but the galloping.
Near the Hermitage castle, where dead Queen Mary had untied her skirts for this Bothwell man, the mare sank in a bog. All bogs were hard with frost, or had been. We had gone over them with our manes flying out—but this bog was not frozen. We plunged right in. I slipped off her and climbed onto some rocks, but she, being a heavy horse, was stuck. I wailed. Her legs and lower body was lost in the mud. I took her mane, and pulled.
Please don’t die here I told her.
She whinnied.
Climb out! Heave!
She rolled her brown eyes and her nostrils went in and out, in and out. She sank deeper down.
Please don’t…
But she didn’t die. I went to her. I murmured gentle things to her until she was calm. And when she was calm I put a little mint on the rock in front of her, which she smelt, and tried to reach with her lips. Then I went behind her with thistles in my hand, and a roar in my mouth, and I smacked the mare so hard that my hand tingled, my throat broke in two, and she was so shocked at the smack and the sound that she hauled herself up, and was free.
She found the mint and munched on it. Shook her mane.
I was fierce with her, for a moment.
Then I wasn’t fierce at all. I hugged her boggy neck. I thought do not love her, for I had promised it—but I liked how she searched my hair with her lips, and left drool in it, and I was glad she had not died, in that bog. I wondered if the heart could be ordered, in such a way.
She was grey on top, and mud-black below. When I looked back at her, it was as if she was floating—a half-horse creature, sailing through the dark.
We moved through the gloaming most of all—the times that are neither day nor night. Cora called them the betwixt-and-between times, when the world is stirring or it is setting down. When the light is strange, and your eye can think what is that? Moving? But nothing moves out there. Dawn and dusk are always softly lit. Their shadows are thin, and to ride through these shadows on my mare felt like breaking them—but they sealed themselves again, in our wake.
Cora also said the veil is thinnest, at this time —that the wall between this world and the other, magick world was weakest. She breathed, you can reach, and touch it… I never felt that, when I was small. But out on the mare, I felt it. Treading through mud, with deepening skies, and birds coming in to roost, I felt it in my body I am not alone. I am seen, I thought, with the sunrise.
You look at me as if I’m senseless. Like I’ve blasphemed.
I only meant to say that those are my favourite times.
And what ones I saw. What dusks and dawns. We saw them from strange places, for we slept in some uncommon beds, her and I. Rocks, barns and islands. An empty badger’s sett which made me musky for days. Once, I slept in a tree, and I felt Cora was with me that night.
Are you there? Are you with me tonight?
I am with you every night. Or so I dreamt she said.
And we slept, too, in a church. It was empty, and ruined. There was ivy where the roof should be, and a pigeon in the font. Our forelocks were stuck down after three nights of rain, and so when we found the empty church we both said yes. Here . I laid down on a pew, and rested. I fingered the old singing books, and looked at the calm, wooden face of Jesus on His cross—and I thought what a gentle face He had. Gentle—when so many ungentle things had been done in His name.
It was a peaceful place, and dry. The mare let out a little wind by the altar, followed by what made it, but these are natural things, and I don’t think the church minded. It was giving shelter. Shelter and love is what faith is—or so Mr Pepper said.
Which church? Which town?
I don’t know. There are so many different churches. I know this King William is of one faith and hates the other, and James is of the other and hates what he is not, and so aren’t they both the same? In this hating?
It was nature’s church. That’s what I
Near the Hermitage castle, where dead Queen Mary had untied her skirts for this Bothwell man, the mare sank in a bog. All bogs were hard with frost, or had been. We had gone over them with our manes flying out—but this bog was not frozen. We plunged right in. I slipped off her and climbed onto some rocks, but she, being a heavy horse, was stuck. I wailed. Her legs and lower body was lost in the mud. I took her mane, and pulled.
Please don’t die here I told her.
She whinnied.
Climb out! Heave!
She rolled her brown eyes and her nostrils went in and out, in and out. She sank deeper down.
Please don’t…
But she didn’t die. I went to her. I murmured gentle things to her until she was calm. And when she was calm I put a little mint on the rock in front of her, which she smelt, and tried to reach with her lips. Then I went behind her with thistles in my hand, and a roar in my mouth, and I smacked the mare so hard that my hand tingled, my throat broke in two, and she was so shocked at the smack and the sound that she hauled herself up, and was free.
She found the mint and munched on it. Shook her mane.
I was fierce with her, for a moment.
Then I wasn’t fierce at all. I hugged her boggy neck. I thought do not love her, for I had promised it—but I liked how she searched my hair with her lips, and left drool in it, and I was glad she had not died, in that bog. I wondered if the heart could be ordered, in such a way.
She was grey on top, and mud-black below. When I looked back at her, it was as if she was floating—a half-horse creature, sailing through the dark.
We moved through the gloaming most of all—the times that are neither day nor night. Cora called them the betwixt-and-between times, when the world is stirring or it is setting down. When the light is strange, and your eye can think what is that? Moving? But nothing moves out there. Dawn and dusk are always softly lit. Their shadows are thin, and to ride through these shadows on my mare felt like breaking them—but they sealed themselves again, in our wake.
Cora also said the veil is thinnest, at this time —that the wall between this world and the other, magick world was weakest. She breathed, you can reach, and touch it… I never felt that, when I was small. But out on the mare, I felt it. Treading through mud, with deepening skies, and birds coming in to roost, I felt it in my body I am not alone. I am seen, I thought, with the sunrise.
You look at me as if I’m senseless. Like I’ve blasphemed.
I only meant to say that those are my favourite times.
And what ones I saw. What dusks and dawns. We saw them from strange places, for we slept in some uncommon beds, her and I. Rocks, barns and islands. An empty badger’s sett which made me musky for days. Once, I slept in a tree, and I felt Cora was with me that night.
Are you there? Are you with me tonight?
I am with you every night. Or so I dreamt she said.
And we slept, too, in a church. It was empty, and ruined. There was ivy where the roof should be, and a pigeon in the font. Our forelocks were stuck down after three nights of rain, and so when we found the empty church we both said yes. Here . I laid down on a pew, and rested. I fingered the old singing books, and looked at the calm, wooden face of Jesus on His cross—and I thought what a gentle face He had. Gentle—when so many ungentle things had been done in His name.
It was a peaceful place, and dry. The mare let out a little wind by the altar, followed by what made it, but these are natural things, and I don’t think the church minded. It was giving shelter. Shelter and love is what faith is—or so Mr Pepper said.
Which church? Which town?
I don’t know. There are so many different churches. I know this King William is of one faith and hates the other, and James is of the other and hates what he is not, and so aren’t they both the same? In this hating?
It was nature’s church. That’s what I
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