A Midsummer Tempest

XXIV

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 sleep-walker’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 trollhounds 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:

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 bale-fire 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: Prince 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, reforms 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.