The Bitterbynde Trilogy (110 page)

‘What else is to be done?' Avenel asked

‘There is naught to be done but watch and wait. Watch and wait, warily and wisely.'

Since the night of the storm, those who dwelt in the Hall of Tana, and some who dwelt in the village, would frequently turn their eyes up toward the roof of the island, hidden in white cloud—that remote peak whence the winged creatures of unseelie had vanished. But there was no sign of anything untoward. The peak seemed to float and dream as always; serene, untroubled. No flocks of ravening hoodie crows came swooping like a black rain, talons extended and toothed beaks gaping, to rip the rooftiles off the village houses and devour the inhabitants. As days passed and all appeared unchanged, the people ceased to raise their heads as often. But always the crown of the mountain overhung them, lost in its steamy wreath.

The Seneschal led a band of riders on eotaurs up to the summit. But the roiling vapors were as obdurate as a wall and the sildron-lifted Skyhorses would not, could not enter that blindfold haze. In such a murk, all orientation could easily be lost. Not knowing up from down, horse and rider might fall out of the sky.

One night as she dozed, it seemed to Rohain that she was still in the sea-mage's house, with the waves booming in the sea-cave underneath, slamming against the foundations.

She awoke.

A kind of fine trembling seemed to pass through the canopied bed. The lamps hanging on chains from the ceiling shivered slightly.

A ship arrived from the mainland. When it sailed away, Elasaid was aboard. The vessel had brought letters, including a hastily written one for Rohain, in Thorn's beautiful, embellished script that was more like an intertwining of leafy vines than characters. This she deciphered by herself. There were tidings of the business of war, and a brief but forceful line,
I think of thee
, the more earnest in its austerity.

News from the war zone was grim—unseelie forces assailed the Royal Legions and the Dainnan by night while Namarran bands harried them by day. The central stronghold of the subversives, hidden somewhere in the Namarran wastelands, could not be found. It was from there that orders were being issued. It was believed that if this fortress could be discovered and scourged of its wizardly leaders, the uprising might be quelled.

‘A letter from my mother,' said Caitri, waving a leaf of paper. ‘It seems Isse Tower now harbours a bruney, or a bauchan. It pinches the careless servants and also the masters who beat them. It works hard but Trench-whistle, now black and blue, is trying to get rid of it, laying out gifts of clothing and so on. It ignores the gifts and won't leave. My mother says the Tower is a better place for it.'

Perusing her missives from Court, Viviana let out a scandalized scream.

‘Kiel varletto
! One of the palace footmen has run away with the sixth granddaughter of the Marquess of Early!'

For days, she would not cease talking about the elopement.

Late on an evening, as she lay abed waiting for sleep, Rohain again thought that a vibration came through the floor. It was as if a heavy wagon had passed the Hall of Tana, loaded with boulders—but when she looked from the window, the road beyond the wall was empty.

The apples of Elasaid's abandoned orchards flourished and ripened. The island's gold-hazed humidity seemed lately to be tinged with a slight smell of rotting—imparted perhaps by the cloud-vapors, or by the seaweed cast up by the waves to wither on the shores, or maybe by the
duilleag neoil
itself. As time passed, one became accustomed to the odour and did not notice it at all.

The weather was unusually warm for early Spring, the sea as temperate as bathwater. Rejoicing at this, the village children dived and swam, especially the children of Ursilla and of Rona Wade. Lutey's warning, ‘wait and watch', had lost its urgency. The people of Tamhania had waited and watched, but nothing had happened. A little, their vigilance relaxed. But if their masters were carefree, the tamed beasts of the island were not. They had grown restless, uneasy. To human eyes all seemed peaceful, all seemed well. Yet beneath this veneer, expectancy thrummed like an overstretched harp-string, drawn taut across land and sea.

On an overcast day, Rohain stood in Tana's library with Roland Avenel. As they conversed, there began a shaking as if an army of armoured war-horses charged around the hill, pulling mangonels and other engines of destruction on iron wheels. Ornaments and girandoles rattled. The walls creaked. An ormulu perfume burner toppled from its stand and one book fell out of the shelves. From the coach-house came the noise of the carriages rocking on their springs.

‘Mayhap the island floats again!' exclaimed the Seneschal, shaking his gray head in astonishment. ‘Or it is making ready to do so! Mayhap it has grown weary of this location and has pulled up its ancient sea-anchors or cut them adrift, in order to seek another home.'

Tamhania was moving again—at least, that is what they were saying in the village, where the doors and windows of the houses jammed tight in warped frames. And the rainy month of Uiskamis rolled on. On the high spit jutting into the Rip, the grizzled granite Light-Tower seemed to lean into the webs of salt spray, its eye looking far over the silken plain as if it could see past the horizon. At its feet, jagged hunks of rock gripped the uncertain border between land and sea like the Tower's roots, seeming to draw sustenance from both. Perhaps the roots did not go down far enough to fix the island in place.

A minor unstorm went over without much ado. The Scales family and their cohorts stood trial in the village hall. They were fined heavily for their cruel and lawless behaviour, after which they became close companions of the stocks in the village square for a couple of days, where, not to waste them, any apples that had rotted in the high humidity were utilized by some of the village lads for target practice. The general opinion was that the sentence had been too lenient.

Meanwhile, Georgiana Griffin began trysting with Master Sevran Shaw.

Rohain went on with her lessons—the study of music and writing, and the warrior's skills. All the while she probed the thin shell enveloping her lost memories. There was that about this place which disquieted her—had disquieted her from the first, even before the coming of the unseelie hoodie crows. Was the island indeed uprooting itself, to float away? If so, where would it go?

Listlessness overlaid all. Along the shores, layers of water came up with a long
swish
as if some sea-lord in metallic robes rushed past in the shallows. Apart from the cry of the wind, that was the only sound. The terns, the sandpipers, gulls, shearwaters, egrets, and curlews seemed to have vanished.

About a week after Whiteflower's Day, Rohain and her companions sat at dinner in the Hall of Tana. Not one diner spoke or lifted a knife. The hounds stood with hackles raised into ridges all along their spines, their lips peeled back off their curved teeth—but it was no intruder they snarled at, only the doors. These moved gently as if guided by an invisible hand. Presently, they began to open and close by themselves. From out in the stables came the hammering of hooves kicking at stalls. On the dinner-table, wine slopped out of the goblets. Salt cellars shuddered, jumped about, and fell over. Above the heads of the diners, high in the belltower, the bells shivered, unseen, as if their cold metal sides had caught some ague. The clappers rocked but failed to kiss the inner petals of the bronze tulips. They did not ring. Not yet.

The maid Annie rushed in, incoherent, shouting something about Vinegar Tom. Starting up from his seat and drawing his sword, the Seneschal ran outside in case she was in danger from pursuit. He saw no creature, eldritch or otherwise. When they had soothed the girl she told them
not
what they had thought to hear, that Vinegar Tom had chased or harmed someone. Instead she said that Vinegar Tom was gone.

That which had guarded the path for centuries had deserted its post. And now it came out that the colt-pixie had not been seen for some time either, or the domestic wights of Tana, or the silkies, or any others of seelie ilk.

‘Is it possible the wights have left Tamhania?' Alys of Roxburgh asked.

No one could answer her.

Over the ocean, thunder rumbled. Horses screamed and goblets toppled, spilling their blood-red wine across the linen battle-plain of Tana's dinner-table.

‘These quakes …' said the Duchess. She did not finish her sentence.

‘Should we not leave here?' Rohain said. ‘I fear danger stalks the isle.'

‘I, too, am troubled,' nodded the Bard.

‘Yet it is his Imperial Majesty's command that we remain,' murmured Alys. ‘A good soldier never disobeys orders. Neither should we.'

‘'Tis the sea,' said the Seneschal overheartily. ‘'Tis choppy these days. If indeed it floats, the island moves roughly over the waves. We're in for another storm, by the sound of it.'

The words fell from his lips like empty husks, and he knew it.

They sat silent again. Still, no one raised a knife. The salt cellar rolled lazily across the table, leaving a silver trail; an arc, a slice of moon, a fragmented sickle.

No mermaid's cry gave warning of what happened next.

Thunder's iron barrel rolled across the firmament,
but there were no thunderclouds
. The seas lurched. Even the warm waters of the sheltered harbour rose in a brisk, pointy dance, but there was no storm—not in the way storms are usually known.

For days this went on, and then the ground picked itself up and shook out its mantle. Many villagers rushed outdoors in fright. It became impossible to walk steadily. Windows and dishes broke. At the Hall of Tana, paintings fell from the walls, and in the stables the small bells rang on the bridles hanging from their hooks.

They jingled, those little bells, and then fell silent as the ground stood still again. Next morning, dawn did not come. Beyond its normal bounds, night stretched out like a long black animal.

‘Look at the cloud!' cried Viviana, pointing.

The white wreath that continually lurked upon the mountaintop had now darkened to a wrathful gray. It had grown taller, becoming a column. From the top it forked, like the spreading branches of a gigantic, malevolent tree; billowing, blocking sunlight. Beneath its shadow, the mountainsides sloped as green and lush as always, but particles of sand and dirt moved in the tenebrous air, and flecks like black rain or feathers floated—tiny pieces of ash. This dirty wind irritated the eyes, made breathing difficult. The smell of rottenness had increased a hundredfold, and a stink of putrid cabbage invaded everything. To keep out the dust and stench, the islanders wedged shut their doors and windows. They masked their faces.

‘Make ready the sea-vessels,' said the Bard. ‘Tell the villagers to prepare to leave.'

But Avenel said, ‘This is the Royal Isle! Naught can harm us here. Besides, most of the villagers refuse to even consider abandoning their homes.'

The peculiar storm amplified. Lightning flickered, phosphorescent green, but only within the massive pillar that stood up from the mountain, supporting the sky's congestion. On the island, wells dried up. New ones opened. Streams altered their courses as tremors shook the island to its most profound footings. In the village, the mayor called a meeting.

Thorn had told Rohain:
‘Do not leave the island. Wait for me.'

She must do as he had bidden. Yet no longer was Tamhania the safe haven it had been when he had spoken those words. Rohain's own hand had lit the candle in the Light-Tower, opening the island to the bringers of doom—just as, somehow, she had also led death and destruction to Isse Tower.

And once he had asked,
‘Why should Huon hunt at thy heels?'

The question confounded her, haunted her. Recent events once again brought it to the forefront.

The facts must be confronted. No matter how she tried to deny it,
something
sought her. Now that she was willing to face the truth, it blazed like words written in fire. It seemed incredible she could have overlooked anything so obvious.
Never
had Scalzo's scoundrels sought her,
never
had Korguth's mercenaries plagued her. All the time there had been one enemy—one
other
enemy with unseelie forces under its sway—an enemy far more terrible than any smalltime brigand or charlatan of a wizard.

In Gilvaris Tarv, on the day she had saved the seelie waterhorse from enslavement in the marketplace, she had seen a face. Memory now recalled that face in detail.
Curious, it had been. In fact, ‘eldritch' was the word that most described it, and ‘malevolent'
. Some unseelie thing in the marketplace had spied her at the very instant her taltry fell back, revealing her extraordinary sun-coloured hair. By her hair, perhaps, the creature had recognised her. Perhaps it had known who she had been in her shadowed past. Perhaps, in that past, she had been hunted—but the hunters were thrown off her trail when she lost her face and her voice. Likely, the creature had gone from the marketplace and told of her whereabouts to her true enemy, the Antlered One. It had been after the market-day that suspicious-looking creatures had begun to watch Ethlinn's house. In a stroke of what turned out to be fortune, Rohain had been mistakenly abducted with Muirne. For a time, while they were incarcerated in the gilf-house, her whereabouts had passed out of Huon's knowledge.

Rohain pondered on subsequent events. Had the Antlered One got wind of her as she rode with the wagons along the Road to Caermelor? Had he sent the Dando Dogs after the caravan, resulting in the loss of so many lives?

She had eluded him, only to end up at Court where her Talith ancestry was unmasked by Dianella and Sargoth. The wizard had betrayed her to some unseelie minion of the Antlered One, himself not knowing the full extent of what he did, merely wanting her out of the way so that Dianella's path to the throne would be clear. Doubtless, Sargoth had long been allied with the powers of wickedness. He might have known Huon sought for a Talith damsel, and waited until she was out of Caermelor to betray her.