The Iron Tree: Book One of The Crowthistle Chronicles

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  For the remainder of the evening, the young man watched Lilith covertly, noting that she was doing the same to him. Yet there seemed no opportunity for them to engage in further conversation. His mouth continued to utter words at the appropriate moments; his arms and legs continued to obey him; his pulse resumed, albeit at a greater rate—but nothing was the same for Jarred. He looked at the faces of those around him but saw them not. He heard their pronouncements but did not listen to them. A loose strand of hair tickled his cheek, but he was numb to it. All his focus, all his intention, was fixed on images of the blue-eyed damsel, and those visions uplifted him with an exhilaration he had never experienced. He felt delirious, weightless, as if he floated in the air above the wooden platform. He could only hope he would find another opportunity to speak with her, even to catch a glimpse of that fine-boned face, that dense and wispy cloud of midnight hair, that slender form.

  Yet he hoped in vain.

  The evening continued peaceably until, as the time approached for the gathering to disperse, an appalling shriek echoed across the water. Heads turned toward the shore, where a hoary willow leaned out over the lake, its gnarled roots digging deep among the ferns and mosses. A pair of baleful yellow lamps glinted from the new-budded withies.

  “’Tis a confounded fellcat!” hissed somebody. “It has taken a bird, a young plumed egret, methinks.”

  Self-assured, the predator began to flow lithely down the tree trunk. From its maw, vanilla white wings spread like two ethereal fans, delicately traceried. There came one last shrill cry of agony and despair, then silence.

  “Those cursed beasts!” rasped Fishbourne wrathfully. “Cruelly they slaughter the birds and small creatures. They rob our larders and threaten our very babes in their cradles. And ’tis shrewd they are, too shrewd to be caught in our traps or pulled down by the hounds.”

  No sooner had these vilifications been spat from Fishbourne’s tongue than a slingshot appeared in Jarred’s hand. He whirled the weapon and let its missile fly. Faster than a blink, a stone shot across the water. One of the yellow lamps winked out. The fellcat dropped soundlessly from the willow ; both predator and prey disappeared beneath the inky water. The first ripples had hardly begun to open out from their grave when a second stone was loosed toward a shivering in the leaves, and another animal came crashing down, howling gutturally. It thrashed about in the fronds and fiddleheads until a third missile stilled it.

  The marshmen were staring at Jarred in open-mouthed astonishment.

  “I’ll wager that sally tree is fifty paces away if ’tis an inch!” cried Ottersworth. He was about to congratulate the young marksman, but catching a glimpse of Neasán Willowfoil’s darkening face, he thought better of it.

  Willowfoil stepped up to Jarred. “You pledged your word you had given all your weapons into our keeping. What men of honor are you, to be hiding in your pocket a weapon so small we would not see it, yet clearly lethal?”

  Jarred met him eye to eye. “I suggest you do not question our honor,” he said levelly. “Recall, it was our blades and bows you demanded, our blades and bows only. And those, you have in your keeping.”

  From the corner of his eye, Jarred saw Tsafrir’s hand automatically reach for a sword that was no longer at his side. Gamliel and Michaiah had tautened to watchfulness.

  Willowfoil’s expression remained unaltered. For an instant, Jarred thought the marshman would strike him, and he prepared to endure the blow without flinching, but all at once Willowfoil gave ground, threw back his head, and laughed aloud.

  “The southerner is right! Upon my word, ’tis right he is!”

  He clapped Jarred heartily on the shoulder. “Pray pardon me. I can see that Ashqalêthans are not only men of honor, they are excellent marksmen into the bargain!”

  General laughter bubbled.

  Relieved, Jarred grinned. “Aye,” he said, “and we are the first to admit it.” He sought the blue-eyed Lilith in the crowd. Catching her eye at last, he looked away quickly, lest she should think him a pining fool. His heart threshed like a flail.

  “’Tis modest they are too, I note,” said Chieftain Stillwater goodhumoredly. He turned to one of the men. “Fishbourne, go ye and bring back the carcasses.” With a nod, Fishbourne departed. Then the Marsh-Chieftain said, “Master Jarred, you have hit at least one of the beasts through the eye. The pelt will be unmarked—a rare treasure. ’Tis soft and thick they are. They fetch a high price at market, especially if not marred by an arrow. No natives of the marsh are these creatures—they were brought here from the wild fells some years ago. Traveling traders were passing through. They brought with them two kits, caged insecurely. The kits got loose and escaped into the marsh, where they thrived on our fish and birds, multiplying swiftly. Cunning are they—once one of them has been trapped, no other will ever succumb to the same method of entrapment. We have exhausted invention and must now rely on marksmanship to control their numbers—yet they are shy, seldom seen, and their numbers grow. They are fewer by two this night, and for that we are grateful. But now, let us be making an end to this chin-wagging. No doubt you are weary, having come from a hard road. It is time we were bidding you good night. Come, you shall sleep in my house this night. Will you share one more cup before we seek our beds?”

  “You are too generous, sir,” said Tsafrir. “We must regretfully decline, or our heads will be so sore tomorrow that we will wish to crawl along the road rather than ride.”

  As they prepared to leave the cruinniú, a second stridor ripped across the night. Yet it was different.

  “Some other beast, mayhap,” Tsafrir said to Stillwater. There was doubt in his tone.

  “No beast,” the Chieftain replied cursorily. “’Tis no beast, but a harmless madman who lives at Marsh’s Edge.”

  Jarred looked again for Lilith, but she was gone. Then the night was as hollow as an empty shell.

  Next morning a fleecy mist lay as intimately as a lover on the marsh. Water and sky blurred together, soft and pale as moonlight filtered through teased lint. It was like being inside a pearl.

  The travelers broke their Sun’s Day fast with the family of Maghnus Stillwater. His daughter, Cuiva, served them with fried duck eggs, watercress, and lotus-corm bread.

  Yaadosh groaned. “Smells like chicken,” he said. He sat glowering, not touching the food, occasionally rubbing his pate.

  As they dined, talk turned to trade. The travelers needed to replace the stores and the horse that had been lost in ambush. Jarred’s saddle too had been torn to pieces under the impact of the boulder.

  “We cannot be providing a mount for you,” said Stillwater, “nor riding equipment either. We of the marsh own very few beasts of burden, and all are required for work. Besides, they are only moor ponies and could not match the pace of your fine-thewed desert horses. But in any case, let us see what you have to offer by the way of trade.”

  The travelers carried with them several items they had intended to barter for food and shelter if necessary: piquant spices, dried fruits, exquisitely decorated leatherwork, the curious, colorful beads that were the specialty of the glassmakers of Jhallavad. After breakfast, several other marsh families congregated at the house of Stillwater, keen to observe the foreigners for the last time. Eagerly the marshfolk haggled for the spices and fruits, for the fare harvested from the marsh was bland to the taste. They gazed longingly at the leatherwork and beads but could not afford such luxuries.

  “For the girl with the rosy cheeks,” said the colorful magician Michaiah, handing a bracelet of glass beads to Cuiva Stillwater.

  She drew breath sharply, taking the ornament in her swift fingers, where it glittered like a chain of dewdrops. Her heart-shaped face was bent over the dazzle.

  “Cuiva, give it back,” said Stillwater firmly; then, to Michaiah, “Good sir, we take no payment for our hospitality. That is our custom.”

  “It is no payment,” said Michaiah, “but a gift.”

  “May I be keeping it, Fa
ther?” begged Cuiva.

  Stillwater pondered. Finally he nodded. “The gift is accepted. Thank you.”

  After bargains were struck to the satisfaction of all, the travelers made ready to depart. Jarred prolonged the procedure as much as possible, continually glancing around, hoping to see Lilith. A fierce ache had lodged itself deep in his chest. On that morning it seemed to him that no birds sang, the leaves of the marsh had faded to the color of dust, and the waters, once glimmering and alive, now brooded as sullenly as leaden sheets under a sightless sky. The memory of her was ever before him; all things else receded into a dim distance. He felt he must surely die of deprivation if he must leave the marsh without one more glimpse of her.

  As they took their leave of Stillwater’s household, he finally caught sight of the object of his fascination leaning on the parapet of a bridge, and his heart turned over like a gasping fish. He smiled directly at her and imagined she returned the smile, but could not be certain at that distance. Blood thundered in his temples as he turned away to depart with his companions. He forced himself to appear nonchalant and not to look back.

  Captain Willowfoil and another watchman led the Ashqalêthans and their horses in single file along the hidden ways between thickets of tall and graceful papyrus reeds, their dark green stems crowned by mops of dangling leaf strands. Northward they went, toward the outskirts of the marsh.

  As she walked back to the cottage, Lilith encountered Eoin.

  “’Tis a grand day,” said her stepbrother, “ain’t it, Lilith?”

  “Not so grand,” she replied.

  “Why not?”

  “Behold, the sky is overcast and gloomy. It is Summer—why must clouds trouble us in the sunny season?”

  “They will clear,” said Eoin, striding beside her along the boardwalk. “Meanwhile, we can rejoice that the foreigners are gone, taking with them their stinking horses and their drunken lack of manners. If it were not for the sake of tradition, Stillwater would have thrown them out, I’ve no doubt.”

  Lilith rounded on him. “Fie!” she said indignantly. “How can you be speaking so of our guests? ’Tis well-mannered they were, and generous too. They gave to Cuiva a surpassing gift as a token of their thanks to her household. All of us were amused last night by their conversation and their fun, and today Chieftain Stillwater has two thick fellcat pelts pegged out on the drying-frames.”

  “You’re only after speaking thus because the stone-thrower thought fit to flatter you with his oily foreign lies. Come now, Lily, are you not old enough to be seeing through such deception?”

  “I am old enough to be pushing you into Bogmere,” she retorted, “if you keep on with your claptrap.”

  He laughed, picked her up by the waist, and swung her around. Her feet flew out over the side of the boardwalk, skimming the surface of the lagoon and disturbing the leafy rafts that floated there, strewn with tiny yellow buttons of flowers.

  “Put me down!” she cried. “Look, ’tis Cuiva who comes hither. She’ll tell everyone of your foolishness.”

  Eoin placed Lilith gently on her feet. “What cheer, Cuiva!” he said with a wave. “I’ve got to be going—the eels are waiting!” And he ran off.

  Cuiva came up to her friend. Flickering spangles encircled her wrist.

  “What was he up to?” she questioned, frowning. “Throwing you about like that! Are you still in one piece?”

  Lilith nodded. “’Tis like an upial cub he is,” she said, “rough and resolute. Yet his intentions are not wicked.” She added, “The Ashqalêthan bracelet becomes you.”

  “Gramercie!” Cuiva held up her wrist and admired the play of light on the glass baubles. “But you seem downcast.”

  “If so,” replied Lilith, “’tis not the fault of Eoin.”

  Cuiva slapped at a mosquito that was about to drill her forearm. “I can guess who is to blame.”

  After a pause, Lilith said, “I wish he had not been obliged to leave.”

  “Ah, he was a comely one,” said Cuiva appreciatively. “One who moved with the poise and nimbleness of a fellcat, yet having the face of a prince.”

  “Perhaps not a prince,” said Lilith in amusement. “It is not known how comely the infant Prince Uabhar might be, but I have heard that the brothers of King Maolmórdha are not altogether pleasing to look upon.”

  “Yet it is wondrous how a title and riches can be improving the looks of a man,” said Cuiva, heaving a melodramatic sigh.

  For a time they walked on in companionable silence while Lilith pondered upon the meeting with Jarred on the cruinniú last night. She had certainly not been indifferent to the way the firelight snagged in his hair, drizzling it with syrupy highlights. Neither had she been oblivious of the tapered lines and the long, taut curve of his body. On the contrary—his nearness had almost been suffocating. It had been an effort for her to speak. The impact of his presence had been a delicious torment, one she would fain undergo again. Her mind constantly returned to their meeting. Each time she pictured him, a tremor ran through her.

  “Be not downhearted,” said Cuiva as they ducked beneath a blowing curtain of willow leaves. “You will be forgetting him in time. There will be others like him, or better.”

  “’Tis kind you are, Cui,” returned Lilith, giving the ghost of a smile, “but a poor pretender.” She returned her attention to bleaker matters. “Alas, if it were only the handsome stranger who caused me to sigh, ’tis a happier gosling I would be.”

  “’Tis your grandfather’s plight, I daresay,” said Cuiva gently. “Does he fail further?”

  “’Tis terrible,” confessed Lilith, tears springing to her eyes. “He suffers so. Worse still is seeing my mother’s torment, forced as she is to observe his decline into sheer madness and degradation. I fear for her.”

  As they reached the Mosswell cottage, Cuiva asked hesitantly, “What is it that frightens him? Why does he cry out so wildly?”

  “I would rather not be telling,” said Lilith tightly, “for it terrifies me too.”

  The gray fume of indefinable dread that always hovered close by now clenched itself a little more tightly around her heart.

  North of the marsh, a mild easterly wind blew away the low clouds. That afternoon the sky cleared to a hard, flat expanse of cobalt. Shafts of amber sunlight warmed the faces of the Ashqalêthan travelers while they progressed through the wetlands. The quacking of teal and mallard resounded from the reed beds and shingle banks. As they traveled along the damp and devious paths, Jarred was unable to keep from musing about the marsh girl. He saw her in every moving reflection, heard her name sung by the voice of every stream, felt the imaginary caress of her hand in the feathertouch of the breeze on his skin.

  It took a full day to cross the narrowest region of the marsh and reach the borders. There, where thickets of pipewood grew, the watchmen solemnly returned the travelers’ weapons to them and the two groups parted company. Having indicated to their visitors the firm, ascending path, the marshmen slipped silently back amongst the luxuriant leaves and were instantly lost to view.

  Sunfall approached. The Ashqalêthan riders jogged along a track that climbed slowly among the hills. Beech woodlands crowded in on both sides of the road. They were one horse short; Nasim still rode pillion with his brother.

  Few words had been spoken since they left the marsh, but now that they were reaching higher ground and felt that they had put sufficient distance behind them, pent-up tempers were released.

  Tsafrir spoke angrily to Yaadosh.

  “How could you think of speaking against the king of Slievmordhu when we were camped at his very doorstep!”

  “I beg you, do not shout,” groaned Yaadosh. “My head aches yet. Your voices are knives through my skull.”

  “What’s more, your drunken bragging places us all in danger by divulging the existence of such a valuable token as Jarred’s amulet!” remonstrated Tsafrir, sparing no mercy for Yaadosh’s suffering.

  “How can that be?” asked t
he big man, bewildered. “No man can hurt Jarred while he wears it!”

  “My friends can be harmed,” said Jarred. “To save a hostage, I would exchange the amulet!”

  Yaadosh was silent, ashamed. Then he said, “I have wronged you, Jarred, and all this good company. I am sorry.” He bowed his head.

  Conversation ceased.

  As they made camp that evening, Jarred’s gaze turned back toward the direction of the marsh. Undulating country intervened—he could see nothing of the lowlands. Only a high-flying eagle might have spied the flowerwreathed woman who ran up Lizardback Ridge, her hair and garments flying.

  Atop the spine of the ridge, the mother of Lilith stood as straight as a young tree. The world opened at her feet. She looked across to the long lavender smudge of the horizon, and then down at the cliff face below her feet, with its trio of reaching ash trees and their sprouting sprays of mistletoe.

  She was singing again, but stretching and compressing the song with a broken, random beat. It was a ditty she had composed herself in an attempt to avert panic during the long hours of the night when she lay awake, listening.

  “I sing to banish that which is not there.

  Unrhythmic melody shall overbear

  The steps which cannot possibly be heard

  Above the loudness of each lyric word.

  To ban delusion, fancy, nightmare, all, I sing.

  And as I pass, I pluck the tall

  Bright poppies of Midsummer, red as wine,

  And honeysuckle in my hair I twine

  With daisies, harebells, scarlet pimpernel.

  Blue scabious, pink clover, asphodel

  Shall with their colors cheer me, and their scent

  Infuse me, casting out my discontent.

  Music and blossom, aid me now! Delete

  Forever that which follows with no feet—