The Iron Tree: Book One of The Crowthistle Chronicles

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  “I do not think to beg.” Desperation was written across his features.

  “What, then?”

  “I have a plan.”

  When he did not elaborate, she understood he did not wish to reveal more, and she did not press for detail. She had been resigned to her own fate. If her husband demanded action to ease the frustration of impotence against the sorcerer’s curse, she would not hinder him. Besides, despite herself, his intense enthusiasm infected her with the merest hint of new hope to help her endure her torment.

  “Shall you go at the time of the Autumn Fair?”

  “That I shall.”

  There was no more need for discussion. Atop the spine of the ridge the couple stood, as straight and fair as two saplings, and gazed across to the long lavender smudge of the horizon. The world opened at their feet. On the cliff face below, the three ash trees, adorned with their swaying bunches of sage green mistletoe, reached into chasms of wind.

  The floods of the previous year had carried tons of silt down from the Border Hills, whence arose the Rushy Water. When the floods subsided, the waterway had become so clogged that it was impassable to vessels. The King’s Swanherd’s barge had not been able to navigate it at the time of Swan Upping, and he had been forced to travel to the marsh by road in a stately procession of carriages, every bone in his pampered body jolting along the way. Subsequently he had been forced to endure the ignominy of leading Swan Upping in the marsh watchmen’s barge.

  The road now being the only route to Cathair Rua, Jarred accompanied the other marshfolk along it, heading for the Autumn Fair. The marshfolk were obliged to transport their wares in donkey carts and oxcarts or in wheelbarrows they propelled themselves.

  Earnán shared a wagon with Stillwater. Tolpuddle drove an oxcart laden with barrels of cured meats. Beside him on the box seat sat Eoin. He had shaved off his beard—in order, he said, to present a new face to the world. Around his neck he had tied a green kerchief Lilith had given him as a Midsummer’s gift.

  “Doireann says Sally howls when you’re away,” observed Tolpuddle.

  “I’m sure your good sister looks after my hound well enough,” replied Eoin curtly.

  One of the front wheels of their cart dropped into a pothole. The oxen hauled it out with a vigorous lurch, flinging the passengers from side to side.

  “When we reach the city I shall get a horse,” Earnán’s son grumbled. “I’ll not endure more of this jolting and jerking. This road is pitted with more craters than all the Fire Mountains counted together.”

  “There is not enough grazing in the marsh for another horse,” Tolpuddle said stolidly. “Willowfoil always says so. He says there’s barely enough for the stock we have already, and in Winter the stock owners must needs purchase hay—”

  “There’s agistment aplenty in the sheep lands,” Eoin replied with irritation. “Don’t trouble your head about it. Leave the horse business to me. Drive on without prattle.”

  Wight-repelling charms of every species jingled and clashed upon the motley equipages of the marshfolk. Armed men stalked at the outskirts of the convoy, keeping watch for bands of Marauders. One of them was Jarred, carrying his bow and a quiverful of arrows. His meagre wares—a sheaf of fellcat petts—were stashed in the donkey cart driven by Odhrán Rushford.

  On a King’s Day morning, the convoy reached the outskirts of Cathair Rua, having journeyed without much incident. During his visits to seasonal fairs over the past fourteen years, Jarred had seen few changes. Overlooking the Fairfield, the Red City, enclosed within its stout, battlemented walls, remained a jumble of mismatched architecture. Some new masonry towered among the old. More numerous were the flags lashing the breeze atop the palace roofs. Wooden hovels and shanties continued to multiply and decay beneath the outer bulwarks.

  The Fairfield was still a sprawling, dusty marketplace filled with a jumble of tents, booths, and stands, a maze of unplanned roads trodden by pushcart men, equestrians, clowns, and jongleurs. The same powdery haze hung over everything, acrid with the aromas of cooked food, manure, and sweat. As ever, the crowd comprised a motley of loquacious Slievmordhuans, flamboyant Ashqalêthans in embroidered tunics, hard-bitten Grïmnørslanders, and grim Narngalismen. Aristocrats of each kingdom were easily identified by their raiment and adornment, but at first glance only the Ashqalêthans stood out among the common folk of humble means. Like the marshfolk, most ordinary workingmen were clad in plain tunics and leggings dyed nondescript colors; the women wore gowns and kirtles of the same drab homespun. They might have hailed from anywhere.

  In their customary enclave near the river landings, the marshfolk set up their stalls. When all tasks were complete, Jarred left his pelts at the booth of Odhrán Rushford and set forth purposefully into the city.

  Hailing the first affable-looking yeoman he met, he asked, “Good sir, can you tell me if the jewel still hangs in the thorn tree in Fountain Square?”

  “That it does, my good fellow, that it does,” replied the yeoman genially, “and shall do forever more, no doubt. ’Tis a marvel of our city.”

  Having thanked the man, Jarred proceeded on his way. A peevish wind plucked at his long hair, teasing it from its bindings. It snapped at the hem of his tunic and tossed tiny puffs of dust in his face. Overhead, between the encroaching roofs, the sky was darkening to puce. A thrill ran through the air, presaging storms.

  Within the boundaries of the royal citadel stood the abode of the druids, the sanctorum of Cathair Rua. It was the only city edifice built of white sandstone; however, the purity of its masonry was polluted by red dust. The walls were smudged, and from each sill and gutter dripped a long, gory stain, as if the buildings were bleeding. Bale-eyed serpents of marble twined about tall pillars. The crests on their heads and backs proclaimed them as cockatrices. More of their kind stared from the domed roofs atop the square towers and turrets and belfries. Shards of smashed glass projected from the top of the high walls, and sentinels patrolled the wallwalks.

  Jarred walked up to the iron gates of a side portal and peered through the bars. He could see nothing but empty flagstones and hemophiliac walls. “Good morrow!” he called into the outer courtyard. “I crave admittance.”

  Apathy blared back at him.

  “Good morrow!” he called again. “I seek audience with Secundus Adiuvo Constanto Clementer!”

  After a while, a sentry in chain mail presented himself at the gates. He carried a pikestaff in his right hand and had a face like a pudding studded with raisins. When he caught sight of Jarred’s pleasing aspect, a corner of his upper lip twitched in the beginnings of a snarl.

  “Be off,” he said belligerently.

  “But I seek audience with—”

  “I say be off with you, fair maid. D’ye think the Druids’ Scribes have naught better to do than bother themselves with the likes of you?”

  “I can pay.”

  “You can pay what?” sneered the sentry, shifting his grip on the pike. “A few fish heads? Don’t make me laugh. Get you gone, before I have you dragged away.”

  Jarred, having expected opposition, urged himself to patience. “I am in a position to offer the honorable Secundus a jewel most rare and valuable.”

  The sentry broke into guffaws, slapping his meaty knees. “A hearty jest,” he exclaimed. “So you are in truth a street performer! Know, you shall get no coin here for your antics. I told you not to make me laugh.”

  Despite himself, Jarred bridled. “I am no jester.”

  “Then show me your rare and precious payment!”

  “I do not have it with me.”

  “Ha!” Again the sentry slapped his knees mirthfully.

  “But can you tell me whether Secundus Clementer is within? Does he reside here currently or is he perchance dwelling within the royal palace? Or is he traveling abroad?”

  “See here, gutter-dregs,” said the sentry, all traces of mirth suddenly wiped from his features, “We do not dispense details of our masters’ itineraries
to all and sundry. Now, if you wish to be party to the wisdom of the druids, go and seek the nearest oratorium and wait there with everyone else until a Hand takes the platform. And if you return tomorrow offering some worthless piece of glass it shall be instantly seized and thrown in the cesspit, while you shall be thrashed for your boldness. Begone!”

  A fellcat crouched behind the eyes of Jarred.

  The pudding-faced sentry added, “And do not try your tricks at any other gate, for I shall tell every man on my watch to beware of you.”

  Jarred paused one instant, aching to reach through the bars and split the head of the guard. Then without further ado he strode away.

  Following the perimeter of the citadel walls brought him near the main gates of the palace. Gatekeepers were hauling on them, swinging them open to allow the entrance of a coach-and-four. The driver and the two footmen who rode standing at the back of the coach were all garbed in scarlet livery. Carmine plumes danced on the heads of the horses, and the carriage doors bore the coat of arms of some city nobleman. With a clip-clop of hooves and a rattle of revolving rims on stone, the equipage passed through into the palace grounds. The gates brazenly boomed shut behind the backs of the footmen. As the gatekeepers slotted the locking bar into position, Jarred passed by.

  Straight to another side portal of the citadel he made his way. This second postern opened onto the palace grounds. Through the metal grille another courtyard could be glimpsed. Distant figures hurried to and fro. Wide stone bowls opened like giant lilies at the summits of lofty pedestals. Red-gold flames bounded upward from their gullets. It was told that these flames never went out, by night or by day, and yet their blaze was not fueled by any oil or wood. Druidic flames they were, said to be kept alight by the power of the Wise Ones. Some folk whispered that metal pipes ran down the centers of the pedestals and that these conduits were connected to a vast underground cesspool from which issued flammable fumes. This, however, was not proven fact and merely to hint at it openly was tantamount to treason.

  Standing before the postern, Jarred called politely into the emptiness.

  “Good morrow! My name is Jarred Jovansson. I seek knowledge of a Druid’s Scribe, Secundus Clementer.”

  Two armored sentries appeared on either side of him, outside the gates.

  “’Tis Ashqalêthan scum, judging by its accent,” one muttered to the other. Ignoring the insult, Jarred said pleasantly, “All health to you, gentlemen! I am seeking news of the healer, Secundus Clementer. Bides he within?”

  The mutterer shrugged. “How should we be knowing the goings-on of our betters, eh?” he said.

  “Then can you direct me to someone who does know?” Jarred asked rashly.

  Fleeringly, the mutterer replied, “We can direct you to the gutter.”

  “Momentarily I shall withdraw without your direction,” said Jarred, again struggling to quell his ire, “but first prithee tell me the whereabouts of the Secundus. That is all I ask.”

  “Disgrace these flagstones any longer, desert snake, and you shall earn yourself a severe hiding,” returned the conversationalist. “The ladies will not think your face half so comely after we have remodeled it.”

  Both guards brandished their axe-headed pikes. Jarred stared at them, openly contemptuous. “So be it,” he said coolly. Turning his back, he departed, none the wiser.

  Jarred knew what he must do. If the cloddish sentries were to set eyes on the white jewel of the Iron Tree, they would surely recognize it at once as a costly ornament. The display of his proposed payment must inevitably give him access to the druid Clementer.

  “I should have secured the jewel in the first place,” he said to himself. “I might have guessed I would be refused admittance or enlightenment without some show of wealth.”

  Yet in his heart he was reluctant to take the jewel a second time from the Iron Tree. The gem and the tree disturbed him. They seemed a legacy from a forefather he wished to disown. Besides, the deed must be done secretively. Anyone who spied him removing such a renowned treasure would instantly divine his heritage, just as old Ruiarc MacGabhann had divined it. Public knowledge of his sorcerer’s blood would, without question, bring trouble upon his relatively peaceful life.

  That evening at the camp of the marshfolk, Jarred lay down to sleep. Before he did so, he said privately to his friend Odhrán Rushford, “Do not be perturbed if you wake in the dark to find me gone. There is a task I must perform tonight in the city—one that demands discretion. I assure you, there is no felony in it, nor any deception—yet I would rather not burden you with its nature.”

  Odhrán nodded. “My friend, I know you too well to suspect you would do ill. Go ahead, but if there is any peril in it, would you not rather have a friend to guard your black?”

  “I thank you,” said Jarred gratefully, “but I must do this deed alone.”

  The night was clear. Pale, silver radiance illumined an open square, bordered by stone walls that appeared black in the moonlight. In the middle of the quadrangle the leafless thorn tree yet flourished beside the low-walled well, stretching its bleak and spiny boughs skyward as if to embrace the moon and take it prisoner.

  It had already managed to imprison the moon’s child—or so it seemed.

  At its heart hovered a mote of dazzling brilliance the size of a cat’s eye.

  A night breeze rocked the thorn tree’s living javelins, swaying an object among them that resembled the condensed essence of starlight on snow. This focus gave off glints like broken rainbows.

  Decades ago, Janus Jaravhor had flung the jewel into the tree. After the passing of the sorcerer, royalty, nobility, and the citizenry had all tried desperately to reach the jewel in its jail. In among the cruel basketwork they sent little children, theorizing that narrow limbs could slip into small spaces, but the flesh of the children had been torn and none could reach the prize. Lumberjacks had chopped at the tree, but the axe strokes rebounded on the wielders. Men had set fires around it, but the dense, black wood refused to burn. They cast buckets of poison and smoking acids on the unyielding bole, to no avail.

  Deep in the night, Jarred stood among the mulberry shadows beneath a house wall. He surveyed the square. He listened with bated breath. The jewel, which MacGabhann had called the Star, winked as it dangled provocatively in its wicker sanctum. All was silent in the Red City. Not even the ululations of nocturnal birds disrupted the tranquillity of the dark hours.

  It came to Jarred that he was loath to move, hesitant to lay hands on the glittering thing. Calling to mind the lovely face of his wife, he summoned his will. Out of the shadows he stepped.

  They will not refuse to listen to me when they see this!

  Soundlessly he walked to the Iron Tree. Now out in the open, beneath the glare of the moon’s white eye, he felt vulnerable, exposed. His scalp crept. Glancing hither and thither, he stretched forth his arm. His fingers closed around a smooth coolness and he possessed the Star, chain and all, and withdrew it. Swiftly pocketing his trophy, he stepped away from the well as silently as before. He merged with the mulberry shadows and made his escape.

  A rat scampered across the cobblestones of the empty square.

  Across the other side of the quadrangle, a fragment of tile, or perhaps a lump of chipped-off mortar, fell down and clattered on stone.

  But the rat had not dislodged it.

  In cities, there is always a watcher nearby.

  Morning burned away night’s livery of silver and black, reviving the ruddy accoutrements of Cathair Rua’s architecture. Mindful of the pudding-faced sentry’s threat to cast it into a rubbish pit, Jarred did not return to the sanctorum with the jewel. The same sentry was on duty at the portal of the druids’ premises that morning. Jarred had decided to wait until the changing of the guard in the middle of the afternoon before he returned. He hoped fervently no other guard would turn him away, not after seeing the jewel.

  “Anyone with half an eye must instantly know it is not glass,” he said to himself
, and he felt the scintillant burning him with a cold, clear fire, nestling against his chest, beneath his tunic.

  Yet he could not wait in idleness. In his eagerness to find help for Lilith, a restless fever drove him on.

  In the wealthy quarter of Cathair Rua, where the houses of peers loomed against the sky like multifaceted gems from a giant’s jewel box, Jarred trudged from gate to gate, asking the servants and the sentries, “Do you know the whereabouts of Secundus Adiuvo Clementer? Have you seen him pass by? Is he perchance visiting within your walls? Maybe attending the home of a friend of your mistress or master? Can you tell me aught?” He kept the jewel safely out of sight until he could be certain he was within reach of the Secundus.

  Everywhere he went, the druid’s name was well known but his whereabouts were not. Jarred was dismissed brusquely by sentries and manservants. Maidservants lingered to lavish smiles on him, to converse with him and ask his name, before their overseers summoned them with shrill, harsh cries. He was always turned away, eventually. Aristocrats seldom welcomed men in pauper’s garb into their domiciles, no matter how comely, how courteous, how well made and graceful.

  Jarred, however, was not one to surrender easily.

  It began to rain.

  The great bellows bags of the clouds sagged lower until at last they broke open. Drops like miniature glass grapes came thumping down. They transformed into tiny crystal coronets as they hit the ground, before flattening to coin shapes of wetness.

  Within the palace of the king of Slievmordhu, seventeen-year-old Crown Prince Uabhar Ó Maoldúin sat brooding over a chessboard while a hovering musician played soft music upon a rebec.

  The eldest son of King Maolmórdha was a youth of middle height with powerful, sloping shoulders. His square face was sharp lined with the clean contours of adolescence. A broad, clear forehead gave way to slightly protruding browridges. His nose was wide, with flared nostrils, and jutted above a downy upper lip. Firm and rounded was his chin, his cheeks somewhat convex. A thicket of dark brown hair, faultlessly groomed and shining, was combed back off his face and bound at the back of the neck with a black velvet ribbon.