Ides of the May (Children of the May 2 - updates weekly)

Chapter Thirteen: The Hollow Tree

There is a tree in my mother’s lands I call the hollow tree. It is still there if you care to go looking for it. It is one of my favourite places in the Lands of the Lake. It stands on the eastern side of the water, roughly in the middle of the gentle valley that surrounds three sides of the shore. I am fond of it for several reasons, one of which is the view it allows. Although the tree is part of a quite dense woodland, the forest is so arranged that, sitting at the base of the hollow tree, you can see the calm waters of the northern two thirds of the lake, which is about a mile and half away from you at its nearest point. The view includes the mountain range that begins at the lake’s northern head, and the Christian nunnery that stands at the foot of the first mountain. I was always fond of the nuns, and in particular the ancient Mother Superior. They would never tell me anything of their – and now my – religion, for fear of incurring my mother’s wrath and being cast out of their home, but they talked to me when very few others in my early life did. I also liked the view because of what you couldn’t see. The southern third of the lake was obscured by trees even when their leaves were shed in winter, so my mother’s castle was never visible. I had rarely been welcome in my family’s home, and when I was invited in it was to scold me, toy with me, or, on the previous occasion I had been through the gates, hand me over to my death at the hands of Arthur and his knights.

I had another reason for being fond of that tree, though, one that trumped the idiosyncrasies of the view: it was the place where Martha the blacksmith had left food for me in winter, and sometimes met with me. Of all the people who lived in my mother’s lands, Martha was the one who loved me most. It wasn’t simply a matter of pity, though I’m sure pity had something to do with it. Unlike the nuns, Martha was of the magic, and like me she knew what it was to be an outsider. I never learned much of her family, but I do know that they were all smiths – and, well, to this day I have never met another woman blacksmith. I suppose that she was, if not as despised as I was during my childhood, not entirely happy in her family life. Certainly I think she was always grateful for having been invited into my mother’s service. Other than her kindnesses to me, Martha had always been loyal and wholly obedient to Lady Nemue.

Once I arrived at the hollow tree I unsaddled Tommy, pointed him in the direction of some grazing, and settled down to wait. I had no idea if Bellina and the others had yet been collected from the edge of the forest, and thought it might well be the next morning before the codeword I had planted with Petal made its way to Martha. I did not expect the blacksmith to be able to respond until at least the next evening. I cursed our lack of foresight in having relied on Garnish to supply our journey, as when I checked Tommy’s saddlebags I discovered that the foods I’d packed there had returned to their original forms, and were now nothing but a mulch of chopped herbs and seeds. But I knew the land well, and even without approaching the Lake knew I could forage enough in the way of edible mushrooms and berries to feed myself until Martha reached me with word, signal or her person.

The rain was incessant. I watched it sweep across the surface of the Lake, occasionally catching the light and seeming to flow as a wave. Despite all the rain, the water level was not abnormally high. I suspected that was because the rains were not natural. My mother had set a cycle in which the water rose and dropped straight back into the same place. I felt the gentle, cooling flow of my mother’s magic, liquids flowing slowly through and around each other. It was a soothing sensation and one, I realised, I had lived with for the first fourteen years of my life. I had accepted it as a fact of the world around me, like the trees or the mountains, and it had been so familiar I’d never noticed it.

Night was falling when I heard someone approaching from the direction of the castle. I stood, and prepared to defend myself, but then I saw Martha emerge from the gloom. Petal had delivered my message sooner than I had hoped, and the blacksmith had come almost at once.