The Iron Tree: Book One of The Crowthistle Chronicles

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  The son of Earnán was not to be outdone. His etiquette comparably scaled new heights.

  On a warm, sunny War’s Day when Lilith and Cuiva went out to cut withies for basketmaking, both youths accompanied them. Withypool lay at the heart of a low-lying islet and could not be reached by boat. The cutters must moor their vessel at the island’s shore and walk the rest of the way along a series of causeways. Here marvelous dragonflies darted, armored in polished bronze and gold, their fretted wings a mere shimmer on the air.

  Withypool itself was shallow and muddy at this time of year. On the surrounding banks, long, straight branches of osier willow had been planted in rows. Supple green shoots had sprouted, and these were now ready to be harvested.

  Wielding their broad knives, the youths chopped off the osier withies at ground level, stripping them of leaves, which they cast aside. The girls collected the withies and tied them into bundles with nettle twine. As they worked, Jarred could not help noticing Eoin’s habit of constantly jostling and obstructing Lilith. He would brush against her as he reached for the next cane or suddenly step back just as she passed behind him, so that they collided. The Ashqalêthan noted the way the marshman grinned at Lilith as she scolded him—“You and your big feet, always getting in the way!” Jarred’s pulse raced as he strove to govern his desire to knock Eoin to the ground.

  By judicious maneuvering, he managed to position himself between Lilith and her stepbrother. He chopped off five more canes and passed them to Lilith, striking up a conversation. “I cannot understand how such dainty hands can bend these whips of iron sufficiently to weave basketwork.”

  “Oh, these new-cut withies must be made pliant before we can use them,” explained Lilith, smoothing back a wisp of hair that wafted across her cheek like a raven’s feather. “They must remain under running water for three months. After that, the bark is peeled off. That is when the hard work of weaving starts.”

  “You ought to be piling the withies in the middle of the kitchen floor one night,” said Cuiva flippantly. “With any luck, the morning light will show you a pile of baskets finished by the urisk!”

  “Ha!” snorted Eoin. “When women learn sense and sparrows sprout antlers.”

  Cuiva flicked him incisively with the tip of an osier. In revenge he tugged a lock of her hair.

  “Does your household have an urisk?” Jarred asked Lilith.

  She nodded. “In sooth. Every evening Eolacha and I leave a bowl of best milk and a baked bannock for him by the hearth, but he does nothing about the place and he’s rarely seen. Sometimes the milk and cake are left untouched; then I do not even know if he is with us anymore. Cui loves to tease us about him—our helpful household wight!” She tossed a handful of willow leaves at Cuiva. They settled on the girl’s headscarf, catching in loose tresses like slim green spearheads.

  Cuiva laughed, but a scowl darkened Eoin’s long-jawed face as he covertly eyed Jarred’s close proximity to Lilith. He swung his broad knife savagely at the withies, severing three at one swipe. Loudly he said, “We have harvested enough of these sticks for now—any more and the punt will be foundering beneath their weight.” He slid his blade back into the sheath buckled at his hip.

  “Aye, we’d best be moving on,” agreed Lilith, reviewing the lengthening shadows gathering about the large pile of osier bundles that lay on the shore. “’Tis well past noon, and I must be bringing my grandfather his dinner before the day is much older.”

  “Your grandfather,” said Jarred. “How fares he?”

  Shutters slammed behind Lilith’s eyes. Abruptly it came to her that she had never discussed her grandfather with Jarred. What might the young man think of her when he discovered she cared for an aged relative afflicted with dementia or lunacy? Would he pity or despise her?

  Blood beat against her temples. What if Jarred rejected her? She could not bear to lose him. Yet there was no choice: she could not bring herself to lie to him.

  “My grandfather is old,” she said hesitantly, “and he fares ill. Indeed, his wits have entirely deserted him. “She raised her chin to meet Jarred’s gaze, and he thought twin shafts of sapphire had pierced him. The shutters were open now. He perceived her vulnerability and ached to protect her.

  “I know,” he answered simply. “Odhrán Rushford told me. He said your grandfather seemed more hale on some days than others. I merely wondered if he had been well lately.” His look said, I will not betray you.

  Lilith smiled like the morning. Her eyes replied, Now I trust you sincerely.

  Her mouth said, “Indeed, lately he has not fared so ill.” She added as an afterthought, “Only, his bedsores are troubling him.”

  “Then I shall give him a fellcat pelt to lie on.”

  “That is kindness indeed. Gramercie!”

  “Allow me to help you pick up your load,” Eoin blared overloudly in Jarred’s ear.

  “I’faith, you are too kind—but pray, do not trouble yourself,” Jarred said, briskly gathering withy bundles.

  They hoisted on their backs as many loads as they could carry and set off on the path toward the punt.

  A section of one walkway was extremely rudimentary, being no more than a series of planks laid end to end and nailed to two rows of stumps driven into the mud. It was bereft of handrails and so narrow that only one person at a time might cross the large expanse of stinking mud it spanned.

  The two damsels started across it first, laughing as they balanced their bundles across their shoulders, carefully placing their bare feet on the treacherous path. Jarred and Eoin arrived at the bottleneck at the same time. Immediately, the southerner stood aside.

  “Pray, go first,” he said, affecting a bow despite the weight of the bundles he carried.

  “Nay, not at all,” said the marshman, smiling politely. “You first, prithee.”

  “No, no, I insist.”

  “Come now, surely you would not be having me appear churlish!”

  “It is I who would deserve to be called churlish if I were even to dream of pushing ahead.”

  “Are you saying,” demanded Eoin, “that you would rather I be called churl than you?”

  “As a man of honor, I could not call you thus,” Jarred replied, raising his voice.

  Impatiently, Eoin nudged him toward the causeway. “As a man of honor, you must take precedence.”

  Jarred gritted his teeth. He returned the nudge with a slight push in the same direction. “Far be it from me to be so presumptuous.”

  Eoin’s face flushed to a hideous shade of amaranth. “You are presuming to push me, sirrah!” he said, shoving Jarred so hard he staggered and dropped his burden.

  “Push you?” Jarred cried. “Why, I’ve not pushed you yet, sirrah!” And he gave Eoin a mighty shove that sent him and his bundles into the mire. Eoin got up, roaring like a bull, and charged at his rival, head down. Jarred sidestepped but slipped and fell. On seeing this, Eoin uttered a guffaw of laughter, whereupon Jarred lunged forth and grabbed him around the knees. They both went down in a filthy, flailing fiasco of fists.

  Over and over they rolled, grappling and punching. This parcel of raw energy was eventually split in two only by the intervention of Lilith, who, on discovering that her shouts went unheeded, tried to force her way between the two combatants. Intent as they were on their purpose, they were not so obsessed as to risk harming her. Reluctantly they stood apart. By this time they were gloved and booted, capped and garmented with ooze from head to toe—only their eyes showed white.

  Those two pairs of eyes glared fiercely at each other.

  “Wrestling is a brave and cheerful sport,” said Lilith in a matter-of-fact tone, “when the opponents do not try to kill each other. You know I like you both too well to countenance seeing either of you injured. If you must play games, pray do so in a more loving manner.”

  Eoin glowered wrathfully upon her. Knowing how sincerely he detested appearing to be ruled by women, she prudently waded out of the slippery mire, picked up her b
undle, and walked away. Cuiva, who had collapsed on the ground, giggling helplessly at the antics of her companions, stuffed her kerchief in her mouth lest they should think she was ridiculing them.

  “Make haste!” she called indistinctly, trailing behind Lilith.

  The youths spoke no word as they retrieved their burdens. It happened that Jarred was first to collect his bundles together; he made no further protest but strode across the causeway in silence. Equally taciturn, Eoin followed after.

  The Great Marsh of Slievmordhu lay dreaming in the stillness of daybreak. Lilith’s grandfather woke in his cottage, and his bed was filled with bats that streamed out across the room when he tossed the blankets into the air. A hare wearing a high-crowned hat was floating over the bed. It came to a halt about a yard from the old man’s chest and began waving a stick in a threatening manner, until Old Man Connick swung at it with his fist and sent it hurtling into the far wall of the room. There it turned into a pillow. Weird faces were peering up from the floor, and smoke began to rise from the rug. The walls were breathing. Across the window hung a spiderweb spangled with countless moonlike crescents of light. Bluish rays shone in through it, and he could hear the footsteps pausing outside, beyond the walls.

  “Honestly, it has caused a lot of heartache!” he shouted at the door. Then, more quietly, “’Tis not a day for cinders. Who’s in the pit?”

  When he was sure the footsteps had fallen silent for the moment, he rose timidly from his couch. The floor was made of plain wooden boards, and the walls were motionless. The rug was neither burning nor singed. There was no evidence that any winged creatures had ever entered the room.

  “You think ’tis all a dream,” he said, “but then it turns out exactly like a buttered cake.”

  On a warm afternoon when the marsh airs were humid and Jarred had finished his tasks for the day, he paid a visit to Lilith at the Mosswell cottage.

  “Will you come boating with me?” he asked diffidently. “We might take a picnic with us and go floating down one of the side channels where the willows hang heavy and cool.”

  “I would like to do so,” she replied, as shyly. “When shall it be?

  “Now?” Jarred responded quickly, failing to appear nonchalant.

  “If Eolacha is no longer needing my help today, then I shall accompany you straightaway!”

  Having ascertained that she was free to leave, Lilith was in the process of untying her apron when she paused, saying, “Wait. I will fetch a basket and fill it with sweetmeats for our picnic.”

  “No need,” said Jarred. “I have seen to that. A hamper is ready and waiting in Rushford’s boat, which is moored at your landing stage.”

  “Were you so certain, then, that I would be accepting your invitation?” said Lilith in surprise. Having removed the apron, she hung it on its peg and smoothed her skirts.

  “I was not certain,” said Jarred. “I hoped. Had you refused, I would have donated the food to Rushford, who is forever hungry.”

  “Or eaten it yourself!” she suggested with a laugh.

  “Nay.”

  “Why not?”

  “If you had refused, I would not have had the stomach for it.”

  At that, Lilith was lost for words. She blushed and followed Jarred to the landing stage. Rushford’s boat was tethered to a bollard. The two climbed aboard and shoved off, whereupon Jarred clumsily took up the oars and began to propel the vessel.

  “Have you become a proficient rower so swiftly?” Lilith asked, smiling mischievously at his erratic style. The leaflike oar blades dipped in and out of the water, flawing a surface already frosted and wavy, like distorted glass panes.

  “Not at all. Despite diligent practice, I fear my struggles with these poletrees might well tip us both out, betimes. I can only assume you are a good swimmer, since you have been brought up with all this water about you.”

  “Can you not swim?”

  “I do not know. I have never tried.”

  “Then it is likely you cannot! Eolacha told me only animals that are not human are knowing how to swim without being taught. Our kind is an exception. See! Over there on the opposite bank, those mothers are teaching their little ones!”

  Jarred glanced over his shoulder. The boat was passing along a sunny waterway that was known to be free of unseelie wights. Five women were wading or sitting in the shallows while a bevy of infants of various ages splashed among them. One child was screaming hysterically; its mother picked it up and tried to soothe it, but it continued kicking in her arms. Another hung tightly to its mother’s skirts so that she must drag it arduously behind her as she endeavored to reach a disobedient older child who was swimming into dangerously deep water. A third woman, her body bent in a hoop, had been holding her youngster afloat and now carried it to the shore. She straightened, reached her arm behind her, and ground the heel of her hand against her spine, as if easing an ache. The fourth and fifth women were seated at the edge of the water trying to hold a conversation, but their discussion was being disrupted by children roughly embracing them about the neck, throwing themselves upon their shoulders, or shouting in their ears.

  Jarred burst out laughing, and Lilith shook her head in mock disbelief.

  “Those pitiable women!” she exclaimed. “Never a moment to themselves! I can never understand how parents find the patience to endure the endless demands of their charges.”

  “It strikes me you have a forbearing nature. Have you not?” said Jarred, tugging strenuously on the oars as he tried to negotiate a bend.

  “In many matters I am as tolerant as anyone else, but I am certain I would be losing patience with anyone who plagued me as thoroughly as that!” said Lilith, as the two seated mothers, defeated, abandoned their discussion and turned their full attention to their offspring.

  The rowboat glided along the channel, and soon the noisy families on the embankment had passed out of sight. The shores became boggy, dimpled with small pools of still water where tall, thin rushes doubled themselves in reflections so that each blade appeared twice as long. Green nets of bubbles were caught among the reeds near the shoreline, colored misty, milky emerald—submerged clouds of frogspawn.

  Jarred said, “I have not yet become accustomed to seeing so much water lying about. To me, it is a commodity precious beyond imagining. Forever I fight the urge to scoop it up and store it.”

  “Eolacha says that immersion in water is the most intimate possible contact with the Life Force,” said Lilith. “We instinctively value water and wish to be near it.”

  “Your grandmother is wise.”

  “I cannot imagine your life in the desert,” said Lilith. “A world without lakes and streams and rain, all hot and dried out, and not a tree in sight. Is it a drab and ugly place?”

  “On the contrary,” he replied. “I have never seen such vivid reds as the colors of the rocks and sand, or such a brilliant blue as the desert sky.

  “Tell me of your life there!”

  Taking delight in her interest, Jarred launched into detailed stories of his childhood in R’shael; of the years when no rain would fall, and of the boiling wind called the Fyrflaume that swept across Ashqalêth from the uninhabitable Stone Deserts in the south; of the escapades he had enjoyed in the company of his comrades; of his gentle mother. He spoke at length, and as he gradually paid more attention to his words and less to his rowing, he moved the oars slower and slower until he ceased to row altogether. He shipped them, leaning forward and speaking intently to Lilith. Both were so engrossed in his narrative that they forgot about the picnic. They also failed to note that the sluggish current had taken them and they were floating down a weedy back stream, overgrown and dark. The shade was as cool as lime juice.

  “Ofttimes as I looked upon my homeland,” said Jarred, concluding his descriptions, “it was my wont to say to myself, ‘How wonderful is the landscape, and how precious is life, that we are given the chance to behold these wonders.’ There used to be,” he said, “nothing more p
recious to me than life itself. Now there is one thing.”

  To hide an onrush of confusion, Lilith turned her face aside, feigning interest in their surroundings. For a moment she stared blindly, oblivious of their location, but all of a sudden she sat up straight and cried, “Alas! We have strayed into the Wraith Fens!”

  Jarred gripped the oar handles. He dipped the blades into the water but was unable to draw them out again. Summoning all his strength, he wrestled with the paddles. After one tremendous heave, he managed to lift them clear of the stream, but thick skeins of slime and knotted weed were hanging from them, as if he had torn them free of a weaving.

  “Do not be putting the oars in,” said Lilith urgently. “Let us drift awhile further. With luck the current will take us out of this wretched place.”

  “Why wretched?” said Jarred, shipping the oars again. It came to him that he was speaking softly, as if trying not to be overheard. Indeed, the thickets of gloomy trees pressing in all around exuded a thick silence. It was like being in a chamber full of listeners, not one of them making any sound. “Do you believe in wraiths?”

  “I do not,” said Lilith as the boat glided slowly along the darkly glimmering waters. Silence let itself down from the overhanging foliage like sticky gossamer nets. Lilith did not speak for a while. Then she said, “Eolacha’s father once saw something he believed to be shades of the dead. But it seems clear to me that folk do not return to this world after death. Death is final, at least in one way.”

  “In what ways is it not?” Jarred was mystified.

  “All creatures continue after death as memories of the living, and in the works they performed during their lives, and in the blood of their descendants. By these methods only are they immortalized—not as half-seen images floating on the air.”

  “How can you be so certain?”

  “It is merely plain to me.”

  It seemed appropriate to be speaking of death as the little boat drifted down the back stream. Shadows were being crushed between the densely packed tree trunks and strangled on the draping mosses. The roots of mighty trees, reaching out from the banks into the stream, resembled moldering rib cages and skeletal grasping hands.