The Bitterbynde Trilogy (180 page)

Whyfore sleep these men-at-arms as centuries roll slowly past—

Untouched by time, ageless and fair? And what will wake them at the last?

V
ERSES FROM
‘T
HE SLEEPERS
',
A BALLAD OF YORE

The Faêran singer ceased the song of the Sleepers, the harpist's fine fingers stilled. The Lady Sildoriel, a member of Prince Morragan's exiled Court, spoke to Ashalind. She wore a gown sewn of butterflies' wings and peacocks' feathers: azure, turquoise, iridescent green.

‘Mortals have been slain,' she said, ‘for slighter insult than thou hast offered, Innocent. Yet here thou dost recline, gazing upon our feast. Truly thou'rt favoured—for the nonce, at least.' She smiled, a smile partly of fire and partly of mystery. In truth, to behold the smile of one of the Faêran was to stand, exhilarated, on a height. It was to look out over a plain that stretched to distant hills and was canopied by open sky, and to feel the wind come rushing across vast spaces to lift you. It was to fly.

‘Fortunate,' gasped Ashalind, somewhat short of breath, ‘am I.'

She shifted closer to Caitri, on their flowery knoll. Her latest gown, of brocade and shot silk, brushed heavily across living buttercups, cowslips, forget-me-nots and clover. A garland of wildflowers adorned Caitri's brow, placed there by one of the Faêran, but her young face was bloodless. Untouched, a golden dish of strawberries lay on the sward, swelling crimson hearts capped by fresh green coronets and tenderly quilled with tiny seeds. Tully picked one up and bit into it. The crescent-shaped bite revealed, deep beneath the rose-red layer, ice-pink flesh surrounding the delicate albino eye of the core.

After provoking a fit of Faêran outrage and being thrown upon the floor of the library, Ashalind had succumbed to an unexpected and overpowering sleepiness. How long she had slept she could not tell, but she had woken in another place, another interlude or ventricle of Gothallamor. Here flowed a lucent stream where willows leaned, and the elfin faces of green-haired asrai girls peered inquisitively up out of the depths. New gowns hung from the boughs. The old garments had begun to melt away, ephemeral as moths' wings, perishing like ancient fabric which had lain for decades in a cedar chest. As soon as the girls had clothed themselves, a wooden boat, wreathed and posied with flowers of the meadows, came floating along the water by itself. Gently it bumped into their shore. They embarked, for there was little choice but to do so. The vessel bore them through a long, green tunnel of overhanging leaves, which opened out onto an orchard.

Here, it was like a twilight of late Spring. Apple trees were lathered with pale blossom which seemed to glow with its own radiance, like stars wrapped in translucent tissue. In moonlit glades, and through the trees, lithe figures danced to the liveliest yet most poignant music to which mortal ears had ever hearkened. Ashalind and Caitri watched, entranced and joyous, and it was some while before they comprehended that Tully had joined them. As the dance came to an end, three ladies of the Prince's Court strolled to where the mortals reclined, spelled with wonder. They rested beside them until the song of the Howe-Sleepers also concluded.

‘It is always dark here in this land,' said Ashalind, silently quelling her inner anguish, ‘but the music evokes mornings of sunshine. I long for the sun. Why does the Prince dwell in Evenight?'

‘It suits his temper, currently,' said Sildoriel. ‘But thou mightst alter that.'

Ashalind turned her face away.

‘Soon thou shalt lose thy chance,' the Faêran damsel said. ‘For this feast and revelry marks the leaving of Gothallamor.'

Ashalind whirled around. ‘The leaving? Where are we to go?'

Sildoriel smiled. ‘Thou'rt not to leave, daughter of Niamh. Battle will soon be joined in earnest. The Prince departs, soon, for the fight. Thou'rt to remain here, awaiting his return.'

A sudden wrench of desolation forced Ashalind to clench her eyes shut. Firelight played behind her lids. She bowed her head. Her hair, flowing free, poured into her lap like wine.

A small, long-eared wight with bulbous cheeks and knobbly knees approached meekly. He was quaintly dressed in a jerkin of lizard-skin and breeches of zebra-hide, and he offered a dish piled high with seashells mottled and whorled with shades of brown and cream. Caitri drew back.

‘Oh no! These sweetmeats are formed of dried mud!' she protested, waving the wight away. It made as if to scurry off but one of the companions of the Lady Sildoriel stayed it with a gesture.

‘Wait,' said the Lady Gildianrith. ‘I see, sweet nightingale, that thou art not acquainted with the delights of
xocohuatl
.' Taking up a shell like a long, spiral horn, she snapped the point of it, which broke off to reveal not a calcined hollow, but a solid interior, composed of a smooth compound. ‘
Xocohuatl
is made from the seeds of a Faêran tree which was brought to Erith and grows now in hidden places. Inform the
erithbunden
, Snafu.'

The wight squeaked importantly, ‘Roast beans. Squeeze butter out of some. Pound up the rest, squash 'em, bash 'em, mix with milk,
xocohuatl
butter and Sugar. Slop into molds, make cool, make hard. Eat. Yum.'

The Faêran aristocrats eyed the wight with obvious distaste.

‘Pray, perform the chemistry of dining,' Sildoriel urged the mortals.

‘True Faêran fare,' said Tully. Blissfully, he crammed a cinnamon-coloured shell in his mouth and helped himself to a handful more, adding, ‘Chocoluatl!'

‘Brown stuff like that would never catch on at Court,' Caitri whispered in Tahquil's ear.

The mortals declined the sweetmeat. Snafu scuttled into the trees and was pounced on by a scrawl of hobyahs. Gobbling sounds shortly emanated from that direction, while Snafu escaped, squealing.

‘Your strawberries, my lady,' observed Caitri boldly to Sildoriel. ‘Or rather, these victuals we see before us—they have the texture, the fragrance of strawberries. No doubt they possess also the taste and the goodness. Are they real?'

‘The nourishment is real,' said Sildoriel with a shrug, ‘and the taste and fragrance, all that is to be enjoyed. The image only is illusion.'

‘Where then did the goodness come from?'

‘Somewhere in Erith, little maid, there are strawberries which are devoid of goodness. They are merely husks, tempered with a semblance of taste. Whosoever shall eat them shall derive no sustenance therefrom.'

‘The
toradh
has been stolen then,' said Caitri, prudently keeping reproach from her tone.

‘Indeed, 'tis so,' affirmed the lovely courtier, with no trace of remorse. ‘Hast thou never noted that some folk may eat lavish amounts of victuals and yet they waste away to skin and bone? Those folk are eating only
cochals.
'

‘Why,' said Caitri, hotly now, ‘do the Faêran take nourishment always from certain mortals, while other folk are permitted to grow fat?'

‘I perceive a note of disapproval in thy tweeting,' casually said Sildoriel, taking Caitri's chin in her hand. ‘Take heart, for the Faêran choose randomly or in jest, from here and there, as is our
right.
But when wights steal, like as not they will steal always from the same victims. Their thieving is done out of spite or jealousy.' She released the little girl, laughing at the expression upon her face, knowing full well the effect of the touch of the Faêran upon mortals.

After Gildianrith, Sildoriel and the third Faêran damsel had arisen with a rustle of peacocks' feathers and left the knoll, Tully spoke quietly to the damsels.

‘I hae tidings for ye,' he said, ‘frae the battle-sward.'

In dread and eagerness, they attended to his words.

‘Not long past, mortal engaged against mortal in western Namarre, beyond the bounds of Darke. The battle began wi' the archers and crossbowmen firing at each other frae baith sides, in an attempt tae cripple the enemy's infantry line. The spearmen stood their ground, tae protect the archers. For aye and aye, naught happened but a rain o' arrows and bolts. I hae witnessed this sort o' infantry siege before in bygone battles o' men. Both sides try tae goad the enemy intae makin' the first charge.'

‘Who attacked first?' asked Caitri, breathless and wide-eyed.

‘Och, the Imperial troops are weel disciplined. They refused to be drawn by the Namarrans despite continual skirmishing between the archers and light cavalry. Angered by this, the Namarrans in their wrath acted impulsively and launched an opening attack.'

‘Was it successful?'

‘Nay, the first charge niver makes much impression,' articulated Tully with the air of a seasoned campaigner. ‘Neither side gained the upper hand. The Namarran captains employed their infantry to mask the mustering of their cavalry, after which they ordered a succession of assaults. Meanwhile the Imperial battalions held their defensive formation, letting the Namarrans tire out their troops, like waves dashing fruitlessly agin a cliff. When they judged the rebels had exhausted their strength, they launched a brief, incisive counterattack, winning the day.'

‘Praise Fortune!' said Ashalind in an undertone. ‘So the King-Emperor is advancing further into Namarre?'

‘Aye,' said the urisk, ‘further towards us. By now his Legions are no more than one league from the fortress.'

‘So close!' A pang of agonising delight, mingled with hope and fear, shivered through the damsel.

‘Yet by night,' the wight added grimly, unseelie wights take toll.' He was about to say more when the music of hornpipe, shawm and sackbut started up. The dancing resumed. High-pitched giggles and melodious laughter mingled, streaming through the flowering trees. Someone came walking towards the gathering on the knoll, someone who seemed to shape himself out of the twilight. The Faêran princesses hastily rose from their latest flowery couches. They curtsied deeply, three graceful herons admiring their reflections in placid water. Ashalind and Caitri found themselves on their feet also. Without a word, the Raven Prince extended his hand to Ashalind. She took it, although it was as if she grasped the blade of a sword, and she feared her own hand must surely be cut to the bone. Merely, he led her to the dance.

To that measure, in such a place, with such a partner, neither description nor poesy nor flight of fancy can do justice.

The topmost turrets of Annath Gothallamor climbed the sequined sky like black-visored sentinels. On the apex of the highest perched an iron weathervane in the form of a crow holding an arrow in its beak. Chimneys jutted from roofs of mossy slate. Small bridges crossed from turret to turret, and the mouths of waterspouts gaped.

High on the battlements spread a wide courtyard onto which opened several archways leading from the interior, each voussoir chiselled with the raven emblem of the Crown Prince. Out from these mouths rode knights in silver armour, with their eldritch servants following behind them. The machicolations resounded to the ringing of metal plate, the jingle of mail, the clink of harness, the hollow clopping of hooves on stone, the raised voices of restless warriors eager for combat. Yet to battle they were not bound—not yet. Instead they made ready to ride to Arcdur, to search again amongst the serried stones for some hint of a hidden entrance, some chink or flaw which might betray the last Gate to Faêrie. No sildron crescents shod the superlative horses of Faêrie, who could stride across nothingness borne by the power of gramarye. But jewels adorned their caparisons, flashing with the glacial colours of Winter.

Indeed, the capabilities of the Faêran were such that they might have flown unassisted, yet the atmosphere of Aia was not their native milieu; compared with the rarefied airs of the Realm, those of Erith were as syrup to these Faêran knights. To fly horseless was to proceed slowly. Their elfin steeds were better adapted to the world of mortalkind, and able to make swifter progress while levitating.

Here were the Faêran chivalry of Morragan's retinue, those who had been amongst the hawking party, too far from the Gate when the Last Call to Faêrie had sounded. As they moved, starlight glittered, pure as hoarfrost, from every plane and flute and scallop of their fantastic armours, from every point and edge of their weapons. Proud was their bearing, easily they rode their wingless Faêran steeds.

So astonishing was the sight of this gathering that they appeared to be carved from ice crystal and darkness, hammered from iridium and shadows, embossed with moon-fire. The soft radiance of gramarye clung about them like a mist. They laughed, calling to one another in jest, scenting the fighting in the west as the hound scents the stag. Not one among them was not a warrior of surpassing skill, battle-hardened over centuries. Not one rode among them but he was in the prime of his power and prowess. Like drifts of blossom, the ladies of the Faêran passed among the concourse. Every knight wore a lady's favour on his sleeve.

At the very edge of the courtyard, where no wall marked the boundary between solid stone and insubstantiality, stood Prince Morragan. He looked out upon the High Plain. At his back, his Faêran equerry waited beside the head of a war-horse some nineteen hands high, and black as the moon's eclipse. Harnessed with caparisons of silver was this destrier, this noble charger. He shone with the richness of myriad jewels, although the horses of Faêrie needed no trappings and were thus decorated only for the sake of the Faêran passion for loveliness.

The Prince's squire slid a short-sword into a scabbard at the pommel. Morragan turned towards Ashalind and a wind roused, gusting across the battlements. It pushed Ashalind off balance, for despite the invigorating nature of the black wine, she was greatly weakened by the Langothe. Steadying herself against a wall, she regained equilibrium.

‘Know this,' said the Prince. ‘As long as thou dost believe in thy love for my brother, thou shalt search in vain for the Gate. When the veil lifts from thy cognisance, when thou dost perceive that this purported love is no more than an image in a glass, when thou dost eschew the strutting eagle and take flight with the raven, then it may be that thy memory shall become translated.'