1.

At the forest border, Anna fell in with a large, clamorous crowd. One man within the crowd, a feather in his cap bobbing above the sea of people, recognized her while she was still a considerable distance apart and, with an accusatory finger, pointed her out to the rest of the people.

“She’s the one I saw!” he brayed. “The green overcoat – it’s just the same!”

There was some excitement and disorder among the people, as they followed the man’s finger. A little knot of officials and village elders detached themselves from the rest of the group, and approached her.

“Ma’am,” one of them said, impersonally, laying his hands on her wrist, “come with us.”

“But what have I done?” Anna demanded, hardly able to believe her eyes and ears. It all seemed a dream to her.

“Witch! Witchery!” screeched some particularly strident voices in the crowd, which was growing larger and more confused by the second.

The man, his hand still latched onto her wrist, looked behind, conferred for a moment, nodded, and turned back. “Your husband is missing, Anna, and you’re…well, you see how it is.”

“Black foul-hearted she-devil!” a man barked, and as some mad hyena in the crowd tried to rush her, but was held back by other hands, Anna decided to comply.

“What is happening to me…” she thought to herself. “Where can I turn?”

The man signaled to someone behind him, and together they apprehended her, partway dragging her heels over the roads and past the townhouses, taverns, and squares to the empty jail. In a dank, cold, and filthy cell, they locked her up until such time as the town council determined what to do with her. Anna, in her white calico servant’s dress – now that her incriminating green cloak had been taken from her for examination and evidence – crumpled onto the ice-cold floor of her cell. The whistling that used to follow her steps now grew into some huge and terrible cacophonous roaring that circled around and around inside her head, until she could no longer think or move.

“This is the worst. There is no worse,” she thought. “This is the abyss. Someone help me.”

That Saturday night, as the town elders deliberated and discussed the three most important topics – namely, the planting of the orchard, the disappearance of the young man, and the arrest & incarceration of his wife, the only suspect – the night winds blew wildly outside. In the air and in the gorges between the mountain and valley, there was a terrible pandemonium, a crashing and howling through the shutters and rafters of the houses, up through the trees, and all the way up to the barred doors of the cruel lord’s castle, knocking on the gates all through the night – like some uninvited guest. Barbaric music rose up through the floorboards and stones of the houses, through the leaves of the trees, through all the streets.

Everyone, young and old, listened closely to this new, windborne music, which captivated and imprinted itself upon their minds and souls. Some say they saw visions, ghosts, and demons on the storm-winds, and others saw torches instead of lightning-bolts, and others a great, seventy-foot tall apparition on the crest of the mountain, a shadow in the shape of a woman. The lightning flared and flashed, and the thunder rolled and rumbled. The clouds themselves crossed swords and battled together.

And that night, some say (though by no means all), a visitor came to Anna in her cell, and gave her the message that we all know today.

The next morning, all the men in the village woke up from unquiet dreams, dreams in which a giantess, dressed in a green cloak, descended from the mountain and stole them from their windows during their sleep, forcing them to worship her as a goddess, enslaving them, and alternately terrorizing and petting them. Many woke up troubled, in the middle of the night, believing they were inside her hot shoe, and condemned for their lives – and beyond their lives – to serve her as loyal foot-slaves, either willingly or unwillingly. They woke up in a rank sweat that smelled to them, for a few brief moments, like her feet.

Others dreamed that this strange and wandering giantess had converted them each into her pussy-pet, and that during the day, she dropped them in a little pouch on the inside of her odorous garments, rarely washed so that, by breathing in her personal smell, and servicing her daily, her womanhood would come not only to represent the world, but to take the world’s place in their lives.

There were others whom she kept in a jar in a  little pantry, while she was away during the day. Coming back in the evenings from the fields, she would twist open the glass, and peer inside, looking for a nice refreshment after her work, her sweaty hair pulled back in a bun. In his dream, as she selected him and him alone, he approached her red, overpowering lips, and as he looked up into her face, was suddenly appalled to see there not some strange and anonymous woman, but the eyes and lips of his own wife (sleeping peacefully beside him in their bed). He passed through the ruby gates, and woke up terrified.

Some got up from their beds, after their unpleasant dreams, walked to the window, and opened the shutters while the storm raged outside. Immediately, a foul and poisonous wind blew through the room, sealing their eyes shut, and swelling them up for hours or days afterward.


2.

The leaves of the trees were limp with rainwater as the sun rose again over the mountain. Some of the tallest trees had collapsed during the night, uprooted by the stormy winds. People peeked out of their houses, timidly. And most of the men, young and old – or all of them – looked up at their wives, sisters, mothers, and friends with strange, shameful looks, as though conscious of a secret, and uncertain whether the other could read or already knew his secret thoughts.

A scout who left for the mountain, early the next morning, came back in the afternoon and reported to the astonished men that all the apple trees had been planted. The orchard was finished. There are some who also claim that the message was given to the messenger by a woman in green, wandering through the terraced gardens. 

That same afternoon, as Anna languished in her prison  cell, one of the castle knights rode into the village square, and exhorted the people to hear him. A crowd gathered around, led his horse to the tethering rail, and waited for him to speak.

The knight, standing on a wooden pedestal in the middle of the square, took off his helmet – and the crowd gasped. Long rolls of black hair streamed over her shoulders, down over the iron plates. 

“A woman!” someone cried out. Her eyes smoldered darkly, as she wet her lips and prepared to speak.

“Yes, I thank you,” she replied, “for distinguishing me from a man. I’ve come from the castle on the mountain, to extend on behalf of my good lord his true and sincere gratitude for your work on his orchard. He is well-pleased.”

A few inquisitive voices spoke out among the throng. “Who are you? I’ve never seen you before.”

“A friend of your master’s,” the woman knight answered.

“On what authority do you speak to us?”

“On your master’s authority.”

There was a murmuring among the people. Some eyed the knight aslant and asquint, turning back to talk in suspicious undertones with his fellow.

“Do you carry his insignia?” A different voice asked.

“No, I carry the crest of own family.”

“Which is?”

At this impertinent question, the light in her eyes flickered a few times, and her voice took on a new authority.

“I hear from the high castle that there is a woman shut up in your jail. What crime has she committed?”

But now the people turned against her, and were more reluctant to show her their respect. No one felt obliged to respond to this question, and the crowd was silent. Her face blazed up again – as a fire does for a few seconds after a dirty pile of leaves and twigs has been added to it – and then subsided. She decided to change her tack.

“My friends,” she began. “I admit, I did not come on behalf of your lord. I came to free you from his tyranny. On the other side of this mountain, an army waits to besiege the castle on the hill.  I make only two requests. First, when your lord conscripts you to fight for him tomorrow in battle, do not heed his call. And second, I ask to be given a private audience with the woman you’ve locked up – locked up unjustly, I feel. Do as I say, and you will gain your freedom. Oppose me, and you will be opposed. That is all.”

The townspeople conferred together, and the low murmuring and sideways glances continued. After a few minutes, they gave her their decision.

“We, the people of this village, reject both your proposals. We shall not aid an unknown knight – much less a woman whose nobility is in question – in an attack upon our lord’s castle. Though we love our lord little, we love and esteem you not at all. Second, we will not grant you the conference you desire with a woman now under the custody of our town council – much less deliver into your hands a woman suspected of witchery, before her innocence has been proven to the satisfaction of our court.”

The knight’s eyes, on hearing this decision, burned more darkly, and with a more sinister fire than was usual. She marched back to her horse, swung her legs over its back and mounted. Turning it around by the bridle, she faced the crowd.

“Ungrateful wretches!” she shouted. “If you could only recognize your defenders when you see them! Who do you think brought the orchard to the tyrant’s garden? Who do you think has already conquered, and now resides in your lord’s castle? I do! Now that you have rejected me, and rejected the messenger, whom you now keep in shameful condition in your prison, you will know what it means to have me as your enemy, and not your protectress. Send a delegation to me tomorrow at my castle, and I will give you my terms.”

With that as her final word, she put on her helmet, and spurred her horse out of town, through the forest, and up the mountain.
 
Many of the townspeople felt cold  shivers run down their spines. They didn’t know why. In any case, they decided to send their ten elders up to the castle, on the following morning, to see what might be done.


3.

That night, gentle breezes rippled the leaves of the forest trees, and the stars in the sky burned with a quiet flame, as they shone down on the town. Two men walked around the meeting-house with holy water, dribbling a consecrated circle in the dust, because Anna was held there – and if the first scout’s report was in fact true, then she must indeed be considered a witch. The sound of laughter, and of singing, as of some long procession, emanated from outside the town, from the forest, the hillsides, and even (it seemed) from the dark castle on the mountaintop. 

Meanwhile, in the jail cell, Anna sat in a corner, her thoughts, like tiny candle-flames, alternately snuffing out and rekindling, as she thought of her husband.

But when morning come, and the sun reappeared out of the mouth of the abyss beyond the edge of the world, ten peasants took ten horses and rode up the mountainside, along the forest path, to the castle.

Only a few servants survived the takeover, and only a few of the ones who remained chose to stay on in the castle as servants or footmen. So for twenty minutes the ten picked men of the delegation were forced to stand outside the walls, with their horses, until someone came to the castle gate and unlatched it – and it was a woman who welcomed them, and let them inside. That was the first surprise.

When they entered the main hall, the tables and boards were richly spread with goblets of wine, venison, boar’s meat, and bear steak. That was the second surprise. Several women, a few of whom they recognized as the wives of servants, knights, and noblemen, sat by the long, oaken table drinking, laughing, making good cheer, and generally having a good time together. That was the fourth surprise.

The fifth surprise came when the woman knight advanced toward them, armor-less and cordial, in a billowing green gown. She welcomed them, and drew them over, past the table, full of convivial talk, laughing, and the lavish display of food, up the stone steps (steps which they themselves had chiseled and measured), to the small library, furnished with eleven chairs, and well-lit from the south during the afternoons. Please, she bid them, take a seat wherever you like. The men thanked her. Each picked a chair, and waited for her to speak.

She sat down herself, and then looked them over, one at a time, very carefully.

“First,” she said, “I must tell you a story. Yesterday, I met your lord on the edge of the forest, when he was riding with his falcon; and as he rode, his dagger jolted back and forth in its sheath. I stepped out of the forest, and hailed him from a distance. My lord, I said, as he came nearer, and I heard the jingling of his spurs, give me aid against the cruel and cold-hearted man who persecutes me. He unsheathed his dagger, and leapt down from his horse. Where is he? asked he, whirling around in circles, and craning his neck toward the forest. Follow my steps, I begged him, and I’ll show you. And so I set off running toward this very castle, he behind me ahorse, and not very far behind.

“When we had come to the gates, I again beseeched him, saying, My lord, your great valor alone is proof against such a villainous tyrant. He lives in this castle. Wait, and let me knock at the gate now, for entrance. Do not leave me. The lord, of course, stared at me with wide, cowlike eyes, wondering perhaps if I were some madwoman or else – well, it doesn’t matter now. Because the gate opened to me, just like this…”

Opening her closed palm, she revealed their little master, cowering against the light, and clutching her pinky finger for safety. One of the peasant men stood up, staggering, and stumbled backwards to the door. A shaft of light passed from the woman in green to him – and whistled over his body. He instantly shrank to a couple inches.

“No,” the woman said. “You’ll stay here. All but one of you.”

“I don’t understand,” the man on the far left fretted, a quaver his voice like a loose fiddle string. “Why would you do this?”

Silently pulling back her dress, and shoving the man, with a quick slap, up between her ass-cheeks, she answered: “For two reasons. First, because the one man you sent me attempted, and failed, to cheat and deceive me. The orchard was paid for with his life. As for the deception alone, I would have ignored that slight against my honor and dignity, if you hadn’t also rejected my demands of yesterday, on behalf of the poor man’s wife and children, and the welfare of your fellow-citizens. 

“Therefore, I have come to the opinion that you are unfit to govern this town. And because you are unfit, I have decided that, until the governing council has transitioned into other, more impartial and compassionate hands, I will govern the town myself, and give it my protection – but I will accomplish this by my own laws, and with my own institutions. Since, in this case, the women have committed no offense against me – indeed, all offenses have been committed against them, in the person of one woman –  they will come to inherit the positions of power. New ceremonies will be introduced, in keeping with my new and just rule. Anna, to whom I will return her husband, on condition that she accept my demands, and save her hometown from further ruin – ruin that would be bound to follow if any other lord should come to re-occupy this castle – Anna will tell you the rest.

“But now,” she said, her face becoming stern, “it is time to deal with the ten of you.”

She pointed to the man second from the right, a middle-aged fellow with short, straight brownish hair. She ordered him to approach her. He glanced around briefly at the other men – and then stood up, shaking visibly in all his joints.

“Closer,” the woman said. He moved closer, about four feet away from her.

“Now kneel down,” she commanded. He looked back at the other men, helplessly.

“Don’t look around. Look in my eyes.” He did as she told, quaking and quivering in every muscle.

“Now,” she explained, “I will tell you what you must do. You must go back to the village – you alone. And the moment you arrive, you must free that woman from her cell. If anyone tries to prevent you from carrying out this task, show them my seal. The woman – Anna – will give you further information. That’s all. You may leave.”

The man left the room in a fog, hardly able to comprehend what was happening to him.

Then she spoke again, to the others. “As for the rest of you, I’m afraid you’ll never see your town again.”

Clapping her hands together, twice, the twin doors of the library opened with a rush of skirts and nine raggedly dressed girls.

As they lined up at the back of the room, there was a sudden, audible crunching sound, and one of them cried out. “Oh!” she yelped,  and picked up the worn-out shoe-sole of her right foot with both hands, inspecting the sole. “Oh, it’s one of the elders! Oh, I’m sorry, I’m very sorry!” 

Pale-faced and openmouthed, unable to speak a word, the eight elders of the village council stared at the servant girls.

“Eight of you,” said the woman in green, “will leave this room new women, joined with new men under the new marriage yoke. You, my dear, unfortunately, will have to wait another day. Please show her out.” The unfortunate girl left the room, sniffling quietly, and disappointed.

Some of the men protested. “I have a wife! And children!” 

“No speaking. There was only one man among you who could return to his wife today – one man whose merits match hers – and that was my messenger, who has already left. Each of you has been judged unworthy – and these fine and generous women behind you, who have no house or husband to speak of, the poor, orphaned wards of this castle, will, I’m sure, give you whatever warm homes they possess. They’re happy. And because they’re happy, you must learn to be happy also. These are the terms. The old are annulled, and your wives, tonight, will already be seeking new husbands.”

She thought for a moment. “Call back the other girl,” she told the young maidservant nearest the door.

When the poor maid had returned to the room, nervously, her eyes bright red with weeping, she stood by the door with her head bowed.

“Daughter,” she said. “I have changed my mind. Come forward.” As the sad-faced servant maid came forward, the lady in green reached behind her robes, and plucked the old, tyrannical master from her asshole with a wet plop. “Clean him off, and wear him in your shoes until he becomes pliant, obedient, and kind,” she ordered.

The girl, overjoyed by her turn in fortune, restrained her desire to embrace this woman, her mistress & benefactrix, and ran back to the door, bowing a dozen times as she went. Though the eight elders, to say truth, despised and hated their old lord as deeply and as much as any one man is capable of despising and hating another, they couldn’t help feeling a degree of sympathy for him and his fate – as the poor girl took off her leathery shoe, and carefully, gently packed him inside with her fingers, whispering something to him as she did so. The door was shut behind her, and it seemed that their master’s cruel and tyrannical life, his proud saga, had come to an inglorious end. In this way, the proud are humbled, and the humble exalted. The lady in green continued to speak.

“The corruptible force in your village was a man – a lord. Now that he is underfoot – so to speak – I see that the old cycle of oppression and suffering, new men and their new crimes, is coming to a stop. Through time, through history, I’ve learned that this is the best, the most peaceful arrangement by which human society can be constituted. 

“Whenever you worship one of these poor girls, you pay me reverence also. Though you don’t know who I am, and you never will. But do as I say, and your village will prosper forever.”

At that point, the eight remaining girls stepped forward, and took the hands of the elders, one by one.

But now, said the old woman, interrupting her story, let us turn back toward the village, where Anna is waiting for her husband impatiently. Eight new weddings are being planned, and I’m sure you all would hate to miss them as much as I would.