The Bitterbynde Trilogy (200 page)

‘You say,' said Ash, ‘that this King could bear no reminder of Erith and ordered all Gates to be closed for all time. That before they were closed, he allowed his Raven brother to enter the Realm but at the same time a white owl flew out. Of what relevance is this?'

‘Self-banished,' said Caitri. ‘Easgathair White Owl, Gatekeeper of the Faêran, exiled his geas with him, so that the Lord Morragan, dwindled to a bird but still able to form utterances, would never be able to invoke that last boon.'

‘What boon? What Gatekeeper? It makes little sense.'

‘Easgathair was once the Gatekeeper of the Faêran. He believed he deserved to be exiled as punishment, because of the shame he had brought upon himself. He considered that the blame for all the troubles of the Faêran lay at his feet, for it was he who, long ago, had granted two unspecified boons to Crown Prince Morragan. One boon had been fulfilled, but the other remained. The Gates were being locked again; however, the Raven-That-Was-Morragan could ask that they never be reopened.'

A wistful expression crept over Caitri's fine features. ‘If Easgathair the Gatekeeper is not present in the Fair Realm, Morragan's second boon can never be fulfilled and Angavar High King has the option of opening the Gates, if ever he changes his mind. Yet alas, I fear that such an alteration of a passionate, wounded heart will never come to pass.'

‘And if all this happened in a Realm to which we no longer have access, how could you have learned these matters?'

‘'Twas the Gatekeeper hisself who told me this tale,' concluded the urisk. ‘Though he be in owl-shape, yet urisks may still hold converse wi' him.'

In the wall-sconce, the flaming torch sputtered and gasped. Ash turned her face away from its light. She paced the chamber: three steps east, three steps west.

‘So this is your story, is it?' she murmured at length. ‘That I was betrothed to an immortal being who shall never be seen again? That these Fair Ones of legend are gone forever? That in Erith there flutters, immortal, a white owl which is not in sooth a bird but a seeming-thing of gramarye?' She shrugged again. ‘Of what use is this intelligence to me? Even if 'tis true, which I doubt, how may any make use of it? 'Twere better left unsaid. Allow me my happiness, prithee. Do not spoil what I have left to me.'

Muffled sounds rumbled through the walls. ‘Methinks my absence is discovered,' said Ash. ‘Let me go, before your hiding place is uncovered and yourselves are discomfited.'

Pod backed into the hole in the wall, giving way before her.

Urgently, Caitri began again to speak, and this time the words tumbled forth as if somersaulting from her mouth in their eagerness to be heard.

‘King Edward is our worthy sovereign, yet one flaw mars his goodness: his desire for your hand in marriage overrides his cognisance of good and evil. It makes him willing to put aside the Lady Rosamonde, and to forget his loyalty to the Faêran King who aided him and his family in their time of need. He is even willing to trick you, my lady, in order to secure you for himself. There is no doubt in my mind that from the first moment he saw you he loved you. I have friends among the palace servants. There is one who overheard what passed between you and His Majesty when you returned from the mausoleum in Arcdur, while your memory was still intact. The King-Emperor told you Angavar slept forever, implying he was therefore unattainable. Then, in order to find out if you were willing to accept that state of affairs and take him as a substitute, he asked you if you loved him. He hoped you might accept the idea that the Sleepers could not be awakened, but he was wrong. So upon you he bestowed the salute of love, bringing on you once more the bitterbynde of the Gate.'

‘How can you spout such nonsense?' cried Ash. The young woman's words had aroused in her such a tempest of conflicting passions she thought she teetered on the brink of madness.

But Caitri's eyes brimmed. Unchecked, the salt water coursed down her cheeks. ‘Edward is our sovereign now,' she said rapidly, ‘and no one dares gainsay his decrees. Yet, to be safe, he decided to keep you sheltered from your old acquaintances until you are wedded to him. He—and others close to him—has been beguiling your thoughts, much as you were misled in Isse Tower when old Grethet deluded you. You have been bewildered! Trusting His Majesty, you believe all he tells you, and he says you are not ready to go out into the wider world yet. The Lady Rosamonde, who has loved him all her life, was desolate at hearing he had passed her over, and has vowed never to marry another—'

But Ash interrupted. ‘Enough of your treasonous and disgraceful lies!' she burst out, making for the exit. ‘I comprehend them not, and will endure no more!'

Yet she hesitated before she left the room, apparently struck by second thoughts. ‘I deem you all acted in good faith,' she said, ‘thinking your extraordinary behaviour beneficial in some manner. Therefore, take this.' Tossing a purse of coins on the floor, she stepped through the opening. Her velvet skirts softly swept the floor.

Caitri stood without speaking. She stared at the gap in the panelling, her hands pressed tightly against her mouth. She could only recall, streaking the dust on Ash's face, the glimmering tracks of unbidden tears.

EPILOGUE

‘
On my word

I want thee,

And it will be so

While I have life.’

L
OVERS
’ V
OW

When the Gates were Closed for the second time, it is not known for sure whether they were ever again opened. It was said in tales that they were.

Once.

The reign of Edward lasted many years. Certain it is that the shang unstorms never more came and went, except within the violence of the Ringstorm roiling around the waist of the world. Certain it is that sildron-powered ships no longer flew, nor did Stormriders rule the skies, and that their once-great Houses declined, becoming squabbling, land-bound clans.

It was maintained (and indeed it was set down thus in the annals of Erith) that the bride of Edward, King-Emperor, was a damsel of great beauty, although her ways were strange, quiet and remote, and the marriage was childless. She outlived her husband by many years. When he died, a distant relation of the House of D’Armancourt came to the throne and Edward’s widow retired to a country estate, where she lived for an extraordinary length of time. Her beauty, though it faded in the end, faded slowly.

But others added a fanciful twist.

They avowed that she who became the wife of Edward, King-Emperor of Erith, was not his heart’s choice but a substitute, and that he never loved her as deeply. According to their version, his first bride was stolen away in the very hour they were to be married. On the day of the Royal Wedding, into the midst of the ceremony walked a tall stranger, more beautiful than the night, and a white owl flew above his shoulder, and no man could touch either of them. Before the marriage vows were exchanged, the stranger demanded a boon of Edward, and to the amazement of all those present, it was granted. Whereupon the stranger took the bride in his arms and kissed her.

Then the whole Court stood back, staring in astonishment. For where the visitor had stood, a great eagle rose up. By its side flew a white seabird, and the two were linked by a golden chain. The roof opened like a flower to let them pass.

They flew away and were never seen more in Erith.

The End

A
UTHOR'S NOTE

ON THE OPTIONAL CHAPTER FOR
T
HE
B
ATTLE OF
E
VERNIGHT
:

So many readers were upset when they interpreted the story's ending as being sorrowful, that I felt prompted to write a clarifying chapter.

That chapter follows. You may choose to read it or not. Alternatively, you may choose to read only the introduction.

‘I was devastated,' wrote one reader, ‘when I first finished the Bitterbynde series, so I read the extra chapter straight away, but then realized I actually liked the ambiguous ending more.'

I have been asked whether I prefer people to read the optional chapter or to close the book after the epilogue.

My own preference is for the original ending which, for me, is not ambiguous at all but the happiest of all possible outcomes.

Sain thee,

Cecilia Dart-Thornton

CHAPTER 13

INTRODUCTION

The glamour of the Faêran us beguiles;

How they amaze our senses with their wiles!

Fine clothes or rags? Gold thread or common straw?

Ah! Who knows what the truth is any more?

Retelling tales would seem, at first, to be

Safe bet to save them for posterity,

Yet stories change while passing door to door,

And who knows what the truth is, any more?

In domed mind-vaults we archive history

To keep it sound, in perpetuity.

Yet when retrieved, 'tis altered from before,

And who knows what the truth is, any more?

When sleep's false dreams our waking visions cloud

And fractured memories the past enshroud,

What chance have we to know what came before?

Who
can
know what the truth is, any more?

It was those who were disparaged as being ‘fanciful' who really understood the truth. The rest of the population were sadly deceived. How could it be, that this ‘fanciful twist' had remained in the minds of some of the citizens of Erith, while contrasting opinions had taken hold in everyone else? The answers lie in the workings of human minds, and in the influence of the Faêran illusions that so adeptly confound the senses of mortal creatures.

Throughout history, different interpretations of the same event commonly evolve. In some cases, the natural effects of time and erratic memories are accentuated by clever bewilderments worked by the Faêran.

It was Rosamonde whom Edward eventually married; she who had always loved him. The daughter of Tamlain Conmor was indeed a damsel of great beauty, whose ways were strange, quiet and remote. The life of Rosamonde had been unusual and tinged with gramarye. This was the reason for her distant manner—doubtless she often dwelled on the wonders of days gone by. While her father was a captive in Faerie she had been conceived among the roses of Carterhaugh. Furthermore, she had mingled with immortal beings; by these influences, her lifespan was greatly lengthened. She was content in her marriage, even happy, this gentle, gracious queen.

To understand the power and the reach of Faêran guile, one need only recall what happened in the years that followed the Battle of Evernight:

Since the return to Caermelor, Angavar laid aside the lion of D'Armancourt and openly displayed his own eagle escutcheon, the sigil of Faêran Royalty. The couriers and everyone in the kingdom who knew him by sight, were fully apprised of the truth—King James had asked the Faêran High King to rule in his place until Edward came of age.

Surprisingly, or perhaps predictably, this truth did not affect history as it existed in the minds of the soldiery and the majority of the citizens of Erith, who recognised the face of their sovereign only from crudely stamped images on coins. The King-Emperor had come to be regarded as a sovereign without parallel, a paragon, the most popular ruler in history. The people would have followed him into any manner of danger. They found it difficult—nay, impossible to accept the idea that the entire Empire had been under glamour's illusion for so many years, that this monarch they loved was in fact not of their race. Popularly, the obvious explanation was that the King-Emperor had been slain at the Battle of Darke, and his ally the Faêran High King had subsequently arrived to stamp out those of his enemies who remained alive …

The scattered remnants of the Talith race had gathered at Court to meet the Lady Ashalind, she whose hair glimmered with a golden sheen to match their own. If the Talith wondered at this newcomer in their midst, they put aside their questions. It may be that their natural curiosity was dulled by the gramarye hanging in heavy veils about the Palace, drifting like incense through the corridors and halls.

For certain, Angavar was able to cast nets of illusion over the Talith, and over the entire populace of Erith. He had already employed such glamours to ensure that the exchange between himself and the real King-Emperor passed unnoticed. When he snatched Ashalind—who had become ‘Ash' after her memory was taken a second time—from the scene of her wedding to Edward, and returned with her to Faerie, he left a legacy of confusion veiling the minds of most of Erith's people.

For he did steal her away, of that there is no doubt.

And this is how it came to pass:

After Ashalind exited the Gate for the final time there was a short period during which both she and Angavar actually dwelled in Erith simultaneously, before he was borne, Sleeping, from Eagle's Howe into Faerie. Certain minor wights, and wild creatures such as birds spied Ashalind emerging from the Gate and making her way to the monument that was her own memorial. Several of these creatures slipped into the Fair Realm when the Faêran carried Angavar back to his own kingdom. After he woke, one of these informants revealed to him that his truelove still lived. Whereupon he opened the Gates immediately, and rescued her from Edward on the very wedding day.

Angavar and Ashalind flew away to Faerie, where he restored her memories and she was reunited with her family and friends.

13

THE WEDDING

An eagle and a white sea bird linked by a golden chain flew across Lake Amarach, through the mists that cling to the surface of that water night and day, coiling slowly in a dream-like dance. A steep island rises at the lake's centre—an isle never inhabited by humankind—and it was there that the two birds passed through a Gate into to the Fair Realm.