The Tower: Part 4: Yule
Post #29: In which loss ...
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CHAPTER 10
ROSE RED
Rose Red missed Eurydice. She hadn’t realized how much she counted on the fellowship of another woman who lived on the community’s edges rather than within it. Eurydice’s role as gatekeeper, and her own role as protector of the forest, meant they stood like bridges between Rowan Tree and the wider world. With the portal no longer open and Eurydice’s absence, Rose Red felt the full weight of maintaining connection between the people and the rest of Webbd; every day her confidence weakened along with the oak tree.
After the Rusalka left she made a real effort to spend more time with the community. She ate a meal in the hall at least once a day, and made it a point to visit Maria, Ginger and Kunik frequently.
After a long and busy harvest season, Rowan Tree settled in for winter. They culled the domestic animal population for meat, leaving only breeding stock. The root cellar was full and stacked firewood leaned against walls and filled sheds and empty animal pens. Outside work ended for the season. Now their energy went into fireside tasks such as spinning, weaving, working with leather and skins, and carving. Stories and songs were shared, and those who could play an instrument sweetened the dark hours of evening. Yule, the longest night, approached.
On a late morning of iron sky and bitter wind, Artemis appeared at Rose Red’s door. She shivered, and Rose Red realized she’d never before seen Artemis affected by temperature or weather. She wore a deerskin tunic and leggings and short leather boots, with a cloak and hood in the coldest weather, but Rose Red hadn’t seen the cloak she now appeared in. When Artemis threw back her hood, Rose Red saw a lining of coarse-haired, cream-colored pelt.
Rose Red put her in a chair close to the fire and heated water for tea. Artemis leaned toward the flames, rubbing her hands together, the cloak still draped around her shoulders. She wore her thick hair short, and with a pang Rose Red noticed grey in it.
She’d never thought of Artemis as aging. She seemed eternally youthful, both in looks and lithe strength and endurance. Mistress of Animals, Protector of Wilderness, it was inconceivable she would age and weaken and, perhaps, one day, die. The thought made Rose Red feel cold. One by one, the most important people in her life seemed to be leaving.
She made tea, and at the same time put soup on to heat. Artemis looked as though she needed it.
She handed a steaming cup to Artemis, who gratefully wrapped her fingers around it, before sitting with her own cup. “Are you warming up?”
“Yes. It’s one of those days that’s far colder than snow. I’m glad to be here. I wanted to see you.”
“Is everything all right?” Rose Red asked, feeling childishly fearful. “I mean, everything’s not all right. I know that. But do you bring bad news?”
“I bring news. It sounds as though you have some, too.”
“You go first.”
Artemis sipped her tea, which contained a good slug of Gabriel’s mead, sweet and heady.
“Mmm,” she said with appreciation. “This is wonderful. Just right on a day like today.”
“Gabriel makes mead every year.”
“Good for him.” She set the cup down on the hearth. “Rosie, the White Stag is dead.”
Rose Red heard, but couldn’t understand.
“What?”
“The White Stag is dead,” said Artemis clearly and slowly, holding her gaze. “He’s gone. This is made from …him.” She turned back an edge of her cloak and ran her fingers over the white pelt.
“But…how?”
“He sacrificed himself at a Samhain ritual. I was there, and Baba Yaga, and Hecate. Odin and Death were there, and Rumpelstiltskin. Morfran and Vasilisa participated, as well as the Rusalka, and Heks, Eurydice and Persephone.”
“Eurydice? But she and Heks left for Yggdrasil weeks ago!”
First, they traveled to Baba Yaga’s birch forest. From there they traveled to Yggdrasil with Rumpelstiltskin. They successfully helped the Norns, and they’re on their way back here now, except for Rumpelstiltskin, who’s spending some time with his people.
“I can’t believe it,” said Rose Red blankly. “I thought the White Stag was eternal.”
“Yes and no. His true name was Cerunmos. He was the Horned God. The Horned God is eternal, but he doesn’t always inhabit the same body. The White Stag was a shapeshifter. He could take a man’s shape. He was my sacred consort, and we worked together for many years, but Cerunmos is always sacrificed in the end, and he and I both knew the sacrifice would come one day.” She looked away from Rose Red, into the fire, her face bleak.
Dead. The White Stag was dead. Rose Red sipped her tea, feeling numb. The hot liquid burned the roof of her mouth. She set it down carefully, folded her hands together in her lap, and studied them. Without warning, tears fell down her cheeks. Dead. As though her tears dissolved some kind of armor, then she did feel. The White Stag, that kingly, stately creature with his glowing coat and big, dark eyes, was dead. He had comforted her, walked beside her, been there during every difficult moment of breaking away from her parents and finding her place in the world. He was gone. Forever gone. She wouldn’t see him again. And if she grieved, how much more must Artemis grieve?
She wiped her streaming eyes and nose ineffectively. “Oh, Artemis, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
Artemis shook her head wordlessly, and Rose Red realized she too wept. She wondered if Artemis had mourned with anyone since the ritual, or if she’d been alone, traveling through bony forests and frostbitten hills.
Tears for the White Stag and Artemis became tears for her parents, whom she loved but felt unwanted by; Rowan; her oak tree; the loss of the Rusalka, and Eurydice’s absence. For a few moments Rose Red gave herself up to grief and fear, finding comfort in the presence of another woman’s tears.
“Everything is changing,” she said when they were quieter. “There’s so much loss and uncertainty. I’m afraid of what’s coming next.”
“Change is hard,” said Artemis. She drained her cup. “I feel uncertain and frightened, too. I’m also weary. I can’t protect the wild by myself. Cerunmos was more than a lover. He was my mate, and our roles required we work together.”
“What about us -- all your handmaidens?”
“You are each essential,” said Artemis, “but a sacred pair is required, a balance of male and female energy. The forests, the hills, the animals -- they all depend on that balance. People speak of me as the virgin goddess, the chaste protector, because I control my own sexuality, but I’m neither virgin nor chaste. Nothing is more powerful than union arising from commitment and consent between male and female. It fuels the very roots of life. I have honored that power with my body and my choices, as did Cerunmos.”
“What will you do now?” asked Rose Red.
“I’m not sure. I haven’t thought much past coming to tell you. I suppose I ought to visit my other handmaidens and spread the word that the White Stag is gone, but this isn’t the time of year to travel, especially alone.”
“Stay here with us,” Rose Red urged. “Spend the winter and set out in the spring.”
“Perhaps,” said Artemis. “You’ve heard my news now. What’s yours?”
“I don’t know where to start,” said Rose Red.
“Start with what you wept for.”
Encouraged by Artemis’s loss and her unapologetic frankness regarding her relationship with the White Stag, Rose Red told her about Rowan, from the first time she’d met him on a night she and Artemis woke the trees to the last time she’d seen him. Although several of her friends understood she and Rowan were lovers, she hadn’t fully revealed their history or her experience of the relationship before, partly out of innate shyness and delicacy and partly out of shame that an animal had such power to rouse her passion.
“I didn’t think we’d stay together always,” she said. “I understood he was a wild animal. He could take a human shape, but even then, he was all fox. The truth is when we first came here, I felt lonely for a human mate, a man who could help me plan and build. Rowan saw no need for either, and felt no interest in the future. He hunted, ate, slept and mated as naturally and thoughtlessly as any other animal. When I was with him, there was nothing but now, nothing but flesh and scent and passion. He didn’t feel embarrassed or ashamed or self-conscious, and I do all the time. He freed something in me, and with him I became a different person. With him I became as wild and primal as he. It scared me, but I also love that part of myself -- the part that responded to him.”
“He was exactly the right lover for you,” said Artemis. “You’ll remember what he taught you, and you won’t be satisfied with anyone who’s unable to rouse the same passion in you.”
“But we weren’t a sacred pair, like you and Cerunmos,” said Rose Red. “We had no commitments to one another.”
“And now you’re both free to go forward with what you taught one another,” said Artemis, and Rose Red felt comforted.
The conversation moved on to the oak tree, the Rusalka’s revelations about mother trees and their departure, Eurydice’s observations and fears about Rowan Portal, and the community’s small doings.
After a bowl of soup and a fresh pot of tea, Artemis related the events of the Samhain ritual and what she knew of Eurydice, Heks and Rumpelstiltskin’s travels. While in Baba Yaga’s birch woods, she had talked at length with the Rusalka, and learned for the first time of Yrtym. She too had noted the dullness of the falling leaves and dead and dying trees. Autumn had brought heavy winds, and weakened trees fell by the dozens, blocking paths and lying down swathes of forest.
“I wanted to tell you about the White Stag before Heks and Eurydice did,” she said to Rose Red. “I also want to hear what they found at Yggdrasil and how it is with the Norns. I’ll stay at least until they return. We need information, but information will be harder to share if the portals break down. I know the birch wood portal and the one here are affected, but there are others connecting one place and people and another.”
“Have you heard anything from Gwelda?” asked Rose Red. “I thought about trying to get a message to her. She and Jan will certainly notice problems with the trees, and they may have heard other news.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Artemis. “I haven’t heard anything from her.”
“I’ve sent Rowan with a message for her before,” said Rose Red, “but I don’t expect to see him again.”
“And I would have asked Cerunmos to go to them,” said Artemis. “We’ll find another way.”
Artemis agreed to stay with Rose Red, and they spent the rest of the day talking. Late in the day the sky became heavy, the air smelling of snow. Snug in Rose Red’s little house, with plenty of food and firewood, they stayed where they were for the evening. After a meal they sat by the fire until Artemis began to nod. She crawled gratefully into Rose Red’s bed. The wind rose outside, and when Rose Red stuck her head out the air was thick with snow. She blew out the lamp and joined Artemis under the quilts and the White Stag’s pelt. Comforted by Artemis’s presence and the cloak’s weight and warmth, she slid into sleep.
The following morning, they woke to drifts of wind-driven snow. Just outside Rose Red’s door the ground was bare, but they waded through hip-high drifts on Rowan’ Tree’s sloping hill to reach the community hall. Smoke rose from chimneys and several bundled figures with brooms and shovels worked, clearing paths to the animals, the root cellar and the large communal building, where breakfast no doubt cooked.
“We have a couple of new people,” Rose Red said to Artemis as they labored through the drifts. The wind had diminished, but the air felt icy. “They both turned up recently and asked if they could spend the winter with us. One is called Chattan. He hasn’t said much about how he came here, but he stayed with Kunik when he first appeared and Kunik is impressed with him. He knows a lot about living off the land and is willing to do any kind of work. He’s quite strong. There he is, see?” she indicated a figure shoveling a path to the goats with powerful thrusts.
“The other man is called Mingan. He was the second to arrive. He came with news of trouble. Fighting and conflict in his old home drove him out. He says people are behaving unnaturally and turning against their own kind. He asked Maria to let him stay here, at least for the winter.”
After brushing the snow off one another with a broom outside the community center door, the two women entered into the warmth and scent of frying meat and toasting bread. Maria worked in the kitchen, along with several other women. Two young girls watched a baby lying on a blanket on the floor near the fire. Artemis was greeted warmly but without fuss, and she and Rose Red joined in the cheerful chaos of a snowy morning requiring cooperative effort.
As food was ready, those present sat down to eat, and gradually those working outside made their way in to warm up and dry off. By that time, Rose Red and Artemis had enjoyed a hearty breakfast and Rose Red was washing dishes.
Artemis made no mention of the White Stag. She was introduced to Chattan and Mingan when they appeared, faces red with cold. She moved from the kitchen to the gathering space near the fire to the long dining tables, talking to everyone at least briefly. Somewhat to Rose Red’s surprise, she greeted Heks with an embrace. Heks, making no concessions to old womanhood, had been out wielding a broom with the men and seeing to Maria’s chickens.
Rose Red, watching from the sink, recalled Heks had attended the Samhain ritual in which the White Stag was sacrificed. She understood the bond shared ritual created, as she and Kunik had been through an Ostara ritual together. Aside from Eurydice, he was her closest friend at Rowan Tree. He’d been one of the last to come in, and he sat eating with Chattan and talking to Artemis.