Shaman of Stonewylde (68 page)

Sylvie completed her year’s work giving careers advice to the students, and encouraged a large group of youngsters, soon to take their exams, to continue their education afterwards and study to become nurses and teachers. Both professions were needed in Stonewylde.

Many of the older folk decided to retire, having served the estate for most of their lives, and Old Greenbough and Tom were among these. There was a big reshuffle in the Village to organise accommodation and more of the elderly people were moved up to the Hall into their own wing. Here they were comfortably cared for and began to develop their own community, although Old Violet did her best to terrorise everyone at every opportunity.

A building programme was drawn up to provide more housing for young families, and everyone was encouraged to help build the cottages together, in the traditional way. There was a general air of positivity and a returning community spirit that filtered
down
even to the youngsters in school. Everyone started to pull together, determined to preserve the Stonewylde ethos in the face of so much change.

In Maizie’s cottage, Yul and his family lived like true Villagers and had never been happier. Sylvie and Maizie re-negotiated the delicate balance between them, for the focus had shifted since Yul’s return. He was now the man of the household, coming home every day after his stock-taking and work around the estate, to find an adoring wife, doting mother and excited daughters all waiting expectantly for him. Sylvie bloomed in a way not seen since her and Yul’s early days together, before they went off to study in the Outside World and their subsequent handfasting. Despite her blonde hair, she’d become a traditional Villager right down to the old leather boots and wicker basket, and she loved every minute of it.

As her time approached, she bowed out of most of her duties at the Hall, knowing that the Board of Trustees were managing perfectly well without her. It would be at least six months and probably a full year until everything was ready to welcome the first patients to the healing centre, as the building works and upgrading of facilities required were extensive. Sylvie was excited at the prospect of her dream becoming reality, but for the immediate future all she really wanted was to focus on her husband and family. The baby inside grew rapidly and she accepted her restricted mobility with serenity. It was good to have Maizie there to run the household, enabling Sylvie to relax in the final stages of pregnancy and enjoy her husband’s attentive devotion.

Yul had become a man she hadn’t seen before. Her dark boy, eager and passionate, had never quite overcome his impetuosity and impatience. There’d always been an edge to him that demanded attention and insisted on having the upper hand. But now he’d lost the sharpness of immaturity and youthful arrogance, and become honed into something smooth and well-tempered, a man of gentleness and strength, humility and authority. No longer did he need to prove himself at every opportunity. He listened, he attended, he cared for not only his wife and little
girls
, but his wider family and the community around him. At the age of thirty he’d grown up, and Sylvie had never known such happiness and contentment. Life was so very sweet.

Beltane came and with it the Dark Moon, so the traditional gathering of women in the Barn didn’t happen. Yul was a virile Green Man and Sylvie the beautiful May Queen, a role she really hadn’t wanted. But she’d been persuaded to take it on one last time, as she’d be thirty this summer and perhaps too matronly after that. She was very heavily pregnant and the baby was due in about a week or so. She felt a little incongruous dressed in white, with a headdress of hawthorn-blossom and bluebells sitting on her long blonde hair. Yul kissed her doubts away and assured her that rather than a young girl on the cusp of woman-hood, she was a radiant and true representation of blooming female fecundity.

The sun rose and Rufus up on the May Sister stone lit the Bel Fire. Yul received a dowsing of Green Magic such as he’d never before experienced, even in his wild youth. He felt himself lift slightly from the stone, his great wreath of oak leaves bristling with the energy that shot through him. Tears smudged the green paint as he thanked the Goddess for blessing him once again with her gift. Standing silently next to Leveret, Magpie watched and noted the very moving sight of the Green Man receiving the earth energy at Beltane sunrise. He planned to paint a companion to the moondance picture he’d done last year for Sylvie, which now hung on the massive staircase in the Hall for everyone to see and admire. He knew as he watched Yul that this was the perfect scene, and his differently-wired brain recorded every detail.

The Dance of the Staves, the Maidens’ Maypole Dance and Naming of the Babies all took place in sunshine on the Village Green, for the heavy rains had ceased a couple of days before to give way to warmth and sunshine. When it came to Dawn’s turn, she proudly handed little Beith over to Yul to announce her name. Sylvie gave Dawn a special hug as she presented her
with
Beith’s Imbolc charm on a ribbon, marking the festival nearest to the baby’s birth.

‘I’m so happy for you, Dawn,’ she whispered. ‘Your little girl is all you’d ever dreamt of, isn’t she?’

‘Oh, she is! I’d never dared to hope for all of this and my life’s complete. It’s your turn next, Sylvie,’ Dawn replied. ‘Any day now!’

‘The way I’m feeling at this moment, it could be today,’ Sylvie laughed, for her back was really aching from the weight of her belly. After such a discreet start she’d grown enormous in the final weeks, and had now reached that stage where all she wanted was for the birth to be over and done with.

There were games all afternoon on the Green. Yul made Sylvie a little nest of rugs and cushions under a beech tree coming into leaf, so she could watch the proceedings in comfort. She looked lovely resting there in her white dress, silky hair falling around her bare shoulders like a bridal veil. Pregnancy suited her, filling out her hollows and sharpness and giving her a look of smooth ripeness. Magpie and Leveret came across the Green, Magpie taking her hand so Leveret too could enjoy the lovely image of Sylvie reclining under the beech tree.

Maizie came over to join them, finally feeling her old self again. She was so very happy to have her special boy back home in the bosom of the family and wanted nothing more than for Yul, Sylvie and all three children to remain with her in the cottage, where there was plenty of room for them all.

‘You’re ready to drop I reckon,’ she said, running her hand wisely over Sylvie’s rock hard belly. ‘He’s very still today and ’tis a sure sign he’s gathering up his strength.’

‘More like he just can’t move any more,’ laughed Sylvie. ‘He’s outgrown his accommodation.’

‘What do you reckon, Leveret?’ asked Maizie. ‘Put your hand here and tell me what you think.’

She pulled Leveret’s hand across and placed it on Sylvie’s bump. Leveret’s hand tingled and then she felt overwhelmed by the strange sensation of this child, this special one, making
contact
with her through Sylvie’s stretched skin. She had a jolt of certainty that she and the little boy would be very close. He’d be such a huge part of her life – the child she could never have herself. He was a magus and would be great; he’d be loved by everyone and would bring joy and true prosperity to Stonewylde.
When the Green Man returns to Stonewylde, all will prosper
. . . it was carved in yew in the Jack in the Green, and would be so. But before that . . . Leveret snatched her hand away, not wanting to see.

‘He seems to be doing fine in there,’ she said, laughing shakily. ‘He’ll come when he’s ready.’

He came at the sunset ceremony that evening in the Stone Circle. His father stood chanting on the Altar Stone as the great ball of fire slowly sank below the horizon. The folk of Stonewylde filled the Circle where the Bel Fire had burnt all day, where the laughing Green Men danced on the stones and the huge Lord of the Greenwood above the Altar gazed down. The drumbeats were loud and insistent, filling the arena with a great throbbing, and the May Queen’s backache that had nagged and twinged all day suddenly became much, much sharper.

Sylvie stood near the Altar Stone next to Leveret, who was once more wearing her headdress and beautiful new robes. Drowned out by the massive noise of the drums, surrounded by the crush of people and shifting, pulsating energy, Sylvie gasped and then groaned. Her tiny sound was engulfed and nobody noticed as her eyes flashed wide-open in shock. She looked down and saw that her waters had broken, and liquid was pooling around her bare feet on the earth. The baby inside began to burrow his way out on a grinding, splitting wave of pain and again she groaned, long and loud, and clutched the Altar Stone for support. Down, down, he pushed and she pushed, just wanting out, riding the crescendo of pain. Beside her, the young Wise Woman somehow sensed it and took her arm, making her squat on the ground. Leveret knelt down on the earth beside her and felt between Sylvie’s legs; she found the
crown
of the baby’s head there already, on the threshold of birth.

‘Oh Goddess, Sylvie, he’s coming! HAZEL! Quick, Magpie! Get Hazel or Mother now this minute!’ she shouted over the wild drumming.

Sylvie let out the cry, the primeval scream of the female giving birth, that same sound so unchanged throughout the ages and throughout the lands, and she pushed and pushed and he was coming, swimming, emerging, tunnelling, travelling and there! One huge final push and he was out and slippery and then another ache, and cramp, and twist, and push and there! – the afterbirth. Leveret all alone and blind had eased him, supported him, twisted him out and now she held him hot, greasy, slimy, bloody. Still wearing her hare headdress and laughing with joy, she held precious little Ioho as he took his first breath of Stonewylde air into his lungs. He yelled triumphantly across the great arena where all his folk were now standing, silent and rapt, the drums and dancing forgotten. Tenderly the Wise Woman presented him to Sylvie as she sat propped against the Altar Stone. She cradled him, bloody against her white dress, her silver-blonde hair falling onto his waxy body and veiling his folds of almost-purple flesh and night-black hair. She smiled at his loud, insistent bleats for attention: ‘I’m here, I’m born, I’m arrived!’

Leveret delved in her robes and found Mother Heggy’s sacred white-handled knife and, feeling along the length, gauging the distance carefully as Hazel had shown her, cut the cord so he was now of this world. Leveret raised her blind eyes to the skies, to the twilight where no moon would rise tonight for it was the Dark Moon. She called out into the awe-struck hush, thanking the Dark Goddess for this precious gift of new life, for Ioho of the Yew, this little boy born of the Green Man and the May Queen, the Magus and the Moongazy Maiden.

‘Your Hare Woman has spoken true! I told you that at Beltane, when the Green Man raises the sap and fertilises the White Maiden in the never-ending cycle of rebirth and growth,
something
magical will come to pass! And behold – our own magical baby is come! He is here amongst us!’

As she cried out these words she felt it coming, sizzling around the hidden labyrinth, until it burst forth from the ground. The Green Magic enveloped Sylvie where she reclined, her white dress smeared and blotted with blood. She was doused with the green light; it raced through her and into Ioho and the new-born creature glowed with the bright energy. Sparks seemed to fly from him and he yelled in triumph, his tiny naked body rigid in a spasm of ecstasy. Then the green energy faded and there he was, an ordinary babe cradled in the arms of his tearful mother, and his father looking on with such love and joy he could’ve set the world alight. The folk stared in wonder at this auspicious beginning for such a child – conceived under the yew tree on the Village Green at the Blue Moon on Lammas Eve, born at the Dark Moon in the Stone Circle at Beltane. Was ever a child more blessed?

32

B
luebell stood under her favourite tree on the Village Green – a huge sweet-chestnut that produced long serrated leaves like kippers, and, in the autumn, green prickly hedgehogs full of fat brown chestnuts to roast. She wore her best dress, dyed with delicate rose madder and embroidered all over the bodice with white stars. Granny Maizie had done those, and had knitted her soft white lambswool cardigan too. Bluebell also wore a circlet of bluebells in her hair which made her feel especially magical, as they were her own flower. She was the Princess of the Bluebell Faeries, in her story at least.

It was warm and sunny, the day of Hare Moon and the day of the handfastings. Uncle Gefrin was being wed to Meadowsweet today, and Granny Maizie was very busy and excited. Her parents were also busy as they must perform the ceremony together, wearing special robes for the occasion. Celandine was to dance at the start of the ceremony all on her own in the circle. She wore a beautiful white dress that Granny Maizie had made for her at Imbolc, when Auntie Leveret had become an adult.

Bluebell could see her sister still practising nervously, jumping about like a long-legged faun on the grass. Baby Ioho was safely asleep in the Nursery for now, Auntie Leveret sitting with him while they got the Village Green and Barn ready. Auntie Leveret spent a lot of time with the baby, and Bluebell thought it was because she really wanted to be a mummy but knew she couldn’t. Ioho was only two weeks old and might need another
feed
soon. Bluebell hoped so; she loved to sit all cuddled up to her mother whilst he suckled, sharing the closeness and that lovely smell of baby, mummy and milk all mixed up.

Her thumb crept up to her mouth and she guiltily enjoyed the comfort it brought. Nobody could see her here under her tree if she stood right back against the trunk. The jagged leaves were young and fresh and starting to provide more cover, useful if she wanted to be secret. Bluebell wondered if she should start trying to make her spell now, whilst everyone was so busy and hadn’t yet noticed her absence. It must be done today, for something bad was going to happen.