'WHEN JANUARY MARRIES MAY'
A David Sands Competition story by Julia Hawkes-Moore
An entry in The Sands of Time Writing Competition
It was May Day when they first came to our village, and she was the spirit of May herself. They rode down the path from the wildwood, past our little church, and out into the orchards belonging to my brother. Her companion rode a tall black horse, and she rode a dainty white pony with small bells jingling on its red leather harness.
She was round and plump and as pink and white as appleblossom. Her glistening hair streamed over her shoulders, shining like a river of silver. We stared at her from our places around the trestle-tables laden with new bread and roast lamb.
Her companion dismounted and helped her down from her saddle. As she walked toward us, her eyes sparkled and her smile made every man amongst us want her, but I had been betrothed to Susan Lacey when we were both children, and now I am thankful for our fathers having made that vow.
Ralph rose from the Master's chair at the head of our long table and bowed deeply to her. I glanced at Susan, in her best russet gown, seated beside me at the foot of the table. Susan could always see things clearly. She stood, lifting the wreath of blossom from her plain brown hair, and carried it to May.
My brother lifted the wreath and placed it gently on the brow of the newcomer. "You shall be our Queen of the May," sighed Ralph.
The new May-Queen offered him her small white hand and he led her to his own chair. He knelt beside her, and served her with the most delicate of foods, handing her his own silver goblet from which to sip sweet cider.
Susan was the only one amongst us with manners, so she invited May's companion to sit at the foot of our table. She squeezed in beside me on the bench, for which I was grateful. I had few enough chances of touching Susan during our busy daily lives.
He was a middle-aged man, who must once have been as tall and handsome as Ralph. Now he was stooped, and his eyes were weary, although they watched May with the hard glitter of a mewed hawk. His dark hair was speckled with grey. He never spoke.
After the meal, the musicians played on pipes and tabor, as the women cleared the table under Susan's direction. May sang for us, and her voice was like a linnet. My brother threw himself at her feet, lying amongst the daisies and cowslips like a peasant lad.
When she had done with singing, the children danced around the Maypole, and May laughed merrily and clapped her hands at their antics.
The afternoon was long and calm, but the sun began to sink at last, and then May stood, and bade farewell to us all.
Ralph seemed heart-stricken to realise that she was leaving, and begged her to linger. He had been drinking deeply, as though each draught was a toast to her beauty. "I have composed a verse for you, sweet Queen of the May," he cried, and began to sing an old nursery rhyme:
"When January marries May,
He'll bitter rue
Each short and icy day,
Knowing she'll survive him anyway,
And live to bloom and gather hay."
The May Queen laughed at him kneeling before her. "I will return," she said, "And I will gather hay with you, young man." Then she walked serenely to her pony. Her companion awaited her, and helped her into her saddle, and the pair rode away. You could hear the silver bells jingle far into the distance, so quiet she left us all.
I frowned and was puzzled. "What did Ralph mean by his verse?" I asked Susan.
Susan looked up at me in surprise. "Why, you silly, short-sighted man, she was wearing a wedding-ring." With that, she flounced away towards the house, to organise the washing-up.
Ralph spoke of nothing but praise for the strange May-Queen and contempt for old January, all summer long. I barely listened, for I was to marry Susan when the hay was gathered in, and I had plenty to think about, myself. Susan had run our household ever since our mother died, and she had nursed our father through the last illness, the one that made Ralph Master of our estate and Lord of our little village.
Susan was a tidy girl, and a busy one, and rarely did she make time enough for us to wander together in the twilight. I sometimes wondered whether Susan would have more time for me if Ralph ever married and brought home a noble wife to supervise Susan's work. Then I would hear Susan's sharp voice enjoying giving orders, and feel that two women in charge of one kitchen might cause more problems than it would solve. And sometimes I wondered whether Susan might have wished to be daughter of more than just a farmer, and to have been betrothed to the young and handsome Lord himself, and not to his shy and clumsy younger brother. But she was a sensible woman and understood the ways of the world.
I was glad enough when our wedding-day came, and we sat again around the trestles in the orchard. This time Susan sat beside me at the head of the table, bonny in her bridal wreath, and my brother was gracious and lively at the foot. Such duties suited him, although he spent more time tumbling drunken in haystacks than building them.
As we fed on roast veal, rabbit and honey-cakes, we heard the ringing of the little silver bells again. Ralph cried aloud with joy as May and January dismounted. He hurried to greet her, and led her to his chair.
This time, May was clad in blue as bright and clear as the summer sky above us. She eclipsed the bride as the sun does the moon - for everyone but me. I was once more glad to have been avowed to Susan long before the May Queen had arrived.
Despite attending to Susan's comforts, I noticed that January's hair was now streaked with grey, and his shoulders even more bowed. He watched May less, and attended more to his food.
When the feast was done, May sang for us, and her voice was as sweet and pure as a nightingale's.
When my brother finally clapped his hands for music, May permitted him to lead her into the dancing, as though she were the bride and he the groom. If I noticed a slight pursing of Susan's thin pink lips, I said nothing about it, for after all, she was my bride at last. We all danced together long into the dusk.
If Ralph had composed a new song for May, he sang it quietly and to her alone. She eventually made him a deep courtesy, and although he begged her to stay longer, she turned smiling and walked away. Susan caught me by the wrist and we followed my love-lorn brother across the new-mown meadow towards the horses.
May's husband was waiting to help her onto her pony, and Susan thanked the couple for celebrating our wedding-day with us. As they began to ride away, May bent low from her saddle to whisper a few words into Ralph's eager ear. He watched them disappear amongst the apple-boughs, and when he turned back to us, his eyes were shining. "She will return," he crowed, "To share the Harvest-Home with us."
Susan allowed herself one cluck of her tongue as he wandered back to his cider-cup. I caught her around the waist before she could begin the clearing-up. "Not today," I whispered, "Not tonight. This is our wedding-night. They expect us to go to our marriage-bed. Come there with me, now."
Even Susan could not resist such an argument, and she and I crept away from the merrymaking, and made merry by ourselves.
With the pleasures of the harvest by day and the labour of a new wife by night, I spared my brother little heed for the next few months. But Susan occasionally paused in her boiling and baking and brewing, and watched him with narrow eyes.
"My brother should get himself a wife," I said one day, hugging her in the dairy. Susan accepted my hug, but her thoughts were distant. "If there is to be an heir to these estates, he will not be our son," she replied quietly.
I laid my hand on her flat belly and wished that it was rounder, at which she looked reproachfully at me. I quickly clasped her to me and kissed her fondly. "This little body encompasses all the estates I have ever desired," I answered, nearly as glib as my brother. But she had made me think, for all that.
Sure enough, May and January rode in again to our feast, and this time she wore a gown as red as the bird-apples left unpicked in the highest branches of the orchard. Ralph twisted a crown of ripe wheat for her hair, and you could not tell the gold of one from the other.
He seated her beside him at the table-head, and fed her with slices of roast beef and apple-and-blackberry pie. Rather than sipping sharp new cider, we were drinking Susan's rich dark ale, but Ralph poured expensive wine into May's goblet. He poured much more of it into himself. He drank every toast noisily to the Harvest Queen.
January's hair had turned quite grey. His hands had grown gnarled and swollen with rheumatics which stooped him. He only glanced at his lovely wife now and then, she singing like a lark over the cornfields. I only had eyes for my own wife sitting beside me, lovely despite our wish for a new life to stir within her.
The dancing was wilder, and Susan, myself and January were the only ones who sat quietly at the table long into the sunset. He seemed enveloped in gloom as dark as his cloak.
Susan nudged me to look over to the dancers. I could not see May and Ralph amongst them, but then my eyesight was not as sharp as hers.
The stars and the yellow Harvest Moon were shining before May returned to her pony. This time, it was my brother who helped her mount. The silver bells could scarcely be heard above the music as they rode away into the darkness.
After this departure, Ralph was silent, and he scarcely bothered to speak to any of us as winter descended. I suspect he had more to say to his cups, into which he would babble long after the rest of us retired, weary with our efforts on the estate. But then, he was the Master and I was only the bailiff, Susan said. She said a lot of that sort of thing these days.
Our village always celebrated the Midwinter feast in the Great Hall of our house. We did things more formally indoors, and Susan and myself sat beside Ralph at the table on the dais. The villagers and servants sat below us, noisy with ale and cider at the trestles, which groaned under the weight of whole roast piglets and custards. This was the last feast before the austerity of Susan's winter house-keeping took effect.
The Yule-log crackled in the open hearth in the centre of the Hall, and torches were lit as the afternoon sunlight dimmed into the earliest of nightfalls. The rushes had a special sprinkling of dried herbs to sweeten their solidifying mass. Outside, the first snowfall had blanketed the countryside, but inside, we were healthy and warm. I, for one, did not expect any visitors to this feast. Yet my brother stared at the great door, as though he were wishing for May to come again.
I was busy praising Susan's cooking when I felt the draught from the opening door. The smoke billowed from the fire, and the company hushed. As the smoke cleared, I could see that May and her husband had indeed come again.
She was clad all in white, and with her pale skin and hair, she glittered like an icicle. Behind her, her black-cloaked husband hobbled painfully across the floor. His hood slid back onto his humped shoulders, and I could see that his hair had turned as white as his young wife's gown.
Susan made me fuss to set out two extra chairs for our guests at table. Ralph stood silent, but his face wore the first smile I had seen on him since the Harvest-Home. He drew May into the place of honour at the centre of our table. There, he crowned her with a wreath of holly, which he must have fashioned with care that morning. The glossy dark green leaves shone like her eyes. Yet I could not help but shudder as I saw that the berries were like droplets of fresh blood.
My wife was kind, and cut up meats for May's husband to fumble into his mouth. Hoary and rheumy, he now seemed to be January indeed. His own wife laughed with my brother, and sang like a mistle-thrush. They danced for a while, but then spoke together secretly, in the shadows of the corner of the Hall. I saw Susan watching them, and noticed a new frown between her eyebrows. She crossed her arms over her breasts as though wishing that they nursed an imaginary child. She felt my gaze upon her.
"Tonight," she whispered in my ear, "Ralph will follow May when she leaves."
"What, out into the snow?" I asked stupidly.
"Of course. They planned this together at the Harvest Supper. I have been watching him preparing for this hour."
"What do you mean, preparing?" I asked, but she wouldn't reply.
Within the hour, indeed, May's husband struggled to his feet, and Susan helped him shrug on his black cloak. I heard him give one great shuddering sigh, then he hobbled away, coughing and hacking through the billowing smoke. When it had cleared, all three of them had dissolved away.
"Here," hissed Susan beside me. "Put on this thick cloak, and help me on with mine. We must follow them."
I tried to protest, she stopped me with a glance like a thrown knife. I said no more, and followed her to the door.
Outside, we traced their footsteps to the stable. There, my brother's good horse and best saddlery had gone. I hurriedly saddled my bay mare, and hoisted Susan up before me. We could easily see the trail of two horses and one pony in the snow.
The snow glittered with blue frost under the brilliant starlight. Before long the black twigs of the orchard gave way to the bare stems of the coppice-wood, and then to the snow-burdened branches of the wildwood. We never caught a glimpse of our quarry, but their trail was clear enough.
"Hush," whispered Susan suddenly. I halted the mare, and listened. May’s silver bells sang faintly, yet bright and crisp in the frosty air.
"Dismount," ordered Susan. "We must follow them by foot, now, for they have ceased travelling." Her ears were always sharper than mine. I caught her in my arms and rolled her onto her feet. She hurried away, moving fast despite the depth of the snow. I struggled to keep up. Then she paused, and pulled me beside her into the shade of a holly-bush. She was staring into the darkness, and I peered too.
Eventually I realised that we hid on the edge of a clearing in the forest. In the centre stood a great yew tree, as ancient as the forest, older than our church and vaster.
My brother was binding January to the trunk of the oak. May stood beside him, and her white hands caressed Ralph's strong young shoulders as he worked. January's white face stared out into the night.
I began to ask Susan what they were doing, and should we stop them, but she silenced me with an elbow in the ribs. Her face was hard and sharp with eyes glittering like ice in the dim reflected starlight. Whatever was about to happen, Susan had decided that we should not interfere. I knew that Susan was a great deal wiser than me, so I continued to watch.
May threw her white-cloaked arms wide and drew my brother into a deep kiss within her arms. Inches away, January watched them, and still he did not speak. I could hear May's sweet voice, but I could not distinguish her words. She seemed to be urging my brother on to some further act of sin. As a man, I imagined myself within those plump arms, and knew that I too would do just as I was urged by those stirring tones.
Then my brother, crazed with love and lust, drew out his long silver knife, and stabbed January through the heart. As he withdrew the knife, I could see the redness of the blood as it spurted from the wound, drenching May's snow-white gown with crimson. January died as silently as he had lived, his eyes steady upon his lovely, wicked wife.
Ralph thrust the knife into the trunk of the oak above January's lolling head, and kissed May with a passion that I could never have imagined myself to possess. When their heads drew apart, their lips trickled with blood from the violence of their kiss. May laughed aloud with the gurgle of all the dreadful, desirable witch-goddesses of the ancient faith.
Ralph, ensorcelled with the same obedience which had bled January dry, led May to her white pony, and set her upon it. Then he mounted his own black horse, and followed her tamely as she rode away, deep into the wildwood.
We listened for a long while, until the silver bells faded away. All I could hear was the champing of old January's abandoned horse, and the beat of our own two hearts.
I looked down at Susan, and her eyes met mine with a wildness shining from them which I had never seen before.
"The old King is dead, and the new King is gone to claim his Kingdom, the New Year," she whispered crazily. "Your brother is an outcast, an adulterer, and a murderer. Now you are the new Master of the estate, and so shall be our son. Take me."
I did not question her command, and I hurled her into a snow drift and we rutted like wild pigs in the blood-spattered clearing in the forest.
Our son was born just as we finished bringing in the harvest, and he was as bonny a lad as we could have hoped for.
The first thing that we did, before we held the Harvest Feast, was to betroth our heir to the infant daughter of a neighbouring Squire.
Because our son's heart should already be given away, in case May ever rode into his estate, her latest ageing husband in tow behind her. Because Susan was a sensible woman, and understood the Way of the World.
Julia Hawkes-More is an Architectural Historian, teacher, cook, librarian and former folk-festival organiser.
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