The Hanged Man: Part 9: Lughnasadh
Post #97: In which parting and holding together ...
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The sun was setting when we came to a scatter of boulders at the base of the bluff. The bear climbed, twisting among rocks, and then disappeared in a crevice. The narrow entrance widened out immediately, and once inside I could move comfortably. The back was a great boulder from roof to floor, and behind that a sleeping chamber. I set my baskets down. An old fire ring of stones lay against the wall near the entrance, and I ducked out of the cave to gather wood.
It was dark when I returned. I laid the fire and lit it. The bear and I ate from what I’d gathered that morning. As I sat feeding the fire, he lay down next to me and I did what I’d wanted to do from the first. I sank my fingers into his pelt, feeling its texture and warmth. I explored the lineaments of his body beneath his skin, tracing contour of bone and muscle in his shoulders and powerful neck, his chest and his flank. I played with his claws, testing their sharpness, rubbing against their length.
He let me do whatever I wanted, but he wasn’t relaxed. I could feel his tension. When I pressed between the tough pads of his feet he groaned.
I wanted to be as vulnerable as he was. As I undressed, I felt the day’s sun on my skin. The fire’s heat touched me and I turned in front of it, letting it warm the front of my thighs and then the back. That alive feeling came to me again, as though my body became more sensitive and responsive than ever before. Everything — the cave floor under my bare feet, the fire’s warmth, the smell of wood smoke and bear, even the touch of my own hair on my shoulders and back, felt exquisite to the point of pain. I was a maiden, but my body knew exactly what to do, and I knew what I wanted.
As I faced the fire, the bear moved behind me and I felt the touch of his muzzle behind each knee, and then moving up the inside of my legs. His nose brushed the small of my back and the cleft of my buttocks. I could hear him breathing in and out in exaggerated sniffs, and my own breath came fast.
He stood up behind me, massive, looming, and I tensed for attack, knowing it was too late to save myself if he meant to hurt me. I felt his pelt against me from shoulder to leg. I felt his heat. I smelled him. I felt him brush against me, bone and muscle and human flesh. He pushed back my hair and his breath roved over my neck. I felt tongue, lips and teeth behind my ear. Our bodies sang together with scent. His arms came around me, hard, and he held me against him so I could feel what he was made of, what he wanted. He bruised me and I gasped, but it still wasn’t close enough.
He released me and came around to look at my face. His eyes shone black in firelight. He held out his hand to me and I recognized a crossroad, a point of choice that might define the rest of my life. He wouldn’t hold me or force me. I had to choose.
I stepped forward and stood against him, thigh to thigh, belly to belly. I rubbed my cheek against his jaw and felt stubble and bone and skin, smelling of change, smelling of desire, smelling of my life. I could feel him smile. He took me by the hand and led me around the great boulder into the sleeping chamber.”
Her voice stilled and Mary sighed. Lugh lay motionless, silent. She was surprised to see a sheen of tears in Briar Rose’s eyes. Dar watched Briar Rose curiously.
“There’s more,” said Lugh expressionlessly.
“If you don’t want to…” Mary began, disturbed by the look in Briar Rose’s eyes.
Briar Rose ignored Mary. Steadily, she took up the story, looking at no one, eyes fixed on her weaving, unfolded on a mat of dry, tired grass. She might have been alone.
“Of course, my family noticed I didn’t come home that night. My father called the men together. It was the time of year when bears might look for maidens to enchant for the time of hibernation, and he was suspicious of my restlessness and fondness for going off by myself. They tracked me easily, as I wasn’t trying to escape notice the morning I left. It was probably obvious I was tracking a bear.
Everyone knew of my fondness for the sacred spring and I’m sure they followed me that far easily. I’m not sure why, but there they lost the trail. The sentinel cottonwoods didn’t give us away, nor the shadows under the bluff. The vultures gave them no sign. Eventually, they stopped searching. Winter came, iron-toothed wind and hard grainy snow. The village turned inward until spring.
I bore a son.”
Mary looked up sharply, but Lugh didn’t even twitch, as though he’d known already. She put a protective hand to her belly in an automatic gesture of motherhood.
“I bore a son,” Briar Rose repeated, wonder and anguish mingled on her face.
“We had a son, the Bear Man and I. When the long sleep ended, we took him out into the world and he romped and played, grew and throve like any other child. The three of us made a whole, perfect and entire. I’d never known such peace and happiness. The desert cradled us. The cave sheltered us. We ate and played, explored, slept and woke. We often took him to the spring, where we soaked and lazed in sun and water or played among the cottonwoods.
But my father didn’t forget. He was determined to find the bear that had taken his daughter. He bided his time, and when fall came again he was ready.
He set out with a party of the best hunters. They came back to the sacred spring and searched every inch of ground.
Perhaps we were protected for a time for the sake of our joy. I don’t know. But this time the trees and the bluff gave up their secrets. Or perhaps a circling vulture told the Shaman. I never knew.
One evening they found the cave and surrounded the opening, and my father called out the bear who had taken his daughter.
I begged him not to go but he put me away from him. He said he must go to honor an old agreement between our people. He said he must show our son to his grandfather. He kissed me, took the child, and stepped out into the circle of men.”
Briar Rose’s tone became wooden, emotionless, but Mary wept. Neither of the men moved.
“I retreated back into the depths of the sleeping chamber and curled up, resolving to fight until I died if anyone came to get me, including my father. I told myself all would be well, my lover and father would talk together, come to an understanding for my sake. For the sake of the child. But I could hear the sounds of slaughter.
A long time later it was silent.
I went outside in early dawn and began to search for their bodies, but there were no bodies. I searched for meat, but there was no meat. I searched for fat and fur, but there was no fat and there was no fur. My people took everything.
I didn’t go back to the cave. I started to walk. I didn’t think or feel. When I was tired, I lay down and slept, wherever I was. I drank when there was water. I ate when I found food. I left the high desert. I walked through shifting dunes of sand and dirt, flat and endless, where nothing moved but vultures high in the sky. My only plan was to walk until I could walk no more and then lie down, somewhere out of reach of life.
When I ran out of strength to put one foot in the front of the other, I was in front of a ruined stone cistern. It was old — old. Part of it was buried in sand.
I sat down in it. That’s all. I couldn’t be bothered to get up again — for anything. I had no past, no future, no name, no language. I was not. I existed, nothing more. I only breathed because it was too much effort not to.
One day a child walked out of the desert. She was nearly naked, dusted with sand. A tattoo of dots and dashes and lozenges curled around her left arm It looked like a snake. She wore gold earrings and her eyes were ancient.”
“Nephthys,” breathed Mary.
“You know her?” asked Briar Rose.
“We know her,” said Dar.
“She…gathered me,” said Briar Rose. “I collected bones with her — my bones — and I began to remember who I’d been. I stayed with her. She…healed me. One day I had found all my bones and I… became again. A new life. I left the desert and returned into the world…”
“A cursed Princess,” Dar put in, “a bored Queen, and an artist — because of me.”
“You think a lot of yourself, don’t you?” scoffed Briar Rose. “You eased my boredom for a few nights, but you didn’t make me an artist, my fine fellow. I did that by myself. And don’t forget Minerva. But that story is for another day.”
Dar picked up his flute and began to play a rippling melody like a child skipping. Briar Rose smiled at him and Mary understood their bickering was nothing but a thin skin over deep affection and friendship.
Without pause, Dar left the lovely melody and transitioned into something more complex, less childlike. Briar Rose knelt and folded her weaving, putting it carefully back into the bundle and tying it securely.
Dar played, and Mary saw again the high desert, the sacred spring where the string of pools lay under the bluff, guarded over by a grove of cottonwoods with leaves like golden smoke. She saw the bear, his nose at the nape of the girl’s neck. She stood in the cave by the fire, nestled in the hollow of the sleeping chamber, lined with leaves, fur and long cinnamon brown hairs. She heard the sound of lover and child being slaughtered, searched for their bodies, and walked into the desert with nothing but grief and rage.
Something stirred in her hair and she reached up to brush away an insect.
Lugh was weeping silently, his tears falling into her hair.
The bone flute wept with him for loss, for sacrifice, for decrease, for exile and going into darkness alone.
Mary sat up and pressed Lugh’s head against her breast. One of his hands dropped to her bulge and she put hers over it and held it there. One of the babies squirmed and kicked, adjusting as she changed position.
The flute sorrowed. Mary rocked, stroking Lugh’s hair, remembering the rich brown-haired flanks of the primordial Seed Bearer, the hard bumps of horns, the split feet. As the cycle turned, he’d turned with it, still green-eyed but golden now, formed like any other man, firm-fleshed and strong, hair thick and shining under summer sun or filling her hands as she strove beneath him under the night sky. His tears wet the cloth over her breasts, making it warm and clinging.
Briar Rose packed away their picnic, saying nothing, hardly appearing to notice Lugh’s grief. Her face looked peaceful and Mary, watching her, wondered how she could look so serene after such tragedy. What did a woman need to survive something like that? Not only survive, but accept, and go on, go forward, find a new life and purpose?
The flute dwindled into silence. Lugh took a shuddering breath, and Mary dropped a kiss onto his faded hair. It felt faintly brittle against her lips. He dropped his head and kissed the curve of her hard belly.
Briar Rose stayed with them for the rest of the day, but as evening approached their ways divided. Dar swung off the seat and took her in his arms. They clung together in what Mary thought was friendship rather than passion. He kissed her on the mouth, leaned back to meet her eyes.
“Well met. We needed you, Red Bear Woman. It’s hard to remember inevitability of increase during time of decrease. You’ve reminded us to surrender to balance.”
“If she who you call Red Bear Woman can serve the balance, she is glad,” said Briar Rose. “I’m happy to see you again, my friend. Go well in the world, and fear not your own decrease. I’ve seen further than you, and all shall be well in ends and beginnings.”
They embraced again, and she turned away in another direction, walking steadily. She soon moved out of sight in the darkening night. Mary clambered out of the back of the cart and Dar helped her climb up to sit next to him.
“I liked her. I wish we could go on together.”
“Perhaps you’ll meet again.”
“I hope so. What an amazing woman! So strong.”
“She is. It took her a while to find her strength, though.”
Gideon walked on through the gloaming.
“It’s our last night,” said Dar at last.
“I thought we were getting close.”
“Tomorrow. There’s a town ahead. I thought we’d sleep under a roof tonight, buy a good meal.” This, she knew, was not for her sake, as she had no room to digest more than a few mouthfuls at a time and he ate sparingly himself. Lugh was the one needing a good meal.
“All right,” she said, sounding more desolate than she meant to.
He took her hand, surprising her. “I’ll see you safe,” he said. “Lugh asked me to, a long time ago, and I will—whatever happens.”
“Whatever happens,” she agreed, low voiced.
***
In the end, parting was simple and quick, over nearly before it began. A snake lay coiled in the middle of the road, a huge creature of dusty green. It raised its head as the cart rolled near. Its neck was thicker than Mary’s thigh. Gideon snorted and stopped smartly.
Lugh stepped down, his bundle under his arm. The coils of snake blocked the whole road. Dar jumped down, took him by the elbows, and kissed him on the mouth. Mary embraced him a last time, the babies bulging between them. She laughed at the awkwardness, but tears spilled down her cheeks.
“Rest now,” she said tenderly to him. “You’ve seen it through perfectly. You’ve succeeded. Rest.”
The snake began to uncoil. Lugh walked beside it and they slipped into the wood through which the road wound. Lugh had moved out of sight between the trees before the snake’s tail finally slid off the road. Dar held Mary’s hand. They stood together, watching, until man and snake were quite gone. Gideon waited patiently, ears pricked, watching the receding figures.
A few minutes later, Mary heard Dar chirrup to the horse and the cart jolted into motion. She lay on the pallet and let the turning wheels send her to sleep, watching Lugh walk away on the dark screen of her closed eyelids.