Saorla Fey
Janet leaned over the cold stone balustrade, looking down on the game below. There were six women to each of the four sides of the huge game table, the squares flashing brilliant colours in the morning sunlight. Each crystalline chess-man uttered a fine ringing sound as it was touched by the wand of a player, and a constant flow of assonant tones filled the great room, echoing back from the domed ceiling far above. She felt sick, as she had for several mornings past, the high, clear tones and the flashing colours making her even more nauseous. She was glad that she had not been selected to play this year, even though her playing would have been a courtesy matter only, she being the high king's daughter.
She stepped back from the balustrade, about to return to her chamber and wait for the nausea to pass when she felt a deep pulling sensation within her. It was as if some innermost part of her body was being drawn away, and must drag the rest with it, or be torn out. She knew that upon the hill someone was blowing a horn, and felt in her deep dress pocket for the withered rose. A thorn stabbed into her thumb, and drew blood. She sucked the blood away to ease her pain, the pulling starting again. Below her, upon the great game table below, pieces began to vibrate suddenly, causing the players to look about in alarm. Clearly the distant horn was reaching even the crystal pieces, the men at arms, warriors, maidens, the deadman, and the queen, upon each board.
Withdrawing quickly before she could be seen, Janet fled to her room. Darting down the small stone stair that led into a back courtyard, through the courtyard door, she ran out into open country beyond. It was not a long walk to the little wood upon the hill which her father had given to her, but before she reached the outermost trees, the silent horn blew again, tearing at her soul. She ran into the low thorny bushes, the wild roses that had been her special gift, and on under the hazel trees. Towards the center of the woods there was a bubbling spring, where she knew someone waited for her. Pausing, panting for breath, she leaned against a hawthorn tree close to the clear pool. He was here, she was certain, but could not be seen. Three times he had blown his horn to summon her, yet he was further off now than he had ever been.
When they had first met he had appeared suddenly beside her, a solid handsome man, with dark curling hair and deep brown eyes. She had plucked her first rose of the spring that day, rejoicing that her father had given her the rose and hazel woods as her own special place, perhaps with some good magic in it. But with her tearing of the rose from the branch, the young man had stepped out of the bushes suddenly, with no sound of rustling branches or snapping twigs. He had been angry too, demanding by what right she pulled flowers for her hat in the hallowed place. She had laughed, and told him that her father owned all the land around, and had given her the little hill for her very own wild plearsure garden.
What had happened next was a mystery, for the handsome young man seemed to blur and shimmer, dissolving into a golden cloud, humming like bees upon a hot summer day; while she herself felt drowsy yet seething with insatiable savage desire. When she awoke she was in her own bed at home, with the pleasant morning light shining through the long tapestry that hung over the deep window. She thought it had all been a dream. Until the morning sickness.
So she had gone to the wood again, to find that small grey herb which old women talked about in whispers, and again the man had appeared, or rather his voice had come to her out of the thick tangled mass of wild roses, woodbine, and hazel. This time he had told her his name, Tam Lin, and that he was guardian of the wood, set to watch the spring and the rose bushes by the queen of the land. Janet had not believed this, for her own father ruled hereabouts, but in the confusion of his voice from the bushes, and the sudden warmth that she felt for him, even though he remained unseen, she forgot to pull the abortificant.
And now he had summoned her with a terrible unrelenting summons, drawing upon the child in her womb by some means that she could not understand. At the center of the woods, by the clear pool, she waited for him to speak. This time his voice was very faint, as if travelling in great distance, yet it was right by her ear, as if he also stood beside her and whispered gently. He told her that he was a prisoner of the Great Queen, and that she and her terrible people intended to sacrifice him at the November feast, when the gates between the living and the dead stood open for a brief wild moment. Janet pitied him then, and in pitying him she remembered that she loved him, as if it was something that she had always known but had superficially forgotten while busy with the trivia of her entire life to this very moment in time and space.
Three times she had met him, and each time he had been further from her. Three times he had blown his horn to summon her and now he was furthest away, yet closer and clearer than ever. She listened well to the instructions that he offered, and when his voice finally faded, and only the sounds of the wood could be heard through the rising wind, she quietly went home to wait for the festival in November.
By that time, of course, her belly was swelling, and her father had long since found her out, and challenged her to name her lover. Her obstinate refusal enraged him, and he swore that she would be married to whatever half-decent warrior or chieftain that might have her, bastard and all. After all, she was a high king's daughter, as much as anyone could tell, and he could sweeten her pregnancy with many gifts. Janet refused to consider such an outrageous idea, and no matter how much her father shouted and raged, disturbing the chess players below the gallery where he and she stood jut-chinned and hands on hips arguing, she refused to be married. It was her right to choose her own husband, just as it was her blood that carried the royal lineage, and not his. Such pretensions from a man, father, king!
The king pulled his plaited, silk-ribboned, orange beard, and slapped himself in the face several times, turning purple with rage. Then he stomped off to muck out the pigsty, which was, of course, the royal perogative. The chess game settled down again, and one tall, calm lady glided swiftly across the central board to check-mate the deadman. The adjudicators beat upon their huge bronze gongs until the royal hall vibrated in every stone. Dust sweeped out of tiny cracks in the roof, abandoned game pieces fell over on their boards. The everbation died, but nobody dared to tell the king that he was about to be married again. Of course, the pigs had already told him. It did not improve his temper in the slightest.
The November festival came not long after the royal marriage that year, so many of the wedding games ran on into those for the turning of the winter stars. But no one could hide the tensions as the turning time approached: there were many dead friends, relatives, and enemies to consider, and always there were unspoken questions about the year to come. So in the very center pit of night, when beans had been cast, fires raked through, milk poured, and much wine and beer drunk, everyone lay snoring or trembling in their sleeping chambers or on the rushes upon the chess-hall floor.
Janet, however, was wide awake, and creeping towards the back courtyard gate. She carried, with difficulty, a great skin bag full of fresh milk, which she herself had taken from the huge vat of that day's milking, declaring that she wanted it to bathe in. It was heavy, and made loud gurgling and deep slapping sounds, as if to announce itself to all and sundry whenever she passed. She had never realized that milk was so noisy. Beyond the gate she had tethered a quiet donkey, who patiently allowed her to sling the grumbling milk across its back, and walked by her side towards the dark wood upon the distant hill.
The night was very still, indeed, as if all sounds had been terminated. The stars were small and clear. On this night the terrible armies and hosts of the Otherworld were said to ride, yet all was peaceful. Janet felt suddenly cheated by the silence, and then relief replaced her fear. Perhaps nothing bad would happen at all, she thought to herself.
As Janet, the donkey, and the grumbling milk crept through the dark meadow towards the trees they felt a deep vibration in the damp earth beneath. It was as if a host of riders passed through the ground far below them, the hoofs muffled by the clay, yet distinct enough to recognize even individual horses. But within a few moments the sound had dwindled in a distance. Janet increased her pace, the donkey adding it's complaint in concert with the milk. They reached the border of the woods, where the first few stunted bushes reached out of blackest shadows, but instead of striking into the trees, she took a faint path around the woodland, towards the high crossroads beyond. Again she felt the host pass through the earth beneath her, the sounds were louder now, as if they neared the surface, and even a faint sound of voices could be heard, crying in a high strange language.
Now the donkey brayed and tried to bolt. She coaxed it with tickling and breathing, and he plodded on, leaving the woodland behind, and coming out on to the high bones of the downland. As they moved slowly through the cold night towards the open crossroads, Janet realized that the rumbling beneath the earth had first travelled from behind her and then from her right. It was as if the unseen host of riders had travelled south to north, and then east to west. She could not understand this at all, and used the puzzle to suppress her growing fear. There was no logical answer to this problem, she decided, and, seeking further distraction from terror, she listened instead to the milk. It seemed to be saying:
First I was green,
But now I am white,
First I was warm
Now I freeze in the night...
The gloomy message helped her not at all. She laid her hands upon the great leather bag, and it drew the warmth out of them. Deep inside her, her baby suddenly kicked, then became still.
Four ancient upland roads met together at a high, flat place, and there Janet, donkey, milk and baby stopped. She quickly lowered the bag of milk from the donkey's back, the donkey trembling with fear. At the very center of the crossroads a tall menhir rose up towards the stars, and upon it a thoughtful missionary had carved the figure of a small man with a teardrop-shaped head, his arms spread out wide in the shape of a cross. She doubted very much if this religious emblem would protect her, but gently touched it out of respect for all victims upon the Wheel, no matter what name or origin. As she did so, a faint flow of energy seemed to emanate from the figure, as if it moved slightly beneath the warmth of her touch. Again the baby in her womb kicked, then settled peacefully.
The milk had stopped complaining as soon as it was set upon the ground, and Janet looked about her for the stone basins. There they were, overgrown with long grass, unused for many years. Two deeply etched bowls, each big enough to hold a human. In the cold, under the faintest starlight, she pulled the grass away, and scraped the bowls clean, using a bundle of long grass and ferns to make a thorough job of it. Into one bowl she poured the milk, which made such a loud noise as it poured that the donkey bolted off into the dark, his small hooves tapping lightly, speedily, upon the stones of the road.
Now she felt the need for haste, for the middle of the night must be drawing near. Using the empty skin, she drew water from the traveller's well at the foot of the menhir, and filled the second basin. As the water reached the brim, dark clouds seethed overhead, and suddenly she could see nothing. In the distance, coming it seemed down all four roads, and upon the very surface of the earth, she could hear a host of riders. The bridle bells rang, shrill bird-like voices called and cried, harnesses jingled and the ground began to shake at their coming. Then four great hosts, one from each corner of the land, drew near to the crossroads.
In the total darkness Janet knew that she would fail for she could see nothing. Cowering behind the tall stone, she realized that she could not tell any difference between the black, brown, and white horses as her lover had bidden her. He would be riding on the milk-white steed, after the first black and the first brown horse to reach the crossroads. But all the horses are black in the dark.
The host surrounded her with a great roaring and pounding and ringing. She heard their long lance-heads clashing and for the first time smelt the heady perfume of their kind, making her head spin and wild sensations flow through her body. Then she felt again that terrible pull from within. It came so strongly that she was jerked out of hiding in the shadow beneath the stone like a helpless puppet, her muscles working despite her will. The blackness was lit by flashes of white and green and gold, shimmering outlines of wild figures with long flowing hair and violet eyes; a wildfire flowed over and around and through the great host that milled and merged about the cross, seeking a new direction for their charge. And the white horse shone like a star, like a mirror reflecting the dawn, like love within a maiden's eyes as she lies with her first man. Upon it he road, with a tall, spiralling, crystal crown upon his head and blank unseeing eyes.
Just as he had bidden, in full defiance of the host, she leapt upon him and dragged him to the ground. Instantly the riders formed a great circle about her, galloping and screaming, forming a blur of colours and sound. She lay panting upon the still form of the man, seeing the shards of the crown glitter upon the rough stones all about. Then she felt his shape begin to change.
His body elongated beneath her, his hair lengthened and coursened and the rank smell of a wild beast came from him. Rippling muscles sought to shake her off and a gust of hot, meat-rotten air roared out of his fanged lion's mouth. But she held on to him gently, as if the vicious beast raging beneath her was her own baby, and suddenly the lion shape sagged and melted. The host fell silent, circling her with a hissing of indrawn breath, faster and faster yet, until the ground trembled only slightly, as if they passed above it in their spinning. She did not lift her eyes off the ground, knowing that she must not yet look at whatever she held, nor at the circling riders.
As the riders gained speed, so did the transformations. She felt an amorphous sea beast, a lithe dry serpent, a clicking hook-jawed insect that rasped its legs against her face, tearing her skin, a flapping bird with a harsh beak and claws; other shapes and smells and sensations followed one after another, each trying its uttermost to throw her off and away from out of the shadow of the protecting stone, out under the hoofs of the circling host. Then the transformations paused, and she felt heat. Her eyes were tightly closed; she felt the shape beneath her become rigid like metal. Hot metal; the burning calor of it seared her hands, singed her eyesbrows away, and she could smell the burning of flesh and hair. With a great burst of strength, she flung the burning metal into the bowl of the well water, a cloud of steam shooting up high into the night.
The circling host stopped dead, horses staggering into one another, spear-heads clashed and tangled. Still the water seethed and boiled as something struggled within the ancient basin to gain shape. The stone seemed to glow with heat, and in that dim light she saw what might be a hand, glowing amber with flickering blue veins and red bones showing clearly through it. She crawled to the basin, and pulled herself upright, definatly gazing upon the vast multitude that watched now in stillness and silence. Reaching in, she lifted the glowing man-shape firmly, grasping it beneath each armpit, and with a scream threw it over into the basin of fresh milk. Instantly the milk began to talk. It babbled with voices that she knew, her mother and her mother's mother, both dead, her long-buried aunts, her murdered sisters, all entreating her to take this terrible man-shape away before it destroyed them and cast them into the shadows with its golden heat. Then the milk slowly turned blood-red, first in streaks, then in broad clots, then into widening veins. As it turned to blood it fell silent, but the man-shaped within beat its arms and legs, thrashing about until it fell out on to the grass. A beautiful naked man, unconscious. She wrapped her long green mantle about him, cradling him in her arms, wrapping him until not one part of him from head to toe could be seen.
The clouds above rolled back as if a great wind had snatched at them, and the cold clear light of a full moon shone into the circle. Suddenly she was aware of the army surrounding her, the rainbow-coloured eyes of the horses, the purple glowing stare of the riders, the deadly long lances. But as one the horses fell to their knees and the riders flung down their weapons and covered their fair, terrible faces with their hair. Janet assumed, for a giddy instant, that they made obeisance out of respect for her courage. But out of the north came a grating cry like that of a night bird, and with its sound the horses flattened themseves upon the ground, and the riders shook with terror . The Great Queen had come.
Janet sat still as still, exhausted. She saw the terror of the riders but could not comprehend it. What person, what force, what power could bring such a host to its knees? Then, slowly, the circle of abject horses and riders parted, making a narrow gap, straight as an arrow towards the north road. Janet saw nothing, but felt in the furthest distance, as if beyond the northernmost north, the wheeling of a flock of black birds over ancient ice, the voice of a crow seemed to reach towards her and pass through her as if she was nothing, for it sought the man that she cradled in her arms, and had no other purpose but to reach him. It asked him how he had allowed a mere human to steal him back. But he slept, protected by Janet's mantle, warm and at peace.
The crow voice withdrew, and the prostrated army shuffled and reordered, the riders wrapping their long white hair even tighter about their faces and moaning softly. An avenue opened to the south. Beyond the southernmost horizon Janet thought she saw a bush of green broom in full blossom, yet raging with consuming wildfire. From out of that bush came a warm, loving and deadly whisper: the Great Queen called upon her two sister-selves to witness this impudent theft of a life from her realm to that of mortal men. The golden murmur sunk into the ear of the sleeping man, but still he heard nothing.
When the voice died Janet began to wonder how they might fetch home to her father's hall, and knew that she would not be allowed to pass unscathed. Within the circle of the crossroads and beneath the guardian stone she was, for now, safe. But she dare not stop beyond the limit of the basins of milk and water. As she thought of this, she looked upon the basins that held the water, and saw that is was dry. Next she looked upon the basin that had once held milk, now turned to blood. As she looked the blood in that great basin seemed to drain away, as if taken in drink by an unseen presence. The eldritch army moaned and writhed and fell from their horses, covering their ears with their hands, pushing their faces into the horses' flanks to further muffle their hearing.
Out of the west came the cry of a night owl, and within that the voice of a young girl. Again the voices passed through her towards the sleeping man. They sobbed and hooted and lilted that if they had known of such treachery as love, they would have plucked out his soft gentle brown eyes, and put in eyes from the knotty trunk of the hawthorn tree. And had they known of the power of the mortal heart, they would have torn his living heart from his body, and replaced it with a heart of granite stone.
Then the flock of crows, the burning flowering bush and the owl maiden rose up together and stretched their power towards the center of the circle. The elfin horses screamed aloud, a tearing, desperate sound, and ran mad, kicking at their masters, and biting each other in the necks until clear green ichor flowed over the grass, which began to move and grow wherever the fluid touched. The tall standing stone, with its tiny carving of the man, his arms outstretched in blessing, began to vibrate with the power of the Great Queen. Janet bent her head over the sleeper in her arms, and knew that when the stone shattered they would both die, at best, or at worst remain alive. She prayed for death, even if it was death for herself that he might stay alive and go free.
With her prayer came a sudden hush, and the presence of the Great Queen faltered, then snapped away suddenly. Janet remained still, her eyes tight shut, awaiting the next onslaught. She could no longer hear the screaming of demented horses or the terrified fairy warriors. But there came instead a faint chorus of birds in the distant wood behind her, heralding the light of dawn, passing down the eastern road towards her.
When Janet and Tam Lin returned to her father's hall that morning, they found a new chess game about to begin. The king, with an unusual display of good sense, named Tam Lin his tanist or successor, and ambled off to talk to the pigs. Janet thought a while, then took it upon herself to secretly remove the queen pieces from each of the boards, at night, one at a time. Of course no one suspected her, and no one has solved the problem of how to play the game properly from that day to this.
