tipped a little more. The scales swung, steadied.

  It was Madam who had buckled him. His father saw him not through tears. But she said only, “Mind now: thou art man enough to birch.” It was daughters that she wanted.

  "Barbary?"

  "Aye?"

  "Did my mammy die because my sister was a boy?"

  "No.” Even. “Her tale was ended, is all; she's in Unleaving. Ashes tellt her there."

  And Annot? Why did she not wait for him, until he had his sword? He could have gone with her. Barbary unstopped a phial, measured out a knife's point of powder that was mortal. Viper's heart. How far is Babylon? And could he follow? Did he dare?

  "Could I walk there, Unleaving?"

  "Thou'd want company.” Brisk now, with the mortar and pestle. “T'world's an ill place, out o doors.” Slowing, as she thought. “And inward too. There's woods in beds.” Noll saw his mother, lying empty. “'Tis all thicketry. But that's why Ashes. See, her tales is clews. They lead us out."

  A silence. “Did—did Madam burn Annot's ashings?"

  Now she turned. “Who tellt thee that?"

  "Mab. And Ailie.” As if a sting were in his heart that swelled it, clenching on its pain; but if she drew it, he would bleed to death. Her cool hand on his shoulder. He clutched it. “They said—said that she was whored. And he that was to marry her, he raged and ranted, and he changed her to a vixen fox and hunted her—” No voice. “They said her bones are in the wood."

  "Choughs.” So hard, the balance swung and jittered. “Rattleboxes. Thou never mind their viperish tongues, their heads is empty."

  "But is't true?"

  "Ashes knows.” She stood against the light, cool north, but yellowed with the fall; the stillroom filled with it like wine. “Imp Jinny says we's Ashes all, we tell each other's lives. And some nobbut botches at it. Snips and cheats."

  With the corner of her apron—clean this morning, so it smelt of wind—she wiped his eyes. “Thy tale of Annot is thine own."

  H
e nodded. So she's gotten a fine sword and a cap and feather, and she's wandering in the light o leaves. What way? But Tom o Cloud comes to her, and he shows her the moon's road...?

  "Now then. Take yon book and read me what's to do."

  The table was bare of work. Grevil walked his compass up and down it, broodingly. On sentry in a no man's land. “So, Mistress?"

  Margaret laid her glass before him, curtseyed and drew back. She had no will in her to flout him or dissemble; Ashes thrilled like venom in her blood.

  "Is this thy device?

  She dared not trust her voice. A nod. An eyebrow? “Sir, it is."

  "And thy key?"

  She laid it down.

  "Is't all?"

  "It is."

  Grevil twisted it about from end to end; peered wrongways down it at his far-withdrawing window. “How—? Ah. ‘Tis passing curious. I would at leisure talk with thee upon the working of it and its artifice.” He set it down most carefully. “But there is graver matter toward. Thou hast been seen—” She stared him down. “Myself has seen thee walk abroad of nights, agaze with this—this instrument? this optic?"

  "Starglass.” It felt like a betrayal but to name it.

  "Every night?"

  "When it is clear."

  "Has any met with thee?"

  "No one,” Margaret could say truthfully. The lad was none.

  An outbreath of relief. “Thanks be. I had feared—” And he was terrified: she saw it in his dark-drowned eyes. He stilled his hands. “There are wolfish men abroad, a gang of witches. Huntsmen of the late abroad. There have been—tales."