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Chapter Two
There had once been a tale of an ogre living in the dark woods surrounding the Manor House, who would only leave his underground lair in order to snatch bad little maids who had wandered away from their homes without permission. Naturally he’d gobble them up for his breakfast. It was a story mothers often told their children and when Heloise had first arrived it was a tale that she told Ailyth, although her version was usually much gorier than was necessary, and included a very well spelt out moral that yes, the bad little girl could easily be Ailyth but that no, the ogre was not as frightening as Heloise if the spirit got into her. That nursery tale was now pounding out a disturbing rhythm in Ailyth’s chest as Tristran drew her deeper into the tangle of devilish briar and trees dripping with moss. She might not be a little maid any more, but she could be bad when she wanted to, and sometimes when she didn’t want to. Such as now. “Tristran,” she whispered, clutching onto his hand so tightly that her knuckles went white, “perhaps it would be better if we stopped here or...or even went back! Yes, I’m sure that if we went back now and maybe spent a few hours at confession my mother wouldn’t beat us. I...I say that for your sake, of course,” she added hastily. “Is that so?” Tristran said. “Mmmmmmmm,” Ailyth moaned, although he wasn’t sure whether this was in agreement with him or whether she was too scared to speak. “Then it’s not because you’re frightened,” he said without turning his eyes away from the path. “No,” Ailyth squeaked. “Because you’re not.” “No!! No, of course not.” She tried to smile convincingly, but all she managed was an expression that looked as though she’d just swallowed sour milk. “Good,” Tristran said. "I have no idea where we are.” Ailyth could feel her heart freeze. “What!” she cried, clasping onto his arm. “We can’t be lost! We’re only five minutes away from the manor!” “And yet we are lost.” Tristran said, and Ailyth could see that his left cheek was clenched. “I thought we could go to a clearing that I knew about but...no, we’re definitely lost.” Ailyth was torn between crying, screaming and hitting Tristran. Being a rational girl, and not one to indulge in pointless fits of hysteria, she hit Tristran on the arm and slumped against a tree. “This is not well,” she said finally. Ailyth raised an eyebrow at him pointedly. Something threatening was rustling through the undergrowth. Eyes were watching them. “Do you know how to get back?” she asked. When he admitted that he didn’t, Ailyth kicked at a clump of damp leaves and was a little shocked to hear them say, “Ouch” in reply. “What was that?” she cried, jumping back. “What was what?” She looked at Tristran briefly, then cautiously looked back at the clump of leaves before deciding that she must have been hearing things. “So,” she asked, “what do you suggest?” “Oh Ailyth,” he sighed, and crouched down to her level, “I haven’t seen you in months! This is the first and probably only time we’re going to get together until we’re married, and you’re nagging at me! I’ve half a mind to leave you here by yourself.” She knew that he wouldn’t do that and, besides, he was using his persuasive smile on her now. “All right,” she heard herself saying. “Sit down here with me.” Tristran sat next to her on the mud, and rested his head on her lap. “If you only knew how much I’ve missed you...” he said. “Go on,” the girl smiled, stroking his hair. “Every night when we’d set up camp on the journey, I’d sit by the fire and think.” “And what did you think of?” she asked, her eyes half closed. “You.” “And did you broach the subject of our marriage with my father?” Tristran answer was his silence. Ailyth sat up and turned to look him directly in the eye. “Oh, Tristran!” she sighed. “You had all of that time and you didn’t think to ask?” “Well, I wasn’t with your father all of the time,” he protested. “I barely saw him.” “But did you even try?” “Well, yes, of course...” There was a defensive note in his voice, and he could feel himself being argued into a difficult situation. “But it’s not that easy...” “Tristran!” Ailyth cried, “did you at any time in the past few months ask my father whether we could be married?” “Well...” “Yes or no?” “No.” There was a silence as Ailyth shrugged Tristran’s arm away and hung her head. “I thought you wanted this,” she said in a small voice. “Of course I want it, you goose,” he laughed, wrapping his arms back around her. “And tonight, at your father’s feast, I’ll ask him. It’ll be just the right moment; he’ll be in a good mood and he’ll be fed and full. I’ll catch him off guard and once he’s said yes there’s no way he could refuse us later.” She felt the tiniest grain of hope as she heard his reassuring words. “Do you think it’ll be that simple?” she asked. A pair of dark, glistening eyes, watching the lovers beneath a canopy of leaves, smiled in the faint light as Tristran gave her his answer with a kiss.
***
Ailyth woke with a start and a panick. Where was she? What time was it? Who was looking at her through the impenetrable depth of the brambles? She tried to shake the sleep out of her head but, even then, she was sure she could see a tiny face obscured by the foliage.
Without moving her eyes away from the little creature who was half hidden in the shadows, she groped blindly to the side and realised that Tristran was curled up asleep behind her. They were still in the forest.
No matter how much time had passed, no matter how much time they had spent asleep, Ailyth knew that there would be trouble when they returned to the Manor House. “Tristran,” she whispered. She shook him gently, her eyes always on the bushes. “Tristran, we have to go!” He didn’t reply. Instead, he nuzzled his face into her side and smiled contentedly in his sleep. “Tristran please, wake up!” she tried again. The leaves parted slightly, and the creature shuffled towards the light. “Tristran, you have to wake up, we have to go now!” she hissed. “Madam, will you desist!” a tinny little voice said indignantly, hitting the earth with a gnarled walking stick. “If you must wake the poor fellow up which, might I add, you will find difficult considering he’s been placed under a charm, then you will have to do it with a little more volume. Like this.” He opened his mouth, so that it grew to an almost cavernous size, and bellowed: “Tristran!” Somewhere from the depths of the creature a small earthquake started, and Ailyth felt the ground tremble beneath her. Leaves and small twigs scattered and a young deer hurtled into the distance, its legs almost entangled by its speed. Ailyth began to tremble as the clamorous noise died down. There was utter silence as the small creature looked expectantly at Tristran, who was still asleep, and then prodded him gently with his walking-stick. “Hmm,” he said out loud, walking up to the enchanted squire. “That seemed to have had no effect whatsoever.” He looked up at Ailyth, grinning sheepishly. “Well, madam, can’t say I didn’t try.”
Ailyth stared at the creature with her eyes wide and her mouth open. The little man, if indeed a creature no more than three inches high could ever be described as a man, seemed buried with a vast, unkempt beard that pointed in all directions and fell almost to his knees. He had black glittering eyes set deep within a very hairy face, and was wearing a green woollen jerkin which had been ripped and torn in several different places.
“I’m still asleep!” Ailyth thought to herself, sagging with relief. “I’m still asleep, and so is Tristran, and this hairy little man is just one of my dreams!”
But even Ailyth knew that hairy little men in dreams did not smell so bad. Nor did they jump onto young maiden’s knees, stick out muddy hands and introduce themselves as ‘the watcher of the woods’. With fifteen years of experience behind her, she did what many would have considered to be the most sensible course of action. She swatted the little man off her knee with one hand, screamed and ran off into the woods.
It’s a nightmare now, she thought. The demons have come out to torment me for my behaviour. She knew the stories. She had been warned all throughout her childhood about what would happen if young girls walked with boys alone, and how God would punish her. Any second now she expected to run right into the lair of the ogre itself.
And Tristran! She had left Tristran alone with that creature! For a brief moment she thought about pausing and going back to him, but it sounded very much like someone was following her. Even in her frantic state she knew that she couldn’t help him if the evil in the forest pulled her down.
“Hey! You there!”
The tinny voice was following her, and she glanced behind to see the hairy watcher sprinting after her. Whilst his body remained the same size, his legs seemed to have grown and he was almost certainly gaining on her. She grabbed a large fallen branch, turned around and hit him into the trees. She could see his legs shrink back to their normal size as he curled up into a ball and bounced off the ground. Without waiting to see what was next, she started running again.
“Why d’you do that?” something asked her.
Ailyth shrieked. Sitting on her shoulder, enjoying the ride, was a delicate, burnt-orange squirrel.
Digging its claws into her dress, it said, “Now don’t you be thinkin’ that you’re gonna be flicking me off you like I was a bug! I been sent here to stop you from acting in such a foolish way, so you got to be listening to what I got to say.”
Regardless of his warning, Ailyth tried to prise him off her gown but he held on tightly and said, “Now what did I just say?”
“Fine,” Ailyth muttered. “You’re a talking squirrel, why wouldn’t you be real?”
“Humph,” he said. “Well, good then.” He looked about him and cleared his throat. “Thing is, you got to stop. You’re blundering forward and you left your beloved behind and...well, there’s all manner of things that you wouldn’t understand.” He clicked his back teeth together. “So, maid, what I’m saying is; are you going to stop?”
“Not a chance,” Ailyth said through gritted teeth. A flurry of activity appeared in front of her face. For a moment she thought they might be leaves or early butterflies, but they were more than that; she caught glimpses of eyes and mouths and faces amidst the flurry of wings, and tiny arms that reached out and pinched her.
“Stop her, lads! She mustn’t enter the clearing,” the squirrel called out as he jumped off her shoulder.
Vicious little brutes! thought Ailyth, as the faery folk slapped her with hands that caused no more pain than a midge-bite, bit her wrists and tried to pull at her hair. Around her feet a troupe of piskies were trying to tangle her up and a few brave warriors were even trying to climb up her dress, although she managed to shake them off without any problems.
Then, before she knew it, they fell back and she broke through their ranks and was running freely. She could see that she was approaching a clearing and she knew, with a certainty she couldn’t explain, that once she had reached it she would be all right.
There was a fine mist of blues and purples floating above the ground inside the clearing, and dozens of golden balls of light hung from mysterious threads around the trees that bordered it. As soon as Ailyth entered the clearing she stopped and felt at peace, a heavy burden lifted from her. The sound of water was hidden beneath the mists, and she was drawn to it.
Ailyth crouched down on a bed of bluebells and pink campion, then lay flat on her belly and placed a hand into the pool of water in front of her. Her skin seemed to be covered in a sticky, silver dust and she began to wash it off.
“You shouldn’t be here, should you?” a voice said.
Ailyth could see a child’s round face and impish smile reflected in the water. When she turned around to see it there was nothing there, and when she touched the face in the pool the child simply gazed back.
“I’ve reached the faery realm,” Ailyth whispered, sensing excited movement around her. The realm of enchantment, Albion, whispered to sleeping children throughout the ages. But they were just stories.
“In the future, perhaps you will be wise enough not to sit underneath that particular tree,” the child continued. “The lady with the white hand resides there. She makes us sleep. She makes us all sleep.” A tinkling laugh filled the clearing, although Ailyth could see no others.
“But I woke up. Why hasn’t Tristran?” she asked, nervous to be addressing a water-nymph.
“The lady seeks only young men. She had no interest in you.”
So Heloise’s faery stories were true. It was no lie to say that folk left food out for the hidden people, and tried to appease them at every opportunity, but that had descended into mere superstition. Now she could believe. She had seen it with her own eyes, and there was no denying its reality.
Ailyth nodded, then asked in a small voice, “What must I do?”
Another face appeared in the pool, only this time Ailyth could feel movement behind her and she turned to look. Standing over her, on legs that seemed too long and thin for it’s body, was a stag, a white hart. Around its neck was a garland of pale pink flowers, and it pawed the ground, snorting out pale breaths that smelled of summer.
“Can I touch him?” she asked, reaching out a hand to feel the ivory fur that looked as soft as foam. “He’s so...”
“You may if you are a true maid. If you’re not then he will not let you, for only a girl pure in heart and body can touch the white hart. But when he takes you back you must not let Tristran look upon him, for his purity will be lost and his powers will be gone.”
With one hand resting gently on the white hart’s neck, Ailyth obediently let the beast guide her out of the clearing, feeling like a queen gliding through a sleeping world. The piskies and faeries waiting in anticipation at its borders moved aside for them to pass, each twittering signs of disbelief and nervousness. It had been many years since the noble beast, with antlers like silver fire, had left its home and they were at a loss as to what to do. Fearfully, they began to follow.
In silence the procession made its way back to where Ailyth had left Tristran, and she was aware of many more faces watching her from within the forest. More and more creatures joined them, until it appeared that even the trees were moving so that they could pass through. The squirrel dropped back onto her shoulder although this time, mercifully, it did not say a word. In respectful silence they finally reached the watcher.
“You must go in alone,” the hairy little man said, and two flying sprites took the garland from the white hart’s neck and dropped it into Ailyth’s hands. “We’ll wait and watch, just here. But whatever happens, don’t look back. In our world it is not safe to look back. We must always look forward.”
“Thank you, I won’t,” she whispered, walking forward as though she were in a trance. Tristran lay just as she had left him, a blissful smile on his face.
Without looking back, she dropped to her knees next to him and placed the garland around his neck. With a yawn, he stretched out his arms and opened his eyes, and Ailyth flung her arms around him in relief.
“Sorry, my love,” he said as he pulled himself up. “I must have fallen asleep. Suddenly I felt so tired.”
“It’s ok,” she breathed. And, without meaning to or even thinking, she glanced back over her shoulder.
Immediately she remembered what the watcher had told her, and she turned to Tristran, afraid that he had fallen back to sleep or had been turned into a tree, or some other such enchantment had befallen him. But he was still awake, and smiling, although the whole forest seemed to groan. He was gazing intently at something.
“Look Ailyth,” he said. “By that tree over there...it’s a stag.”
He had seen the white hart but, at the same time, he hadn’t seen it as to him it appeared as an ordinary deer. Before she could react, Tristran was on his feet.
“That’s a fine beast,” he murmured, reaching for his sword. “Tristran, no,” Ailyth whispered as he drifted towards it.
Tristran didn’t hear. “A fine trophy,” he said. “It’s mine!”
This wasn’t Tristran, Ailyth knew that. He was acting in a trance. She heard herself cry “No!” but it was too late. Tristran was running after the creature.
Pandemonium broke out as the hidden people scattered and the hart fled, but Tristran could only see his prize escaping and he was not prepared to let it go. The girl was slower, she could not keep pace, but she could hear by the sounds of panic that he was nearing his goal.
She found him with the white hart by the edge of a bog, and the willo-the-wisps were dancing in fear. Tristran had his hands up to calm it, but it was rearing and bucking with fear, trapped.
“Don’t be scared, my sweet,” he was cooed, and she knew that he did not know what it was that he was doing. “I’ll not hurt you. Just stay still...”
The hart could not stay still; its fear of man was so great that its eyes rolled back in its head and it was bellowing in terror. Still Tristran moved slowly towards it.
“Tristran, no!” she pleaded, and he jumped. The movement was the final push for the beast, and it stumbled on the edge of the bog and fell.
In horror, they watched as the hart thrashed blindly in the mud. Ailyth scrambled to help it, but Tristran held her back, wrapping his arms around her.
“Don’t,” he said. “He’ll pull you in, poor creature.”
She struggled against him but, by the time she had broken free, the only things she could still see were the glassy tips of the white hart’s antlers.
A hush fell over the forest as the faery folk stared at her in horror. The watcher moved slowly towards her and, trembling, croaked, “What have you done?”
***
They returned to the manor in silence, both aware that they had caused something terrible. Tristran knew no reason to be guilty as he had not known that the deer he’d hunted was in any way different to all the other deer he’d tracked. Even so, the undignified manner of the creature’s death, the expression in its eyes... It made him feel deeply uneasy and he didn’t know why.
Ailyth was consumed by a deep feeling of foreboding. She had caused the death of a sacred white hart. She had looked back, even though she had been told not to. It was her fault, and she felt sick.
They were, as they had expected, in a great deal of trouble when they returned to the manor, although Ailyth was not beaten as she had expected, and Heloise was quite concerned by the bite-marks covering Ailyth’s hands (“they look like faery nibbles!”) Instead, they were whisked apart the second that they were spotted and taken to separate chambers, too stunned to protest, to prepare for the feast that was being held that night in honour of her father’s return. Ailyth was told by Heloise and her mother that she would not be left alone for some time and she certainly wasn’t to see Tristran but, after her ears had been lashed and she looked suitably ashamed, she was left with her sisters in their bed-chamber to wait until they were called for. She spent the whole afternoon crying; over Tristran, her sisters supposed.
***
The full moon was barely visible on the still waters of the pool as three figures approached it in the early night. The watcher, the squirrel and a lady wearing a cloak of the star-lit sky knelt by the edges of the water and waited for the child to appear. When she did, the sky clouded over.
“What has been done cannot be undone,” she cried when she saw who was there, and in the distance a storm could be heard breaking out.
“She is just a girl,” the woman said. “She didn’t mean harm.”
“It was the last!” the child roared, and her voice was the thunder. “The king is dead, and all because of that ‘girl’. Do you think that this will not cause us damage?”
“But our king is powerful...surely...”
“He is gone! It is too late!" There was a silence before the child's voice grew to a whisper. "Need I remind you what happened in the Eastern world when the people slew their dragon king? This island now has no defence against that terror. When it comes, and believe me it will come, do you think it will only strike the humans? It will destroy us, all of us. No Grethel; she, and that squire of the realm, must be punished, and punished by our laws.”
“No,” the woman gasped, and began to weep.
“It wasn’t her fault!” the squirrel interjected.
“Did she not enter a sacred place, where she had no right to be? Did she not draw the boy’s attention to our king! She knew not to, and still she did!
“She will be punished as we have been punished! She will be cursed to lose everything that she loves and to live with the knowledge that it is she who brought this terror to our lands. SO MOTE IT BE!”
“And the boy?” the woman sobbed.
The child frowned. “Dispose of him as you choose,” she muttered.
There was a moment of quiet.
“Well, give her some time then,” the woman known as Grethel said. “Let her enjoy a few last moments of happiness before we take all of that away from her.”
The child’s face darkened, and all of the creatures around the clearing hid behind leaves and trunks.
“Very well,” she said finally, glancing up at the three figures. “She will have until the moon wanes into nothing."
There was an uncomfortable silence, despite the storm.
“So, there’s no hope then? No hope for us?”
The water of the pool crashed against the banks of the clearing as the child thought. “The girl has cursed our world, and has been cursed in return. Only she can break both hexes,” she said finally. The woman clutched at her chest. “And there will be those from her own people who wish to stop her, and our kind too...those badly behaved cousins who seek pleasure in havoc and will want to see madness damage this land.”
“Can she beat it?” the watcher asked. The child shook her head. “There is but one time, and that time may never come. In the house of her fathers,” she said, “When man becomes beast, and beast becomes man.”
***
That night there was a great feast held for Lord Unwin, and Ailyth was expected to look pretty and smile charmingly at every guest. Never had she felt less like smiling. She was a murderer, or as good as. All that had happened had happened because she’d looked back. Surely it would be shown on her face as clearly as if she had it written there?
Not that it was easy to be miserable on a feast night, when so much care had been taken to make the evening a joyful success. Lilac and lavender had been generously strewn into the dirty brown rushes that covered the floor, and their soft scent went some way to disguise the sweaty odour of the serfs and the travellers who had crowded into the banqueting hall, jammed around the long-tables that criss-crossed the floor. The flowery aroma mingled lightly with the warmth of the burning candles hung on every wall bracket, which would be later replaced by flaming torches as the evening grew more raucous. Gentle, hollow music helped to ease Ailyth’s woes a fraction, as the lilting sounds of the vessel flute wove its way around the hall. Lady Eleanor had even had the best tapestries hung on all of the walls and the heat was trapped. One of the scenes on the tapestries showed a virtuous maid with a white hart resting its head on her lap. Ailyth flinched away from it.
She could barely concentrate on the people who commented on how nice her best sideless gown was, and where did she get that chemise she wore under it? and how pleased she must be that her father was home. As each and every one approached her she wanted to shout back at them that she, Ailyth, first daughter of Lord Unwin, had caused the death of a white hart and the world would surely be plunged into darkness, so would they please leave her be as none of this really mattered.
“What’s up with you child?” Heloise asked, fussing around the girl and adjusting her snood so that it looked ‘proper’. “You’ got a sour face on you tonight.” Ailyth picked up her trencher and glanced underneath it, to make sure that there were no piskies hiding there, and didn’t answer.
Heloise looked at her in a way that could have almost been sympathetic, and patted her on the shoulder. “You get through tonight, and we’ll see if we can’t sort this problem o’ yours out in the morrow.”
“It’s not likely, Heloise.”
The nursemaid bent forward so that only Ailyth could hear her and whispered, “Now, don’t you be forgettin’ that I were a girl once, and I know that you meaned no harm with Tristran. That’s what I been tellin’ your lady-mother: ‘Ailyth be a good girl,’ says I, and I hates to see you looking so down. I’ll sort it out. You’ll get to be with your young man again.”
That, at least, was something, Ailyth thought.
The hall was hot with bodies and at first she could not see Tristran. She sat back in her chair irritably. A piece of food went flying past her head and for a moment Ailyth froze, so annoyed that she thought she might cry. Her father was the chicken-leg thrower, gesturing wildly with his food. Ailyth’s attention drifted away from him after a while, and she began looking for Tristran again.
She saw the reeve and the bailiff, looking as though they were about to fall out with each other; one of the older squires, looking as though he was about to pick a fight with a minstrel who had been playing his fife just a little too close to him; a stout serf stabbing his trencher miserably with his knife...
One of the squires! Ailyth quickly turned back to him and there, a few seats away from the man who was now clearly threatening the minstrel with a lit candle, was Tristran, staring miserably at his meal. She wanted to rush up off the table and grab him, and make him run back to the woods with her so that they could put right what had happened. But how?
Tristran must have felt her eyes burning into him, as he lifted his head and...
“Ailyth!”
“Yes, sir?” Ailyth jumped, her eyes quickly pulling away from her friend and fixing firmly on her father. “I wasn’t doing anything!”
Lord Unwin frowned, and gestured at her trencher which was brimming with flampoyntes. “Eat up, child, eat up.”
Ailyth blushed, and pretended to be suddenly fixated by the tablecloth, wondering if the marks on it were faery footprints. When her father finally looked away, she decided to try and signal to Tristran again.
Only Tristran was no longer at his table. She was about to stand up, so that she could get a better look at the hall, when her father rose and thumped the table with his fist.
“My good people,” he began, looking over those eating in front of them with a commanding eye. “I am honoured that you all have gathered here this evening to welcome me home, but I have only two things to say.”
The hall drifted into silence.
“Firstly, you will be pleased to hear that our friend and protector, Baron de Monbardier, enjoyed a good harvest last year.” A few bitter grunts rang out amongst the serfs. “And, as a mark of his generosity, he will be donating a substantial share of his crops so that we may eat well until our next harvest.”
This news was welcomed with a resounding cheer although, which hid the general murmuring of those cynical enough to know that the Baron was no charitable man.
“We are fortunate to have the support of Baron de Monbardier,” Lord Unwin said pointedly, “and even more so when we consider that he is asking for nothing in return. We cannot afford to lose his friendship.” He paused, to let the implications of this sink in. “Therefore,” he continued, “to ensure that the Baron will always remain loyal towards this manor, and all who live here, we have come to a decision that will forge an alliance between the two families for many years to come.
“In two weeks from today, on the waning of the moon, the eldest son of Baron de Monbardier will marry my eldest daughter, Ailyth.”
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