Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter's Tales Read online

  "A pretty toy,” the beggar said. “An ape had worn it in his cap."

  Whin turned it; she ran her thumb round the edge. Earth bleared it. There was gravedust on her hands; she dared not wipe them. She kept her voice light. There are witches on the walk, between times. If you meet them, you must parry. “Here's thieving. Does they wake when yer come and go?"

  "They keep no dogs,” said the beggar. “And they sleep. This?” Between her hands was a scarf like an April sky, warped with silver. It was cloud and iris, changing. It was earthstained, like the sky in water in a road, a rut. She drew it through and through her hands. A soul.

  "Here's a fairing,” said Whin, and shivered.

  "Aye, then,” said the beggar. “There's a many lads and lasses gangs to't hiring at that fair, cross river, and they bring twa pennies til their fee.” Her voice grew deeper. “'Here's fasten penny,’ they says. And mistress til them, ‘Can tha reap? And can tha shear?'” Her fingers found the wafted scarf; they snatched it from the air. “And then they's shorn."

  Whin watched it fluttering. The scarf had changed, like brown leaves caught in ice. “That's not on every bush. Was never a hue and cry when you—?"

  "Cut strings? Wha said I did?” Her fingers brushed, ah, lightly, at Whin's neck, where the gold scarf flaunted, like a rag of dawn.

  Whin flinched, but flung her chin up. “I's a fancy to't drum."

  "I's keeping that,” said the beggar. “For't guising."

  "Did yer gang wi’ them? Guisers?"

  "I were Ashes."

  "Ah,” said Whin.

  The child in the heather clapped its hands, it crowed. At its jangling, the small birds rose and called. Whin looked sidelong at it, smiling through her rings. “And you getten yer apron full. Here's catching of hares."

  The beggar twitched its string. “I'd liefer gang lighter."

  "Cold courting at Lightfast. Find a barn?"

  "Back of Law, it were, and none to hear us. It were midnight and past, and still, but for t'vixens crying out on t'fell. On clicketing, they were, and shrieked as if their blood ran green. But for t'guisers ramping. See, they'd waked at every door, they'd drank wren's death. And went to piss its health at wall. ‘Up flies cock robin,’ says one, ‘and down wren'; and another, ‘Bones to't bitches.’ ‘And what'll we give to't blind?’ says third, and scrawns at fiddle. ‘Here's straw,’ they said. ‘And threshed enough,’ said I. But they'd a mind to dance, they'd swords. D'ye think brat's like its father sake? Is't Sun? Or has it Owler's face, all ashes? Hurchin's neb? Think it one of Jack Daw's get?"

  "Nine on one?” said Whin, furious.

  The stone-eyed beggar shrugged.

  "Dogs."

  "Boy and all,” said the beggar. “They set him on.” Thrub thrub went the fingers on the little drum and stopped the windless pipe. They pattered. “Happen not his brat. Nor old man's nowther. Cockfallen, he were.” She leaned toward Whin's silence, secret, smiling with her wry gapped mouth. Her eyes were changeless. “But I marked ‘em, aye, I marked ‘em all.” She drew a braid of hair from underneath her cap, undid the knot with swift sure fingers. Moving on the wind, the tress was silver, black and silver. It was wind, as full of blackness as the northwind is of snow. “There,” she said. In her fingers was an earring, gold, with a dangling stone, a bloodred stone. “D'ye know its make?"

  Whin sat. Her hands were knotted, rimed with rings. False, said her heart's blood. False. The black hair stirred and stirred, so much of it, like shadow. The beggar leaned toward her silence, with her scarred white throat. “Is't torn, his ear?” She flipped the earring, nimbly as a juggler, tumbling it and sliding it on and off each finger, up and down. “What will you give for't?"

  The child's white hair was dazzling in her eyes, like snow, like whirling snow. Whin turned her face. “It's common enough.” But the needles of the light had pierced her; she was caught and wound in hinting threads.

  The beggar palmed it, pulled it from the air. “And which of nine?” she said, her white face small amid her hair. “There was one never slept that night, nor waked after. Drowned,” she said. “Wast thine? They found him in Ash Beck. They knowed him by his yellow hair, rayed out i't ice. Craws picked him, clean as stars. Or will. Or what tha will. Wouldst barley for a death?"

  Her fingers pattered on the drum. “That's one. And which is thine? There's one he s'll take ship and burn. He s'll blaze i't rigging, d'ye see him fall? And ever after falling, so tha'lt see him when tha close thine eyes. That's one.

  "And one s'll dance ont gallows, rant on air. Is't thine? His eyes to feed ravens, his rags to flay crows. D'ye see them rising? Brats clod stones. And sitha, there's a hedgebird wi’ a bellyful of him. And not his eyes. She stands by t'gallows. D'ye see her railing? That's one.

  "And one s'll be turned a hare and hunted, dogs will crack his bones. There's a pipe of his thighbone and a drum of his fell. And tha s'll play it for his ghost to dance. And there's a candle of his tallow, for to light thee to bed. With such a one, or none, or what tha will. That's one. And which is thine?” She leaned closer. “D'ye take it? Is it done?"

  Whin said nothing, caught in rime.

  "Is't done?” said the beggar, chanting.

  "And if it's done?"

  Whin's fingers found the knot of the child's leash; undid it stealthily.

  "Is't done?"

  "Undone and all to do,” cried Whin, springing up.

  The whitehaired child had slipped his lead; he whirled and jangled as he ran. His hair was flakes of light. He whirled unheeding on the moor. And childlike fell away from him, like clouds before the moon, the moon a hare, the hare a child. He lowped and whirled and ranted. Whin caught him; he was light, and turning in her blood to sun. She bore it. By its light, she saw the beggar's shadow, like a raven on the rimy earth, that hopped and jerked a shining in its neb, a glass. A thief! the raven cried. Whin stood, as if the cry had caught her, in the whirring of the light like wings, a storm of wings; held fast. The child was burning in her hands, becoming and becoming fire. And she herself was changing. She was stone; within her, seed on seed of crystal rimed, refracted. She was nightfall, with a keel of moon, and branching into stars. She was wood and rooted; from her branches sprang the light, the misselchild. In that shining she was eyes of leaves, and saw her old love's blood, like holly, on the snow.

  The child in the embers crowed, A thief!

  And at his cry, Whin turned and ran, but still she held him fast. Behind her, the white-eyed woman shrank and whirred; the raven in her quillied out and rose, black-nebbed and bearded, with a woman's breasts. The waters of the beck leapt white. Amid the raven's storm of hair, its face, a congeries of faces, gaped for blood. Whitebrowed and ironbeaked; but its body was a woman's, cold and perfect to the fork: that too was beaked and gaping. It was shadow, casting none. Its very breath unhallowed.

  Sun. The raven cried to its rising, “She's stolen my milk!” as Whin leapt the blackrocked foaming river. Cried and withered, like a flake of ash, and all its eyes went out.

  The moor was sticks and ashes; frost and fire.

  Whin held a heap of embers in her hands. They sang with dying, fell and faded into ashes. They were cold. She dared not spill them. With a shrug of her sleeve, she wiped her eyes, glittering with soot and tears.

  The sun had risen. Whin turned from it and turned. White. A mist, a hag wreathed round and round her, cloud cold as Law. Beyond her, by the tree, she saw a white moor and a standing stone, unshaped. An iron crown was on it, driven deep with iron tangs, and rusting. There were nailholes where the eyes should be. The tree was silver, bowed beneath a shining weight of ice, in rattling shackles of glass. They cracked and glittered, falling. As she turned away, Whin saw a girl unbending from the tree, a knee as rough as bark; or nothing, wind among the rags.

  And as she looked, the frost was flowering, the tree was white with bloom.

  * * * *

  The Thief

  At the moorsend guisers came, in rags, in
ashes, garlanded with green. They wore their coats clapped hindside fore; and a man in petticoats swept round them with a broom. A thief! A thief! they called, and clodded earth at the ravenstone. Craw's hanged, they cried. They paid no heed of Whin. A boy set garlands, rakish, on its crown. A girl in green tatters stooped for the beggar's blackshod stick, flung down; she strode it and she cantered, flourishing her whip. Moonbent and moledark, Hurchin tried his bagpipe, with a melancholy wheeze and yowl and buzzing, like a cat among wasps. Ragtag and bagpipe, they ranted and crowed.

  There was one among them, in and out, unseen: a smutchfaced little figure, dark and watchful, with a heavy jangling pack. A traveller by kindred: breeched and beardless, swart and badgerly of shoulders. By its small harsh voice, a woman, so Whin guessed. And dressed as Ashes in the guisers’ play. She wore grey breeches and a leathern cap, a coat of black sheepskins, singed and stained about the cuffs with ashes and with blood. Her hair was shorn across the brows and braided narrowly with iron charms. The hag had grizzled it; a hand undid the years.

  "Hallows wi’ thee,” said Brock, nodding.

  "And with ye,” said Whin. What river had she leapt?

  "Crawes Brig,” the traveller said, and crossed to meet Whin at the beckside, stone to stone. Sifting through the flinders in Whin's hands, she found a something, round and tarnished; thumbed it to a gleam. A coin. She spun it round. The one side was obliterate—an outworn face, a bird?—on the other was a rayed thing, like a little star or sun. “That'll pay for't dance,” said Brock, and smiled, small and sharp as the new moon. She took a bag of craneskin from her sleeve, and held it open for the ashes. There were coins in it and bones; she drew it tight. “Undone,” she said. “And all to do."

  Whin bared her throat, undid her scarf and jacket to the heart; she bowed her head beneath the cord. She saw at heart a shadow of the deepless water and the pale boat riding, shrouded with her soul. Brock hung the soulbag at her throat; she marked Whin's face with ash.

  Whin gazed at her. “It's your coat Ashes wears."

  "Aye,” said Brock. “It's lent for travelling. Way's cold in but thy bones."

  Whin said, “It's bonny on this earth, this morn; I'd linger."

  And Brock said, “D'ye think it's dead alone as dance?"

  Whin said, “I saw yon lady's scarf, her soul; she will not dance."

  "Will she not?” A wind in the quickthorn shook the silver on the trees. Whin saw a grove of girls, of sisters, woven in their dancing, scarved in light. A hey as white as hag. Nine Weaving. “She dances now,” said Brock. “She's rising into dawn, and rooted; she is walking from her mother's dark, toward winter, ripening until t'moon reaps her and she lies i’ dark. Plum and stone. And she'll gang heavy til she's light."

  "What's she?” But Whin had seen her in the glass, and barefoot in the shards of glass.

  "Left hand til her mother's right, white's black. Not waning but t'childing moon. Unwitch, unmaiden and unwise. Her mother's sister and her make. Thysel."

  "Her mother?” Whin did not name Annis.

  "Aye, t'awd witch got her in her glass. And keeps her.” Brock looked sidelong at the stone, the hill. Whin saw it, through and through, as black as sky. It was a woman sleeping, with the hooked moon at her heart, and stars and gatherings of stars within her side. She was the fell they stood upon, her hair unwreathing in a coil of cloud.

  "How—?"

  "She quickens wi’ herself,” said Brock. “She's moon, and mews her daughter in her dark. But I's keys to all locks, and I come and go. When's time, I s'll call on witch and steal her daughter to't dance. Will yer gang wi’ me?"

  Whin said, “I were Ashes."

  "Ah,” said Brock.

  The scarf was in Whin's ashy hands; she ran it through and through a ring. “It were guising at Lightfast, and he'd bright long hair. Outlandish. I were fifteen, so I went down moor with him. I never see'd his face."

  "So yer gotten a bairn?"

  "Me mam and her gran—they'd've ta'en him and slain him. For an Ashes child. And sown his blood wi’ t'corn. And they'd bind me til them, sleep and waking, while I's light of him. And whored me after. I left him under ragthorn.” The scarf was knotted. “And I prayed no craws'd come, nor foxes. But I never stayed. I never turned til home. I's walking since."

  Brock's eyes were shadowed in her hair. “And what d'ye think? Here's a woman weeping and she laps her child i't shroud; she lulls her fondling on her knee. Her nails are brocken, for she's graved it with her hands. Her milk is sore. And here's an old crone wailing, that she cannot comfort them. It's winter, and her loom is bare. And here's a fondbegotten brat, and nowther clout nor cladding til his arse. Tom Cloud. And thorn's his lap. And here's a vixen and her seven cubs; she dances like a flake of fire, crying, Blood!There's a many tales. And which is his?"

  Whin said, “I'd want him well and growed."

  "And thysel?"

  "Away,” said Whin. “I'd not be ended in a tale."

  Brock tilted her face; the small cold iron clinked and jangled. “And here's a lad roved out wi’ guisers—"

  "No,” said Whin, struck cold.

  "And which?” said Brock. “And when? It's done, and long since done, and all to do."

  Whin rubbed her hands against her breeches, crumpling the stormy scarf; the ash was pale against her clothes. Her blood was branching ice. And which is thine? the beggar said, herself met barefoot on the road. What child was sacrifice? And who had laid her down? “He's not—He's—"

  "What moon makes of him."

  Whin looked where the white tree shone. “And yet she dances."

  "In her turn, and with him, in her turn. She bears him in her lap."

  "I'd set her free."

  "It's guisers turn all tales, and wake her to't dance. There's never endings. Will tha play for us?"

  "A while,” said Whin.

  The rout came onward, fluttering with strips of rags. They shook a knot of bloody ribbons in her face. She knew them all by part. That broad-faced shepherd with the crown of horn. The old man with the bundled swords, the stripling with his pipe and drum. Those ranting lads. The Fool. The Awd Moon, with his petticoats and broom. Herself, with the box of coins, the bag of ashes. And the lad with bright unravelled hair. He bore a pole, with a cage of thorns, ungarlanded; the crow within it swung, down-dangled by a leg, its wings clapped open, and its beak agape and stark. Whin took her scarf and tore it, waif by waif, and hung the cage with rags of sun.

  Aside and smiling, then she saw the white-haired fiddler raise his bow. Brock held the silver to him, beckoning Jack Daw; she called the tune.

  And there began the wheedling of a little pipe, a small drum's thud.

  * * * *

  The Guisers

  They come like hoarfrost and are gone. In their packs are dreams, lies, memories: the old moon's spectacles; a bunch of rusty keys; a baby's rattle like a wooden wren; spindles and whorls; blunt shears; a half burnt doll; a tangle of bright silks, bent nails; a tallow candle and a knife; a crowd of bone. It sings its old plaint in an outland tongue. They strung it with her hair. Or there are gold rings, chaffered at the door, for nothing, for a gnarl of ginger and a rime; cast shoes of leather. The lady left them, walking into song. ‘Twas they who put the grey hawk's feather in her bed. And there's a shirt, a little slashed, once fine, but stained with hanging. They had it from his back. His eyes went to the crows; his bones dance.

  If they come as guisers, you must let them in: the slouched one with her bag of ashes; the patched one with his broom of thorn. They bring the sun.

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  two: a crowd of bone

  Margaret, do you see the leaves? They flutter, falling. See, they light about you, red and yellow. I am spelling this in leaves. When I had eyes and hands, and hair as red as leaves, I was Thea. My mother fed me to her crows, she burned my bones and scattered them; my braided hair she keeps. I am wind and memory who spells this; Thea who is spelled is stone. My mother got me gazing
in her glass. Her raven held it up and told her: what I tell you, you must do. Undo, the sly moon said. And so she did, undid. Annis was herself her glass, and I her shadow, A and O. She saw me in the stony mirror, naked as a branch of thorn. Devouring, she bore me, as the old moon bears the new, itself again. But I am left hand to her right: not waning, but the childing moon. The dark has eaten me; I bear it light. I cloak myself in leaves, I fly. The wind unspells this.

  I will spell this in the sliding water on a web. At my birth, the Necklace had its rising, Annis’ chain of stones. But they do give it other names above, that Elsewhere it had set. The Skein, they call it in the Cloudish tongue; in Lune, the Misselbough; that cloud of stars we name the Clasp, they call Nine Weaving, or the Clew. So I did write when I had hands and learned to cipher and to spell. When I had eyes, I saw another heavens through her glass, another world. I walk there now and gather lightwebs, plucking them from thorns of night; I spin them in a skein, a clew. The dark is labyrinth, but not the maze I thought I knew. I wander like a moon. See, Margaret, how the heavens dance, they dance between my hands. When I had eyes, I thought my seeing bound the stars; I knew the Cup, the Hallows Tree, the Ship, as if my naming them were law. There is another law. The stars are messengers; their shining comes from far and farther still, from hearths long cold. Walking, I have seen the hearths beyond the stars, like ashes on a dark hill. But the stars that travel, they are dark and bright, like travellers with scarves of light, like beings newly blown of crystal, each a single note, nightblack, and rayed with burning silver. Their moving is their voice; they do not speak, but dance. Ah, now the drops of water slide away. The web is shaken bare.

  I tell this in the frost, the rime. I am not for my mother's necklace. Margaret, have you seen it? It is strung with stones, all flawed: some round as waveworn pebbles, others long and sharpedged. They are souls, the souls of witches, cold long since: the eldest of them ash these nine thousand years. Witches turn themselves to stone. Their gaze is glass. But they are isolate, unknotted souls: they dance by one and one. The necklace is an eidolon, a ring that never was. The souls are gathered on one string, as shadows of the starry Chain. That cord is time; the knot is Law. It is a place. I lay there once, a white ground where the blood is spilled, a place of bones and coins. All witches came there, bent on darkness; none had met. They spelled in blood, cast bones; they spoke in tongues of fire. There are witches still in Lune, on Law. Yet none is living that could read the word my ashes spelled; nor find the nine bones that I left.