(A sample from Blood by Moonlight.)
© 2009 asotir. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
24. Of the Dwellers in the Night
IN THE LAST summer of Day, while the King’s men tracked down Master Aengus, the ripe hay grass in the fields the countryfolk worked for the good of their landlords had shaken in the wind. The grass had shaken because it was tall. It had shaken because it would not be tall for long.
In the Night the kings were dead. The houses of parliament stood empty. The lords that did not lie abed sleeping stood begging on the open roads. Generals and admirals gave their orders to the winds. The seas were empty but for the most desperate of men, and they half piratical. Princes of the church fared no better than their brothers of the state. The Wakeful trusted more strongly in the good people in the mead than in the gods in the cathedrals, now open to wind and rain. Mary was worshipped, but as if she had been Morgan or Aphrodite.
In Day, the Sun had showed what was, and what had been, and what must be. In the dark there was only the suggestion of what could be, what might have been, and what yet may come. The contrast fed ambitions. Now there was a choice.
In Day some, like Master Aengus, had carried their darkness about with them. Now all those who had lived through the fire had made their peace with darkness. And in the bargain, darkness had showed them – wonderful things.
It was a transfiguration not only of the world, but of the men as well.
In Day, what had they done? Plowed fields, sowed seeds, dried hay, dug roots, mined peat, fished the deep, stocked cellars, wove and sowed, cooked, ate, spoke of the old subjects, fed fires against the cold. Each of them penned in by what he did, how much land he owned or tilled, what his church was, what tongue he spoke, who his father had been, and his father’s father… In the Night all that was forgotten.
The children showed them the way. The children loved the Night, the way all those children who had bad dreams in darkness were sleeping; and the waking children never knew a better holiday, and laughed, and took the grownups by the hand, and were showing them the way.
It was as though all those Wakeful had paused: stood still in their forward-going, let the towers of the world come crashing down, and looked about them out of altered eyes, pondering what they might build out of moon-painted fields.
Nowhere was this felt more strongly than among Tinkers.
The Tinker had known the Night of old. Not for him was working the day long like the tenants, and sleeping through the night to be strong for more work. The Tinker owned the open roads, and slept beneath the stars, and watched the wild winds tearing the dark cold nights of winter. The Tinker had been waiting for the dark. Tinker lads and lasses were born with the dark in their blood.
Their grandparents had ruled these hills and rocks. Once they had been masters. Then foreigners had come from the sea, there had been battles and blood, and the old masters were struck down into bondage. In time new foreigners had come from the sea, and again there had been battles and blood, and the old masters struck down into bondage.
Seven times it had happened in the Irish land. Seven new races of masters, seven new races of slaves.
Only a few of those beaten never submitted, but they went into the hills, into the bogs, and into the wild heart of the land. They built their houses on wheels, the way no land was left them that would not soon be taken back away from them. They lived by their wits and their courage, and spat on the roadside when anyone spoke of the Law. And they were known as Tinkers, though many a folk called them Clan Ulcin, that is to say, the Children of Evil.
Now in the Night amongst all the Wakeful the Tinkers were sowing bawdy songs, whispers of unspeakable deeds, and willful desires; and they were plowing darkness over those dreaming fields, dressing them to bear what was never known before. Animals dream only when they sleep, and so had the cottagers done, forgetting their dreams in daylight.
There was no more daylight now, thanks to Master Aengus and his mad love.
It was a rarity of Ireland, the Innis Fodhla, that so many of her tramps were descended from her former rulers, dispossessed and hunted, too stubborn or proud to leave. They were the gleanings left behind by invasion, war and rebellion. And if the cottagers had forgotten their heritage, their heritage had not been forgetting them.
And now the cottagers were dreaming with open eyes as the Tinkers had done, and breathing in the hot smoke of the Tinkers’ open wild fires.
And it was as if Black Eden had come back to Innis Fodhla, and they were freed after a thousand years of servitude.
And through it all the dark man in his cóta mór, the Man Who Should Have Slept, went walking with his longbow and quiver across his shoulders, shaking his head and muttering, ‘Shame, now! Shame, shame, shame!’
Then he bent his head, and took up again the traces of the lovers’ trail.
