The Bitterbynde Trilogy

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  The carlin gave detailed instructions to Tom Coppins, who went off to Caermelor on a pony and returned three days later laden with parcels.

  ‘What took you so long?’ Maeve said impatiently.

  ‘I was bargaining.’

  ‘Hmph. I hope you got the better of those rapscallion merchants. How much got you for the emerald?’

  ‘Twelve guineas, eight shillings, and eightpence.’

  ‘And what purchased you with that?’

  ‘Shoes, raiment, and trinkets such as you asked, and a hired carriage to be waiting at the appointed place at the appointed time.’

  ‘Good. Keep half a crown and give the rest to my lady, Rohain of the Sorrows.’

  Tom Coppins was accustomed to unquestioningly accepting curious events. That a yellow-haired monster should have entered the cottage and been transformed was no more strange than many things he had seen while in the service of Maeve. He loved the old carlin with unswerving loyalty—whatever she needed, he would fetch; whatever she asked, he would do, and without question. He was an astute lad and warmhearted. In the time he had been in Maeve’s service, he had seen beyond the aspect of a simple old woman, the aspect the world saw. He had been witness to the carlin’s true dignity and power made manifest.

  That night, Tom washed Imrhien-Rohain’s hair with an iron-willow mordant. He rubbed in a thick mud of pounded and soaked iris-roots, then rinsed the hair again with the mordant, as Janet had done to Diarmid’s locks in the valley of roses. The black-haired girl shook out her sable tresses in front of the fire.

  The swanmaiden’s eyes gleamed from the shadows. Maeve brought food for the wight-in-woman-form, speaking to her in a low, foreign voice.

  The next morning, at uhta, the eldritch maiden departed. Before she left, Imrhien-Rohain saw her standing framed in the doorway, her fair face and slender arms gleaming white against the nightshade of her cloak and hair. The lovely wight offered a single black feather to Maeve. Then she slipped behind the doorpost and vanished. A moment later, with a rush and a whirr, dark wings lifted over the house-roof. There came a plaintive, mournful cry that was answered from far off.

  Maeve stood on the doorstep, her face raised to the sky.

  ‘She rejoins her flock at a remote mountain lake,’ she said at last. ‘She could not bear to be enclosed any longer within walls. The limb is not yet properly healed but it might be she will return for my ministrations, now and then, until it is whole. They always know where to find me, in my wanderings. And soon I must wander again—I have stayed here long enough and Imbroltide draws nigh.’

  Consideringly she looked at the long black feather, before swathing it in a swatch of linen.

  ‘Now it is but sixteen days until the turn of the year, the most significant time of all—Littlesun Day. There is much to be done.’

  She set a fiery eye on her other visitor. ‘Take this swan’s plume with you. The swans of eldritch sometimes give a feather in token of payment. When the feather’s holder is in need, the swan is bound to help, but once only. Her calling-name, potent only for the duration of the bitterbynde, is Whithiue. This is a gift of high value.’

  A bitterbynde. Imrhien-Rohain recalled hearing that term when she dwelled in the House of the Stormriders. The betrothal of a daughter of that House, Persefonae, had been pledged on the day she was born. A vow, or geas, laid upon a subject willing or not; a decree that imposed bitter sanctions upon its breaking, and demanded stringent, almost impossible conditions for its removal—that was a bitterbynde. In the swan-girl’s case, she was bitterbound to come to the aid of whomsoever grasped the feather and summoned her.

  ‘Now,’ said Maeve earnestly, folding the linen package firmly into the hand of Imrhien-Rohain, ‘it is your turn to go forth.’

  So it was that on the fifteenth of Nethilmis, before the early gathering of morning, a cloaked and taltried figure, mounted sidesaddle, rode swiftly from Maeve’s door. White stars arrayed a fretwork of black boughs, and the green star of the south was a shining leaf among them. Thin chains of mist fettered the trees. Every leaf and twig seemed carved from stone. The rider, awkward and uncertain, continually glanced from right to left. The long skirts kept tangling with the stirrups, but, as if in haste, the rider urged the pony on. Not far from the house of the carlin, dark figures sprang from among the trees as the steed cantered past. The rider cast a glance backward, then, with surprising alacrity, threw one leg over the pony’s back and, giving a shrill cry, surged forward. As the pony’s hooves clattered away, other figures ran from the trees bringing up horses with muffled hooves. Soon they were galloping in vigorous pursuit.

  The pony, although swifter than an ordinary mount of its kind, could not outmatch the long strides of the horses. Yet for a time it seemed the pursuers did not want to catch up, but merely to follow from a distance and mark their quarry, as though biding their time. Suddenly they rounded a bend and were forced to rein in their horses so sharply the steeds reared on their hind legs and screamed their indignation. Right in their path, the pony had halted. It wheeled, then, and faced them. The rider flung back the hood, revealing the face of a dark-eyed lad. His hand dipped beneath his cloak and he flung out a powder that exploded in the faces of the pursuers with a dazzling flash, followed by billowing smoke. When they finally fought free of the thick fog, he was gone.

  Back, then, they rode like a storm. When they returned to the house of the carlin, the windows and doors stood open, sightless. No smoke wisped from the chimney. The place was empty and all trails were cold.

  A quarter-moon danced overhead. The Greayte Southern Star hung like an emerald set in onyx, and falling stars peppered the night sky.

  Imrhien-Rohain ran along a narrow woodland path leading northwest, clutching her purse of coins to prevent them from clashing together. She had the advantage of a secret start, and carried a potent tilhal of Maeve’s as protection against things of the night that dwelt around White Down Rory. A Stray Sod had been let fall behind her at the beginning of the path to mislead any mortal who stepped thereon, and a sudden, temporary thicket of brambles camouflaged the path’s entrance. Despite these precautions, terror spurred her pulse as she fled through the black trees. The glimmering footpath seemed enchanted—no root reached across to trip her up, no wight crossed it or started up alongside. Without pause, she hastened on, casting many a backward glance, as if the mysterious riders who had watched the house might spring out of the darkness. At last, lacking breath, she slowed to a swift walk.

  The money from the emerald had been well-spent. Rohain of the Sorrows, an elegant lady, would become a widow as soon as she unfolded the silk mask across her face to hide her grief, in the fashion of bereaved women. By her ornaments and garments, she would appear a noble widow of considerable means. The silk domino, blue as night, was worked with scarlet. Jet beads sparkled in her long dark hair. Matching needlework, dark red and azure on midnight blue, drenched the full bell-sleeves of her gown, slashed to show contrasting lining, and dripped down the voluminous skirts from below whose picoted hems several petticoats peeped demurely. Her waist was cinched by a crimson leather girdle, housed within silver filigree. A long, fitted, fur-lined travelling cloak, frogged down the front, covered the yards of fancy fabric. A fur-lined velvet taltry topped the outfit.

  She went forward. Hours passed. A soft noise like the wind in an Autumn wood came rustling. She thought it strange, for there was no wind, and all around, stark boughs plowed black furrows into the fitful moonlight, unmoving. A tall, pale figure glided past; some wight in almost mortal form. It groaned and soon passed out of sight. The susurration of falling leaves went on and on. Suddenly the moon shone out radiantly and the sounds changed to faint murmurs of laughter and ridicule that continued for a while, then faded.

  Down among the tree roots, tiny lights were moving.

  The path climbed a final slope and came out on the Caermelor Road as the sky began to pale. Farther down the Road, to the left, squatted a white milestone. It wa
s there that the coach waited, its coach-lamps glowing like two amber flowers. The horses’ breath steamed, a silver mist combed to shreds by the sharp and bitter cold.

  The coachman had received an enticing down-payment on the understanding that his services were to be performed with confidentiality—not that the noble lady passenger had held a clandestine tryst in the woods with a bucolic lover, of course. Simply, she desired privacy and no questions. Given his utmost discretion, the pecuniary reward at the end of the journey would exceed even the down-payment.

  He saw a slender, cloaked figure materialize out of the darkness, silent as a moth.

  Bowing, he murmured, ‘Your ladyship.’ Her name was unknown to him.

  She nodded. He could not see her face behind the decorative blind. Handing her into the carriage, the coachman stepped up into his box-seat and shook the reins. His bellowed ‘Giddap!’ harshly interrupted the night.

  With a sudden thrust forward, the equipage bowled rapidly along the Road to Caermelor.

  Light wooden caskets were waiting in the coach. With a sense of excitement, the passenger opened them. One was filled with sweetmeats and refreshments for the journey, one contained a most risible headdress, another an absurd pair of shoes, and a fourth accommodated an ermine muff and a pair of gloves. With difficulty inside the cramped and jolting compartment, the ‘widow’ added these items to her person.

  The wide headdress was fashioned from a thick roll of stiffened fabric trimmed with sweeping carmine plumes, beaded, latticed with silver. It possessed a crown rising to a point draped with yards of azure gauze. Altogether, the dainty, fragile shoes, the voluminous sleeves, the stiff, embroidery-crusted fabric of the gowns, the heavy girdle that made it difficult to bend forward and the wide headdress that made it impossible to approach any wall—seemed most onerous and impractical, not only for travel but for everyday living. These garments and accoutrements would impede the simplest of tasks. Could it be that such strange raiment was truly the fashion at Court? Had her benefactress and the lad been mistaken, out of touch? Quickly she dismissed the thought. Nothing escaped the carlin’s notice—the costume would be correct.

  Her heel kicked against a heavy object sitting on the floor—a foot-warmer. Tom Coppins had thought of everything. Housed in its elaborately carved wooden case, the brass container with its pierced lid gave off a welcome warmth from the glowing charcoal in its belly. The passenger propped her feet thereon and sat back against the padded leather upholstery.

  Yet the new Rohain could not enjoy the comforts of this unaccustomed mode of travel. She fervently hoped that all she had heard about the Court had been exaggerated—the tales of the refined manners, the complicated rules of etiquette, the forms of speech. Between the fear that the carriage would be overtaken by her enemies, the dread of what was to come, and constant battles with the unwieldy headdress that threatened to slide off, she made the journey in great discomfort and alarm.

  Throughout the Winter’s day, the carriage rolled on.

  Days were short. At its zenith, the sun had risen only marginally above the horizon, where it glowered from behind a dreary blanket of cloud.

  Emerging from the woods, the Road ran through farming lands patched with fields, hedge-bordered. Here and there, a house topped with smoking chimneys nestled among its outbuildings. After passing through a couple of outlying villages, the Road began to climb toward the city walls.

  The buildings of Caermelor clustered on the slopes of a wall-encircled hill that rose four hundred feet out of the sea at the end of its own peninsula. To the south, the sea had taken a deep bite out of the land to form a wide and pleasant bay fringed with white sands. The far side of this bay was cradled in the arm of a mountainous ridge reaching out into the ocean to form a second, more rugged peninsula, its steep sides clothed in forest.

  Eastward, an expansive, flat-bottomed valley opened out. Through the middle of it ran the river that drained the encircling hills, flowing until it reached the sea to the north of the city-hill. There, salt tide danced to and fro with fresh current. In the estuary, waters ran deep enough for the draught of the great-keeled Seaships. Wharves, piers, docks, and jetties jutted from the northern flank of the city-hill, stalking into the water on thick, encrusted legs.

  Atop the highest point, the palace overlooked all—the vast sweep of ocean to the west, the curve of the bay with its long lines of lace-edged waves, the blue-folded shoulders of the ridge dropping sharply to the water; north, the ocean stretching to distant mountains; northeast, the river-port teeming with business, forested with tall masts. Eastward, the city spread out over the plain, dwindling to scattered farms and the backdrop of Doundelding’s hills on the horizon.

  But blind ocean was not all that could be seen to the west, for a tall island rose up, perhaps a quarter of a mile offshore, directly opposite the city-hill. At low tide, the waters drained from a causeway that connected it to the mainland. At all other times it was completely cut off by water. Here stood the Old Castle, much like a crag itself, jagged, gray, and gaunt. Of yore it had been the fortress to which citizens had retreated in times of war. Now it stood, stern sentinel, silent guardian, facing the palace on the hill.

  Late in the afternoon the coach halted at last before the city gates. There was a knock on the front wall of the compartment. Imrhien-Rohain slid back the little window that opened onto the coachman’s box. His eyes appeared, goggling like a fish’s.

  ‘Where to now, m’lady?’

  ‘To the palace.’ Her new voice had crisped to a clear, ringing tone.

  ‘Very well, m’lady.’

  She slid the window shut, like a guillotine chopping off the outside world.

  Guards lounging under the portals had a word with her coachman. Through the windows they eyed the passenger with curiosity as the vehicle went by. Imrhien-Rohain drew the curtains against their intrusion. Beyond, voices rose and fell, wheels rattled, seagulls mewed, children yelled. In booming tones a town crier shouted, ‘Hear ye! Hear ye!’

  She had come at last to Caermelor.

  2

  CAERMELOR, PART I

  Vogue and Vanity

  Euphonic fountains splash, by arbor walls

  Where climbing roses, red and yellow, cling.

  Proud peacocks strut on sweeping, verdant lawns

  And nightingales in gilded cages sing.

  Glass carriages with plumed and matching teams

  Roll on amid this royal plenitude,

  By ornamental lakes where sleek swans glide,

  Reflecting on their mirrored pulchritude.

  The silk and satin ladies with their fans

  Incline upon the marble balustrade.

  The night will see them dance like butterflies,

  When they attend the Royal Masquerade.

  Fair jewels gleam on ev’ry courtly peer:

  Bright rubies, sapphires, diamonds, and pearls.

  The costliest of velvets, plumes, and furs

  Adorn dukes, viscounts, marquesses, and earls.

  Prosperity and luxury abound;

  Sweet music plays as nobles feast and sport.

  The rarest beauty and the greatest wealth

  Are found within the Empire’s Royal Court.

  FASHIONABLE SONG AT THE COURT OF CAERMELOR

  Caermelor Palace had originally been constructed as a castle stronghold and still retained its fortified outer structure. Machicolated watchtowers, siege engine towers, stair turrets, a mill tower, round mural towers, square mural towers, and numerous other outjuttings thickened the twelve-foot-deep walls at varying intervals.

  The road into the park-like palace grounds crossed the moat by means of a drawbridge. Beyond the drawbridge bulked the garrisoned gatehouse and the barbican. The main outer gate was constructed of solid oak, studded with iron. It could be barred, if necessary, by an iron portcullis that remained raised in times of peace and was lowered only for the purpose of oiling the chains and maintaining the winches.

 
When this outer gate was shut, persons on foot might enter by a smaller postern set into it, whereupon they would find themselves in a long chamber set within thick walls, with a gate at either end—the gatehouse, a solid edifice specifically dedicated to the purpose of providing a space between the inner and outer portals. Peepholes in the walls allowed guards in side passages to inspect purportedly innocent visitors. Those approved visitors might pass through a second gate. It opened onto the outer bailey, which in recent years had been filled with walled gardens and leafy courtyards. A third gate led to the inner bailey with its stables, barracks, parade grounds, kennels, pigeon-lofts, coach-mews, and falconry-mews. It was bordered by the King’s Tower—winged with fluttering standards—the arsenal tower, the Great Hall with its pentise, two tall Mooring Masts, the solar, and the keep. The windows of the internal buildings had been enlarged from cross-slitted arrow-loops and narrow arches to gracious fenestrations of latticed glass, and greater opulence reigned within them than in former days. The transformation from fortress castle to residential palace had also involved the creation of ornamental gardens around the keep.

  Somewhere within the vitals of that keep, Tamlain Conmor, the Most Noble the Duke of Roxburgh, Marquess of Carterhaugh, Earl of Miles Cross, Baron Oakington-Hawbridge, and Lord High Field-Marshal of the Dainnan—to name only his principal titles—strode into the richly furnished suite he always occupied when at Court, calling for his junior valet and his squire.

  ‘Ho, John! Where is my lady wife?’

  ‘The Duchess Alys-Jannetta is at her bower with her ladies, Your Grace,’ piped the valet.

  ‘So. Have you laid out some clean clouts for the evening?’

  ‘The scarlet hose or the puce, Your Grace?’

  ‘I care not, just as long as they are serviceable enough that they don’t split along the crotch seam and let my backside hang out. Wilfred, is Conquest well-polished?’

  ‘Conquest is oiled and polished, sir,’ replied that young man.

  ‘Give him here.’ The Dainnan Chieftain stroked the broadsword lovingly; held it up to the light.