The Bitterbynde Trilogy (61 page)

“As soon as I entered the door, I saw that Janet was gone, and that the trows had left an effigy of her in her accustomed chair. Quick as thought, I seized the trow-stock, which looked like Janet in every way, I assure you—and flung it into the fire.”

“'S death!” exclaimed Diarmid. “How could you be certain 'twas not your daughter?”

“Well,” said Trenowyn, “if a man cannot know how his own child greets him, then what kind of father be he?” He turned away his head for a moment, and they could not read his expression.

Presently Thorn said, “What happened next?”

“The effigy at once took fire,” said Trenowyn. “It rose into the air, flaming, amid a cloud of smoke, and vanished up the chimney. As it disappeared, Janet walked in at the cottage door, safe and sound. Soon after, we bought some potent charms from a wizard in Isenhammer, and the trows have never been back in this house since, of which I am glad.”

“Conceivably you earned their respect,” Thorn suggested.

“I … don't know about that, Sir Thorn,” Trenowyn stammered, embarrassed. “Mayhap I have earned the respect of the knockers, but I never thought of that with the trows.”

“And what manner of wights are knockers?” Diarmid asked.

“They are small seelie miners,” replied Trenowyn, “those you spoke of, Captain, which you saw dwelling beneath Doundelding and under the hills on the marches of Rosedale. And they be bread and butter to us, good sirs. Not like those thick-headed coblynau, who do nothing. The wee knockers—some call them bockles—know where the rich lodes be. They dig it out and pack it into the trams. The bluecaps are the tram-putters. They bring the ore to the surface every night, up to a place behind Tinner's Knoll—you canna see it from here. They tip their loads into my wain, which commonly I leave at the mine's entrance. When it is full enough I hitch up the bullocks and drive to Isenhammer to sell the ore. Isenhammer, where the big furnaces be, is five days' drive from here—two days out from the King's Cross. I shall be making a trip three days from now, if tha wants a ride in. Once a fortnight I go down the mine and leave payment for the knockers and the bluecaps in a solitary corner, keeping a bit back myself for cartage. That's how we live, by that and the farm-beasts and Janet's bit o' garden wi' the roses. I never cheat the knockers, and they always do right by me. Doesn't pay to try to cheat wights. They be industrious and require, quite rightly, to be paid for their work. If I should leave a farthing below their due, they would get mighty indignant and would not pocket a stiver. If 'twere a farthing above their due, they would leave the surplus revenue where they found it, and I can tell thee they would be just as angry about that!”

“Perhaps the lodes are still rich,” said Diarmid, “but small wights cannot dig out great quantities. Why do men not delve the mines of Rosedale and Doundelding for themselves? By the look of this valley, methinks the diggings are long abandoned.”

“You are not mistaken, sir. Men used to mine here, long ago, but no more. Mining men will not go near where bockles are delving, no matter how much payment is offered. There used to be an old gravity-mill in Rosedale, too, for concentrating the ore. The underground creeping got to it, not long before the knockers and bluecaps moved in—so they say—and the mill subsided, but that was before we came here.”

“I bring in a few extra coins,” interjected Janet. “In Summer when the roses bloom I 'arvest 'em and brew attar of roses to perfume the fine ladies of Isen'ammer. I make rose vinegar, rose 'oney, rose oil, and rose-petal beads. This cot smells so sweet all Summer, don't it, Da'!”

Diarmid was charmed. “How may beads be manufactured from flower petals?” he asked. “Surely 'tis not possible!”

Janet laughed. “Ain't tha never seen it done? Tha mun put the petals in a pan with a few drops of water, and add a rusty nail to give t' beads a better color. Tha must heat 'em once a day for three days, and they turn to pulp. When 'tis cool, tha mun roll pulp with thy fingers, press out drops, and shape 'em into beads around a darnin' needle so that there be an 'ole through the center. Then tha mun leave 'em to dry, turnin' 'em twice a day. Rose-petal beads smell sweetest when worn—the warmth of skin brings out t' perfume.” She showed them the necklace of rich red beads she wore about her own white neck.

“A pleasant Summer task,” commented Diarmid, “working amidst flowers.”

“Janet is always busy throughout the year,” her father stated.

“At other seasons I spin nettles that grow around 'ere,” Janet said, “or flax for folk in Isenhammer. Da' brings it home in wagon, big sacks o' lint, and I spin it into skeins, then 'e takes it back to town when 'e goes.”

“Do you dye the yarn?” Diarmid slid in another question.

“Aye,” Janet said, “when there be call for 't. Got some nice woad growin' in me garden, for the blues, and some madder for reds. Canna grow worts or herbs in me patch, but woad and madder do well.”

“Do you have any, er, brown dye?” the Ertishman asked casually.

“Ain't got call for brown. Might be able tae get it from oak—”

Thorn drew something from his pocket and tossed it across to Diarmid. “The root of iris,” he said.

“That makes black, don't it?” said Janet. “Ain't never used it, but I've 'eard. 'Ow is it mordanted?”

“With an iron mordant, to which salt and elder has been added,” Thorn said.

From beyond the window came the grating calls of a flock of rooks, like groans of agony. Thorn turned his gaze toward the windy sky; Janet and her father also. A flock of birds rushed up from the boughs of a tree and flew away, long stitches of black thread unraveling. In the sudden silence, a sad look crossed Trenowyn's face.

“Got beasts to tend,” he said gruffly. After excusing himself, he called the hound to him and went out. Silken Janet got up and went to stand beside Thorn at the window.

“'Ow many rooks were in that tree?” she asked softly.

“Seven.” Thorn glanced at her sharply.

The merry breakfast had come to an end on a strangely jarring note.

Imrhien and Diarmid helped Janet to clear away the breakfast dishes, a task that was evidently unfamiliar to the Ertishman. He seemed preoccupied.

<> he signed. He was using hand-speak more often now, out of politeness to Imrhien, since he owed her his life.

“What's all that flappin' about? What are tha sayin'?”

“The cockerel—see?” Diarmid wagged his hands.

“Oh, aye, 'e's round in the 'en'ouse. They be all bantams in there. Do 'im good. Our other one died two months ago; pretty old 'e was. So thane black rooster ain't got no rival. I let 'em out in mornin', tae 'ave a peck round garden.”

Imrhien indicated that she would perform this task today.

<> she added.

Diarmid conveyed the message to Janet, who clapped her hands, overjoyed.

The rooster did indeed appear unrivaled. Imrhien opened the door of the henhouse and watched him strut out into the garden, bossing the fussy hens, snatching caterpillars from under their beaks, ignoring her, his rescuer, with the air of a preoccupied patriarch. When she passed by the cottage and glanced through the open window, Imrhien saw Janet washing Diarmid's hair in a bowl of black water. She continued on and went to sit on the well-head's coping, in the sunshine. Stone frogs goggled from the well's mossy wall, and the slates of its pitched roof were furred gray green with lichen.

It was a fine Autumn morning. Behind the cottage, steep, grassy shoulders of land climbed to the softest of skies. To the west, beyond a sunken fence, a meadow rolled down to a little glad brook that ran chuckling through it, coming out of the hills over cold gray stones. There, a cow and two bullocks grazed. Northward, a gentle combe overgrown with sweet-briars sloped to a timbered height on the other side. The miniature silhouette of a ship sailed up there, distant, lost in the clouds, for an outer Windship route crossed Woody Hill.

To the east lay the mine hills. Tall chimneys of brick or stone like pointing fingers stood in groups, the wood of their miners' houses having burned down or been taken for firewood long since. The sound of dunting carried in the still air from the old gravity-mill. Dull red berries spattered the stark hawthorns along the lane and bordering the fields; poplars reached skyward, their stripped boughs trimmed with the yellow lace of lichen to match the flowers of the gorse. Lorikeets flashed like emeralds as they flew up, startled, from long cream-colored grasses, and the afternoon light in the meadow glowed on the coat of the curly brown cow.

The open air invigorated Imrhien after the stuffiness of the mines. She drank it in great cold drafts. Her old traveling taltry was pushed back, and the breeze from the north lifted her hair about her face in strands of shining gold. It had grown rapidly and was now as long as Diarmid's, reaching halfway down her back in soft crimps and ringlets like rippled sea-sand strewn with copper corkscrews.

She would wimple her hair for the journey and for entering the city.
Ah, the city
, she thought. Caermelor was so close now—White Down Rory even nearer. This face with its dreadful knots and bulges—the skin and flesh had been distorted for so long. How long? How could it ever heal? Her goal had been to find a history, a voice, a presentable face. Deep in her heart, now, something mattered more, but that was a vanity of vanities, an ache, a wound that could never heal.

The source of that pain came walking lightly toward the well with the goshawk on his shoulder. He was singing the second part of a familiar ditty in a clear voice, flawlessly modulated:

'Tis the voices in unison lilting and clear,

And the weaving of harmonies sweet to the ear

Sung to a melody stirring and keen

And the music of harps in the woodlands so green!

Singing 'neath the trees, O!

Singing 'neath the trees!

'Tis the smoking hot platter of meats heaped on high

And the dishes of pastries that gladden the eye

The fruit of the forest, the wine in the cup

Good cheer and good appetite—long may we sup!

Feasting one and all, O! Feasting one and all!

With his customary grace, he swung down beside her, his presence igniting a keen and strange delight. His shirtsleeve brushed her wrist. She did not know if she fell into the well and it was a well without nadir or whether she remained seated on the stone coping.

“We are close now to our destination,” Thorn said, patently oblivious of his effect on her. “Trenowyn leaves in three days' time with a cartload of ore for Isenhammer. If we wish to ride with him, we can wait. I prefer to leave tomorrow on foot—too much time has been lost already.”

<>

“What is it that takes you to the Royal City?”

The girl hesitated, torn between keeping her pledge of secrecy to Ethlinn and confiding all to this dark enchanter whose laughing eyes now rested on her. There could be no harm in telling everything to Thorn, yet a promise made must not be broken. Regretfully she sighed.

<> Would the Dainnan understand? The sign Ethlinn had taught for “Rory” was the sign for the roar of a bull, there being no other equivalent in handspeak.

“White Down Rory? Why then, our ways must part at the King's Cross. There, the Bronze Road crosses the Caermelor Road, coming up from the south from White Down Rory, and wending north to where the blast furnaces stain the skies with their smoke. Have you ever been to Isenhammer?”

She shook her head.

“At night, the visitor who approaches that town sees the sudden glow of liquid orange as pots from the furnaces are tipped over, emptying the molten slag down the hill like lava from miniature volcanoes. There is a certain splendor to it.”

Thorn took from around his neck a golden locket on a chain. The size of his thumbnail, it was curiously wrought in filigree. The detail of the intertwining leaf-patterns and the quality of the workmanship were beyond anything Imrhien remembered seeing.

<>

He smiled, but this time there was little joy on his countenance.

“Only this.”

He unsnibbed the tiny clasp and opened the locket. A fine, dry dust lay there. Thorn gazed long upon it with sightless eyes, as if stirred by some memory. The substance looked like ordinary sand or powdered clay, but, as her own eyes rested upon it, Imrhien was seized by a terrible longing or hunger, the like of which she had never known. She reached out to touch it, but too late, for with a quick breath, Thorn had blown it away. The breeze took up the light burden and scattered it over the garden, over the rooster sitting on a trellis, over the hens. As they flew, the fine particles sparkled in every color, glorified the air with a rainbow, and faded with a sigh as of a myriad voices. With a mighty spring, the goshawk flew up from Thorn's shoulder and disappeared in the sky.

“Janet shall have no trouble growing the finest herbs this year, and every year after that,” the Dainnan said softly.

He closed the locket and hid it again beneath his shirt.

The rooster fell off the trellis, very ungainly, in front of the hens.

For no reason that she could fathom, Imrhien was left with a deep sense of loneliness and bitter loss. Thorn regarded her gravely. His hands shaped the language of signs:

<>

All sorrow lifted. Willingly, light-footed, she went beside him, past the cramped stone dairy that had been built half under the ground for coolness, past the byre, out through a side-gate in the yew hedge, past the humming bee-skeps to the little orchard. The grasses of Autumn were toast-colored, the last of their clinging seed-heads as fine as sprinkled powder.