The Bitterbynde Trilogy
Page 48
“When I set eyes on thane ’andsome Dainnan, I bethought to meself, Now, me dove, there’s one who is wise. I might ask ’im if he knows ’ow tae get me brothers back. And so I did.”
Thorn had told Janet to take her father’s golden signet ring and journey to the southern shores of Eldaraigne. There she must board a Seaship to take her across the straits to remote Rimany—for he knew of a mountain in that land, well out of the way of Rimanian Windship and Stormrider routes, and on that mountain, it was said, stood a castle wherein dwelled twelve black birds, served by a dwarf. Only within the castle walls could these birds become human, for an hour a day—after that they must fly out the windows. Only if they walked out through the door could they stay in human shape, and only a maiden could unlock the door. So smooth and clear, so polished and gleaming, was this mountain that it seemed to be made of glass. This had earned it the name of Glass Mountain, but in truth it was a great frozen cliff of water, a glacier in the snowbound wastes of the southern land.
“’Ow should I get up a glass mountain?” I asked, and thane Dainnan told me I should go tae t’ old Arysk carlin as dwells near the foot of it, and tell ’er Sir Thorn sent me, and she would give me a pair o’ shoon, all made o’ iron, with spikes, and with them I could climb up! Ain’t that a wonder!
“When I reach the castle, I mun go carefully. Sir Thorn says the seven birds will be quite wild now, after eighteen years. They will not recognize their sister and, thinking me a stranger, they be likely tae set upon me and tear me tae pieces.
“I mun go quietlike tae t’ castle door, which will be locked. Then I mun blow three times intae t’ key’ole and stick in t’ little finger o’ me left hand. Door will open, Sir Thorn says. ’Tis a finger-lock on that castle door, see, me dove. Once inside, I mun use me wits tae ’elp me brothers. By the ring they will know me, but if they see me before they see the ring, I will be killed.” She waxed pensive. “Ah, but I wish tha could speak wi’ me, lady me dove, an’ tell me thane thoughts, for I never ’ad much company ’ere, an’ I would so love a good chat. I be all keyed up now and ready to go. That cold land, Rimany where the Arysk folk do dwell—Sir Thorn told me about it, an’ I fain would fly there at once, if I ’ad wings.
“Sir Thorn said I mun go alone to t’ Glass Mountain, me dove,” she continued, “and ’e knows the lore of the wights, knows all their rules. So I shall not tell me da’. I never ’ave deceived ’im afore, but if I told ’im, ’e would want to go by ’imself, or at least go along wi’ me. Meanin’ no disrespect, if any were to go with me, I’d as lief it were Sir Thorn. Ain’t never seen ’is like before.” She sighed. “And never will again, I ’spect. Now there be a man tae make thane ’ead swim and thane ’eart bubble like a brook.”
Trenowyn and Diarmid arrived at the cottage with a brace of gorcocks. Later, Thorn came in and they all sat down to dine together. It was a merry meal, even more so than breakfast; Janet’s eyes were bright and rested often on Thorn. Her laughter joined frequently with his, until even dour Diarmid and her grim father had to smile, blaming it all on the strong mead. They sang many songs and told many tales. Imrhien could only listen and watch, but she made the best of it and tried not to feel shut out, alone in the darkness of silence.
The next morning, all were up early. The rooster was crowing madly in the hen house, and from the treetops, magpies were warbling their strangely poignant bell-calls. Clouds rested on the heads of the hills. Janet, having milked the curly brown cow, sat astride its back and rode out to the meadow, singing at the top of her voice. Imrhien said goodbye to the cockerel, in handspeak. It looked at her with a glassy eye, surrounded by hens.
Janet and her father pressed all kinds of food and drink and spare clothing on their guests. “And if you would wait two days more,” said Trenowyn, “you might ride with me when I drive to town. But there is not yet enough ore in the wagon to make the journey worthwhile, and if I take it now, the knockers will be angry.”
“Good sir,” said the Dainnan, “your hospitality knows no bounds, but now that we are rested we are eager to be on our way. We can stay no longer.”
Diarmid said, “Since I heard of the recruiting for the Dainnan Brotherhood at Isenhammer, all my thought is there.”
Imrhien merely nodded.
“Then,” Trenowyn said, “good speed, and the fruit of errantry and valor to you in the mouths of poets forever.”
“And to you,” returned Thorn.
Morning mists still lay upon the hilltops, and dew sparkled on the grass. Leaves, dark and glossy, dripped liquid silver. Glittering cobwebs laced the garden-hedge.
By the gate in the lane they took their leave of Silken Janet and her father. Their breath turned to vapor on the biting air. Overhead, the goshawk swooped and gave a piercing cry that startled all the magpies. They rose out of the trees like smoke. In reply, the cock crowed defiantly from behind the cottage. The sound rang between the hills. Over Woody Hill a Windship sailed, an alabaster leaf in a wide, cloud-daubed sky tinted lilac and mauve.
The lane became a track that took the travelers winding up the hill and over it. They stopped on the brow for one last look back at the two small figures waving by the gate, then stepped forward. Briar Cottage disappeared from view.
Like fish’s scales, mosaics of cloud rippled across a turquoise sky. The last of Autumn’s leaves rained like shreds of opalescent silk to become part of the mold underfoot, for it was the first day of Nethilmis, the cloud-month, and Winter had already begun to settle her chilly mantle over the land. Through undulating, lightly wooded country, the three companions followed the track; over little wooden bridges and around the skirts of hills, with Errantry following above, Thorn singing, and Diarmid whistling like a blackbird. The Ertishman’s wounds had healed with remarkable speed—all that remained were the lightning marks on his hands and a small white scar on his brow.
They went with good speed and spent the night in a deserted shepherd’s hut, made cozy with beds of dry fern and a blaze in the fireplace. Thorn’s cloak remained buried somewhere in the mines along with his other gear that had been lost, but Janet had provided other cloaks, thick and tightly woven, which proved almost as warm. A shang wind passed through the region during the dark hours. Imrhien half woke to its tingling spell.
On the following day the track met the Road, but it was not the Road as they had left it. Last seen, it had been overshadowed by trees, hemmed in by wight-haunted forest. Now it was open and clear, rolling away over gentle slopes under a fleecy sky. No traffic could be seen in either direction. They struck out, Thorn setting a cracking pace, impatient to make up for lost time. Late in the day, they found shelter in a shallow cave under a hill and made camp.
In the afternoon of the third day, with the sun a bonfire in a smoky haze, they came to the King’s Cross. Here the Road swept around a central square, from which it branched in four directions. In the middle of this square squatted a massive plinth from which a stone column thrust skyward. It was topped by a statue of a horseman wearing a crowned helm, facing west to Caermelor. His chiseled tabard was emblazoned with the crowned lion device of the Royal House of D’Armancourt. On the pillar’s base were engraved the distances to towns and cities in all four directions.
The Crown and Lyon Inn stood at the northeast corner of the crossroads. Its half-timbered upper stories, high pinnacled gables, and numerous chimneys commanded a good view of the countryside and the junction. On the topmost gable, a weather-cock swung to the west. As darkness fell, lamplight streamed out between the windows’ mullions.
“In Gilvaris Tarv the mercenaries speak of this establishment,” said Diarmid. “It has long been haunted by a buttery wight, one of those creatures that has power over all ill-gotten gains and dishonestly prepared food. Years ago the wight was thriving. Word got about. Folk started to talk about the old taverner’s deceitful ways and how he watered the ale and served dog-pie. The wight grew fat and bloated. Patronage declined, until at last the old taverner dep
arted. The new landlord now keeps a good, clean table, and the Crown and Lyon’s reputation is restored. Here we should break our journey one last time before we part.”
“I would not tarry, but for the sake of friendship,” replied the Dainnan. At these words, great desolation overcame Imrhien, but resolutely she set her shoulders, pulled her taltry well forward, and entered the common room of the inn with her companions.
It was not crowded, but such occupants as it possessed were milling around a table where a speaker was holding forth at length, captivating his audience. It was impossible to see him through the press. The three newcomers sat at an unoccupied table near the window and ordered ale. Imrhien kept her face in shadow. At the next table, two rustics were involved in an eccentric exchange; a yokel was stubbornly trying to impress his sweetheart’s father.
“Sir, might I buy ye a double john-barleycorn?”
“Nay, thank ye. Naught for me.”
“What about a single?”
“No, gramercie—naught.”
“Ale? Dandelion wine? Lemon-water?”
“No, I’d as fain not.”
“What about a posset?”
“Nay, for certain.”
“Ptisan? Gruel?”
A shake of the head.
“Well then, a triple grape-brandy?”
“Oh, aye, that I will.”
When the serving-girl returned, Diarmid said to her, “They say these premises are troubled by a buttery wight.”
For the first time, the girl noticed the Dainnan, lit by the smoky lamplight. She gasped, almost dropping her laden tray. Her hands trembled as she set frothing tankards on the table. Their lids were missing, the hinges broken; they had been well used over the years. Recovering her composure, she answered proudly, “Good gentlemen, the Crown and Lyon has the leanest, most hollow-bellied buttery wight of any tavern in the five kingdoms—too weak to lift even an empty cup.” She was about to elaborate further when Diarmid interrupted:
“Your customer over there has an attentive audience. Pray, what draws them so?”
“Why, sir,” she said with a polite bob, a dimpled smile, and a sidelong glance at the Dainnan from beneath her lashes, “he and a party of other folk have just come in today. Survivors of an attack on a road-caravan some while back—they had been given up for lost—”
With a loud bang, Diarmid’s bench toppled backward as he jumped up. White-faced, he sprang toward the crowds, elbowing them apart. The serving-girl stood openmouthed. Curses flew from the disturbed knot of patrons, then a stream of Ertish from Diarmid, and suddenly he was calling out Muirne’s name over and over, laughing and weeping and clasping his sister in his arms, she shrieking and crying as she clung to him. Imrhien tried to push through to join them, but there were too many broad backs and hefty shoulders in the way. She returned to the table.
Thorn remained calmly seated, his elbow resting on the rough planks of the table. He signed, <>
When the chaos had died down somewhat, Diarmid extricated Muirne from the melee and introduced her to Thorn. Next, all gentlemanly reserve cast to the winds, the Ertishman felt driven to introduce himself to all and sundry, in great excitement, and to call for ale to be served to everyone in the house. Now that the Dainnan’s presence had been discovered, Thorn became the focus of attention. Dainnan uniform commanded the respect and admiration of all citizens, and they looked upon him as though he had stepped out of legend. The unexpected presence of such an honorable personage in such comely form had disconcerted the serving-girl exceedingly, and she was not alone in her awe.
Muirne beckoned Imrhien away. She was glad to follow. Many folk had commented on her looks, in case she was unaware of them, and she had withdrawn deeper into her taltry.
“I am mighty glad to see you, chehrna,” Muirne said as the two embraced. “I thought you were lost.”
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“After the attack, when we all became separated, I could not find you and Diarmid, but I stumbled upon a band of stalwarts from our caravan and some other women, and then a few more caravaners found us. Fifteen we were, in all. We salvaged a wagon and caught some of the strayed horses to pull it, and—oh, we had many adventures along the Road, too many to tell in one sitting, but we got through, and only today we made it this far. I still cannot believe it! But come—join the revelry, dear Imrhien.”
Imrhien shook her head—it was not pleasant to be among staring strangers. Thorn, surrounded by awed onlookers competing to buy ale for him, was regaling them with tales of adventure. Diarmid had already ordered a second round and, tankard in hand, was talking earnestly with other men who had got safely through from Chambord’s Caravan. When asked about the terrible scenes they had witnessed after the attack, some looked grim, others turned their faces away. They would not speak of it and were glad enough of pleasant diversion. When Diarmid began his own heroic tales, they all clapped him on the shoulder and told him what a good fellow he was, especially when he called for their tankards to be filled a third time. Some more travelers came in, and there ensued a general party, which looked as though it would last well into the night. In the wide hearth, a fire bristled.
Imrhien signed to Muirne, <>
“Oh,” replied the Ertish girl, but you will come with us in the morning won’t you? Diarmid is accompanying me and my companions on the wagon. He and I are going to Isenhammer together. I am going to enlist in the King-Emperor’s army as an archer, and Diarmid shall try for the Dainnan. Most of the other survivors came hither to enlist, too—those that did not will be heading to Caermelor on foot. Where is the Dainnan captain who was with you? The one introduced to me as Thorn? Diarmid speaks of him highly. There he is! I would like to thank him. Obban tesh, but he is handsome—” She broke off at the sound of her name being shouted across the room.
“I must go. Diarmid calls. Sleep well, dear friend, since that is your wish—I shall greet you again in the morning.”
A knot of people opened up to receive Muirne and closed behind her again. Thorn was by now seated on a table, the center of a sea of attentive faces. They hung on his every word. The tavern-girls blushed each time they glanced in his direction.
Guided by the girl who had first served them, Imrhien stole upstairs and retired to bed. She lay for hours staring at the warped rafters, wondering about White Down Rory and listening to the songs and laughter and hubbub from below. She could clearly hear what was going on in the common room. A customer had produced a puzzle-cup in the form of a double vessel, one bowl forming the inverted base of the other, which swiveled between brackets. Several uninitiated applicants were invited to drink from it and predictably drenched themselves, to the entertainment of the onlookers. The jollity increased when someone else brought out a three-merry-boys fuddling cup, a trio of mugs whose bodies were joined and whose handles were interlinked so that they had to be emptied simultaneously to prevent spillage. With the roistering in full swing, the patrons were ordering ale and cider in measures: pottles, noggins, tappit hens, mutchkins, and thirdendales. Rowdy song arose.
Later, oddly, the talk quietened. More sobering tidings were discussed. Hordes of unseelie things had been passing through in the night, and these days the innkeeper made certain his doors were heavily barred with iron at sunset.
As Imrhien listened, half dozing in her bed, ever and anon a tall, lithe shadow moved across her thoughts. The shutters of her window blew open in the breeze. A big black bird flapped out of the night, landed on the sill, and flew away again. When she got up to fasten the shutters properly, there was no sign of it.
In the morning, a wagon stood ready and packed on the cobblestones of the inn-yard. Muirne’s companions were climbing aboard. A stableboy went running, an ostler called out orders. Sparrows perched on posts, watching for crumbs. A green-varnished saurian crouched at
op a rain-butt, its spiny tail curling down like a hook. Behind a pile of bags and barrels, someone was whistling. The yard was busy with preparations for travel.
Thorn stood by a side-door. The innkeeper, rotund, rubicund, and balding—as seemed almost obligatory for those who pursued his trade—and swathed in a large smirched apron, stood before him, bowing repeatedly. The man’s voice carried across the yard.
“’Tis an honor, sir, an honor, I assure you, sir. Please accept the night’s lodging and all expenses on the house, sir, if it please you, and all the very best to you and those of your fellowship. We don’t see many of Roxburgh’s knights here, no indeed, sir, even being as we are so close to the Royal City, so to speak—but they’re always welcome any time, at the Crown and Lyon.” He pressed gifts of food on the Dainnan, who waved most of them away, laughing. Many a covert glance was being cast his way from the staff and the inn-patrons moving about. They watched him with awe, not openly but from a respectful distance, feigning preoccupation with their business.
Imrhien had paid Diarmid’s bill. To his consternation, he had recalled too late that his money-pouch lay submerged somewhere in the meres of Mirrinor, and in the heat of the moment he had landed himself badly in debt. Imrhien still retained her own pouch with its three jewels concealed under Janet’s clothes, but she paid the innkeeper with one of the sovereigns that had remained secure in the linings of her old, ruined traveling outfit—for which she received seven shillings and sixpence change. The Ertishman’s discomfiture knew no bounds—to be indebted to a girl was more than he could bear—but Muirne’s money, too, was scarce, and there was nothing else for it.
“To you I owe my life and now my purse,” Diarmid said awkwardly to Imrhien. “I shall repay you, I promise, just as soon as I receive my first wages.”
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“Will you not accompany us to Isenhammer?” Muirne pleaded.