Athelstan, Lord of the Ferry.
Athelstan son of Guthreo, King of Enaderth, husband of Maewiel Falastari the Elvenqueen. For me he is the one who at last emerges as the true hero of this tale, the one whom we, with Swin, have been approaching all this while, detained by the many halts and windings of Swin’s indirect path, or the many curves and returns of his pendulum. Nowadays I dream of Athelstan frequently, but without any recoverable sense of his appearance. Remote, mysterious, he stands before me still, or hangs upside down in his unbearable torment. Athelstan of the ruddy cheek, the fair strong neck and the raven hair: the conventional phrases will have to suffice. Swin is unwilling to talk of him, and the Dwarves curse his name...
And I do not want to write this: I write unwillingly, for I still do not really understand.
Yet.
But there is no time to spare. Swin’s away now, waging his new war against the King of Turmal. I have an uneasy premonition, a sense of urgency. How best to write what I don’t understand? A different narrative mode suggests itself, the one used a couple of times before, one more tentative, uncertain and wistful: a departure from the firm past tenses of history: a sequence of fragments, hints and impressions, faint sounds as of some distant battle, wisps of ash carried on a cold wind.
*
At first the tale returns to Caras Gulwen, where the hours are blue and golden and long. Swin does not want to leave, and nothing has been said about his departure; he guesses that he is waiting for someone, or for something to happen. How long are the hours? How many are the days? There are no clocks at Caras Gulwen; there is no portioning-out of time, scarcely any counting or reckoning of any kind at all.
The house, though plain and sturdily built, hides many secrets. Bryd has disappeared. Sometimes he hears her talking or crying, but he never sees her. The bright-eyed girls attend to him. How many of these maids are there? Two, or three, or four? Or more? And how many doors are there on the landing outside his bedchamber? How many other rooms?
And those stairs – those terrifying wooden steps and rails at the end of the hallway. He knows that they lead down to the cellar and the caverns. He doesn’t dare to go near them. But on one occasion he sees someone coming up from the depths, treading the resonant boards almost silently. This person is a young man dressed in grey clothes, with a beautiful face and bright gold hair. He glances piercingly at Swin, and raises his hand in greeting; Swin stands tongue-tied, shy and hardly able to move. The young man passes Swin in the hall. His demeanour is serious, preoccupied, as of one who has just learned many things and now needs time to consider them. Swin stares at the strong-scented red flower that stands on a table by the door. Its clusters are heavy and brilliant.
The house is surrounded by meadows and an orchard; behind it lie a second and larger fish-pond, a kitchen garden and a yard, with cowshed, pigsty, dovecot. During the long hushed afternoons there is always a background ripple of water, a twittering of birds, a cooing of doves. The whole estate is girt with a tall hedge of yew. Swin walks all round the inside of this dark green wall without finding any way out. The hedge seems to be continuous, completely unbroken. Puzzled and amused, he walks round and round again. At last he happens on an old wrought-iron gate that opens into the woods. No path leads up to this gate, which is overgrown with ivy; the tall dry grass stands up in front of it, and Swin’s feet flatten the stiff stems. He lays his hand on the gate. It is not locked. Its hinges squeak as he pushes it back. The ivy writhes and tears. There stand the first trees, the first enormous oaks and beeches and hornbeams of Erynvorn, their roots hidden under a sea of ferns; the canopy of green and golden boughs hides the sky. Blue and brown butterflies come flickering and sparkling through the trees, dancing together, forming themselves into lines and breaking into joyful randomness. Swin takes one step beyond the gateway. Then, although the sun is still warm on his back, his imagination suddenly presents a terribly vivid picture of himself having stepped out just a few paces into this wood, of hearing the distant crashing sounds of some monster and then turning back to find the gateway gone; and not only the gateway but the hedge and the whole estate of Caras Gulwen also vanished. He steps back hastily. He pulls the gate shut.
The maids inform him that Erum has been rescued and is now being kept safe. He asks them where he is. ‘You can’t see him,’ they answer.
He is not bored. He knows that he needs to see Fuindis at least once more, but it’s hard to work out what he will need to say to her. He loafs about the fields and the outbuildings like a boy, picking the first ripe blackberries or lying for hours in the warm grass.
The maids are coming from the farmyard. He stops to see what they are about. They have released one of the pigs, a fat black-and-pink boar. It follows them of its own accord, docile as a well-trained dog, sniffing and looking up and down at their bare heels. It makes no objection to having its hind legs roped together, starting to squeal and to protest only when its rear end in dragged into the air: the rope has been passed over one of the beams of the scullery and is being pulled by two of the girls. There is still a kind of dance in the movements of their bodies and slender arms. A third girl comes in with a two-handled bathtub, scoured and shining. She places it below the pig. She gives Swin a bright smile of acknowledgement and takes a sheathed knife out of her pocket. Swin likes the thought of sausages and chops, a crackling roast, or head-cheese and spare-ribs, so it does not upset him to see the girl take hold of one of the animal’s ears and then slit its throat with a short deliberate movement. A wide spray of blood gushes into the bath. The boar twists and screams, and other noises come out of the scarlet frothing cut. But before it has died, the knife-girl kneels down, smoothly reaches forward and dips her right hand into the blood. She plunges it in below the wrist. She rises, turns and comes towards Swin, holding the same hand up to him, greeting him after the manner of the Elves.
Now Swin is more than upset: he is really scared. As before, however, he sees no point in trying to escape. He stands his ground and greets the elf-maid formally.
The thin streaks are running and curving all the way down the white skin of her forearm. Blood is dripping from her elbow. Her lips are parted, her eyes as bright as stars: she stands before him and he hears her thick breathing.
‘Eofor,’ she says in an alluring, guttural voice. She flicks her wet red hand sharply forward, casting droplets all over him. ‘Thou art summoned.’
That night he wakes up at midnight, as he has not done since coming to this house.
He can hear Bryd weeping. It is a heartbreaking sound; his heart and his throat both ache in response; but he knows that there is nothing for him to do. He cannot comfort her. If he attempts to seek her out she will not be findable.
A full moon is throwing bright, bluish, silvery-grey light through the broad chinks in the curtains. The moonbeams themselves are visible in the obscurity of the large room: thin straight lines of very faint mist, through which a few pale specks, dust-motes, are tentatively wandering.
Now?
He gets out of bed, collects the little bag and leaves the room. The air inside the house is fresh, night-flower-scented, somehow watery: neither cool nor warm. He silently arrives at the top of the wooden stairs.
At some point during his dark descent, happening to close his eyes, he finds that he can see perfectly well through the shut lids.
This time there is no glow of fiery light. She sits muffled up in her robe like a hummock of ancient stone. She is much, much larger than he is. The caverns are full of the noise of water.
At his approach she stirs; raises her head from the folds. There is no greeting. He mounts the steps to her throne, clambers over her thigh and curls up in her warm lap. Her hand comes down, right over him, covering him and stroking him like a kitten. The comfort of being thus lapped and mothered is almost unbelievable, a sensation so intense that it brings the tears to his eyes once again. He cries a little, then falls asleep, then awakens, feeling calm and alert.
He asks: ‘Who art thou?’
‘I am Fuindis, the servant of the Motherhood.’
‘Art thou not the Goddess?’
‘No: she whom I serve is the Goddess, Yabeth.’
‘And I am to serve her also?’
‘Yes: when thou becomest king.’
‘How shall I serve her?’
‘By having respect, and teaching and commanding thy subjects also to have respect for the Earth, and all the creatures whom she hath made, and whom she loveth.’
He opens his eyes and speaks to the Darkness:
‘Why didst thou not punish me for ill-treating thine own servant?’
Her belly moves beneath him as she gives a deep quiet sigh. The question is not answered.
He asks:
‘Why was I brought back and remade?’
‘For this thou wast brought back: to serve her and to do her will. Yet twice thou hast disobeyed her. When she cometh and biddeth thee in a third vision, wilt thou then obey?’
‘I will,’ he promises.
He asks:
‘Why didst thou not accept the offering? The things of my body?’
‘Understandest thou not? It will not avail Yabeth to bind thee in her power. Only in freedom shalt thou become a worthy instrument: only in freedom canst thou achieve her ends. Reason, governance, forethought – these thou hast, and only thou: these are the offerings she requireth.’
He ponders, then speaks from a full heart: ‘Then for thyself, Fuindis? Wilt thou not accept them? For I love thee.’
The warm body shudders. The sound of the water fades away. With no sense of having gone through any kind of change, any rearrangement of his own limbs, Swin finds himself standing upright and hugging her bulky form. His cheek is pressed against hers, her arms are around him and her size is that of an ordinary well-grown woman. His fingers press through the tousled muddy hair and feel the big beads that lie round the back of her neck. Still holding her firmly, with bodies pressed together, he draws his head back a little. He looks into the face of the Darkness, and the Darkness looks back at him, surrendered now and full of beauty. He bends his head and kisses her lips. There is a moment of pure communion, of perfect trust and understanding.
He offers her the bag. She takes it.
And he reascends.
Waking at cockcrow, in the cool light of another misty dawn, he feels happy, strong, supple, vigorous, ready for anything. The maids come in, bringing him clothes: not the plain blouse and shorts he has been lounging around in, but new boots, fine stockings, a brown suit – coat, waistcoat and breeches – and a linen shirt, cream-coloured with pearl buttons. He sits up with the bed-clothes round his waist and watches smilingly while the girls lay these garments out for him. After bringing him his soap and hot water, they leave him to make his toilette alone. In a while, looking (as we may be sure) heartbreakingly handsome, he leaves his room and goes in the direction of breakfast; but at once he notices that one of the other doors on the landing is standing ajar.
These doors are always closed, never locked. He has looked inside them a few times but never found anything of interest. He pauses at the door. There is a very faint sound coming from inside the room.
The house is peaceful and still. The round window at the end of the short passage is glowing with the gold of sunrise. A bee comes buzzing out of his own room; and the cock crows again.
Time to be getting on?
Yes.
He knocks on the door.
‘Come in!’ calls a cheerful voice.
The occupant of this room, which he has certainly not seen before, is the young elvish-looking man with the golden hair. He is sitting and writing at a secretary, a tall piece of furniture inlaid with light, dark and richly-coloured woods. There are papers, tablets and small rolls of parchment on its shelves. His quill dances smoothly and merrily, shaking its white plume, with only the faintest of scratching sounds. ‘Your pardon,’ he says with a side-glance at Swin. The lines of his beautiful writing occupy no more than half the width of the paper, and they appear to be arranged in blocks, one after another. ‘There!’ He finishes off a block, wipes the pen carefully and lays it down. ‘My fellow-lodger: what a pleasure to meet you at last. Findir at your service.’
Swin joins him in a lively handshake. ‘Eofor, son of Guma, usually called Swin, at your service and your family’s. You greet me after the manner of Men, and I thank you for that courtesy, for you appear to be of Elvish kind.’
‘So I am, good Eofor, but the honour is mine. Those are no empty words. It is truly an honour beyond my desert, to meet and converse with him who has encountered the darkness beyond death, and who has felt the hand of the Goddess.’
‘What do you know of her?’
‘Little, but enough to make a poem of, an inkling for fancy to feed on. Great things have been afoot, Eofor: a mighty transaction between Midyard and the other Realm, such as has never before been known among mortals, or immortals, or the Gods themselves. And all was centred on your own sad carcass, so cruelly dismembered.’
The words beat at Swin’s ears like light butterfly-wings. ‘So then,’ he says diffidently, ‘you understand how it happened – how that I –’
‘Verily, I believe that my understanding suffices.’
‘Then will you tell me: how did it happen? Not why, but how?’
Findir’s face grows serious. He turns back to his writing and covers it up. ‘I did not expect this,’ he says. ‘I thought that you yourself must know. Have you not inquired?’
‘I’ve spoken with Fuindis only twice,’ answers Swin, joining him at the window and looking out into the bright garden. ‘I did think of asking, but the question seemed to be coming out of the top of my head, rather than from my heart; so I let it bide. She doesn’t like trivial inquiries.’ While saying this, Swin blinks a few times. He can see everything quite clearly, but now, looking outside, he finds his sight tinted with a thin darkness. The flowers are less bright than they should be.
‘No indeed,’ Findir agrees. ‘I understand. She judges it needless for you to have the knowledge – or even, perhaps, too burdensome. I mean a burden of gratitude, like an unpayable debt. An extraordinary sacrifice was made for you, son of Guma!’
‘But you? How do you know?’
‘By asking. I have been consumed with curiosity for many months past. I have wandered about and questioned the land. At last, when the time was ripe, I was permitted to make my way hither. She saw, as you might say, that my curiosity was truly eager, a passion of the heart.’
‘So that’s what you’ve been writing?’
‘Yes. Only a poetic mode will serve, for the story would scarcely be credible as prose.’
‘A poem about me?’
‘You come in only at the end. There is so much that has to be told first: why the Goddess is here now, why Midyard has become her home, and why she won’t go back. She is the heroine. Not only you, but all of us in Enaderth are her debtors. We count ourselves very fortunate. Your thoughts, however,’ says Findir with a smile, ‘have now run into a new channel.’
‘Yes, excuse me,’ Swin replies. ‘I was thinking: if you will not tell me this of your own accord, and if I do not ask you, being indeed unable to read script, then what is the purpose of our meeting?’
‘That sounds over-solemn! What more than: to break our fast together? Truly a worthwhile purpose, ere we go our separate ways!’
‘No, but seriously,’ says Swin with a little cleft in his brow, ‘it’s my responsibility to read signs now, and discern purposes, in order to make plans and policies; and this is a beginning. Why, for example, have I been given these good clothes, if not to do honour to our meeting?’
‘You needn’t be so serious,’ answers the other, laughing. ‘I said it was a pleasure and an honour to meet you, and so it is; but I had no notion of purpose. Call this a chance-meeting. For Yabeth our Lady is the warden of chances, especially the chances of birth and the play of engendering. If it’s by chance that we’re all each one of us made different, we each inherit our own estate from her. And yet there are empty chances too. Which is all to say: don’t worry! After breakfast I shall thank our good hostess, Bryd; she will bid me farewell, and then I shall ride to the Needle; and you, if you so desire, are welcome to come with me as far as there, before I take the southward road. To Metimal I must go alone. Or, if that pleasant path does not commend itself to you, maybe a soberer destiny follows the horsemen who are approaching the gate yonder.’
‘What gate?’
Findir laughs merrily, spreading his hands. The gate which is there, yes, the tall gate in the hedge stands open beneath its arch of cut and living yew, its wooden wings having been drawn back to their furthest. A path leads to it, down from the cracked terrace steps and past the small pond. Swin hears the hoof-beats. Soon a horseman canters through the gateway. His mount is a chestnut stallion with fine trappings, and he himself is dressed richly, as if for a royal hunt. He is followed by a groom or attendant rider, who leads a third, riderless horse by a halter. The third horse is the greatest of the three.
‘Colwine!’ Swin’s voice is a gasp; and it seems that Colwine, looking up just then, is able to descry him at the window and to recognise him. He gives a loud whinny. Then the three horses walk forward over the grass. They come round to the side of the house and stop below the terrace.
Findir touches Swin’s arm. ‘Come, let’s go down.’
The sturdy impassive figure of Bryd is waiting at the foot of the stairs. She gives no clue as to what she may be feeling; nonetheless there is mutual understanding in the looks – not glances, but looks – that are exchanged between her and Swin. ‘No, good guests, not the kitchen,’ says she: ‘Breakfast is laid in the dining-room.’
In the dining-room Swin stands grasping the back of his chair, full of expectation, looking down at the well-spread table. Findir seems to find this stance a little droll. Then Bryd comes in, followed by the courtly stranger.
‘Eofor Guma’s son,’ she says, almost woodenly, ‘you are made known to Prince Dulinir, eldest son of King Athelstan, lord of this realm.’
‘Greetings, cousin!’ says Dulinir.