The Bitterbynde Trilogy (102 page)

Nonetheless, Thorn could not always be spared from governance. On a day when his duties took him elsewhere, Rohain walked through the palace picture galleries and statue galleries on the arm of the young Prince. They halted beside a window to look out at the dormant Spring Garden with its arches of lichened crab-apples most ancient.

‘I should like to see those leafless trees in bloom,' she said. ‘Crab-apples bear exquisite blossoms. I think they are my favourites.'

‘You shall see them,' said Edward, ‘this and every Spring.'

Thorn's silver-clasped hunting-horn was hooked to Edward's belt. As he turned away from the window it chimed against a marble pedestal. Noting the direction of Rohain's gaze, the Prince said, ‘Traditionally, the Coirnéad is worn by the reigning monarch—however, he has requested that I bear it now and in the future, saying it may stand me in good stead.'

‘The Coirnéad?'

‘A horn of Faêran workmanship. For centuries, an heirloom of the Royal Family.'

‘A fair ornament.'

A frown crumpled the Prince's brow. They walked on. Edward made as if to speak again, but hesitated.

‘You are beauteous, lady,' he stammered suddenly. ‘Do not think I flatter you, pray, when I tell you your beauty outshines all other beauties. He has chosen his consort well. His recommendation is law to me. My faith in his wisdom and judgment is implicit. I shall be glad to accept you as my—'

‘I can never stand in your mother's place. Pray, allow me to be your friend.'

‘Indeed,' he said earnestly, ‘and I shall be
your
friend and most devoted admirer. Nothing could make me happier than to welcome you into this family, dear Rohain.' Raising her hand to his lips, he kissed it. His youthful smile was open, ingenuous.

‘So saying, you make my own happiness complete,' she said, returning the smile.

The castle hawk-mews was extensive, housing not only hawks but also falcons, and one majestic wedge-tailed eagle named Audax. The Hawkmaster sported eight taut silver scars on his bald dome where the talons of an eagle owl had once gored him when he was stealing her clutch of eggs. In the mornings, he could be seen in the yards with his falconers and austringers, swinging lures to bring half-trained birds back to the fist. The lures were a pair of moorhens' or magpies' wings dried in an open position and fastened back to back, with a fresh piece of tough beef tied onto the end of a line.

Often, the clear ringing of the tail-bell on a returning gyrfalcon tantalized the early light. The bird would scream a welcome as it flew down, jesses trailing, thrusting its feet forward to lock onto the falconer's tasseled glove, the savage joy of flight still purling in its black, gold-rimmed eye.

The Hawkmaster took Rohain among the sounds of the mews—the tiny tintinnabulation of bells, the bird-screams and whistles and chatter, the rasping whirr of rousing wings, the talk among the austringers and falconers. He proudly showed her the clean gravel-floored pens where roosted goshawks or sparrowhawks, merlins, hobbies, ospreys, peregrines, or the great and noble gyrfalcons, tethered to blocks and perches. Boys were assiduously sweeping up casts and scrubbing mutes off the walls. An austringer coped a tiercel goshawk's beak using a small, bone-handled knife and an abrasive stone. Another imped the damaged tail-feather of a hooded gray hawk, carefully attaching a replacement pinion to the base of the broken one. An apprentice weighed a peregrine on a small set of scales.

‘Have to cut him down,' he said. ‘He's put on too much.'

‘Cut him down?' repeated Rohain, astonished.

‘Cut down his feed, m'lady,' explained the apprentice, with a respectful salute.

‘The merry merlins fly at larks,' the Hawkmaster said informatively, moving among the birds with Rohain, ‘but the gay goshawks be the cooks' birds, so we say, for they will tackle fur or feather. A hunting engine they be, the goshawks, swift as arrows—but 'tis their wont to be peevish and contrary betimes. They must be handled with patience.'

The eagle sat alone in a magnificent pen, fierce-eyed, his irises silver. He was beautiful; black with a pale nape, wing-coverts and under-tail coverts. His legs were long, strong and full-feathered.

‘We keeps the hawks and falcons well away from Audax the Great, else he might make a quick meal on 'em,' said the Hawkmaster. ‘He will only come to two men—meself, who trained him, and His Imperial Majesty. Only royalty may fly eagles, but no milk-and-water king could do it. Audax's wing-span be more than seven feet, tip to tip. His weight be nigh on seven pound and his hind claw be as thick as a man's little finger. He can bring down small hounds, ye ken, and deer.'

A falconer went past carrying a bucket of day-old chicks and another of frogs and lizards. The eagle roused and shook himself.

‘Coo-ee-el,' he whistled. ‘Pseet-you, pseet-you.'

‘Soothee, soothee,' said the Hawkmaster.

Winter faded. Gone were the moon-spun webs of night, the tinsels of rime lining each edge with glitter, like the shang, and drawing frost feathers on leaf and pane with an exquisite silver pencil. It seemed that every day the sun flew up like a yellow rose and fell down like a red one, and at the end of Winter the stirring of Spring could already be felt as a stirring of the blood; every bare and lichened bough carried the promise of blossom and verdure. The breezes sighed with perfumed breath and sunlight coloured them with pale gold. In the Forest of Glincuith, the only sounds were bright gems of birdsong, and baubles of laughter threaded on strange sweet music drifting from the trees; the piping of eldritch things, like the plaint of weird birds. These sounds, Thorn made into a necklace and tossed it over the head of his betrothed. It hung about her shoulders, where it mingled with the abundant spirals and falls of heavy gold from which the dye had at last been stripped after many rinsings, along with the natural sheen, so that most folk believed she had bleached her tresses.

Sometimes Rohain and Thorn rode in open country with their entourage and the Hawkmaster and the falconers and the austringers. Then Thorn would fly Audax at ducks and geese and ptarmigan. The eagle was an expert hunter, possessing many strategies. He soared on thermals, so high that he vanished from human sight. Up there he could easily see everything that moved over a huge area. Once he had chosen his prey, he would dart without warning from behind a hill where he had deliberately lost height without being noticed, then fly close to the ground until suddenly appearing only a few yards from his quarry, swooping down over the tops of nearby trees. Or he would start his attack with a long, slow descent up to four miles from his victim, or, most spectacular of all, from hundreds of feet above the ground he would stoop, diving with folded wings like a plummeting stone, flattening out at the last moment, spreading out his wings and tail to decelerate efficiently, pulling his head back and throwing his feet forward with talons outstretched to strike and grasp. The remaining shock of impact would be transferred to the prey.

He never missed his target.

Rohain made a discovery.

It was akin to the memory-dreams of the Three Faces, the Rats, the White Horse. Since her return from Isse and the prematurely terminated journey to Hunting-towers, a verity had been clarifying by degrees in her awareness.

It was Erith, remembered.

Erith's bones had been dredged up out of the waters of forgetfulness, but not much else. None of the history, none of the character—only the formations of the land and the labels of the countries, cities, villages on the map. The bones, and the names of the bones.

Somehow, the knowledge of three dimensions of the world had seeped through to Rohain. The fourth, which was
time
, was still lacking. Yet it strode on toward her betrothal day.

In the glades of Glincuith, the black fretwork of leafless branches formed, by day, a ceiling of sapphire panes; by night, a roof of smoky glass shattered by a gravel of stars. There, Rohain spent pleasant hours learning the courtly dance steps with a partner who moved so lightly and easily over the springy turf that she could swear their feet trod upon nothingness. Here was a lover who was ready, with extraordinary anticipation, to catch her after every pirouette, to whirl her as if she were a child, her skirts billowing like a full-blown camellia; to sustain and guide her, to hold her pressed so close that she thought his heart was beating within her own breast. The scent of pines was snagged like myrrh in his hair. Beneath her left hand, his shoulder was steel, sliding beneath layers of costly fabric. The dim, crimson light of dying suns gleamed through his hair, and his eyes, fixed upon her, were dark-smoldering coals.

At these times, love's anguish and precipitancy threatened to overwhelm her. It was a torment with a terrible sweetness to it—addictive, unconsumed, consuming. From him raged an answering force, a torrent dammed, a ferocity chained, a storm scarcely suppressed, eager, impatient.

The festival of Primrose Amble having passed by, the betrothal was officially announced and celebrated, even while more legions of the Empire were making ready to depart for the north to relieve those that had been stationed there for lengthy periods, or to swell the numbers of the King-Emperor's army. The Royal Ball took place in jeweled splendor, attended by royalty, nobility, and dignitaries from all over Erith; more than a thousand guests. The bride-to-be shone like a piece torn out from the very core of the sun. He who moved beside her seemed by contrast the glorious incarnation of night.

The feast was sumptuous. Rohain sat at the high table beneath the canopy, at Thorn's right hand, sharing with him a cup and plate. At their backs, bright heraldic flags adorned the walls. Before them gleamed a swan-shaped cake covered with three thousand hand-molded Sugarpaste feathers. Below, the Banqueting Hall seethed and glistered.

As he conversed with Rohain, Thorn glanced down the table at Roxburgh, who looked splendid in a dress uniform of royal scarlet and gold. The Dainnan Commander had just cleared his trencher of a mighty helping of meats, and with a purposeful air he was contemplating the other dishes.

‘The Commander is a renowned trencherman,' said Rohain, noting the object of his gaze.

‘Indeed he is!'

Roxburgh having looked away to speak to his wife, Thorn casually tossed a couple of roasted capons onto his trencher. Roxburgh, turning back and helping himself to pie, looked startled at the sight of his erstwhile empty platter. The King's Page made a bursting noise and collapsed behind a gonfalon.

The swan-ship sailed from Waterstair for the occasion, the side of the hill having been knocked out to allow its egress. It was moored over the inner bailey, to the acclamation of the citizens, who could see it from every corner of Caermelor; a giant bird gently lifting in the draughts, bound by iron chains.

In the lists, the jousting knights gave a brave display, sunlight splintering to shards on their harness as their lances shattered on each other's breastplates. The thunderous charge of the armoured war-horses and the impact of their meeting shook the ground. The tournament concluded with a night of fireworks.

Fireworks: traditionally a wizard's stock-in-trade. A city wizard, Feuleth, was handling the preparations. Rohain, dressing for the evening feast, her head swimming with the intoxication of these giddy days and nights, became conscious, at last, of having overlooked a new wave of apprehension arising in the city.

‘Viviana,' she said, ‘what news?'

‘A wizard in Gilvaris Tarv, Korguth the Unfeasible or some such, has been Dismantled and struck from the List. And a pirate named Scallywag has been captured.'

‘Scalzo?'

‘Yes, that was it, m'lady.'

Can it be that at last my enemies are all undone
?

But the lady's maid was still speaking. ‘And strange things have been happening lately—malign creatures have been creeping into Caermelor. They have been seen in the streets after dark. And in the north, things have gone from bad to worse. They say the barbarian wizard-chieftains and warlords are on the move again. There will be full-scale war, for certain. The times of peace are over.'

‘As usual you outstrip me with the latest goings-on. How is it that you are aware of these things, Viviana, and I am not?'

The lady's maid blushed delicately. ‘Of late, you have been occupying yourself with pursuits other than listening to gossip, m'lady,' she replied demurely. ‘We have scarcely seen you. You dismiss us when you go out. You are rarely between walls.'

‘True enough. What other tidings have been prominent?'

‘Only much talk of the forthcoming fireworks!'

After sunset, flaming cressets splashed carnelian light over the city.

Upon the lightless and stony heights of the palace the more privileged crowd waited for the fireworks to begin. The less privileged lingered expectantly beyond the walls, in the streets, on the roofs of houses. Feuleth the Torch-Fingered, a youngish wizard, excitedly prowled the inner bailey. He was setting fuses to last-minute rights in tubes packed with white, prismatic saltpeter, yellow spores of sulfur, and other pyrotechnic generators. For added effect, and to indicate his indispensability, he shouted orders and incantations and waved a staff purportedly imbued with grarnarye. Up on the parapets, like a human palisade, the Royal Attriod surrounded two who stood looking out across the starlit city. She leaned back against him, her head resting next to the base of his throat. He folded his arms around her. Their hands clasped. In the torchlight their profiles formed a double cameo on the somber sky.

With a howl of igniting combustibles, the display commenced. A hundred and eleven coloured fountains leaped: rufescent, iridescent, viridescent. Out of them, fast things shot high into the dome of night, where they destroyed themselves spectacularly, bursting into glittering rain, scintillating arrows, brilliant hail, confetti, baubles, sequins, petals, jewels. On the castle wall, vivid pinwheels began to rotate, spurting sparks and making whizzing noises that could barely be heard over the bangs, hisses, whistles, and roars, and the keening of air split by rapid flight. Comets sizzled past.