Ivy and Thorn

by Stephanie Burgis

Stephanie Burgis is an American author who lives in Yorkshire, England, with her husband, fellow-writer Patrick Samphire, and their crazy-sweet border collie mix, Maya. She's sold over twenty stories to various magazines, podcasts, and anthologies, including Strange Horizons and Escape Pod. To find out more, please visit her website or her journal.

Ivy and Thorn was originally published in Grendelsong, Issue No. 1, September 2006.

It was a moonlit winter evening when Mary Hamilton rode into the forest, clinging to her lover's waist. Bells rang softly in the air; the horse's hooves left no mark in the white snow.

Her husband's men combed the old forest for days, but they never found a trace of her passing. She had vanished as quickly and as thoroughly as water slipping through open fingers.

The way back was longer and more difficult.

∞

Hands have to re-learn the feel of rough bark, when they've touched nothing but clouds; bare feet, the bite of rocks and the burn of cold snow.

It was snowing again as she stumbled through the forest. Had it always stayed winter, while she'd dreamed?

She'd worn cool silks and floating draperies while she'd danced in his green court. Now she wore the ragged remains of an old white wool dress that strained at the seams around her waist. She'd lost her whalebone corset long ago.

She set one hand on her stomach and forced her feet forward, toward a greater mystery than the one she'd left behind.

∞

Edward Hamilton stood with his head bent. His eyes looked at nothing. His hands clenched air.

"Sir?" His steward coughed. "My lord? Shall I show her in?"

∞

His face was thinner than she'd remembered it, his hair sparked with gray. She'd known so little of him when they'd married: only what her parents had said and what everyone knew. A fifteen-year-old heiress and a lord belonged together. How could she know how he would answer her?

"I carry your child," she said, her voice steady, pitched to carry through the great hall. He was surrounded by his retainers; she ignored them and looked straight into his face, searching for familiarity, some sign of recognition. "I came back that he could be raised here, among his own kind."

A muscle twitched in Edward's cheek. "Only that? You come back to be delivered of my child?" His voice would have been less frightening had he raised it in a shout. Instead, he dropped it to a whisper. "It has been over two years, Madam. And you no more than three months pregnant, judging by the size of your stomach."

Mary kept her eyes fixed on his. "They cannot engender human life," she said, "though they would steal it, if they could. The babe is none but yours, my lord. Time moves very differently, there."

A ripple of unease passed through the gathered men. It was the first time any had directly referred to where she'd been. Bad luck to mention it. Dangerous to even think on it too long.

Edward's lips twisted. "And you? How long do you plan to stay this time, after you've given birth to my child? Are you panting to return to the greener realms and to your lover's arms?"

At last her gaze dropped. She looked down at her own rounded stomach and drew a breath. "I shall stay," she said. "I am past my time for magic now."

∞

That night, she sat in her old bed, her knees drawn up beneath her, while her old nursemaid brushed out her hair. The door to her husband's empty bedroom stood open, leaking darkness.

"He wept," the old woman whispered, as she brushed. "He raged before the men, but he wept in secret. I saw him. Even after a year, he still sent search parties into the woods every month. And each time they came back empty-handed---"

The door to her husband's bedroom opened. A woman's low laughter sounded, and Edward's voice murmured back. Mary held herself still on her own bed, watching the darkness through the open door.

Her husband appeared in the doorway only long enough to grant her a cold nod. He closed the door.

The woman's moans were not quiet.

Mary took the brush from her old nursemaid's hands.

"I do not think he is weeping now."

∞

It was not that she remembered how to run a great house -- more that she fell back into it, her body moving smoothly through the chores and supervisions, without her mind having to take a part in it at all. Occasionally, she looked up in the middle of a task to find her husband's shuttered gaze fixed upon her. Each time she met his gaze, he looked away.

Sometimes, as her hands moved across the weaving loom, as she supervised the cleaning and laying down of rushes in the great hall, or met with the steward to discuss the housekeeping accounts, she found herself lapsing into a waking dream. She thought she was in the green court again, dancing on soft and yielding grass while her lover's hand moved across her back, weakening her legs with desire. His leaf-tangled long hair fell across her face; his breath smelled of spring. But inside, she felt a tightening knot of panic.

In the distance, she heard the cruel laughter of his court, mocking a discarded plaything.

She disentangled her hand from his. She tried to back away.

Chains of ivy leaped from his hands to wrap around her. They tugged her back until she was pressed tightly against his shifting form. His eyes burned green as he breathed onto her face.

"I am coming. I am coming for you and your child. You cannot escape."

"My lady!" The steward was staring at her, his list of figures forgotten in his hand. "Are you unwell?"

Mary fought for breath. "I -- no. No. I am only a little faint."

"Sit down. Please."

He pulled out a chair, frowning. As she sank down into it, she saw his gaze flicker to her stomach, which had already grown in the weeks since her return. She forced a smile and placed one hand against it, holding it in. Protecting it. You will be safe. I promise you.

A woman's low laughter sounded behind her in the hall. Mary jerked around, nearly upsetting her chair.

The laughter came from a dark-haired woman, tall and shapely. Mary had seen her before, at the end of the high table at meals. She stood with a friend at the other end of the hall, past the groups of servant girls. Her eyes met Mary's for a moment; her lips curved into a deeper smile.

"The lady Arbella Beaumont," the steward said quietly. "Your husband's widowed cousin. She came to help run the household while you were ... away."

"Ah." Mary took a breath. She turned to face him, forcing herself to look away from the woman's smile. Still, she felt Arbella's gaze on her back. "I have not been introduced to her."

But I have heard her voice many times.

∞

In her first weeks back, Mary had never looked beyond her own seating partners at the high table during meals, never wondered about the strangers who sat at the other end, by her husband's side. It was enough to force stilted conversation with the companions she already had, enough to talk of weather and the news from Queen Elizabeth's court, while feeling her husband's watchful gaze upon her and imagining his thoughts.

Now, as her stomach grew by the day, she saw the lady Arbella everywhere, watching her from the other end of the table, leaning up to her husband's ear, making low-voiced jokes that sent their companions into peals of laughter.

Mary sat, stiff-backed, in her seat at the foot of the table, and felt her child's feet kick against her stomach as Arbella's neighbors looked at her and looked away, red-faced with private laughter.

Enough, she told herself. Enough! What else could you expect? You did not return for your own sake.

Edward did not share in the laughter. Mary felt his gaze upon her, watching as she lifted the food on her knife. Arbella noticed, too. She leaned up to whisper in his ear. Her long, pale fingers casually settled on his shoulder. They stroked downward.

Nausea twisted through Mary's stomach so strongly that she gagged. Her knife dropped from her hand onto her dish, with a clatter that silenced the hall.

"I beg you will excuse me, husband. I find myself indisposed."

She fled before he could answer. Through the hall, past the whispers. Through the back of the house, through the servants' door. Outside, into the cold January wind. The forest rose ahead of her, the tips of the barren trees rising above the hill that stood between it and the house. Mary hugged her arms around her chest and looked toward the trees as the wind whipped her hair free of its restraints.

The scent of another season's leaves whispered past. The wind came from the forest, today.

"I am coming..."

She whirled around. Two stable boys knelt before an old rag-and-bones man, whose hands moved quickly, knotting dried grass above a fire scented with herbs. His voice whispered a charm; he opened his hands.

Sparks flew in the air. The stable boys laughed in delight. The pungent scent of green magic filled the air as the grass figure moved in an awkward little dance above the flames. One step, two---

"Stop!" Mary hardly felt herself move, but she was in the middle of their circle, nearly sobbing as she stamped the fire out. "No magic! I will have no magic here!"

"My lady---"

"Lady---"

"What are you doing?" Strong hands gripped her shoulders and turned her around. Edward stared down at her. "Mary? Have you gone mad?"

"Magic is a lie," she spat. "A snare to trick the innocent. It---"

"It was only a charm, to entertain children." He looked down at the green figure, now limp and dry within the ashes. His frown softened. "They meant no harm by it."

Mary swallowed. "Magic steals everything," she whispered. "It tricks us into giving up everything real."

He stood looking down at her in silence, still holding her shoulders. His hands were warm through the fabric of her dress. The wind no longer smelled of leaves.

"You've left your company," Mary said.

"I was concerned." He paused, his face tightening. "For our child. If you are ill..."

"Of course." She took a breath. "I am perfectly well, my lord. I only needed a breath of fresh air."

He released her shoulders and stepped back. "I had news for you, as well. I've received a letter. We are to be honored ... and inconvenienced..." His face relaxed into a rueful smile; for a moment, she could not help but smile back. "We are to receive a royal visit," he said. "The Queen and her counselors will arrive in three weeks, as part of her tour of the North." His smile faded. "I trust you can prepare for it in time?"

She nodded, unsmiling. "All will be in readiness for them," she said. "I promise."

∞

Cloaks glittering with stitched-in pearls; gowns patterned with images of Her Majesty's watchful eyes and ears; the Queen's court descended upon them in February, when Mary's stomach showed all the signs of a six-month of pregnancy.

On the sixth night of the visit, Elizabeth spoke to the high table at large, silencing all other conversations. "Our gentlemen bring back strange tales from your woods."

Mary stiffened. She sat on one side of the Queen, Edward on the other. When she looked up, she found his gaze already fixed on her.

"What manner of tales, Your Grace?" she asked through numb lips.

"Strange lights in the distance, when they hunt. Green figures fading into the trees. I haven't seen such creatures myself since I was a girl in Hertfordshire." Elizabeth's dark eyes glimmered within her caked white cosmetic mask. "I hope we shan't see one of the fabled white stags come to draw all our young men away."

"No indeed, Your Grace," the lady Arbella said, her voice a dulcet purr. "The spirits in this forest have no interest in young men."

"Have they not?" The Queen nodded to her chief counselor, who sat on Lady Arbella's right. "What say you, Lord Burghley?"

Lord Burghley stroked his beard, his eyes sharp with interest. "Why, I would advise you to go direct to the source, Your Grace: ask the lord and lady of this manor."

Mary tightened her hand around her glass of wine. Edward's face had paled nearly to chalk.

"There is little enough to tell, Your Grace," he said. "They always want what we find most precious. They take only what we could least spare."

"Is't so?" The Queen cocked her head. "And what says your lady wife? Have these creatures no redeeming qualities?"

Mary swallowed. "Their beauty is beyond compare. Their music, their wine, and the sweetness of their voices rise all as high above our mortal ambitions as the stars above the earth."

The Queen gave a snort of laughter. "Your husband is not best pleased by this answer, I think."

Mary continued steadily. "But there is a sickness at the core. A rot. For they cannot be happy unless they see a human suffer for it. Thus, even their favorites are but playthings, used only for their value in inducing pain. And to be that cause..." Her voice trailed off. Her knuckles had turned white around the stem of her wine glass.

Lord Burghley exchanged a look with the Queen. "We must hope that we none of us ever learn how that might feel," he said. "But there are honorable qualities too, are there not? They cannot turn back against their own sworn word, or so the stories go."

"Nor are they quite all-powerful," the Queen said, her tone amused. "For my nursemaids did say that they could be fooled, if one knew how to turn a charm or two."

"In this part of the country, Your Grace, even the children know how to work charms," Edward said. "It is simple self-preservation. And yet..." His gaze met Mary's for an instant, and dropped away. "Sometimes, all our charms and prayers come too late."

∞

Pain. Waves upon waves of pain breaking over her. The midwife's voice chanting through it, mixing charms of protection with calm words of instruction. Edward's voice in the distance, sharp and agitated; women's voices silencing him. And always, the pain.

With every fresh onslaught, Mary nearly gave in. With every onslaught, she gritted her teeth. I will not give up my child now.

At last, a thin and wavering cry. A soft, cloth-dried body lifted into her arms. Body still screaming in pain, Mary looked down into her daughter's tiny red face and knew herself to be lost indeed.

You, I can never abandon.

The door opened, and her husband walked in, his face pale and hair disheveled. He came straight to her bed. "Mary." He knelt down, his gaze searching her face. "How---? Oh." His eyes widened and fixed on the infant in her arms. He reached out to touch the tiny fists; she saw his fingers tremble.

"Your daughter," Mary said. Her voice was hoarse from screaming. "I hope you are not disappointed."

"What?" He blinked and looked back to her. "These hours -- all these long hours -- Mary, I---"

"My lord." The midwife coughed discreetly. "Your lady wife needs her rest and sleep. And your daughter must needs be fed."

"Oh." He stood, still staring hungrily down at the two of them. "Tomorrow," he said. "Tomorrow, we must talk. About many things."

"Tomorrow," Mary echoed.

If I am still here, she added silently.

The door closed behind him. The midwife clucked over Mary, helping her unlace her bodice. Even as her daughter's tiny mouth closed over her nipple, though, Mary forced herself to speak.

"Bring me herbs and a sheaf of dried wheat," she whispered. "There is still work to do before tonight."

∞

She woke breathing the scent of fresh green sap. Her lover sat on the bed beside her, trailing one hand across her face and another over the crib that stood by the bed.

"Mary," he murmured. His voice ran with the burbling sweetness of a cool, fresh forest stream; it whispered with the mystery of a spring breeze running through leaves on an oak tree. "Mary," he whispered again, and he stroked his long fingers down the curve of her cheek, across her throat. "I've come for you."

Her body wanted to melt; had she not still been torn by pain, had she not been exhausted and afraid, perhaps it would have melted after all, and only her mind held out against him. But Mary held her body still and hard as she met his green-brown eyes.

"I will not go with you," she said. "Not again."

"Will you not?" His eyes shifted color, glowing dark red like garnets in his pale and shadowed face. "I cannot believe---"

"Can you not understand plain English?"

Mary jerked around. Pain ripped between her legs as she moved. Edward stepped out from the darkness of the open door to his bedroom. He held the sword his father had passed down to him twenty years before -- a sword she had never known him to use.

The door had been closed when she'd finally lapsed into reluctant sleep. How long had he waited there in the darkness, listening and watching for this visitor?

"No," Mary whispered. "Edward, please. It isn't safe!" Her poor, hopeful, useless plans...

Edward stepped forward, holding the broadsword steady before him. "You will leave my wife here as she desires, Green man. Even spirits of the forest have no love for cold steel, I believe."

"No?"

The green man's laughter was as beautiful and as chilling as the first snowfall of winter. He held out his hands, and ivy flowered on the four corners of the ceiling.

Leaves dropped down over Edward's head and shoulders. Edward twisted, swinging his sword; chains of ivy caught the blade and yanked it from his hands. He stumbled. Ivy wrapped around his chest and tied his hands behind his back.

The green man watched him with glowing eyes and a deepening smile. "Would you suffer if I took your faithless wife, my lord?" he asked. "Or perhaps -- your daughter?"

"No!" Mary said. "You may not take her."

"May not?" He turned. His eyes shifted to glowing green in the darkness. "This is an amusing jest indeed," he breathed. "I'll let your husband choose, I think. Shall I leave tonight with his wife or with his child?"

"Do not make that choice, husband," Mary said. "I beg you!"

"I will take one or the other," the green man said lazily. "If you do not make the choice yourself, then..."

"Please," Mary said. "If you ever had faith in me, Edward!"

Edward gritted his words through his teeth, fighting against the leafy chains that bound him. "I will not make that choice!"

It was time. Mary took a breath and met her lover's eyes. Please, she prayed silently. Let Edward believe she had proven herself in these past months. Let her charms have worked.

"I shall make the choice myself, then," she said evenly. "I will not go back with you again."

"Mary!" Edward's head jerked up. "What are you saying?"

"Trust me," she said, and invested the words with all she felt. "Please, husband. You must let me make this choice." She looked back at the green man and said coolly, "Better her than myself, I think, if one of us must go."

There was a long silence. She could not let herself look back at Edward's face.

At last, he said dully, "Arbella was right. I am a twice-damned fool indeed."

"You must promise me," Mary said to her lover. Her hands were trembling; she fisted them, but knew that he had seen the weakness. "If you take the child from this crib, now, you will never return, never threaten this family again."

"'Family?'" Edward asked. He laughed shortly.

"I accept." The green man scooped up the babe from the crib. A weak cry sounded -- a baby's first, tentative tears, presaging a true flood. Mary shivered involuntarily, and the green man's eyes lit in appreciation. "You have my word on it," he said. "Ah, lady, you have given me much pleasure, indeed."

He was gone. Edward stumbled forward, suddenly free of his restraints. Only the scent of green sap remained, filling the air. Taunting them. Mary breathed in the scent, trembling with the shock of fear released.

Edward shook his head slowly and collapsed onto the end of her bed. "Mary," he whispered. He stared down at the bedcovers. "What have you done?"

Mary reached out to take his hand. Laughter on the edge of tears bubbled up through her chest, stretching her lips into a wavering smile. "I've worked a charm," she said. "Are you not pleased with me, my lord?"

"What?" He swung around. His fingers tightened around hers. "But---"

"Do you not remember what you told Her Majesty? Every child on this estate can work a charm or two. Even I have learned some of them, by now. This charm should wear off at dawn -- but by then, thank God, it will be too late."

His eyes widened. He squeezed her hand in his. "Tell me," he said. "What was in that crib tonight?"

"A sheaf of wheat," Mary whispered. Tears pooled against her eyes; she blinked and let them slip down her cheeks and disappear. "Charmed with herbs and incantations. Our daughter lies sleeping in my old nursemaid's room tonight."

For all she'd learned in the last months, she still could not read his face. She searched his expression in the darkness, faint with relief and the dizziness of newfound hope.

"I thank you for giving me your trust tonight," she said. "It was beyond anything I have deserved from you."

"No," he said. "It was less than you deserved, for such wit and courage." He raised her hand to his mouth; his lips were warm and soft as they brushed against her skin. "So, lady wife," he breathed, "have you decided, after all, to allow some magic within this house?"

Mary met his eyes and found herself short of breath. Her body ached with pain and exhaustion, but a sweet small bloom of happiness unfolded in her chest. "Perhaps," she whispered, "I am not past my time for magic after all."

© 2007 Stephanie Burgis