The Bitterbynde Trilogy

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  ‘Swee-swit,’ said the goshawk, dulcet, picking up strands of Thorn’s hair in his curved beak.

  ‘Within the hour we departed from the battlefields. The best of our troops rode the skies beside us in haste to Caermelor, with more speed than any Relayer. We were too late—already the Lady of the Sorrows had reached Isse Tower. Pausing only to take fresh eotaurs, we left Caermelor at noon two days since, and rode nonstop, by day and night, arriving here as the festivities of the Antlered One were in full swing.’

  ‘Oh, happy chance! Had you not done so, there must have been massacre on an appalling scale.’

  ‘In that battle, I went through every blood-splashed hall and stair in this worm-bitten pillar, and my sword Arcturus sang metal’s song of death as I wielded him, smiting unseelie heads. Yet, thou hadst once again glided away like sand through my fingers, confounding me. Never to me has woman proved so elusive. No sense could be got out of the incoherent servitors and lords of Isse until at last one of them gathered his wits for long enough to inform me that thou wert away to Huntingtowers and might be lying slain upon the road. Roxburgh, who was already mounted, rode out forthwith. I, about to depart, was compelled to turn back. Someone said they had seen thee in the kitchens. A servant who was sent to bring thee returned, reporting that thou wert nowhere to be found, but that thou wert here, safe, somewhere, and many other folk confirmed his report. The Tower seethed with folk, but it was secure and I knew I should find thee again, sooner or later. I knew it at last.’

  He was silent for a while. Then he said, ‘Who, at Court, guessed thee as Talith?’

  ‘Only the Lady Dianella.’

  ‘Say further.’

  ‘I told her I was looking for a Dainnan called Thorn. Is your Dainnan name commonly known among the courtiers?’

  ‘As well-known as Roxburgh’s “Oak” and Ercildoune’s “Ash”. That lady connives to be Queen, and brooks no rivals. Constantly she flaunts her charms, like the rest, but she is assisted by her plotting uncle who wishes to lever her on the throne and puppet her on his strings. I would hazard she heard the town criers’ proclamations. Her kind hang on their every word in the hope of scandal. Hearing that thou didst search for me and I for thee, that jealous deceiver would have found it necessary to ask no further questions. I’ll warrant she and the wizard swiftly planned your downfall, before I could discover thee.’

  ‘Dianella told me to leave Caermelor.’

  ‘I suspect she did so in order that thy demise might occur at a less inconvenient location, and the blame would be looked for elsewhere!’ His face darkened. ‘Those who cross me are punished.’

  A cloud passed across the sun. Shadows rushed in and dammed the room like thin, dark waters.

  Thorn seized a curl of paper and a quill-pen from the table, trimming its point with a porcelain-handled penknife. Dipping the point in ink, he dashed off a missive, blotted it dry, rolled the parchment and tied it with cord, dripped wax from a candle and impressed it with the seal-ring he had not been wearing in the wilderness. Calling to Caitri, he directed her to deliver it to one of the messengers waiting outside the door. When she had departed, he resumed his nonchalant position in the chair, reclining on one elbow.

  ‘But surely,’ said Rohain earnestly, ‘Dianella could not guess that the Tower was to be assailed by the Hunt!’

  ‘One would suppose not,’ said Thorn thoughtfully. ‘She and her uncle must have prepared some other method of ridding themselves of you, had not Huon intervened.’

  Rohain thought: What a curious coincidence, that the Hunt should choose to assail this fortress precisely at the time of my visit here … And then a hand of ice was laid upon her vitals, bestowing a suspicion so terrible she hardly dared to speak it aloud. Could the wizard Sargoth possibly wield enough power to summon the Wild Hunt? Worse: if he had not summoned it, then who had? And what had the Antlered One hunted for, besides destruction?

  Thorn said, ‘Didst thou tell the Lady Dianella aught of the carlin?’

  ‘I did!’ replied Rohain in consternation. ‘Cry mercy! Have I endangered the old woman’s life? Dianella and her uncle, guessing that Maeve was party to knowledge of Rohain Tarrenys’s true identity, might have tried to silence her! Yet surely, mortal men—even the, Lord High Wizard’s men—could never trace Maeve One-Eye unless she wished it.’

  ‘In truth, Gold-Hair. Yet they were not mortal men who went after her.’

  ‘Then she must be rescued!’

  ‘She shall be, you may believe it.’

  ‘Yet I cannot credit that Sargoth has anything of gramarye at his fingertips, to force unseelie wights to obey him. All his vaunted tricks are only hocus-pocus.’

  Thorn plucked a loop of light out of the air and waved it over his shoulder.

  ‘Is that hocus-pocus?’

  She laughed. ‘A trick, yes—I’ll vouch that it was concealed in your sleeve! I am no country lass from Rosedale, to be gulled by sleight-of-hand!’

  The shining thing was a small circle of golden leaves spangled with white gems that glittered, having somehow imprisoned the brilliance of stars within their depths. Thorn pulled down Rohain’s narrow wrist, printed a kiss on it, and slid the leaf-ring upon her finger. Each axonal fiber along her arm turned to hot wire.

  ‘Thou distract’st me, ever, from the tale,’ he said, without relinquishing her hand. ‘My imagination strays. Thou couldst never understand how difficult it is to remain thus, seemingly unmoved.’

  ‘Whither do thy thoughts wander?’

  He leaned back and whispered in her ear. She murmured a reply. The goshawk, screaming, jumped into the air and flapped around the room, scattering a few loose, downy feathers.

  ‘Out, scapegrace!’ said his master, and the bird flew through the window. Thorn rose from the chair. Drawing Rohain to her feet, he followed the hawk to the embrasure. They stood close together, she intensely aware of the light pressure of his arm against her shoulder as they looked out through the archway across a wide land and the curve of a dazzling sea.

  Thorn leaned his left hand upon the window-frame. It was long-fingered and strong. Around the ring-finger glinted a thin band—three golden hairs, twisted together.

  He has kept the token he seized from me! Ah, what would it be like to wake in the night and see him lying against me, hair rayed out upon the pillow, dark lashes fanned upon his cheek, as soft as a sleeping child’s?

  Below, high in the abyss, the hawk floated.

  ‘Let us speak no more of the past,’ murmured Thorn. ‘Few yellow leaves, or none, cling upon the boughs; stark, dismantled choirs where erst the birds of Summer sang,’ he said, possibly quoting. ‘But the dark days of Winter are not unremitting, and clouds have drawn apart on this day to let the sun shine on our contentment.’

  ‘As welcome as sunshine is, storm and wind and rain have their beauty also,’ said Rohain, recalling the rain in the Forest of Tiriendor. ‘Each season has a virtue to recommend it; not least Winter.’

  ‘I’ faith, I concur! Fain would I be without these walls, and soon we shall be, for we ride this day to Caermelor.’

  ‘By land or sky?’

  ‘By sky. On the wing. Fear’st thou that?’ The glance he bestowed on her seemed to fill her bones with water. Her legs would scarcely hold her up.

  ‘On the contrary,’ she replied, ‘I look to it with eagerness! But stay—before I depart from this place, I must first render them aid. Destruction and death have been brought down on innocents. My own apartments were wrecked, although the raiders left this level untouched.’

  ‘Not much was destroyed elsewhere, save flesh and bone. Thy lodgings were the worst ravaged. Other inorganic damage was incidental to their more vile pursuits. Among my men there are dyn-cynnils, an apothecary, and other flesh-tailors. As we speak they tend the wounded of Isse, regardless of rank or birth. I myself have recently walked among the injured and to me it seems there is none so badly hurt as will not recover fully. My physicians shall bide here until their w
ork is done. To Caermelor we shall ride without further ado, I insist. There shall our betrothal be announced, and thou shalt meet Prince Edward.’

  A pure, resonant strum went through and through Rohain. She managed to say, ‘I approach that meeting with delight.’

  ‘A ball shall be held in thine honour, if that should please thee. Should it?’

  ‘If we should dance the gavotte, as before.’

  ‘To synchronize with thee is joyousness, no matter the choreography, caileagh faoileag,’ he said lightly.

  ‘Once before you called me that name. What is its meaning?’

  ‘“Beloved bird of the sea”. The white bird of freedom is an ocean wanderer. It touches no land for seven years in its voyages around the world, flying over vast tracts of open ocean without landmarks. This fairest, most elusive of winged navigators travels far before it finds its rest.’

  At the back of her mind, a thread snapped, but only a thread. Rohain glanced at her left wrist. Moon-pearls and jet-like chips of black ice embraceleted it, in their setting of white metal; a borrowed trinket of Heligea’s. They were not what she had looked for.

  ‘Now I have been called a butterfly and a bird,’ she said. ‘And Rohain.’

  ‘Which means “beautiful”. Each of us has many names. I have the privilege of possessing such a string of them as might arguably stretch from here to Namarre.’

  ‘And one,’ she said, ‘is James.’

  He took her hand. The jolt shook her arm to the shoulder socket.

  ‘Oh!’ she said, shivering. ‘You take my breath away. Your touch has some alchemy in it.’

  ‘Think’st thou, indeed? Dost thou tolerate it?’

  ‘It is like a shock, but sweeter than anything I have ever endured.’

  ‘How canst thou be certain it is I and not thee who generates it?’

  A silver trumpet sang loudly, somewhere in the machicolations close above. A distant fleck in the southeast shaped itself into a Stormrider.

  ‘A Relayer from Caermelor,’ said Thorn. ‘And we must tarry no longer. The day matures. Art thou able to be ready to depart before noon, Distraction? The hour is not far away.’

  ‘Easily.’

  Rohain called for Caitri. A rattle as of small hard objects scattering upon the floor came from the outer room where she waited—the resourceful child had been playing at knucklebones and at the summons had dropped them.

  ‘At your service, my lady.’

  Caitri, kneeling, had not yet overcome awe sufficiently to glance at her sovereign.

  ‘Tell Viviana to be ready to leave at noon.’

  ‘At once, my lady.’

  ‘And send a messenger to Roxburgh. I would confer with the Attriod,’ said Thorn.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ whispered the maid. Rising, she backed out of the chamber without lifting her eyes.

  ‘I am fond of that child,’ said Rohain. ‘May I ask her if she would like to accompany us?’

  ‘There is nothing thou needs must ask for. All is thine—take it.’

  Still clasping her hand, he led her back to the table.

  ‘Is there nought else thou wouldst take from this chimney stack that once housed thee, besides a half-fledged chick?’

  His hair held the subtle fragrance of cedar or perhaps wild thyme. Submerged by the barely leashed potency of him, Rohain wrenched her attention away. She recalled a dressing-table in the suite where she had slept on the previous night—one of the many apartments on the fortieth story that had escaped the depredations of the unseelie vandals. The fringed aulmoniere containing Maeve’s swan’s feather reposed there. Beside it lay the crimson vial of Dragon’s Blood—Thorn’s gift, unchained from around her neck when she had bathed. It had been neglected in the amazement of the morning.

  ‘Yes, there is something. I shall fetch it myself, and return in a trice.’

  He raised her hand to his lips. Over it, he studied her with speculative tenderness.

  ‘Your kiss is fire,’ she murmured, blushing.

  ‘Burn, then.’

  ‘I do not want to leave your side, even for a trice.’

  ‘Remain, then.’

  ‘Soon, forever. Now I must go.’

  He relinquished her hand. Someone’s knuckles rapped at the outer door. Thorn bade the door-knocker enter, and Rohain fled. Outside in the passageway, a convocation of tall lords stood aside, bowing respectfully, to let her pass. She inclined her head in acknowledgment of their salutes.

  In the dressing-chamber a slight figure jerked its head up when she entered in a flurry of silver and black. The dressing-table was bereft of all accoutrements save a bowl and ewer.

  ‘Pod! What are you doing here? Where are my purse and vial?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he rapped out, rather implausibly.

  ‘You have them. Give them to me, please.’

  He backed away, his hands concealed behind him.

  ‘Prithee, Pod.’

  The lad’s eyes slid from side to side, like loosely strung beads.

  ‘Such as you,’ he said in a stilted voice, ‘such as you and such as he shall never find happiness together.’

  ‘Say not that!’ shouted Rohain vehemently. ‘Take it back! Wish me well instead. Say it is not so!’

  ‘It is so.’

  ‘A king may marry a commoner—why not? He may marry whomsoever he chooses! Why do you hate me?’

  ‘I hate all of you.’

  ‘Do you not wish to find friendship?’

  ‘No.’

  She lunged at him, hoping to catch him off guard and retrieve her belongings. He dodged past, skipping lopsidedly to the door and out.

  ‘Take your pessimistic prophecies hence, base villain!’ she cried after him. ‘They are false, in any event. Never speak to me again!’

  She sat before the looking-glass and wiped away a few glassy tears that trembled in her eyes. Pod’s prediction had disturbed her deeply. He had stolen the swan’s feather and the Dragon’s Blood, but it no longer seemed to matter.

  A reek of siedo-pods preceded Viviana into the chamber.

  ‘My lady! I am ready to return. I cannot wait to leave this miserable place.’

  ‘Stay back, please!’ Rohain held a lace kerchief to her nose.

  ‘There is no ridding oneself of it,’ mourned the lady’s maid.

  Her mistress waved her away. ‘Ask Caitri and Pennyrigg and Featherstone and Brand Brinkworth the Storyteller whether they would like to accompany the King-Emperor to Court and abide there. All who wish to do so must assemble at Royal Squadron Level by noon.’

  Viviana fluttered from the room. Rohain returned to the Highest Solar, before whose door a second crowd milled. Saluting, murmuring, the concourse parted to allow her through. Silver-and-black hat-hedges lined her path. A daunting assembly of lords and attendants now filled the hall, with the King-Emperor at its focus. All fell silent at Rohain’s entrance. Boldly she walked to the window embrasure where once again he stood, framed against the sky, with Errantry positioned on his shoulder. Yes, let them witness how it was.

  Smiling that brilliant smile which left her weak, he kissed her hand.

  ‘Our business here is concluded. And so to horse,’ he added to the assembly at large.

  They led a procession from the hall. Due to his stature, Thorn’s cloak was full-yarded enough to billow from his shoulders like a great banner; as he walked its edges flicked the denizens of the Tower in the passageway, who had shrunk to pilose dwarf borders, having removed their hats and fallen to their knees.

  There was a stirring in the stones. The procession halted abruptly when Thorn sidestepped, reached into the bruised shadows of a gouge in the wall, and pulled out a small, yelping figure that stank like a goat-pen. Pod quailed, weakly flapping against Thorn’s grip like a half-dead fish on a hook.

  ‘Knave!’ said Thorn sternly. ‘Think you that you can spy on us, hidden, as you erroneously believed?’

  Pod hung limply, sullenly.

  ‘Speak!’


  The lad pointed an accusing finger.

  ‘She told me not to speak.’

  ‘What?’ roared Thorn. ‘Have you been troubling the Lady Rohain? I might have your shape shifted to that of a viper’s liver and feed you to my hawk.’

  ‘No, no!’ squealed Pod pathetically. To Rohain, he looked such a miserable, scrawny thing that compassion and deflection seemed the only possible reaction.

  ‘He has not—’ she began then broke off. He has been troubling me. I would not accuse him, but neither would I lie, especially to Thorn. There have been too many lies, since my tongue was loosened.

  ‘Any past wrongs are forgiven,’ said she. ‘He is able, conceivably, to be an amiable lad.’

  ‘He does not look so,’ said Thorn. ‘Get yourself some clean clouts, lurker, and a courteous tongue in your head.’

  He released the boy, who unclotted to a nerveless blob and subsided against the wall.

  They moved on.

  A phalanx of footmen in mustard livery edged with silver braid stood to attention in straight lines, their gloved hands knotted behind their backs. Saddled and ready, eotaurs cluttered the upper gatehalls with the jangle of their flying-gear and the ring of sildron against stone. Their warm breath scented the air like a harvest.

  Lord Ustorix, with Lady Heligea at his elbow, took leave of the King-Emperor and his entourage. The Son of the House croaked his farewells, hoarse with some kind of pent-up emotion.

  ‘Your Majesty has honoured our humble abode by this visit and by the succor Your Majesty has bestowed on Your Majesty’s undeserving subjects. May Your Majesty and the Lady Rohain ride with the wind at your backs.’ In his pompous efforts at civility he seemed to be tying clove-hitches with his tongue

  Thorn nodded and leapt astride his steed, thrusting his boots down between the rustling wings and the smooth flanks.

  ‘Lord Ustorix, are you quite recovered from your ordeal?’ inquired Rohain.

  ‘No complaint shall escape my lips, most exalted lady,’ he answered with studied fortitude.

  ‘Until you are, I recommend that Heligea take over your Relayer duties. She is adept at riding sky. In fact, I suggest that she should Relay as often as she wishes.’