The Bitterbynde Trilogy (199 page)

Unexpectedly, Edward leaned forward and kissed Ashalind's mouth.

As he withdrew his lips from hers, she remained as waxen and still as a doll.

He smiled. She showed no reaction.

‘What is my name?' he murmured.

She hesitated, perplexed, then shook her head. His smile did not fade. ‘It is Edward,' he said clearly, as though speaking to a small child, ‘and you are Ash, my beloved, my betrothed.'

Behind the windowpanes, a white owl flew away.

‘Am I?' she said. Her eyes were wide and innocent and empty as a new babe's.

‘Oh, yes.'

For seven years the people of Erith had struggled to find ways to repair their way of life, which had collapsed now that the traditional lines of communication and trade had been severed. For the unmaking of sildron had affected everyone—peasant and lord, merchant and thief, baker and armourer, carlin and wizard, aristocrat and prince, child, woman and man. It was as though the bones supporting the nations had been taken away, leaving only the struggling flesh.

After the Namarran wight-wars, followed by seven years of hard work and suffering, the people were eager to hear good tidings.

Bells pealed joyfully across Caermelor. The King-Emperor was to take a bride, at last. Yet this bride was not to be the one they had expected—it had been deemed by one and all that the popular Lady Rosamonde of Roxburgh would become their Queen. Instead, Edward had chosen the Lady of the Sorrows.

The known lands were rife with talk of Ashalind's return. Famed for her beauty, she had survived seven years lost in the wilderness. The lady had endured her share of misery, they said, as befitted her name. It was a sorrow for her that he to whom she had first been handfasted (whose name must be spoken in whispers) had disappeared out of all knowledge. And 'twas a further shame the lady had endured such trials in the wilderness, for although she had returned alive, she was no longer hale. So fragile was she, she must be kept in isolation, tended by the King's best wizards and dyn-cynnils. Until her strength returned, she was to receive no visitors nor step outside the walls of Caermelor Palace. But her beauty had not faded, so it was rumoured, and the young King-Emperor was greatly enamoured of her, to the dismay of the Lady Rosamonde, who, it was said, had loved him unswervingly since the days of their childhood.

The seasons turned.

Late at night, Ash was seated in the library in the company of two ladies-in-waiting. Often she could be found among the books and scrolls, searching—for what. she did not know. Information of some kind, knowledge … Hours ago, the ladies had fallen asleep. Ash herself was nodding, when a fluttering in the wall-tapestries caught her eye. She looked up to behold a small face which appeared both old and young, like a child burdened with wisdom beyond its years. Beneath the face, a beckoning hand. Ash rose to her feet. Smoothing the heavy folds of her gown of purple velvet, she tip-toed across the chamber to investigate. A young man was holding up a corner of the arras. One of his shoulders humped higher than the other, and he stooped.

‘Come with me,' he said mysteriously, one finger on his lips.

Amused, she inquired, Who are you? What do you want? How did you come here?'

He shook his head. ‘Follow Pod and you will find out.'

She, untroubled by bad memories, knowing only kindness and perhaps tedium, feared nothing. Stepping into the gloom behind the wall-hanging, she saw him duck into a dark opening, like a narrow door in the stone wall. After him she went, along hidden, dusty corridors in the palace walls and up narrow flights of stairs, directed by the light of his candle. The corridors branched at many junctures but her guide did not hesitate, pressing on as though certain of his bearings, as though this strange
between
place was home territory to him. After a long time he halted in the passageway and pushed on the wall. A panel swung forth, opening onto a confined chamber bereft of furnishings, lit by a fitfully flaming brand in a wall-sconce. Ash followed him into the room.

A slit of a window appeared to be the only other aperture. It afforded a glimpse of black sky sprinkled with a frosting of silver. A cold draught pierced the window like a sliver of ice. The air blowing in was fresh and clear, tasting of mountain streams under boundless stars.

Two figures waited therein: a young Feohrkind woman dressed in the fine clothes of the gentry, and a little fellow with thick, curly hair. A pointy beard sprouted from his chin. On seeing Ash, the young woman rushed towards her, then stopped short. Her arms dropped by her sides. She curtsied awkwardly.

Ash smiled. ‘An intriguing scene. What is this play about? Tell me of your game. Who are you?'

The young woman curtsied again and spoke. Her voice sounded strained, tense as a wire. ‘I am Caitri Lendoon, my lady. I was your friend, once.'

‘Were you indeed? But Edward has not told me about you …'

‘Perhaps he does not tell you everything, m'lady.'

This time, Ash frowned. After a moment her expression cleared. ‘I suppose there has not been enough time yet to recall everything to me. He is so busy and there is so much to learn!' She paused, as if sniffing the air. ‘How sweet is the breeze from the window …'

Caitri spoke earnestly. ‘I have come today from open fields,' she said. ‘They are thick with yellow dandelions. And the white butterflies were rising like steam, blowing in drifts across the meadows as though a wind had shaken clouds of blossom from an orchard. And the sun was sinking down on the one hand, in bright pink and gold, while on the other—beyond dark-green belts of pine—the sky was piled high with blue-black thunderheads. Long shadows striped the grass. Golden stretched the field, white-hazed against the storm's purple wall.'

‘How entrancing is the picture you paint. Long has it been since I walked out,' said Ash, glancing towards the slot in the wall.

‘How came your memory to be stolen away, m'lady?'

‘I was lost in the wilderness. I fell and my head hit a stone.'

‘No, no! You entered the enchanted portal a second time, and, as before, following your exit you were kissed by one who was Erith-born!'

‘Your words make no sense. But wait—what business is this of yours? I am curious to know your purpose. Enough of your questions! Who are these two fellows with whom you keep company?'

‘He is Pod, m'lady,' said Caitri, gesturing to Ash's erstwhile guide, ‘and this is Tully.'

The goateed little man bowed briskly. The flickering shadows laved the lower part of his body, so that he could not clearly be seen.

‘I wish to tell you a tale,' said Caitri.

‘Go ahead, my dear, but make it short, I pray you.' Ash lifted the hem of her velvet gown free of the dust flouring the floor. ‘This room is close and chilly, more like a cupboard than a room.'

‘It is a secret place, m'lady, and the way for mortals to find it is known only to Pod. We have brought you here because there is much you must learn before you are wed to Edward. You may have been misled.'

Ash frowned again. ‘I mislike this conversation,' she said, abruptly turning to leave. But Pod barred her path with his wizened form. ‘Step out of my way, prithee, sir,' said Ash coldly. ‘I will hear none of this. Why I followed you in the first place is a mystery to me.'

‘Because,' he said obtusely. His mouth snapped shut.

‘That is no answer. Out of my way, I say.'

‘Wait, I beg of you, my lady,' said Caitri. ‘There may never be another chance. I will be succinct.'

‘Very well.' Seeing that she was not going to be able to shift the obstinate Pod, Ash acquiesced.

Caitri began to speak, clearly and fluently.

‘The House of D'Armancourt is an honest House by long reputation. I feel certain there have been no lies told you, yet there may have been many false impressions conveyed by omission. You were once betrothed to another.'

Ash's sudden intake of breath hissed through her teeth.

‘This other,' continued Caitri quickly, ‘thought you dead when you were lost in the wilderness. In his grief at losing you, he and his retinue passed beneath a green hill, and there they fell into a deep sleep of enchantment which they call the Pendur Sleep. Rightly, they thought never to be woken in Erith, and in fact there was no way to waken them, for the Coirnéad, the horn which might have done so, was sundered when sildron was unmade, and may never be sounded again.'

‘An enchanted sleep? Who was this lover you claim was mine?'

‘He was the High King of the Faêran.'

Ash laughed uncertainly. ‘You astonish me.'

Caitri met Ash's eyes squarely. ‘Aye, ma'am, 'twas the High King of the Land Beyond the Stars who loved thee. Can you tell me truly, that even now, even under the spell of the Bitterbynde Gate, you have not felt a hint of it? Some subtle tapping at the blind windows of memory? Greater was his power than any force, and great was the love between you as the love of the moon and the tides.'

Ash retorted, ‘Speak not thus. Pray, complete your tale speedily, that I may leave this melancholy cell.'

‘Even so,' acceded Caitri in disappointed tones. ‘Not long before this very night a strange thing happened. It was just before your ladyship was brought back to the city—indeed, it must have occurred while you were sailing from Arcdur. No doubt you felt it, and perhaps also others on board your ship. All the world felt it. Weird it was, piercing like crystal blades, with a beauty that burned. There was a fragrance of flowers. It was the Coming of the Faêran.

‘For by an odd twist, all the gates to the Fair Realm were reopened, and through them the Fair Ones poured into Erith like a rainbow flood, and they went to Eagle's Howe where their King slept among his knights, and they bore him away, still sleeping.'

‘No man saw it, but the wights say his people took him in a boat across Lake Amarach, through the mists which ever twine above the surface of that water. In the lake's centre rises an island, and on the island they passed through an open Gate into the Fair Realm and were seen no more by Erith-dwelling mortals.'

The pause that followed seemed hollow, and somehow profoundly sad.

‘A fetching fireside tale,' said Ash at length, ‘no doubt learned from a wandering jongleur or Storyteller. How came these so-called Gates to suddenly open?'

‘The wights know, and one will tell.'

The little man with the pointy beard stepped forward. His goat's legs and hooves were now revealed to Ash, who recoiled.

‘Do not fear, m'lady—he is not dangerous,' assured Caitri. ‘In fact, he is a dear friend. As are Sianadh and Viviana and Ethlinn, and all who conspired to bring us here. Oh, my lady, if you only knew …'

Tully bowed once more. ‘Wean, the full story was quo' tae me by yin who kens it weel. Somehow a wayward wizard—an escaped prisoner o'Caermelor—fand his entry intae the Realm. He crept in by the Geata Poeg na Déanainn. Some spriggans who were hunting him chased in after. When the Faêran of the Realm clapped e'en on this touzled birkie—the first and only traveller to come from Erith syne the Closing—och, the news spread like unbound sheaves in a heigh hurly, ye may be sure. To gain importance for hisself, this wizard, naming hissel' Sargoth, tell'd the Faêran he had opened the Gate wi' a wee finger-bone he had fand among the stanes of Arcdur and then had tossed awa'.'

‘I do not follow you, sir,' said Ash. ‘Much of your speech is unfamiliar.'

‘Och,' muttered the wight, ‘my brogue's thickened again. I hae been too lang awa' frae mortalkind.'

Caitri explained, ‘Tully says a wizard got into the Fair Realm by the Gate of Oblivion's Kiss. When the Faêran discovered him, he claimed to have opened the Gate by himself, using a bone.'

‘Into the Fair Realm?' repeated Ash, as if confused.

‘Yes m'lady,' the courtier replied. ‘I had assumed that such an incursion would be impossible, given that the Raven Prince forbade the passage of Faeran, wights and mortal men between the Realm and Erith—but I was wrong. That edict, it seems, only holds when the Gates are locked. This one stood not only unlocked, but also open!' Clasping her hands in an attitude of earnest beseeching, she added, ‘This wizard, Sargoth, held an old grudge against you, my lady. Indirectly, you caused his downfall, as well as that of his niece, Dianella. No doubt he saw you make your exit from the Gate, but he lied to the Faêran, to spite you. Shortly thereafter the Fair Ones, perceiving him to be an obnoxious rogue of the kind with whom they desired no truck, threw him out of their Realm. I heard tell some vindictive wights were lying in wait for him, and carried him off. No one has heard of him since.'

Ash shrugged impatiently. ‘Continue.'

The urisk said, ‘But within the Fair Realm, the spriggans that had followed him from Erith tell'd the Password to the Casket of Keys. For a thousand years it had been common kenning among tham thegither. What they could bicker, the Faêran unlockit a' the Gates. They gaed intae Erith tae bring back their braw king and his bauld knights.'

‘He says the spriggans told the Password to the Faêran. This enabled them to open all the Gates. They came into Erith and took their King back with them,' said Caitri.

‘Of course. I understood.'

‘When Angavar King gaed back tae his Realm he waukened,' continued the wight. ‘Then he lookit aboot at his bonny kingdom and was blythe, but the Faêran could not fail to note the sair sorrowing which marred his blytheness.

‘“I'll dree no reminder of Erith,” quo' Angavar, and he ca'd for the Gates atween the warlds tae be closed again, this time truly foriver. Yet first he ca'd oot of Erith his brother, whose form had been bent to the cast of a Raven, for the King was niver so cruel as to coup his ain kin who had been brought low. The Raven Morragan feeled the pull o' unbarred Faêrie and came winging like an arrow tae the open traverse. But while the black bird flied in at the Realm Gate, a white owl flied oot intae Erith and the Gates clapped thegither.'