The Bitterbynde Trilogy (25 page)

“Not afraid,
chehrna?
”

<>

“Well then, we shall keep on walking and see what we shall see.”

Day became night and sunshine, moonshine. The lights began, and so did the silent tableaux, faint because of age.

In a casement window overhanging the street, two slender lovers wept and parted, each richly dressed in brocade and jewels of an old-fashioned style. His coach and matching four waited below at the door; the horses arched their frosted necks and tossed sparks from foaming manes. Carriage lanterns flickered. The young man turned and looked up for one last glance before he boarded, and she waved with a lace handkerchief. The burnished coach, with escutcheons painted on each door, bowled silently away, suddenly vanishing, and the lovers were back again in the window, the carriage waiting below.

In a wilderness garden a child on a swing flew endlessly back and forth, laughing; the golden ropes stretched up to nothing, for the tree had fallen centuries before.

A funeral procession came up the street, lavishly ornate, the hearse drawn by six shining blacks in silver harness and tall midnight plumes. A chatoyance of flowers covered the bannerol over the coffin. Six tall men in black top hats walked ahead; behind came hundreds of mourners: mounted knights, veiled women, and men in black outfits of a mode long past, their pale faces sagging with grief. They passed so close that Imrhien fancied she could hear the rustle of silk.

Parks and civic gardens must once have existed here, for the travelers saw tangled places where no jagged towers or smashed porticos reigned. Here, two gallants dueled, as in the forest near Isse Tower, dying over and over. There, people with flowers in their hair danced around a bonfire. A translucent youth and maiden stepped from the boles of horse chestnut saplings, to twine arms and kiss, her girdle a lattice of misty emeralds.

A castle had stood on the higher ground. Its many turrets now were crumbled, but a lone piper yet paced far above, where the battlements had been, where now was emptiness. With his bag beneath his elbow, the pipes slung over his shoulder, their tassels swinging as he strode, he played a dirge for some dead and long-forgotten prince. All these passionate joys and sorrows, which had meant so much to those who had lived, which had been the world to them, now were only flickers staining the airs. As dry leaves before the wind, their reasons, their thoughts, their cherished plans, had been long swept away; those who viewed these brief afterimages could never know their story.

The city lived its glory days again, poignant memories pulsating brighter and dimmer with each fluctuation of the shang wind that spangled with metallic fires the overgrown shrubberies and arboreta, that limned with thin streams of molten argentum the fallen capitals, ruined spandrels, decomposing parapets and balustrades: the stairs leading nowhere.

Imrhien had pulled on her taltry, but as they walked together through a square lined with stone dragons Sianadh, unhooded, turned and flung up his hands, crying in a flare of exultation:

“I be My Own Self, and I be here, so look ye, I have
gilfed
this town with my mark.”

A few moments later, looking back from a tangential boulevard, Imrhien saw the imprint of him standing triumphant.

The wind fled, chiming away to the distance. They crossed the farther outskirts of the city and reentered the forest just as the sun came out.

Sianadh squinted at the map.

“Now we have been led out of our way somewhat, but we be back on the right track now.” He tapped the compass, whose needle spun wildly.

“Reaper's Pike should be off to our left, and Skylifter rises over there.” His hand waved vaguely. “We be walking on the flanks of Gloomy Jack. These mountains be snow-capped in Winter, but not now, not when Midsummer's almost here. And well for ye, Imrhien, I might add. If 'twere Winter, ye should have to catch a wolf and skin it to clothe ye in the cold. Look for round stones as we go. With my slingshot I might go hunting later for something smaller for our supper.”

The flanks of Gloomy Jack were dominated by stringybarks and peppermint gums. Brittle twigs and sloughed strips of bark crunched beneath the wayfarers' boots. There was a sameness about the tall, pale trunks that made the girl feel as though they were getting nowhere. Even in the shade the air shimmered with heat, and from somewhere ahead came the piercing shrill of cicadas.

He could plainly be seen, the lissom brown youth who walked for a time under the leaves a few yards to the left, for he made no effort to conceal himself. He did not look toward the travelers, but Imrhien studied him until he left them. His features were elfin: a turned-up nose, high cheekbones, a sharp chin, and pointed ears jutting from long dark hair that tumbled past his shoulders. His feet were bare and his sylvan raiment gorgeous; a collar of yellow, scarlet-veined leaves of the flowering cherry, ovate and serrated; a long russet-brown tunic of five-pointed plane tree leaves stitched with green thread and trimmed with lace of oak, moss-lined, belted with braided rushes; dagged hell-sleeves of wine-crimson Autumnal foliage that hung to his calves; breeches of velvet moss tied with ivy at the knee; and two folded lily leaves for a cocked hat with a feathery fern frond for a plume. He carried a staff of goldenrod, and at his feet trotted a small white animal with scarlet slippers of ears and crimson garnets of eyes.

“I have heard him spoke of back in Tarv,” whispered Sianadh. “They say he took care of a little girl, Katherine, who was lost in the forest; she was later found unharmed and grew to be a fine woman, and she always did say how kind he had been to her, the Gailledu. I know it be he, for he has black hair and is dressed all in moss and leaves like they say. And if I b'ain't mistaken, that there little red-eared pig with him be a beast of good fortune.”

At midday they came to a steamy gully overhung by tree-ferns and refilled the leather bottle from a sweet-tasting, tan-colored streamlet. Two ladies in long black dresses had been sitting under the trees, their long dark hair crowned with circlets of blood-red garnets. They stood up and glided over to a little pool in a hollow. A powerful rush of wind roared up from the dell, and with a cry, two black swans rose away through the air.

“We shall rest where we are,” said Sianadh, “and not disturb a pool favored by swanmaidens.” He opened the pack. “This dried stuff be dull to the palate, and I could wish for nobler fare. Plenty of it left, however. Ye do not eat much.”

His companion was by now getting used to thinking of herself as a girl and being thought of as such by this educated gentleman of a rough peasant who treated lads and lasses the same except for an extra degree of mannerliness to the latter and a degree less of badinage and freedom with his language, both of which slipped when he forgot about them. She watched him picking round pebbles out of the stream, pocketing the slingshot he had taken out of his knapsack.

“Bide here,
chehrna
. I saw turkeyfowl in the brushwood, and I've a mind to catch one.”

<> In panic she pulled on his coat, <>

“Have no fear.” Gently he disengaged her hands. “The Bear always comes back. 'Twould take a pretty big turkey to best me. Mind the knapsack, and do not stir from this spot. The ashen staff has power in itself—keep it by.”

Then he was gone, not noiselessly, but the sounds of him were soon swallowed up in the forest and overridden by the pitiless, maddening cicada thrum arising now on all sides.

Listlessly she lay for a time on the cool, scratchy grass of the stream's bank. Bubbles formed and danced on the water. The insects' buzzing made her head ache. A small white pig with poppy-petal ears snuffled in the herbage by the water's edge. It lifted its head and looked at the girl with a pair of holly-berry eyes, then trotted away and stood as if waiting. When she did not move, it advanced a few steps, then moved away again and put its head down in a patch of long grass. Her curiosity aroused, she picked up the knapsack and went to look. Instantly the pig kicked up its heels and scampered off. Where it had stood, not a blade of grass was broken. She knelt and picked a handful of grass. It was full of four-leafed clover. Tucking some in her pocket for luck, she returned to the stream.

It was difficult not to doze; heat and lack of sleep pressed on her eyelids, and Sianadh seemed to be taking a long time. She splashed her face with water to stay awake and stuck her fingers in her ears to shut out the cicadas.

Sianadh burst out of the trees, turkeyless.

“Imrhien, there be a market going on over that rise! Ye should see! A grassy meadow, full of little folk buying and selling just like any town fair. They be dressed in red and yellow and green like proper little lords and ladies—their pretty painted booths have all sorts of commodities for sale. There be pewterers, shoemakers, peddlers with all kinds of trinkets—everything we usually see at fairs be there, including the food stalls. Roasted quails! Raspberries and cream! To my mind, if we step up politelike, we might be so bold as to barter for some of their cakes and pies and glazed hams and custards and ale.… Come!”

He grabbed the knapsack and led the way. When they came almost to the top of the rise, they dropped to their bellies and crawled to peer over the edge.

What Imrhien saw differed vastly from what Sianadh had described. She shot a puzzled glance at him, but his eyes were aglow, and a wide, vacuous grin split his stubbled jaw.

There was indeed a smooth, close-cropped sward and a milling crowd of little folk at their market trade, but the booths were shaky affairs of peeling bark, the garments of the participants were tattered and dirty, the dishes and ornaments they hawked were crudely carved from wood, and the dainty foods of which the Ertishman had spoken were nothing but fuzzballs, weeds, live and dead insects, cuckoo's spittle and acorns, piled up on leaf plates.

The girl tried to stop him, but ineffectually, as Sianadh rose and went down among them, opening the knapsack to show what he brought to barter. The men and women, no higher than his knee, crowded around, laughing shrilly and talking in some foreign tongue, picking over the oatmeal, the dried figs, the raisins, hazelnuts, bread, and salt beef. Overjoyed at the bargains he struck, Sianadh reached out to take the ghastly victuals they offered him, cramming them into his mouth straight away. At this the girl jumped out of hiding and ran to him, knocking the rubbish aside.

“Hue and cry, girl! There be plenty for both of us,” he growled through a mouthful. She grabbed his wrists; he pushed her away, and then a pricking of a hundred pins stung her calves; the little folk flocked around armed with thorn-weapons to drive her away. It was no use persisting. She hopped out of their hostile reach and waited for Sianadh. Presently he appeared, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. The knapsack bulged.

“Full of goodies.” He patted it contentedly. “Ah, what a feast. Did ye try some?”

She frowned. <>

“Ye be too choosy, lass. Come now, we must be off.”

<>

Sianadh flinched. He took a moment to consider this.

“Ye see?” he repeated carefully. “What did ye see, Imrhien?”

Unable to explain, she flung up her hands in frustration.

“Come back to the fair with me. Put your hand on your hip and crook your arm so that I may look through it.”

To the rise they returned. It seemed the fair was over, for the last of the little folk were hurriedly abandoning the stalls, not packing them up but leaving them as they stood.

Sianadh bent to look through the crook of Imrhien's arm.

A torrent of oaths and expletives in at least three languages followed. He ran down the slope, shouting and kicking the stalls to pieces. Weed, seedpods, and bits of bark went flying.

“
Doch pishogue! Doch, doch skeerda, sgorrama
wights with their glamour!
Obban tesh
, what have I eaten?” He charged into some bushes and was violently ill. Between spasms of choking he raged, “Sun's teeth, did I eat that? Blast me beardless, I ain't never seen nothing green like that … plagues of rot, but those look like slugs …”

When he finally emerged he shambled off to the swanmaidens' pool and jumped straight in. Meanwhile Imrhien emptied the detritus out of the knapsack and watched parts of it crawl away.

“Have ye the Sight, then?” Sianadh: hunched, sour, and dripping.

She shrugged.

“Ye might have warned me.”

She stamped her foot.

“All right, ye did warn me. The worst of it be, those weevilly siofra have taken the best part of our provisions. And I have lost the stomach for hunting—I think it bailed out with them slugs.”

Despondent, she made no reply. In silence they resumed their journey.

Birds came clamoring to their evening roosts. Darkness was already gathering, and they had found no safe nook in which to spend the night, when the Gailledu reappeared with the white pig and beckoned. The travelers hesitated, undecided.

“They say he be seelie, but …”

Imrhien pointed to the pig, jabbed a thumb at herself, and showed the Ertishman the wilted clover from her pocket.

“The pig gave ye what? Four-leafed clover? Ach! So that be what peeled the glamour from your bonny green eyes and not the Sight, after all.” He took some for his own pocket.

“When these dry I shall tuck them inside the lining. The little maggots shall never put the
pishogue
on me again, and if I ever see 'em, I'll do more than box their pointy ears. Yon leaf-boy looks the same to me now as he did before I took the clover. I believe he means us well. Shall we follow?”

Imrhien nodded. The Gailledu and his pig seemed different from the other wights they had encountered. Nevertheless they followed warily through the gloaming, Sianadh's hand resting on the skian. The warm and darkening forest was teeming with presences. Their guide urged them to hurry forward. A sound of galloping horses came behind; the travelers broke into a run, but there seemed only trees and more trees and the Gailledu's half-glimpsed form and the pig, flitting ahead—then Sianadh stumbled against a great, smooth bole, gasping, and the unseen riders thundered past and away.