The Bitterbynde Trilogy

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  ‘Old folk used to tell tales of a Perilous Kingdom,’ Tom said, squinting at the damsel, ‘but I do not know where it was supposed to be. Under the sea perhaps, or under the ground. The Strangers dwelled there, it was said, and their King too. But nowt has been seen of that country since ages long gone, when folks was more ignorant and believed in such fancies. Then again, the world’s a queer place.’

  The son, William, took his turn at the helm. The boat changed tack and they rounded another headland, still keeping the coastline in view to the left. The hull rocked on a gentle swell. As they sailed southward, the distant landscape changed from the barren rocks of Arcdur to wooded hills.

  ‘Caermelor … who is King there?’ asked the passenger.

  William regarded her with a quizzical stare.

  ‘Where have you come from, that you don’t know our sovereign’s name? Your manner of speaking sounds foreign …’

  ‘I come from far away. North.’

  ‘Ach, I wouldna have believed any folk did not know of our good King-Emperor, the Sixteenth James D’Armancourt!’

  Ashalind fell silent. In her time the sovereign had been William the Wise, who was grandson of the great Unitor, son of James the Second. Had thirteen generations passed? Two or three centuries? It was difficult to credit that such a vast span of time had elapsed.

  ‘How old is the dynasty of D’Armancourt?’ she asked.

  ‘Why,’ said old Tom, ‘it is traced back, they say, a thousand years, that was the first King James. But not all were called James. Some of the D’Armancourt kings bore other names.’

  Shocked at this crushing of her hopes, Ashalind clenched her hands. In a spasm of frustration she hammered her fist on a wooden water-barrel. A millennium! It was too much to contemplate. What far-reaching changes had taken place in Erith during such a long period? Why were the exiled Faêran lost or forgotten?

  A flock of shearwaters flew overhead. In the water several yards from the keel, something splashed. Instantly the attention of the men was fixed on the spot.

  ‘’Tain’t she, is it?’ William asked in a low voice.

  ‘Nay, ’tis one of the maighdeans,’ said his father. ‘But which kind I cannot tell.’

  Through the aquamarine depths Ashalind caught a fleeting glimpse of a long, glittering curve, a drifting skein of pale hair, an eldritch face. Then the subaquatic visitor was gone.

  ‘A maighdean na tuinne,’ explained Tom to the ignorant northerner, ‘a damsel of the waves. ’Twould be a good thing to befriend one of them, a seelie one, for they can give warning of storms. The last few days, we were diving for coral and nacrisshell on the northern reefs—that storm blew us off course and away from the fleet. The anchor dragged and we were caught out. Had to run for hours before the wind.’

  An eerie crooning of music came blowing to their ears along the wind. Ashalind saw, on the distant beach, half a dozen figures swaying in dance. The men shaded their eyes with their hands.

  William became oddly quiet and appeared to pay a lot of attention to his steering. The distant dancers must have caught sight of the boat. With cries and shouts, they pulled on garments that had lain beside them on the rocks, and slid into the water. The dark shapes of them arrowed toward the small vessel. The young sailor loosened the jib and the sails hung flapping. When the swimmers came cavorting close, the heads that broke the surface were those of seals. William leaned over and spoke to them in a tongue Ashalind could not recognise. He spoke lovingly, gently, and the seals replied in the same language.

  ‘One of the Roane was once wife to Will,’ Tom murmured to Ashalind. ‘He stole her sealskin while she was dancing, and hid it. ’Tis unlike him to do such a thing, but she were very comely and he were fair taken with her. She begged him to return it, for without it she couldna return to the skerries out in the ocean. But he would not give in and at last persuaded her to marry him. She made a good and dutiful wife to him for three years, although she always had a wistful eye on the sea. One day she chanced to find the skin and then she was off in haste, down to the sea never to return. Will allus asks for news of her. But you see, unions between mortals and immortals allus end in breach and bereavement. Everyone knows that. Will should ha’ known.’

  ‘Please, Will, ask the Roane if they know aught of the High King of the Fair Folk.’

  William spoke again in the seal language.

  ‘They say they never speak to mortals about the Fair Folk,’ he translated, when the seals had given their answer, ‘but the eldritch wights of Huntingtowers may be able to tell.’

  The Roane went undulating away through the waves, and Tom turned the sail so that the wind filled it. The patched canvas snapped taut as the air crammed into it. Foam creamed at the prow.

  Ashalind asked, ‘Huntingtowers—what is that?’

  ‘A dreadful unseelie place it is, a caldera infested with powerful wights of gramarye,’ said Tom. ‘It lies on the other side of the old magmite mines, not more than seven leagues west of a cottage belonging to a good family of fisher-folk known to us—the Caidens. That family lives in fear of the wicked things that issue from the place from time to time.’

  ‘Have you seen any of the creatures that dwell therein?’

  ‘No. But Tavron Caiden has told us of them. And they’re not pretty, most of ’em. There’s nasty little spriggans and trows as creeps about, and white pigs and hares, but the Caidens wear wizard-sained tilhals and the lesser wights don’t bother them much—that sort keep away from the rowan and the iron. The worst things …’ here the shell-diver paused and scanned the horizon with a troubled air ‘…the worst things is them that goes hunting. Fuaths and duergars and such. Some of them are worse than any nightmare. Others of them look like Men, even right noble and kingly Men, but there’s something wrong about them …’

  ‘Kingly Men, you say? Then Faêran may be amongst them!’ cried Ashalind, dropping the bread on which she had been biting. Her face was flushed.

  ‘That may be so, but there is no mercy in the creatures that infest Huntingtowers, and that place is not where you should seek your King. It is a hub of evil and death. I do not even like to speak of it on a fair day such as this. Leave that sinkhole to the wicked wights, lass. Caermelor’s the place for you. News always flows toward big cities.’

  ‘This cottage of your friends—is it far from here?’ Ashalind asked.

  ‘’Tis near Isse Harbor. It stands alone on the northern coast of the Cape of Tides—twelve to fourteen days away depending on the wind, and if we do not call in at our village on the Isle of Birds. But we have a good haul of nacris-shell already on board, as you can see, and we are heading home to unload it. Besides, we’ll not put a slip of a thing like you ashore at the Cape of Tides. Not in the shadow of Huntingtowers.’

  ‘If you do, I shall give you gold.’ Their passenger rattled the pouch her father had given her, then subtracted some coins from it. The antique disks in her palm glinted, flashing in the sunlight. ‘I beg of you—take me there.’

  Astonishment registered on the ingenuous faces of the shell-divers, quickly replaced by suspicion.

  ‘How did you come by such wealth? Is it honest gold?’

  ‘It is honest gold, not stolen, nor gold of gramarye to change into leaves come morning, and blow away. But it has lain hidden this past millennium and now it is uncovered.’

  ‘Ye’d be better off coming with us to the Isle of Birds. From there you might take the ferry to Finvarna, and thence find passage south to Caermelor on one of the regular shipping runs.’

  ‘Sir, I am grateful for your advice but I will not be dissuaded.’

  Putting their heads together, the two boatmen murmured earnestly to one another. From time to time they glanced at their passenger, who lowered her eyes and endeavoured to look as if she took no heed of their discussion.

  ‘Be you steadfastly set on this course, lass?’ said Tom at last. ‘Is there naught that will change your mind?’

  ‘I am steadfast. If you w
ill not take me to the Cape of Tides, I shall seek another ferryman, in any case.’

  A troubled expression clouded the brow of the shell-diver. ‘This goes against my better judgment. If you be set on going near Huntingtowers, we will transport you, but not for payment. ’Twould not be right, to bring a starving waif like you into danger and take her gold as well. If you change your mind when you get to Tavron Caiden’s place, you might make your way to the Royal City from there.’

  ‘Gramercie!’

  Privately, Ashalind decided she would leave payment with them despite their protestations. They had given her food and passage, and it was evident they were not rich folk.

  They made landfall thrice during the next fourteen days, entering profound inlets where steps were crudely hewn into the cliffs. William replenished their water supplies from thin waterfalls that trailed like the frayed ends of silk down these walls of adamant, but they met no human creature there.

  ‘These lands of the northwest coast are deserted,’ William said. ‘Here dwell only the birds and beasts, and wicked things, and the wind.’

  Rugged and rocky was the coastline. The sheer cliffs that lined it were pierced by deep channels and wild, wave-churned sounds cutting far back into the land. For some miles, huge trees crowded down to the very cliff tops. Dense shadows were netted beneath their boughs.

  On sighting these ancient woodlands, William remarked in a grim undertone, ‘There ends the westernmost arm of the terrible forest.’

  At length, the voyagers sailed between islands and arrived on the coast of the mainland at an area where cliffs sloped gently to a tiny harbour. There they tied up the boat and came ashore. The salt breeze stung their faces with a hint of chill.

  ‘Winter’s here,’ said Tom.

  The cottage of the Caidens, whitewashed and slate-roofed, overlooked the neat harbour. Behind it was a large, well-tended vegetable patch, the inevitable beeskeps, and racks for drying fish. Stunted rowans and plum trees grew all around. A few sea-pinks straggled in the window-boxes facing east. Tavron’s wife, Madelinn, kept chickens, goats, and a sheep whose wool she spun.

  There were children—a boy, Darvon, and a girl, Tansy. This family welcomed the boatmen and the yellow-haired stranger into their midst, sharing their home and provender, begrudging nothing. Tom and William returned their greetings and hospitality with amiability, but it was evident that the two men felt uneasy in that place.

  ‘The lass here had some notion about Huntingtowers,’ explained William, ‘but instead she may go on to Caermelor, with the next road-caravan that comes this way, or take ship.’

  Tom advised, ‘Do not be too hasty, lass. Wait until you hear more about that place.’

  The next morning the shell-divers sailed away to the Isle of Birds, carrying the gold coins Ashalind had slipped into their pockets while they were not looking.

  ‘Stay awhile, lass,’ Tavron Caiden said, ‘before you travel on. ’Tis few enough folk who pass this way and we would be glad of the company. Besides, by the look of you, if you don’t mind me saying so, a rest would do you good.’

  Indeed, the turmoil of the Leaving and the Closing, the shock of finding she had been gone from Erith for a thousand years, and the toilsomeness of hard travel across Arcdur without nourishment had taken their toll. For the first two days the newcomer slept a great deal, woke to eat, and slept again. Good health began to return. The Langothe was on her, nevertheless, pulling toward the north where lay the last open Gate to the Fair Realm, but she felt driven to quest on, to be rid of the terrible longing at its root. The Caidens bade her tarry longer with them, until strength fully returned. When they saw that she was bent on departing with all haste, they would not tell her the way to Huntingtowers.

  ‘Stay awhile,’ they begged. ‘Bide just a few days more, then we will tell you the way and set you rightly on it.’

  Indeed, their guest was in no state to argue and must submit. They set the best of their simple provender before her. Although she hungered, she had seen Faêran food and breathed its fragrance. No Erithan victuals gave off much flavour in her mouth now, and, above all, the eating of flesh had come to seem abhorrent.

  The fisher-folk had never before seen golden hair, and by this she learned for the first time—to her secret sorrow—that the Talith Kingdom was no more. The race had ebbed. Its few remaining representatives were scattered throughout Erith, and in Avlantia red- and bronze-leaved vines grew over the ruins of the cities. Throughout the Known Lands the stockier brown-haired Feorhkind predominated now, far outnumbering even the red Erts of Finvarna. One or two small Feorhkind villages had been established on the fringes of Avlantia, but generally that kindred preferred the cooler southern lands.

  Without revealing her origins, Ashalind gleaned much more information from the conversation of her hosts. She learned about the fine talium chain mesh that lined the taltry hoods, used to protect against that wind of gramarye they called the shang, which burned Men’s emotions into the ether. She found out about sildron, which (it could only be she who remembered) had been the gift of the High King of the Fair Realm to the D’Armancourt Dynasty. In this new era, sildron lifted Windships and the Skyhorses whose routes never passed over the remote region where the cottage stood. She discovered much concerning the Stormriders and the King’s warriors, the Dainnan, and the strifes of past history, and the current unrest in the northeast lands that was wont to erupt into skirmishes.

  She was fascinated, numbed by the changes that had happened over a millennium. There seemed so many—yet so few, when such an incredible span of time was considered. Conceivably, the enchantment of the Gate allowed those who passed through it to adapt to alterations in language over the years. As for the evolution of technology, the centuries of ignorance and strife known as the Dark Era had checked the progress of civilization in Erith, or even dragged it backward. Apart from sildron, taltries, and the shang, there seemed little difference between the world as she had known it and the world as she saw it now. Perhaps she would not feel like so much of a misfit in this new age, after all.

  Yet she marveled and she grieved. A thousand years; it might as well have been forever.

  The Caiden children, who had been restraining their curiosity with difficulty, begged their visitor to tell them stories of her travels in the north. After the tale of her hardships in Arcdur was related, they wanted another, and another. Ashalind was happy to oblige as best she could without revealing her secret, so she delved into her hoard of tales learned from Meganwy, and from wandering Storytellers, until Madelinn bade the children cease their pestering and leave the guest some peace.

  At nights by the fireside, with the pet whippet lying before the hearth and the sea-sound booming beyond the walls, Ashalind regaled her hosts with all the gestes and songs she could recall. In return they told her about the hollow hill where, it was said, Faêran knights and ladies lay in enchanted sleep with their horses, hounds, and hawks and their treasures of untold wealth, and of how it was supposed to be possible to wake them by certain means if one could find the entrance to their underground halls. But none knew which hills they were, or if the stories were true.

  Only one event marred the harmony of these times.

  The child Tansy had a tuneful singing voice. Ashalind taught her many songs, including one named ‘The Exile,’ which had been made by Llewell, the young songmaker who had been among those brought out of Faerie by Ashalind. Well did she remember that youth calling to her at the gates of Hythe Mellyn. He had been driven mad by the Langothe and sometimes believed he was one of the Faêran. But he had never returned to the Fair Realm, for he pined and died before the Leaving. His songs remained.

  Full many leagues of foreign soil I’ve trod.

  At last, I would reclaim my native sod.

  Alas, it seems I cannot find the way.

  Exiled, my heart grows heavy, day by day.

  And wondrous as these hills and vales may be,

  They’re not the mystic real
ms I crave to see—

  The dream’d-of world in childhood’s state of bliss—

  My land of birth; that is the place I miss.

  So am I doomed to seek, forever banned?

  A stranger wandering in this strange land?

  The strongest measures cannot ease the pain.

  Oh, will I ever see my home again?

  When she first heard it, Tansy was so taken with this song that she stood on tiptoe to offer Ashalind a kiss. In fright, Ashalind jumped back, covering her face with her hands.

  ‘Oh no! You must not do that!’

  The family stared at her, astonished at this peculiar behaviour.

  The guest stammered her apologies.

  ‘I must not be kissed. It is a bitterbynde, a geas. It must not be broken.’

  The awkward moment passed. A geas must be respected, no matter how strange, and so must the wishes of a guest.

  It was a pleasure to help with the many tasks demanded by this solitary life: bread-baking, cheese-making, drying and salting barrels of fish, gardening, washing, tending the hives and the animals. Immersion in the work of this family temporarily ameliorated the nostalgia Ashalind felt for her own, but always the Langothe corroded the core of her.

  One night she was woken with crackling hair, feeling for the first time the prickling exhilaration of the unstorm.

  Opening the shutters she saw, below the cliff, every wave-crest foaming with stars. Near at hand, the vegetable patch was powdered with emerald-dust, and even the tethered goat watched with blazing topaz eyes, its horns sculpted of polished agate. It was just as Cierndanel had said—‘The winds of gramarye are awakening at this outrage, the winds of Ang. They flare from the Ringstorm at Erith’s rim. Soon they shall prowl the lands of thy world, dyed by the imprints of men’s designs.’