The Bitterbynde Trilogy

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  The apples of Elasaid’s abandoned orchards flourished and ripened. The island’s gold-hazed humidity seemed lately to be tinged with a slight smell of rotting—imparted perhaps by the cloud-vapors, or by the seaweed cast up by the waves to wither on the shores, or maybe by the duilleag neoil itself. As time passed, one became accustomed to the odour and did not notice it at all.

  The weather was unusually warm for early Spring, the sea as temperate as bathwater. Rejoicing at this, the village children dived and swam, especially the children of Ursilla and of Rona Wade. Lutey’s warning, ‘wait and watch’, had lost its urgency. The people of Tamhania had waited and watched, but nothing had happened. A little, their vigilance relaxed. But if their masters were carefree, the tamed beasts of the island were not. They had grown restless, uneasy. To human eyes all seemed peaceful, all seemed well. Yet beneath this veneer, expectancy thrummed like an overstretched harp-string, drawn taut across land and sea.

  On an overcast day, Rohain stood in Tana’s library with Roland Avenel. As they conversed, there began a shaking as if an army of armoured war-horses charged around the hill, pulling mangonels and other engines of destruction on iron wheels. Ornaments and girandoles rattled. The walls creaked. An ormulu perfume burner toppled from its stand and one book fell out of the shelves. From the coach-house came the noise of the carriages rocking on their springs.

  ‘Mayhap the island floats again!’ exclaimed the Seneschal, shaking his gray head in astonishment. ‘Or it is making ready to do so! Mayhap it has grown weary of this location and has pulled up its ancient sea-anchors or cut them adrift, in order to seek another home.’

  Tamhania was moving again—at least, that is what they were saying in the village, where the doors and windows of the houses jammed tight in warped frames. And the rainy month of Uiskamis rolled on. On the high spit jutting into the Rip, the grizzled granite Light-Tower seemed to lean into the webs of salt spray, its eye looking far over the silken plain as if it could see past the horizon. At its feet, jagged hunks of rock gripped the uncertain border between land and sea like the Tower’s roots, seeming to draw sustenance from both. Perhaps the roots did not go down far enough to fix the island in place.

  A minor unstorm went over without much ado. The Scales family and their cohorts stood trial in the village hall. They were fined heavily for their cruel and lawless behaviour, after which they became close companions of the stocks in the village square for a couple of days, where, not to waste them, any apples that had rotted in the high humidity were utilized by some of the village lads for target practice. The general opinion was that the sentence had been too lenient.

  Meanwhile, Georgiana Griffin began trysting with Master Sevran Shaw.

  Rohain went on with her lessons—the study of music and writing, and the warrior’s skills. All the while she probed the thin shell enveloping her lost memories. There was that about this place which disquieted her—had disquieted her from the first, even before the coming of the unseelie hoodie crows. Was the island indeed uprooting itself, to float away? If so, where would it go?

  Listlessness overlaid all. Along the shores, layers of water came up with a long swish as if some sea-lord in metallic robes rushed past in the shallows. Apart from the cry of the wind, that was the only sound. The terns, the sandpipers, gulls, shearwaters, egrets, and curlews seemed to have vanished.

  About a week after Whiteflower’s Day, Rohain and her companions sat at dinner in the Hall of Tana. Not one diner spoke or lifted a knife. The hounds stood with hackles raised into ridges all along their spines, their lips peeled back off their curved teeth—but it was no intruder they snarled at, only the doors. These moved gently as if guided by an invisible hand. Presently, they began to open and close by themselves. From out in the stables came the hammering of hooves kicking at stalls. On the dinner-table, wine slopped out of the goblets. Salt cellars shuddered, jumped about, and fell over. Above the heads of the diners, high in the belltower, the bells shivered, unseen, as if their cold metal sides had caught some ague. The clappers rocked but failed to kiss the inner petals of the bronze tulips. They did not ring. Not yet.

  The maid Annie rushed in, incoherent, shouting something about Vinegar Tom. Starting up from his seat and drawing his sword, the Seneschal ran outside in case she was in danger from pursuit. He saw no creature, eldritch or otherwise. When they had soothed the girl she told them not what they had thought to hear, that Vinegar Tom had chased or harmed someone. Instead she said that Vinegar Tom was gone.

  That which had guarded the path for centuries had deserted its post. And now it came out that the colt-pixie had not been seen for some time either, or the domestic wights of Tana, or the silkies, or any others of seelie ilk.

  ‘Is it possible the wights have left Tamhania?’ Alys of Roxburgh asked.

  No one could answer her.

  Over the ocean, thunder rumbled. Horses screamed and goblets toppled, spilling their blood-red wine across the linen battle-plain of Tana’s dinner-table.

  ‘These quakes …’ said the Duchess. She did not finish her sentence.

  ‘Should we not leave here?’ Rohain said. ‘I fear danger stalks the isle.’

  ‘I, too, am troubled,’ nodded the Bard.

  ‘Yet it is his Imperial Majesty’s command that we remain,’ murmured Alys. ‘A good soldier never disobeys orders. Neither should we.’

  ‘’Tis the sea,’ said the Seneschal overheartily. ‘’Tis choppy these days. If indeed it floats, the island moves roughly over the waves. We’re in for another storm, by the sound of it.’

  The words fell from his lips like empty husks, and he knew it.

  They sat silent again. Still, no one raised a knife. The salt cellar rolled lazily across the table, leaving a silver trail; an arc, a slice of moon, a fragmented sickle.

  No mermaid’s cry gave warning of what happened next.

  Thunder’s iron barrel rolled across the firmament, but there were no thunderclouds. The seas lurched. Even the warm waters of the sheltered harbour rose in a brisk, pointy dance, but there was no storm—not in the way storms are usually known.

  For days this went on, and then the ground picked itself up and shook out its mantle. Many villagers rushed outdoors in fright. It became impossible to walk steadily. Windows and dishes broke. At the Hall of Tana, paintings fell from the walls, and in the stables the small bells rang on the bridles hanging from their hooks.

  They jingled, those little bells, and then fell silent as the ground stood still again. Next morning, dawn did not come. Beyond its normal bounds, night stretched out like a long black animal.

  ‘Look at the cloud!’ cried Viviana, pointing.

  The white wreath that continually lurked upon the mountaintop had now darkened to a wrathful gray. It had grown taller, becoming a column. From the top it forked, like the spreading branches of a gigantic, malevolent tree; billowing, blocking sunlight. Beneath its shadow, the mountainsides sloped as green and lush as always, but particles of sand and dirt moved in the tenebrous air, and flecks like black rain or feathers floated—tiny pieces of ash. This dirty wind irritated the eyes, made breathing difficult. The smell of rottenness had increased a hundredfold, and a stink of putrid cabbage invaded everything. To keep out the dust and stench, the islanders wedged shut their doors and windows. They masked their faces.

  ‘Make ready the sea-vessels,’ said the Bard. ‘Tell the villagers to prepare to leave.’

  But Avenel said, ‘This is the Royal Isle! Naught can harm us here. Besides, most of the villagers refuse to even consider abandoning their homes.’

  The peculiar storm amplified. Lightning flickered, phosphorescent green, but only within the massive pillar that stood up from the mountain, supporting the sky’s congestion. On the island, wells dried up. New ones opened. Streams altered their courses as tremors shook the island to its most profound footings. In the village, the mayor called a meeting.

  Thorn had told Rohain: ‘Do not leave the island. Wait for me.’<
br />
  She must do as he had bidden. Yet no longer was Tamhania the safe haven it had been when he had spoken those words. Rohain’s own hand had lit the candle in the Light-Tower, opening the island to the bringers of doom—just as, somehow, she had also led death and destruction to Isse Tower.

  And once he had asked, ‘Why should Huon hunt at thy heels?’

  The question confounded her, haunted her. Recent events once again brought it to the forefront.

  The facts must be confronted. No matter how she tried to deny it, something sought her. Now that she was willing to face the truth, it blazed like words written in fire. It seemed incredible she could have overlooked anything so obvious. Never had Scalzo’s scoundrels sought her, never had Korguth’s mercenaries plagued her. All the time there had been one enemy—one other enemy with unseelie forces under its sway—an enemy far more terrible than any smalltime brigand or charlatan of a wizard.

  In Gilvaris Tarv, on the day she had saved the seelie waterhorse from enslavement in the marketplace, she had seen a face. Memory now recalled that face in detail. Curious, it had been. In fact, ‘eldritch’ was the word that most described it, and ‘malevolent’. Some unseelie thing in the marketplace had spied her at the very instant her taltry fell back, revealing her extraordinary sun-coloured hair. By her hair, perhaps, the creature had recognised her. Perhaps it had known who she had been in her shadowed past. Perhaps, in that past, she had been hunted—but the hunters were thrown off her trail when she lost her face and her voice. Likely, the creature had gone from the marketplace and told of her whereabouts to her true enemy, the Antlered One. It had been after the market-day that suspicious-looking creatures had begun to watch Ethlinn’s house. In a stroke of what turned out to be fortune, Rohain had been mistakenly abducted with Muirne. For a time, while they were incarcerated in the gilf-house, her whereabouts had passed out of Huon’s knowledge.

  Rohain pondered on subsequent events. Had the Antlered One got wind of her as she rode with the wagons along the Road to Caermelor? Had he sent the Dando Dogs after the caravan, resulting in the loss of so many lives?

  She had eluded him, only to end up at Court where her Talith ancestry was unmasked by Dianella and Sargoth. The wizard had betrayed her to some unseelie minion of the Antlered One, himself not knowing the full extent of what he did, merely wanting her out of the way so that Dianella’s path to the throne would be clear. Doubtless, Sargoth had long been allied with the powers of wickedness. He might have known Huon sought for a Talith damsel, and waited until she was out of Caermelor to betray her.

  When Sargoth’s tidings reached the Hunter, Isse Tower was attacked. Once again Rohain escaped, but now that she had regained both face and voice, Huon knew her. For whatever reason, he had traced her to the haven of Tamhania and knocked on the door. She, in her folly, had opened it and let his foul creatures enter. Why he hunted at her heels, she had forgotten. He had not.

  ‘Let us speak no more of the past.’ Close at her side, Thorn had said these words, while he leaned against a narrow embrasure of Isse Tower and talked with Rohain about Winter, and a hawk had hung suspended in the chalice of the sky.

  Those effervescent days had been filled with joyousness. Consequently she, not to spoil it, had not spoken to Thorn of the past, nor told him that it could not be recalled. She had not let him know that in her history there might lie some important, hidden truth.

  If he were struck down upon the northern battlefields, he would never know. Swiftly she brushed the thought aside; merely the thought of such loss was like a death-wound to her spirit. But if he triumphed in war, how could she ever return to his side, bringing, as she did, this bane, this curse that shadowed her and touched all those among whom she moved? Thorn was a warrior of extraordinary prowess who had proven his efficacy even against the Wild Hunt, but how long could any mortal man stave off such mighty foes? He and his forces could drive them off once or twice, maybe, but ultimately the immortals, with their unseelie gramarye, must win. This was a peril she would not allow herself to bring upon him.

  Thorn—will I ever see thee again? Before I do, I must find out what lies hidden in my past. I must discover why Huon pursues me, so that I, and you my love, will know how to deal with this peril.

  Iron bells clanged inside Rohain’s skull.

  For three days the sun had not been seen. Under darkness, the air was smothering—a blanket stinking of brimstone. The island held still, or perhaps it gathered itself together one last time. And those who dwelled upon its flanks were still blind to its nature, deaf to its peril. Or perhaps they did not want to see or hear, for the probabilities were too mighty, too awful to comprehend. It is a human trait, to dwell in danger zones and be astonished when catastrophe strikes.

  Then the land stirred again.

  In Tana’s oak-paneled west drawing room, Rohain sat playing at card games with Edward, Alys, and Thomas of Ercildoune, to escape the grit and stench of the outdoors. On the window-seat beneath wine-hued velvet hangings, Toby plucked a small ivory lute. His fingernails clicked against the frets. Occasionally, distant laughter and squeals drifted in from the nursery, where the children of the Duchess played hide-and-seek.

  A butler glided in carrying a tray in his white-gloved hands. He was followed by a replica bearing a similar tray. Placing their burdens on two of a scattering of small, unstable tables, they proceeded to decant hot spike into small porcelain cups. They poured milk from the mouth of a painted jug fashioned as a cow (which had somehow escaped the eye of Tana’s majordomo in his thematic pursuit), and offered cherry tarts and cubes of golden Sugar frosted with tiny pictures of sea-pinks.

  Candles blazed in lusters and branches—yellow-white shells of light in the gloom. They lit up gilded chairs and tables, couches, silk-upholstered footrests, ottomans with their embroidered bolsters, polished cherrywood cabinets and toy clockwork confections. Roses gushed from porphyry vases.

  ‘Annie saw those flowers today,’ commented Alys, taking note of the roses, ‘and was horrified. She said that the blossoming of the burnet rose out of its proper season is an omen of shipwreck and disaster. These small islands breed such superstition.’

  ‘Speaking of local vegetation,’ said the Bard, ‘I was talking to some coral-fishers the other day. There are some on this island who hold that the surrounding mists are not accumulated, attracted, or given off by cloud-leaf. They hold that duilleag neoil has nothing to do with them. The waters around Tamhania are always warm. They say the vapors rise because of’—he picked up a card—‘a tremendous heat that burns forever beneath the deeps.’

  Toby dropped his ox-horn plectrum, then stooped to retrieve it. In the silence, the clockworkings on the mantels clucked like slow insects. Toby resumed playing.

  ‘Did anyone hear anything last night?’ asked the Duchess of Roxburgh, leaning forward to put down the Ten of Wands.

  ‘No. I slept well,’ replied Edward.

  ‘I heard nothing,’ said the Bard, considering his fan of cards thoughtfully. ‘But the servants seemed uneasy.’

  Rohain upturned the Queen of Swords on the tablecloth of turquoise baize.

  ‘I thought,’ she said, ‘I dreamed the sound of uncontrollable sobbing.’

  The Duchess’s cards slipped through her fingers to the floor. A footman ran to pick them up.

  ‘Shall we abandon the game at this point,’ suggested Edward, folding his rising sun of painted cardboard leaves and tapping them on the table, ‘and take a cup of best Severnesse spike?’

  ‘An eminently practical idea,’ replied the Bard diplomatically, stroking his pique-devant beard and auburn mustaches. ‘Who can think of playing cards on a day like this?’

  ‘’Tis a pretty pack.’ Rohain examined the interlocking swan design on the back of each rectangular wafer. It called to her mind the tale of a swanmaiden stolen by a mortal man, and she was about to remark on this when a tremendous vibration went through the floor and walls, and a deep groan of agony emanated from all arou
nd. Almost simultaneously, a further commotion arose from the floors below.

  ‘What is it? What’s amiss?’ The Prince started from his chair. A tremendous clamor and clatter rushed up the stairway.

  Footmen hurried to the door, but as they opened it a horseman rode through in a sudden gale, ducking his head under the high lintel. He wheeled to a halt before them. The stallion reared and curvetted, shrilling, its hooves slicing the carpets. The iron-shod forehooves struck a glancing blow off an ebony table, which flew across the room, its setting of porcelainware and sweetmeats dashing to pieces. Foam flicked from the beast’s snorting mouth, showering the crystal vases. In the dark, gusting wind, the curtains of magenta velvet bellied out. The playing cards, all six suits—Wands, Swords, Cups, Coins, Anchors, and Crowns—flew up like frightened seagulls.

  ‘Master Avenel!’ cried Edward. He and his companions stared in disbelief.

  ‘Haste, make haste,’ cried the Seneschal of Tana, controlling his mount with difficulty. ‘I have just come from the house of Lutey. The island is about to be destroyed.’

  When the denouement came, it came rapidly. At the Hall of Tana, furniture collapsed. Plaster cracked, loose bricks fell. The belltower shook, from its foundations upward. At last, up in the murky vapors of their eyrie, all by themselves, their ropes dangling untended by any hand, the great bells of Tana’s chastel began to toll.

  Hot and jarred, the sea chopped and changed without rhythm. Up and down the hillsides the fences undulated like serpents. Cracks unseamed their mouths; sand and mud bubbled out. It was almost impossible for anyone to remain on their feet. People stumbled and rolled, clawing at previously fixed objects that proved treacherous. Apple boughs crashed to the ground. Animals ran to and fro in confusion. Amid the black snow, tiny porous stones hailed down, too hot to touch.