The Hanged Man: Part 9: Lughnasadh
Post #87: In which a new community takes shape ...
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She’d longed for a life of her own, a chance to explore the world and herself. Would marriage to this stranger (for he was a stranger, really), be a life of her own? Or would she be limited by responsibility and loyalty before she even started, just as she’d always been?
Every face she saw outside the castle was strange. How would she ever make friends or call any place home that wasn’t her father’s castle and the big bedroom where she and her sisters had spent every night of their lives? And that wasn’t the hardest thing. The hardest thing was also the most difficult to talk about.
What about dance?
Except the word ‘dance’ was so inadequate.
What about spirit and body and passion? What about drumbeat and freedom of nakedness? What about sacred guides? What about other women who knew how to be fierce and wild — or who wanted to learn?
She feared no relationship could substitute for dance, and without this powerful, private center she’d collapse like an abandoned building.
Yet she’d chosen to leave her old life and every day she respected and trusted Radulf more. Was it wrong, this grief and longing for something of her old life? Was it disloyal? Should she be grateful for what she had, and embrace it without looking back? After all, she’d achieved relative freedom, hadn’t she?
There was no one to ask.
***
“This is Fengate,” said Radulf, reining in his horse. “This is the part of the kingdom your father has offered to me.”
“It looks nice,” said Ginger.
“It is nice. I’ve explored a little. It’s a market town, reasonably prosperous, with several businesses. There’s not a thing wrong with it.”
Ginger glanced at his rueful expression.
“So?”
“So, it’s not what I want. I want to want it, but I don’t. When I think about living here, overseeing the town and the land around it, I feel bored.”
He sounded so annoyed with himself that she laughed.
“What about finding your place and making friends?”
“I thought that’s what I wanted, but now I wonder. Here’s a perfectly good opportunity, and I can’t even feel interested. I can’t help feeling when I find what I want I’ll recognize it. I’ll feel something beyond polite interest!” He turned in the saddle slightly, facing her. “What about you?”
She was taken aback. “What about me?”
“Do you want to get married, choose a house in this town, and settle down? Do you want children? Do you want to go back to the castle? I think you’d be freer now.”
“No.” She felt herself flush and dropped her gaze to the horse’s neck.
“No?”
“No.”
Radulf chuckled. “Would you care to elaborate?” he invited.
“I don’t want to sound ungrateful,” she began.
“Ginger,” he interrupted.
“What?”
“Are we friends?”
“Oh, yes!”
“Good. Then tell me what you want. As friends, we don’t owe each other anything. As friends, let’s assume we want what’s best for one another, what’s happiest. You’re not ungrateful. You’re not stupid. You’re a lovely woman and your life has suddenly changed out of recognition. You can make choices for the first time. You’re free. Satisfy my curiosity. What do you want?”
“Oh, Radulf, I don’t want to get married right now!” She met his gaze as bravely as she could. He smiled, to her enormous relief. She straightened her shoulders, feeling unburdened. “I don’t want to go back to the castle. It felt like a prison. My father won’t miss me. He doesn’t need me. My sisters are going in several different directions. I want to go forward, but I don’t know who I am or how to be free. I don’t know what I want. I just know some things I don’t want, like you said.”
“As good a place to start as any,” said Radulf.
His mount shook his head irritably, setting the bridle jingling.
“Let’s ride,” suggested Radulf. They turned the horses and rode away from the town into the summer countryside.
“Ginger, you’re lovely, as I said, but the truth is I don’t want to marry again.” He glanced at her. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, either, you know.”
“Friends,” she said, smiling.
“Yes. And as your friend, I’m not going to leave you alone in the world until you have your bearings. You’ll need to find a place to live and make at least a couple of new friends. I’ll talk with your father and decline his offer of land to oversee and a wife. If it seems appropriate, I’ll move out of the castle and find someplace to stay nearby, but I won’t leave you until you feel ready to be on your own. I’m in no hurry, and maybe I’ll find some path into my own future here with you.”
“Thank you,” said Ginger with gratitude. “I don’t even know how to begin!”
“Things take time,” said Radulf. “I think we should enjoy the summer and explore. Eventually you’ll see the next step you want to take, and so will I. In the meantime, we each possess a friend and companion to talk to and discover with.”
“Right now, that sounds like ‘happily ever after’ to me,” said Ginger.
He laughed. “Good. Me, too.”
KUNIK
The grassy slope spoke to Kunik. He whittled a quantity of rough stakes and one sunny day everyone assembled on the slope. He grouped them at the bottom, their backs to the river, looking up.
“There, see the fold running along there? It makes a steep bank about five feet high. If we built a long low shed, or several smaller ones right there, we could use the bank as the back wall. That’s south,” he pointed over the river, “so the sun would shine into the shed. We could keep animals there, and make pens out of some kind of fencing, wood or stone or even a hedge if we can plant the right thing.”
“A good, strong chicken house that can’t be dug into,” said Maria.
“Right.” He smiled at her. “Chickens are so vulnerable they need to be completely enclosed. Goats would give us milk and meat.”
“Sheep would give wool,” Maria said.
“Don’t forget pigs!” said Kunik. “Bacon!”
They laughed together.
“The gardens should be near the animals,” said Eurydice. We can use their bedding and waste in the soil.”
“Absolutely,” agreed Kunik. “Now look, see where the fold tapers away into nothing and the slope flattens?” They grouped around him, following his gesturing arm. “We could easily terrace that piece into different garden beds. It’s close enough to take advantage of the animals, it gets good sun and it’ll drain well. Look, see that spot above where the sapling is growing?”
“That’s another oak,” said Rose Red.
“Well, see the thick grass there? It’s a darker green than the rest of the hill. I bet there’s water there, underground, and it’s just above the garden. It would help to make a well for the garden and the animals, wouldn’t it? We can haul water from the river, but this would be easier.”
“So, we’d keep animals and gardens in common?” Rose Red asked.
The others looked at her. “I mean,” she said quickly, “it makes sense, of course, but…I’ve never lived that way before.”
“Look.” Maria pointed up at the top of the slope, near Rose Red’s oak tree. The White Stag stood in sun-dappled shade, looking out across the valley. It seemed to Kunik he wore a crown of oak leaves and acorns, his antlers mingling with the lowest branches of the giant oak. He wondered how long the stag had been there, watching.
***
The White Stag stayed with them for three days, listening to them talk and make plans. He accompanied them when Rose Red took them for a day and taught them the names and habits of fruit and nut trees. There were chestnuts, as well as hazels, acorns and walnuts. She proved a natural teacher, and revealed to them something of the intricate system of balance in the forest.
“We can eat chestnuts, of course, but birds eat them, too, and all kinds of animals. Pigs eat them, so if we do keep pigs and let them run, they’ll help fatten our meat. I’ve only found these few trees in this part of the forest, so I think we shouldn’t use them for wood. They’re too valuable as a food source. We could try to grow more of them, of course. There’s plenty here for us to share, but we must never take more than we need.”
“Now, look at this,” she stopped next to a shrub with sharp thorns and red berries. “This is hawthorn. It makes a great hedge. I thought of it when Kunik showed us how to use the slope. There’s a lot of it in the woods, and it’s another source of food for the birds. It flowers, too. We’ll need to transplant it where we want it and get the hedge going, but after that we’d be set. We can use it as a windbreak, too. I bet snow drifts on the hill in winter.”
“I’m overwhelmed,” said Eurydice. “How are we going to do all this?”
“I think I can get some help,” said Rose Red.
“We found our way here,” said Maria. “Perhaps others will, too. Nephthys told us what we searched for also searched for us.”
The next morning the stag was gone.
***
“How did you find us?” Kunik asked the man called Jan as they stood watching Jan’s giantess wife embracing Rose Red and weeping with joy.
“A fox brought word to Gwelda,” said Jan. “He said Rose Red needed help with some trees and begged us to come lend a hand. I’d not met her, myself, but I’d heard about her from Gwelda. Because of Rose Red, Artemis asked us to help her serve and protect the forest.”
“You’re most welcome,” said Kunik. He’d taken an instant liking to Jan, who was approximately his own size, though not as thick-chested or strong. Under the tousled brown mop of his hair Jan’s face appeared shaped for laughter, every line and fold stamped with humor.
Gwelda bent and carefully returned Rose Red to the ground, wiping her cheeks with the hem of her lime green, tent-like dress and innocently revealing a monolithic expanse of thigh.
Eurydice came into view, toiling up the hill, lifting her thick hair off her neck with one hand so cooler air could reach her skin.
“Eurydice!” Rose Red waved. A crow circled above Gwelda, cawing excitedly. She raised an inviting arm, elbow crooked, and the crow alighted on it, as comfortable as if in a tree. Kunik saw Eurydice’s jaw drop. The crow began to stalk up the arm, still cawing, as though to examine the round face under a thatch of turquoise hair like a bird’s nest.
“Meet Gwelda!” said Rose Red breathlessly, as Eurydice reached them. The giantess bent down and offered Eurydice a thick callused finger while a chipmunk peered out of her sleeve, black eyes bright.
“Eurydice!” called Kunik. “Come and meet Jan. He and his wife came to show us how to harvest wood and build.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Eurydice, laughing.
After the flurry of reunion and introduction, they followed Rose Red into the edge of the forest. She’d marked several trees for harvest and she showed Jan a clump needing to be thinned. Jan nodded, sized up the tree and gripped his axe.
“Now, I want the tree to fall that way, see? It’ll cause the least damage. Then we’ll trim it in place and leave the trim for the forest to break down and use.” He moved around the tree trunk, using the axe to whittle away at the trunk, judging balance and tipping point. “Gwelda will help drag the tree out into the sun to dry, and when we’ve cleared and thinned this spot, she’ll help you plant replacement trees.”
Eurydice squeezed Kunik’s arm and slipped away, making a large circle so as to be out of range of falling trees. He knew axes made her uncomfortable, a not unreasonable reaction from a tree nymph. He turned his attention back to Jan.
***
With the help of Jan and Gwelda, the people of Rowan Tree collected two neat piles of logs, one of fragrant green wood, oozing sap, and the other of old, dead trees, seasoned and ready for splitting and shaping. Kunik quickly picked up the art of choosing what to use for fuel, what to set aside for furniture and other household use and what to utilize as building material for fence, shed and house. Jan seemed to know how to make everything needful out of wood and recognized in Kunik a fellow craftsman. They became good friends.
One afternoon, as he and Jan worked in a thicket of alder, they heard a shout.
“Hello!”
“Hello!” Kunik replied.
“We heard the axes! Don’t drop a tree on us!”
He laughed. “No danger! Come ahead!
Two women rode out of the forest on horses, one older than the other.
“We’re looking for the community settling here,” said the older one, smiling down at them.
“You’ve found us.” Kunik brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes. “I’ll take you the rest of the way.” To Jan, he said, “Do you want to come or get on with it?”
“I’ll get this one down. If you don’t come back, I’ll come see what’s doing. Gwelda’s somewhere around,” he finished with a slight air of concern. “The horses…”
“I’ll be careful,” Kunik assured him.
“Who’s Gwelda?” asked the younger woman as he led them through the trees. Behind them, the axe resumed its steady ‘thunk.’
“As a matter of fact, she’s a giantess,” he said. “I’m Kunik, by the way.”
“I’m Persephone, and this is my mother, Demeter,” the young woman said.
“You’re welcome,” said Kunik. “We’re rather rough just now, but friends are welcome.”
“We’re friends,” Demeter assured him. “We brought some things you might be able to use.”
He smiled over his shoulder. “That’s kind. How’d you know about us? Oh, there’s Gwelda. Will the horses be all right?”
They’d come out of the trees onto the crest of the hill. Ahead swept the grassy slope. Stakes were neatly planted, decorated with tough lengths of vine marking out squares. Some way below them a figure with turquoise hair and a rumpled lime green dress like a canopy picked up young trees with sharpened ends like huge pencils and thrust them into the ground, building a neat, tight fence. Other figures worked on the hillside, but it was hard to look at anything but the fence builder.
Persephone laughed. “That’s Gwelda?”
“That’s Gwelda,” said Kunik. “She takes some getting used to, but she’s the kindest person you’ve ever met. That was her husband, Jan, with me in the forest.”
“Her husband?”
“They adore one another,” he assured her. “Newlyweds.”
They left the horses to graze under a towering oak tree and made their way down the slope.
“We’re planning animal pens along the fold here, and a garden there,” Kunik explained, gesturing. “Here are two friends of mine, Maria and Eurydice. Dreaming of your chicken coop, Maria?” he teased. “We’ve visitors. Meet Persephone and Demeter.”
“Aren’t you beautiful,” murmured Persephone to the two women, and took them both in her arms as Kunik watched in astonishment.
The emotional greeting attracted attention. Gwelda left her fence building and stood watching. Her face lit at the sound of whistling as her husband strolled down the hill, axe in hand.
Rose Red had been down at the river when she saw the strangers arrive and now she joined the group, face damp from the hot climb.
“Persephone!” she gasped, and ran into her embrace.
Kunik laid a hand on Eurydice’s shoulder. Neither she nor Maria seemed able to speak.
“We’ve come, my Corn Mother and I,” said Persephone, arms still around Rose Red, “to aid in your harvest.”
***
They’d formed a habit of sitting around a fire at night talking. Gwelda and Jan possessed a childlike love of stories and they shared their own with delight, interrupting one another, giggling and boisterous. Gwelda became so animated she jumped to her feet and acted out bits, to general hilarity and exclamations. “Be careful, Gwelda! You almost stepped on me!” “Watch out for the fire!”
Entering into the spirit of the thing, the others had shared small pieces of themselves, keeping their stories amusing and playful.
The appearance of Persephone and Demeter brought an element of seriousness to the picnic-like atmosphere. There was nothing ominous about Persephone but she was, after all, the Queen of the Underworld. Eurydice and Maria, the only two who’d actually been to the Underworld, treated her with respect untinged by anything like fear, which went some way to putting the others at their ease. Rose Red treated her like an old friend. They were all fascinated by Persephone’s life in the Underworld.
Kunik noticed Demeter tended to be quiet by the evening fire, watching and listening. During the days, she worked as hard as any of them, laying out gardens, helping build coop, hutch and animal pen, and making helpful suggestions. She and Rose Red spent happy hours together considering strategies for optimal health for trees, soil, animals, plants and people.
Persephone and Hades kept rabbits, and they’d brought two pairs in a basket so Rowan Tree could breed a colony for meat and fur. Under Persephone’s expert direction, Kunik and Jan built a rabbit hutch. Maria was particularly intrigued and spent hours asking questions about the needs and habits of the appealing creatures.
***
“I sat in this same spot more than three weeks ago and wondered how I’d survive the winter, let alone shape a life,” said Rose Red.
It was early morning; mist swathed the river below. Rose Red and Kunik sat in the long grass looking down the slope at the construction of Rowan Tree. Rabbits were installed in the completed hutch. Their first livestock. With Gwelda’s help, several animal pens were built and fenced, nestling into the shelter of the slope. Kunik could see the roof of the chicken coop, tight and strong, though empty.
They were digging a root cellar near the bottom of the hill. Gwelda did most of the work with a trowel the size of a shovel, but they’d all given the project a few minutes each day. Slabs of wood lay piled in the grass next to it; shelves to be put in once the digging was finished. Jan was making a stout door.
Demeter had been helpful about storing food, and she and Persephone and Rose Red took advantage of the horses to harvest what the land provided for miles around Rowan Tree. When the root cellar was finished, fruit, nuts and honeycomb could be safely stored, along with a variety of dried mushrooms and berries.
Jan and Kunik turned their attention to building shelters and houses. These were as varied in location and style as the community members themselves. Their goal was to assure everyone a good roof for the winter. In the spring, refinements could be made, houses enlarged, more furniture built.
Kunik smiled. “At the very moment you were thinking that, Maria, Eurydice and I were moving toward you.”
“Persephone and Demeter had heard about us and they were planning their trip here, too,” said Rose Red. “That was before I thought to send for Gwelda and Jan. Now here we are. I’d never have believed it.”
“I wonder who else will show up?” mused Kunik, leaning back on his elbows. “Look at the color of that sky! Like an abalone shell.”