The Red-Haired Night

The Red-Haired Knight 15

The Lady

's Dance

Winter had passed; numbing cold, alternating with still chilly thaws. There were days of 'false spring,' where creatures and beings were lured out of their snug hibernation.

After seeing their duties, Gwenyth and the Sergeant kept busy, keeping each other warm and pleasured. Ecna and Jeremi healed each other, as their powers complemented each other.

The Mountains to the West were secure, the Boar saw to that, not that he owed loyalty to any but the mountains. Marechal Julian found his band of Wolves near the end of the last false spring. Nothing of note was happening in Goose Valley; at least nothing that threatened the Prosperous Valley's outpost in Apple Valley. The Forlorn Hope had circled Apple Valley on a patrol of reconnaissance and predation.

The Fine Folk's horsemen's rides to the foaling grounds north and south of the valley, yielded strange tales, but no intelligence as to the movement or plans of the Lords of the Eastern High Ground.

Malle alternated her bouts of physical and weapons training, with spiritual exercises. As spring approached, everything and everyone felt stale.

The levies had trained and were as ready as one could hope for peasant levies. The waiting for spring and war, tired the whole valley.

All looked forward to the Festival. The beginning of spring brought a starving time... but those who survived, would relish the antics and joy of the Festival.

The Fine Folk would shine in their finest for the Festival. The traditional garb of the Spring Feast would be brought out of closets and chests and aired for days in the cool but increasingly sunlit days. Moth-eaten articles of clothing would be mended, boots polished, fine footwear adorned.

Ritual bathing was encouraged by the Sacred Ground. A hot spring on the sacred ground was a joy, but also considered a spiritual cleansing.

Days were set aside for men and women to bathe separately for weeks before the Feast, ensuring that all adults had a chance to enter the growing season with clean bodies, souls, and minds.

This one time, the Fine Folk and rulers of the Land had to wait their turn. For this Cleansing, the Sacred Ground would hold with no favoritism to wealth and class.

As tradition dictated, Malle, as the Lady of the Valley, would bathe last, alone and in deep privacy on the day of the Festival. This year, there was more than thankfulness for surviving the winter and the Starving Time. There was war, or the possibility of war.

The Lady arrived on Sacred Ground alone... her handmaid was required to stay behind since she had already bathed. The Lady had not been cleansed, so there was a small risk of her handmaid being made ritually impure.

It was a matter well known to devotees of the Sacred Ground, as the time of purification approached, one was subjected to assaults by dark forces. Malle (the Lady) was experiencing strong pulls to vengeance. Prudence told her to wait for the attack, soon to come, she thought, from the East. But vengeance demanded immediate action. Even action on those innocent of any crimes.

Also, the pull, the temptation for physical congress with the Dark Power was becoming irresistible.

The Lady could barely move. Ritually, she must walk barefoot to the Sacred Grounds. She was vested in her cleanest linen gown, wore no adornment, no jewels, no powders, or perfumes. She wore the grey-hooded robe of a penitent. In theory, this hid her identity. But today, she was the only one walking the High Street to the Holy Ground for purification.

Slowly and steadily, she marched, fighting her weaknesses and temptations every step. Even when she reached Holy Ground, the dark powers sought to overcome her. She became physically quite ill. Fortunately, the respect the people of the Valley held her in, assured that, at this moment of danger, she was unobserved. In the Sacred Grove, she vomited up an evil creature that had lived in her. It bounded aways with pitiful, tiny, screeching noises, as though it were being tormented by touching Holy ground.

Feeling stronger, the Lady entered the Room of Disrobing. The waters of the hot springs were adjacent. The Keepers of the Holy Ground kept their distance. They needed to observe that the Lady had, indeed, come for Purification and needed to observe that she was successfully cleansed, but there was no air of voyeurism.

After disrobing, she was no longer the Lady, but Malle, another of the Valley, who had come for her ritual cleansing. Covered steps led down to the pool...but the pool was in the open air, although wreathed with steam; at any distance, Malle was invisible to outside observers. Not that there were any. Observing a ritual bath except for senior Keepers of the Holy ground was a crime of blasphemy.

The waters were not superheated, and the cleansing came as much from the minerals dissolved in the water, and the gases that were emitted from the pool.

The cleansing took some time. More for the Fine Folk, and even more for those with the power of life and death. The soaking was relaxing. The blood of those she had killed in battle, flowed from her hands. The strain of her congress with evil, her copulation with devils, all released in foul odors that escaped from her pores.

The sweat from her head revived her hair, which then shone a bright scarlet. Malle emerged from the spring waters; steam rising from her head, rivulets of water streaming between her breasts, others over her small hard buttocks. The water that dripped off her tangled flaming bush was tinged in red.

She had not bled for months; her body was reduced to a near-starving leanness by exercise and fasting. Malle emerged from the bath as the Lady of the Valley. Healthy and ready for a new life. She was a symbol of the Valley's rebirth.

Her flow had just begun, so was easily contained by a bit of moss. The Holy Ground was prepared, this was not at all an unusual effect of the baths; indeed, it was an exceedingly good omen.

The shadows of the early spring day lengthened. The sky was clear, and it was the time of the full moon. The People looked for the stars known to them as the Herdsman... a sign of the year's coming prosperity.

Malle was dressed as the Lady, Goddess of Spring and Renewed Life. Her handmaid appeared at the right time, as good servants do. With averted eyes, as one does not gaze at another's nakedness, she handed the Lady her under shift of linen.

As she brushed the Lady's hair and arranged it in the braids appropriate to the Spring Goddess, the Lady was warmed and dried by the warmth from a small fire in the dressing room near the spring.

Once her hair was arranged, and adorned with golden stars and a silver moon, the green velvet gown of the Spring goddess was lowered over her head. Her handmaid sewed her tightly into the gown and belted her with the woven grasses of the spring pastures.

Her guards escorted her to the festival grounds, a large, flat, circular area nearby. This ground was cleared of all the debris of the winter and raked to a smoothness like that of her gown.

In the darkness, around the field, her people had gathered, only murmuring shadows in the gathering gloom. Upon her arrival in the center of the ground, the murmur grew to a tumult, the traditional valley tumult to signify the pleasure of the Valley folk with the arrival of spring and the traditions that their Leader respected.

A wordless growl, punctuated by the banging of drums and the striking of sticks together... only adults were present, except those charged with minding the children. Male and female voices in a cacophony of sounds.

Her guards retreated to the edges of the field, then lit only by a rising moon. The tumult died out... a single voice, high and female, sounded from one side of the field, like a keening, but not in mourning but in hope... after a full minute of silence, then an answering male voice, deep like the bellow of a bull, but distinctly pleasant, known to send shivers to any female in hearing it... then the voices blended, male and female, no words, just melodious sounds and the spirit moved the singers, there was no script.

More and more joined in... the Lady remained silent, or so it seemed. If one were a mouse in the grass at her feet, one would hear a soft humming.

The Lady was mesmerized by her People' sound and the night sky which she gazed up at, as if seeing wonders there for the first time.

She began to sway to the sounds which had become rhythmic, urgent. From twelve points equally spaced at a distance from her, fires were lit... fed with kindling of fragrant pine, then enlarged with seasoned oak.

Herbs, and rare fragrances from far away, were tossed into the flames. The Lady inhaled the spices, herbs, and drugs of the world. The music settled into a seductive flute and lyre duo... too soft for the crowd noises, so the people grew silent to sit and listen and to watch the Lady, who had begun a dance, a dance she had done in the past with her Lord Edward. Here, she danced with his shade... a beatific smile on her face.

The Lady would dance, and must dance, until dawn. She had water and spiced wine brought to sustain her, but she would not eat until the sun rose.

In the time of false dawn, just as the bird song was heard in the darkness, Malle left the body of the Lady... the lady continued her dance, but Malle watched from above. This was a new thing, but it did not frighten her. She could see the People still sitting watching her... some sleeping in each other's arms, some copulating at the edges of the crowd, shielded by brush. At this time, no one SAW such things, though, one knew they occurred. Indeed, a child conceived on this night was a blessed soul, bound to bring joy to the parents and great talents to the Valley. Or so it was believed.

Malle's vision spread wider, taking in all her lands. Ecna with Jeremi at the far western reaches of the Valley, at the foot of the Boar-ruled mountains. Marechal, a lord in his own right, in the Apple Valley, did he bear watching? Would he be a threat?

To the North and South, the foaling grounds of the great horse herds. Patrols of Fine Folk guarded these lands.

But there had been tales, fantastic tales. Malle searched these lands with her far-seeing eye. No evil lurked that she could detect, but she could almost see beasts, non-malevolent beings, but unknown beasts, nonetheless.

Their origins were in the Eastern Mountains, of that she was sure, but did they serve the Poet Mages? Or were they unknown creatures, unknown to the Prosperous Valley that posed a threat?

Many thanks to my editor Kenji Sato!

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