Graynelore (11 page)

‘If it is all that can be offered…It will have to do,’ said Lowly Crows.

‘So, what now?’ I asked.

‘Now…? We must finish the task we have so badly begun. First, there is a Ring of Eight to complete. Only, look about, the strength of our number remains one short—’

‘What do you,
see
…?’ asked Lowly Crows of the ancient crone. ‘Is there another?’

‘I
see
, what Rogrig, here, has already seen.’ said Wily Cockatrice.

‘Me? How so—?’

‘There
is
another at hand. If only she could find her way to us.’

‘She…?’

‘Her name is Norda Elfwych, is it not?’

I started at the name.

‘And she is aware?’ asked Lowly Crows. ‘She
knows
herself?’

‘As well as I know you, my sweet bird…’ Wily Cockatrice was blowing smoke again.

‘And Rogrig, you know of her whereabouts, you can find her for us? More importantly, she will come when you bid her to?’

Inside my head the unspoken voices, quiet for so long, began to call out again.

Norda Elfwych…Norda Elfwych…

How long has she waited for another…

How could I tell them what, I knew, had become of her? ‘The Elfwych is at the house of Old-man Wishard. She is kept fast within Carraw Peel.’

‘She is blood-tied, then…?’ asked Lowly Crows, ‘to The Graynelord?’

‘No. Rather, she is the Old-man’s Pledge.’

‘Pledge?’ Wily Cockatrice lifted an eyebrow, took the word for its worst meaning.

‘She is bonded to him, is all!’ I could not help my rash defence of her. ‘A bond of peace and good faith; between Elfwych and Wishard…Upon Graynelore, it is a common enough practice betwixt sworn enemies—’

‘If you say so, Rogrig,’ said the crone.

‘And she will break this sworn Pledge so very easily?’ said Lowly Crows. ‘She will forsake her own blood-kin and join us now,
because…?
’ It was a leading question, left deliberately hanging in the air between us.

I took a moment’s pause. ‘Because we are going to make her,’ I said. (It was a clutched for suggestion, my friend, not a considered plan.)

‘What? Are we to kidnap her then, are we going to steal her away from The Graynelord’s own Stronghold?’ asked the ancient crone. There was another long and knowing silence (without so much as a whiff of pipe smoke).

‘I, for one, do not believe any of this!’ said Wood-shanks, the elder-man, suddenly breaking his silence. ‘Suppose this were even possible. What then? When every man at arms upon Graynelore is out for us, as surely as they must be…?’

He turned towards the pair of coquettes, as if in want of their support. Momentarily, Fortuna and Sunfast returned his look, only to pass a second look of mild astonishment between themselves, before settling their eyes upon me for an answer.

‘Perhaps, the graynes will be too busy with their own private arguments to bother themselves with us,’ I said, more hopefully than with any real conviction.

‘Ha! And you a Wishard, too!’ cried the elder-man. ‘Are the best of your kin so easily put aside? I would think not!’

I could only sigh. (Better that, than a blatant lie.)

‘How many more fruitless battles must men fight?’ asked Lowly Crows, lowering her head.

‘At least one more it would seem,’ I said.

‘And do we not wish to see the Faerie Isle, then; would it not be a true spectacle? And to find our rightful home at last—?’

‘I used to think this land here was my home,’ I said.

‘And now?’

‘That is the question…’

There was not one of us could find an honest answer. Wily Cockatrice took the renewed silence as her opportunity.

‘There would be no sense in us all making this journey.’ The crone spoke as if the decision was already made. ‘What good reason could a Wishard have for bringing the likes of our mixed company to the Stronghold of his Graynelord?’

This was the truth. Yet I did not think I could possibly do this thing alone (if I could do it at all).

‘I would take only Lowly Crows with me,’ I said at last. ‘We have already travelled a long road together, all be it, much of it unwittingly…If she will travel with me again—?’

‘
She
will come with you, Rogrig.’ The crow needed no persuasion.

‘And as for the rest of us – What is to be our part in this unlikely plan?’ asked the elder-man.

‘We will hide ourselves away, of course, as only we can,’ said Wily Cockatrice. ‘And wait patiently upon Rogrig’s safe return.’

‘And how will we find you out again, in hiding?’ I asked.

‘Rogrig, you are ever a stubborn man. Do you, even yet, pretend to know so very little of yourself…and us?’ said Wily Cockatrice, without further explanation. Inside my head I was certain I heard distant shadow-tongues laughing, and I was mocked. It was a faerie slight.

I shrugged.

‘I will not lie to you,’ I said. ‘I do not know how this will turn out.’ The implication was obvious enough.

‘Nor do any of us, Rogrig.’ At this, I will swear, Wily Cockatrice winked at me, before turning her back to look again upon the Great Sea, returning to her pipe with a renewed enthusiasm.

What were we become – if not lonely travellers, homeless nomads, to be set upon a trail? Wanting only to find an escape…My tale was gathering a momentum, not to be stopped without a final resolution. Yet we were not come prepared for a long journey. We had carried so very little between us – it was a meagre vitals we took together that last evening, before we parted and went our separate ways. A few tugs on a loaf of bread passed between us. A swig of warm, sour wine – no fresh meat – We each made the best of our repast, and our brief respite. We all slept a little. A few sat together and talked on a while into the night. Wily Cockatrice sat purposefully alone, to recount her personal thoughts; still nursing her pipe.

I had half a mind to go and seek out Edbur-the-Widdle, to discover what he was really about, only my mood had lifted, I was almost sanguine, now that we were fixed upon a course of action (however unlikely its success). I had no real desire to share further confidences that night, or to become embroiled upon a confrontation that might turn bitter, or bloody. I decided to let that particular sleeping dog lie, for now.

Instead, I took a walk alone, in want of solitude, my own company. A handful of bright, snapping stars studded the black sky. A slice of a winter moon stood out coldly between the feathered edges of the few broken clouds; it scattered a shower of silver light upon the Great Sea, a myriad broken fragments. How calm, how beautiful, how peaceful it was. How lonely, too. I tried to picture the Faerie Isle…

In front of me, across the bay, there were short stretches of scrub-like sand-grass, catching the moonlight, dressing the edges of a line of shallow sand dunes. There a man might have made a temporary refuge. I decided to make them my business. However, I had not walked far between them when I found myself come upon two of my own company. The young women, Sunfast and Fortuna; the coquettish pair I thought I had seen, briefly transformed, as magnificent unifauns (if I believed that to be a true memory).

I meant to stand off, to let them alone, undisturbed. In their fragile state, perhaps, like me, they were in want of their own company? Only, I saw they were lying together, secreted in the lea between two grassy knolls, and fully naked now. Their raiment unashamedly cast aside. At once, I understood the meaning. (As I am sure, do you, my friend.) These two were lovers, and a pretty pair even in their frailty – their diminished state. That I lingered there, unseen, is of course without excuse, beyond my own bad character. Still, I
will
briefly report this private scene for the greater pity of subsequent events. (Though, I might add, I see nothing unseemly in the mating of a loving couple.)

They were kissing each other tenderly, and in a close and intimate embrace. Unhurried, in the way of faerie, they let the timeless night rest easily between them, felt no cold it seemed. They gently hushed their rising passions, quietly shared their bodies without shame. When, at last, they broke together they stiffened only slightly. Briefly opened their eyes, and sighed their release.

I fear they saw me there, watching over them.

I would have started away, only they appeared to smile, as if pleased with their find. They reached up, took my hand in theirs and pulled me down toward them. I did not recoil. I was always a man first. And they were women still, if their skin under my common touch was more akin to the soft fine brush of a doe’s hair. We exchanged no spoken words. Together they drew me out, and between the pair, gently cradled my first arousal. It was a shared moment tenderly exchanged…and purely for my pleasure. Then, after a short while, they drew me out again, only selfishly this second time.

We three freely played together a goodly while.

Amid it all, and in that sorely wanton mood of wild abandonment, Sunfast and Fortuna became again graceful unifauns. I am certain of it. How they galloped in perfect unison! How they pranced and frolicked among the gentle moon-touched waves that tumbled at the edge of the Great Sea. A sight to see! And I, in my selfish lover’s stupor, forgot myself. I turned my back against the darkly shrouded cliffs where Edbur surely made his camp, and I frolicked with them.

At the end, when we were all done, Sunfast and Fortuna lay down again. Still closely locked together, the pair closed their eyes, content to fall asleep in each other’s arms. I, who had briefly become their lover, was again the outsider, only a companion (though abandoned without malice). It was a sweet goodnight.

I left them quietly, undisturbed.

Though, I was thoughtful still. In my passion I had found Notyet’s name upon my lips. Yet I had hushed it. I hushed it again now. I kissed it gently away against the palm of my hand, set it aside. How often men are cruel to their heart.

In the morning, Wily Cockatrice was the first to take her leave of us. She departed without a speech of farewell, quietly slipped away, while others still drowsed.

One by one, if somewhat reluctantly, the remainder of our company began to follow her example. First the youth, Dogsbeard; then together, Sunfast and Fortuna, my ardent lovers (who made not the slightest reference to the incident), and then, Wood-shanks, the elder-man. As they left, each one upon their own road, I suddenly felt the inner pull of their presence begin to weaken. Had we few become so utterly entwined? My gut wrenched. At close quarters, the mental grip we each held upon the others had grown strong – if unwittingly so – and was become as much a part of us as our own thoughts. Its lessening was a physical hurt. Though it did not quite fail completely: even when they were all gone from my sight there still remained a faint, if fragile, link between us; a bonding that did not break. It was enough that I might find them all again – even in hiding – upon my safe return. And with that simple revelation I smiled as I recalled the conversation of another day when the crone had sorely rebuked me for my ignorance of such things.

At the last, I was left alone with Lowly Crows. Beside me, she – now become the bird again – preened her feathers as if to soothe away a discomfort.

I wondered if we would ever see our greater company again.

To look at, Graynelore was always something of a paradox. It was a beautiful land and yet ugly. It was often glorious and yet as often vague and unimpressive. The Great Unknown in the far north was a world set apart. While the black-headed mountains, at Graynelore’s heart, stood up like the spokes of a great fallen wheel, with the hard-fought summit of Earthrise – the hub – at their centre. The burden of time may well have blunted their edges and reduced their heights but they were no less a formidable adversary. It took a brave man, or perhaps a fool, to attempt to scale their heights. Looking to the south, where the mountains fell away, and the wheel was broken, there was a great vista, a broad open plateau, only hindered by stretches of feeble, withered woodland – The Withering – that chequered and fringed the otherwise seemingly endless landscape. Beyond this, came the more gentle rolling hills and shallow vales of the Southern Marches. And if the lowly hills could not hinder you, if the trees did not stand in your way, there was always the mud – the clarts – of the stinking bog-moss to stop a man’s progress; the mire to swallow up the unwary horse and rider. Or else the never ending waters, the countless threads of the River Winding that cut the great open lowland fells and moors into uneven pieces across the majority of its face. To my mind, it was always a lonely, endlessly wind-scarred earth. A difficult land to love; it left no easy place for men or beasts to hide or find welcoming shelter. Yet it was mine by my birth. And if I were to admit that my heart’s meat has always been divided, then surely that land must take its due share.

The Southern Marches were a landscape of attrition rather than extremes. Though there were extremes, even here; and most dramatically where the Headmen had built their Strongholds. It was as if, on the day of its making, the Great Wizard had deliberately drawn the world that way. Perhaps he had, after all?

Making passage was never easy, always a hard and physical struggle, even when the path was clear and the way ahead known by heart. I was ever in need of Dandy, both for her hardiness and sure-foot; aye, and her sense of direction, or else I was in for an arduous journey.

It was time, at last, for me to confront Edbur, my trailing shadow. I set Lowly Crows upon the sky, to find the whelp out. Her flight was brief and fleet. Hardly away, she was at once surrounded by a host of her close kin: birds who appeared out of discreet hiding (if not out of thin air) to deliver her their intelligence. She quickly returned to my side.

‘He is no longer there,’ she said, without explanation, only giving me an inquisitive rook’s eye. (It was an odd mannerism that meant her turning her head upon one side to regard me. A look I was to see many times thereafter.)

‘No longer there?’ I pressed.

‘His camp is broken up; his fire is quite cold. There is only carrion to be seen – a bloody carcass.’

Edbur had encamped upon the scarp of a slowly rising cliff at the mouth of the river. It was not a great height. Though obviously enough of a hide for him to watch over us, within the bay, without being revealed in his turn.

Had I underestimated the talents of the gawky youth?

As I approached his abandoned camp I saw at once the broken carcass of a horse; all signs of leather and iron, saddle and baggage, removed. The animal’s throat had been cleanly cut, and it was freshly killed; its meat still bright red, its exposed bone still pink. Some eager scavenger had already been gnawing upon it.

‘Dandy? Shit! Shit!’ I began to run, lifting my sword from its scabbard though it was a futile gesture. ‘Dandy!’

The dead hobb was obviously not Dandelion. Its colouring was similar, but it was much older in the tooth, and its stature too slight. There was a grey mask around its sightless eyes. This hobb was surely Edbur’s own. I saw the ploy in it.

Edbur had taken the best animal for himself, and deliberately slaughtered the other. He was a Wishard, after all – he knew the trick to sitting his arse upon Dandy’s back without the rebuke. Given the choice, any fighting-man would do the same if his mount was become aged, or suddenly wearying beyond help. There is no pride in riding a dying nag, neither for the man or the beast. Or were there other reasons, other games in play here? Was it done simply to hinder my progress; take my hobby-horse, leave me without? If Edbur was a more seasoned snoop than I had suspected, if he had seen more and understood better what we were about, and was set upon returning to Wolfrid – who was always The Graynelord’s man…

‘Fuck!’ (I fear, Rogrig Wishard was become a bloody fool!)

It was only now I recalled the reckless follies of my previous evening’s intimate entertainment. How blind the enamoured man!

‘Fuck!’

Of course, Edbur-the-Widdle, the scrawny whelp, had witnessed it all. And what – was gone scampering home to Dingly Dell with sordid tales of the faerie-touched man seen cavorting with the unifauns? And what might my elder-cousin, Wolfrid, make of such tittle-tattle? Enough, I fear, at least to wonder at the truth of it. Enough, perhaps, to leave me dangling in the shadows of the gibbet tree? For certain, I would not be easily welcomed at that man’s door.

And worse! Nor would I want the waggling ears of the South March to catch rumours of such a fanciful tale before Lowly Crows and I were well set upon our path. The Graynelord was not a forgiving man. We must be quickly away.

And close kin or no, Edbur-the-snoop, Edbur-the-horse-thief, would be made to pay for this! Fortunately, the whelp had made one mistake, which was to my advantage: in abandoning his hobb, he had left behind its meat. I quickly set to work, stripped its bones, taking as much as I could sensibly carry. I wrapped it in a pouch cut from the animal’s own hide. While I busied my knife, Lowly Crows watched over me. She shyly took her own share, made a brief repast of the hobb’s sweetest entrails; entreated her fellows to come down out of the sky to do likewise.

The road is a difficult companion. It is endless, silent, and a heavy toil. I was a-foot and a man alone when I set out upon the trail to Carraw Peel. And if I exaggerate my burden just a little for the sake of my tale, if the crow took pity upon me and, sometime, gave me better company as the woman – and herself a rougher journey for that – forgive the liar. Shanks’s pony was never my preferred transport and I do reserve the right to complain about it as often as I like.

We travelled hard and fast, and upon the less worn path; paused only for the necessity of rest and repast; saw little on our way worthy of account (which was our intent). Though once, when we were sitting comfortably together beneath the shade of a tree – the man and the woman – we found ourselves in a conversation I would relate to you.

‘Upon a day, when we were hardly met, you gave me half a tale, I think,’ I ventured.

‘Mine own, you mean? And the greater half I think it was,’ she returned, almost shyly. As she spoke she closed her eyes and held them so. While her fingers pulled at the loose threads of her woollen jerkin. ‘You would have me give up its simple remainder?’

I left the answer unspoken. ‘I am curious, is all.’ I said. ‘I have no doubt you saved my life upon the mire, and I would know how it truly came about. Only, I did not wish to offend you.’

‘Wishes, Rogrig. Wishes?’ Lowly Crows opened her eyes. She shook her head at me, gently smiling now, but gave no explanation of her teasing, her faerie slight. Then she took a breath as if to steel herself, as if what I had asked of her was not such a simple thing after all.

‘What have you seen of me?’’ she asked.

‘Seen of you? Well, I have seen the bird alone,’ I said. ‘And I have seen the Shift. That is the bird become the young woman; and again, the woman become a flock of birds—’

‘Ha!’ Lowly Crows laughed openly, as if I had made a joke.

‘Is it not so, then?’ I asked.

‘And which of these do you suppose came first?’ she returned.

‘First?’ I shrugged, uncertain if this was only a game we were at; or something rather more. ‘You were, Lucia Hogspur…’

She shook her head slowly. Then, she drew a circle in the air between her outstretched fingers, as if to stand my answer upon its head.

‘Eh?’

‘We are fey, you and I. We have long known our own true selves,’ she said. ‘But it is the shaded face we have shared with the world. Only the painted mask we have openly offered to other men.’

I brought to mind the Beggar Bard’s tales. How had they always described the demise of faerie? At the very end the few survivors had disguised themselves, hidden themselves away (wasn’t that it?). They had hidden among men, and among the animals of the earth, and among the birds of the air. Only I had always thought of it as, well, simple flavouring, added to the pot: part of the telling of a good story. In my simple ignorance, even now, I had assumed we were all of us men first.

Lowly Crows ran her fingers through her hair, at the nape of her neck, in the same way I had seen the bird use her beak to preen her feathers.

‘My true beginning is as a dream to me now,’ she said, smiling slightly. ‘Though, it is a most wondrous dream.’ Again, she picked thoughtfully at the woollen sleeve of her jerkin. ‘I was good at what I did, of that there was no doubt. And I was so beautiful, of my kind, and so strong. My flight was perfection. My cry was awesome; enough to ward off all but the most foolhardy of predators. And those I could not scare with threat alone, the rake of my claws or the cut of my beak soon settled.’

I suddenly realized, within those few words, Lowly Crows had transformed herself before me. The retiring woman was gone. It was the crow who stood upon the ground before me now. She gave me her rook’s eye, as if slightly embarrassed.

‘I was, if not a queen, then a princess among my kin,’ she said, without conceit. ‘And Windcatcher, a most handsome male, was my prince…or he surely would have been if only he had known the strength of my ardour. I was young still, and the instinct to mate – if not the desire – was not yet overwhelming. There was time enough, and I felt safe in the knowledge that it would come about.

‘And if he was Windcatcher by name, we were all of us wind-catchers in our hearts. Whenever we heard the cry of the wind we would spread our wings and fly. We were not birds meant to settle, always moving on, ever keen to catch the next wind…’ She paused, reflectively. ‘I knew the sky, then, Rogrig! Oh, how glorious is the sky!’ Her voice suddenly faltered. ‘Only…Alas! I did not understand the tricks of devious men.’

‘How so, my friend?’ I asked.

‘Upon a day, I was caught within a cruel trap,’ she said bluntly, with scant detail. There were other dark shadows there she preferred to leave undisturbed. ‘I was lured to the ground, and as I took the bait I was caged! I might well have died; it was as much a sudden end. And for what good reason was I imprisoned? To become a pet! A curious plaything, for a babbie’s amusement! Surely, not I! Not I, who would have, only, the sky! Who would ever take wing and fly!’ She fluttered her wings in an agitated fashion as if she could shake off the unwelcome memories. Then she fell still, took a breath, steeling herself for the last of it. ‘Though, in the end, of course, the bird
did
die. You see, I let her die, Rogrig. I let the bird die. It was the only way to escape the cage.’

‘You…you
became
the girl, then,’ I said softly, ‘to regain your freedom?’

Lowly Crows gave me the rook’s eye. ‘In that darkest hour, when all that I had been was finally stripped away, what was left to me? Only at the last, I remembered my true self, my original nature…that small part of me which is fey…or rather it was laid bare before me…So, I let go of my other self…And the bird died, and was
utterly
forgotten. While the infant girl who took her place survived…’ There was a tear in the crow’s eye. ‘How easily that human child – not recognized a changeling – was taken to the hearts of men and became Lucia Hogspur.’

The crow took off then, lifted herself high into the sky. As I watched she flew in among the clouds where she was joined by a great body of black birds; companions that had shadowed our adventure all the while. Lowly Crows stayed away a long time.

I took the two halves of her story and made it a whole, as certainly as you can, my friend. Lowly Crows never spoke of it again.