The Bitterbynde Trilogy

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  The wild harvest was abundant. Rich-hued raspberries, blackberries and wild strawberries peeped from their luscious bowers; honey dripped down from hollow trees where hives hummed; grasses waved feathery seed-heads; watercress dappled the frequent ponds; daisies rioted and dandelions spattered the ground with splashes of bright yellow.

  ‘Here is a place to be drunk on sweet nectars,’ sighed Caitri, ‘to gluttonise on ripe flesh until the juices run down one’s chin and one’s belly sticks forth like a sail in the wind.’

  ‘Pah. These fruits are plaster imitations,’ contested Viviana. ‘Where are the goblin trees?’

  ‘Where wood-goblins can find them,’ answered Tahquil, measuring a length of rope to use as a belt. Her leather belt had broken as she fell into Cinnarine. Wishing to save the metal against some future need, while leaving no trace of their presence, she strung the iron buckle from the chain of her jade tilhal and buried the severed strap in the loam.

  It was now three days since the companions had entered Cinnarine—pleasant days of drowsy sunshine, spent sleeping in mansions of foliage; nights spent wandering northwards, gorging on succulence. Peril seemed far away, allowing Tahquil leisure to dwell only on thoughts of Thorn—yearning, constantly, to be back at his side. Sometimes she half-expected to see him come walking through the trees, emerging from the shadows with that graceful, easy stride.

  Viviana remained enclosed in her dark prison of enchanted longing, and only Caitri was free to enjoy fully the bounty of this silvan land.

  Embowered, the little girl reached up her hand. A peach filled it, flecked and striped as though spattered with multicoloured wax. Next, it filled her mouth with juices melliferous and tart. As she sat in the bower with late sunshine showering flakes of lime and gold on her skin and hair, she began to notice movements throughout the woods. About forty feet above the ground, it seemed as though the sunlight itself had condensed its rainbow colours to form living things.

  Numbers of flimsy creatures were busy at the leaves and branches. Initially, the human watcher believed the quick movements belonged to birds or butterflies, but they proved to be neither. They were intent only on the trees. For this reason, in addition to their diurnal manifestation and benign appearance, Caitri viewed them without trepidation.

  Indeed, the tree-beings displayed a preternatural loveliness. Of human height and form they were, but they appeared to be neither male nor female, possessing the genderless look of prepubescent youths or maidens. Although their faces were flesh-coloured, the hue of their skin altered at the shoulders to pale apple-green, deepening to become raiment of dazzling jade which flowed far below their bare toes in long trails like translucent mother-of-pearl.

  They glided up and down the arbours, reflecting glints of light like shoals of fish in the sea, rising and falling swiftly as they flew back and forth. The undulations of their diaphanous trains created incessant pleats and flutings of pale rose, saffron, silver and hazy emerald-green. Yet they were not garments at all, these glistening trains, but veils of light or some other form of energy stream descending and spreading from the shoulders. As Caitri watched, the beings faded into the trees.

  From time to time in their travels through Cinnarine, the wanderers would spy these and other elementals of the trees flitting rapidly in and out among the trunks or at the height of the topmost boughs. At whiles they floated higher, but they never descended to the ground as they occupied themselves ceaselessly with their esoteric tasks.

  ‘These nebulous sylphs,’ said Tahquil. ‘Meganwy taught me of such as they—the coillduine, wights of the trees, who dwell in the sun. Lovely they are, but their thought is closed to us. Some say they are almost mindless, like the plants they inhabit.’

  Viviana cared nothing for the habits of the coillduine. Perversely, she searched for goblin fruits. The restlessness in her would not die—never was she satisfied, despite that her friends gave her the best of everything.

  Would that I knew how to cure this affliction, thought Tahquil despairingly. Now two of us are infected with Yearning. She touched the ring on her finger, wondering how long its power would keep her from the pining-death.

  But Tahquil bore her suffering with better grace than the courtier. When Viviana’s frustration overbrimmed its well, she would rail at the trees and kick them, or tear off their brittle boughs and use them to beat the boles.

  Towards the close of the third day, the companions rested on a slope of springy turf beneath peach and pear trees. At the foot of the incline, reflections glimmered between the leaves. A pool lay in a depression there, like a dark green eye. They had been wary of pools since encountering the carnivorous fuath in Lallillir, but in this peaceful, wooded region the edge had worn off their apprehension. They had seen no wights save for the harmless tree-sylphs who were neither malign nor benign to mortals, and oblivious of the human race. Relaxed, filled with a drowsiness born of satiation, lulled by a ferment of perfumes and warmth, the maidens dozed late. Each vaguely hoped that another was keeping watch. To inquire who was on guard duty seemed bothersome and would possibly lead to shouldering that responsibility oneself. It was easier to let it be.

  And what danger could await in these innocent orchards, here behind the protective sandstone wind-wall with its thorny hedge? The swanmaiden had warned of a ganconer, an unseelie wight whose honeyed words were poison: ‘Sweet-speaking handsome one woos,’ she had said, ‘where sprigs hang heavy with fruit. Fair face, fair words, sinister intent. She who falls for shadows shall soon weave her shroud.’

  Yet there had been no sign of wicked things. Conceivably, the ganconer had long since followed eastwards to the musterings in Namarre.

  So the travellers dozed. They did not notice this: that some boughs dipped and swayed, though no wind blew, or that the waters of the green pool stirred.

  Evening came with beauty to Cinnarine. The richness of it, the deep mazarine blue of the northern horizon, the lather of sombre, white-tipped clouds lavishing the sky-ceiling, the boughs luxuriantly festooned in every shade of green, the layered wall-hangings of leaves—all made it a time for slow and tranquil awakenings. The orchards were tinged with an ambient light which might have been filtered through panes of antique amber glass, or through tannin-rich waters of a mountain stream—mellow, yellow light tinged with bottle-brown.

  The leaf-ring quivered. Tahquil’s lids snapped open like two leaden hatches which had been fastening down her eyes.

  A man—maybe—came out of the shadows. Roughly, Tahquil seized her companions by the shoulders and shook them out of their lethargy.

  ‘Awake!’ she said. ‘It is he, the Ganconer of Cinnarine. Stopper your ears and avert your gaze. His words and looks ensnare …’

  Like some wild creature he walked, easy, graceful, long of stride. Spying this unexpected manifestation, Caitri, half awake and not yet free from the adhesive webs of dream-illusion, wailed and fled. Tahquil sped after her, lest they should lose her in the wooden maze, and Viviana, not to be abandoned, trailed in pursuit.

  Yet, as they ran on they heard muffled thuds on the grass—the pounding of hooves. A grey horse raced up beside them, yet it was riderless. Sharply it veered sideways to head them off in a small glade where moonlight fell like silver snow, and as the horse crossed their path they flung themselves backwards. The beast reared, its forelegs flailing. It swung its head towards the mortals as it came down, and its eyes looked through them, knowing. In terror they retreated, turned in the opposite direction to flee afresh. A shaft of moonlight pierced between leaves and illumined a pair of horns sprouting from a moving skull—the head of a second manifestation which barred their path of flight. They stumbled to a halt.

  At Tahquil’s back, Viviana and Caitri clung to each other, pressed hard against the knobbed bole of a hoary plum tree. Under the glove, the ring zapped warning tingles up and down Tahquil’s arm.

  ‘Rest easy, lasses,’ fluted the horned one. ‘Och, there’s no call tae be afeard. ’Tis seelie we both
be and wishin’ ye no harm.’

  It was only an urisk.

  ‘No, I’ll not rest easy,’ cried Tahquil holding up her ringed hand in an effort to ward off wickedness. ‘There is a ganconer here, and that’s as unseelie as ever was.’

  The grey horse was no longer in the glade. Instead, there emerged once more the man with the walk of a beast. He went down on one knee and bowed his head. Long, coarse hair slid off his powerful shoulders and hung in curtains as straight as weighted strings. In its glossiness, fluted water-leaves were twined like thin, green ribbons. He was naked from head to middle, clad only in leggings of some rough weave. The long nose drooped, the face too was elongated—strong-boned but not handsome. So pale was his skin that it seemed formed of cloud, and sheened with the polish of water seen by starlight. Smooth slate-grey hair grew thickly along sculpted forearms.

  ‘I am at yarr sarrvice, maiden,’ he said in strange accents.

  ‘No ganconer but a waterhorse indeed!’ Tahquil exclaimed. ‘Or is this some glamour?’

  ‘Nay, maiden,’ said the man-creature. ‘I am av the nygels as ye see me and I have sarrt after ye far many a night, since ye bart me freeness.’

  ‘I manumitted you? How can this be?’

  He raised his head, his lips drawn back in a smile. There was no white to his eyes. They were the eyes of a horse, the centres huge discs of jet set in liquid malt.

  ‘De ye nat ken me?’

  Tahquil’s mind jumped back to the day in the marketplace at Gilvaris Tarv, when her name had been Imrhien and she had possessed a purse filled with gold.

  ‘A pony for the pony!’ called Roisin.

  There was general laughter, but the miller who held the rope said, ‘Is that a genuine offer?’

  ‘It is.’

  Imrhien began rummaging in her purse.

  ‘What? Be ye turning scothy?’ hissed Muirne.

  <>

  Nobody outdid the offer. People stepped back, gawping in amazement—few had ever seen a coin of as high value as an angel. The Picktree miller made sure they didn’t get much of a look at it. As soon as he had bitten the heavy golden disc to test its authenticity, he pocketed it, handed the rope halter to Roisin, and disappeared swiftly into the crowd, doubtless afraid he might have become a target for cut-purses or less subtle robbers.

  The transaction completed, the bystanders now focused their attention on the new owners, calling out advice and questions. Imrhien stepped up to the terrified wight and slipped off the rope. Instantly the crowd scattered.

  ‘Oh yes,’ breathed Tahquil, ‘I ken you now.’

  ‘Then ye’ll ken I credit ye with a favarr,’ said the nygel. ‘Ye served me well.’

  ‘You owe me nothing, sir.’

  Then spoke the urisk: ‘Dinnae be sae swift tae dismiss your debtors, mistress. The favours of the eldritch are not tae be taken lightly.’

  ‘Nygels are the most seelie of all waterhorses, but they are practical jokers,’ she responded.

  ‘Aye,’ averred the urisk, ‘yet they can be stark and brawly and true.’

  Beneath the plum tree, Viviana and Caitri shivered in each other’s arms. Unconvinced, Tahquil regarded the urisk. The night’s light sketched his strange form indistinctly.

  Might this be the same urisk who has helped us before? It is difficult to tell one from another.

  ‘Are you the urisk of the Churrachan?’

  ‘Sure, ye’ve misca’ed me in the asking, madam.’

  ‘If I have insulted you, I am sorry. My vision is not as clear as yours, in the darkness. But are you?’ she persisted.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘How came you here?’

  ‘By Wight’s Way, what ither? And maist deserted it was, for on my journey I met wi’ anly twa. The first was the Glashan itsel’.’

  ‘The Glashan!’ Tahquil thought she recalled the name. ‘Is that not the handsome waterhorse who is far more dangerous than any nygel? I have met him—once,’ she shuddered, recalling the cottage at Rosedale. Thanks be to fate, that at that meeting I hid the gold of my hair beneath my taltry.

  ‘Not the Glastyn, mistress, but the Glashan, a hobgoblin. He had words wi’ me—words that might weel be o’ interest tae ye.’

  ‘What did he say?’ Tahquil asked, momentarily forgetting her apprehension regarding the nygel.

  ‘“I’m after a huzzie wi’ yellow birss,” quo’ the Glashan uncouthly,’ said the urisk somewhat unintelligibly.

  ‘“For what purpose?” quo’ I.

  ‘“For taen her tae the Lord Huon,” quo’ the Glashan, “and the Lord Each Uisge.”

  ‘“Spier some ither birkie,” quo’ I, and I went on my way.

  ‘Next, I happed tae meet wi’ the nygel. Quo’ he, couthly, “I’m after a lass wi’ hair of yellow.”

  ‘“Wi’ what purpose?” quo’ I, for I’s no be the agent of ane that delivers ye to the likes of Huon and his louns.’

  Here the urisk bowed neatly to bleach-haired Viviana, who stared at him blank-faced.

  ‘So the sonsy waterhorse here,’ he continued, tell’d me about his debt. “Come alang wi’ me,” quo’ I. “For gin the luck is wi’ tham, bye and bye the yellow lass and her sisters will arrive in the Talam Meith, the koontrie men call Cinnarine.”’

  He paused, frowning.

  ‘But I see the lass wi’ yellow hair is not the yin ye sought, nygel, and ’tis the dark yin after a’!’

  ‘How did you know me, sir?’ Tahquil quickly asked the water wight.

  ‘I did nat, at first,’ he replied, ‘because yarr hair is changed. Nearerr, I catched the tang av ye and the way in yarr standing. Lang back in the city I marked ye well, be sarrtain.’

  Tahquil folded her arms and commenced pacing back and forth in agitation.

  ‘This wight, this Glashan, told you that the Lords of Wickedness hunt after a yellow-haired girl,’ she said abruptly. ‘Tell me more, urisk, prithee. Tell me about Prince Morragan—all that you know.’

  ‘I ken only what the nygel tell’d me. I’ve fared in faraway corners this many a lang year and hae not ventured into the heigh, broad world. A solitary I be, like all urisks. We only meet once every nine years, on the banks o’ Loch Katrine, and I’ve missed the last couple o’ gatherings.

  ‘I hae heard no ither news, except that when the black wings o’ the three Crows o’ War unfolded tae darken Erith’s skies and pass intae the west, there was naething o’ eldritch, whether seelie or unket, domestic or wild, shape-shifter or shape-stayer, solitary or trooping, dwelling in high places or low, in water or woods, that did not alarum tae that sally-forth. What hae ye done, that they should hunt ye so?’

  Tahquil shrugged and turned her face from the urisk, unwilling to reveal anything to any wight.

  Moonlight blinked out in the small glade, blinked on again. A shadow had passed between the sky and the ground. A hooting cry sounded far overhead and the nygel craned his neck skywards. He snorted.

  ‘What goes there?’ demanded Tahquil, squinting at the sky. Stars sprinkled its dark dome.

  ‘Ainly a birrid,’ said the mane-haired nygel-man. ‘Sit ye dane and I’ll tell ye the tale ye’ve requested. I’ll tell ye whay all acruss the land the hunt is an for a lass wi’ hair of yellie.’

  ‘Very well.’ Tahquil nodded guardedly. ‘I am eager to hear your story.’

  They lowered themselves onto the grass, Caitri and Viviana at a short distance from Tahquil, wary of the two wights. The nygel began to speak.

  He commenced with the story of Morragan, Crown Prince of the Faêran, who had been exiled with his elder brother the High King. For many years after the Closing of the Gates to the Fair Realm, the exiled Faêran lords and ladies had walked the known lands, and that period was known as the Era of Glory. Eventually tiring of Erith, however, these two Faêran lords had both chosen to lie locked in the Pendur Sleep for centuries, surrounded by those of their knights and other retinue who had been exiled with them. Under two hills
had they slept—two hills many leagues apart, with the whole of Erith stretched between, for the brothers’ feud had waxed more bitter than ever since the Closing of the Gates to Faêrie.

  In the Erithan year 1039, Morragan had woken under Raven’s Howe. Perhaps, as the tales would have it, he had been awakened by some foolish shepherd wandering where he should never have ventured, or maybe something else had disturbed this mighty Prince of the Faêran. Some surmised that he had merely chosen to leave the stasis and the timelessness of the Pendur Sleep in order to experience a variation on eternity. Whatever the reason, out into the world, unlooked-for, he had passed. With him went the knights and ladies who had accompanied him, first in exile and then in sleep under Raven’s Howe.

  Meanwhile, under Eagle’s Howe, Angavar High King and his retinue slept on.

  Changes had occurred in Erith since the end of the Era of Glory, that early period when Angavar and his knights had imparted much knowledge to humankind, and mighty cities had been raised and great deeds performed, and splendid songs had been wrought. The Crown Prince and his Faêran entourage from Raven’s Howe found a world much altered. Most of the cities lay abandoned and overgrown. Men had forgotten much that had once been known. While the Faêran slept, war had riven the lands. The dynasty of D’Armancourt had been cast down in the Dark Ages and had arisen again with James the Uniter. Stormriders now ruled the skies. Yet wights still roamed, haunting inglenooks and millponds, lurking beneath hearthstones, inhabiting wells. Those of unseelie ilk preyed, as ever, on humanity.

  Morragan’s contempt for the races of Men had not diminished. He did not mingle with mortalkind. Eldritch wights were drawn to him, attracted by his power, by the forces of gramarye that played about him like silent, invisible lightnings. Driven to frustration by ennui and hatred of exile, their company he tolerated. He was inclined to favour those of unseelie, whose antics and pranks at the expense of humans proved diverting.

  ‘An attitude typical of the Faêran,’ Tahquil interjected with bitterness. ‘The deaths of mortals seem of little concern to them—they have no love in their hearts. Merciless are they, unjust and arrogant.’