Volume II ~The Works of Fiona Macloed

WSEANACHASW

AHÈZ THE PALE

The moon sent her lances through the forest of Broceliande, among giant thickets of oak and beech. Under their holes the fire-flies trailed green fires. At long intervals a night-jar intermittently churred his passionate note to his mate, she swaying silent on a near branch. But the cry of the night-jar, the faint rustle of a wolf's foot among the acorn-garths, or of a doe uneasy amid the fern, the innumerable whisper of the green leafy world--what were these but breaths of sound upon the sea of silence.
The nightingales had been still for a moonquarter or more. For three faring's of sun and moon the wind had scarcely reached Broceliande from the sea, or had reached it only to lapse where the fronds of the bracken were motionless as the pines. Through the long days sullen thunders had prevailed. Sometimes their hollow booming came inland, and the sea moaned among oak-glades round whose roots no wave had ever lapped, whose green lips had never felt the foam-salt which in tempests whitens leagues of the mainland. Sometimes their prolonged reverberations came out of the south, and the void echoes of the Black Mountain travelled the green way of the oak summits beyond where the dunes fringe the extreme of the forest. But north or south, east or west, the thunders had not lapsed for days. Ubiquitous, they were a perpetual menace: yet though lightnings flashed continually along their livid flanks, these scimitars and dreadful spears were not let loose. Save by night, when the obscure dome unveiled, there was no cessation of that hollow minatory voice, a sullen monotone: the skiey fires darted and flickered their adder-tongues, but flamed no solitary oak into a sudden blaze, blasted no homestead, charred no fugitive life.

In the profound silence of this night, a long wailing chant ascended from the shadow of the forest.
After the first interval, a figure stirred stealthily amid the fern, in a glade near the westward margin of Broceliande, and moved swiftly to where the chant rose and fell, a thin, solitary cadence in that remote and consecrate region.
For in those days the forest of Broceliande was the holy of holies of the Druids, who, within its solitudes, maintained their most secret rites and mysteries. Beyond the reach of their spells, not only the wolf and the bear, but the korrigan and the nain, the pool-sprite and the swamp-demon, the were-wolf and the soulless ghoul that was like a woman, made the greenglooms a terror by day--a living death by night.

It was no druid, however, who tracked furtively the chanting voice, for the moonlight glistcrcd on an iron breastplate and on a plumed and strangely-shaped bronze helmet. The man who thus dared secret death made no effort to escape into the recesses of the forest. Stealthily he drew closer to where the priest of Teutatês sang. When, at last, he was so near the fane, a single tall stone, that he was within a javelin-flight of the solitary white-robed chanter, he crouched, and waited.
The priest was a youth, and fair. As, in his slow, circling walk he came nigh the spot where the interloper lay amid the fern, he stopped and stared dreamily at the moon, which swung goldenly in the green dusk between two lofty oaks. In his eyes there was a light that was not lit there by Teutatês. He smiled and drew farther into the wood, so that he could look at the yellow globe as a fair face set far above him.

There was silence now. The druid had ceased his chant, had forgotten his god. But the gods never slumber, nor do they forgive. The youth moved a step or two forward into a thick garth of fern. Slowly he raised his arms.
" To thee, O Goddess, I pray! " he cried, softly. "To thee I pray! Grant me that which is the sweetest and surest thing in the world! "
He stared upward, his lips parted, his eyes shining.
" She loves me," he murmured again: " she loves me, O Goddess! Grant me that which is the sweetest and surest thing in the world! "
Astorêt must have heard the prayer, or did Teutatês frown upon her and have his own dark will? For, even as Arân the Druid spoke, a sword sprang from the gloom and passed through his back and into his heart and out beyond his breast, so that he died in that moment and soundlessly, save for the bubbling of a red foam upon his lips.
Swiftly the slayer dragged the body a score of yards deeper into the wood. Then, with famished haste, he denuded the druid, and, having taken off his own raiment and armour, put it upon the silent one, in exchange for the white priestly garment wherewith he had already clothed himself.
Of his weapons he kept none save a long, broad-bladed dagger, which he secured to the belt beneath the robe he now wore. But first with it he slashed the face of the dead man, so that none might know him.
" Lie there," he muttered with savage irony: lie there, Jud Mael! At dawn the druids will come, and will find thee here, and will throw thy sacrilegious body on the altar-flame, as a peace-offering to Teutatês. For now I am Arân the Druid, who has departed no man knows where."
He turned at that, and passed swiftly into the forest, moving eastward.
He walked till dawn. Because of the smile in his eyes, he saw neither korrigan nor ghoul: because of the triumph in his heart he feared neither the tusk of the wild boar nor the fang of the wolf. Once, at sunrise, he laughed. That was because, from the summit of a granite scaur, he saw a dark column of smoke rising from the Circle of Stones where he had slain Arân the Druid.
" So that is the end of Jud Mael," he muttered: "and now . . . Ahèz may grind her teeth that she has missed the killing of her own prey, though her heart will leap because of that slaying and burning there in the forest."
Again, before he left that place, he muttered; and with clenched fist thrust his arm menacingly against that vague west wherein his death slipped stealthily after him from tree to tree. By noon he was within three miles of the Altar of Teutatês, for all that he had walked a score since midnight. He had wandered in a circle, but knew it not; for he was in a dream. When he came to note the sun it was high overhead. Later, he slept. It was a sweet sleep that he had, amid a garth of bracken beset with brambles. All through his dream he heard the deep execrations of Ahèz, daughter of Môrgwyn, the lord of Gwenêd: the low moaning of the dead man, Arân the Druid: and the sound of his own laughter.
He woke suddenly at the sun-down howl of a wolf. For a moment the sweat broke out upon his white face. It was not because of the howl of the wandering beast, but because his fear translated that savage sound into the cry of Ahèz. A glance at his white robe reassured him. He smiled. What was Arân now? The Druids, at the two great festivals of the year, spoke of the strange faring of the soul. It came, they said, as a flying bird: it slipped away, according as were a man's deeds, as a bird, as a wolf, as a snake, or as a toad. His skin grew cold for a moment as he thought he might meet Arân in some such guise: would the dead man recognize him?
He had the instinct of the wanderer against sleeping twice in the same place. Moreover, hunger now began to torment him. He crept slowly from his lair, and wandered this way and that in search of wild fruits or palatable herbs. Suddenly his gaze was arrested by a glint of flame. Sinking to the ground, he watched eagerly; fearful lest what he had seen was the torch of a pursuer. In a brief while, however, he discerned that the light was that of a fire.
With tread as stealthy as that of a wolf near a fold he stole out of the wood, and from whin to whin till he was close upon the fire. Beside it sat an old man. Jud Mael looked long at the woodlander. His instinct was to kill him, for the sake of the roasted hedgehog which the old man was about to devour: but the risk was too great, for even if the woodlander were unknown to the druids his dead body might afford a fatal clue. So, at the last, he decided to speak.
So quietly did he draw near that he was at the old man's side unheard.
The peasant stumbled to his feet, startled: but when he saw the white robe of a druid he looked reassured, and made an obeisance.
"What do you do here, in the sacred wood, you who are clad in skins?"
"I am not within the precincts, holy one. This glade is open ground. Surely you know it, who are Arân the Chanter."
Jud Mael started. A hunted look came into his wolfish eyes. He knew there was no resemblance between Arân and himself. How then did this old man take him for the druid whom he had slain.
" How know you that I am Arân the Druid, old man? "
" Am I wrong, holy one? I took you to be Arân, for I heard that he had wandered in the forest, and had been seen of no man since yester moonrise."
" Even so, I am Arân. And why are you here ? "
" I was told to wait on the outskirts of the wood, and to light a great fire, so that the flame of it should be seen of the wanderer. But as darkness was not yet come, and I was weak with hunger and had slain this beast, I made a small fire that I might eat."
" I too am hungered. I have tasted no food for a night and a day."
Eat, then, holy one."
But you ? "
Oh, I can find roots beneath these oaks. It is not fit that I should eat when Arân the Druid is weary with hunger. Eat!
Jud Mael ate. As he devoured the white sweet meat his courage rose. By the time he had finished, the woodlander brought him some ground-berries wherewith to slake his thirst.
" Tell me, old man," Jud Mael said at last, having placed himself so that he could see any white-robe coming out of the darkness from the forest: " tell me what was said concerning me."
" Nought that I know of, save that you had wandered."
" And thou hast heard nought else to-day?
" Surely. All who dwell by the wood have heard of the death of one who ventured into the holy precincts. He was a warrior. He died with blood. The druids burned his accursed body at sunrise. Some say that he was slain by Arân--and, as it is an evil thing for a druid to take life, that he, you, O holy one, went into the deep forest to do penace."
Did you hear the man's name?
Yes. It was Jud Mael."
How was that known? "
There was a sword upon him that was the sword given to the lord Jud Mael by Môrgwyn the King, because of what he did in some great battle--I know not what, nor what battle. There was a rune carved on it. Moreover, his helmet had the dragon of the Lords of Mael."
"I do not know the man. What of him?
"It is not for me to speak."
"Speak, man. I command you."
"They say he was a fugitive."
"A fugitive? from the King?"
"No."
"From whom then?
"From the King's sister, the lady Ahèz."
"The lady Ahèz?
" Yes: Ahèz the Pale they call her, because she is so cream-white and fair."
"Why should Jud Mael fly from her?"
"They say he did her a great wrong."
"What wrong? "
" How do I know, holy one? I can but repeat idle gossip."
" Tell me what you have heard."
" Idle tongues have it that Jud Mael promised marriage to Ahèz the Pale: but that when she bade him fulfil his vows, as she was with child to him, he laughed and said he could wed no woman, not even the King's sister, because that in his own place beyond the Black Mountains he had already a wife and children."
"What else did you hear?"
" Nothing, holy one."
"Did not Ahèz the Pale speak to the King? "
" They say she did, but who knows?"
" What else do they say about that, they who say she did? "
"That King Môrgwyn let his riding-whip fall across her shoulder, and bade her begone and not enter his presence again till she rode into the castle-wynd either with Jud Mael by her side as her wedded lord or with Jud Mael's head as the price of her honour."
" Well--? "
" That is all."
"Have you not heard whither Jud Mael fled?"
"No."
Nor if Ahèz the Pale has been seen, on that hopeless quest of hers ?"
"No."
"Old man, wouldst thou earn some gold?"
"Gladly, holy one."
"Then go at dawn--nay, go at once, for now that I am found there is no need for you to wait here--and seek out the lady Ahèz. Tell her what you know concerning that which happened in this forest. Tell her that you have spoken with Arân the Druid, and that it was he who slew Jud Mael, and that he knew the man--so that she may know for a surety that he who wronged her is no longer among the living."

There was no response from the woodlander. Jud Mael leaned forward and looked closely.at him. He saw that the old man's eyes were intently staring.
" What is it, old man, what do you see, that you stare like that?"
" Yonder . . . in the oak-glade yonder . . . on a white horse . . . yes, yes, it is Ahèz the Pale . . ."

With a stifled cry the druid sprang to his feet.
Yes, the woodlander was right. A woman, with long yellow hair, rode on a great white war-horse. She was chanting low to herself, with her eyes turned upon the moon. She had not yet seen those who had descried her.
With the silent swiftness of a beast of prey he slid back behind a mass of gorse, then glided from whin to whin till he was under the oaks again.
The old man stood, with gaping mouth and rapt eyes, as the night-rider drew nigh.
Ah, she was fair indeed, he thought: just like moonlight she was, fair and white and wonderful.
As the white war-horse trampled the bracken, the words Ahèz chanted became audible.

But this was in the old, old, far-off days,
But this was in the old, old, far-off days.

Guenn took up his sword, and she felt its shining blade,
And she laughed and vowed it fitted ill for the handling of a maid

He looked at her, and darkly smiled, and said she was a queen:
For she could swing the white sword high and love its dazzling sheen.

They rode beneath the ancient boughs, and as they rode she sang,
But at the last both silent were: only the horse-hoofs rang.

She lifted up the great white sword and swung it 'neath his head--
"Ah, you may smile, my lord, now you may smile," she said.

For this was in the old, old, far-off days,
For this was in the old, old, far-off days.

Suddenly Ahèz reined in the great white stallion she rode. She had caught sight of the woodlander. At that moment she saw a white-robed figure glide into the darkness of the forest.
" Tell me, forester," she asked-and the old woodlander wondered in his heart whether the beauty of her face excelled that of her voice-"tell me if the lord Jud Mael passed this way?"
"The lord Jud Mael is dead, great lady. He was slain overnight. Only this moment there was one with me here who slew him yea, and knew him to be Jud Mael."
" And what will the name of that man be, and where may I find him?"
" He is called Arân the Chanter. He is a druid. He may be found at the Sacred Circle. But this moment he went yonder, to the eastward."
" Then I will seek Arân the Chanter," she said: and, so saying, Ahèz the Pale rode onward in the moonlight.
It was only then that the woodlander noticed she carried a white babe in the fold of her left arm. He knelt, and prayed to his gods.

Once more, as she rode, she caught sight of a white-robed figure flitting rapidly before her.
" Ah, Arân the Chanter," she murmured, I would fain have word of you!
At the first mile she passed the Well of Death--a deep fount in the forest where the nains were wont to meet. And as she rode she heard the nains chanting.
She had the old ancient wisdom. She knew the wood-speech. And the song the nains sang was of blood, and of the red footsteps in the wood.
And when Ahèz passed the Well a nain appeared. She was like a woman, but was all of green flame. She sang:

And this was in the old, old, far-off days,
And this was in the old, old, far-off days.

Whereat Ahèz the fearless chanted back:

O Nain, what was in the old, old, far-off days?

And the nain laughed, and sang:

O Blind One, who followest a dead man that is alive!

And having chanted this she vanished. But Ahèz knew what the nain meant, and the blood-flame rose in her.
So, she followed a dead man who was alive! Who could this be but Jud Mael. Ah, the white-robed druid!
She took a long dagger from her girdle, and pricked the flank of the white stallion till the blood trickled red.
As the steed sprang onward through the moonshine, the nains chanted. She heard their wild mocking laughter, and wondered if to Arân, the flying druid, that was Jud Mael, the fugitive from death, their voices rang with wild terror.
Once, from an oak-glade, she saw him look back over his shoulder.
The eyes of the gods were in the Wood of Broceliande that night. Whether Jud Mael turned to the right or to the left, or fled onward with stumbling feet, seeking for dark places and briery thickets and the conduits of damp caverns, the moonbeams tracked him like hounds.
While still afar off, Ahèz the Pale saw this thing, and she smiled.
Once he stopped for a few panting moments. He heard her chanting:

For this was in the old, old, far-off days,
For this was in the old, old, far-off days.

Then, blind with fear, he stumbled on.
For a brief while thereafter he had hope. The sound of the following hoofs grew fainter. Thrice, on furtively looking back, he could discern no white rider, no white horse. Once, in a rearward glade, he saw two leverets playing in the moonshine. He drew a long breath. It was well, he thought; for he had now a wide glade to cross, a vast glade horribly white with the moonflood, with but a single isle of refuge midway, a solitary lightning-blasted oak.
Jud Mael hesitated to traverse this terrifying void, yet dared not skirt it lest the woman on the white horse should cut him off. At last he fell on his hands and knees, and slowly crawled through the dewy fern.
He had gone half-way, when suddenly his heart leaped against his throat.
A great white stallion was trampling down the bracken at the edge of the glade. A woman, with long moonlit hair, rode it; and as she rode in silence he heard the crying of a child.
With gasping haste he crawled close to the oak. There, among its cavernous roots, he hoped to escape unseen.
Ahèz the Pale rode straight for the solitary tree. When the great stallion trampled among the far-spreading roots, she drew rein.
" Come forth, Jud Mael," she cried.
Jud Mael shivered. At last the man within him wrestled with the coward, and he rose to his feet, and stepped out into the moonlight.
" Art thou Arân the Druid, O thou who wearest a white robe, or art thou Jud Mael? "
"I am Jud Mael, O Ahèz, whom I have loved."
" And it was thou who slew the priest?
" He came to his death."
" As thou to thine. But first, lest I slay thee where thou standest, take this child that is your child. He is no child of mine, though I bore him. I am of the royal line, that never bore a coward, and what could this child be but a coward and a traitor? The boy must die."
" I cannot slay the little one, Ahèz."
" I have not tracked thee down to bandy words. Take thou the child."
Slowly Jud Mael advanced. On his white face the sweat glittered like dew.
He put out his arms, and enfolded the child. Then, with steadfast eyes, he looked up at Ahèz.
She stared at him unflinchingly, but made no sign.
"Ahèz!"
"Hast thou not heard me, dog?"
Jud Mael flushed a deep red.
"Beware, woman! After all, it is but a woman you are, and you are alone here, and I can slay you as easily as I could a fawn of the forest."
" Thou liest."
The man looked at her defiantly; then, sullenly, his eyes fell.
"What wouldst thou, Ahèz?"
"Slay this child."
With a sudden savage gesture the man took the broad knife from the belt that was below his white robe. He hesitated a moment, then abruptly plunged the iron blade into the child's breast. There was a long gasping sound, a clinching of little fingers, a spasmodic twitching of little hands and feet. A thin jet of blood spurted up in the face of Jud Mael. He stood, shaking, trembling like a leaf.
" Why hast thou made me do this thing, Ahèz? "
" Thou wert a liar, and betrayed me. Thinkest thou I shall bear the seed of a traitor?"
"But to what end?"
" To what end? . . . That thy soul may pass into some evil thing, and die and utterly perish. For now thou hast slain thine own blood. Bring me the child. Alive, it was thine; slain, it is mine."
Jud Mael slowly drew near. He lifted the inert small body. Ahèz leaned sideways as though to take it in her arms. As she gripped the child with her left hand, she raised her right arm. The next moment a dagger flashed in the moonlight, and with a scraping, gurgling sound, sank in between the shoulders of Jud Mael.
The man staggered, reeled, and would have fallen but for the heaving flank of the stallion.
Ahèz leaned back, and with a wrench pulled away the dagger. Then before the stricken man could recover she thrust the blade into his neck.
Jud Mael gave a hoarse cry. As he fell, he slashed at the thigh of Ahèz, but the weapon missed and made a deep cut in the belly of the stallion. Snorting and rearing, the great beast swung round and trampled upon the fallen man, neighing savagely the while.
When he lay quite still, Ahèz dismounted. She took the body of the child and piled loose stones above it, to keep it sacred against wild beasts and birds of prey.
Thereafter, with Jud's knife, she severed the man's head, and by its long black hair slung it to the tangled mane of the stallion.
Then she mounted, and rode slowly back by the way she had come.W

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