The Bitterbynde Trilogy

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  ‘Ashalind na Pendran,’ gravely said the tallest of the three, he who had first spoken. In the simple saying of her true name, in the look of fierce yearning in their eyes, Tahquil-Ashalind felt the strength of their desire. They knew her. She represented their unlooked-for hope, their priceless key, their lamp in the night of despair. Here was the one who might show the exiles the way home.

  ‘Lord Iltarien greets you,’ said the tall Faêran lord, executing a bow in a manner that hinted at mockery.

  ‘I pray you, release my friends,’ she repeated. ‘They know naught of this business.’

  ‘Who is here, remains.’

  ‘I know what you want of me. Yes, I returned to Erith after the Closing. I came through a Gate, but the memory of its location is lost to me. If the Faêran have sought it with no success, what chance have I?’

  The face of Lord Iltarien darkened.

  ‘Follow,’ he said, turning on his heel, and Tahquil-Ashalind, with Caitri at her side and the malignant motivation of Yallery Brown at her back, must follow. But they left Tully behind, for the Faêran hindered him with their arts.

  Through the soaring halls and exalted corridors of Annath Gothallamor they went, the two mortals unsure as to whether they walked or glided or somehow flew. Shadows flowed, the colours of the ocean. Light glimmered, radiations of the stars. Gramarye was rife, imbuing the air, crackling in webs between their fingers like handfuls of levin bolts. Yet it was not to be grasped, not by them.

  Climbing a stair of amethyst, they came to a high place. The walls shimmered translucent, as though hewn from crystal. Through them, like fire through aubergine lace, sparkled the prismatic stars of Darke. Possibly, there were no walls at all—the Faêran did not love enclosure. Indeed as the mortals entered with their escort, a scent of woodland pine, or rain-clouds, wafted through this spectral eyrie, this turret room, this prison, if such it was.

  ‘Go forward,’ said the Faêran lords. They themselves withdrew.

  He was seated, alone, his back towards the entrance.

  At the sounds of their presence he rose to his feet and swung around. Caitri uttered a short, sharp cry.

  A shudder rippled through Ashalind at the sight of him—an odd, icy shock, and yet it was not terror or apprehension that she felt; instead it was like a gust of cold wind, or the sting of a chill rain that rouses a restless dreamer. Marvelling, she balanced between joy and terror and was again bereft of speech. His eyes were the colour of rain-filled clouds. The look he bestowed pierced like shafts of the sun.

  ‘Thorn …’ Ashalind’s voice cracked. She went to him and paused, drowning in the ecstasy of his nearness, beholding him beholding her. A kind of paralysis gripped her—she dared not reach out and touch him lest he prove to be naught but a phantasm. But his smile was tender, wondering.

  ‘Speak to me,’ he murmured, in the low, melodious voice she knew well.

  ‘Alas,’ she said, ‘they have made thee a prisoner here too!’

  ‘A prisoner? Aye.’ He placed his hand lightly on her arm—a gentle contact, yet it leaped through her like a lance.

  He laughed then, giving her a curious and unfathomable glance. ‘Indeed, thou’rt a treasure among maidens.’

  ‘Oh, my love,’ she said softly, ‘I have longed for thee as life longs for breath! Deep joy it is to find thee again, but bitter sorrow that our meeting should happen in this perilous place.’

  He studied her, from head to toe. ‘Love’s desire, thou canst set us both free. Only say where lies the last Gate to Faêrie, and how it may be opened, if at all.’

  ‘I perceive they have told thee my tale, beloved, though I know not how they found out the truth. Would that I might describe the Gate! I only remember that it lies somewhere in Arcdur, and may be unclosed by my hand alone. Would that I might send Morragan and all his kindred through, and rid Erith of that bane forever.’

  ‘Most sorely dost thou rail against the Faêran.’

  ‘Which mortal would not? They steal us and toy with us, they trick us and tempt us—to the Strangers, we are no more than playthings to be cast aside or broken. Their cruelty and callousness knows no bounds. In earnestness, my love, if I could recall that Gate I would do so, but in passing through it a geas was laid on me. To that geas I later lost all recollection, until the finding of this bracelet I wear on my wrist. On my seeing it, the vault of my brain was unlocked. Yet even then, memory was not wholly restored. The one fact I most need to remember is beyond my knowledge. Even if I regain that knowledge there is no guarantee that the gate will still be there, for ’tis a Wandering Gate.’

  Into his arms he drew her, she half swooning with pleasure. Beneath the storm-blue velvet of his doublet the strength of him was lithe steel.

  ‘Wandering or not, it will remain where thou last saw it. Recall thou must,’ he insisted. ‘As thou lov’st me, thou must.’

  The hyacinthine torrent of his hair fell loose around them both, an enfolding curtain. Raising her hand, she wound her fingers into its luxuriance. Her own heartbeat filled her like the subterranean drumming of Tapthartharath. She was shaken to the core with every beat. Something took hold of her—something like a stirring of the Langothe, like a hunger so terrible it could never be sated, and she longed for his kiss, that it might soothe the agony.

  ‘A beautiful tyrant is thy passion, at this meeting,’ he said. ‘Why should we deny it?’

  She looked up to where the rich embroidery of his collar folded back, revealing the base of his throat, the gentle hollow at the meeting of the two straight collarbones. Above this rose the masculine curve of his throat and the hard swelling there, like a plum slipped beneath the skin, sliding back and forth with each modulated syllable he uttered. Her eyes traced every detail, following the sculpted lines of the jaw, clean-shaven but powdered with a darkness the colour of his hair, along the taut planes, the chiselled bones of a face so handsome that surely no woman could look at him but her heart must split asunder.

  ‘Sigh no more, pretty bird. Thou shalt have enough of me, and more,’ he said in tones of amusement and delight. ‘I intend to take time to enjoy thee most thoroughly.’

  Catching her up in his arms as if she were a child, he laid Tahquil-Ashalind upon a divan of damson silk, its edges embroidered with silver and seed-pearls. His beauty saturated her vision. Her thought focused on him, to the exclusion of all else. Starlight rippled down the length of his hair, striking a sheen from it like the glowing blue sky of evening. His long fingers unbuckled the knife belt at his waist. This, he thrust aside. The dagger’s gem-encrusted hilt struck the floor with a bell sound, a light chink, which for all its softness, seemed incongruous, a peculiarly jarring note, and she was assaulted with a swift recollection of his hand upon her sleeve, moments ago.

  Ashalind sprang to her feet, tearing the tilhal and iron buckle from her throat. The chain broke and the jade-leaved tilhal rolled upon the floor. She gripped the belt buckle in her fist. Caitri, until now forgotten, crouched in sudden terror at the furthest end of the room. Embarrassed by the intimacy of the exchange to which she was an involuntarily witness, she had been covering her eyes. Having been blind to events so far, she was now frightened by the noise and sense of sudden movement.

  ‘My lord,’ Ashalind hesitated, swallowed and breathed deeply. ‘I see that thou dost wear a dagger. How is it that our captors allow their prisoner to remain armed?’

  A keen wind gusted through the eyrie.

  Or so it seemed.

  ‘The Faêran have no fear of mortal-wrought blades,’ he coolly replied, regarding her steadily.

  ‘My lord wears his dagger at his left side. How then may he draw it, unless with his right hand?’

  He grinned, a white wolf-smile.

  Ashalind’s scalp prickled. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Mistress, mistress, what are you saying?’ Caitri appeared at her sleeve, plucking at it. ‘Your Majesty, prithee, pay no heed. My mistress is overwrought—’

  Ashalind pushed her
away.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Dost thou not know me, Elindor?’

  His features shifted subtly, or else rods and cones realigned within her retinas, or perhaps certain synapses within her brain altered their impulses. Whatever it was that changed, it was not much. But it was enough.

  ‘No.’ Aghast, Ashalind vehemently denied, ‘No!’

  But yes. It was not Thorn who stood before her, nor—as she had feared for an instant—the wanton ganconer, Young Vallentyne of Cinnarine. She paled like an arum lily.

  ‘Say my name,’ he commanded.

  Tears buzzed like wasps behind Ashalind’s eyes.

  ‘Say it,’ he said.

  ‘Morragan.’

  ‘Even so,’ he answered, without hurry. ‘How tenderly the name of her first love is framed upon a wench’s lips.’

  ‘You are mistaken, sir. I never loved you.’

  He watched her face with a knowing, half-mocking expression.

  ‘Time after time thou hast taken great pains to seek me in my own domains—twice at Carnconnor, once at Huntingtowers, now at Gothallamor. On each occasion thou cam’st before me in rags. I see that this visit offers no improvement. Canst thou do no better? I might note thee with greater interest, wert thou to present thyself in more advantageous fashion. Thou must needs try harder, sweeting, if thou art to win my regard.’

  ‘I never sought you out of love.’

  ‘Didst thou not choose to leave the Realm in order to join me in exile? Thou dost protest of course, as is seemly in a chaste damsel, but thine actions proclaim louder than thy words. It would seem thou canst not keep thyself from me.’

  Doubt began to nibble at Ashalind, and in its train, horror. Some grain of truth seemed embedded in his assertions, but how could that be? Again, she averred—though less confidently, ‘You are mistaken.’

  Coldly, calculating, he returned, ‘Thou wilt learn thine own mind. Be sure it is soon, lest I grow weary of the novelty of thy countenance, and spurn thee when thou com’st pleading. Thou’rt only mortal, prone to decay. Many, less perishable, vie for my favours.’

  ‘Oblige them,’ she dared to reply.

  The walls, if walls they were, cracked. Veins of silver flame climbed them. Morragan caressed Ashalind’s cheek, ran his hand into her hair and seized a handful. Her scalp caught fire. She resisted the pain, refusing to cry out.

  ‘I wield iron!’ she cried, thrusting forth the belt buckle in her open palm. ‘Avaunt, or it will burn you!’

  He laughed softly. Reaching over, he plucked the buckle from her nerveless hand. It lay in his own, coolly shining. He closed his fingers over the loops and tongue of metal, and when he opened them a pile of reddish dust trickled away.

  Ashalind blanched again.

  ‘Is it come to this?’ she gasped. ‘That a Faêran Prince would force a mortal? Where is your pride?’

  ‘Easily could I make thee serve me.’ His laugh was low, a lion’s growl. ‘And I mean to do so, yet not in the way thou dost infer. If ’twere pride that prevented me, foolish maid, be sorry, for this reason—that you postpone as sweet a deflowering as mortal maid has ever known. If ’twere scorn that hinders me, that I should disdain to squander my time on an incognisant, inconstant wench, then be awakened to thy status and hope to rise above it by pleasing me better.’

  He released her.

  ‘Go hence,’ the Crown Prince of the Faêran said harshly, his elegant form outlined in stars and cold flames. ‘Rinse and clothe thyself as befits a guest of mine, for guest thou shalt remain, until thou findest for me the Gate. As the water pours and the jewels set their brilliance to illumine thy ephemeral attractions, dwell on my words.’

  Confusion tangled Ashalind in a web of indecision. The flames which had ripped seams from floor to ceiling burned silently, tongues of licking moonlight. She cared not whether they might sunder the weird fabric of the walls, causing them to shatter and cave in. For another revelation had flared like lightning across her consciousness, throwing the foundations of every principle into relief—a revelation as profound as it was shocking, and all the more sickening in its belatedness.

  Her own longing had deluded her, much as a thirst that plagues body and mind may conjure mirages before the eyes. She who parches beneath the desert sun desires above all to behold an oasis. Soon, her frying brain will provide that sight, complete with shady trees. Clues to reality may be deliberately overlooked—until the stoup of cool water turns to a mouthful of sand. Then, illusion’s veil is cruelly flung back.

  On acknowledging the Raven Prince, Ashalind had lost Thorn and found him simultaneously. Exultance bore her spirits up, but froze in midflight. It was a betrayal. She lowered her lids, hoping that Morragan might not have divined her emotions from her reaction—a hope she knew to be fruitless. He had read her agony as plainly as he might scan a book laid out upon a lectern. His smile was derisive.

  Before this meeting, the memory of the Prince’s countenance had been unclear to Ashalind, lost with the image of the gate and other elusive memories. In the light of recollection, one thought tormented her. One more question demanded an answer.

  The chamber possessed an interior of coloured marble and stone. Fan-vaulting arced to the ceiling, the spreading ribs of the fans blossoming into carved tracery, while the ceiling surface between the vaults was closely decorated with scalloped rosettes. Narrow lancet windows shed starlight onto a floor of blue and gold tiles. Foliate ornament adorned the oaken wall-panelling.

  All the furniture was of oak: a sideboard inlaid with ebony, walnut, box and holly; a painted cabinet on a stand; a great oak table, lesser tables, carved chairs, stools, screens, chests and stands. A jug of wine stood on a mahogany side-cabinet with mother-of-pearl and mirrored panels. Like towering scallop shells, wings of sheer electrum rose behind the head of a silk-draped couch. Massive copper candlesticks upheld waxen columns headed with silver flames.

  Water gushed from a fountainhead set into a wall, each jet a chain of diamonds flung through the air until it reached the lower basin. There, it transformed to a turbulence of thrashed crystal, constantly flowing away down some hidden drain, constantly being renewed from the rain-showers above. So pure was the liquid that the marble remained stainless, whiter than sunlight on hawthorn blossom. Each drop, alighting from flight, gave out a pleasant note, imbuing the chamber with melody.

  This remarkable chamber was forested with clusters of pillars that proved to be, in fact, living oak trees. They spread wide their boughs, clothed in leaves of bronze and verdigris.

  Under these trees, Ashalind and Caitri wandered.

  ‘The idea never occurred to me,’ said Ashalind slowly, effortfully. ‘How strange. Perhaps it was a side-effect of the geas of the Geata Poeg na Déanainn—incomplete recall. When first I met Thorn, I did not see the resemblance. I had forgotten everything, including the appearance of Morragan, Fithiach of Carnconnor. Later, I recalled much that had befallen me before the hound’s kiss stole my memory in the under-delvings of Huntingtowers. Yet, three aspects of my former life always remained as mist to me. The third, the location of the gate. The second, why I should have chosen, at the last instant, to leave the Fair Realm, to renounce everyone I loved and endure the Langothe in Erith. The first, the face of Morragan, Prince of Ravens. When I saw him again, truly saw him, with vision not overlaid by my desire, that mist cleared. Before it did, I confused him with another, and even now I can scarce tell the two of them apart. How can two lords be so different in disposition and appear almost identical? For one reason only, I surmise, somewhat tardily—and that is—’ she choked on the words, ‘they are brethren.’

  ‘Impossible,’ said Caitri. ‘The Raven Prince had arranged some glamour on himself, to make us believe him to be His Majesty.’

  ‘No glamour. You overlook, the Faêran cannot lie. I spoke his name and he responded, “Even so.” And it is so, I assure you, Caitri. I recognised him as Morragan. His countenance returned to me as I had seen it fir
st in the halls of Carnconnor, under Hob’s Hill.’

  ‘But are you saying that the King-Emperor is an impostor? That he is not James D’Armancourt of the dynasty?’

  ‘Many secrets I concealed from Thorn,’ said Ashalind, speaking more to herself than to her friend, ‘and many he held from me. Yes, he is an impostor. And for that, I thank fortune, while cursing fate. For my lover is immortal. He lives, and I can never cease to love him, meanwhile hating the Faêran race whose blood is his. I am reviled, for becoming the game-piece of such a one, and worse than that, for being so foolish as to love him still, even when apprised of the truth. The King-Emperor of Erith, he who I know as Thorn, is in fact none other than the elder brother of Morragan—Angavar, High King of the Faêran.’ Tears striped her beautiful face like glass ribbons.

  ‘Impossible,’ argued Caitri again. ‘His Majesty’s birth would have been witnessed, as are all Royal births. He was raised in the public eye, as are all Royal children.’

  ‘I cannot guess how or when the substitution was accomplished. I do know that there is very little which is beyond the grasp of the Faêran, should they so desire it.’

  It surged over Ashalind with redoubled force, the comprehension that Thorn was alive; more than that—he could never die. Ecstasy and aching sorrow collided like two worlds crashing together in a void.

  With that, both girls lay down on the winged couch and sobbed inconsolably, until there were no more tears left to weep.

  As the hypnotic fume of sleep finally seeped through her brain, Ashalind whispered, ‘I hope with all vehemence that Via has escaped unharmed.’ But Caitri’s eyes were already closed, her lashes two crescents of dark cinnibar, and she was breathing gently.

  Time was measureless in Darke, there being no days to mark the passing of it, no seasons to weigh the pendulum of the year. Ashalind and Caitri woke to find the chamber of the oaks unaltered, save that gleaming raiment now hung on the trees.