Gawain and Lady Green Read online

  Today the Fair-Field stretched empty but for a near band of boys hunting rabbits and a far flock of strayed sheep.

  Eastward the crops broke earth, reaching their fresh, sweet greenness to the sun. Not even Gawain, born noble and raised for knighthood, could look upon this rising life and promise entirely unmoved. A primal, unthought joy drew heart up out of body for a moment, and in that moment he prayed, God-thank.

  Small Ynis piped, “She’s getting bigger. Look, Granny. She was like a person, a…a mother. Standing in the peas. Now She’s like a tree. Watch Her spread out!”

  “Aye,” Lady Granny said calmly, “She can spread like mist, or cloud. She can cover the world. Or She can dance on your little finger.”

  What She? Straining his eyes, Gawain saw only sunshine and spring-greening crops. An invisible, suspicious finger touched his mind. He shivered.

  “There, She’s fading…like a rainbow.” Disappointment lowered the child’s voice.

  “She don’t really fade,” Granny explained. “’Tis but our sight fades. She’s still there.”

  Granny jiggled her bobbin back into action. Ynis looked to Gawain. (Anywhere but to her tangled thread!) She remarked, “His cloud’s a mighty funny color.”

  Granny’s shrewd old eyes crinkled at Gawain. “Mind your manners, Ynis. And your thread.”

  To Gawain she said lightly, “Don’t you be feared of us, Son.”

  Gawain, feared? Feared of these two crazies? He stiffened angrily.

  Ynis said, “See? Now his cloud’s turned all red.”

  “We’re just two crazies,” Granny confirmed his thought. “Just touched, that’s all we are. Dreamin’ together.”

  That was plain to see. These two dreamed in daylight? Let them. It was their village, Gawain sat on their stool, and would soon drink their mead. He could hear Lady Green now moving about inside the hut, preparing it.

  Gawain drew a calming breath. He had no cause for anger. Or fear.

  “Now his cloud’s brighter,” Ynis observed.

  Granny asked her sweetly, “You want a clout on the ear?”

  Ynis fell silent.

  If only the whole village did not seem touched! It was fine to be looked on as some sort of angel or pagan God, to be revered and bowed to and politely pushed to the head of every line. That was but a knight’s due among poor, ignorant savages. But, ech! Uneasily, Gawain knew they did not revere him as knight, as noble, or as King’s Companion. They did not honor his warrior’s fame, as would be only right.

  Something here was amiss, mysterious. The whole village seemed somehow…off.

  Ech. He would have to humor them. Here he sat, unarmed in their midst. And they did him no harm. To the contrary! Southward, King Arthur in his Dun reigned no more comfortably than Sir Gawain, May King, reigned here in Holy Oak.

  And yet, if only he had a horse…Leather hinges creaked. His Lady Green stooped through the hut doorway, a brimming mug cradled in her hands. She smiled at him, and all the day’s bright sunshine brightened still more.

  Dressed in a sober gray workaday gown, she yet wore green about her: a leaf bracelet, one green-stone ring, one green-stemmed wind flower caught in her swinging red braid. (At night she always came to Gawain gowned and girdled in green.)

  She rested a hand on Granny’s shoulder, stepped down from doorsill to ground, and straightened. Dignified as Queen Gwenevere herself, she walked toward Gawain, smiling, holding out the mug of brimming mead. Something in her calm, free walk stirred a memory. Somewhen, someone Gawain had loved had walked like that. But who? But when?

  Come, Sir! (said his talkative Inner Mind). You are but twenty-six, you cannot have forgotten that much yet!

  But it would not come to him.

  Tell you one thing (Inner Mind spoke again), you’ve never lain with a woman like this one before!

  He reached out for the mug, drawing nearer.

  Experience there, for all she’s so young. She’s taught you much already.

  So, what are you grumbling about? Accept this summer as an adventure! An enterprise old Merlin can sing about. “Gawain, May King!” That’s the song he’ll sing one day. The whole kingdom will sing it. For now, enjoy!

  Gawain looked up into Lady Green’s shining, smiling eyes. He took the mug she offered and gulped its contents to the dregs.

  Night rain-music is my favorite sound.

  Night rain sings softly of summer, of growing crops, of sleep— and so, of love.

  I lie here against my May King, head on his arm. Deeply he breathes beside me, catching back well-spent breath. His heart flutters under my hand like a caught bird.

  My bower bends low above us. I look up into its arched branches by dim lamplight. Up there, thick thatch I gathered and bound, dried, and laid catches rain and sends it sliding away all richly wet.

  Above in the rain-sweet dark, ancient oaks guard the bower. Heavy in my happy body, I listen to night rain whisper joy in their leaves.

  An owl calls, sudden and near. From the eastern edge of the grove, another answers.

  My May King starts. He turns to me, draws me closer. The lamp sputtering beside our pallet shows me his smile, his slowly opening eyes.

  He is one strange fellow, this Sir Gawain from the south!

  I have known men. But never a man so rigid-proud in body and mind.

  Despite his pride, he knows nothing. When he first came, he could not even understand speech easily.

  Like a young child—like my daughter, Ynis—he most often speaks to ask a question. Ynis asks, “Why do we have to card wool?” Gawain asks, “Why do folk stay away from the oak grove?” No one past toddling should need to ask such questions!

  Angry once, in his quick, easy anger, he told me I would need to ask questions in his world! “You think me child-ignorant?” He spluttered. “You go south to Arthur’s Dun, lady, we’ll see who’s the child there!”

  A good thing it is I will never have to try that out.

  But I myself do not know quite everything. There are things I have been wondering about him.

  Now as his eyes open wide gray in lamplight, his lips open to question. I lay a finger across them, and he stills.

  “My turn to question, May King. I want to know a thing, and it is this: How came you here to this place, to Holy Oak village, out of the south?” I lift my finger away to let him answer.

  “I came a-horse, Lady Green.”

  I love that name! Lady Green can only be the mirror of the Green Goddess! I will be Lady Green only and always for him. And because he gave me this sweet, so-dignified name a loving bard might have invented, I like his name too. I speak it now with teasing tenderness. “Gawain, I know full well that you came a-horse!”

  “And I have asked the headman, and Merry the druid—”

  “The student druid. It takes years to turn druid.”

  “I have asked them both to replace my butchered charger; for they two seem more the leaders here than any others. I know you have horses at pasture.”

  “Not chargers, Gawain. Ponies.”

  “Aye, little northern ponies no winter lack can kill. I’ve seen your herds out there. Better a pony than afoot!”

  “But I asked you, how did you come here. You said you were spying the land.”

  “Mapping. Learning. Not spying.”

  “But the north country is huge, Gawain. How did you come out right there, on that edge of the grove by the Fair-Field? When you had the wide north and west to roam.”

  “Ech. As to that, I followed a doe here.”

  “Ah?”

  “A white fallow doe. I saw her from afar, white against dark trees. The first trees I had seen all day.”

  “White. You’re sure she was white.”

  “Milk-white. Snow-white. And I was a-hungered, Lady Green!”

  I chuckle. “Well I remember you hungry!”

  “So I clapped spur after her. And she ran into this grove and disappeared. And there was the Fair-Field.”

  �
��I see…” I see more and farther than Gawain will ever guess.

  “And had I known you wanted a May King to help the crops grow, I would have turned back away, unseen!”

  “You are ungallant, May King!” He taught me this peevish, lilting phrase that southern ladies use in his King’s Dun.

  “No.” His arm comes around me heavy as iron, warm as June. “It is well enough. I am content. We two go well together.”

  In truth!

  “But you’re wearing me out, I’ll admit that.”

  “Nothing a night’s rest won’t cure.”

  “Maybe. But tell me, how can a man rest beside you, Lady Green?”

  “Now that’s gallant.”

  “But answer me this.” Ech, here comes a question! “A thing I’ve wondered. If I’m the May King, I help the crops grow, and everyone bows to the ground to me…”—An exaggeration—“…could I lie with any woman but you, May Queen? Supposing you were ugly and angry as a spider? Could I lie elsewhere?”

  Strange, how an icicle pricks my heart!

  I lie silent. Night rain sings in oak leaves and thatch. Gawain’s arm weighs down my waist.

  “Lady Green?”

  At last I answer. “Yes. You could. You can do anything you want.”

  “Anything at all.”

  “Almost. No one will refuse you anything. Certainly not something as harmless as that.”

  “The headman and Student Merry refuse me a horse!”

  “They want to keep you here with us. We all do.”

  “For your God-blasted crops!” Quick anger rises in his voice.

  “For our Goddess-blessed crops.” Wipe out the blasphemy She may have heard.

  Quick, now. Turn his quick anger away.

  Light-voiced, I tease. “You can lie with anyone you want, Gawain, but I warn you. Better not!”

  His arm tightens on my waist as he chuckles. “Now you sound like a woman of my own country. A wedded wife.”

  I am somewhat curious about the women Gawain has known. “You say that gravely, Gawain. In your country, what does a wedded wife do?”

  “She keeps her husband strictly to herself. Or she tries to.”

  “We have rules about that.”

  “So do we. But only the wife must truly obey them.”

  “What?” With both hands I lift Gawain’s arm off me. Truly curious now, I rise on an elbow and look down on him. “Only the wife must be faithful? What sort of rule is that?”

  “A practical one.” He smiles up at me. “The husband is the stronger. Shall we two try that out now?”

  “Gawain, answer me! Why should the husband not be as faithful as the wife?”

  “Well.” His fingers tease my breast that leans over him. I draw back, sit up. Wrap arms about knees. He sighs.

  “In the south, Lady Green, the husband is master in all ways. The wife’s property belongs to him. The wife belongs to him. She keeps his house, comforts his body, bears his sons.”

  “And what does he do for her?”

  “He guards and maintains her, and the house, and the sons.”

  “And the daughters?”

  “He marries them off to useful friends and allies.”

  I am not like Gawain, easily angered. But I feel my breath come a little fast and anxious. “And have these women of yours no power at all?”

  “They wear no swords.” Gawain smiles up at me. Smile and fingers beckon. “Come, Lady Green. Lie down again by me.”

  I stay where I am, wrapped in cool wrath. “Let me warn you, May King. Spirit is stronger than a hundred swords.”

  Gawain pulls a doubtful, merry face.

  Thought stabs, knife-sharp. “And you, Gawain. Are you wed? Do you have a faithful wife back in your own country?”

  Instant answer. “No, Lady Green.”

  “Hah.” Relief. “Then you owe your—what is that word?—fealty, only to me.”

  Instant, serious answer. “No, Lady Green.”

  “What! What? You said—”

  Gravely. “I owe my fealty to my King.”

  “Hah.” His king. A different kind of fealty altogether. Very well. I let tension out in a slow sigh and lie down against him. “Your king…Arthur. I have heard Druid Merlin sing of him.”

  Gawain stiffens. He goes all still as if a spirit touched him. Then he rises in his turn and leans above me.

  “Merlin? Mage Merlin? Merlin has come here, to this God- forgotten place?”

  “He comes now and then. Often at Midsummer. When the sky smiles, and the Green Men dance. Then he comes and sings to us of far kings and gods and heroes. You know him, Gawain?”

  “God’s teeth! Old Merlin, here!” His face shines brighter than the lamp. Even in dim light I see his aura now, what Ynis calls his “cloud.” It flames out from him, green with sudden hope.

  “This Midsummer when he comes, I will escort him back south!”

  No!

  I act a delicate yawn. “Not so fast, May King.” Not near so fast.

  “You will have to find me a horse!”

  “Later. When your task is done.”

  “You expect me to wait here till Summerend itself?”

  “Why, yes, Gawain. Till the grain is scythed. Come, now.” I bring his hand back to my breast. “If you are so eager to leave me, let us urge the crops a little higher tonight.”

  Near and far, three owls hoot.

  Later Gawain dozes, head on my shoulder, arm across my hips. Steady feet slog stealthily past in steady rain. Gawain murmurs, “Someone besides us braves this mysterious grove tonight.”

  I stroke his coarse black hair. “Only the watchman, love.”

  He raises his head. In the lamp’s last light I see his eyes— open, clear, quite conscious. “They guard us, Lady Green. Those watchmen. Why do they guard us all night?”

  “May King, you are precious to all of us. Nothing must happen to you. Nothing at all.” I smile up into his too-conscious eyes. “Let me up. I’ll get your drink.”

  Obedient, he drinks, lies back and sleeps. I watch him almost tenderly.

  He is one beautiful fellow, this Sir Gawain from the south! Hard, lean, lusty as a buck goat, though not skilled in love. I like the thought that I may be one of his first lovers. I like to teach.

  Such Goddess-blessed vigor should be preserved in this green world. The life should outlive the man.

  When he sleeps, his aura rises gently away. Daytimes, it clings close to his body, a narrow orange-brown cloud. But at night, I sometimes see it, dim in lamplight, rise white, and broaden, and drift away south.

  Besides his useful, lovely body, he has a soul.

  Unwilling, unwise, I feel for him.

  God’s bones! Gawain’s softened hands rejoiced to handle steel again! Though a scythe was at best an unfamiliar tool. Student Druid Merry had shown him how to grasp it: “Here and here, May King. Not like a sword.”

  Merry smiled with beardless lips and warm brown eyes. Small and agile, crowned with gold-brown curls, he struck Gawain as slightly Fey. Strange that one like this should appear to lead men! Yet, maybe not so strange. Close to the fellow, Gawain felt leashed power stir under bouncing curls and easy smile.

  Perhaps as a small child Gawain might have handled a scythe. The bend-and-swing motion, which he copied from the men beside him, came easily enough. It did not last as well. Sweat sprang and dripped from brow, stripped chest and shoulders. Bent back and bowed legs screamed.

  Stubbornly he thought, The grass is my enemy. The battle rages. And he charged ahead of the slowly advancing line.

  “Hoo!” His neighbors called. “You, May King! Leave grass enough for us!” Whistles and laughter rippled along the line.

  Gawain paused to let them catch up. How good it felt to straighten his spine! With bare forearms he swiped sweat from his eyes and saw clearly, for a moment, the field of wild-weed grass sway ahead. Larks sprang up from hidden nests. At Gawain’s feet a serpent writhed desperately away.

  God’s blood!
The company of men, the rough smell and sound of men, felt good! Like food after hunger, like rest after love.

  They were all here, all the men he saw about the village, with their sons. Even the old headman scythed, and Student Merry, though these two were the closest to nobility that Gawain found here.

  He had met the men and boys at the latrine pits, all joking and flexing, all eager to work. Laughing and friendly, they had invited him along. Merry had whipped the straw hat off his own head and set it on Gawain’s. “Against the sun, May King. Heat will be our enemy today.”

  Bored to exhaustion with luxury, Gawain had come.

  He had time now to gasp, swipe sweat once again, and judge the distance to the shade trees where they had left their lunch. A long, long way.

  The line came up to him. Bending to scythe again, he gritted his teeth. The man on his left grinned across. “That speed, May King, you’ll never make lunch!”

  From the right, “Slow and steady—”

  From farther along, “Right and ready—”

  “Win my wager!”

  So, the bumpkins were wagering on him! Like men-at-arms watching a cockfight, or a joust.

  Except that they were all jousting too.

  Gawain grinned at his neighbors and attacked the grass. Slowly.

  At long, long last he scythed his way into tree shade. His heart pounded, his breath rasped, as though he had just come off a battle. Gratefully he downed scythe and shade hat, straightened and stretched along with his neighbors.

  One clapped his shoulder. “Not bad,” he guffawed, blowing breath like the downwind of slaughter in Gawain’s face. “If you’re picky about your hay.” To the others he yelled, “Only the best for the May King!”

  Puzzled, Gawain turned to look at his back-trail.

  The field lay fairly cut, except for here and there stalks and clumps boys had missed; and except for a long zigzag path of misses where Gawain himself had staggered and swung.

  Laughter, back-pounding, bet-collecting. Lunch.

  Cheerfully, young Merry shared his loaf, cheese, and ale with Gawain. They sat backed against a beech trunk in the deepest shade. The rest lay about or sat on their heels, munching and gulping in suddenly tired silence. As the sun crossed the tree line men stretched out on backs and sides and snored. A few boys trotted about the near, uncut field in a halfhearted game.