The Bitterbynde Trilogy

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  The ground had emptied from beneath her feet. She hurtled downward, to be brought up on a spear-point of agony. Her bracelet had snagged on a dead twig. She released the catch and fell into a thicket of Hedera paradoxis.

  Hours passed.

  Later, lying ivy-poisoned by the roadside, the shorn-haired waif in tattered masculine attire had been discovered by a passing carter. He had stolen her Faêran cloak and delivered her into the hands of Grethet.

  Much had happened since then …

  Now, as memories flooded back like sap rising in Spring, a strange euphoria blossomed within the damsel lying in a semi-trance beneath the night-bound woods near Huntingtowers. The experience of recall imbued her with power. She felt like a winged being looking down on the world from an impossible height, while a light of glory crayoned her pinions in gold. So expanded was she in this virtual form that if she held out her hand she could cup the rain. Clouds brushed her cheek with cold dew, and should she raise her arms she could catch the sun like a golden ball. Mankind moved like beetles around her feet, and nothing could touch her. She had endured it all and been borne through, shining. She was winning.

  So far.

  Her shoulder hurt. It was being shaken in an iron claw. Her entire body quaked. She thrust off the claw, uttering an inarticulate groan.

  ‘Rohain! Mistress!’ Hazel eyes in a rounded, dimpled face appeared, framed by bobbing yellow curls with brown roots.

  Sitting up, the dreamer took a swig from the water-bottle. Like any warrior, she rinsed her mouth and spat, then wiped her lips on her bloodstained sleeve.

  ‘Via, I told you not to call me that. And cut your fingernails.’ She rubbed her shoulder. ‘Are we alive?’

  ‘Yes, all three. You saved us.’

  ‘I would like to agree, but I have this ornament on my finger which is responsible for our current state of health.’ The speaker’s hands wandered up to her face, lightly touching the forehead, the nose, the chin. She examined a strand of dark hair. ‘Am I as I was? Am I ugly or beautiful? Boy or girl?’

  Viviana and Caitri exchanged meaningful looks.

  ‘Your experience at Huntingtowers has unsettled you—er, Tahquil,’ said Caitri. ‘Come, let us help you to your feet. We must get away from here. We are still too close to that place.’

  As they stood up, the one they called Tahquil swayed, clutching at her heart. Leaning against a linden tree she closed her eyes and grimaced.

  ‘Zooks, ma’am, what is amiss?’ asked Viviana, full of concern.

  ‘Ah, no, it cannot be. Alas, it has me in its grip again. This, then, is the price.’

  ‘What has you in its grip?’

  ‘The Langothe. There’s no salve for it.’ The sufferer gulped down her pain. ‘Let us go on.’

  I must endure the unendurable.

  She wondered how long it would take to destroy her.

  It was the second of Duileagmis, the Leafmonth, viminal last month of Spring. In the woods, every leaf was a perfect spearblade chipped from lucent emerald, fresh from the bud. As yet the new foliage was unbitten by insect, unparched by wind, untorn by rain.

  The travellers walked through a glade striped with slender silver-paper poles marked at spaced intervals with darker notches that accentuated the clean, smooth paleness of the bark. The tops of the poles were lost overhead in a yellow-stippled haze of tenderest green.

  The damsel called Tahquil twisted the golden leaf-circle on her finger. Her thoughts fled to he who had bestowed it upon her. I miss thee. I have come full circle. Here I am once more. And thee, my love, shall I ever see thee again?

  The damsel, Tahquil. Her insides ached. Yearning chewed at them.

  Thus she thought: I am more than a thousand years old. I am Ashalind na Pendran, Lady of the Circle. I come from a time before the shang, before Windships and sildron. The kingdom of my birth has crumbled to nothing. One of the most powerful Faêran in Aia pursues me—but why? Is it simply because I committed the crime of eavesdropping and survived his vengeance, or does he guess I have found a way back to the Realm? Is he after my life or my knowledge? And all the while the other powerful Faêran, his royal brother, sleeps forever amongst a great company of knights beneath some unmarked hill.

  One Gate to Faêrie remains passable: the Gate of Oblivion’s Kiss. Only I may open it, only I might recognise it, if I could recall. But the past has returned imperfectly to me. The most important recollection of all, that of the Gate’s location, is still hidden in oblivion’s mists—mayhap ’tis hidden forever. Indeed, some other events surrounding my time in the Gate passage lack clarity.

  If I could return to the Fair Realm with the Password ‘elindor,’ the Keys could be released from the Green Casket. All the Gates might be opened once more. The Faêran would be able to send a discreet messenger to where their High King lies—for surely they could guess where he would be, or find him by means of gramarye—to tell him to return in all haste and secrecy to the Realm. Yet, if the Raven Prince discovers that the Gates are open and enters the Fair Realm before his brother, he might use his second boon to close them again and condemn the High King to continuing, everlasting exile.

  Back and forth shuttle my thoughts, my confusion. This is like playing a game of Kings-and-Queens: if this, then thus, but if that, then the other.

  Nonetheless, many matters are now clarified. Now I understand truly who it is that hunts at my heels—it is not the Antlered One, after all. Huon is only one of Morragan’s minions. Huon’s powers are naught by comparison with his master’s. Now I understand whose henchman noticed my Talith hair in the marketplace of Gilvaris Tarv, and who lost track of me after the attack on the Road Caravan, and who found me again when Dianella and Sargoth betrayed me. I understand who it was that ordered the Wild Hunt to assail Isse Tower, who sent the Three Crows of War through the Rip of Tamhania. I know who pursues me with destruction wherever I may go: it is the Raven Lord, Morragan, Fithiach of Carnconnor, Crown Prince of Faêrie.

  Sombrely, as she walked through the birch woods, the traveller with the dark-dyed hair and the festoons of thyme-leaves dwelled again on the moment she had first set eyes on that extraordinary individual in the Halls of Carnconnor under Hob’s Hill.

  With eyes as grey as the cold southern seas, he was the most grave and comely of all the present company. Hair tumbled down in waves to his elbows, and it was the blue-black shade of a raven’s wing … he regarded her, but said nothing.

  I dismiss that personage from my contemplation, she said to herself. He brings sorrow. The Faêran! I have met with them, spoken with them! Sorrow they bring to mortals but delight also, and they are so joyous and goodly to behold as I would not have believed possible. Again she caressed the golden ring on her finger, smiling sadly, her eyes misted with reflections. Indeed, had I not seen with my own eyes Thorn wielding cold iron in his very hand, I would have said he must be of Faêran blood. Beloved heartbreaker! I am fervently glad he is no Faêran—but I must banish thoughts of him now.

  When I walked from the Geata Poeg na Déanainn, it was my thought to embark on a quest to restore the Faêran High King to his Realm. I wonder—how long had be reigned in the Fair Realm, the High King of all Immortals, bearded with his pride, swollen with power, overripe with glory in his failing years? For how many centuries did he sit upon his hoary throne in Faêrie, toying with the lives of mortals, before he met his own exile? And would it truly matter to me if this ancient King and his dormant warriors were to lie forever entombed under Erith’s eroding mountains?

  She sighed. She already knew the answer.

  Yes, it would matter. Those who sleep might waken, one day.

  In this era, I have heard more tales of the Faêran than I knew in the past. Those tales have illustrated a race that is dazzling, but callous and cruel. Like all mortals I am drawn to them, but now that I recall history, my abhorrence is confirmed. I dislike the Faêran, almost as heartily as the Raven Prince hates mortalkind. I could not endure it if Faêran warriors s
hould awaken and, undying, walk in my Erith. It is the fault of the Fair Ones and their quarrels, and their heartless laws, that I am here now in this perilous place, separated from those whom I love. I am fully aware of the trouble they may wreak, if they rouse from their enchanted sleep.

  She who I once was, Ashalind of my memories—she loved them, the Faêran. I, her future incarnation, am wiser. Oh, they are beauteous, fascinating—it is impossible not to be attracted by them. But I, Tahquil-Rohain, loathe and fear their alien ways, their weird morality, their immutable laws, their arrogant use of power. ’Tis true that sometimes, when it suits them, they may behave with kindness, but the tales reveal them to be haughty, proud, contemptuous and cruel. They are users and punishers of my race. Rightly do folk name the Faêran ‘the Strangers’. Strange indeed are they; scorching flames of gramarye. They ought to be shut out of our world.

  This is my conclusion: that the Sleepers must awaken and depart. They must go back to where they belong. Every Faêran now in Erith must be repatriated.

  Yes indeed, if I can survive long enough, if the Langothe is not too swift in its deadly work, I shall go back to Arcdur and seek the Gate. Then I shall return through it to the Perilous Realm and use the Password to unlock their Casket of Keys so that the Faêran of the Realm may go forth and find the hill in Erith where their King sleeps. Some shall waken him and his noble company, and take them away. Others shall take away the beautiful Raven Prince who frets and rails so passionately against his exile. When they and all their shadowy, sparkling, fair and terrible kind are gone, then the Gates must truly be locked forever. I shall not rest until that is accomplished.

  This is my predicament and my undertaking.

  Coloured spindles of lupins, as high as a man’s knee, marched between the boles of the silver-birches. Each one flaunted a different hue, ranging from salmon, peach and apricot to mauve, maroon and lavender. Clusters of flower-turrets sprang from their own green coronas of frondescence. Now at the height of their blossoming they stood so erect, so tapered and symmetrical, each petal so crisp and painted and perfect, that they seemed artificial. Their petals brushed the garments of the travellers as they passed.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Caitri, not unreasonably.

  ‘Northeast. Then north.’ Nearer to Thorn, in fact. Yet never shall I seek thee my beloved, never shall I bring my hunters upon thee.

  ‘Did you find what you wanted at Huntingtowers?’

  ‘I did. Tonight, if we find a safe place to rest, I shall tell you everything.’

  ‘Tonight you shall sleep,’ admonished Viviana in a motherly manner, ‘since you did not do so last night. We thought you were in a trance. We believed you were bewitched.’

  ‘Why are we heading north?’ young Caitri wanted to know.

  ‘The region called Arcdur lies to the north. I must find something there—a Gate. The first time we see Stormriders overhead, you must wave them down and go with them, feigning that you have not seen me. You two have suffered enough. This new quest of mine is not for courtiers.’

  ‘Your words insult us,’ retorted Viviana.

  ‘I am sorry, but it is true.’

  In silence they walked on.

  ‘We will not see Relayers,’ said Caitri, wise in the ways of Stormriders. ‘We are travelling far from the lands over which the Skyroads run, which are their usual routes. Besides, they have searched this coast already. They shall believe us lost, and they will not return.’

  ‘Is there any road to Arcdur from here?’ Viviana queried.

  ‘Not that I know of,’ replied the young girl. ‘The King’s High Way used to go there, but it has long since been swallowed by the forest, or fallen into the sea. I know only that Arcdur’s western shores lie along the north-west coast of Eldaraigne.’

  ‘Then we ought to keep to the sea’s margins,’ Viviana said. ‘If we keep the ocean to our left we will be sure to come to Arcdur eventually.’

  ‘It would be impossible,’ said Tahquil-Ashalind, once Rohain. ‘The cliffs along here are rugged, pierced by deep inlets thrusting far back into the land. Without a boat we cannot go that way.’

  Viviana stopped beside some low tree ferns. She plucked out some whorls of fiddle-heads, tightly coiled, like pale green clockwork springs. Other greenery and assorted vegetation hung on lengths of twine from her waist, her shoulders and her elbows, obscuring the articles swinging and clanking from her chatelaine.

  ‘You have not eaten anything since the day before yesterday, auradonna,’ the courtier reminded Tahquil from behind her matted, bleached curls. ‘’Tis little wonder your belly pains you.’

  The euphoria dissipated. Tahquil looked at the dead and wilting leaves she herself carried, and the dirty, worm-eaten tubers. A forgotten tendril of something akin to hunger stirred within her. One could not live on memories.

  The three companions sat beneath the lissom poles of the birches and kindled a fire. Viviana unbound bunches of edible roots, seedpods and herbage.

  ‘Via has become adept at finding food,’ explained Caitri with a touch of reproach, ‘especially since you went off on your own. She’s remembered all you’ve taught us. She has an eye for it.’

  ‘Even courtiers can learn,’ said Viviana haughtily, ‘to be useful.’

  ‘Then let me teach you how to cook,’ offered Tahquil. It would be a distraction from the hurt within.

  These wooded, gently undulating hills were named the Great Western Forest, but, more innocuous than a forest, they were actually one vast woodland of beech, budding birch, oak and rustling, new-leafed poplars, hung with leafy creepers. The trees were interspersed with brakes of hazel and wild currant bushes veiled with a diaphanous lace of blossoms. Rivulets chuckled through leafy dells. Bluebells sprang in a lapis lazuli haze, attractive and perilous.

  Directed by a dim, smoke-bleared sun glimpsed through the woodland canopy, the travellers walked on through the reddish-brown smog of the day, and at evenfall, when weariness threatened to sweep Tahquil from her feet, they climbed to shelter in a huge and ivied weather-beech, pulling themselves up on vegetable cables to rest in a scoop at the junction of three great boughs.

  Twittering like sparrows in the undergrowth and fallen leaves, a gaggle of small wights came tumbling and capering over the knotted roots below. They were grigs. No more than eight inches tall they stood, applecheeked, their eyes dark brown with no whites, their small mouths grinning. On their heads perched fungus-red caps, terminating in tasselled points. Their knee-breeches were bark-brown, their coats the fern-green traditionally worn by trooping wights. In this typical eldritch attire they performed cartwheels and other acrobatic feats which they apparently considered hilarious and which, in their audience’s opinion, were tediously uninspired.

  ‘I should like to throw something at the little uncouthants,’ said Viviana peevishly.

  Nestling into the spoon of the tree, Tahquil slept. Oblivion descended, total again. She slumbered through the shang wind when it came, but Viviana, watching, pulled her mistress’s taltry over her head lest she dreamed. In the unstorm, the cindery air transmuted to minuscule sequins.

  ‘I shall have to inform her soon,’ said Caitri, meeting the courtier’s troubled gaze with a worried frown.

  A putrid drizzle of stagnant daylight announced dawn, struggling to pierce Tamhania’s airborne, incinerated detritus that hung like cobwebs in the skies. Fine powderings of that dust were slowly settling everywhere—on landscape, garments, hair and flesh.

  Stiff and sore, the travellers stretched their limbs.

  ‘By the powers!’ exclaimed Tahquil, snapping into wakefulness. ‘We’re lucky to be alive—we didn’t set a night watch!’

  ‘You did not,’ said Caitri primly, crushing stytchel-thyme leaves to release their pungent oils. ‘We did.’

  Tahquil smiled through a layer of encrusted ash-mud. ‘It is well that I have you both with me.’

  She rubbed more thyme leaves over her limbs and clothing, and they breakfa
sted on water. As she stoppered the water-bottle, Caitri looked up at her mistress. Her deep-lidded eyes seemed huge, liquid; her cheeks were paler than usual.

  ‘It is the season to endure,’ she murmured, obscurely.

  ‘What is it, child? Your eyes tell me a terrible tale. I recall, now, you have been trying for some while to impart some tidings to me. Suddenly I burn to know. This time you must out with it—for it is something that concerns me deeply, I feel.’

  Caitri swallowed. ‘It is this. I should have told you earlier, but I could not. Even now—’

  ‘Go on! Give me the words, quickly, or I shall go mad with the waiting!’

  ‘The reprobate Sargoth, he who was once the Royal Wizard—’

  ‘What of him?’

  ‘He escaped from the palace dungeons and roams freely through Eldaraigne. He seeks you, and has sworn to take terrible vengeance upon you.’

  The weather-beech stretched its arms upwards to the sombre sky. Talium-coloured butterflies puppeted through the leaves, like primrose petals on strings.

  ‘How do you know this, Caitri?’

  ‘I overheard, at Tana, the day after the last Watership came bearing news. It was too odious. I could not tell you, and besides, it was forbidden.’

  ‘Whom did you overhear?’

  ‘They were holding converse in the adjacent chamber, Prince Edward and the Duke of Ercildoune. I was arranging flowers in a vase for you—burnet roses, they were. I did not intend to listen. I could not help it—their words carried clearly. The Prince seemed agitated and sorrowful. He was saying that he wanted to leave the island, to go north to the war. He said he felt like a merlin in a cage, pent up, when what he wanted to do was to fly free to fight alongside the other warriors. He said it was not manly to hide on Tamhania when he should be on the battlefields slaying wights, his sword black and smoking with their blood. The Duke, he tried to persuade the Prince otherwise, saying he was too young yet for battle. The Prince replied that at the very least he should be scouring Eldaraigne for the escaped wizard, Sargoth, who by his tricks had slain the soldiers that pursued him, and who had vowed to do all in his power to bring about the downfall of the Lady Rohain, against whom he held a bitter grudge.’