Connects to: 15.15, 24.07, 25.04, 29.10, 29.14.08, 34.05, 36.04, 39.32, the Kingwood and the Grey Mountains.
Overview
Lord Tristifer Bartley of Blackhorn Keep is one of the greatest lords of the Night Men and is the double father in-law to the Doge of the City of Shuttered Windows (29.14.08). However, men seem to be more interested in his second wife than the lord himself and this is a tale that can be heard in the Sundial Inn (25.04) and beyond.
Once upon a time, a Lady of far Adherion was walking through the Kingswood remarking on the beauty of its wildflowers. “How I wish I could view them by the light of the sun,” said she. And her wish was granted for the hours passed like seconds and she saw the rosy glow of sunrise on the horizon. She looked about in fright, for it does not do for one of mortal blood to linger in the Kingswood by the light of the sun, and what did she see but a lord of the elves smiling upon her clad in a coat of gloomwings. She was speechless before his beauty and he bore her off to the Sleeping Vale (24.07) and longs years she slept there.
Now in those days there was a lord of the night people by the name of Tristifer Bartley who loved above all things to feel the light of the sun upon his face. He feared not the elves, not even Tehaar (29.10), and often hunted beneath the forest’s leaves. On one day when he commanded his blood falcon (36.04) to catch a cat on the wing (34.05) the bird instead flew into a strange tower that he had never seen before. He paced about the tower, admiring the cunning of its design and wondering how he might enter to retrieve his wayward falcon for the tower had no windows, when he saw a ladder of human hair. He climbed up to a room at the very top of the tower and beheld a sleeping maiden of radiant beauty sitting at a window seat. He called to her but in vain for no matter how loud he shouted she slept on. Finally Lord Bartley was overcome by passion and carried her sleeping form to a bed. Returning to his keep, the lord was overwhelmed with pressing business and thought no more about the woman of the forest except in dreams.
But in his dreams, the lord called out to the lady of the forest and his wife heard his words as she lay beside him. She grew worried that her husband had claimed another lover and set out one night into the Kingswood with two trusted servants to see what she could see. The paths of the forest took her quickly to the Sleeping Vale and to the very tower were the lady of far Adherion lay sleeping. Imagine her surprise when she beheld two infants that bore the mark of her husband giving suck at the beasts of the sleeping lady. She shouted with rage and then, as the night turned to morning, there appeared the elf lord. He was as little pleased as Lady Bartley and they fell talking about what was to be done.
The lady of Adherion awoke with a start, freed from the elf lord’s magic to see a strange woman standing before her and two beautiful infant girls beside her. Lady Bartley and her servants bound the waking lady with cords and, with the laughing elf lord leading them on the shortest paths, quickly returned to her husband’s keep and locked the confused and weeping three in the dark cells that lie below each keep in the Lands of the Night Cattle. That very day she set a great feast before her husband and told him time and again “you are eating what is your own.” The good lord, Tristifer Bartley, grew peevish and lectured here that he knew well that he was eating what was his own for everything that lay within his keep was his to dispose of as he willed it.
After the feast, Lord Bartley called for his steed and set off into the Kingswood to hunt. As soon as he had left, his lady called for her prisoner to be brought forth from the dungeons so that she could be burned at the stake for enchanting her lord husband. As the kindling was laid around the stake, Lady Bartley told her weeping prisoner how her children had been butchered at her orders and fed to their father so that he could dispose of that which was his own.
In mortal terror the prisoner told her captor that her shoes were made from silk of the Golden Realm and sewn with pearls plucked from the Boiling Sea before Broderick (15.15) calmed it. And so her shoes were removed so that they would not burn. Then then she said that her mantle was fringed with the fur of a stalking cat of the Grey Mountains. And so her mantle was removed so that it would not burn. Then she said that her dress had threads of the mane of the unicorn of the Kingswood itself woven into it. And so her dress was removed so that it would not burn.
So it continued, the lady purchasing moments with her garments, so that when Lord Tristifer Bartley returned from his hunt he beheld his wife stood before a lady who shone naked in the firelight of his Keep. When it realized that his wife meant to kill the lady he had encountered in the tower he had his wife clapped in chains, but she only laughed and told him of how he had eaten his own children. The lord’s rage knew no bounds and he struck off his wife’s head with one blow from his sword and was about to do the same to her servants when they cowered before him and told him that they and served him but the meat of puppies and that his daughters were safe and sound. They had disobeyed their lady’s orders for the infant ladies had charmed the servants’ hearts with their beauty and they had found themselves unable to slay them. And so it came to pass that there was a new Lady Bartley who lived happily ever after and her daughters grew as beautiful as the sun and the moon. In good time the sisters grew to become the famed twin wives of the Blind Doge of the City of Shuttered Windows. The moral of the story is this: one who fortune favors will find good luck even in their sleep.
Connection
- Is there any connection between Blackhorn Keep and Blackhorn Maze (39.32)?
Hooks:
- How much of that story is true?
- Where is Adherion? Who is the new Lady Bartley exactly? How long was she asleep?
- What is a gloomwing cloak and why was the elf lord wearing it?
