TAM LIN

I was young and privileged. I am still young and privileged. I was betrothed to a Lord. I am no longer betrothed, and nor am I married. I think I’ll just enjoy being myself for a while -- maybe forever.

It’s not his fault.

My name is Margaret. My father owns this estate, and that includes the woods to the west, the gardens (and the maze) to the north, pasture for our cows and horses to the east and the village, named Carterville after our family, to the south, which depends on our estate for their living. Many of the villagers work in our home, which they call “the manor,” or on our property, and some, by virtue of their employment here, live in quarters set aside for them on the property or even in the manor. Those who work in the village are often called upon to serve us. Their lives revolve around ours, and I might be the only member of my family who has ever realized how much our lives depend upon theirs. I did not always realize that. So much of what I now know is new.

Beyond the village is a village that is not part of our estate, and between our village and the farther one is a river. A small uncovered bridge crosses that river, and the fishing rights to it do not belong to us, but no one appears to mind if our villagers occasionally use the bridge as a fishing pier of sorts. We have our own stream cutting through the forest, with its own bridge, but our villagers neither hunt nor fish in our forest; we have always been strict about that. Our forester and his two woodwards do a good job of discouraging poachers.

The forest beyond our stream and its bridge is ours as well. It’s quite a large forest and we own all of it. I never knew what was beyond it. I never needed to know.

True, I was not any longer a child when things changed. I was sixteen, an only child and single; my father had already told me I would inherit the entire estate upon his death, and, to my deep sorrow, had told me he hadn’t long to live. “No, Daddy,” I told him, “you must live forever. You’re all I have, all I have ever had.” (I never knew my mother; she died giving birth to me.)

“You have the Duke’s son. You do love him, don’t you?”

“I am sure I do. I know he loves me. He tells me all the time, and he gives me ridiculous presents. Surely that is a sign of love. I don’t think Stark knows me very well -- I know him much better than he knows me -- but he is smart, and he can learn.”

“Once you are married, he will know you.”

I blushed. “Oh, Daddy, that’s not what I meant!”

He put his shaking hand on my hair -- Daddy always said it was like spun gold, and Jaelle, my woman, brushes it so it shines -- and said, “That’s not what I meant either, Margaret. Don’t worry. You’ll see.”

I decided to protect my father with a wode fyre, and of course for a fire of an effective size I needed lots and lots of wood. I went out to the farthest reaches of our forest to pull down boughs, not because I wanted to drag them the farthest distance back home, quite silly of me, really, but because I spent so little time there, the false autumn colors were on vivid display, because things are different in the forest, and this would be an opportunity to explore...

... and explore I did! I found hollow trees with trinkets hidden in them, and one with a family of small animals I could not identify. I think they were more afraid of me than I was of them. I found fallen trees forming caves of a sort, temporary unless they somehow petrified. (By these I began to pile the boughs I’d pulled down; later, I could send for Henry to fetch them, although I had originally planned to do all of the work myself; the labor was more strenuous than I had imagined, and I was a little bit fatigued.) I even found a pile of unseasonably particolored leaves so high I could not resist flinging myself into it, and in doing so, I scraped my thigh on something sharp. I immediately slid down the pile of leaves, looked around, felt silly about it -- of course no one was about! -- and hiked up my skirts to examine the scrape, which was on my outer thigh, just above my right knee. “Oh,” I said, “barely even pink. Nothing to get excited about. It does sting, rather, though.”

“It would,” came a masculine voice, and I quickly lowered my skirts and, standing, smoothed them.

“I didn’t know you were there!”

“I knew you were here.” He stepped forward into diffused light, which dappled his fair skin and made a mosaic of his yellow hair, which fell the length of his neck, and was tousled from a breeze, or from activity, or sleep-tousled, and which he now brushed out of his eyes the better to see me. “I was told.”

“Told by whom?”

He held himself tall and straight, like a proud man.

I am not sure which was odder: his wheaten coat with its red piping, a sort of knitted tunic below that, blanchet with a red encircling stripe, the most fantastical braies, also red-striped and of a character I have not seen before or since, and white shoes of equally fantastical character, which made no sound as he advanced, making me think he could be a spirit, and a glimpse of bright red stocking; or his blue eyes, which seemed to contain many persons within them: an aggressor, a confused wanderer who knew not where he was or what he did, even as he did it, and an ordinary man, as unreadable as those of any ordinary man. Truly, I did not know whether to fear him or pity him.

He did not answer my question, nor did he retreat, nor yet did he loosen his gaze from mine, which made me feel as if he were approaching me although he took not another step toward me. His whole being seemed to be leaning toward me, and his lips were parted as if he would speak, but he remained as silent and still as a straw tableau. I felt it incumbent upon me to break whatever spell that was, and I asked again, “Who told you I would be here? I confided in no one.”

As soon as those words had passed my lips, I wanted to retrieve them. Why should a strange man know that I was alone and that no one knew where I was? Had I just invited an abduction?

In response, the man stood once more very straight, so that I could see he was taller, even, than my father, and his eyes were all enraged, with no longer any more depth to them than that. How could eyes change so much so quickly? Even his voice was of a different tenor: “Who gave you permission to pull down boughs in my forest?”

“Your forest?” I laughed contemptuously. “You’re mad! This is my father’s land and he will give it to me one day. It is already as much mine as I care to consider it. No one may challenge that. Let me pass, sir.” I attempted to push past him and for my trouble was pushed back. Then he clutched both of my wrists and pushed me back even farther, onto the pile of lovely leaves, all false-autumn burnished in hot July, and he lifted my skirts to where he had first seen them risen, and lowered his braies, and he had his way with me.

In the ballads, when a maidenhead is stolen, its previous owner sinks into a convenient darkness, a dead faint, and perhaps misses the main portion of the event. I missed nothing. However, I did not consider myself to have been robbed of anything but my mobility, my freedom, myagentia. I struggled but feebly; I was young and able-bodied but he was as well, and had both height and weight above mine. Our determination was at first well matched but he overpowered me with ease, uttering not a word but small grunts and cries, whether of pain or pleasure I could not tell. I understand why, in song,cognitio intuitivaslips away, to avoid pain, humiliation, even, perhaps, memory. I remember it all: his hands, first closing around my throat but then stroking it, and my cheek, and my hair; his kissing me both roughly and tenderly, and sometimes elsewhere than on my mouth; his invasion of my very being, painful throughout but eventually filling me also with an unfamiliar sensation I could not altogether reject, despite my burning anger. In truth, that sensation fed my anger.

Yes, in the end, my anger superseded all else, and when he lay quietly upon me, recovering his breath, I pushed him off and struck him. When he failed to respond, I struck him again, and he covered his head with his arms, then scrambled away, but every time he attempted to regain his balance and stand, I struck him again with my fists, with my open hands, with my feet. At last he was able to stand, as I fell back and my energies dissipated and my tears flowed at last.

As I tried to gulp back those tears, I saw, through their film, his face, just before he turned and fled: it was soft, with trembling lips, flushed cheeks that paled rapidly even as I beheld their transformation, and eyes that flickered among so many identities that I could not say for sure that this was the man who had violated me. He appeared, himself, to have been violated. I took a step toward him, to what purpose I could not have said, nor can I say, even now, but then he did turn, and he did flee, and I was left alone, like an automaton, straightening my skirts, smoothing my hair, thinking that no one must know of this. I left that forest without the boughs, without contemplating what had just happened to me,

By the time I reached the manor I had stopped in a familiar part of the woods and screamed until my throat was sore, and then darted away lest the woodwards hear me, raced a half mile as fast as I could, choking on the wind, torn white clover from our grounds and ripped it to shreds, tossing it in the air like coriandoli, then composed myself and walked calmly the rest of the way, through the gatehouse, into my home, which seemed strange to me, and to my chambers, where I flung myself onto my bed and did not move, even to come down to supper.

Jaelle had missed me, and worried on my behalf, but knew better than to tell my father I had gone off without telling anyone. She slipped into my room, with her usual quiet grace, not long after I returned, but I had sat up by then and was now pretending to be busy with my embroidery, and not to notice her, and she spoke not a word, as I did not, by noticing her, invite her to do so.

When she was gone I thought to lie down again but did not want Jaelle to tend to my hair, which surely would be untidy. Then I laughed: how did I look now, having been ravaged, having raced against the wind, having rolled like an otter in a river of clover? I ran my fingers through my hair and over my dress and encountered fragments of leaf, which I could neither dispose of nor bear to touch. I commanded myself to pick them up, with my very fingertips, and placed them in my Book of Hours, between the back cover and the end-leaf. I rose, began to tidy myself without Jaelle’s help, then stripped myself naked and called for Jaelle after all.

“I shall bathe myself this evening,” I told her. Her eyes widened, not at my nudity, for she bathes me regularly, but at my intention to bathe alone. I could see she was tempted to argue with me and refrained only with great effort.

Every little girl wants to bathe by herself -- not alone, of course; the servants must fetch and heat the water -- but of her own volition and effort, with a proud nurse watching, perhaps discreetly helping (elbows do tend to escape a child’s attention) but a woman of 16 welcomes the assistance. Perhaps I was falling, however temporarily, into childhood.

Jaelle could not know that I would have found her ministrations too gentle. I needed to scour every vestige of that man’s intrusion from my skin, my nature, my hair, even under my nægls, and I asked Jaelle to bring me some burnt bread to cleanse my teeth, to scratch out the kisses of the man whose eyes I wished to scratch out. I attacked my body not only to purify it but because, that man having fled, mine was the only body I might attack unhindered.

The very next day the servants discovered that my father had died in his sleep. I was now the Lady of the Manor, I wore brown for several weeks, and did not roam freely in the woods, but rather brought alms down to the village church even though we had our own chapel, and brought food to the relations of some of our servants. I need not have done this myself, since any of the servants would gladly have made such deliveries -- I could have sent Henry and he’d have been able to see his friends in the village -- but I felt a kind of healing in these doings, and could escape from the somberness with which I was treated at home.

As Allhallowtide approached and harvest was completed all over the land, my servants regarded me not with somberness but with... distance, as if they were not sure I was still myself. I reckoned that was the result of my additional responsibilities, as I was now the mistress of the house, but I was unsure as well, not about my duties but about who I was, for I was ill every morning and moved uncertainly, as if overtaken by a burden more physical than cerebral. I turned myself into a shadow to try to overhear what they were saying out of my hearing, and was startled to hear the old cook telling her young assistant that my waistline was vanishing, my ankles were thickening and I had apparently loosened my kirtle.

When I began to notice these things myself, I was alarmed and asked Jaelle if she knew what was happening to me. She told me that I could not possibly be with child, as she knew I had never been with a man. I suppose my face disabused her of that belief. “Oh, child,” she said, not chastising but disappointed to be sure.

“I am not a child,” I replied, both defiantly and inappropriately.

“Is it the Earl, then? Will you be wed, my lady?”

I shook my head. “I cannot tell you who he was, for he never told me, but no, I should not wed him if he were the last man in Scotland, nor if he knelt in the dust and begged me, but no matter; I am certain I shall never meet him again, unless his child should bear his visage. No, I shall never meet him in this world or any other, for he and I are not bound to share the same portion of eternity. Trust me, Jaelle, if we were to meet, in this world or the next, he would not survive the encounter.”

“You have been wronged, my lady.”

“I have indeed, but no one must know.” I took her hands in mine. “I beg you, Jaelle, as you have always been loyal to me, please be loyal still, and tell no one.”

“You have my word, my lady. But will you bear his child? Will you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Jaelle thought for a long moment. “You could visit Lady Prudence d’Anjou, recently widowed, in Provence, and lie in there. She could aid you in finding a good home for the bairn.”

“I don’t know,” I wailed, throwing myself into Jaelle’s arms. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know!” Then, as quickly, I regained my composure and backed up. “And who will run Carter Hall? No, I cannot in good conscience leave. I have responsibilities now.”

Jaelle said, slowly, “There is another way.”

“Tell me.”

“There is an herb in the woods, whose oil will let the bairn cease to be. You will be quite ill for a short while and I will not deceive you, your life may be at risk, but if you choose this path, I will nurse you through it as if you were my own daughter, for I love you that well.” She put her hand on my arm, and I didn’t even protest; I felt she had earned the right. “The bairn will not suffer at all. It will simply come out as your month-blood. Now you go to the woods and find some few flower-clusters at the top of fower-flegged stems standing upright a foot or so, a little hairy, green or purple. The blooms may still be fluffy and lilac-colored or they could by now be graying, even becoming pods, as winter nears. The herb produces a comfortable odor; you will know it readily, and that odor will linger on your skin as you pluck the leaves and the flowers, for those yield the most oil. Bring them to me; I can prepare the potion.” She was quiet then and bowed her head, and when she spoke again it was almost in a whisper. “I have done this twice before. Both of my patients lived.” Then she looked me in the eye and said, in a normal voice, “The choice is yours, my lady. I am here to help you whatever path you choose.”

I made my decision quickly; I strolled through the woods as if simply enjoying the coolness of the day, the morning of All Hallow’s eve, in case I surprised the forester or his woodwards with my presence, but I did not encounter them; nor did I encounter any herb such as that Jaelle had described. You may well imagine how reluctant I was to venture into that portion of the wood my assailant had claimed as his own, but if I were to avoid bringing a child into the world who might remind me daily of that assailant, or even, I dreaded, carry forth his spirit, I reasoned, I had best swallow my fears and go on into that place that at first had seemed so enchanting. There I did find sparse clumps of herbs that matched Jaelle’s description exactly, right down to the comfortable scent that attached itself to my fingers as I swiftly slid them through my kirtle’s fitchet, into my garland-pocket. I did not know how much to collect so I took as much as I could carry, and was rising to return home when his voice brought my heart thumping into my throat. My fury rose, then, too, as I stood and faced him, my fists raised, ready not only to defend myself but to attack him with all my strength -- but the sight of his face made me hesitate. “Oh, don’t, Margaret, don’t. Don’t destroy our child; you will destroy yourself. Pennyroyal can kill you both.”

“It’s not a child,” I declared, “and I shall not allow it to become a child. As for me, I care not whether I live or die, so long as my death means I’ll never see your face nor hear your voice, nor feel your touch again.”

“I understand your anger,” he said, softly, still not approaching, nor standing straight and proud as he had before, but bent as if his belly hurt. “I cannot blame you and your anger is just. I don’t know how to make it right. I am afraid it cannot be made right.” Then he straightened, although that seemed to cause him pain. “If it could be made right, still I would be prevented.”

“Whatever do you mean, and what is wrong with your mawe?”

“My... my stomach, oh, don’t worry about that. Only, I never meant to hurt you, Margaret. That was forced upon me just as I... I was compelled to force myself upon you.”

“Such nonsense. We were alone and you know that!”

“You were alone, Margaret, but I was not. Do you know where you are?”

“Of course I know where I am. I am at the edge of my father’s... I mean my woods.”

He shook his head. “No, Margaret. You have crossed that edge into Carterhaugh.”

“Carter Hall is my home. I am the mistress of Carter Hall and all its land.”

“Not Carter Hall. Carterhaugh. This woods has been claimed and is owned and enchanted by the Queen of Elphame, that is, Elfenland. Do you know her?”

“I know no elfenfolk, nor unicorns, nor fairy folk of any sort.”

“Well, you do, in fact, in knowing me. She lured me here and my curiosity did the rest; it will be the death of me yet.” He spoke now as if to himself, and even sat down on a stump. I stood, but I listened. “There was a tall white horse just standing in the wood, a glorious stallion, all saddled up and ready to ride. No one was about. I could not resist. I mounted the horse and he took off. I couldn’t direct him; he took me where he was meant to take me, directly to the Queen of Elphame, and she reached up and pulled me down to the ground, knocked the breath right out of me. I just lay there and she touched me with one long finger, touched my lips, and with that she owned me.”

“Owned you?”

“I mean she didn’t even have to speak to control me; she had only to think a thing and I would do it for her. For a while I was her cup-bearer, but then she began to want more and more from me.”

“She wanted you to couple with her!”

“No, worse. She wanted tobeme, and that day we met was the first day she inhabited my body, and instead of telling me what to do with her thoughts, she justdidwhatever she wanted me to do, and my body did it.”

I could not credit his story and I scoffed. “So I was violated by the Queen of Elphame, and not by you? I have heard less likely tales but I was not expected to believe them. You must think me simple!”

“No, Margaret, I hold you in highest regard and my soul, or what is left of it, aches to think of what I did to you.”

“The memory of your pleasure causes you pain?” I scoffed still.

“No, no, that isn’t... I mean... no, it’s all right if you don’t believe me. I wouldn’t believe me either. It’s just that saying “Oops, sorry,” isn’t enough. I wanted to explain, but it’s all right. Never mind.”

His forlornness appeared so genuine that, against my better judgment, I bade him continue. “You want to apologize but it seems insufficient. I agree. You have more to say, then?”

“Yes I am so sorry, but I do. You see, you have less reason to help me than anyone in the universe has, and yet you are the only person in the universe who can help me. So I am here to beg for your help, and I must do it quickly, as the Queen’s attentions are diverted at the moment, and I am freer than usual, but that won’t last.”

“What do you want me to do?” I could hardly believe I was asking him that when all I wished for him was pain.

“I need you to set me free.”

“How do I do such a thing? Not that I believe you....” The truth of it was that a part of me did believe him.

“Tonight is Hallowe’en. All Hallow’s Eve.”

“Yes, everyone knows that.”

“Every seven years the fairies must pay a teinde, a kind of tithe, but it is not a material tithe. It is a human sacrifice.”

“Pay a tithe to whom?”

“To Hell.”

“Is there a Hell, then?”

“It doesn’t matter, or at least it doesn’t matter to me, since I am to be the sacrifice tonight. Whether or not there is a Hell to receive me is immaterial to me. Only you can save my life tonight. Only you, Margaret. I would never ask you, the person I have hurt so badly, if there were anyone else to ask.”

I thought upon this for a long time and he sat on the stump, mostly with his head in his hands, his fair hair glinting sometimes as the sun peeked briefly through the cops of the trees, and once in a while looking at me as I pondered this. My passions were divided and the doubleness of my heart was almost unbearable. Had this man used his body as a weapon against me or had the Queen of Elphame used his body at once against himself and against me? Finally I asked him, “How do you propose that I defeat this all-powerful creature who inhabits you when she is not distracted? What terrible deed do I need to perform?”

“Do you know the bridge called ‘Miles Cross?’ It is quite near here.”

“Yes, I have heard of it but never seen it. Is this, too, part of the Queen’s domain, which I have all my life thought of as my father’s and now as my own?”

“Your father has passed away, then?”

“Yes, the very night you... that night or in the morning. I am not sure which.”

“I am so sorry.”

“That sorrow I believe,” I said, “although I do not know why. Tell me about Miles Cross.”

“Tonight at midnight, there will be a solemn procession across that bridge, and I shall be a part of it, on that same white horse from which she pulled me down and took possession of me. You must do the same, before I have crossed the bridge.”

“I do not know how to possess a soul. I am a marchioness, the daughter of a marquess, not a magical being. Do I appear to you to be a magical being?”

“Well,” he admitted, “in that you are lovely and intelligent, yes, rather. But no, I am not mistaking you for a fairy or an elf. Nonetheless, you must pull me down from that white horse, who, by the way, has done me no harm, but you must pull me down and hold me tight no matter what may happen, and when it is over, cover me up.”

“What might happen?”

“What will certainly happen is that I shall be transformed into a number of frightening and dangerous creatures, and their purpose will be to intimidate you, to force you to let me go. You must not let me go. And you do not need to be frightened. In none of these forms shall I harm you. Not a single one, no matter how terrifying they may be. You must trust me on this.”

“Why must I trust you? Why should I credit a word you say?” My anger was returning.

“Because,” he said, so simply that I had no choice but to believe him, “if you don’t, I’ll die.” Then his face changed, his deep blue eyes became flat, almost gray, his demeanor changed, even his voice changed, and he said, in a strange but horribly familiar tone, “You cannot win. I own Tam Lin and he shall remain mine until the moment of his death, which will come very, very soon.”

I turned and fled Carterhaugh, through the woods, past one of the startled woodwards, who knew better than to call out to me, through the gatehouse, and then I stopped before entering my home. I felt through the fitchet to be sure the herb -- he had called it pennyroyal, and that voice that emanated from him but was not his own had called him Tam Lin! -- was still in my garland-pocket. The herb could wait; in anygates, it needed to be prepared to be effective and I needed Jaelle to do that. Now I needed to act without her knowledge, to save the life of the man who had wronged me.

I used a candela horaria to mark the time. There was always one in the great hall, above the fireplace, so that we could always refer to it. Henry, who had worked with his stepfather at the castle of Stark’s father, the Duke of Philiphaugh, had devised, for the candles with nails at one-inch intervals, so that they would drop with a clatter every hour, a small bell positioned just where the nails would fall, so instead of a clatter, each nail caused the bell to ring out quite pleasantly. My candle was one such, and after I had waited for one of the clock to light it, I carried it upstairs to my chambers and set in on my fireplace mantle.

Before going down to supper (I had missed dinner) I set out upon my bed a dark green velvet cloak I favored and the brown dress I had worn while mourning my father’s death. Next to those I spread a large brown shawl I had sometimes worn with the brown dress. In my customary bright blue gown, I went down and ate with my guests of the night, some tiresome titled travelers who thought to visit me on the recommendation of some cousin or other. I retired to my chambers as early as I dared and still not be thought unfriendly or ungracious, and removed my garland-pocket with the pennyroyal within it; this I secreted under one of my pillows. I sat up in my chair and embroidered for a while, and by and by Jaelle came in to help me out of my day clothes and leave me in the undergarments in which I slept. She tucked me in, kissed me good night and departed, hopefully to sweet dreams of her own, my loyal companion.

I meant to sleep lightly, and only until a little past the hour of ten, at which time I would rise, clothe myself all in brown and green, oddly if anyone cared to look closely, as I wore a shawl and a cloak, the one under the other, but if no one cared to look closely, yet saw me passing in the night, it would never occur to them that the passing creature was the Mistress of Carter Hall. That was my plan but in fact I slept more deeply than lightly and did not hear the nail fall upon the bell, but rather awoke on my own at what appeared to be about a half an hour later than I had intended. Suppressing a cry, I braided up my hair all hap and messy, donned all that I have described and flew downstairs, out the entrance, through the gatehouse, into the woods and on toward where I hoped I would find Miles Cross in time to save Tam Lin.

One thinks of fairies and elves as quiet, secretive creatures. This may or may not be true in general but if so, All Hallow’s Eve is the exception, for I found Miles Cross by following my ears. When I could see the cavalcade I stopped and hid, praying Tam Lin’s white stallion had not already crossed the bridge, for if he had, then Tam Lin’s blood would flow and I would have failed.

I could hear horses not far off; my arrival had been at the final hour indeed. Already crossing the bridge were male and female elves, all clad in long, flowing garments of bright green, bearing torches which they swung recklessly as they danced and loudly sang of “the seed of the proud angel, driven forth from heaven,” and accompanying their revelries with various portable instruments, some plucked, some driven by their breaths and drums of many characters, beaten on in discordant rhythms. Their boots raised a clamor upon the bridge, which shook under their weight, small as they were. Then at last I could see the horses nearing the bridge and I drew closer, hoping my disguise would keep me hidden.

The black horse was ridden by a knight, or an elf attired as a knight, and I could not see, for his armor, whether he was Tam Lin or no. Before I could act, another knight rode forth on a brown horse, and I could see behind him a third knight on a white stallion such as the one Tam Lin had described, and knew that under his silver armor, moonlight glinting from it as if he were holy and glowing, he was neither fae nor elf but a man, the man I had come to pry from death’s very jaws.

When he was near enough I could see Tam Lin’s helmet was up and his fair hair was all combed down, and he suddenly seemed to me the handsomest of men, and I realized that my quest to save him had not been born of any care for him at all but from my wishing to take power back for myself, power I had lost to him when he violated me, but now, seeing him look so fair and frightened as he was trotted to what surely would be a violent death, I truly wanted to free him of his enchantment and of his fear, to ease his mind and restore him to himself, regardless of whether it restored to me the ownership of my own deeds.

The water under Miles Cross was so shallow, and the bridge so low, that I was able to wade into the stream, and as the white stallion put one hoof onto the bridge I leapt out and with all my might I dragged Tam Lin, in all his armor, down from his steed and into the woods, holding him fast in my arms, trying to conceal him, and myself, in the browning ffoylage, awaiting what he had told me would come next.

And come it did. I caught but a glimpse of his frightened but determined face before he was transformed, in my very arms, into a snake the girth of which was such that my lims could not completely encircle it. Still I squeezed it tight as it writhed and attempted to free itself. I knew it was not Tam Lin trying to escape me but the Queen of Elphame trying to wrest him, in this form, from my grip.

I believe that even in this form Tam Lin worked against the Queen by wrapping himself around me, not to choke the breath from me but to hold me fast as I held him fast. This being somewhat effective, she transformed him into a bear, with long, sharp claws, and again, I could not completely encircle him. The beast roared and growled and shook his fearsome body, shaking me along as well, but I clung to his fur and did not lose my hold on him.

The lion he next became was so stour that I could not hold him at all unless I jumped upon his back and grasped his mane, which I did, and he bucked and twirled and tried to throw me off, but I would not be thrown off, as I knew who he was, and that mane so did resemble Tam Lin’s own fair locks that I fancied I was wrestling with the man himself. That did make my task easier for the while, but it was a short while indeed, as he then became a bar of iron so hot that it glowed a deep red, and I almost dropped it before I realized that none of its heat was reaching or harming me. I held it easily.

When the iron bar became a lump of burning coal, my garments were unaffected, nor was my skin burnt, but the grass and leaves around us began to smolder, so I crawled with it back to the stream and held the coal there, under the cool water. When I lifted it back out, its embers had been extinguished, the coal crumbled and there in my arms shivered Tam Lin, bare as a baby. I removed my green cloak and covered him. Together we crawled back into the woods and we lay down together, our energies exhausted. In my lap, he slept, and as he slumbered I heard the Queen of Elphame cry out, “You have won! I have lost the best knight I ever knew, and worse, I now shall lose one of my own, for the teind must be paid with or without Tam Lin! Oh, Tam Lin, Tam Lin, rather than lose you to a mortal woman I should have torn out your blue, blue eyes and pressed in two eyes of wood!”

“I’ve won!” I whispered. “I’ve won!”

The procession had stopped but now it took up again, quietly, darkly, with no music or dancing, and at length the elves and fairies had passed by and were all, and Tam Lin lay asleep in my arms.

Before Tam Lin awoke he must have had a night-mære, for he opened his mouth as if to cry out, but then closed his mouth and instead opened his eyes. I looked down at him and said, “You must have slept with your mouth open once before. That is how demons enter. That must be how the Queen of Elphame took possession of you.” I added, “I believe you are free now.”

“How could a demon enter the tar, this?” he murmured. “Not Omega.” Then he said to me, “It doesn’t matter. Whatever happened happened. But nothing has changed for you. I am free -- lost, but free -- but you cannot unviolate yourself and I cannot change that I am the one who violated you. How do I make it right? Is it even possible to make this right? I don’t know what to do.” He sat up and drew himself free of me, wrapping my cloak around himself more tightly. “Shall I do penance in some manner? Is there somewhere to go and confess what I have done and suffer whatever punishment is meted out? Of course that wouldn’t change your situation. It might absolve you of whatever stigma comes of this.”

“No, whatever you do, you must not acknowledge what you have done! Don’t you see? I do not know how it is where you come from but here you will be compelled to marry me, and if you refuse, your life will be forfeit.”

“I owe you that much,” he said. “If that is what you want, I am yours.” I could tell he was making a brave face.

“No,” I disagreed, “if you do not love me you will never be mine. Duty is not love. Love is love.” I hesitated before adding, “I am sure I do not love you. I am no longer angry with you, but I do not love you. I do not love any man. I shall never marry. Of this I am sure.”

“Then I must leave you for both our sakes.” He stood, straight and proud as he had stood twice before, and looked around as if seeing his surroundings for the first time. “I am undeniably lost. Can you take me to where we first met? I think I know my way from there. I wonder where my clothing is? I don’t want to steal your fine cloak.”

“It is not theft if I freely give it to you.”

“Still.” Then his gaze fell upon something in the stream. “She has not only freed me, she has returned my clothes.” He removed my cloak and gave it to me before wading into the stream as I had done and fishing from the water the odd garments I have described, but as they were through-wet he could not don them. I gave him my cloak once more and he draped it about himself.

“Let us go to Carterhaugh and lay your finery out to dry or hang it on some boughs, and find you your way back to whence you came. Perhaps you can explain it to me while we wait. You don’t want to be taken with a sickness. Keep my cloak close around you.”

“Cloak close,” he repeated. “Very good. All right, lead the way.”

As we made our way back to where we had first met, he confessed to me that his name was not Tam Lin, that he had been christened anew by the Queen of Elphame. “What is your name?” I asked, feeling little merveile, as everything to do with this man had proved to be wondrous.

“I am known as the Doctor.”

“You are a leech?”

He stopped and gave me the most humorous look; I had not afore noticed anything humorous in his face, but in truth his face, which was no different in feature than it had been when we met, was yet a different face entirely, for the man within the visage was wholly different. The man arrayed in my cloak was weary in truth yet strong and easy. I had thought myself superior to him in every way but now he behaved as if he were my equal, and I did not doubt that he was. “I hope I am not a leech. I think the word means something different to me than it does to you, though. Oh, if only I could get warm!”

“Are you a Lord?” Now his face, far from humorous, was marveled. “Have you an estate nearby, or perhaps far from here?”

His face eased and became humorous once more. “No estate, no, I see, no, I am not that kind of lord, nor royal or otherwise, but I am a kind of lord. I am a lord of time.”

Not knowing how else to respond, I told him, “I have a Book of Hours.”

“Yes, that’s good. A book of hours. I like that. But just call me Doctor, or Tam Lin, if it makes you feel better.”

We had arrived near enough the place we had first met that Tam Lin, or, rather, the Doctor, said he knew where he was. “It is not far from here, in Carterhaugh, that I arrived in these parts in my... oh, dear, this will be difficult to explain.” We hung his garments over some boughs. My own clothing had long since dried. “When my clothing is dry, I must return your cloak to you and take my leave and we shall never meet again, and you will still be with child, unless you use that pennyroyal, which is your choice. I know that the Queen of Elphame wants you to give birth. I don’t know whether the child will be mine, or hers, or both. I wish I could advise you, beyond reminding you that the pennyroyal is dangerous to you and could kill you, but it is not my decision to make. It is yours, Margaret. You are between a rock and a hard place and I am truly sorry to have placed you there. It isn’t fair. It just isn’t fair.” He looked about to shed tears. We sat together on a log and I took his hand as if he were of long time known to me, and as if his body had never ravaged mine, and as if we were companions.

“If I knew,” I said, slowly, “that the bairn would not be hers in any way.... if only I knew.”

“No matter whose it is, you live in a time when having a child out of wedlock will taint you, and refusing to say who the father is... well, of course you could say it was mine. I’d be gone. You wouldn’t be harming me if you said so. I doubt you’ve be believed, though.” Then he looked at me and said a humorous thing without appearing humorous at all. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in giving up your life here and traveling with me through time and space?”

The Doctor did not appear to be of disordered intellect but his words seemed mad to me. “You mock me now. Or are you in truth mad?”

“I might be mad and I am not mocking you. Don’t mind me. I am grasping at straws. Of course you can’t leave your life behind just like that. It’s asking too much and I apologize. Then I must ask you, Margaret, after I leave, what are your plans? What will you do?”

I said, “I am the Mistress of Carter Hall. No one can take that from me as long as I do not marry, and I do not intend to marry. If I can believe the bairn is not connected to the Queen of Elphame in any manner, then I shall give him birth and give him my own name, and rear him to be a good man, and tell him the verray truth about his parentage, and give him Carter Hall when I am too old or when I die, and no one shall command how we live, and in penance for all of that I shall use my dominion to serve, not to rule.”

“That might not be easy.”

“I was born into an easy life but I do not care so much for it. I shall do my power.”

“You are a good girl,” he said, perhaps mistaking my youth for childhood. I did not correct him and in fact, I suddenly wept.

“I miss my father.”

He put one arm around my shoulders and silently let me weep upon his chest until I was empty of tears.

My mind must have been as disordered as his, for I was sure, as I wept, that I felt two separate heartbeats. Was Tam Lin, or was the Queen of Elphame, still within him? At that moment I realized that the Doctor had been used as ill as had I, and that not only was it not the Doctor who had used me, but the same villain had used us both. Yet the Doctor never mentioned that, nor complained of it. His only concern appeared to be for me.

At the last, the Doctor donned his dry clothes and from a pocket sewn directly into his coat he withdrew a folded thing which when unfurled like a banner proved instead to be an odd hat, also wheaten with a red stripe, and this he placed on his head, pressing down his hair and thus augmenting its length. He seemed to me at this moment to be the most beautiful man I had ever seen, and I admired him without wanting him for my husband, simply admired him as one would admire a work of art.

“Goodbye, Margaret. I’ll understand if you can never forgive me, although I hope you will, but I can do you no good here and must avoid doing you more harm. I admire your spirit and I have confidence that you will do all the things you say you plan to do. I believe you can and I believe you will.” He bent down to me and lightly kissed me on my crown, took one of my disheveled braids in his hand and appeared to contemplate it, then gently set it back down upon my shoulder. “Goodbye,” he repeated, turned and departed, and indeed, died from my life, as a spirit might.

To this day I could not be certain he was not a spirit, except that my daughter, Tamar, lives; my decision was not easy to make but I did destroy that pennyroyal in the fireplace. Tamar is sixteen, and has been warned not to go to Carterhaugh under any circumstances, and advised of the boundaries of the estate which will one day be hers, but which she may treat as her own, now, as she likes. She understands that we exist to serve our village, to provide employment for them, to be kind and fair to them, and that we may consider ourselves their betters but in fact any of us may fall victim to fate, anyone can lose a father, or a maidenhead, or an estate, or ownership of their deeds. This is humbling but also, if I may make up a new word, empowering.

Tamar understands this so well that she has asked me if we might build a school for our village, and of course I have consented. She expects all of the village children, and the children of our servants, to work only half-days and attend the school. Among the students are the grandchildren of Jaelle, for she had been married but relict by the time I was born, and Denyse, named for her late father Dennis, was Tamar’s nurse and is now her woman. Jaelle has gone the way of all the Earth and I miss her, but I have taken on no new woman. I even fetch my own bath water, and Cook has shown me how to heat it.

I have forgiven Tam Lin, even though there was in truth no Tam Lin. Tamar says she even forgives the Queen of Elphame. “I am here,” she reminds me. She is a child of some wisdom. I hope she remains a child for a longer time than I was able to do.

The Doctor needs no forgiveness.

THE END