(A sample from Blood by Moonlight.)
© 2009 asotir. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
22. Of the Masquerade
DURING THE LAST MOONS before the masquerade, Lady Arianna was closed up in her garden, alone. Never a soul saw her in that time; but sometimes lovers strolling beneath the garden wall heard a soft low humming there.
And in that time, on the streets of the village across the lough, the countryfolk were shaking their heads. And their young daughters went down to the lough fifty at a time, ringing the bell and calling to the ferrymen, ‘Take me across, now! Let me go into service in the abbey!’ ‘No, take me instead, I’m more clever and willing!’
And in the long low hall the serving girls were hugging and kissing one another, the way they knew their service was reaching an end, and soon they would be rewarded and sent home again. The thought of their old parents was making them smile a sly and wicked smile. They were no more the sweet obedient lasses they’d been when they had come.
‘It is not the same for me,’ Agnes told them. ‘I’ll be taking no duais, let the steps be as bright as they can be.’
Agnes had dwelt on the crannog in the mist then almost the full term of service. Nine Moons had risen in the time since she had come across on the Swan Boat. And more, the Hundred Steps and a Step were clean, and many a time Old Meg came calling for Agnes, to be sending her on her way. But Agnes kept away from her, and could flee when she wished into Maid Buan’s chambers, where Old Meg dared not set foot.
In the bell-tower on the moon before the lady’s masquerade there was darkness and quiet, save for the soft hiss of the embers, and the passing of moonbeams through the window.
In that window the man was sitting, one leg dangling in the room, the other bent on the sill. He was dressed plain and dark, the way free-holding farmers might have gone to church in Day. His hair was dark and unruly, with a streak of silver above the left temple; his face was troubled. In his lap was curled his long-haired white cat. Her chin was resting on his hand. On the windowsill beside the man’s foot lay a card, face down.
The shining mist washing and lapping at the wall beneath the window made no sound. Far away stretched that waterish silence underneath the moon. Clouds came, covering the moon, the way the darkness deepened, and the room was lost to sight.
There was a war being waged in the soul of the Bacach. The different and various selves of him were fighting one against the others.
On top of them all sat the Wounded Lover, who loved the White Hind. But she was slain. Who had slain the White Hind? A vagabond man, a dark soul, a hideous rascal. And he grieved and would have wept the clock round, for the loss of his White Hind.
But under that self there lurked the Avenger. He hated the killer of the White Hind, and he cursed that killer, and damned him for all eternity.
But close under the side of the Avenger there hid the Observer. He knew some part of the truth, though he was mute and might not speak. But the Observer felt a chill steel scian blade piercing his heart when he heard the curses of the Avenger.
Then there was the Sly self, that laughed at himself and all the other selves for their pains and their furies and fears.
There was over the Sly self the Philosopher, that cared nothing for any of them, and set their pains at nought. He it was looked into the stars, and reckoned their movements, and had no care for anything under Heaven.
And there was the Madman, and this was the the self that the Bacach feared most of all. Round and round the Madman turned, and with a cutting blade he slashed at himself, and raged and bit.
And last and least of them all, there was a nameless self, that had the secret and the answer to all the pains and fears and anger of the other selves. But this one lived in terror of some great shadowy Thing that never showed its face. It was not mute, the nameless self, but it hid deep away in the folds and the corners, and never came out.
Sometimes the Bacach remembered, but memories were too much to bear, and sank back into the stuff of dreams. Sometimes the Bacach wished, but his wishes too were painful, and worse they went beyond his grasp, and he turned his back on them.
‘Bacach!’ sounded a soft voice from where the moonbeams had fallen. For the moon over the county of mists had set; darkness blacked the sky; blackness filled the bell-tower.
‘Who is calling me,’ asked the man, turning his head.
‘Do you not know me, my Bacach? Shame be to you for that!’
There’d been no sound or any light from the steps; and surely the man would have noted any such thing in the black, silent tower.
Over their heads, on the roof of the bell-tower, the dark man in his dark gray cóta mór leaned closer over his knees. His eyes narrowed into slits, and he was listening now with a heart and a half.
‘My heart is restless, my Bacach. I’m going to the garden gate time and again. Not even darkness soothes me. I’m finding no pleasure in my food or drink, my blood hounds or my blossoms.’
‘You are bored,’ he answered.
‘What then will revive my interest?’
‘Your new champion will do that.’
‘Who will he be, Bacach? What man would you choose for me?’
‘One you do not know, with a mind of his own.’
‘Oh, Bacach, how I treasure you!’
‘Then let me go!’ he cried; and the vehemence of his pain left a trembling in its wake.
The dark man on the rooftop reached forth, and gripped the edge of the parapet in his long lean fingers, and drew himself that closer to the edge.
‘Where would you be going?’ she asked, in an injured voice.
He gestured. There was a glow, half as of phosphorous, in the darkness where his fingers traced.
‘There’s only death waiting out there for you, Bacach,’ the voice reminded him.
‘One time I’ll leave,’ he promised her. ‘I’ll swim away in this lake. I’m only waiting, the way I don’t know where else to find her.’
‘What a stubborn child you are! Don’t be thinking to match your magic against mine! Twice now I’ve conjured you back out of death, and now you belong to me three times over, body and soul, and it’s here with me I want you.’
He drew his fingers over his brow, like a sign. ‘Tell me what I was before. Was my name Master Aengus?’
‘Who’s been whispering that name to you?’ she hissed. ‘I forbid it!’
The cat mewed, and she jumped to the floor with a soft thump-bump of paws.
Now the lady’s voice purred more soothingly, closer to the man’s ear, though still there was no sight of her in the dark beyond the bells.
‘Draw the cards for me, Bacach,’ she said. ‘Tell me of my lover.’
In the dark he lighted a candle and laid the cards, and answered all her questions. But his mind must have been elsewhere that time, the way, when time came to turn the card of the querent, it was two cards he’d laid down there by accident. One was La Torre, and the other La Temperanz. And when those cards were upturned, the unseen visitor’s laughter rang off the old bells.
‘O Bacach, I had a dream this moon. Untie its riddle for me. This is the way of it. I was on top of the casino, walking back and forth, waiting for someone. The night was frosty, and the stars so bright that I could reach my hand out and almost pluck them from the sky.
‘Then the stars dimmed, and I saw through the mist all my Swan boats burning on the lough. The fires went onto the land and were eating up all the trees of my orchards over the hills as far as the eye could see, making such a heat that the mists of this county were dispelled, leaving us naked under Heaven.
‘I called below, three times: at the third call there was a stirring, and my wards roused the bandits, and they rushed to save my orchards. There was still one ferry boat unburning, tied to the mooring pole.
‘But there was unseen to all of us a little red-brown mouse, and she chewing the rope of the ferry, sharpening her little white teeth. The last Swan Boat swung away, and my bandits fell stumbling into the water, drowning.’
The dark man on the rooftop drew on his strong long fingers, and pulled himself up standing.
‘What else betid?’ asked the Bacach.
‘Only the heat of the fires and the furious golden light surrounding me, and I woke.’
The man turned back into the window, dropping both legs into the lapping mist. He tugged on the white lock of his hair, and the dark man overhead could see him quite clearly now in the candle-glow.
‘It’s a hard dream,’ he said carefully. ‘I must ponder it.’
‘Do that,’ said the lady’s voice. ‘And now I mind me of it, you too were in the dream, O Bacach, standing on a rock, watching the little brown mouse. You knew how her labors would end, and yet you said nothing at all.’
Her voice sighed away into the silence of the lapping mist, yet a certain peril hung still in the air. Overhead the clouds moved on, baring the breast of the moon again. The Bacach picked up the cards beside him on the sill, and stepped down into the room, hiding from the stars. He lighted the twisted, bubbled end of another candle on the table, and shuffled and dealt out the cards.
‘I will test your fortunes, brown mouse.’ That drawing was unclear; but the card of the querent showed a winged trumpeter summoning forth a man and two women naked from the ground. And the name on that card was Il Giudizio.
‘Once more, once more,’ he was whispering: ‘and how many times is that? I’ll draw out her portrait once more, to see if I may find her.’ And for the hundredth time or more he was laying the cards for the White Hind.
The reading he was getting, it was confusion and obscurity.
At last he came to the down-turned card of the querent, of the White Hind. He was staring on that card for the longest time. Then carelessly he flipped it over. It was the same, of course. That card was always the same for her.
A hundred times or more he had drawn for her, always that one same card. And sitting staring at it, he was wishing he hadn’t dismissed the girl in the shift and velvet cloak, or at least that he could be remembering the name she’d given him.
The card of the White Hind was the card of a beautiful woman kneeling beside a pool, pouring water from two ewers, and the sky over her head ablaze with lights. And she naked as a tree in winter, and under her the words, Le Stelle.
The man stood, gathered the cards carefully in his hands, and put them into his pocket.
And the stillness about the abbey was broken by strains of music through the walls, the way the moon was sunk, and the darkness rising, and Arianna’s masquerade beginning.
For a time the Bacach was listening to the distant airs.
‘Yes,’ he said: ‘I will go to this ball. She is there.’
So he straightened his coat, drew his fingers through his hair, and for the first time in the nine Moons since his burial, the Bacach left the bell-tower.
And the dark man in the dark gray cóta mór crept down the wall to the window to the bell-tower room, and swung lightly in. A time he tarried, shuffling through the Bacach’s papers and going through his things; then he went off through the door, after the Bacach.
In the dancing hall Mac Bride had left a thousand candles burning, and schools of the fishy witchlights swam about the rafters, and folk were entering wigged and masked. This was Arianna’s masquerade, when she would choose her champion; and all the gentlefolk of the Night were gathering to honor her, and vie for the honor of being chosen.
The doors of the dancing hall were open onto lighted lawns where a thousand couples were strolling and casting coins into the lough. The silver coins were flashing and sinking in the inky waters, spilling round the sleeping damsel curled upon her side on the lakebed, while the currents tousled the ringlets of her hair.
And in the witchlights all the ladies were graceful and all the gentlemen elegant. There was a glamour cast over them all that darkness by Arianna, the way that all their flaws were hidden, and all their beauties shone. It was no hard task to tell the men apart despite their masks, but the ladies were transfigured into enigmas, and that was the lady’s desire.
Now, all the bandits were bursting to discover which of the ladies was Arianna, the way they would be devoting their attentions to her, to be chosen her champion. There was even a deal of wagering as to which lady was Arianna, and which bandit should be the first to unmask her. Some were saying that she had not yet arrived, others that she would not come at all, but only watched them from a secret recess. And still others were claiming she would come and go many times, in many masks.
Many gamblers wagered on a lady all in gold, and her hair dusted gold over its native darkness. She had the grace of a Tinker, her smile was smooth as a liar’s tongue, and upon her breast she wore a pin in the shape of an L.
But others put their money on a lady dressed in scarlet, the very hue of fresh-spilt blood. Her bared, slender shoulders were a provocation, her laughter lazy and insolent, and her mask it was the mask of a fox. She was the center round which many orbited, including Banker Ino, who was held to be wittier than the bandits, and privy to the lady’s secrets.
And many put their chances on another lady all in gold; and Maid Buan was delighted with the acclaim her gown was gathering her, and she danced every dance with a different rogue. But at the end of the masquerade Maid Buan still went back to her chambers alone, though even she herself couldn’t have told you why.
But most chose out a lady in white as Arianna: and she was Mielusine.
She wore her white gown, and the mask of the White Hind. And beholding herself in the glass, a fan in her hand, her bosom bared, her hair powdered and set, the enchanted mask upon her with its braided tail curving round her throat, Mielusine had had to reach out and touch the glass to be sure it was herself, indeed.
And in stepping down the stair, something had come over her, some shadow of a dream. She moved with sureness and was unknown by even her teachers, the way she was become the promise unfulfillable, the mystery, and the veil.
Dance after dance she moved about the floor, and she drank wine and breathed in the odor of the lough without, until she was so happy, that she felt herself twinned, and beheld herself beneath herself, laughing and floating and herself sweetly drunken upon flattery and the clamor of all men’s desire.
She saw Vasquez dancing with two ladies at once; he was easily known, the way he wore his bodach mask.
‘For shame,’ called Mielusine upon his head, ‘and what would your dancing friend say if she saw you so?’
From her words he knew her, but was not at all abashed.
‘My patroness must surely know,’ he said, ‘that even as I gained from her what I most desired, so she won from me what herself most longed for.’
Mielusine considered the matter, sheltered by her fan, then laughed. ‘You do not deceive yourself, Sir. But for this at least you must bear shame, that you appear unmasked at Arianna’s masquerade.’
The two ladies bursting into laughter of the most wicked tones, and Vasquez for once in his life discomfited, not knowing how to respond: wasn’t that the most delicious moment for Mielusine in all that darkness?
She moved on with a flourish into the whirling dancers and took command of the floor, the way all were applauding her, and their glad cries echoed by the screaming of a hawk flown into the hall. Three times the hawk screamed, stopping all chatter, stopping all dancing.
It was the cry of that bird, woke Agnes at last.
She sat straight up in her cot and rubbed the dreams from her eyes. Through the low eye-shaped window light was streaming. There was a great brightness from witchlights swimming about the grounds.
It was the masquerade. And how many hours since it had begun?
She thought to herself, It was fated; I am too late; I cannot go now.
Then she was gathering up the gown and leaving the hall. She passed to the snowy rocks beyond Arianna’s garden. There she set down her bundles, and drew off her shift.
The night was cold, and the black water colder still. She bit her lip and stepped in until she was quite swallowed up.
Bathing below the surface, sinking, she looked back up toward the night. The abbey shone there, fiery and swirling like a weeping of suns; Agnes swam up into its fire, drawing in a great breath.
Now, three of Arianna’s most feared bandits were strolling nearby, smoking and arguing which lady was Arianna’s mask. Then Ali put up his arm and said,
‘Behold the Lady of the Lough.’
Emerging from the water with a reed in her hand was a lake-wet, red naked girl. With grace and ease she dried herself from her bath. She set her hair up, and only then began to cover the perfection of her shape. At first it seemed a pity to the bandits, that such beauty must be disfigured by clothing; but when they saw the black gown on her like a second skin, then they saw that beauty embellished a hundredfold.
‘Surely, this is some goddess born out of the lough,’ murmured Sir Stephen.
‘She has not been at the masquerade, else I should have remarked her,’ vowed Philippe. ‘Ali, in truth, this is our lady, or else her double on earth. Now, let us three keep this secret, and let no one else hear of it: so we may reduce the number of our rivals.’ The robbers agreed, and stole back into the hall.
Over the doors of the casino, an emerald was hanging on a spider’s thread. A sign of bronze reflected it, graven with these words:
For the Fairest
All the ladies had reached for that jewel, but it had crawled up the spider thread out of their reach, leaving them laughing, somewhat scornfully, and cursing the dwarf, the way it was sure to be his work.
Agnes saw the jewel, but never the sign. It was the same emerald the village girl had taken for her place on the Swan Boat, and it was the same emerald the old lord had given Lady Agatha long, long before, when the Sun still shone.
She reached up and took it into her palm. She fastened it to the left breast of her gown where it belonged. Only then did she see the sign.
This cannot be, she said in herself, I cannot be the fairest, with this black spot on my palm. But the spot was gone, and her hand pale and pink as a girl’s. And she could not have said when she had last seen the spot.
As soon as Agnes entered the hall, bandits and self-made princes drew to her. She was the lady herself: they were sure of it! Setting her black skirts swirling, showing her ankles and even a bit of her calf, Agnes lost the last bit of her reserve.
‘Surely,’ she answered to all and no one there, ‘and I am the Spirit of the Dark of the Moon.’
But the other ladies were crying at the blue-green hawk flying about the candles. And they complaining to the bandits, ‘Will none of you rid us of this bird?’
The bandits set themselves a new rivalry, but the falcon scorned their efforts. Some, more hotheaded, were calling for pistols, but the redhaired vixen flatly forbade such violence.
Now as to Eudemarec, he was that time gathering morsels of meat from the banquet. Whistling he coaxed the bird down to his arm. He set it on an open windowsill, feeding it bits of meat on the back of his fist.
In this way the Breton restored the merriment of the dance, and condemned himself to serve as the falcon’s guardian the rest of the darkness. For awhile the ladies were admiring the hawk’s fierceness, until the music called them back, all but one, small and young, hardly of an age to join that company. Her gown was pearl gray and blue, and her mask in the fashion of a dove.
‘How ferocious!’ she sighed. ‘Are you not worried lest it attack you? For I have read that such creatures are by nature cruel, and torment their prey before devouring it.’
‘Though there may be such creatures in the world, she is not of that number. Should we condemn her for boldness, when we will pet the lamb whose flesh will later dress our table, though we disdain from butchering it ourselves?’
‘I don’t know that,’ answered Zelie. ‘I had a kitten once. She nipped my hands and left tiny dimples in my skin. But when she grew she batted field-mice until she killed them, and left them by my bed. I had to give her away in the end, I couldn’t bear it any more.’
‘She only honored you after her fashion,’ answered Eudemarec. ‘Later, when your claws have grown, you will understand.’
‘I should like,’ said the girl, ‘to touch it; but it will peck at me.’
‘I will undertake that she does not.’
Timidly Zelie stroked the feathers of the bird. The falcon was eying her nervously, but made no move to attack.
‘Her feathers are soft,’ murmured the girl; and the falcon spread its wings and flew out the window and was gone.
So Eudemarec was freed of the falcon, but now the maid Zelie was following him everywhere, hanging on his elbow. Agnes saw this, and contrived to draw Eudemarec apart a moment.
‘Eudemarec, I am Agnes. You’ll never find Arianna with this downy chit trailing you. Would you be freed of her?’
‘Agnes! Is it you, indeed? But no, though I thank you, ’twould be unkind. I have already lost my chance, and I’ll lay down my cards now, the way I’ve lost this hand.’
Zelie returned, tugging at Eudemarec’s sleeve: ‘Hawk-tamer, come quick, the dances are starting!’
These were the performed dances, and all ringed the stage to watch the dancers. One after another the dancers thrilled the company, until it was Mielusine’s turn.
She stood before the blaze of footlights for a moment.
The masked throng waited on her, and she was losing the memory of her practiced steps. What was the first of all my moves, and then what came after that? she was crying out inside herself. I cannot remember them all, I cannot remember even a one of them!
Then she threw off her cloak. It isn’t Mielusine facing them, now: it is the lady in the mask of the White Hind. Let them see only her, and let only herself guide my movements now. It was in her limbs and in her heart, the way she ruled them now. She signed the music to commence, and she danced.
It wasn’t the way she had danced by herself, beautiful though that had been. This, with all eyes devouring the sight of her, was better. She felt the power of the mask on them all, gentlemen and ladies: it was her power, and the music and movements burning out of her. And it was a little drunk she was, drunk on the desire the men were feeling for her, and the dancer herself burning to be lying red-naked in the arms of them, every blessed one.
Hidden in the burning footlights, in the midst of the throng, stood a man unmasked. He gazed up at the bold beauty playing with the desire of all.
So the Bacach first beheld Mielusine in the mask of his White Hind.
The crowd surged closer to the burning footlights. From beyond that barrier of light, the red mouth of the White Hind bright and hot smiled beckoning back at them.
The trees in the burnt enchanted wood would not have known her for their shy sweet Maid during that dance. She was so bold she shocked even the bandits.
Mielusine bowed, and cloaked herself again during the applause. Two other dancers came on, their faces glum, the way they knew how little would be their reward for following her.
Behind the stage Mielusine was laughing, swimming in the love of the admirers.
It was a need in her strong as breathing, to be among these men; to stand so close that their presence embraced her, and she was drowning in the smell of them. She could feel their gaze upon her as hands caressing her body, and she was that pleased.
‘Later, sirs!’ she told them. ‘When the others have finished, then let you seek me in the hall.’
‘Will I be seeing you there?’ asked Vasquez.
‘If I want you to,’ she answered. The insolence of the reply seemed native to her. She laughed, seeing him go. Hadn’t he been right after all?
In the ebb, she saw the Bacach. His face seemed itself a mask, waxen and yellow, tinged with old pain.
‘Do not go,’ he cried. ‘What is this mask? Do you know? Are you the White Hind?’
‘No, I’m only a dancer,’ she answered, and in the press slipped away, eluding them all, gliding into Night. It was her pleasure just then to be swimming in the mist and witchlights away from them all.
The Bacach went after her. For an instant he saw her, palely roseate in the floating witchlights, rounding the ruined walls of his basilica. Then she was gone. His heart was kicking, his hands trembling, his brow chill.
He followed.
And the mists covered both of them, and the witchlights swam on, thickening the mists with their brightness.
All balls must end, even that one; the music ceased, and the ladies, the maids, and the bandits climbed the snowlike Hundred Steps and a Step. Soon the slender young Moon would be rising.
The nine young girls under Mac Bride’s command, yawning great yawns, set to snuffing out the thousand candles.
Zelie, the child dressed as a dove, asked Eudemarec to escort her to her door, and they climbed to apartments where the Breton had never been. The girl smiled shyly. ‘Will you not step in a moment, sir, until I may get a candle lit?’
‘Surely I’ll do that,’ answered Eudemarec.
They passed within the large carven door, they passed into inner chambers where no witchlights swam, and all was black as ink.
In the darkness the Breton heard the falling of her cloak; he heard a rustling at the snowclad windowsill; in the open starlight he saw the falcon lighting there. Then he turned, the way the candle flared to the kiss of the match; and Eudemarec beheld there Lady Arianna, unmasked, unclothed, in glory.
