Gawain and Lady Green Page 7

  Granny and I work two-handed, tossing vines back over shoulder without looking around. Most neighbors work the same, to a buzz of talk and laughter. Their auras flame like fires around the field, violet, blue, green. Here and there a pink aura shows me a pregnant woman, harboring life she maybe doesn’t realize yet.

  Ynis dreams and dawdles in her huge white aura. She pulls one vine at a time, in one little hand. Then she turns about and drops the vine carefully onto the pile. Or if the pile is too far, she may simply drop the vine where she stands. I dread that next-row neighbors may notice.

  Why do I dread? Ynis’s talents and lacks are well known. Grown up, she will be a powerful witch. If she likes, she can lounge in her hut all day and do nothing but heal, prophesy, weave spells, and brew potions.

  I don’t want her lonely.

  The magical life is lonely enough. I want my Ynis capable in both worlds, competent with magic as with the everyday, with spirit as with body.

  She murmurs, “It was the Fairy, Ma.”

  “Hah?”

  “I went to pick his vine. He looked so sad!”

  “Ah.”

  “So I went and picked the flowers instead.”

  “What about the flowers’ Fairy?”

  “Didn’t see him.”

  I used to pity the Fairies too. I see them still—wee faces under-leaf, looking up—but I pay no heed. I grasp and yank and hurl anyhow.

  “You don’t hurt Fairies when you pick their plants, Ynis.” ( No more than you hurt souls when you kill their bodies.) “Just tell them, ‘I need this plant for my life.’ They’ll understand. Your life is bigger than theirs.”

  “Um?”

  “Truly. And if you pick fast you won’t even see them. Like this. Use both hands, Ynis.”

  “Can’t pick both hands.”

  “Look how far Granny’s gone…” Brindle heaves himself out of shade now and trots slowly after her. “Sure you can pick both hands. That’s why the Goddess gave you two hands.”

  “This one,” Ynis flaps her little left hand at me, “this one’s for magic.”

  “Aye. But if it never picks a pea it may wither up on you.” I almost lose patience. “Come on! Let’s catch up with Granny.”

  Both of Ynis’s little hands seem made for magic. Very awkwardly they grasp and pull plants—most unwillingly. Yet I remember them planting these same peas with joy, pushing the wrinkled round seeds deep into raised earth. That was one task Ynis did well and quickly, and I remember her white aura tinged then with vibrant green.

  And look at those loaded plants now! None so fruitful over in the neighbors’ row.

  Ynis’s gift is for creation, not destruction. But, as Merlin sings, Time to plant, time to pull, Time for empty, time for full…Sometime, sitting in oak shade, I’ll teach Ynis that song.

  When? Where? Are there great shade oaks to the south?

  My own hands pause on the vines. What will my Ynis do with me in the south? Here, she will always be respected. Here, she will always be loved. Should tough old Granny ever fail, eager neighbors would leap to claim little Ynis and her magical gifts. Here she would never be orphaned.

  In the south…From what Gawain has said, I think my Ynis might not be valued there.

  Hands idle on pea vines, I see her grow up as Gawain’s stepdaughter. He would value her beauty (which she will have), her skills (which she will likely have none), and the chance of wedding her to some other King’s Companion with whom he makes common cause.

  This other King’s Companion, he might be ugly, or rough. He might be a grizzled old codger. Gawain and his ilk would take little care for that.

  Let me look farther, though I do not want to…Once wedded, my Ynis would bear child after child: sons to bear arms, daughters to wed and bear child after child, till they died of it. And I might not last to help her. In the south, Ynis could be truly orphaned.

  Child after child…how about the children I will myself bear for Gawain? What manner of folk will they grow up to be?

  Truly, all this needs thinking on.

  It is my body will not let me think. “Gawain!” she cries, night and noon. “Come what may, I must have Gawain!” How cruel he is, not to touch me!

  Look. Ynis’s slow, unwilling hands have found a snake in the peas.

  He is young and small, almost new-hatched. His slender aura wriggles, pea-green. He twists about Ynis’s hands and wrists. He pauses, holds still, to look up in her face. Head cocked, she holds him up close, eye to eye. Her sparkling white aura envelops him and the plants.

  I do not warn her: Ynis, a new-hatched viper has all his poison. Ynis knows that. Eye to eye with the small creature, she fills him with her self and receives his self. Time for full!

  “Hey!” Granny calls, trudging back to us past pile after harvested pile. “What you two dreamin’ for?” Her straw hat swings down her bent back. “You faintin’ in the sun?” Her old feet thump earth like determined drums. “Gotta drink here, for those as faint.” She hauls a skin bottle out from under her tunic, waves it at us. Brindle waves his tail high beside her.

  These are my own folk. How can I leave them behind forever?

  An owl called directly overhead.

  Lady Green leaped in air. Her hand tightened on Gawain’s. She stood close against him, breathing hard.

  Moments later she breathed, “Real owl.”

  “Hah.”

  “Don’t speak.”

  “You did.”

  “In the name of all Gods, be still!”

  Full moonlight filtered down through oak leaves. Ahead, northwest, a stream gurgled. Never had Lady Green brought Gawain this way before. “Come.” One careful step at a time, she led him along a barely marked trail. “Don’t splash.” One careful step at a time, they crossed a narrow stream.

  On this side travel was suddenly easier, moonlight brighter. But tension tingled from Lady Green’s hand up Gawain’s arm. She was frightened.

  As always, she wore her long green gown and magic girdle. Also, two dark wool cloaks. Gawain had counted on the jewelry he had seen hung in Granny’s hut to pay for the journey, but he had glimpsed no glint of jewelry on her. Under the cloaks she must carry a pouch full of it. Or maybe it waited in saddlebags, on the ponies she had ready…somewhere. Unless she did not know the value of jewelry. That was possible. With these savages, anything was possible.

  Sir, you should have mentioned it to her.

  Too late now.

  Crick, crunch.

  She grabbed his hand tight. Whispered, “No noise, Gawain.”

  He lifted his foot off a white stick. No. White bone. Bone?

  “Step on nothing here.”

  His skin prickled. Breath came strangely short. Cold dread moved up his arm from Lady Green’s hand.

  He was beginning to wonder if he should step on this earth here at all. But she pulled him on, over the bone, along a wider trail, past huge, ancient oak trunks. Bright silver moonlight drew his eyes upward.

  “Ach!” The strangled cry gurgled in his throat. Lady Green stopped stiff in the trail.

  “Hush! Gods above, what is it? Oh.”

  High on a trunk, a human head looked down. Green flesh dangled from bared white bone. Eye sockets met Gawain’s shocked eyes.

  Gawain had seen severed heads before. He had seen them in plenty, transfixed on spears, on gates, once on a savage enemy’s house door. Never before had a severed head looked back at him, spoken to him. He felt this head speaking in his heart. But he could not make out the words.

  Lady Green tugged urgently at his hand. “Come!”

  “Who?”

  “Hush!” She pulled him along.

  Three more steps and he met a skull lower down, almost within reach. He started, shivered, stopped. Whispers from the past echoed in his mind. He glanced up at a forest of moon-white skulls. Those at the treetops shone brightest. Lower down hung fresher skulls, dull, flesh-ribboned—as though they were moved up, year by year, to make room, as corpses
in a narrow sepulcher are moved down. God’s teeth! “Lady Green!”

  “Hurry—”

  “Should a Christian man walk this trail?”

  “What?” She stopped and turned to him, moonlit eyes amazed at his ignorance. “No one should walk this trail. Sometimes we need to.”

  Whose were all these skulls? Surely they were trophies of no battle fought for life and land! The Square Table and all its ilk could hardly manage this.

  “Who were all these…people?”

  “May Kings. Come!”

  May Kings. Kings of Mays stretching back to Noah and the Flood.

  Sir, that’s what the first head wanted to tell you. Your head would be next.

  Lady Green tugged at Gawain’s hand.

  Dread struck a blow that set him swaying. Gather your forces, Sir!

  Anger reddened his vision.

  Now you see it! This is what yon red-haired sow planned for you. And that Student Druid. And Old Lady Granny. Satan bless them all!

  He strode forward. Bones crunched underfoot. Careful, Sir. Be not angry, here and now!

  “Hush! Slower!” Lady Green restrained him.

  He whispered, “Are there guards here?” Behind oak trunks? Why should there be? The crowded skulls should be guards enough.

  “Not human guards.”

  Horror skittered up and down his backbone, withered his innards. Sir, we’re in Satan’s Dun itself!

  God and Mary, Angel Michael—

  Don’t, Sir. Satan might hear you. And he’s closer.

  Gawain followed Lady Green into a wide red clearing. Moonlight fell red on red bones, red stones, one huge flat red stone, seemingly drenched in fresh red blood.

  Sir, control that anger. You need to see clear. You need to see clear!

  She led him up to the great red stone and paused before it. She let his hand go. She raised both orange hands and her orange face into fading pink light. Her lips moved.

  She’s praying to Satan.

  If I had a sword—

  Sure, you’d slice off her head on the altar. And all the Demons of Hell would shriek on your trail. Whisht, now. Quiet.

  Lady Green turned back to Gawain. Pale now, she reached for his hand. “Come.” Carefully, she drew him through red moonlight onto a shaded trail.

  Gawain awoke to the whish of morning rain on rock.

  He came wide awake at once, the way he always had before he ever drank Lady Green’s ale. His side ached. He turned onto his back, which ached more. He opened his eyes to a stone roof arching close over him.

  He lay on a stone cave floor with Lady Green. Rain whished outside the cave mouth; in here they lay dry. The two cloaks she had brought almost covered them.

  She had brought nothing else. No jewelry, no bag of clothes. No arms but the sheathed knife jabbed in her magic girdle. No food. “Baggage might alert suspicion,” she explained last night.

  Outside Satan’s Dun they had found one large, brown-bristly pony tethered. “Why not two, at least, in God’s name?”

  “Hard enough to get one. These ponies are strong, Love. He’ll carry us both.” And carry them both the pony did, far and fairly fast, southward over moonlit moor.

  Softly, now. Gawain sat up. Very gently he lifted his cloak aside and looked down on Lady Green. Deeply she slept, as though the cave rock were a goose-down bed. Sleeping, she smiled.

  Last night they had made love. Last night he had given her all that he had withheld before.

  Good thing I kept that promise, Gawain thought. Since I won’t be keeping the other. At least I gave her that.

  He had loosened her magic girdle and tossed it to the left. The green gown went right. His trousers lay crumpled at hand. Her knife fell somewhere…here. Gawain picked it up and tested it on his thumb. Good and sharp.

  Lady Green turned toward him. Deep asleep, she drew her cloak up over freckled white shoulders. Her long red hair trailed across their gray stone bed.

  God! I could strangle her with that rich red hair! That would be simple justice.

  Asleep, she looked innocent and helpless.

  Innocent! I saw her pray at Satan’s altar last night!

  Helpless! In her woman’s way, this girl’s as strong as I am.

  Girl?

  Shimmering rain-light showed slack lines in her sleeping face that he had never noticed before. And gray hair! Holy Mary, gray hairs in the red! I think she’s older than I am. Here I’ve caught her in another lie.

  Not a serious lie, Sir. Not like meaning to hang your head on an oak tree.

  Why don’t I stab her right now!

  Sir, you would not stab an enemy knight, asleep.

  That’s true. And after all our nights together…nights whose like may never come again.

  This is a very rare girl—woman. I almost love her.

  Not surprising, Sir.

  Maybe I could…keep my promise?

  How, Sir?

  Fingering her knife, Gawain brooded over the sleeping Lady Green. I couldn’t wed this savage. She thought me ignorant. In Arthur’s Dun she would seem a wide-eyed toddler! She brings nothing. Not so much as a pouch of oat crumbs! Now if she’d brought all that jewelry…but no. Even all that wouldn’t be enough to wed.

  No. I cannot do it. I must break my promise, though it hurts my heart.

  Sir. This is more than an ungallant deed you do here. You break your solemn promise—

  A promise to a pagan savage.

  You leave a woman asleep on a wild moor, among brigands, Saxons, wolves. A woman who trusts you.

  A woman whom I trusted! She can thank her Gods I do not stab her dead.

  Will you even take her knife, her only defense?

  I will! By the time I reach Arthur’s Dun this knife will be chipped to the handle!

  Sir Gawain. What you are doing is unknightly. Dishonorable. Never till now have you stooped to dishonor.

  Never have I stood in such a case!

  Suppose Arthur learns of it? Angel Michael, Sir! Suppose Merlin learns of it! Imagine the song that bards might sing for a hundred years!

  No one will ever know.

  You will always know.

  And I will always regret! More than the loss of Honor, I will always regret the loss of my Lady Green.

  Gawain bent down and over and kissed Lady Green. Deeply she sighed and wound both arms around his neck. Still sleeping, she returned his kiss.

  God’s bones! How can I leave her!

  Her arms sank away. Smiling, she resettled herself on the stone floor.

  If I had not seen Satan’s Dun with my own eyes…

  (High on a trunk, a human head looked down. Green flesh dangled from bared white bone. Eye sockets met Gawain’s shocked eyes. In his heart the head said clearly, I am you, Sir Gawain, King’s Companion.)

  God’s bones! King Arthur himself would do what I do now!

  Very softly he moved away, where Lady Green would not feel his movements. Stooped under the low rock roof, he drew on tunic, trousers, and boots.

  Look. There beside her, her famous magic girdle. God’s blood! I’ll wager with that girdle she can call up a Demon to heist her home by the hair!

  He worked her knife into the sash of his trousers.

  Let the girdle save her now. Witness, Herod’s Holy Innocents, I leave her alive. More than that I cannot do.

  He did not look at her as he drew his cloak quietly off her. He did not look back at her as he ducked under the low cave lintel and stood up straight in cold, hard rain. Not far off waited the big brown-bristly pony, hobbled.

  Gawain glanced around the rolling, rain-veiled moors. Far as I can see, nothing. No one. I’ll wager the Square Table fellows haven’t yet noticed we’ve gone!

  He glanced back into cave-dimness. If she stirs…if she calls now… He swung the cloak over his shoulders.

  Sir. Do you not go back and look at her again. Do you not.

  Gawain wheeled about and strode through wet to the pony. It raised its rough head a
nd nickered as he whipped off the hobble and reattached it as rein. He found a rock to mount from and climbed onto the pony’s wet-slippery back. One last time he glanced at the low cave entrance. Nothing stirred there. Not even the pony’s greeting had wakened Lady Green.

  Sir. I remember you saying, “I swear to you by God, His angels and saints: when we come to Arthur’s Dun we two shall be wed together.” Now, for the rest of your life, you will know you have broken faith.

  Gawain shrugged a mighty shrug. Rain flew from his shoulders.

  Oh, come! She didn’t even know the force of that vow. She’s only a wild pagan, after all! In Arthur’s Dun we would call her a peasant. Broken faith with her is but a small dent on my Honor.

  Aye, Sir. Like a wee rust-ridge on a shining shield.

  Gawain turned the pony southward, clapped heels to hide, and rode away. Swiftly the pony trotted, lightly, with but one rider.

  Carol

  By no Sun’s light did Mary see

  Her newborn Son; our Lord was He.

  Cold candle watched her new Son nurse;

  That Son she brought to virgin birth,

  That Sun that beams eternally,

  God’s Son the Christ; our Sun is He.

  The Green Knight

  King Arthur’s Yule log burned high.

  Horn dancers thumped about the Round Table. Their antlers cut through gathering smoke as if through morning mist. Their heels drummed like hooves. Proudly graceful, they circled the Round Table and wreathed among lesser tables.

  Regally robed, gold-crowned Arthur brooded on his dais. He wore the only sword allowed in the hall besides his ceremonial sword, Caliburn, which hung, displayed, on the wall above. Like his knights, Arthur watched the Horn Dance with hooded, hungry eyes.

  On her lower dais beside him, Queen Gwenevere looked over and between the dancers’ horned heads to the Round Table. From under a gold circlet her red-gold braid looped down rich-embroidered breast and thigh to silken slippers. Slender hands folded and smoothed, smoothed and folded the festive gown covering her lap. Her pale gaze pierced the smoke, passed dancers and knights and Gawain, to rest on Lancelot.