The Bitterbynde Trilogy

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

And the music of harps in the woodlands so green!

  Singing ’neath the trees, O!

  Singing ’neath the trees!

  ’Tis the smoking hot platter of meats heaped on high

  And the dishes of pastries that gladden the eye

  The fruit of the forest, the wine in the cup

  Good cheer and good appetite—long may we sup!

  Feasting one and all, O! Feasting one and all!

  With his customary grace, he swung down beside her, his presence igniting a keen and strange delight. His shirtsleeve brushed her wrist. She did not know if she fell into the well and it was a well without nadir or whether she remained seated on the stone coping.

  “We are close now to our destination,” Thorn said, patently oblivious of his effect on her. “Trenowyn leaves in three days’ time with a cartload of ore for Isenhammer. If we wish to ride with him, we can wait. I prefer to leave tomorrow on foot—too much time has been lost already.”

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  “What is it that takes you to the Royal City?”

  The girl hesitated, torn between keeping her pledge of secrecy to Ethlinn and confiding all to this dark enchanter whose laughing eyes now rested on her. There could be no harm in telling everything to Thorn, yet a promise made must not be broken. Regretfully she sighed.

  <> Would the Dainnan understand? The sign Ethlinn had taught for “Rory” was the sign for the roar of a bull, there being no other equivalent in handspeak.

  “White Down Rory? Why then, our ways must part at the King’s Cross. There, the Bronze Road crosses the Caermelor Road, coming up from the south from White Down Rory, and wending north to where the blast furnaces stain the skies with their smoke. Have you ever been to Isenhammer?”

  She shook her head.

  “At night, the visitor who approaches that town sees the sudden glow of liquid orange as pots from the furnaces are tipped over, emptying the molten slag down the hill like lava from miniature volcanoes. There is a certain splendor to it.”

  Thorn took from around his neck a golden locket on a chain. The size of his thumbnail, it was curiously wrought in filigree. The detail of the intertwining leaf-patterns and the quality of the workmanship were beyond anything Imrhien remembered seeing.

  <>

  He smiled, but this time there was little joy on his countenance.

  “Only this.”

  He unsnibbed the tiny clasp and opened the locket. A fine, dry dust lay there. Thorn gazed long upon it with sightless eyes, as if stirred by some memory. The substance looked like ordinary sand or powdered clay, but, as her own eyes rested upon it, Imrhien was seized by a terrible longing or hunger, the like of which she had never known. She reached out to touch it, but too late, for with a quick breath, Thorn had blown it away. The breeze took up the light burden and scattered it over the garden, over the rooster sitting on a trellis, over the hens. As they flew, the fine particles sparkled in every color, glorified the air with a rainbow, and faded with a sigh as of a myriad voices. With a mighty spring, the goshawk flew up from Thorn’s shoulder and disappeared in the sky.

  “Janet shall have no trouble growing the finest herbs this year, and every year after that,” the Dainnan said softly.

  He closed the locket and hid it again beneath his shirt.

  The rooster fell off the trellis, very ungainly, in front of the hens.

  For no reason that she could fathom, Imrhien was left with a deep sense of loneliness and bitter loss. Thorn regarded her gravely. His hands shaped the language of signs:

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  All sorrow lifted. Willingly, light-footed, she went beside him, past the cramped stone dairy that had been built half under the ground for coolness, past the byre, out through a side-gate in the yew hedge, past the humming bee-skeps to the little orchard. The grasses of Autumn were toast-colored, the last of their clinging seed-heads as fine as sprinkled powder.

  In the orchard, a few withered pippins still clung to the branches or lay windfallen in the grass. The quince and apple trees stood almost leafless now, the pear boughs had long since stretched naked against the sky, but beside them, as a windbreak, stood a line of ancient candlebark gumtrees, as green as ever.

  Thorn’s voice rose in song once more, as strong and warm as spiced wine and as intoxicating:

  Autumn is mellow, a lady of leisure

  Dew in the morning, that’s Autumn’s treasure.

  Red on the maple, gold on the willow,

  Dress’d in bright colors, Autumn is mellow.

  Bonny, bonny Spring is a lassie fair,

  Flowers at her feet and blossoms in her hair,

  Lambs in the pasture, birds on the wing,

  Rain on the leaf-buds—bonny, bonny Spring.

  Merry, merry Summer is a maiden gay,

  Sun on the cornfield and heat in the hay.

  Tawny-tressed Summer is brown as a berry

  Through the long evenings, Summer is merry.

  Winter is wise, with hair like the snow.

  Under her mantle the wild creatures go.

  Frost on the hillsides, clouds in the skies,

  Rest and find peace, for Winter is wise.

  “Are you then the personification of Spring, Gold-Hair?” he inquired.

  Lowering her deformed face, Imhrien let the pouring glory of her hair curtain its hideousness and parried his question with another.

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  This was a chaffing question, since it was obvious he garnered the roots of the wild iris wherever he found them and carried these vegetables with him, in order to rinse his hair with black dye when the color grew out. He had chosen the midnight shade, one of the two colors most popular among the pedigreed citizens of Gilvaris Tarv, who copied the trends flourishing at the King-Emperor’s Court. Doubtless, even the Dainnan were not immune to the vagaries of fashion.

  In reply to her banter, Thorn only laughed. They stood together beneath an antique apple that leaned out with twisted boughs like yearning arms. A breeze rustled its leaves and made dapples of sunlight dance on the lichened bark.

  “The changes of the year are worthy of song,” he said, gazing up at the tree. “They lie fair on the lands. Each possesses its own rare beauty. To those who understand them, the wild lands and the seasons are generous, providing shelter and sustenance of spirit and body. There is no need to hunger or thirst in the lands of Erith.”

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  “As you have starved? Allow me to advise you, Gold-Hair. When all else fails, there is always Fairbread—Wayfarer’s Loaf, Farbrod, or Hob’s Cob, as it is also known. It is a victual with many names—some call it the Bread of the Faêran. Have you heard of it?… No? Most folk fancy it no more than the subject of old wives’ tales. It is real, but hard to see unless you know how to look. You understand that if folk step upon a stray sod, they cannot find their path? With Fairbread, it is as if the eyes of all men are under such a misleading spell all the time, unless they cast it off. It is the fruit of a mistletoe that loves only certain trees—apple, alder, hazel, holly and willow, elder, oak, banksia and elm, birch and blackthorn. Never does it grow on other trees, and not always on those I have cataloged for you. But if moss or lichen loves the tree’s bole and clings to it like a tight-laced bodice, then there is a good chance of Fairbread. These fruits can only be seen in certain lights—in the first and last rays of the sun, and never when the wind blows from the east. You must stand beneath a tree, such as this apple, and look to the left. In the half-light your eyes may trick you—but if you glimpse, at the edges of sight, leafy sprouts and amongst them small spheres like softly glowing lamps, then you may reach up and pluck th
em. This is the Fairbread and provides much sustenance. But touch it not if you see it by night. Washed with starlight or moonlight, it may intoxicate the blood, and perilously.”

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  The greatest of the orchard’s windbreak trees had, in its youth, grown three main stems; over time they had thickened to massive girth. One had fallen long ago and lay on the ground, yet it thrived still. It had turned its new sprouts up toward the sky, sending out boughs that overarched to form the roof of a living bower. The branches of the other two trunks spread wide and wept downward. Their ends lay along the grass like many-fingered hands, tufted with verdant hair, the younger shoots yellow green against the dusky jade of their elders. Leaning on its elbows, the whole tree formed a natural chamber, thatched and walled with long leaves, and from the outside it resembled a leafy knoll.

  An old rope swing dangled from one of the branches that reached like a rafter across this green hall. Imrhien seated herself on its wooden plank, but Thorn climbed into the branches above. He lay sprawled across the boughs, hanging on by some Dainnan art or gramarye, and pushed on the ropes.

  “Unless you wish to fall, you cannot speak while you hold fast. Thus, I must sing to you.”

  But the lyrics of the song he sang were shaped by a language she did not understand. It sounded like no Ertish dialect or any other tongue she had ever heard spoken, save only when Thorn had named the Dragon’s Blood or identified certain trees and flowers. The timbre and cadence of the words possessed a potent loveliness. Alien they were, but harmonious, thrilling. Although Imrhien could not know their meaning, they fell on her ears like sweet rain from some cloud-borne realm of crystal palaces a thousand feet tall, intersected with shafts of clear radiance and purple shadow. They whispered beckoningly to her, deeply stirring. They gave her half-glimpsed visions of wonder and lured her among stars larger and brighter than any that lit the skies of Erith, to a country beyond the shores of the known lands that was filled with peril and delight unguessed. Her imprisoned memory dragged at its chains, straining to be free. Slowly Thorn swung the ropes that lifted her, and then faster, higher, and his song changed like a swift river leaping and dancing down from high mountains, like a free bird, swooping and soaring, riding the back of the wind.

  Imrhien swept back and forth through the sunlit air. First it would pour into her face like a gush of transparent mountain water, dragging her hair and garments backward; then for a heartbeat she would be weightless before falling backward with a rush, her hair billowing about her face in streamers, her skirts a flurry of fabric folds flapping at her feet. The exultation made her breathless. Through the long falls of leaves she flew, as though borne by sildron or upon a shang wind. She kicked her feet and would have laughed aloud, had she been able, but Thorn laughed for her, perceiving her joyousness as she tipped back her terrible face and let her hair swing out, careless as a child, until the tilting of the world made her dizzy and she clutched hard at the ropes, not knowing or caring whether sky and ground were above or below, because she would fly forever, as long as those hands held the ropes and she was holding them, too.

  When Imrhien returned to the cottage, Silken Janet was clucking disapprovingly around Diarmid, holding up a little burnished bronze mirror for him.

  “I’ve dyed thane eyebrows but will not do thane lashes—the dye can blind ’e. Black, ’e says, so black ’e gets, but it don’t suit tha, beggin’ thane pardon, sir. Thane own shade’s so comely, so rare. I’ve always thought, ’ow nice ’twould be tae ’ave Ertish blood and that lovely ’air like polished copper. I’d swap it for mine any day.”

  “Do I appear Ertish now, madam?” said Diarmid, taking the mirror and peering into it so closely that his eyes crossed.

  “Not at all, without that lovely red—the bone-shapes o’ your folk and mine bein’ much the same.”

  The answer seemed to please Diarmid. Janet added:

  “O’ course, tha has got them lovely blue Ertish eyes, like forget-me-nots.” Abruptly, Diarmid slammed down the mirror. Outside the window, startled rooks cawed contemptuous accusations among the trees.

  Trenowyn came in carrying two longbows, his highly strung hound trotting at his heels.

  “Thought I might get us a partridge for our supper.”

  The Ertishman picked up a bow, examining it. “I should like to shoot those blasted rooks that are racketing by your gate.”

  A crash made him jump. Janet had dropped a bowl. It lay in rocking shards. Trenowyn’s face was deeply graven stone, gray and haggard.

  “Never shoot a rook,” he rasped, as if his throat had withered and dried, “never.”

  Diarmid shrugged, clearly bewildered. “I jest.” He replaced the longbow on the table.

  Slowly Trenowyn’s glare faded. He took up from where he had left off, as though nothing untoward had happened. “I also want to check on the wagon—to see how much ore the little miners have put in it by now. Don’t want it too heavy for the bullocks. Is it to your liking, sir, going after game fowls?”

  It was to Diarmid’s liking. The men went off hunting together.

  Toward evening, Imrhien was walking in the garden when she heard voices. Between the rowans she could see Silken Janet standing before the tall Dainnan, twisting her apron in her hands as though troubled. The tiny bells intended to ward off wights tinkled on the rowan boughs like the shang unstorm. Mellow light glowed on the western halves of the trees, casting blue shadows. Limned in sapphire and amber, these two made a pretty pair. Imrhien’s heart lurched. She hesitated in the shadow of the trees, unwilling to disturb their conversation yet fearful of what it might portend. They did not glance her way. On the breeze, their words were carried to her.

  “I thank thee, sir, I thank thee with all my heart,” Janet was saying earnestly.

  “You must be brave and steadfast,” said Thorn, looking down at the young woman with a curious mixture of mockery and gentleness, “but I’ll warrant you are that.”

  “I shall try, sir, I shall. I cannot tell tha what this means tae me!”

  She curtsied awkwardly but sweetly.

  The Dainnan reached into Janet’s hair and pulled a silver piece from behind her ear. “An odd place to store money,” he said.

  “’Tis not mine, sir!”

  “No?” He tossed the coin in the air, and it vanished.

  “Oh, sir! How did you do that?”

  “Lose it? No matter—’tis easily found.” He plucked a coin out of the air. And another coin, and another. Cupping both hands around the silver pieces he said, “Blow on my fingers.”

  She did so; he opened them, and a white dove flew up into the rowans.

  “How swiftly money flies from our grasp!” exclaimed Thorn.

  The girl clapped her hands. “That’s clever! Such pretty gramarye! Art tha wizard?”

  “Call me wizard if you like.”

  With a smile he left her, striding off among the rowans. Janet came hurrying back to the cottage and caught sight of Imrhien.

  “Oh, me lady, come indoors now, me dove. ’Tis getting cold, and fire’s lit. I’ll ’ave some supper on table soon—rose-hip tart, if tha does like it.”

  Janet would not hear of her guest lifting a finger to help. She sang as she busied herself in the larder, and when the table was laid and they were waiting for the men to arrive, she drew up a stool near to Imrhien and sat down, clapping her hands. Her eyes shone.

  “Me lady, me dove, I ’ave tae tell somebody, I do, I’m fair burstin’ with me tidin’s. But I’ll start from the beginnin’.”

  Then Silken Janet told a strange tale.

  Many years ago, her father and mother had lived on a large estate outside Isenhammer. By the time they had been married seven years, they had seven sons. Despite their accumulation of expensive wizard’s charms, no daughter had been born to them. A daughter was what they craved, however, and when at last Goodwife Trenowyn gave birth to Janet, their happiness knew no limits.

&nb
sp; In those days, Isenhammer’s most famous wizard sold a special water that, if used to bathe a child, promised lifelong protection against unseelie wights. It was most costly, but Janet’s mother and father were determined to have it for her.

  “Take this gold, all our savings, and go to the wizard’s house,” they said to the seven boys. “Get the precious water of gramarye to bathe your sister.” The boys went off together and bought the water, but on the way back they dropped the vessel containing it, and it broke. Fearing to return to their parents’ house without the water, they loitered in the road, unable to decide what to do. Meanwhile their parents had been wondering what was keeping the boys. Their father’s annoyance increased, aggravated by the accusing cries of some rooks outside the window.

  Evening closed in.

  Trenowyn stood at the gate, looking up the road. He bade his servants to throw stones at the black birds and they flew off, but the sun was going down and still his sons had not returned.

  “Where are those boys?” he raged. “How dare they delay like this! I wish they would all turn into rooks and fly away, curse them.”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth he regretted them, but it was too late. Something wicked had been passing by in the road at that very moment, or perhaps lying in wait. There was a nickering in the hedgerows that might have been laughter, and seven big black birds came flying toward him. The servant made to throw stones, but Trenowyn stopped him. The rooks alighted on the fence, gave a cry of sorrow, then winged away into the south. Janet’s father knew at once that they were his boys, transformed by his own fault.

  Over the next few years Trenowyn hired every wizard of any repute, begging them to put forth their powers and locate his sons. All their attempts failed, and Trenowyn’s fortune was soon whittled down to nought. His wife could never forgive him for his hasty ill-wrought curse, and in some oblique manner she let her blame spill over onto Janet, for whose benefit the boys had been bringing the water. She lost all joy in life, and after a time she went away, leaving both husband and young daughter. At last Trenowyn had to sell the large empty house. He and his daughter came to live as common carters and spinners in Rosedale.