The Bitterbynde Trilogy

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  The seasons turned.

  Late at night, Ash was seated in the library in the company of two ladies-in-waiting. Often she could be found among the books and scrolls, searching—for what. she did not know. Information of some kind, knowledge … Hours ago, the ladies had fallen asleep. Ash herself was nodding, when a fluttering in the wall-tapestries caught her eye. She looked up to behold a small face which appeared both old and young, like a child burdened with wisdom beyond its years. Beneath the face, a beckoning hand. Ash rose to her feet. Smoothing the heavy folds of her gown of purple velvet, she tip-toed across the chamber to investigate. A young man was holding up a corner of the arras. One of his shoulders humped higher than the other, and he stooped.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said mysteriously, one finger on his lips.

  Amused, she inquired, Who are you? What do you want? How did you come here?’

  He shook his head. ‘Follow Pod and you will find out.’

  She, untroubled by bad memories, knowing only kindness and perhaps tedium, feared nothing. Stepping into the gloom behind the wall-hanging, she saw him duck into a dark opening, like a narrow door in the stone wall. After him she went, along hidden, dusty corridors in the palace walls and up narrow flights of stairs, directed by the light of his candle. The corridors branched at many junctures but her guide did not hesitate, pressing on as though certain of his bearings, as though this strange between place was home territory to him. After a long time he halted in the passageway and pushed on the wall. A panel swung forth, opening onto a confined chamber bereft of furnishings, lit by a fitfully flaming brand in a wall-sconce. Ash followed him into the room.

  A slit of a window appeared to be the only other aperture. It afforded a glimpse of black sky sprinkled with a frosting of silver. A cold draught pierced the window like a sliver of ice. The air blowing in was fresh and clear, tasting of mountain streams under boundless stars.

  Two figures waited therein: a young Feohrkind woman dressed in the fine clothes of the gentry, and a little fellow with thick, curly hair. A pointy beard sprouted from his chin. On seeing Ash, the young woman rushed towards her, then stopped short. Her arms dropped by her sides. She curtsied awkwardly.

  Ash smiled. ‘An intriguing scene. What is this play about? Tell me of your game. Who are you?’

  The young woman curtsied again and spoke. Her voice sounded strained, tense as a wire. ‘I am Caitri Lendoon, my lady. I was your friend, once.’

  ‘Were you indeed? But Edward has not told me about you …’

  ‘Perhaps he does not tell you everything, m’lady.’

  This time, Ash frowned. After a moment her expression cleared. ‘I suppose there has not been enough time yet to recall everything to me. He is so busy and there is so much to learn!’ She paused, as if sniffing the air. ‘How sweet is the breeze from the window …’

  Caitri spoke earnestly. ‘I have come today from open fields,’ she said. ‘They are thick with yellow dandelions. And the white butterflies were rising like steam, blowing in drifts across the meadows as though a wind had shaken clouds of blossom from an orchard. And the sun was sinking down on the one hand, in bright pink and gold, while on the other—beyond dark-green belts of pine—the sky was piled high with blue-black thunderheads. Long shadows striped the grass. Golden stretched the field, white-hazed against the storm’s purple wall.’

  ‘How entrancing is the picture you paint. Long has it been since I walked out,’ said Ash, glancing towards the slot in the wall.

  ‘How came your memory to be stolen away, m’lady?’

  ‘I was lost in the wilderness. I fell and my head hit a stone.’

  ‘No, no! You entered the enchanted portal a second time, and, as before, following your exit you were kissed by one who was Erith-born!’

  ‘Your words make no sense. But wait—what business is this of yours? I am curious to know your purpose. Enough of your questions! Who are these two fellows with whom you keep company?’

  ‘He is Pod, m’lady,’ said Caitri, gesturing to Ash’s erstwhile guide, ‘and this is Tully.’

  The goateed little man bowed briskly. The flickering shadows laved the lower part of his body, so that he could not clearly be seen.

  ‘I wish to tell you a tale,’ said Caitri.

  ‘Go ahead, my dear, but make it short, I pray you.’ Ash lifted the hem of her velvet gown free of the dust flouring the floor. ‘This room is close and chilly, more like a cupboard than a room.’

  ‘It is a secret place, m’lady, and the way for mortals to find it is known only to Pod. We have brought you here because there is much you must learn before you are wed to Edward. You may have been misled.’

  Ash frowned again. ‘I mislike this conversation,’ she said, abruptly turning to leave. But Pod barred her path with his wizened form. ‘Step out of my way, prithee, sir,’ said Ash coldly. ‘I will hear none of this. Why I followed you in the first place is a mystery to me.’

  ‘Because,’ he said obtusely. His mouth snapped shut.

  ‘That is no answer. Out of my way, I say.’

  ‘Wait, I beg of you, my lady,’ said Caitri. ‘There may never be another chance. I will be succinct.’

  ‘Very well.’ Seeing that she was not going to be able to shift the obstinate Pod, Ash acquiesced.

  Caitri began to speak, clearly and fluently.

  ‘The House of D’Armancourt is an honest House by long reputation. I feel certain there have been no lies told you, yet there may have been many false impressions conveyed by omission. You were once betrothed to another.’

  Ash’s sudden intake of breath hissed through her teeth.

  ‘This other,’ continued Caitri quickly, ‘thought you dead when you were lost in the wilderness. In his grief at losing you, he and his retinue passed beneath a green hill, and there they fell into a deep sleep of enchantment which they call the Pendur Sleep. Rightly, they thought never to be woken in Erith, and in fact there was no way to waken them, for the Coirnéad, the horn which might have done so, was sundered when sildron was unmade, and may never be sounded again.’

  ‘An enchanted sleep? Who was this lover you claim was mine?’

  ‘He was the High King of the Faêran.’

  Ash laughed uncertainly. ‘You astonish me.’

  Caitri met Ash’s eyes squarely. ‘Aye, ma’am, ’twas the High King of the Land Beyond the Stars who loved thee. Can you tell me truly, that even now, even under the spell of the Bitterbynde Gate, you have not felt a hint of it? Some subtle tapping at the blind windows of memory? Greater was his power than any force, and great was the love between you as the love of the moon and the tides.’

  Ash retorted, ‘Speak not thus. Pray, complete your tale speedily, that I may leave this melancholy cell.’

  ‘Even so,’ acceded Caitri in disappointed tones. ‘Not long before this very night a strange thing happened. It was just before your ladyship was brought back to the city—indeed, it must have occurred while you were sailing from Arcdur. No doubt you felt it, and perhaps also others on board your ship. All the world felt it. Weird it was, piercing like crystal blades, with a beauty that burned. There was a fragrance of flowers. It was the Coming of the Faêran.

  ‘For by an odd twist, all the gates to the Fair Realm were reopened, and through them the Fair Ones poured into Erith like a rainbow flood, and they went to Eagle’s Howe where their King slept among his knights, and they bore him away, still sleeping.’

  ‘No man saw it, but the wights say his people took him in a boat across Lake Amarach, through the mists which ever twine above the surface of that water. In the lake’s centre rises an island, and on the island they passed through an open Gate into the Fair Realm and were seen no more by Erith-dwelling mortals.’

  The pause that followed seemed hollow, and somehow profoundly sad.

  ‘A fetching fireside tale,’ said Ash at length, ‘no doubt learned from a wandering jongleur or Storyteller. How came these so-called Gates to suddenly open?’

&
nbsp; ‘The wights know, and one will tell.’

  The little man with the pointy beard stepped forward. His goat’s legs and hooves were now revealed to Ash, who recoiled.

  ‘Do not fear, m’lady—he is not dangerous,’ assured Caitri. ‘In fact, he is a dear friend. As are Sianadh and Viviana and Ethlinn, and all who conspired to bring us here. Oh, my lady, if you only knew …’

  Tully bowed once more. ‘Wean, the full story was quo’ tae me by yin who kens it weel. Somehow a wayward wizard—an escaped prisoner o’Caermelor—fand his entry intae the Realm. He crept in by the Geata Poeg na Déanainn. Some spriggans who were hunting him chased in after. When the Faêran of the Realm clapped e’en on this touzled birkie—the first and only traveller to come from Erith syne the Closing—och, the news spread like unbound sheaves in a heigh hurly, ye may be sure. To gain importance for hisself, this wizard, naming hissel’ Sargoth, tell’d the Faêran he had opened the Gate wi’ a wee finger-bone he had fand among the stanes of Arcdur and then had tossed awa’.’

  ‘I do not follow you, sir,’ said Ash. ‘Much of your speech is unfamiliar.’

  ‘Och,’ muttered the wight, ‘my brogue’s thickened again. I hae been too lang awa’ frae mortalkind.’

  Caitri explained, ‘Tully says a wizard got into the Fair Realm by the Gate of Oblivion’s Kiss. When the Faêran discovered him, he claimed to have opened the Gate by himself, using a bone.’

  ‘Into the Fair Realm?’ repeated Ash, as if confused.

  ‘Yes m’lady,’ the courtier replied. ‘I had assumed that such an incursion would be impossible, given that the Raven Prince forbade the passage of Faeran, wights and mortal men between the Realm and Erith—but I was wrong. That edict, it seems, only holds when the Gates are locked. This one stood not only unlocked, but also open!’ Clasping her hands in an attitude of earnest beseeching, she added, ‘This wizard, Sargoth, held an old grudge against you, my lady. Indirectly, you caused his downfall, as well as that of his niece, Dianella. No doubt he saw you make your exit from the Gate, but he lied to the Faêran, to spite you. Shortly thereafter the Fair Ones, perceiving him to be an obnoxious rogue of the kind with whom they desired no truck, threw him out of their Realm. I heard tell some vindictive wights were lying in wait for him, and carried him off. No one has heard of him since.’

  Ash shrugged impatiently. ‘Continue.’

  The urisk said, ‘But within the Fair Realm, the spriggans that had followed him from Erith tell’d the Password to the Casket of Keys. For a thousand years it had been common kenning among tham thegither. What they could bicker, the Faêran unlockit a’ the Gates. They gaed intae Erith tae bring back their braw king and his bauld knights.’

  ‘He says the spriggans told the Password to the Faêran. This enabled them to open all the Gates. They came into Erith and took their King back with them,’ said Caitri.

  ‘Of course. I understood.’

  ‘When Angavar King gaed back tae his Realm he waukened,’ continued the wight. ‘Then he lookit aboot at his bonny kingdom and was blythe, but the Faêran could not fail to note the sair sorrowing which marred his blytheness.

  ‘“I’ll dree no reminder of Erith,” quo’ Angavar, and he ca’d for the Gates atween the warlds tae be closed again, this time truly foriver. Yet first he ca’d oot of Erith his brother, whose form had been bent to the cast of a Raven, for the King was niver so cruel as to coup his ain kin who had been brought low. The Raven Morragan feeled the pull o’ unbarred Faêrie and came winging like an arrow tae the open traverse. But while the black bird flied in at the Realm Gate, a white owl flied oot intae Erith and the Gates clapped thegither.’

  ‘You say,’ said Ash, ‘that this King could bear no reminder of Erith and ordered all Gates to be closed for all time. That before they were closed, he allowed his Raven brother to enter the Realm but at the same time a white owl flew out. Of what relevance is this?’

  ‘Self-banished,’ said Caitri. ‘Easgathair White Owl, Gatekeeper of the Faêran, exiled his geas with him, so that the Lord Morragan, dwindled to a bird but still able to form utterances, would never be able to invoke that last boon.’

  ‘What boon? What Gatekeeper? It makes little sense.’

  ‘Easgathair was once the Gatekeeper of the Faêran. He believed he deserved to be exiled as punishment, because of the shame he had brought upon himself. He considered that the blame for all the troubles of the Faêran lay at his feet, for it was he who, long ago, had granted two unspecified boons to Crown Prince Morragan. One boon had been fulfilled, but the other remained. The Gates were being locked again; however, the Raven-That-Was-Morragan could ask that they never be reopened.’

  A wistful expression crept over Caitri’s fine features. ‘If Easgathair the Gatekeeper is not present in the Fair Realm, Morragan’s second boon can never be fulfilled and Angavar High King has the option of opening the Gates, if ever he changes his mind. Yet alas, I fear that such an alteration of a passionate, wounded heart will never come to pass.’

  ‘And if all this happened in a Realm to which we no longer have access, how could you have learned these matters?’

  ‘’Twas the Gatekeeper hisself who told me this tale,’ concluded the urisk. ‘Though he be in owl-shape, yet urisks may still hold converse wi’ him.’

  In the wall-sconce, the flaming torch sputtered and gasped. Ash turned her face away from its light. She paced the chamber: three steps east, three steps west.

  ‘So this is your story, is it?’ she murmured at length. ‘That I was betrothed to an immortal being who shall never be seen again? That these Fair Ones of legend are gone forever? That in Erith there flutters, immortal, a white owl which is not in sooth a bird but a seeming-thing of gramarye?’ She shrugged again. ‘Of what use is this intelligence to me? Even if ’tis true, which I doubt, how may any make use of it? ’Twere better left unsaid. Allow me my happiness, prithee. Do not spoil what I have left to me.’

  Muffled sounds rumbled through the walls. ‘Methinks my absence is discovered,’ said Ash. ‘Let me go, before your hiding place is uncovered and yourselves are discomfited.’

  Pod backed into the hole in the wall, giving way before her.

  Urgently, Caitri began again to speak, and this time the words tumbled forth as if somersaulting from her mouth in their eagerness to be heard.

  ‘King Edward is our worthy sovereign, yet one flaw mars his goodness: his desire for your hand in marriage overrides his cognisance of good and evil. It makes him willing to put aside the Lady Rosamonde, and to forget his loyalty to the Faêran King who aided him and his family in their time of need. He is even willing to trick you, my lady, in order to secure you for himself. There is no doubt in my mind that from the first moment he saw you he loved you. I have friends among the palace servants. There is one who overheard what passed between you and His Majesty when you returned from the mausoleum in Arcdur, while your memory was still intact. The King-Emperor told you Angavar slept forever, implying he was therefore unattainable. Then, in order to find out if you were willing to accept that state of affairs and take him as a substitute, he asked you if you loved him. He hoped you might accept the idea that the Sleepers could not be awakened, but he was wrong. So upon you he bestowed the salute of love, bringing on you once more the bitterbynde of the Gate.’

  ‘How can you spout such nonsense?’ cried Ash. The young woman’s words had aroused in her such a tempest of conflicting passions she thought she teetered on the brink of madness.

  But Caitri’s eyes brimmed. Unchecked, the salt water coursed down her cheeks. ‘Edward is our sovereign now,’ she said rapidly, ‘and no one dares gainsay his decrees. Yet, to be safe, he decided to keep you sheltered from your old acquaintances until you are wedded to him. He—and others close to him—has been beguiling your thoughts, much as you were misled in Isse Tower when old Grethet deluded you. You have been bewildered! Trusting His Majesty, you believe all he tells you, and he says you are not ready to go out into the wider world yet. The L
ady Rosamonde, who has loved him all her life, was desolate at hearing he had passed her over, and has vowed never to marry another—’

  But Ash interrupted. ‘Enough of your treasonous and disgraceful lies!’ she burst out, making for the exit. ‘I comprehend them not, and will endure no more!’

  Yet she hesitated before she left the room, apparently struck by second thoughts. ‘I deem you all acted in good faith,’ she said, ‘thinking your extraordinary behaviour beneficial in some manner. Therefore, take this.’ Tossing a purse of coins on the floor, she stepped through the opening. Her velvet skirts softly swept the floor.

  Caitri stood without speaking. She stared at the gap in the panelling, her hands pressed tightly against her mouth. She could only recall, streaking the dust on Ash’s face, the glimmering tracks of unbidden tears.

  EPILOGUE

  ‘On my word

  I want thee,

  And it will be so

  While I have life.’

  LOVERS’ VOW

  When the Gates were Closed for the second time, it is not known for sure whether they were ever again opened. It was said in tales that they were.

  Once.

  The reign of Edward lasted many years. Certain it is that the shang unstorms never more came and went, except within the violence of the Ringstorm roiling around the waist of the world. Certain it is that sildron-powered ships no longer flew, nor did Stormriders rule the skies, and that their once-great Houses declined, becoming squabbling, land-bound clans.