The Bitterbynde Trilogy

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  A wintry gust, clean and sharp, howled through the chamber. It billowed the wall-hangings and blew out seventy-five candles.

  Several Dainnan knights in chain mail had entered the chamber and positioned themselves on either side of the door. Sianadh seized up in midpose. Rohain’s maids jumped to their feet and snapped to attention, and even the guards ossified further.

  Thorn stood in the open doorway, a score of lords at his back.

  In Dainnan attire, straight as a sword he stood, and as bright. His hair and dusken cloak lifted, like shadowy vanes, in the breath of Winter that had entered with him. That cool current blew across the carpets a scatter of leaves from the gardens, leaves that chased each other and skipped like pagan dancers across the floor’s rich patterning. Rohain’s heart leapt painfully against her ribs, a bird battering itself against its cage. His beauty is perilous. I could die merely from beholding it.

  Roxburgh, taciturn, stood behind his sovereign’s shoulder with two or three others of the Attriod. Like the tail of a comet, a glittering train forever attended the King-Emperor.

  This tableau shattered when Thorn stepped forward, crunching dry leaves beneath his boots. Sianadh remained standing. A courtier hissed, ‘On your knees, fellow!’

  ‘I grovel before no man,’ said Sianadh, ‘save the King-Emperor himself.’

  ‘Behold the King-Emperor, block-brain,’ muttered Rohain.

  ‘What?’ Sianadh jibbed, thrown off balance. Stiffly he sank to his knees, bowing the bushy red head.

  ‘Rise, Kavanagh,’ said Thorn, calm as a subterranean lake, as cold.

  ‘Ye have pardoned me,’ said Sianadh, stumbling to his feet and moving to Rohain’s side with a mixture of gratefulness and wariness, ‘and for that I thank ye, Your Majesty. I’ve a strong right arm that has defended Imrhien here and would willingly wield a sword for the Empire, and it has not withered at all despite languishing in your dungeons without so much as a drop of ale to give me fortitude.’

  The courtiers murmured against his questionable attitude and his unconscionable manner of addressing the King-Emperor using the second-person pronoun. Their sovereign appeared to ignore these mistakes.

  ‘Indeed?’ he said, raising one eyebrow. A captivating trick, thought Rohain.

  ‘Aye,’ said Sianadh. Lifting an elbow from beneath which emanated an odour of stale body fluids, he rolled up a sleeve. ‘Strong, my arm.’ Blatantly devoid of finer feeling, he flexed a great pudding of a bicep. Several guards made as if to throw him out for his effrontery. Thorn waved them away.

  ‘Leave us,’ he commanded his retinue. ‘Stay you, Roxburgh, and my page.’ Bowing, the attendants reluctantly began to trickle out of the Hall of Audience.

  ‘You say that arm has defended the Lady Rohain?’ Thorn inquired mildly.

  ‘Aye, and no man has ever beaten me in an arm-wrestle,’ replied the Ertishman, whose eyes were boldly fixed on Thorn’s. Being a few inches shorter, he had to look up to achieve this; an irksome necessity for him.

  ‘Sianadh,’ admonished Rohain. ‘Do not be scothy. Nothing can rescue you this time.’

  ‘Do you make a challenge?’ asked Thorn.

  ‘A challenge, by—’ Sianadh bit off his words. ‘Aye, some might call it that, sir. Now I have said it. There it be.’ His face was a mask of defiance.

  The last two departing lords fingered their sword-hilts. ‘For this insolence his tongue shall be torn out by the roots,’ muttered one.

  ‘He’s for the scaffold,’ murmured another. Roxburgh folded his arms and looked interested. The heavy doors closed.

  The corners of Thorn’s mouth twitched slightly. He rolled up his right sleeve and took a seat at a small table. His arm, a tawny mellifluity of waterworn driftwood’s smoothly contoured undulations, looked vastly different from his opponent’s. Sianadh’s arm was similarly thewed, but adorned by tattoos, freckles, red bristles, and scars.

  Suddenly in his element, Sianadh took the opposite stool. They planted their elbows on the tabletop. Their hands came together. Cords bulged, sinews knotted. Elegantly, in the blink of an eye, it was over. Sianadh’s hand lay on its back; his shoulders skewed to follow the outward twist of his elbow.

  ‘Two outta three!’ he demanded hotly, as though he sat at a tavern table with a drunken caravaner. Shivering beads stood out on his brow. Thorn nodded. The act was repeated, with identical outcome. Sianadh sat stunned as Thorn rolled down his sleeve.

  ‘Well sir, ye’ve beaten me fair and square,’ the Ertishman admitted with admiration. ‘I cannot say as I wasn’t ready. I was. But ye might have dignified a man by breaking a sweat. That there is a right arm I’d be proud to fight in the shadow of.’

  ‘My sword arm might cast a darker shadow.’

  The Ertishman threw back his head and shouted with laughter, displaying a crescent of broken teeth like stubs of moldy cheese.

  ‘Call me a blind man,’ he blurted between guffaws. ‘Your skian’s buckled on the south side. I’ve made a right sgorrama of meself.’

  ‘True, but not relevant since you have already proven your worth thrice over,’ said Thorn. ‘What boon would you ask of me?’

  ‘Boon? Sir, ye have already extended the numbering of my days, which I am never sure of. I could not ask for better. However …’ The Ertishman was struck by a sudden awareness of opportunity. He scratched his beard. ‘D’ye need more men-at-arms?’

  ‘Not at this time.’

  ‘Then there’s something I have always thought might suit me—to sail on a Windship and trade me way about. Travel, adventure, and wealth. That’s my style.’

  ‘A clipper lies idle in Finvarna as we speak. I gift her to you. What more? Ask, while I am generous.’

  ‘I give ye gramercie, sire. As for more—I have a craving to return to Finvarna, me native land. Yet I may not legally set foot on its shores because the High Chieftain, Mabhoneen of Finvarna, has banished me.’

  ‘You told me he lifted that ban,’ interjected Rohain.

  ‘I forgot to tell ye,’ said Sianadh. ‘He put it back.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘’Tis a long and unjust story, chehrna. These days, I yearn for me home something vicious. ’Tis hard to explain—’tis like a sore plague that eats at ye. Aye, I have the homesickness, that which in Finvarna we call the longarieth. I would fain set foot on me native sod again.’

  ‘You shall be no longer exiled,’ Thorn said.

  Sianadh digested this. When he looked at Rohain she beheld in his face a light of joy such as she had never seen there.

  ‘Finvarna,’ crooned Sianadh, as if murmuring a love-name. ‘Finvarna. I can go back. And a Windship! I shall become a merchant, that I shall. A respectable man. I shall see them, me children, me Granny … Ach! The chariot races and the good Ertish cookery—Your Majesty, I cannot find words to show me gratefulness!’ He jumped up. ‘A Windship! It shall be my beast of burden, my donkey. Therefore I shall call it the Bear’s Ass, or mayhap the Bear-Ass.’

  ‘Unfortunately for the rejuvenation of the Register of Ships’ Names, she is already titled,’ said Thorn drily. ‘Red of canvas, she is called Rua.’

  ‘Rua—the Red-Haired!’ Sianadh chortled.

  ‘You will not return to Finvarna yet?’ beseeched Rohain. ‘You will stay for the Ball and the Tournament of Jousting, mo gaidair? There are to be fireworks!’

  ‘I wouldna miss the festivities for gold angels!’

  ‘We shall be happy and remember happy times past.’

  ‘Aye, times past.’ Sianadh quieted abruptly, abashed. ‘But it cannot be like those times, not now, not never again, with ye looking like that and all.’ His eyes met hers, open but shielded. In them was written the knowledge that he looked upon a friend now contained within a different vessel, a vessel to which he would have responded differently had he known her in it first. He struggled to come to terms with this, having lived all his life in a world whose mores dictated that friendship should not exist between such a man as he and suc
h a woman as she. The awareness discomfited him and made him feel, somehow, a traitor.

  Comeliness is a blade with two edges, mused Rohain.

  ‘Inna shai tithen elion,’ she said, with a sad smile, recalling their first parting—long ago, it seemed in Gilvaris Tarv.

  ‘Kavanagh,’ Thorn said, rising to his feet. ‘Until you depart you have the freedom of my cellars and my leave to sample their contents in quantities to your liking. This is to indemnify you for the shortages you have ostensibly experienced while living idle at the expense of my Treasury.’

  ‘I shall seek them out at once!’ said the Ertishman energetically, clapping the King’s Page heartily on the shoulder. ‘I have some drinking to catch up on and I be in need of good fellowship to do it with. Ye look like a good fellow.’

  The courtier stepped back hastily. Sianadh shrugged.

  ‘Have it your way, jack. I’ll warrant the kitchen-hands know how to make merry, if ye do not.’

  Bowing with more enthusiasm than style, Sianadh took it upon himself to walk backward from the Hall of Audience, to demonstrate his knowledge of etiquette. No sooner had he reached the doors, however, than he was back again. In a sudden, unexpected, gesture, he knelt at Thorn’s feet a second time, unbidden, wordless.

  Briefly, Thorn laid his hand on the Ertishman’s head. ‘Sain thee,’ he said gravely.

  This time as Sianadh disappeared around the corner, a high-pitched whoop drifted back.

  ‘Barbarian.’ The whisper rippled knowingly among the courtiers clustered outside.

  ‘Now,’ said Thorn to Rohain, turning the twin shafts of his gaze on her to penetrate her eyes and plumb the wellspring of her thought. ‘Having dispensed with business, my intent, troth-plighted, is to walk with thee beneath the trees.’

  He took her hand.

  Later, as they sauntered together through the gardens, Thom said, ‘One man leaves the dungeons, another arrives. The Lord High Wizard is now imprisoned. As for the niece, she is under durance, confined to rooms, with only poor Georgiana Griffin to attend her.’

  ‘Good sooth! Are they guilty of conspiring to destroy me, as you suspected?’ asked Rohain.

  ‘As sure as drowners fill their lovers’ lungs with water. The one has demonstrated it, the other has confessed it,’ replied Thorn.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Thou dost recollect I sent a letter from Isse Tower?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘I bade Tom Ercildoune set a watch on the conjuror. When tidings of our success at Isse reached the Court, the swindler and his minions instantly fled. The fool thus betrayed himself, for why should he take flight on hearing the Hunt had been defeated and Dianella’s supposed rival found safe, unless he feared reprisal for his part in the fiasco?’

  ‘How did you find him?’

  ‘The Dainnan of the Ninth Thriesniun tracked them to the Well in the Wood’s Heart. Hast thou heard of it? No? ’Tis a dry and mossy shaft of ancient stone, forever secure from wickedness. Inside the well we discovered the carlin Maeve One-Eye and the lad, her apprentice.’

  Rohain clapped her hands delightedly. ‘That is indeed good news!’

  ‘They were imprisoned there, under eldritch siege. The carlin had sealed the shaft with the powers of her Wand, for safety, but they could not leave without aid. The conjuror Sargoth, by contrast, went unharmed among the wicked wights winged, tailed, and fanged, in the Wood’s Heart. Indeed, he was imploring them for help!’

  ‘Does he wield power over them?’ cried Rohain.

  ‘Nay. He is naught but an ill-uttering entertainer, a sly and hollow-hearted man of wax. He had made some pact with them, which ensured his temporary immunity from their wanton wickedness. That is all. When I joined the Ninth Thriesniun we drove back the creatures of unseelie, releasing the two good folk trapped within the Well, and taking the conjuror prisoner. The Dainnan zealously drove the unseelie things far off, whereupon Maeve One-Eye and Tom Coppins went their way on the forest paths again, unafraid.’

  ‘I am glad!’

  ‘The conjurer and his henchmen were brought here to the palace. They were charged with trafficking with wielders of maleficent forces. As for the niece, when confronted with the truth she denied it at first, then, perceiving denial to be sleeveless, she told all. Their murderous conspiracy was revealed.’

  ‘Murderous conspiracy? Is it a fact that Sargoth sent the Hunt against me? That the infamous Huon should bend to a wizard’s will seems incredible, but I fear that the attack on Isse Tower at the time of my visit was more than coincidence. Nay,’ she said, answering her own question, ‘it cannot be so. Sargoth might have achieved his purpose to equal degree with a well-placed ambush of lesser wights.’

  ‘True, eudail, no wizard has the power to command Huon. He may have inveigled a hold over some common spriggan or duergar, but no mortal man can govern the Wild Hunt. The conjuror has unwittingly plunged himself into deeper trouble than he comprehends. His meddling has triggered more than he bargained for. He admitted, when questioned, that he sent some minor unseelie destroyer to slay thee, describing thee as a Talith daughter, a gold-haired damsel with her tresses dyed black. I surmise his words were passed on by eldritch tongues, to reach the ears of some mightier authority.’

  Looking directly at Rohain he said gravely, ‘My bird, something mighty, unseelie, and malevolent came for thee—the Antlered One himself. Why should Huon wish to hunt at thy heels?’

  His words accorded with her own suspicions. ‘I know not!’ she said, and this was true. Somehow I have incurred the wrath of the Antlered One. It might be that in my travels I inadvertently spied upon him, or took something that belonged to him or his minions. The Lords of Unseelie require only slight motive to persecute mortalkind.

  In her heart she guessed the reason must lie in her forgotten past, but to herself she denied it, blindly hoping that banning such knowledge would negate that past. There was no place here, now, for sorrow and pain. Here was safety and happiness. Why dig up old miseries?

  ‘What is to become of the prisoners?’ she asked.

  ‘Time enough to ponder that later. I have turned my mind to other thoughts. Let those who cross me stew awhile, or rot.’

  ‘I would like to visit Dianella.’

  ‘As it please thee, ionmhuinn. She cannot harm thee now.’

  Rohain made her way to the rooms of durance.

  What did she expect? A brooding, bitter courtier, enthroned in shadow and candlelight, who would not turn her head to look at Rohain?

  ‘Come to gloat, have we?’ the prisoner would say. ‘Come to sneer, now that I am helpless? You have done your work well, have you not? Oh, so successfully!’

  ‘Dianella,’ the visitor would reply, ‘I have not come to gloat, to miscall you, or to be miscalled. I do not hate you. I never planned that all this should come to pass, I swear it. Dianella, that you loved him, love him still, I now know. If passion drove you to rash deeds I can at least empathize with that passion. I cannot comprehend how any woman who has looked upon him could be anything but lovestruck.’

  Then, the courtier might say, ‘You understand!’ and weep, and beg forgiveness.

  Rohain’s expectations of the meeting, however, were not to be fulfilled.

  The only warning may have been a curious expression that flitted across Dianella’s face as Rohain entered with her maidservants—that was all. It might have been a look of surprise.

  ‘Rohain! Dear Heart!’ The dark-haired beauty glided forward to bestow an embrace on her visitor and kisses on the air. ‘La! You cannot imagine how glad I am to see you. The boredom has been beyond utterance. Griffin sulks, nobody else says a word, and I scarcely have any callers. The dullness defies description!’

  ‘I am sorry for you …’ Rohain stammered. Somehow, Dianella in the flesh always disarmed her.

  ‘Of course, you look perfectly lovely!’ Dianella purred. ‘Come—sit by me awhile. Can you spare the time, sweetness? Griffin, we would take a sip. Make arrangeme
nts.’

  Puzzled and wary, Rohain sat at a table of carved walnut inlaid with copper and nacre. The rooms of durance were far from uncomfortable. They were well-furnished and provided with fireplaces in which flames now leaped cheerfully. Seldom used, these were not dungeon cells but apartments set aside for aristocrats who had fallen under suspicion of crimes such as plotting, treason, or spying.

  Dianella chattered on as though she entertained at a garden party; as if nothing had ever existed between them besides close friendship.

  ‘You are simply delicious in seed-pearls and point lace. And your hair—still dark-stained! ’Tis sofine et gloriana! Wise of you not to have the dye stripped out, Heart. Doubtless the entire country would believe your goldie-yellow to be fake in any case, the sillies, or else you would have had half the Talith population begging at your doorstep, claiming you as cousin.’ Cocking her head to one side she added pleasantly, ‘Although in sooth, the yellow would match your skin tones so much more adequately.’

  She laughed daintily, with her rose of a mouth closed tight as a bud. The colour in her cheeks was high. Rohain mumbled a reply as Georgiana Griffin finished pouring the wine, and Dianella’s flow ran on with barely a pause.

  ‘How do you like my embroidered surcoat and kirtle? See, the one is worked in motifs of dragonflies and reeds with a border of butterflies, while on the other, worms are stitched in sundry-coloured silks, with silver cobwebs and small snails in stumpwork. Different motifs, yet they match so cleverly in design and colouring, don’t you think? La! There it is again.’ Dianella broke off, going to the window. ‘Did you hear it, sweetness? Oh look—there it is!’ She pointed with a tapered fingernail. Joining her, Rohain peered out. She could see nothing but a courtyard below, framed by walls beyond which the ground fell precipitously away to a distant longbow of shoreline melding with a dragon’s spine of mountains.

  ‘I suppose it was a spriggan or another of those ghastly little unseelie things,’ said Dianella from behind Rohain’s back. She was already seated at the walnut table again, smiling, her red lips peeled back from her small white teeth. Holding out a chased silver goblet filled with dark liquid she appended, ‘They have been about so very frequently of late.’