The Well of Tears: Book Two of The Crowthistle Chronicles

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  As his wife lay breathing her last, Arran eased the quarrel from beneath her breastbone and cast it aside. He drew her into the haven of his arms and rocked her softly, and kissed her forehead.

  At first, dazed, Jewel did not know what had happened.

  “I seem to have fallen,” she said in surprise, “into a pit.” She brought her hand close to her face. There was blood on it.

  Gazing up at her husband, she said, “No, not a pit. I feel my spirit fading.”

  He could not speak. His throat felt choked.

  “I think I am dying,” she said.

  A mist seemed to be blowing across her eyes, like vapor across a sky-pool, and by that he knew her sight was failing. Her last words to Arran were, “I will love you both, even when you can no longer see me.”

  Then she was gone.

  Just like that she was gone, and Arran was inconsolable. Refusing to release her from his embrace, he bore her inert form to the house of Lumenspar. There he laid Jewel on a couch covered with cloth-of-gold, and would not leave her side.

  He ranted, “She should have been immortal, with me. We should have dwelled side by side forever. Now my gift is wasted and I would cast it from me if I could.”

  At times when he seemed to have rallied his wits he cried, “The only means by which humankind can defeat death is to earn everlasting fame. Fame is achieved by means of songs sung by bards, and sagas made by poets, and they must be great ballads, in order to endure the trials of time. I shall make songs for her. I shall commission the best bards to compose unforgettable epics in her honor.”

  But he was unable to shed tears, because he was mortal made immortal.

  Jewel’s body was borne to High Darioneth in the sky-balloon Northmoth. During the following days, men and women, children, carlins, lords and ladies, and representatives from the four royal families of Tir journeyed to the mountain ring to pay their respects.

  In Ellenhall Jewel’s coffin rested on a seven-foot-high catafalque covered with Narngalish purple velvet, gold braid, and crimson felt. The casket itself was draped and entirely hidden beneath the fair banner of the weathermasters, with its four quadrants, each containing a symbol: Water, ¥; Fire, Ψ; Air, §; and, in the fourth quadrant, the longsword emblem of Narngalis. The coffin’s lid was surmounted by a garland of gentians and alpine lupins, placed around a transparent crystal vessel of clear water. Half-hidden amongst the flowers was a card, inscribed with words in an elegant, flowing hand, and other words in a more childish script. Six carved and gilded pedestals had been placed around the catafalque. Each stood five feet tall, and supported a white candle three feet long and as thick as a man’s upper arm.

  The coffin was guarded by four senior councillors of Ellenhall, who in turn would yield their places to four prentices, and so everyone who dwelled on Rowan Green could, if they so wished, participate in this last gesture of farewell. A long queue of mourners waited at the doors of Ellenhall. People from the plateau had come to file past the coffin and pay their respects. Marsh-folk had made the long journey, and members of all the royal families.

  On the eve of the ceremonial funeral a quartet of young men stood vigil at the four corners of the catafalque: Bliant Ymberbaillé, Ryence Darglistel, Herebeorht Miller, and Oisín Rushford, Jewel’s old playmate from the marsh. Bliant and Ryence wore their weathermaster raiment, while Herebeorht and Oisín were clad in their best clothes. They stood guard over her memory, in the great silence and the dim candle-light and the scent of the flowers brought to honor her.

  When the morning of the funeral dawned, the bell in the tower atop Ellenhall tolled twenty-nine times, reflecting every year of Jewel’s life. While the bell solemnly pealed, the mourners filed into Ellenhall. The great building could not hold them all: some must listen from beyond the doors as Avalloc Maelstronnar conducted the rites. He performed the ancient ceremony of the sprinkling of the waters, saying, “Life is a cosmic imperative, and Water is its key. The source of purification, sustenance, and cleanliness, Water signifies transparency and tranquillity. Water’s natural beauty is emblematic of the grace and loveliness of life in harmony. Its primal, creative power symbolizes the restoration of life and the promise of the future. It is the wellspring of the spirit, of life, and of health; it confers prosperity on our communities, and safeguards the harvest. Every living creature is a conduit of unseen Water. Water is constantly flowing around and through all people in the world. Humankind, like all other species, is a river.”

  The Storm Lord then talked of Jewel’s fearlessness, quick-wittedness, kindness, and grace. As he spoke, Arran battled with his emotions, while Astăriel listened intently, her head bowed.

  “You may weep that she has gone,” Avalloc said, “but better that you be joyful she has lived.”

  The Bard of High Darioneth had written an elegy for Jewel, which he chanted in his rich voice, unaccompanied by music. Cuiva Rushford of the marsh rendered a heartfelt eulogy, and all persons gathered there joined their voices in a song that Jewel had loved:

  “Life is to live. Pray, do not mourn the falling of each blossom day,

  Nor sigh for memories, nor pine for some thing that has passed away;

  Spare it a thought, a word, a dream, but never dwell on what has gone.

  Open your eyes and seize the day. The sun still shines as once it shone.

  “No time to lose! ’Tis time to laugh, to look and leap, to love and live.

  Fondly embrace this present hour and all the choices it can give.

  Now ride against the wind! Now jump from dune to strand; now challenge wave

  Of curling surf; now sing the stars, be overjoyed; be bold, be brave!

  “The world is kind, the world’s benign, our cradle floating in the void,

  Enwrapped with cloudy scarves, a gem, sapphire-in-silver unalloyed,

  Pulsing to seasons of the moon. The land’s alive with tidal breath.

  Young seedlings sprout from withered moss, and new life springs from every death.”

  Then the crystal bowl of water was removed and, to the accompaniment of two young trumpeters playing a military farewell, the coffin, still decorated with a spill of fresh flowers, was taken out of Ellenhall. Eight stalwart weathermasters lifted it and hoisted it to their shoulders. Slowly, with measured steps, they bore it from the stately building. Arran, Astăriel, Avalloc, and Earnán followed through the oaken doors, sorrow written cruelly on their faces. In their wake came Cuiva and Odhrán Rushford, and Avalloc’s children, Galiene, Lysanor, and Dristan, accompanied by his sister, Astolat Darglistel-BlackFrost, with her son Ryence at her side, and her four younger children in tow. Behind them came a long line of other family members and friends.

  As they passed through the doors, the mountain wind blew the cloaks of the mourners, ruffled the foam of blue flowers on the coffin lid, and swept the hems of the flag draping it. The crowd waited in silence, watching as the casket was eased into a hearse drawn by six matching horses, the color of melancholy, the leading pair under the charge of a mounted postilion. With extraordinary care the pallbearers lowered their light burden from their shoulders, then took two steps sideways. As the casket slid into place, the young men bowed.

  Arran looked on, fighting for composure, his mouth a compressed seam of grief. As the light of a lamp is dimmed by soot, so his handsome face was dulled by sadness, his brows knitted, his lower eyelids sagging into bruised bags. Furrows incised themselves into his flesh where no line or mark had appeared before, two deep symmetrical grooves etched from each side of his nose, running down to the outer corners of his drooping mouth.

  The four sky-balloons of the weathermasters hovered in formation over the scene, their baskets festooned with swags of raven silk. When the hearse pulled away, the bell of Ellenhall rang out again, echoing over the plateau and the high valleys, sounding one peal every sixty heartbeats. Then began the final journey. A procession, led by Avalloc, Arran, Astăriel, and Earnán, walked behind the coffin. As the cortege in full p
anoply passed through the crowd, people tossed flowers and petals upon them. Pipers were playing a lament, accompanied by drummers whose instruments were all draped in black, the sumptuous color of secrets and mystery. Incongruously, yet somehow comfortingly, larks and currawongs were warbling their wild melodies, heard whenever the pipes and drums fell silent.

  Preceded by a trio of horsemen on ebony steeds, the procession made its way up the steeply winding path that led from behind the stables. The road climbed pine-clothed slopes, crossing bridges over high mountain gullies and rocky gorges cloven by fast-flowing waters, finally reaching the higher places of Wychwood Storth where, in a tiny, peaceful dale, lay the cemetery of the weathermasters.

  Throughout the journey Arran kept his jaw firmly clenched, upholding the honor of Rowan Green by keeping his emotions in check, yet all those who knew him understood what it cost him to appear to march with detachment. His eyes were terrible sinks of pain, and he stared fixedly into the distance as if he wished to see nothing more, ever again. He seemed to be dazed.

  In the cemetery stood a building of vaulted stone. It was a place that offered peace and solitude, a reflectory, a venue in which to reflect, contemplate, meditate. The lustrous water-pools surrounding the outer walls mirrored the mountains and sky. Within, a great silver-lined bowl was kept clean and filled with pure water, cared for by the Keeper of the Reflectory, a gentle, kindly man.

  Whereas it was for kings and queens to be buried beneath roofs and floors of barren stone, weathermasters were laid in fertile soil underneath the open skies, so that rain might dance with silver-shod feet on their graves, and flakes of sunlight fall softly thereon, and flowers grow. After a quiet, private ceremony in Lord Alfardēne’s Reflectory, Jewel was laid to rest amongst the tombs of many weathermasters, including the famous lords Avolundar, Alfardēne, and Aglaval Stormbringer. The coffin of Narngalis oak was lowered on ropes and positioned in its resting place, marked by a black headstone that had been engraved with the words “Jewel Heronswood Jovansson, 3453–3482, Beloved Wife of Arran Maelstronnar, Mother of Astăriel.”

  Then Avalloc sprinkled water from a wooden bowl while Cuiva symbolically broke her ceremonial carlin’s Wand in half, formally marking the close of the service.

  As for Arran, his eyes were stones.

  Officially, the mourning period lasted for a sevennight. The son of the Storm Lord averred he would remain in mourning forever.

  Every day he climbed the steep path and visited the grave. Sometimes, as he knelt on the newly turned soil, he murmured the last two verses of a song he had once sung to Jewel, but had left unfinished:

  “Like luminescent falling stars, we shine

  With one brief flash, then fade into decline.

  Like mayflies, we dance for one fleeting day,

  Till dusk comes stealing. Then we pass away.

  “But humankind’s ephemerality

  Makes heroes of us. Our mortality

  We bear, eschewing madness, though we see

  Death is the prize for heroes such as we.”

  Springtime of the year 3483 filled the gardens of the plateau and Rowan Green with the colors and scents of climbing roses, clematis, azaleas, rhododendrons, camellias, dogwoods, and magnolias. The uncultivated places blossomed, too. Satinwood bushes thrived in the damp forests, putting forth small white flowers on thick scaly stalks; the small, creamy flowers of mountain pepper showed themselves, ready to ripen later into shiny black fruit-globes. Wild alpine gardens were richly sprinkled with the whitish-green flowers of elder-berry panax, the fragrant blossoms of coral boronia, the long pale-gold catkins of sallow wattle, and the reddish pea flowers of mountain mirbelia.

  In that season of renewal, Cuiva Rushford returned again to High Darioneth. Avalloc had invited her to remain for a while, as a guest of his household. He held her wisdom in high esteem, and hoped she might share some of her carlin’s knowledge with the lore-gatherers of Ellenhall, while simultaneously imparting comfort to Arran and Astăriel. Another guest at that time was the wandering scholar Almus Agnellus, with his squire.

  Agnellus was a man who had never been short of words, but when he arrived at High Darioneth and witnessed the family of Maelstronnar in their grief he was struck dumb. Their devastation and desolation were severe, and from his treasure-hoard of philosophies he could find no words of sufficient comfort to offer them.

  It was a bright alpine morning when he and Cuiva accompanied Arran to the cemetery of the weathermasters and stood once more at the graveside. Rain had been pouring down throughout the night, but the showers had dwindled to the east, and the morning dawned clear and radiant. Glittering clouds of ice-crystals hovered like gauze above the highest peaks, backed by an agapanthus sky.

  Wild roses were growing on the grave, twining their slim stems over the headstone. The pink-gold-ivory blooms glistened with nectar. Tiny wildflowers blanketed the plot like fantastic embroideries: purple violets, sweet forget-menot, orchids, woodruff, and everlastings.

  Arran subsided to his knees amongst the flowers. Unable to accept his loss, he spent every moment of his life desperately trying to find ways to somehow transform his wife’s mortality into immortality. At his behest, many a song had been made for her. As he knelt, heedless of the two who stood beside him, he spoke, as if to himself alone, or to someone who could not be seen.

  “For most people, perpetuity can come only through fame. Some are famous because of their looks. Great beauties may be famed throughout history: artists paint them; poets laud them. Your beauty outshone them all. Some, such as kings and queens, are famous because of their ancestry. Monuments are built for them; scholars write their histories. Your lineage was unparalleled. Others are famed not for the beauty or the forefathers they were born to own, but for their intellect, their skill. All these qualities you possessed. Surely, you must live on.”

  But Cuiva knelt beside the grieving man, and to him she said: “Everyone is immortal. Recall the words of the Maelstronnar when he spoke of Water. Mortalkind is a river. We are, and will be, in the rain, the clouds, the ocean. More: the body to dust, dust to flowers, the pollen blown on the wind, to be inhaled, the nectar to be collected by birds, for nourishment.

  “Behold,” she said, indicating the trailing stems that festooned the headstone. The three figures at the grave had attended so quietly that small birds had felt secure enough to come down and sip at the flowers. Amongst pairs of stiff, pointed leaves, they were feasting on the sweetness already refilling the petal-cups after the rains. A tinkling twitter played up and down the air’s lute-strings, the call of Blue Honeyeaters. Ultramarine was their chief coloring, with deeper edges to the wing feathers, pale blue throat and breast, brown eyes, and black legs.

  From Arran’s coat pocket, a blackcurrant eye peered out. The end of a limp paintbrush twitched.

  A male honeyeater darted upward, beginning his aerial display to impress his mate. Having reached the apogee of his flight, he folded his wings and dived, uttering a shrill chatter. He swooped skillfully before reaching the ground, but not before a loose pinion, dislodged by his rapid movements, slipped free.

  Arran rose to his feet. A beautiful blue feather drifted down. He reached up and caught it. Cradled in his palm, it shimmered with every shade of blue: jacaranda, lapis lazuli, sapphire, cornflower, antique ice, oceans, skies, sadness, tranquillity. As blue as Jewel’s eyes.

  “This I shall keep,” Arran said, “in her memory.”

  In great astonishment the wandering scholar Agnellus had hearkened to the words of the carlin. Afterward he dwelled on her meaning. Not for the first time he wondered about the lore of the Winter Hag, and over the following weeks, during many an evening in discussion with Cuiva and Avalloc, another change gradually began to be wrought in him. Before he left High Darioneth he spoke earnestly to them, saying, “I have come to believe it is my duty not to expose false ideas and reveal truth, but to spread hope and comfort amongst humankind. I should like to further study the ways of
the carlins.”

  “You are a man of honor, Master Agnellus,” said Cuiva. “In sooth, I had never thought to endure the company of any man tainted by the dogma of the Sanctorum; yet you, sir, have turned my expectations upside down. You and your squire are welcome,” she added, “to visit the marsh at any time. The door of the Rushford house is always open to you.”

  Gravely, Agnellus thanked her for her invitation, and the two sages parted on the best of terms.

  Despite words of consolation from the carlin and the scholar, Arran’s distraction did not decrease. He seemed unable to shake off his despondency. The counseling of his father and his peers could not assuage his grief. Even the company of his daughter—so like her mother in appearance—could not do more than temporarily alleviate his pain. It was in the Autumn of the same year that, driven by sorrow, he decided to retreat from the world. With his mind made up, he commenced to make ready for departure.

  But what was the fate of Fionnuala Aonarán?

  For ten years she had spent every waking moment trying to find a way to come close to Jewel undetected. After a decade of futile endeavor, attempting to gain access to the inaccessible, to break through the barriers of protection that surrounded the bride of the weathermage, she had succeeded. Having let fly the lethal bolt of mistletoe, she returned to the streets from whence she came, the gutters and alleys of Cathair Rua. Her goal had been achieved; now there was no longer any purpose. A substitute purpose might have been happiness, for she perceived it in other people and longed for it, but she understood she had been only a destroyer of happiness and could never hope for it.

  Bitter, then, was her repentance.