Moon Song (16 page)

An hour later, Mark was done with practice. He shut the organ down, patted it, whispered something and came to where Isoldé sat.

‘That was amazing,’ she said. ‘I used to go to hear the organists practice in Exeter, it was good. But this was so personal. And you don’t mind me being here, listening?’

‘As long as you don’t mind me grumbling and swearing when I get it wrong, going over it again and again.’ He grinned down at her.

‘No, I don’t mind.’ She reached up, kissed him.

He kissed her back. They left the church, walked up the path towards the sea.

‘Oh!’ The exclamation burst out of Isoldé. There, falling away below the graveyard, were the long strip fields just burgeoning with the first shoots of corn.

‘That’s The Stitches,’ Mark said softly.

‘They’re amazing. I did all this in history at school, I never thought to see the real thing, and still working.’

They stood still, just looking. Mark, too, was always impressed by the old fields.

‘When I was a kid,’ Mark began, ‘I used to come up here with Tristan when he did organ practice. Quite often I’d go ahead, down through the Stitches to the Lady’s Window.’

Isoldé followed where he pointed. A stark finger of stone, like a tooth with a hole in it, clung to the very edge of the cliff below them.

‘Can we go there now?’ she asked.

‘I hoped you’d want to.’

Mark took her arm, walked her down through the strip fields and out to the stone tooth. She’d been right, it did cling to the rock. She walked up to it slowly. Three stone steps rose out of the grass and led up to the hole in the tooth, it was a big hole, a person could step through it but where would you go? She peered through. It was right at the edge of the cliff, going nowhere. She stood staring down.

Mark came up beside her. ‘It’s called the Lady’s Window because it’s said that’s where the Lady, the goddess of the land looks through to the human world and, sometimes, humans can look through into Otherworld. And it’s where the moonpath comes down to meet with this world at the full of the moon each month.’

She looked at him, questioning. Mark pulled her down beside him. They sat looking out to sea.

After a moment, Isoldé pointed out to the horizon. ‘What’s that? Is it a front coming?’

‘That’s the Lost Land,’ Mark said softly, ‘not a front. You watch, it never moves.’

‘Is it always there? Is it a real island?’

‘Sort of. When it’s there, it never moves. It’s a magic land, it comes and goes as it wills.’

‘Is it where the Faer Folk live?’

‘It is. One of their places. You can only go there when the moon stretches a pathway out across the sea from our land to theirs. The moonpath.’

‘What’s the moonpath?’ Isoldé asked.

‘You’ve stood at the edge of the sea at full moon?’

She nodded.

‘So you’ve seen the silver road the moon lays down over the waves?’

Isoldé nodded again. ‘Like the road to Fair Elfland in Thomas the Rhymer?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And the Lost Land is Elfland?’

‘The old Cornish stories call it Lyonesse, or the Isles of the Blest. In Brittany they call it Ys. The story is that the land was swallowed up by the sea. Some stories call it West-Over-the-Sea. Round here it’s known as the Isle of the Dead.’

‘Some of those are in the Arthurian legend.’

‘That’s right. We’re right at one of the centres of Arthurian legend here, you know that. Remember when we went up to Tintagel?’

‘It was your namesake’s castle too,’ Isoldé reminded him. ‘I feel like I’m living in a legend,’ she whispered.

‘Maybe we are.’ Mark stood up, reached down a hand to help her up. ‘When I used to come here with Tristan we’d often race down the cliff path into the village and get fish-n-chips. You want to do that too?’

‘Won’t Mrs P be upset if we don’t eat her dinner?’

‘I told her I was going to take you into the village, we might end up at the Nap and not to bother with dinner. That’s partly why she gave us a big lunch with pudding.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘She doesn’t trust me to feed you up well.’

‘Ha! Forethought and planning on both your parts! C’mon then, where’s this path?’

They arrived, helter-skelter, on the harbour quay, laughing and out of breath, Isoldé was just ahead by inches. She turned to him. ‘I won! I won!’

Mark crouched into a wrestler’s stance, Isoldé matched him,
they squared up to each other. ‘Fight you! Fight you!’ she shouted

‘I’m betting on the little lady,’ a voice reached them from one of the boats moored at the quay.

Mark stood up. ‘What? You’d bet against me on this little squirt?’

Isoldé saw her chance and went for Mark who staggered back and crumpled on the stone.

‘See? I were right.’ A grizzled head stuck up over the side of the boat. ‘You get him, my lover. An’ you keep that up I’ll be havin’ you on me boat next season. You’m quite wily enough for a lobsterman.’

Mark leaped up and grabbed Isoldé in a bear hug. ‘Fish-nchips?’ he asked her.

‘Fish-n-chips,’ she agreed.

‘You mind he’s buying!’ The lobsterman called after them.

Mark waved. They swung off down the quay towards the town and the chippy.

Sat on the bridge, eating out of the paper, legs swinging over the swirling water of the Valency below, Isoldé had never felt like this before. There was something so deep there between them, in such a simple thing like sharing fish-n-chips, even more than making love. She’d never thought of it like that before. Always, like most people, she’d thought making love was the ultimate expression of love, now she had another sense to compare it with …sharing food. They’d shared experience over the afternoon too. And they were sharing a house, each of them looking at the other, watching, listening to the other. It was like dancing, being in step, moving to enhance the other’s movement, moving so as not to be in the way, moving as one unit made of two whole parts.

Mark touched her elbow softly. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘you gonna eat that thing?’

She realised she had been sitting there while enlightenment rolled over her with a chip half way to her open mouth. She began to laugh, popped the chip and jumped down from the
bridge. ‘You were talking about a pint earlier …’ She danced across the road, making for the hill up to the Nap. ‘What about it?’

Mark stuffed the fish papers in the waste bin and followed her up the hill.

‘Oh my! It’ll be good tonight,’ Mark exclaimed as they made their way up the crowded street to the pub entrance. ‘I forgot Mrs P said there was going to be a sing! All the locals will be here and some visitors too. There’s even someone from Exeter I think she said.’

They squeezed into the bar, it was absolutely jammed with people and Isoldé felt a bit scared. A tall, thin man climbed off his stool and offered it to Isoldé. He looked just like Aragorn in Lord of the Rings. She stared at him in half-recognition.

‘I hope that you’ll sing too,’ he bowed to her, his smile captivating.

Mark clapped him on the shoulder, his eyes lighting up. ‘Gideon!’ he said. ‘Didn’t know you’d be here tonight.’

‘Didn’t know meself ’til I arrived.’

The man grinned at Mark then looked Isoldé up and down with speculative, hungry eyes. He looked quite different from when she’d seen him at the Kieve. She noticed he had the most perfect set of teeth she’d ever seen.

Mark bought a round and they took the drinks outside into the car park. There were no cars tonight, the whole place had been opened up for music and dancing. Torches flared from poles all around a wooden stage that held pride of place at the centreback. Musicians were tuning up and the benches set all around the central dancing area were filling up with people, many of them dressed in bright costumes with wreaths of leaves and flowers in their hair.

‘It’ll be starting soon,’ Mark told her as he slid onto the bench beside her. ‘This do is the spring festival, for the equinox, and a sort of warm-up to the big Beltane festival at the end of April, with the Oss. Singers and musicians come from all over. I’m really glad you’re here.’

‘I am too,’ Isoldé tucked her hand into his. ‘Will they really
want me to sing?’

‘Yes, if you don’t mind. Nobody will press you but they would like to hear you.’

‘What have you been saying about me?’ she demanded.

‘Nothing! It’s just that everyone knows about you and they want to know you better.’

‘And how do they know I sing?’

Mark had the grace to colour up. ‘Well …I did sort of mention it,’ he said ruefully.

‘Ha!’ She glared at him, then relented. ‘OK, if I feel I can. But don’t push me.’

‘Good.’ He hugged her.

A riotous drum-roll thundered, a quartet of cornettos split the air like shrieking trumpet ghosts and a man dressed all in green with leaves stitched into his hat and costume, his face painted like a bird of prey, leapt onto the stage with a feral yell.

‘Now come on my lovers!’ he cried. ‘Tonight’s the night we stop time and teeter at the balance. From tonight, we get more light than dark each day up until the standstill of midsummer.’ He capered about, leaping at the cornetto players and banging his hands on the drums. ‘Tonight’s the change, the going from winter to spring, the coming of the Spring Maiden. Aha !!!’ he yelled and leapt off the stage right in front of Isoldé.

‘And here she be!’

He grabbed Isoldé’s hands and pulled her up then he lifted her in his arms and put her on the stage, leapt up after her. ‘And here she be!’ he shouted again.

There was a great roar of approval from the crowd.

‘All hail to the Spring Maid!’ yelled hundreds of throats. ‘All hail! All hail!’

Mark stood just below the stage smiling encouragement up at her but it had all taken Isoldé’s breath away.

‘Sing! Sing! Sing!’ yelled the crowd.

The green man sank to his knees in front of Isoldé. There was
complete hush.

‘Will you sing for us, lady?’ he asked her, taking her hands in his, all supplication. ‘Will you sing for us? Will you sing for us, sing us from winter to spring?’

Isoldé’s head was in turmoil but he was speaking to her heart. She found herself taking on the role he had given her. She looked down straight into the owl-eyes and realised this was Gideon in another of his guises.

‘I will sing for you, Woodsman,’ she said. ‘I will sing for you. I will sing for all of you.’

Gideon let go her hands but continued to kneel at her feet. Isoldé took a couple of deep breaths and found, surprisingly, that her heart was beating steadily and her breathing was easy. She took a final breath and launched into song.

Behind her, a fiddler struck up, picking up her tune, followed quickly by a flautist. The drums caught the rhythm and gave a heart-like beat under the tune.

Gideon took up the god’s part, still on his knees. His voice was near as pure as Tristan’s.

Isoldé began again, this time with the voice of summer.

Gideon continued.

Isoldé took up the voice of autumn.

Gideon followed her.

Isoldé’s voice dropped into the deep minor key of winter.

Gideon took up the final verse.

Isoldé’s voice joined his for the final lines of the song.

Their voices spun out the last line of the song, Isoldé harmonising over Gideon. There was a moment’s silence as they finished then the crowd went wild. Flowers showered onto the stage. The musicians did a fast gallop through the tune finishing on a huge drum-roll.

Isoldé was feted. Gideon lifted her up on his shoulder then leapt down into the crowd and carried her back to her seat on the edge of the dancing square. The crowd yelled and hooted and clapped the whole way.

‘Thank you!’ Gideon kissed her cheek.

The landlord of the Nap appeared with a jug of beer.

Mark wrapped her in his arms and hugged her. ‘You’re brilliant,’ he whispered. ‘That was just amazing, perfect, awesome!’ He kissed her soundly. ‘And no, before you ask! I didn’t know it was going to happen. Nothing to do with me at all.’

‘That’s right,’ Gideon said. ‘He didn’t. It was all our idea, wasn’t it?’ He looked at the landlord for corroboration.

‘It surely was!’ the landlord agreed. ‘And a proper job you did of it too, young lady. Just like you was always one of us.’ He poured their beer and went off.