The Bitterbynde Trilogy

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  ‘Aye, and I’m sure I don’t know what I’d do without your help,’ said Arrowsmith.

  ‘I am the hardest worker you’ve ever seen, ain’t I?’ said Finoderee.

  ‘Surely,’ agreed the Master. ‘Well, you’d better be getting to that meadow now. The night’s wearing on and cock-crow’s not long away.’

  ‘I don’t mind cock-crow. I’ll toss the hay to the fading moon or the star of morning and care not a whit for the rooster’s alarm.’

  ‘Finoderee is the wonder and no mistake,’ eulogised the men.

  Satisfied, the brawny wight loped off.

  After the exciting events of the evening, the travellers spent a restful night at Arrowsmith’s house, an oak-timbered building with a thatched roof, high gables, low side walls and mullioned windows. His sisters, Betony and Sorrel, welcomed them as he had guaranteed; he had sent a message on ahead and they had bade the servant air extra featherbeds in preparation. Their brother slept in the stable, keeping his promise.

  As usual the Langothe would not permit sleep to come easily to Tahquil. While she lay in her bed looking through the window at the moon-sheen of the night sky she was reminded of the colour of Thorn’s eyes.

  On the morrow, it was so pleasant to wake upon goose-down, to bathe in hot water and to be served with cowslip wine, barley bread, fried kippers, and ducks’ eggs—boiled with a handful of gorse flowers to dye them yellow—instead of cold forest leaves, that Viviana and Caitri begged Tahquil to consider staying in the village for a day or two. Added to these pleas were the blandishments of the villagers, who insisted that their guests remain for their forthcoming annual celebrations. Under such pressure, Tahquil yielded, although it cost her dearly and the Langothe had its cruel say. In her heart, the last Gate to Faêrie called.

  Moreover, the east itself called, for she hoped with the fervency of life itself that Thorn remained safe and well. She prayed that he had not fallen victim to the wiles and treacherous glamours of unseelie wights, who would be certain to target the leader of their foes. Despite herself she constantly pictured him as he might appear at the fields of conflict, if he lived; James XVI, King-Emperor, mounted on his armoured war-horse Hrimscathr, the sword Arcturus scabbarded at his side and its damasked quillons catching the sun’s rays. Thus he came to her mind’s eye, shining in the steel field-armour of the era, with its slender, elegant lines and cusped borders and shell-like rippling, damascening glinting on the lames; with studded metal roses connected by riveted laminations to shoulder, elbow and knee, and adorning the breastplate. The Lion of D’Armancourt roared upon his breast—a great golden beast, gorged with an antique crown. His open-faced burgonet was crested with a panache of herons’ hackles threaded with gold. A lambrequin of purple sarcenet hung down from the back of the helm, embroidered with tiny gold trefoils. Beneath the steel nose-guard there would be a glimpse of high cheekbones, the strong chin, the eyes as keen as knife blades. Perhaps he would smile at one of his captains and then the lean lines of laughter would appear at each corner of his mouth. The Royal Attriod in their plumed splendour would surround him, armoured cap-a-pie, light splintering off richly ornamented chausses, vambraces, coudieres, genouilliers, tassets, gauntlets. Flanked by standard-bearers, a trumpeter, the Legions of Eldaraigne and battalions from the armies of every country in Erith with their banners and gonfalons, their gay pennons unfolding their points along the breeze, the King-Emperor might look towards the wide lands sweeping to the sea and that jealously guarded strategic jewel, the Nenian Landbridge. And they would all await the coming of the Hordes of Namarre.

  Long ago in Tiriendor, in what now seemed happier days, Thorn had spoken of Namarre.

  ‘The Dainnan are everywhere at this time—even scouting in Namarre to pick up what information they can regarding this Namarran brigand Chieftain who is said to have arisen, who seems to have the power to unite the disparate factions of outlaws and outcasts—indeed, it is thought that he must be a wizard of great power, to draw even the fell creatures of eldritch to his aid—that, or he promises them great reward, such as the sacking of all humanity, save only his own supporters. If so, he is sadly deluded, for unseelie wights would as soon turn on him as on the rest of humankind.’

  Diarmid had said, ‘Never before in history has man been allied with the unseelie.’

  Thorn’s reply: ‘Never.’

  As she recalled these words, a cold dread clutched Tahquil-Ashalind.

  ‘It is he,’ she whispered to herself. ‘It must be Morragan who allies unseelie and seditionist brigands against us in Namarre. What hope have all our armies against the terrible power of a Faêran Prince? Cry mercy! Only I can rid Erith of the Raven.’

  And she wondered how many of his spies walked among mortals, and whether any lodged at Appleton Thorn. Then she wanted to leave immediately, but she had already given her word that they would tarry.

  On that day, the last of Spring, she and her companions were taken to visit every corner of the village on its perch high above the sea-arm of long, cold pewter.

  Past the heather-thatched cottages they wandered, where gardens burgeoned with the season’s adornments of foxgloves, pansies and marigolds, and honeysuckle twined the walls with sweet-scented prettiness. Children whistled tunes on white dead-nettle stalks or willow stems, and sucked the nectar out of flowers, and played Fighting Cocks with the stems of ribwort plantain. On porches washed with saffron sunlight, elderly women sat weaving withy-baskets, while old men fashioned ropes from marram grass.

  By the duck pond to the Errechd the visitors walked. The Errechd was the Assembly Place in the village square where, all alone, grew the Noble Thorn with its lichen-covered boughs. The ancient tree seemed to bow down beneath the weight of accumulated knowledge, the tips of its twigs almost touching the lawn. Now they were misted with new, green leaves.

  Later, down the precipitous stair cut zigzag into the living cliffs the three damsels were guided, to where small boats lay at anchor in the scoop of a bay. Waves surged up and down, hanging pale waterfalls all along the lower rocks. Wavelets made white frills on leaden water and frilled gulls chalked white waves on a sky of slate.

  Nine canoes floated out on the firth, fragile vessels made of untanned animal skins stretched over a framework of hazel or willow withies. In each boat a man was standing, holding a short-bladed scythe with a handle twelve feet long. The men dipped the scythes under the water and severed the ribbons of seaweed, then with a rack they gathered it out of the water into the boat. Others on the shore were cutting rock seaweed that grew at the base of the cliffs, where it was exposed at low tide. Nodding donkeys walked up the cliff stair carrying panniers filled with kelp and dulse, wrack, oar weed and laver. Far away, out in the deep channels, fishing boats rocked like curled leaves on the grey water.

  ‘The firth is calm, most days,’ said the water bailiff, one of the guests’ guides, ‘but Gentle Annie haunts these parts and she can be treacherous. We are well protected from the north and the east but Annie is apt to blow unexpected squalls through a gap in the hills. Many’s the time on a fine, calm morning the fishermen have been tempted out on the water, only to encounter a sudden violent gale, sweeping in and endangering the boats. Annie’s sister Black Annis lurks beyond Creech Hill, deep in the heart of Khazathdaur, but she raids us when her hunger grows.’

  ‘Do you have a protector, a wizard?’ asked Viviana.

  ‘We have a dyn-cynnil who is learned in wight-lore. Webweaver is his name—we call him Spider.’

  Up to the sheep-pricked meadows they rode on horseback, to survey Finoderee’s work of the previous night. The steward, reeve and bailiff accompanied Arrowsmith, as was their wont. Along the wayside, buttercups and daisies, late harebells and amethyst clusters of grape hyacinth were still springing in the grass. Cows grazed beneath blowing showers of peppercorn trees with pale green leaves. Some stared over stone walls with the eyes of bold lasses. Wind-grazed cirrus feathered the sky with ibis’ wings and five herons took s
tartled flight from the water-meadows.

  Sprouts of barley dusted the furrowed fields with powdered emeralds. A water-driven gorse mill was grinding away on the banks of the rollicking Churrachan, its heavy metal spikes crushing and bruising the boughs of whin to make feed for the horses. Further upstream squatted a fenced grain mill flanked by its stone storehouses. From the nearby steamy curraghs leaped the cool song of frogs and the hot trill of insects. Women were gathering rushes there, for making candles.

  A long meadow had been scythed flat. The cut grasses lay flat in the sun, drying.

  ‘He’s too hasty,’ objected Cooper, the bailiff. ‘He does not cut close enough to the ground. There’s a great deal of waste.’

  ‘Nay,’ laughed Arrowsmith. ‘You quibble, man. ’Tis right enough in my eyes.’

  ‘Right enough? See how long the stubble stands, Arrowsmith. You favour the wight as no other man would.’

  Arrowsmith bristled. ‘I favour him no more than would any other mortal man.’

  It was then that Tahquil fancied she caught, in the flash of Arrowsmith’s eyes, a fleeting fey quality.

  ‘Did Finoderee in sooth mow this meadow single-handed in one night?’ she digressed, to temper the strange antagonism that seemed to have arisen between Master and bailiff.

  ‘Aye that he did,’ lazily said Cooper. ‘He’s a good worker, if he can be kept under the thumb.’

  The steward rejoined, ‘The vigour of his mowing is like a whirlwind! His scythe thrashes too fast for the human eye to perceive, and the grass flies up so thick it blocks out the sun! You ought to see his threshing!’

  ‘He whisks horseloads of stone and wrack about the countryside like a little giant,’ elaborated the reeve, ‘and when he shepherds, sometimes in his enthusiasm he folds in wild goats, purrs and hares along with the sheep.’

  ‘’Tis a pity about Dan Broome’s red cow,’ remarked Caitri.

  ‘Dan Broome? Who is he?’ the men wondered.

  ‘There haven’t been Broomes in Appleton Thorn for nigh on eighty years,’ said the reeve.

  At all times, Arrowsmith poured libations of hospitality upon his guests. Wherever they went they were greeted with friendly smiles and small gifts of local wares until they thought that Appleton Thorn must be one of the best places in Erith, but Tahquil’s heart never ceased to ache. Ever and anon she would lift her head and glance to the east, and Arrowsmith did not fail to mark this.

  On the way back from the fields, he let his horse drop back beside Tahquil’s.

  ‘You and your ladies cannot stay in my house tonight,’ he said quietly. ‘My house has been troubled by a certain presence every Flench Ridings Night for years. I have vowed that I am going to wait up for it tonight with a wizard-wrought tilhal and an axe, to get rid of it once and for all.’

  ‘What manner of wight is it?’

  ‘’Tis a master of glamour. No two people looking at it see the same thing. One man might see a big lump of slub like a jellyfish, another might see a manlike form with no head. To me, it appears like a beast lacking legs.’

  ‘Is it dangerous?’

  He shrugged. ‘I know not, but ’tis best to be sure. I have made arrangements for you and my sisters and the servant to lodge at my neighbour’s house. I shall wait alone tonight.’

  That evening, the Village Hornblower lifted up the great sickle-shaped, gold-clasped Forest Horn like a moon on its ornate baldric and sounded it three times, as he always did, as it had been sounded in Appleton Thorn every evening since antiquity.

  ‘’Tis to direct folk lost in the forest,’ the inhabitants explained, ‘a custom from olden times when folk used to walk among the trees, before the place turned wightish and unseelie. Nobody goes in there now. No need to keep Forest Horn going really, but ’tis one of the old village laws we’ve never bothered to revoke. If all is going well, why change things?’

  After the sun had gone under the hills, Finoderee came to the East Gate.

  ‘Let him in,’ said Arrowsmith, hard at work in the midst of preparations for the customary ritual. Garlands of marsh marigolds and birch were being laid around the village well, and massed white hawthorn blossoms hung above every door, mingled with the goosey gullies, the catkins of sallow—none of which were allowed to be brought into the houses, for to do so ostensibly attracted bad luck.

  Cooper brought Finoderee before the Master of the Village and Lord of the Hundred.

  ‘More mowing tonight?’ asked Finoderee. ‘The round-field, under Bonfire Hill?’

  ‘Aye, but let the work be better carried out this time,’ said Arrowsmith testily. ‘If you’re going to do it, do it well. You’re not cutting the stalks close enough to the ground.’

  ‘Not close enough?’ echoed the wight.

  ‘Aye. The stubble is too long.’

  ‘Too long?’ repeated the wight again. ‘Galan Arrowsmith, ’tis the mortal blood that’s singing in yer ears. You never before said such a thing to Finoderee. What is it you are trying to prove to your comrades? Is Sule Skerry so far away?’

  ‘Go on with you. I am busy this night and have no time for idle chatter.’

  Finoderee wandered off a short way then stopped. His shoulders seemed to swell.

  ‘Too long? I’ll give ye too long!’ he shouted. ‘Finoderee is a good mower. I plough, I sow, I reap, I mow. I herd cattle and sheep, I thresh and rake and carry, I build stacks. I can clear a daymath in an hour and want nothing better than a crockful of bithag afterwards. I’ll not mow an inch without you mowing alongside o’ me, Arrowsmith. I’ll outswathe ye ten to one and I’ll show you too long.’

  ‘I need that meadow mowed, and tonight I am busy!’

  Finoderee was unmoved.

  ‘Very well,’ exasperatedly said Arrowsmith. ‘Meet me at the round-field at uhta. Will that give us enough time?’

  ‘Enough time for Finoderee.’

  ‘Good. Now go.’

  ‘And by the by, Arrowsmith, where’s me crock of bithag from yesternight?’

  ‘Wainwright will give it you on the way out.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of a village that makes so free with wights,’ marvelled Caitri as Finoderee lumbered away to the inn, escorted by Fletcher. ‘Talking to them and treating them like lorraly folk!’

  ‘Appleton Thorn is different,’ said Arrowsmith curtly.

  A faceless figure rode around the village on a flench, a wide plank carried along by two burly flench-bearers. He stopped at all the houses to collect small coins, flowers and food, after which he returned to the inn, where the collected gifts were divided between him and his helpers. A crowd of children followed him, singing songs.

  The enigmatic Flench Ridings was another seemingly redundant custom. Its origin had long ago passed into obscurity. The chosen villager dressed himself in old clothes stuck all over with burdock burrs so that not a particle of fabric showed. He put on a burry mask and a flower-covered hat, and took up two staves, one in each hand. On these staves were tied two flags, the Royal Standard of Eldaraigne and the Empire Jack, and the handles were decorated with spring flowers.

  This event having taken place, to the great amusement of Caitri and Viviana who thought it ought to be introduced at Court, time came to retire for the evening. Most of the men went to the inn to carry on the celebrations. Arrowsmith was not amongst them. He sat alone in his house, waiting.

  The village resonated soundlessly.

  It was an eldritch outpouring of silence, below the reaches of hearing.

  In the next-door house of an elderly neighbour, Tahquil toyed with a twisted hazel baton which Arrowsmith had given her on bidding them goodnight. She had noticed his hands then; the skin was rough. Between the fingers stretched a fine, translucent membrane.

  The sisters, Betony and Sorrel, had eaten no supper. They feigned tranquillity as they sat with the spinster neighbour, teaching plant lore to Tahquil’s companions.

  ‘Yes, of course you know that you must not pick red campion,’ said Sorrel sage
ly. ‘If you do, ’twill bring thunder.’

  ‘There are others, too, that will bring thunder,’ interjected old Hazel the neighbour, her gnarled fingers busy at lace-making. ‘Thunderflowers and wood anemone and thunderbolts, which some call speedwell.’

  ‘Nonetheless,’ added Sorrel, ‘you can protect against lightning with elder, house leek and biting stonecrop.’

  ‘And hypericum,’ said her sister. She bit her lip and looked towards the curtained window.

  ‘What is the purpose of this?’ asked Tahquil, holding up the hazel baton.

  The sisters exchanged shy glances.

  ‘That’s a honeysuckle stick,’ said Sorrel. ‘Honeysuckle has entwined itself around that stem when it was green. Now that the woodbine has been removed, the hazel is twisted.’

  ‘But for what purpose?’

  ‘’Tis just a good-luck charm.’

  ‘A love charm,’ breathed Caitri.

  A wind came up. Something fell with a crash, or a door slammed. In the stables, a horse shrilled and kicked at the walls.

  The sisters stiffened, turning their heads towards their house where their brother waited.

  ‘What is this entity that troubles you every year?’ asked Caitri. ‘How does it get inside the Fence?’

  ‘Alas, we know not,’ answered Sorrel. ‘Galan thinks it flies through the air and down the chimney, or maybe comes up under the hearthstone, using it like a trapdoor. It has been seen to run fleeter than a hound and fly swifter than an eagle.’

  ‘What is your brother going to do?’

  ‘Again, we know not. He has forbidden us to keep vigil with him. I cannot bear to contemplate what might happen—oh, let us converse again, that our thoughts might be distracted!’

  In his empty house, Galan Arrowsmith sat in a chair with his axe resting across his knee and a carved ashen tilhal in his hand. On the table, rush-candles burned, each with its gorse-yellow bud at the tip. In the fireplace a gorse-wood fire leaped with a bright, clear flame, and the wind came invading down the chimney like Namarran raiders. Sparks went up in evanescent flowers.