The Bitterbynde Trilogy

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  Angavar had been borne to Faêrie, still wrapped in the Pendur Sleep. After he woke, the wights and birds who had returned with him announced that Ashalind lived, whereupon he departed into Erith immediately. He left Faêrie without notice, but word spread—he had gone to fetch her back. Ashalind’s family waited impatiently, dreading that some unforeseen circumstance might prevent her from returning to them. Maybe the wights and birds had been mistaken, or maybe after they had glimpsed her, some tragedy had befallen her. They waited, barely daring to hope, with no idea how long Angavar’s quest would take, for the passing of time in the Fair Realm never matched its counterpart in Erith.

  Barefoot and clad in soft draperies the Avlantians were reclining listlessly on wide stairs leading down to lakes of utmost tranquillity. Around them soared an arcade of majestic marble columns, entwined with foliage. Some folk were trailing their fingers in the water; others were staring at their reflections or gazing at the stately swans that drifted on the lake. A youth plucked plaintive airs on a lute. Low-angled sunlight, rich as honey, shattered through the thick drifts and festoons of pastel blossoms that dripped from trees overhead, the slanting rays patterning the columns and gigantic stone urns with delicate dapples like the thinnest shavings of gold-leaf. Desultory flowers fell from the bowers above, to alight on the flawless surface and float away without a single ripple. From the far shore of the motionless waters, cliffs tiered upwards into a soft haze that indicated the spray from hidden waterfalls. The craggy precipices, lavender-shadowed, glowed like peaches where the light illustrated them.

  Ashalind’s small brother, Rhys, had discovered a swing suspended from one of the blossomy boughs reaching over the lake. Seated thereon, he gripped the ropes above his head and leaned idly on the crook of his elbow, one shoeless foot pointing down towards his reflected image, the other resting on the swing-seat, which gently rocked.

  An old man and a young sat hunched on the broad steps at the water’s edge; Leodogran na Pendran, Ashalind’s father, and Pryderi Penrhyn, who had loved Leodogran’s daughter in Erith and loved her still.

  Leodogran’s housekeeper, Oswyn, loitered amongst that wistful company, and the learned wizard Razmath also, and Meganwy, the Carlin of the Herbs. Some of the other families who had left Hythe Mellyn tarried there as well, lost in poignant musings, supine upon the cool paving or seated with their backs against the columns.

  But beyond their view Ashalind and Angavar with their astonishing retinue emerged from the thistledown birch groves and pushed through thickets of hydrangeas encrusted all over with powder-blue and rouge posies. They walked lightly between rose-arbours, and beneath the perfumed froth of plum trees in bloom, until they reached the lakeside. At their backs the marvellous Faêran hosts paused, half-concealed by the foliage, and waited courteously.

  The mortals who loitered by the lake heard a voice, and turned to behold those two standing before them.

  At first they did not know what they saw, for Ashalind was transformed. She knew such ecstasy that her beauty shone brighter than ever and as for Angavar, it hurt the eyes of the mortalfolk to look at him.

  Such was the gladness of these two lovers.

  The human company bowed their heads and bent their knees before the High King of the Fair Realm, but Ashalind left Angavar’s side and walked towards her people, smiling and holding out her arms, and at last they comprehended that she was the very one they longed for and had missed so sorely, and they rose to their feet as if awakening from sleep.

  At first, Leodogran could not speak; he could only weep for happiness. Rhys jumped from his swing but something in the air of Faêrie caught him, so that he fell not into the water. On the contrary, he floated like a bubble until his toes touched the shore, whereupon he ran to his sister where Leodogran clasped her in his arms, and hugged them both, and laughed and jumped and could not keep still. Razmath and Meganwy greeted Ashalind effusively. Oswyn was overcome by the sight of the Faêran King and fell to her knees, but Ashalind raised her up and embraced her. All were blithe, save for Pryderi.

  After the first instant of disbelief had turned to rapture he glanced once in the direction of Ashalind’s companion and a look of despair closed upon his features. He suffered her to kiss him, then drew back, nodding politely and murmuring that he wished her joy.

  ‘Well Pryderi,’ said Ashalind, ‘I wish you joy also,’ but it was plain he believed that could never be.

  Ashalind’s heart ached for the young man, but one of the Faêran came forward—the lady Rithindel of Brimairgen, whose loveliness was a poem. Her midnight hair, bound in a silver net laced with stars, reached to her ankles. Her gown was viridescent silk embellished with spangled moths’ wings. Smiling, she took Pryderi’s hand, saying, ‘Be comforted.’ He turned his anguished eyes upon the lady of the Fair Realm and when he met her gaze he faltered. By that hesitation Ashalind knew that all would be well in due course, for to look upon the Faêran is to love them, and the affections of many mortal creatures can eventually be swayed. Pryderi would find contentment in the Fair Realm.

  Everyone was keen to hear Ashalind’s story, humanfolk and Faêran alike, so she sat down beneath the columns and the festoons of pastel blossoms, and told it to all. Angavar remained close at her side, as if he suspected that if he let her from his sight she might disappear.

  Cierndanel the Royal Bard was among the audience, with his live asp twined about his neck; and Liriel, jewel-smith of Faêrie, and Giovhnu the Faêran Mastersmith. From far and near the entire population of Faerie listened to the tale, hearkening by their own arcane methods, and the telling took as long as it needed to take, and that might have been a day or a year.

  When it had been told it was discussed at length by all and sundry, and Leodogran murmured to his daughter, ‘Perhaps you have not yet revealed all, elindor. It might be wondered what retribution Angavar wreaked upon the scoundrel Edward for his act of treachery that came nigh to blighting our eternity.’

  She replied earnestly, ‘The ways of the Faêran are not the ways of men, father.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Rhys prompted, eager to learn whether his sister’s betrayer had been suitably punished, but too much in awe of Angavar to address him directly, ‘the King’s Majesty left an enchantment behind when he flew away with you, Ashli—a spell that struck Edward down, or blasted his brains from his skull!’

  ‘I think not! Thorn—that is to say Angavar,’ Ashalind subjoined a little self-consciously, darting a quick look at the breathtakingly handsome lord who watched her attentively while reclining at his ease nearby—‘promised Edward’s father, King William, that he would protect him. Edward had once been his ward and his charge!’

  Cierndanel, who had overheard this exchange, smiled his dazzling smile. ‘Recall also that traditionally the Faêran are wont to make allowances for love’s folly,’ he said in that voice like the sound of rain on leaves. ‘We are fond of lovers, and inclined to indulge them, even when they fall into error.’

  Then, unexpectedly, Angavar spoke. Hearing those deep, rich tones Ashalind could not help but be thrilled, though she knew them so well.

  Said the Faêran King to her brother, ‘Thou must understood Rhys, that, unlike Pryderi, Edward will suffer, all his life, a form of Langothe—a longing for the love he will never know; and that longing will hurt him like some deep wound that never heals.’ His audience listened in silence as the impact of his words drove home. ‘Compared to that,’ said Angavar, ‘any blow I might have struck could seem inconsequential. Besides,’ he went on, a smile quirking the corners of his beautiful mouth, ‘Reprisals take time. On the day I last saw Edward I was in too much of a hurry.’

  Cierndanel laughed, and others joined in.

  ‘I daresay any Faêran as powerful as you, sir,’ Rhys piped up boldly, ‘would not deign to smite a man so manifestly unequal to himself, in any case.’

  And Angavar agreed that this was so.

  ‘But what about dear Rosamonde?’ Ashalind asked suddenly. ‘S
he loved Edward all her life. Is he never to return her affection?’

  ‘As to Edward’s affections, ionmhuinn, I would rather dismiss them from my consideration,’ said Angavar, ‘but if thou seekest knowledge, here is one who will satisfy thy curiosity, for she is mistress of concealed lore, and knows something of what is yet to come.’

  After giving Ashalind a quick kiss, light as the touch of a wind-blown leaf, he sprang to his feet and strode down the stairs until he was standing in the water. She felt as if life had been drained from her, that she should be parted from him by even such a slight distance, but he called out a name, and the placid lake finally stirred.

  From its centre the upper edge of a pale and fluted moon erupted in one slow, powerful thrust, massive sheets of water pouring from it as brine pours from the flukes of a diving whale. As it rose, it revealed itself to be part of a creamy scallop shell the height of a carriage; a gleaming, calcined fan vertically positioned. Its hinge was attached to the other half of the shell, which rested on the flood like a boat. A woman stood inside the open bivalve.

  Of course, no mortal woman.

  Nimriel, the Lady of the Lake, was clad in long, corrugated strands of chlorophyta, bordered with lace-leafed aquatic mint. At her hip she wore a scabbarded sword. Her amber hair—as wavy as wind-rippled sand—flowed free from beneath a garland of water-lilies. A girdle encrusted with blue periwinkle-shells clasped her waist, while jade water-snakes coiled themselves like polished bangles up and down her arms. In one hand, as a magician would hold his staff, she gripped a dark green stalk of giant arrowhead, topped by its sagittate blade.

  Groups of water-girls appeared, pushing the hull shorewards, but, overwhelmed and somewhat frightened, the humanfolk jumped up and scrambled away from the brink. When the shell touched the steps Angavar held out his hand to the Faeran Lady and she took it, stepping gracefully from her curious vessel.

  The Lady Nimriel was to be feared and esteemed, but Angavar led her amongst the gathering and she knelt at the feet of Ashalind.

  ‘I do honour to you,’ she said gravely, ‘Ashalind na Pendran.’

  Awkwardly, Ashalind returned the greeting, though Angavar reassured her; ‘From now on all my subjects will bow before you, Goldhair eudail,’ he said. ‘Be not discomfited. It is our way.’

  When Nimriel rose to her feet Ashalind could not help but call to mind their first meeting. The Lady seemed as unchanged yet as altered as the ocean. Her tranquillity was that of the calmness of a vast loch at dawn. It could not be doubted that she was mistress of all the wisdom hidden in deep places; in drowned valleys and starlit lagoons; beneath mountain meres where salmon cruised in the dim, peaty fathoms.

  ‘Tell what you would ask of me,’ the Lady said, speaking soft and low.

  ‘Prithee, what of Rosamonde of Roxburgh and Edward D’Armancourt?’

  ‘They will be married,’ said Nimriel. ‘He will be kind to her, Ashalind, for his attachment to her is second only to his affection for you.’

  ‘Art thou happy now?’ Angavar murmured, drawing Ashalind to him and wrapping her in his arms. There was no need for her to reply in words.

  Rhys, however, wanted more. He tugged at his sister’s arm. ‘What about Sianadh?’ he asked, ‘and Tully, and Caitri, and Viviana and Ethlinn, and Pod? And the good Gatekeeper? And the waterhorse, the nygel? What will happen to them?’

  ‘Oh!’ Ashalind exclaimed, forcing herself to awaken once again from the dream-inducing bliss of her lover’s embrace, ‘How could I have overlooked the opportunity to discover the fates of my dearest friends?’ Suddenly torn between dread and hope she said, ‘Gracious Lady Nimriel, will you tell us what you know of them?’

  The Lady smiled. ‘They live,’ she said, ‘happily ever after.’

  ‘But surely that cannot be all we shall ever learn!’ Ashalind cried in dismay. ‘Those worthy folk performed the greatest of services for me. I cherish them!’

  Nimriel beckoned, upon which Rhys followed her to the lower steps at the lakeside. Ashalind did likewise, but not until she had received Angavar’s assurance that he would go with her, for she could not bear to be more than three paces away from him at most. The lake-maidens had removed the shell-boat and the water had returned to its previous stillness. Not a flaw marred the surface, which was as sheer as a silken drum. Ashalind and Nimriel seated themselves, partly submerged, so that their garments floated around their knees like seaweed, whereupon the Lady of the Lake pointed into the depths and cried, ‘Behold!’

  It reminded Ashalind of looking into the weird mirrors of Morragan, when he had forced her to seek for the Gate of Oblivion’s Kiss; yet there was no compulsion here. The reflective water revealed a series of scenes. First, two noblewomen seated at a table by a velvet-curtained window, playing cards with two gentlemen. All were attired in fashionable raiment and all wreathed in smiles.

  ‘Who are those ladies?’ Rhys wanted to know.

  ‘Why, they are my friends Viviana and Caitri!’ answered his sister, enchanted by what she saw.

  Viviana leaned across the table give the elder of the two gentlemen a peck on the cheek, and Ashalind recognised Dain Pennyrigg who, it seemed, had risen from the station of stable-hand to that of a lord. A wedding ring gleamed on his hand, and on Viviana’s also. As the game concluded a nursemaid approached, carrying a lively infant in her arms. Viviana jumped up and took the child from the woman, cradling it tenderly. Dain Pennyrigg spoke playfully to his wife, who responded in kind, while Caitri and the younger gentleman, now sitting side by side, joined hands and engaged in conversation, focussing on each other as if they were the only two people in the world.

  Nimriel stirred the water with her finger. The scene broke up, giving way to another.

  On a wide green lawn under the sun, a hurling match was about to begin. The audience, ranged around the sidelines, was already in a raucous mood; everyone was cheering, shouting, bawling insults and waving flags. Ashalind exclaimed with delight when she spotted Sianadh’s sister Ethlinn, with her children Muirne and Diarmid among the bystanders. Three young men, three young women, an ancient crone in a wicker chair and a hive of very small children accompanied them.

  ‘See,’ came the voice of Nimriel, ‘there is Ethlinn with her grandchildren, and Muirne with her husband, and Diarmid with his wife.’

  ‘I never guessed Ethlinn could abandon herself so completely to jubilation! Who are the others?’

  ‘Kavanagh’s grandmother, astonishingly long-lived. And his two children, grown to adulthood, with their spouses and bairns.’

  ‘Sianadh’s entire tribe!’ Ashalind clapped her hands in glee. She stared eagerly at the picture. ‘But where is he, the Bear himself? Is he playing at hurling? I would have thought his hurling days were well past …’

  ‘Look well!’ advised Nimriel. ‘Do you spy him on the northern boundary?’

  ‘Even so! What is he doing there?’

  ‘One team hails from the north of Finvarna and the other from the south. Each side has chosen an older man as their mascot, to stand on the side-lines, a tribute to warriors of yore. The southern team drafted the one-time hurling champion of Severnesse for their talisman, one Lusco Barrowclough. The appointment of his inveterate unfriend was too much for Sianadh. I can tell you, his beard bristled like a fox’s brush, and his ire knew very few bounds. Convinced that honour was at stake—and made brash by a long drinking session with some Ertish friends—he demanded, and received, the equivalent position on the side of the northern team. The players hailed his fervour.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Ashalind said with feeling. ‘Sianadh was ever a man eager to defend his account.’

  ‘See,’ Rhys cried eagerly, ‘the match commences!’

  After the ball had been thrown up between the two teams the fun began, to the skirling music of pipes and the cheering of onlookers. They were hurling away with astonishing skill and vigour, when the southern team began to get the upper hand. That his rival’s party should appear to be winni
ng plainly irked Sianadh more than he could endure. Spontaneously he threw himself into the game and began helping the northern team. Bellowing his rage, Barrowclough made a run at the Ertishman, but Sianadh shirt-fronted him, bowling him clean over. Rhys, seeing this, doubled over with laughter.

  The two men took to fisticuffs and the match was suspended while they fought it out. Their reflexes being somewhat impaired by the quantity of spirit in their blood, they moved erratically, like two lethargic bulls. Eventually they crashed head to head, fell flat on their backs and remained prone, groaning. The spectators cheered, the rivals were dragged from the field and the game resumed.

  Eventually the northerners won the day, to Sianadh’s considerable joy. There was much mirth and jollity on both sides, for the match had been a vigorous one and no ill-will had brewed on the field, except between the two mascots. Sianadh crowed like a rooster despite his sore head, and swore he’d never let Barrowclough forget the day.

  Tears of laughter were streaming down the faces of Ashalind and Rhys as the scene dissolved.

  ‘Oghi ban Callanan, but there’s a man of gumption,’ Ashalind gasped. Cupping her hands around her mouth she called out at the disappearing image, ‘May you never change, you red pirate!’

  Abruptly sobering, Rhys turned and looked up at Angavar. ‘Sir, does Sianadh think that Ashli lost her memory and became the wife of that horrid Edward?’ he asked. ‘Do all her friends believe the lie?’

  Angavar replied, ‘I never allowed the nets of glamour to touch them. I left them with the truth.’