A Midsummer Tempest Read online

  Charles himself looked half dismayed; but a spirit had suddenly arisen among his men, and he was borne forth on its wings.

  BEFORE THE TOWER OF ST. MICHAEL.

  Its ruin lifted like a crag over wan grass, darkling brambles, bushes, and trees. The moon was barely up, to touch with ice the river, the plain, the ditches that vein it and are known as rhines, the remote but weirdly near-looking gray-blue Mendips, and that slow surge of hills called the Island of Avalon, which crests in Glastonbury Tor. The town below huddled mostly in darkness; hostile watchfires ringed the heights with red. Lean clouds coursed here and there among stars which flickered as cold as the whittering wind. Cold likewise were the guns, but bitterns boomed afar in the marshes.

  A flame sprang up, became a fire, beat red-blue-yellow, and sang its dry, mysterious song. Four stood between it and the vanished chapel, facing the moon. Three had not changed garb. Rupert held Prospero’s book, Jennifer—in a skirt improvised from a cloak—his staff, King Charles a Bible; Will stood aside, an empty-handed scarecrow.

  “So are we gathered,” Rupert spoke into night, “quite alone with God and with what lesser Powers we may raise by casting what small spells we know and dare. I fear they’ll be but few and feeble sprites. Yet must we try it for our fellows’ sake—”

  There went a sound of movement, as quiet as possible, underneath the summit.

  “—before we join them in their night attack, Sir William and myself.”

  “I’ll pray,” Jennifer said in anguish.

  Rupert nodded and looked at the King. “My lord,” he asked, “lead us in prayer, ere we draw wand or sword.”

  xxiv

  BEFORE THE TOWER OF ST. MICHAEL.

  RUPERT ended his incantation, closed the book, held high the staff, and said into the wind: “Thus be ye summoned, spirits of the land. It is your King who calls you to his aid. If there be meaning in the holy bond between the King, the people, and the land, if there be sacredness in reverence for what is old and good and deeply loved, arise for him upon this judgment night!”

  His words blew away. The fire flared once and sank, making the company mere glimmers of red amidst darkness. A cloud engulfed the moon. The stars were hazing out. Only the wind had speech; and its chill gnawed inward.

  After an endless while, Charles said, “Nothing?”

  “No stir, no whisper of a help for us,” Rupert answered as low.

  “Well, ’twas a brave attempt. I must admit some seeming pagan aspects troubled me.”

  “We’ll die like Christians, surely.” Rupert straighted. “I’ll now go to fetch my horse and harness for the charge we hope in hopelessness may break the ring.” To the girl, his voice most soft: “Hark, Jennifer. If I do not return, forget not my last wishes were for thee. Remember what I’ve planned that thou shouldst do to reach to safety—”

  “What’s that without thee?” Her words were muffled by her clinging to him.

  “Spare me the fear that thou wilt always mourn.”

  “Nay, wait,” said another.

  King, prince, and maiden looked about; for that was a somehow eerie sound. “I think we be not finished, us,” Will Fairweather went on, and shambled forward till his ungainly shape caught the coal-glow.

  “What’s this about?” Rupert demanded.

  Will shook his head. “I really dwish I knew.” He spoke in a sleepwalker’s tone. “But zudden-liake, a thing ha’ come on me … nay, through me, liake I war a dudelsack tha wind’s about to play a jig for ghosts on.”

  Jennifer held fist to mouth, free hand straining over her man’s. Charles, head of the Protestant Church of England, crossed himself. A minute streamed past before Rupert breathed, “He is transfigured. See. He’s more than man—or else more wholly man, more of this earth than we have soul to let us understand. … O Will, what have I done to thee, my friend?”

  “The spell thou’st cast was but a fleeting spark,” Charles said, looked into the commoner’s face, and went on his knees. “Yet did it find a waiting torch in him. Because this is his land?”

  Will lifted his arms. The fire leaped after them, taller, brighter, till he stood in a beacon radiance. The cloud departed from the moon and the stars grew near and brilliant.

  He said forth across night: “I am the land.”

  For an instant, his human self broke through. “Thou went about it all wrong, General. What do tha land caere for kings or noables or priests or loards protector—any o’ thic lot—zave as tha’ belong in it? Thy brother caeme moare nigh tha mark whan ’a called thee tha Green Man. Be thic, naught else. Lucky ’twar, liake Charlie yonder zaid, zomebody war heare what tha spell could taeke hoald on in tha right way.”

  Thereafter it was more than he who called:

  “I have the right to raise the land I am. In me alone the mightiness indwells, till I bestow it on my messengers that they may bear my wrath across the world. Mine is the outrage, as mine was the love.

  “I am the land, by virtue of the bones of my forefathers which have strengthened it, the flesh which they give back to us in harvest, the patience of their plowing centuries, each blossom time when they went two by two, each hunter’s moon on woods afire with fall, each winter and each sorrow they outlived till humbly they went down to namelessness. Their gnarled old fingers made me what I am—nor wilderness nor iron desert: home—the while my skies and seasons worked on them. Their songs and hearthside tales, my wind and rain, speak each unto the other of our oneness. Though men and trees do die and die and die, the blood, the house, the field, the woods endure, and every babe or lamb or new-leafed branch says forth the immortality we share.

  “Thou shalt not bind me fast in brick and steel, nor make my people to idolaters of little frantic leaders and their texts. If mystery and merriment alike be human rights, I claim them for my folk.

  “Mine are the dead, the quick, and the unborn. From out of time, I call their life to me that it may leap in those embodiments to which the wonder of the folk gave birth.

  “Come in your love and in your dreadfulness. Ye garlanded white maidens of the springs, ye dancers in a bright midsummer night, ye tricksy elves who are a household’s luck—ye huntsmen who go rushing through the air, ye tall gray-cloaked who walk the hills in awe, ye lurkers in the rustling river depths, ye warriors who sleep by rusted swords that once did bell, ‘This country is our own!’—arise. The hour is gruesome late. Arise.

  “I am the land. I bid you come alive.”

  Higher whirled the flames, until they seemed to mingle with stars. Dwarfs were feeding them on wood which the storms of a hundred years had shaped. An owl went overhead—two ravens—an eagle.

  The Tor groaned and opened. Horns resounded. Out above the earth rode huge shadows, and troll-hounds clamored. “There goest the true Wild Hunter, Gwyn ap Nudd, leading the heathen dead from Annwn forth,” said Will’s throat. “Theirs be the land’s unrest and deepest peace.”

  That which came after brought Rupert’s question wavering: “But what is the magnificence behind, a troop of riders bannered by the Cross, whose mail and lances burn as cold as moonlight?”

  “King Arthur and his knights from Avalon.”

  “In God’s name, I must follow them. Farewell.”

  Through one heartbeat, Rupert held Jennifer to him. Meanwhile a procession of men, robed and hooded, streamed from the chapel which no longer was. The first bore a crucifix, the next a chalice, and together they all chanted:

  “Dies irae, dies illa,

  Solvet saeclum in favilla—”

  Out on the plain, a stag bugled, a red bull bellowed, and a great white stallion went tramping.

  Rupert was gone. Jennifer and Charles sought each other. Side by side, they looked at the balefire and at the form of Will Fairweather. “Oh, see,” the King stammered, “those visions in the sparks and smoke—they’re surely true—our tattered, splendid men go forth like storm—not only spirits rally to them, but common folk—I am not worthy.”

  Sight: Pr
ince Rupert is ahorse, armed, armored, on his helmet a white plume. He cries to the cavalry he has gathered, flings saber aloft, and leads their charge. In a shining tide, they stream on down to the enemy guns.

  Sight: Prince Maurice, at the head of yeomen, crofters, wrights, herdsmen, diggers of peat and burners of charcoal, a reeve or two, weavers, tanners, fishers, laborers, carters, poachers, vagabonds, whoever wants the freedom to remain himself—hastens to join the army of the King.

  Sight: A Puritan trumpet sounds alarm. Men spring from their rest, toward steeds which they have left saddled. Over the sky goes the spectral hunt. Shrieking, they scatter from what to them is a vision of hell.

  Sight: A ranking Parliamentary officer, quartered in a Glastonbury house, hears the racket and reaches for his gear. A small brown person appears to the goodwife, nudges her, jerks a thumb. She nods, takes up her rolling pin, and lays the officer flat.

  Sight: Rupert’s Cavaliers gallop straight at the Roundhead cannon. One gunner has the prince before the muzzle and a lighted match ready to bring to the fuse. Then a damsel stands in front. Save for a wreath, she is nude. Like wind and water, she dances. He gasps, covers his eyes against her laughter, sinks shuddering to earth. The Royal horse thunder on past him.

  Sight: A platoon of Puritan musketeers takes stance outside their main force, ready to enfilade the attackers. The monks pass by. Their faces are hidden by cowls, but the tapers they bear burn clear and steady. Their chant goes under and through every noise of the living. Men wail, cast down their arms, start to flee. Their commander brings them to heel and orders them to sing a hymn which may drown out the ghostly Mass. So they hold their ground; but they are no longer in combat, and presently they are taken prisoner.

  Sight: Rupert’s charge surfs on the adversary host. Off that rock it recoils, in a roar and a rattle. Lances and sabers are too few against pikes and pistols. Shouting, he rallies his followers, re-forms them and heads back across the strewn dead. Now on his flanks go horsemen like steel towers, and at his side one who wears a crown. Overhead, golden-glowing, flies a dragon banner. Those rebels who see know that this is Arthur come home. They remember what blood of Britain is in them too. Their leader casts down his standard and weeps. The King’s riders burst through.

  Sight: Maurice’s people draw near. Roundhead artillery prepares to rip their disorderly mass asunder. The air seems to thicken overhead. All at once there is a cloud, which opens in rain that drenches powder to uselessness. Six feet away, stars gleam clear. The peasants pour onward.

  Sight: Couriers have sped to outlying units of the Parliamentary army, bidding them come help. A large band of reinforcements approaches on the far bank of the river. They are almost at a bridge when the waters rise. Brawling, furious, more white than black in the gloom, the river breaks the bridge and sweeps it away. Walled off from their comrades, the soldiers must wait to be beaten in detail—later, when the stream again deigns to let anyone pass.

  Sight: Rupert is in the middle of his foes, hewing, slashing, cleaving. But they outnumber his band. Not many of them ever saw the knights, who have departed. Maurice’s gang has gotten to the other side of them. A troop of heavy cavalry detaches itself from a wing and canters scornfully to scatter that rabble. Screams and howls rive the air; eyes flash, fangs glisten; wolves and wildcats, unseen for generations, are in among the horses. Those bolt in terror. The peasants hurl themselves full into the fray.

  Sight: Heaven burns with meteors. Earth quakes underfoot.

  Sight: At the core of his host, Cromwell rides from unit to unit. In the name of his God, and by sheer will, he makes them once more one. Like an iron idol, he looms in the saddle above his infantry, as it stands fast and hurls back assault after assault. There is no breaking that wall. And now it begins to walk. It will retreat in good order, to fight another day and that time win.

  But a noise goes through its bones. Looking north, all men alike see what comes, slow, unstoppable, and inhuman. It is the forest.

  Oaks on their mighty roots, ash trees swaying, thorns raking with cruel branches—behind, marching fir, skipping laurel, slithering vines, rumble-rolling boulders, a murk of life—the wildwood comes; and terror sighs forth from every leaf.

  That brings the end. Though Cromwell cries that here are just other phantoms, his warriors can endure no further. Pan has taken their souls, and they stampede. Barely does Rupert hold his own folk together.

  Sight: A few hours afterward, having disarmed and put under guard what rebels are not still in blind flight, he meets Cromwell. Both remain mounted. They exchange a few courtesies. He accepts the sword of the defeated, in the name of their King.

  In a cold sunrise, red and green above a suddenly ordinary world, the prince rode back up Glastonbury Tor, saluted, and said, “Your Majesty, you are victorious.”

  Will Fairweather, who had stood as if locked before the balefire, stirred above its burnt-out coals. “What’s happened?” he asked, blinking around; “I war doazin’ for a whiale,” and sneezed.

  xxv

  LONDON.

  ALL bells were ringing and banners flew from every staff, as the King rode into the City. Among the myriads who lined those streets, no few had worked or fought for Parliament. Yet well-nigh each of them cheered wildly for an end of war and the return to them of brothers. Above tumult and color, the sky was asparkle with sun. Wind in parks and gardens frolicked with leaves gone gaudy.

  On Charles’s right rode Prince Rupert, on his left Prince Maurice; immediately behind, a gilt carriage bore his family, surrounded by mounted noblemen. After it came one for Jennifer Alayne and Sir William Fair-weather. She appeared lost in this spectacle. He did service for both, beaming and waving, especially at pretty girls. In the procession were churchmen, peers, mayors, ambassadors, and other dignitaries. Representives of the Royal army formed an honor guard, burnished armor, flowing crests and flags, high-stepping horses, crash of boots under pikes. But no full regiment was on hand, and never a gun came along. “We shall not enter as a conqueror into our home,” the King had said. “We hope to be a healer.”

  WHITEHALL.

  Amidst peacock pride of lords and great captains, sober garb was before the throne, on the burgesses of England. Some compeers of Scotland and Ireland stood defiantly unmistakable among them.

  Light smote through arched windows and shattered on gems as King Charles raised his hand.

  “Ye know the most of what we shall proclaim tomorrow to the people and the world,” he said. “Let us, however, in curt courtesy, lay it before you here to think upon.

  “We both, we Crown and commoners, were sent through a sharp school which birched us in the lesson Our Lord first offered freely on the Mount. Hereafter may we do our sums aright!

  “’Tis true high treason cannot be ignored. The unrepentant leaders of revolt—as Cromwell, Fairfax, Shelgrave, and the rest—must go from us, their riches confiscate to loyalists who formerly were poor. But they may fare as exiles where they wish, or, if they like, be granted ships and help, that in New England they may found new lives. It can well use such steadfastness as theirs.

  “And to the most, the vast majority, is given pardon unconditional. Let us be reconciled with one another, rebuild this house we wasted in our rage, then dwell together in a common love.

  “Toward that end, the Crown must do its share. Uprising, though unjustified, had causes which partly lay in King and Church and nobles. Not simply folly and extravagance, but outright tyranny, archaic use a crust across the growth of a new age, unwillingness to listen or to change—such things from us; and from the Parliament an arrogance, intolerance, and haste—unholily engendered civil war. Let us instead join better qualities. Let a new Parliament be called to us, and with us write new laws which long may stand because they serve the welfare of our land.”

  A COTTAGE IN SOMERSET.

  It was a low little thing, huddled beneath its thatch as if for warmth. Smoke blew on a streaking wind, out of a crude clay chimney, p
ast leafless trees and over bare earth. The day was clouded to shadowlessness.

  Into that gray and brown Sir William Fairweather came like a fire. A few pigs and chickens, loafing about the courtyard which house and outbuildings made, scattered from his charger. He sprang onto frozen mud, flung reins across hitching post, and caroled: “Halloo, my kiddies! Heare be your daddy come!”

  Small forms boiled forth, to roil and pipe around him. He hugged them, lifted the two least onto his shoulders, and strutted toward the door.

  It opened. A large woman, in drab and patched gown, appeared. For an instant she drew breath; tears started forth. Then at once she put arms akimbo and glared. “Why, good day to thee liakewise, Nell,” he said through a weak smile.

  “An’ what’s good about it?” she demanded.

  “Look. I be hoame. No hurried visit for to let thee know I war zafe, but hoame from London an’ everywhere.”

  “Until thy next gadabout!” his wife snorted. “What’ll thic be? This night a raid on tha coneys? Or a fearless foragin’ to tha Boar’s Head? Nay, no moare, Will Fairweather! Thou’st filled thy belly planty long in town; an’ I’ll waeger that ben’t all thou’st filled, either. Meanwhale, tha roof went leaky, tha peat undug an’ uncarted, I must zell our plowhoa’se for to pay the plowman’s waeges—an’ dost thou bring hoame another? Nay, behoald yon evil-eyed keffel o’ thine! Bring him near any useful work, an’ ’a’ll shy as fast as thee; or else’ll kick tha whippletree to fierewood, though thic’d at least be moare than thou canst bestir thyzelf for to provide. Out o’ them fanciments! Lay down thy snickersnee. Take honest smock an’ pitchfork, an’ get tha barn cleaned. Else never await a bowl o’ what mush we can affoard for zupper, scant thanks to thee!”