Under the Green Hill (21 page)

Oaks are the quintessential magic tree, long associated with old gods and the fairies. They live such a prodigiously long time that they are bound to be wiser than most other beings, and their roots are so firmly anchored in the earth that they have enormous strength, both physical and spiritual. Even the simplest peasant knows that “Fairy folks is in old oaks.” Most oaks are benevolent enough, taking little interest in the affairs of others…until they are crossed. An angry oak makes a dangerous foe.

In the heart of Gladysmere Woods, there once lived a great oak, a mighty behemoth who had stood his ground since before the first Guardian had taken the land. He considered the forest his kingdom, and under the span of his canopy had cleared a vast shady spot where he held court to squirrels and birds while the other, lesser trees bowed around him. Then, one day, two drunken friends challenged each other to a contest—ten pounds lay on the outcome—as to who could first chop through half of the mighty oak of Gladysmere Woods.

Everyone in the county knew the great tree's reputation, and no others would dare harm it. But these fellows, for some reason, decided that the great old oak was the only fit challenge for them, so they set out to the solitary tree, drove a stake in the place they thought was the middle, and began to hack at the trunk with their axes.

It was a fool's mission, in more ways than one. They kept on all through the day, and made little headway through the dense wood. But a bet is a very important thing, and after going home to sleep their weariness off, they returned the next morning to hew and hack at the old oak. It took them three days to fell it, and in the end there was no winner, for the tree had its revenge. When only a narrow wedge of wood in the center was left holding the giant upright, the men crowded close, each trying to strike the winning blow. But felling trees is no sport for intimacy. In his fervor, one of the woodsmen miscalculated, and the stroke that went through the last of the trunk also went through a great deal of his friend's leg. As he fell to his knees to aid his dying friend, the tree toppled and crushed them both.

Even then the oak did not wholly perish. The tree that had withstood the centuries had fallen, to be prey to creeping slime molds and pill bugs, true, but the roots entrenched so firmly in the earth had a life of their own. From all around the stump of the fallen oak came up tender new shoots, deceptively slender and supple, but with the wisdom of the ages in their fresh young sap. And as it grew, the coppice seethed with a hatred of men, the creatures who had brought down but could not fully quell the majesty of the forest monarch.

Meg and Dickie found themselves caught in the midst of the oaks before they knew it. Now the young trees were thick as a man's leg, with a tangle of grasping branches. Meg and Dickie struggled to free themselves, but the tree limbs held them tight, catching in their hair and fouling their clothes. Meg heard a rattling voice, like the wind through dry leaves, say,
Cold iron. Cold iron on my bones. Iron teeth tear my flesh. Vile little legged grubs bring iron once again. Strangle them before they bite. Break them before they cut with their cold, cruel iron.
Meg felt branches like rough hands close around her throat, and she tried to pull away, snapping brittle twig fingers all around her. But the branches held her fast, pressing ever tighter where the blood flowed on either side of her throat, and she felt her vision dim.

Then, from somewhere in the darkness that was closing in on her, she heard Dickie's voice, clear and confident, say, “Take off anything metal, Meg!” She tore off her belt with its steel buckle, and felt the wooden grip loosen somewhat. She managed to reach up to her hair and unfasten the silver clip that held her dark hair back. She could breathe now, and the blood was flowing freely to her brain once again, but she still couldn't pull out of the oak coppice. Dickie was free, and shouted to her from beyond the vengeful oaks to cast off whatever metal remained. With much regret, she slipped a little gold ring, a gift from her mother, off her pinkie, and let it fall to the leaf-littered ground. The oak arms released her, and in fact almost shoved her from the coppice.
Go, little grubs, and cut no wood.

On they ran through the forest. The sun was gone now, tucked into bed behind the world, but still sending its last benediction of rays into Gladysmere Woods. Meg had only a few minutes to reach the Green Hill. She thought she was close, but it was hard to tell in the confusing light of silver moonshadow and golden-pink sunset. They passed the winding deer trail, and the bluebell meadow—the Green Hill should be near. She stopped a moment, catching her breath and getting her bearings. “This way…I think,” she said to Dickie. Then her blood ran cold, chillier even than it had at the first sight of Boneless.

From behind her came a cry like someone being tortured. No, not someone—hundreds of someones, like a field full of fallen soldiers dying in the mud. She turned, and beheld that most dreaded of all the Host, the Nuckelavee.

To say that the Nuckelavee is like a centaur would give you the wrong impression. Centaurs have the body of a horse and the torso and head of a man—and so does the Nuckelavee. But centaurs are warlike and wise like kings of old, their man half sturdy and regal, their horse haunches strong, their coats glossy and rich in chestnuts and dapple grays. A great many of them are as handsome as any man you're likely to meet, and even the rougher sort are still pleasant enough to look at. Not so the Nuckelavee.

The Nuckelavee makes his home near the coasts, and rises out of the sea foam to bring blight and destruction. He is hideous to gaze upon, for he has no skin either on the horse half or the man. The Nuckelavee paused before Meg and Dickie, stamping its great mildewed hooves, and then began to approach the paralyzed pair like a walking anatomy lesson. Black blood coursed through its veins, and its exposed muscles were raw and red. White sinews and thick tendons twisted over its naked flesh as it moved. Behind it, vines withered and flowers bowed their heads and died, for the Nuckelavee spreads poison in its wake. A vile stench permeated the wood, and all living things with legs or wings fled.

Had she been the proper Seelie champion, bound and declared like Rowan, the Nuckelavee couldn't have touched her. It was against the rules (and how rulebound the fairies are!) to molest or hinder the designated champion. But she was as yet unofficial, and until the moment when Rowan failed to appear and she stood in his place, she was as fair game as any mortal who walked the earth. The dread Nuckelavee had traveled many miles from his salty home on the southern strand to serve his court, and he was hungry to rend and tear. He paced nearer and nearer, and Meg, with nerveless fingers, finally managed to draw her bow.

“No,” Dickie whispered, and now at last, at this ultimate horror, he was trembling.

“You can't hurt it. And don't run. It will hunt down whatever flies from it.” He gulped, and took a deep, steadying breath. “You have to get to the Green Hill, Meg,” he said, resignation plain in his tone. “If Rowan doesn't go, and no one shows up to take his place, the Host wins by default, and Rowan will still die at dawn without ever having raised his sword. Wait until I'm gone, Meg. Wait until I lead it away.”

“Dickie, no!” It was too late. His short legs took off as fast as they were able, and his wheezing breath came hard. He wouldn't have had a chance, except that the Nuckelavee hesitated, looking at Meg.
There
was the one he was meant to stop. But she did not move, and the lure of fleeing prey was too much for him. With a scream he reared, his bare, bloody muscles bunching and dripping, and galloped after Dickie. When both were out of sight, Meg ran in the opposite direction. Within a scant few paces, she burst through a curtain of brambles and stood disheveled, arms scratched and bleeding, her dark hair wild, before the silk-garbed, bejeweled, and shining nobles of the two fairy courts. Pale in the moonlight loomed the Green Hill. The sun's last rays had faded, and night held the land.

Phyllida stood directly before Meg, but she did not see her. Her gaze rested on the Green Hill crest, where a lone figure rose, dark, even in the strong light of the full fat-cheeked moon. Behind Phyllida, arrayed in order of age, were her family and Meg's. Lysander, seeming sturdy for all that he leaned heavily on his knobbly staff, looked as though he would like to move closer to his wife, to comfort her, as he was permitted to do in every other circumstance. But she was the Lady of the Rookery, the Guardian, and he only her consort. This task of bearing witness to the most dreaded scene she must endure alone. Near Lysander, Silly Morgan held her little brother against her hip, with his soft, round cheek pressed against hers. Could it be that Silly had finally come to realize the grave purpose behind all this pomp?

Indeed, the gathering was as magnificent as any festival. To the right of the Morgans, the Seelie Court waited, mounted or on foot. There at their fore was the queen—magically, impossibly fair, though even within this fairness, to Meg's clear-seeing eyes, there was a sickle sharpness, and a tension like that of a harrier as it hovers before a strike. Gul Ghillie—the Seelie prince—rode a stallion of steel gray, and both man and beast were armored in shining overlaid plates like a carp's pale scales. They tinkled when the horse stamped his foot anxiously. He, too, knew that there was a delay, an absence. The other members of the Seelie Court, from the proud lords and ladies with swords or long, cruel knives at their hips, to the assorted hobs and sprites and grotesques behind them (some with weapons just as fell, some with rolling pins or skillets or thorny sticks to strike the foe), were in an unmoving phalanx, waiting for their prince and general to sound the call to the fray.

But it was the Host, as challengers, that had the first word, and the Black Prince rode at the fore of his snarling and fair company—for you must not forget that some of the most malignant fairies are also the most enticing.

“So,” he began, his voice rich and languid, his hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword, “another seven years have passed, another teind to be offered. I come to do battle, Seelie swine!” He drew his weapon magnificently and held it aloft. “I come to claim what is mine—my kingdom…and my queen.” He bowed insolently from horseback. “My champion stands ready on the Green Hill. Bran is his name. I think you are acquainted with him.” The prince sneered. “He fights for me now!” He pulled hard on the reins and dug his heels into his steed's flanks to make him rear.

The Seelie prince's horse took a step forward without apparent urging, and his rider spoke. “Life, once begun, has no end. Conflict, when it is joined, will never cease. All things change, but all things endure. We have diminished, as the world has diminished. Once, gold fire burned hotter than it does now, and silver ice was colder. Still, since fairies and humans marched together into this land, we have maintained the rites of the dying year. And every seventh year, when the rule of these courts is decided, two humans meet in battle. One will stand at dawn to greet the shortening days. One will give his blood to the earth, to the Green Hill at the center of the world. Which is honored more, and which can, in truth, claim the longest life?”

He abandoned the ritualistic words and scrutinized the Black Prince. “I do not ken with what base trickery you convinced the noble Bran to fight for you. But know this. The outcome will be the same. Blood is yet blood, life is still life.” He looked—sadly, it seemed—to the lone, dark monolith on the hill. The outline of an ax was clearly visible, silhouetted against the star-speckled sky.

The Black Prince laughed. “It takes no trickery to let a man do what he wishes! My champion came willingly, as they all must.” His face turned sly. “But what of yours? The little man-child. Has your mighty champion changed his mind? Does your hero quake in his cradle? Come! The sun is set, the Midsummer War must begin! Where is your warrior?” And he laughed again, looking over the human gathering and seeing no more than an old woman and man, two girls, and a small child. He did not notice the Hunter's Bow in the elder girl's hand, nor did he discern the grim resolution in her countenance.

There was a flurry through the crowd, a hushed murmur from the Seelie and low rough sounds from the Host. The Seelie prince stood in his stirrups and raised his hand for peace. “The time is come!” he cried into the night. “The time is come, but not the man! Who stands as champion for the Seelie Court? Who will kill, or die, on the Green Hill?”

“I will,” said a small voice that was almost lost in the strengthening wind. And then, “I will!” cried with something like a warrior's strength. From the cluster of mortals walked a girl as slim as the crescent moon, with the full moon's own glow upon her face. She stood upright, graceful, and sure. In her left hand she held the finest bow ever crafted. Already she had an arrow nocked to the string, and the deadly tip, crimsoned with her own blood, pointed at the earth. Into utter silence she called out again, “I will stand for the Seelie Court!”

Lysander had to grab Phyllida to keep her from falling backward in a faint. Silly screamed, but the fairies, taking it for some banshee war-cry, lifted their own voices in wild yells and ululation. From all around Meg came the glorious sound of a thousand swords being drawn, that slick hiss of metal on metal, and the harsher sound as the fairies beat their weapons against shields or their own armor in a martial tattoo, and advanced upon their foe. The Midsummer War had begun.

Now that she was committed, Meg was at a loss. Was that all the preliminary? Was she to go now and slay Bran if she could? He still stood there on the unravished summit as, all around the base and into the shadowed woods, Seelie fell upon Host and Host hacked at Seelie in a jumbled, disorganized melee. It was like the fairy dances, frenzied and, she would have said, joyous, were it not for the horrible things she saw going on all around her. She flinched as, to her left, a one-legged, one-armed, one-eyed member of the Black Prince's court smashed a mace into a creature that looked a great deal like the Rookery brownie. Beyond them, several grimacing Redcaps had banded together to drag a knight of the Seelie Court off his rearing and foaming horse. They piled on top of him when he hit the ground, and she never saw what became of him.

The Seelie Court was more than holding its own. Knights and ladies skilled in warfare charged through the ranks of the Host, lopping off heads and dealing deadly blows. But not a single weapon touched Meg, nor did the fairies seem at all aware of her. They had their battle to fight, the two humans theirs. Only once did a fairy pay her any mind. The Seelie prince, his sword blooded, reined in his horse at her side just as she'd decided the only thing for her to do was climb the hill and face Bran. He bent in his saddle, and for a moment his face shifted and he was the impish Gul Ghillie she knew so well. The sight reassured her somewhat.

“Have no fear, Meg Morgan. This was meant to be, though I could not see it. There are others, perhaps, greater than you or I, who knew this would come to pass. Trust them. But trust more in yourself. I've seen you split a hempen thread at a hundred paces.”

He galloped off with a savage cry before she could tell him that merely hitting her target wasn't the problem. The problem was that the target was Bran. As fairies fell all around her, their strange blood like quicksilver on the wild thyme, Meg mounted the hill to her fate.

For the first few steps she could still hear the fierce fighting just behind her, the clash of swords and cries of the wounded, and, scarcely heard but even more terrible, the low sounds of bones being crushed under bludgeons. She spared a thought for Dickie, somewhere out there, pursued (though perhaps not pursued anymore) by the Nuckelavee.
There
was bravery. In the moment of crisis, insignificant, ignored Dickie had shown his mettle and very likely given his own life for her sake. She didn't know what made him do it, and was sure that she, in such circumstances, could never be capable of such heroism. She did not consider standing in Rowan's place to be particularly heroic; it was simply something that had to be done. She did not realize that necessity lies at the heart of most bravery. In any case, she did not feel very courageous now. Her legs trembled so she could hardly negotiate the slope.

As she walked, the sounds of battle grew dim behind her, until, halfway up the Green Hill, they were muffled to no more than the dull, constant roar of waves beating the strand. When she looked back, she found that a mist had settled over the lowlands, obscuring the fighters. None of them ventured up the hill. She and Bran were alone.

The woods might be shrouded in fog, but the hill stood in unnatural clarity, vivid in an uncanny light. Bran recognized it as the twilight of the fairy kingdom beneath the Green Hill—never in sunshine, never dark, but existing always in an eerily bright half-light. Colors were too sharp, but outlines were muted, so everything seemed somehow less real, more beautiful than nature had made it. The thyme and pennyroyal Meg bruised beneath her feet were brighter than spring's first leaves, and the leopard spots of the Hunter's Bow glowed like radiant amber. The air itself seemed bright and sharp—they might have been submerged in an unrippled spring, or in a block of clearest quartz. Bran was the only dark thing on the hilltop, and he stood immobile, ax at his side, a pillar carved of wood.

I could shoot him now, Meg thought. He's standing plain in the open—it would be an easy shot. All the more so because at this distance she could not see his face through the shadows that seemed to cling to him. It would be just like hitting a target. Forget that he's a man, forget that he's even alive. Just place the arrow where you want it, as you have so many times before. Forget that he has suffered. Forget that he's Phyllida's father. Forget that he's your own great-great-grandfather. Forget that he is tall and handsome and alive, so very alive, as you are now, as you hope to remain. And remember what Phyllida herself has said to you, that he will not hesitate to kill you, and what the Seelie prince said, that one of you must die this night.

All of this she told herself as she stood midway up the Green Hill, looking at Bran, her opponent, her enemy. But she did not draw her bow.

“There must be some other way,” she said aloud, and the air around her seemed to shiver, like a still pond when a minnow leaps for joy. Just because the same thing had happened every seven years didn't mean it had to happen this time. This strange world might be in Meg's blood, but a lifetime spent away from it, nurtured in Arcadia's intellectual hills, deep pondering gorges, and lively skeptical streams, had taught her that tradition is only good to the extent that it makes people happy or serves a purpose. And history is not a course to be repeated but, rather, a litany of mistakes to help shape a better future. The gravity of ritual and the overwhelming force of the expectations of others had for a time stifled her powers of reasoning. She went along with all this—the Midsummer War, the kill-or-be-killed—because everyone around her seemed to assume that there was no other way. She forgot for a time that she was Meg Morgan, not a slave to tradition, not a pawn in this game between fairies and humans. With new strength, the strength not of a warrior but of a diplomat who is yet ready to fight should negotiations fail, she marched up to join Bran at the summit.

They stood perhaps twenty feet apart, just enough so that Meg would have time to draw the Hunter's Bow to meet even the swiftest charge. Her bow was down, but there was still an arrow to the string and three fingers curled around it. She could fire a killing shot in an instant.

Bran wore plated armor of some strange, darkly luminous metal, like silver when it tarnishes. A close-fitting helm capped his head, and his shaggy locks, escaping, curled back over it. The ax in his hand was wrapped in red-dyed cord, and the blade was flecked with a crusted, dark substance, for by tradition the Host weapon was never cleaned after it had done its job. Bran's full mouth was set in a grim line, and as she neared he shifted his grip on the ax. Meg, sure that he was set to attack her, half drew her bow. Before she could fully raise it, she looked into the eyes of the man she would have to kill, expecting to find bloodlust there, something hard and stern and unfathomable to her. But there was only sorrow in Bran's golden eyes, and something like the despair she felt herself. She lowered the Hunter's Bow.

“Why do you prolong it?” Bran said, his voice low and tight, lips scarcely moving. There was pain in that voice, but also a sort of savagery, like the pitiable beast caught in a snare. “Why didn't you finish me from down there?” He gestured to the base of the hill with his ax, swinging it in a wide arc. Meg flinched and again raised her bow, but held her ground. “It would have been easier for both of us. We shouldn't have to look into each other's faces…at the end. Shoot! Now!”

Meg looked at him without comprehension. Bran spread his arms wide and advanced on her. “This armor is nothing to a bow like yours. End it—now. Quickly, as you love me!”

And then it dawned on her, as she watched Bran come nearer, his face a mask of anguish and bitter expectation. He had never betrayed them. He had not forsaken his family to regain the paradise he had lost. No, Bran served the Host only as willing sacrifice. To keep Rowan from being slain, he made sure the Host champion was the one man who would let himself be killed in the Midsummer War. Bran had fooled the Black Prince, who thought to purchase his services with a promise of rewards.
Midsummer comes, and my time draws near…. Soon my pain will be ended. On Midsummer Night, I will know if such a price can buy me peace at last!
His longing to return to the fairy world under the Green Hill was like a sharp-toothed beast gnawing at his vitals. He would indeed pay a great price to escape the daily suffering he endured. But the price was not slaying his kin. It was his own life. In death, he hoped to win the peace that he could not find in the dry, colorless world.