Chronicles of Shadow Valley 7: The Green Bowmen

This episode follows on from some of our other explorations of the work of Lord Dunsany.

ln this episode, Don Rodriguez is held up by some bowmen. In a previous chapter, which isn’t included in the series of podcast episodes, he has saved a man and, in exchange, was given a talisman or amulet, then told to wear it when he reaches Shadow Valley. The amulet is a gold piece that’s been carved with an intricate symbol by the rescued man. It becomes clear as the book unfolds that the man was the King of Shadow Valley and, if he is not a faerie, he is a human holding a faerie office. This is familiar to Magi – particularly from House Merinita, who are familiar with the King of Golden Bough. The talisman marks Rodriguez as a Prince of the Forest and without giving away too many spoilers, eventually he takes over the role of King of the Forest himself through a series of initiations.

I’m going to leave a large chunk of the chapter intact here. It was read into the public domain by Ed Humple through LibriVox. It’s interesting because it contains two potentially faerie creatures – the king himself and his bowmen – who may be human, or may have faerie blood, or may have a mystogogic initiation, or may be the beneficiaries of an odd natural law of the king’s sacred space.

Statistics eventually.

The Green Bowmen

“Señor, all travellers here bring tribute to the King of Shadow Valley,” at the mention of whom all touched hats and bowed their heads. “What do you bring us?”

Rodriguez thought of no answer; but after a moment he said, for the sake of loyalty: “I know one king only.”

“There is only one king in Shadow Valley,” said the bowman.

“He brings a tribute of emeralds,” said another, looking at Rodriguez’ scabbard. And then they searched him and others search Morano. There were eight or nine of them, all in their leaf-green hats, with ribbons round their necks of the same colour to hold the copper disks. They took a gold coin from Morano and grey greasy pieces of silver. One of them took his frying-pan; but he looked so pitifully at them as he said simply, “I starve,” that the frying-pan was restored to him.

They unbuckled Rodriguez’ belt and took from him sword and scabbard and three gold pieces from his purse. Next they found the gold piece that was hanging round his neck, still stuffed inside his clothes where he had put it when he was riding. Having examined it they put it back inside his clothes, while the leader rebuckled his sword-belt about his waist and returned him his three gold-pieces.

Others returned his money to Morano. “Master,” said the leader, bowing to Rodriguez, his green hat in hand, “under our King, the forest is yours.”

Morano was pleased to hear this respect paid to his master, but Rodriguez was so surprised that he who was never curt without reason found no more to say than “Why?”

“Because we are your servants,” said the other.

“Who are you?” asked Rodriguez.

“We are the green bowmen, master,” he said, “who hold this forest against all men for our King.”

“And who is he?” said Rodriguez.

And the bowman answered: “The King of Shadow Valley,” at which the others all touched hats and bowed heads again. And Rodriguez seeing that the mystery would grow no clearer for any information to be had from them said: “Conduct me to your king.”

“That, master, we cannot do,” said the chief of the bowmen. “There be many trees in this forest, and behind any one of them he holds his court. When he needs us there is his clear horn. But when men need him who knows which shadow is his of all that lie in the forest?” Whether or not there was anything interesting in the mystery, to Rodriguez it was merely annoying; and finding it grew no clearer he turned his attention to shelter for the night, to which all travellers give a thought at least once, between noon and sunset.

“Is there any house on this road, señor,” he said, “in which we could rest the night?”

“Ten miles from here,” said he, “and not far from the road you take is the best house we have in the forest. It is yours, master, for as long as you honour it.”

“Come then,” said Rodriguez, “and I thank you, señor.”

So they all started together, Rodriguez with the leader going in front and Morano following with all the bowmen. And soon the bowmen were singing songs of the forest, hunting songs, songs of the winter; and songs of the long summer evenings, songs of love. Cheered by this merriment, the miles slipped by.

And Rodriguez gathered from the songs they sang something of what they were and of how they lived in the forest, living amongst the woodland creatures till these men’s ways were almost as their ways; killing what they needed for food but protecting the woodland things against all others; straying out amongst the villages in summer evenings, and always welcome; and owning no allegiance but to the King of the Shadow Valley.

And the leader told Rodriguez that his name was Miguel Threegeese, given him on account of an exploit in his youth when he lay one night with his bow by one of the great pools in the forest, where the geese come in winter. He said the forest was a hundred miles long, lying mostly along a great valley, which they were crossing. And once they had owned allegiance to kings of Spain, but now to none but the King of the Shadow Valley, for the King of Spain’s men had once tried to cut some of the forest down, and the forest was sacred.

Behind him the men sang on of woodland things, and of cottage gardens in the villages: with singing and laughter they came to their journey’s end. A cottage as though built by peasants with boundless material stood in the forest. It was a thatched cottage built in the peasant’s way but of enormous size. The leader entered first and whispered to those within, who rose and bowed to Rodriguez as he entered, twenty more bowmen who had been sitting at a table. One does not speak of the banqueting-hall of a cottage, but such it appeared, for it occupied more than half of the cottage and was as large as the banqueting-hall of any castle. It was made of great beams of oak, and high at either end just under the thatch were windows with their little square panes of bulging bluish glass, which at that time was rare in Spain. A table of oak ran down the length of it, cut from a single tree, polished and dark from the hands of many men that had sat at it. Boar spears hung on the wall, great antlers and boar’s tusks and, carved in the oak of the wall and again on a high, dark chair that stood at the end of the long table empty, a crown with oak leaves that Rodriguez recognised. It was the same as the one that was cut on his gold coin, which he had given no further thought to, riding to Lowlight, and which the face of Serafina had driven from his mind altogether. “But,” he said, and then was silent, thinking to learn more by watching than by talking. And his companions of the road came in and all sat down on the benches beside the ample table, and a brew was brought, a kind of pale mead, that they called forest water. And all drank; and, sitting at the table, watching them more closely than he could as he walked in the forest, Rodriguez saw by the sunlight that streamed in low through one window that on the copper disks they wore round their necks on green ribbon the design was again the same. It was much smaller than his on the gold coin but the same strange leafy crown. “Wear it as you go through Shadow Valley,” he now seemed to remember the man saying to him who put it round his neck. But why? Clearly because it was the badge of this band of men. And this other man was one of them.

His eyes strayed back to the great design on the wall. “The crown of the forest,” said Miguel as he saw his eyes wondering at it, “as you doubtless know, señor.”

Why should he know? Of course because he bore the design himself. “Who wears it?” said Rodriguez.

“The King of Shadow Valley.”

Morano was without curiosity; he did not question good drink; he sat at the table with a cup of horn in his hand, as happy as though he had come to his master’s castle, though that had not yet been won.

The sun sank under the oaks, filling the hall with a ruddy glow, turning the boar spears scarlet and reddening the red faces of the merry men of the bow.

A dozen of the men went out; to relieve the guard in the forest, Miguel explained. And Rodriguez learned that he had come through a line of sentries without ever seeing one. Presently a dozen others came in from their posts and unslung their bows and laid them on pegs on the wall and sat down at the table. Whereat there were whispered words and they all rose and bowed to Rodriguez. And Rodriguez had caught the words “A prince of the forest.” What did it mean?

Soon the long hall grew dim, and his love for the light drew Rodriguez out to watch the sunset. And there was the sun under indescribable clouds, turning huge and yellow among the trunks of the trees and casting glory munificently down glades. It set, and the western sky became blood-red and lilac: from the other end of the sky the moon peeped out of night. A hush came and a chill, and a glory of colour, and a dying away of light; and in the hush the mystery of the great oaks became magical. A blackbird blew a tune less of this earth than of fairy-land.

Rodriguez wished that he could have had a less ambition than to win a castle in the wars, for in those glades and among those oaks he felt that happiness might be found under roofs of thatch. But having come by his ambition he would not desert it.

Now rushlights were lit in the great cottage and the window of the long room glowed yellow. A fountain fell in the stillness that he had not heard before. An early nightingale tuned a tentative note. “The forest is fair, is it not?” said Miguel.

Rodriguez had no words to say. To turn into words the beauty that was now shining in his thoughts, reflected from the evening there, was no easier than for wood to reflect all that is seen in the mirror.

“You love the forest,” he said at last.

“Master,” said Miguel, “it is the only land in which we should live our days. There are cities and roads but man is not meant for them. I know not, master, what God intends about us; but in cities we are against the intention at every step, while here, why, we drift along with it.”

“I, too, would live here always,” said Rodriguez.

“The house is yours,” said Miguel. And Rodriguez answered: “I go tomorrow to the wars.”

They turned round then and walked slowly back to the cottage, and entered the candlelight and the loud talk of many men out of the hush of the twilight. But they passed from the room at once by a door on the left, and came thus to a large bedroom, the only other room in the cottage.

“Your room, master,” said Miguel Threegeese.

It was not so big as the hall where the bowmen sat, but it was a goodly room. The bed was made of carved wood, for there were craftsmen in the forest, and a hunt went all the way round it with dogs and deer. Four great posts held a canopy over it: they were four young birch-trees seemingly still wearing their bright bark, but this had been painted on their bare timber by some woodland artist. The chairs had not the beauty of the great ages of furniture, but they had a dignity that the age of commerce has not dreamed of. Each one was carved out of a single block of wood: there was no join in them anywhere. One of them lasts to this day.

The skins of deer covered the long walls. There were great basins and jugs of earthenware. All was forest-made. The very shadows whispering among themselves in corners spoke of the forest. The room was rude; but being without ornament, except for the work of simple craftsmen, it had nothing there to offend the sense of right of anyone entering its door, by any jarring conflict with the purposes and traditions of the land in which it stood. All the woodland spirits might have entered there, and slept—if spirits sleep—in the great bed, and left at dawn unoffended. In fact that age had not yet learned vulgarity.

When Miguel Threegeese left Morano entered.

“Master,” he said, “they are making a banquet for you.”

“Good,” said Rodriguez. “We will eat it.” And he waited to hear what Morano had come to say, for he could see that it was more than this.

“Master,” said Morano, “I have been talking with the bowman. And they will give you whatever you ask. They are good people, master, and they will give you all things, whatever you asked of them.”

Rodriguez would not show to his servant that it all still puzzled him.

“They are very amiable men,” he said.

“Master,” said Morano, coming to the point, “that Garda, they will have walked after us. They must be now in Lowlight. They have all to-night to get new shoes on their horses. And to-morrow, master, to-morrow, if we be still on foot…”

Rodriguez was thinking. Morano seemed to him to be talking sense.

“You would like another ride?” he said to Morano.

“Master,” he answered, “riding is horrible. But the public garrotter, he is a bad thing too.” And he meditatively stroked the bristles under his chin.

“They would give us horses?” said Rodriguez.

“Anything, master, I am sure of it. They are good people.”

“They’ll have news of the road by which they left Lowlight,” said Rodriguez reflectively. “They say la Garda dare not enter the forest,” Morano continued, “but thirty miles from here the forest ends. They could ride round while we go through.”

“They would give us horses?” said Rodriguez again.

“Surely,” said Morano.

And then Rodriguez asked where they cooked the banquet, since he saw that there were only two rooms in the great cottage and his inquiring eye saw no preparations for cooking about the fireplace of either. And Morano pointed through a window at the back of the room to another cottage among the trees, fifty paces away. A red glow streamed from its windows, growing strong in the darkening forest.

“That is their kitchen, master,” he said. “The whole house is kitchen.” His eyes looked eagerly at it, for, though he loved bacon, he welcomed the many signs of a dinner of boundless variety.

As he and his master returned to the long hall great plates of polished wood were being laid on the table. They gave Rodriguez a place on the right of the great chair that had the crown of the forest carved on the back.

“Whose chair is that?” said Rodriguez.

“The King of Shadow Valley,” they said.

“He is not here then,” said Rodriguez.

“Who knows?” said a bowman.

“It is his chair,” said another; “his place is ready. None knows the ways of the King of Shadow Valley.”

“He comes sometimes at this hour,” said a third, “as the boar comes to Heather Pool at sunset. But not always. None knows his ways.”

“If they caught the King,” said another, “the forest would perish. None loves it as he, none knows its ways as he, no other could so defend it.”

“Alas,” said Miguel, “some day when he be not here they will enter the forest.” All knew whom he meant by they. “And the goodly trees will go.” He spoke as a man foretelling the end of the world; and, as men to whom no less was announced, the others listened to him. They all loved Shadow Valley.

In this man’s time, so they told Rodriguez, none entered the forest to hurt it, no tree was cut except by his command, and venturous men claiming rights from others than him seldom laid axe long to tree before he stood near, stepping noiselessly from among shadows of trees as though he were one of their spirits coming for vengeance on man.

All this they told Rodriguez, but nothing definite they told of their king, where he was yesterday, where he might be now; and any questions he asked of such things seemed to offend a law of the forest.

And then the dishes were carried in, to Morano’s great delight: with wide blue eyes he watched the produce of that mighty estate coming in through the doorway cooked. Boars’ heads, woodcock, herons, plates full of fishes, all manner of small eggs, a roe-deer and some rabbits, were carried in by procession. And the men set to with their ivory-handled knives, each handle being the whole tusk of a boar. And with their eating came merriment and tales of past huntings and talk of the forest and stories of the King of Shadow Valley.

And always they spoke of him not only with respect but also with the discretion, Rodriguez thought, of men that spoke of one who might be behind them at that moment, and one who tolerated no trifling with his authority. Then they sang songs again, such as Rodriguez had heard on the road, and their merry lives passed clearly before his mind again, for we live in our songs as no men live in histories. And again Rodriguez lamented his hard ambition and his long, vague journey, turning away twice from happiness; once in the village of Lowlight where happiness deserted him, and here in the goodly forest where he jilted happiness. How well could he and Morano live as two of this band, he thought; leaving all cares in cities: for there dwelt cares in cities even then. Then he put the thought away. And as the evening wore away with merry talk and with song, Rodriguez turned to Miguel and told him how it was with la Garda and broached the matter of horses. And while the others sang Miguel spoke sadly to him. “Master,” he said, “la Garda shall never take you in Shadow Valley, yet if you must leave us to make your fortune in the wars, though your fortune waits you here, there be many horses in the forest, and you and your servant shall have the best.”

“Tomorrow morning, señor?” said Rodriguez.

“Even so,” said Miguel.

“And how shall I send them to you again?” said Rodriguez.

“Master, they are yours,” said Miguel.

But this Rodriguez would not have, for as yet he only guessed what claim at all he had upon Shadow Valley, his speculations being far more concerned with the identity of the hidalgo that he had fought the night before, how he concerned Serafina, who had owned the rose that he carried: in fact his mind was busy with such studies as were proper to his age. And at last they decided between them on the house of a lowland smith, who was the furthest man that the bowmen knew who was secretly true to their king. At his house Rodriguez and Morano should leave the horses. He dwelt sixty miles from the northern edge of the forest, and would surely give Rodriguez fresh horses if he possessed them, for he was a true man to the bowman. His name was Gonzalez and he dwelt in a queer green house.

They turned then to listen a moment to a hunting song that all the bowmen were singing about the death of a boar. Its sheer merriment constrained them. Then Miguel spoke again. “You should not leave the forest,” he said sadly.

Rodriguez sighed: it was decided. Then Miguel told him of his road, which ran north-eastward and would one day bring him out of Spain. He told him how towns on the way, and the river Ebro, and with awe and reverence he spoke of the mighty Pyrenees. And then Rodriguez rose, for the start was to be at dawn, and walked quietly through the singing out of the hall to the room where the great bed was. And soon he slept, and his dreams joined in the endless hunt through Shadow Valley that was carved all round the timbers of his bed.

All too soon he heard voices, voices far off at first, to which he drew nearer and nearer; thus he woke grudgingly out of the deeps of sleep. It was Miguel and Morano calling him.

When at length he reached the hall all the merriment of the evening was gone from it but the sober beauty of the forest flooded in through both windows with early sunlight and bird-song; so that it had not the sad appearance of places in which we have rejoiced, when we revisit them next day or next generation and find them all deserted by dance and song.

Rodriguez ate his breakfast while the bowmen waited with their bows all strung by the door. When he was ready they all set off in the early light through the forest.

Rodriguez did not criticise his ambition; it sailed too high above his logic for that; but he regretted it, as he went through the beauty of the forest among these happy men. But we must all have an ambition, and Rodriguez stuck to the one he had. He had another, but it was an ambition with weak wings that could not come to hope. It depended upon the first. If he could win a castle in the wars he felt that he might even yet hope towards Lowlight.

Little was said, and Rodriguez was all alone with his thoughts. In two hours they met a bowman holding two horses. They had gone eight miles.

“Farewell to the forest,” said Miguel to Rodriguez. There was almost a query in his voice. Would Rodriguez really leave them? it seemed to say.

“Farewell,” he answered.

Morano too had looked sideways towards his master, seeming almost to wonder what his answer would be: when it came he accepted it and walked to the horses. Rodriguez mounted: willing hands helped up Morano. “Farewell,” said Miguel once more. And all the bowmen shouted “Farewell.”

“Make my farewell,” said Rodriguez, “to the King of Shadow Valley.”

A twig cracked in the forest.

“Hark,” said Miguel. “Maybe that was a boar.”

“I cannot wait to hunt,” said Rodriguez, “for I have far to go.”

“Maybe,” said Miguel, “it was the King’s farewell to you.”

Rodriguez looked into the forest and saw nothing.

“Farewell,” he said again. The horses were fresh and he let his go. Morano lumbered behind him. In two miles they came to the edge of the forest and up a rocky hill, and so to the plains again, and one more adventure lay behind them. Rodriguez turned round once on the high ground and took a long look back on the green undulations of peace. The forest slept there as though empty of men.

Then they rode. In the first hour, easily cantering, they did ten miles. Then they settled down to what those of our age and country and occupation know as a hound-jog, which is seven miles an hour. And after two hours they let the horses rest. It was the hour of the frying-pan. Morano, having dismounted, stretched himself dolefully; then he brought out all manner of meats. Rodriguez looked wonderingly at them.

“For the wars, master,” said Morano. To whatever wars they went, the green bowmen seemed to have supplied an ample commissariat.

They ate. And Rodriguez thought of the wars, for the thought of Serafina made him sad, and his rejection of the life of the forest saddened him too; so he sought to draw from the future the comfort that he could not get from the past.

They mounted again and rode again for three hours, till they saw very far off on a hill a village that Miguel had told them was fifty miles from the forest.

“We rest the night there,” said Rodriguez pointing, though it was yet seven or eight miles away.

“All the Saints be praised,” said Morano.

They dismounted then and went on foot, for the horses were weary. At evening they rode slowly into the village. At an inn whose hospitable looks were as cheerfully unlike the Inn of the Dragon and Knight as possible, they demanded lodging for all four. They went first to the stable, and when the horses had been handed over to the care of a groom they returned to the inn, and mine host and Rodriguez had to help Morano up the three steps to the door, for he had walked nine miles that day and ridden fifty and he was too weary to climb the steps.

And later Rodriguez sat down alone to his supper at a table well and variously laden, for the doors of mine hosts’ larder were opened wide in his honour; but Rodriguez ate sparingly, as do weary men.

And soon he sought his bed. And on the old echoing stairs as he and mine host ascended they met Morano leaning against the wall. What shall I say of Morano? Reader, your sympathy is all ready to go out to the poor, weary man. He does not entirely deserve it, and shall not cheat you of it. Reader, Morano was drunk. I tell you this sorry truth rather than that the knave should have falsely come by your pity. And yet he is dead now over three hundred years, having had his good time to the full. Does he deserve your pity on that account? Or your envy? And to whom or what would you give it? Well, anyhow, he deserved no pity for being drunk. And yet he was thirsty, and too tired to eat, and sore in need of refreshment, and had had no more cause to learn to shun good wine than he had had to shun the smiles of princesses; and there the good wine had been, sparkling beside him merrily.

And now, why now, fatigued as he had been an hour or so ago (but time had lost its tiresome, restless meaning), now he stood firm while all things and all men staggered.

“Morano,” said Rodriguez as he passed that foolish figure, “we go sixty miles to-morrow.”

“Sixty, master?” said Morano. “A hundred: two hundred.”

“It is best to rest now,” said his master.

“Two hundred, master, two hundred,” Morano replied.

And then Rodriguez left him, and heard him muttering his challenge to distance still, “Two hundred, two hundred,” till the old stairway echoed with it.

And so he came to his chamber, of which he remembered little, for sleep lurked there and he was soon with dreams, faring further with them than my pen can follow.