No matter how it looked, it was over very quickly; and when he was safely slain I pulled off his leather helmet to see who it might be that had been mad enough or bad enough to attack without cause or warning, and while on quest too, a fellow quester. What maggot in the brain can have caused him to—
And as I stood there with the helmet dangling unregarded now in my strengthless fingers, I began to shake, for around the fallen warrior’s neck, on a short leather cord half-hidden by his gorget, was a medallion whose aspect I knew well. Indeed, I should know it: For I had seen its like almost every day of my life, in the halls of Turusachan, in the caves at Coldgates, even on the other side of my own marriage bed. And what it meant to see it here—
I knelt down and took it between my bloodied fingers. A small gold disk it was, enamelled on one side—like Morgan’s, like Gweniver’s, like Arthur’s, like Uthyr’s—with the Red Dragon of the Pendreics on a white field; on the other with—I forced myself to blazon it out—on the other with the white stag of the House of Don impaling the blue boar of Lleyn, and those last differenced by the cadency label of a youngest child.
I held it in my hand and stared, hope gone. I had slain Gwain Pendreic, Marguessan’s second son. I had slaughtered Arthur’s nephew—and my own.
I cannot tell you how long I knelt there shivering in the deepening dusk, praying, whimpering, vainly striving to believe (if I were even capable at that moment of anything so ordered or coherent) that this could not be so, that it was not so… But so it was; and when at last that incontrovertible, unarguable truth sank home, I threw back my head and howled protest and anguish and disbelief to the darkening sky.
How could it be? How could it happen? Why could it be? Why was it? Who had allowed it, or could have allowed it? What reason could there be for it? But I had no answers, and none was sent me; so presently I dragged myself to my feet and began dully to consider what I must do next.
Without question, above all the decent and respectful disposition of my kinsman’s mortal form; after that, I must quit the search for the Cup, which clearly I had irretrievably dishonored by my actions here. I was no longer fit for the questing, had stained it by this sorrowful blow. Too, I must go at once to the High King at Caerdroia—strange that I did not think of him in this moment as Artos, nor yet as the boy’s uncle—and confess my deed and accept my punishment according to the brehon code. It dawned but slowly upon me, that though I could claim the title of uncle as well, I was but cliamhan, marriage kin; Arthur was Gwain’s uncle by blood, as the little gold pendant so devastatingly declared—and even more devastating to me, by blood was my Morguenna Gwain’s aunt, his mother’s sister, and of the one birth…
But I could not think of that now, for that way lay only madness, I would run howling like a dog. It took longer than I had expected, but at last I contrived to set Gwain’s body astride his nervous charger, lying as if asleep along the bay’s powerful neck, and lash him into the high-cantled war saddle. I caught Feldore, who had wandered off to eat the grass once he and I had parted company in the fight, and mounting I picked up the leading-rein I had snapped to the other horse’s bridle.
I gave one last despairing look around the scene, as if I could find even now some explanation, something by which the fact might be altered—where had he come from? Why had he attacked without warning or provocation, not even naming himself?—but I had no answer, neither then nor formerly. I clucked to the horses and rode slowly northward, in the hope of finding some town, even if only a street-town, where a lord or bard or brehon or sorcerer could accept my submission and my guilt, and where Gwain Pendreic ac Locryn could be given the rites of speeding. Though I myself was a priest, I was too besmirched and dishonored to do this; I was kinslayer now. Not for me to speed one whom I myself had slaughtered.
Though my map had showed a settlement of some size not many miles to the north, it seemed to me as I rode that I must have come to it hours since. True, I was hardly in a fit state for observing reliably the passing landscape, but I did think I should by now have come to at least an outlying steading or townland. Yet there had been nothing; indeed, the lands were growing wilder and lonelier the norther I went. My guilt and confession and punishment could wait, but not so Gwain; and so at last I gave up and gave in to whatever, or whoever, was ruling me this night. I could go no farther, and for Gwain’s sake whom I had murdered I must without delay do something I felt I no longer had any right to do. But it must be so; Gwain’s needs, of body and soul both, were paramount, and perhaps there would be some eraic in this for me as well…
So I made a small camp in a grove of old trees, well off the road, though not so far as any chance passing traveller might not spy the fire and come over to offer aid, and I made ready to act as Druid, perhaps for the last time in this life.
First I set a spell of staying over Gwain’s mortal remains; it would not last forever (other spells can be set that do), but it would maintain him as he was for many days yet, and by then I should be back at Caerdroia where other folk could do better for him than I. But now, here, ritual was needed also: And so I began with a most unsteady voice and mind and spirit to chaunt the Last Prayers for my kinsman. He deserved much more, but also no less, even if I his slayer were the one to send him on—in more ways than one.
When I had finished my priest’s task, I sank down beside the fire and stared dumbly into the flames. This had happened. This was real. I had killed my wife’s sister’s son. In my despair, my bardic training began to spill lore pertinent to such an act into my banjaxed brain: the honor-price attendant upon kinslaughter, the strictures, the public atonements and clearances, the possible defenses and mitigations for a slaying of this sort (not unknown in Keltia, my sorrow to say, and all contingencies are provided for under brehon law).
I went over this and over this in my mind, as a tongue will seek out and push against a sore tooth, until I knew every inch and word of it by heart a hundred times over, until I could replay the encounter in my mind as sharp and clear and vivid as a viewtape. But still I could find no reason for it. Why had Gwain come at me as he did? He was on quest even as I was, he bore the badge of the endeavor still upon his tunic; true, he had been full armed, but Gweniver and I ourselves had decreed the ban—only Fians and other warranted warriors to bring swords upon the search for the holy Cup.
When I got to Gweniver and the ban on arms, something seemed to sit up in my screaming brain and tap smartly on the inside of my skull, right where the throbbing was most painful. Weaponed, with neither cause nor warning, Gwain had heedlessly attacked a stranger while on quest; and weaponless, I had defended myself against a nameless attacking stranger while on quest. I had against all right odds managed to kill him—unarmed as I was—upon which he turns out to be my nephew by marriage. Something was not right here, was very much wrong here…
"I am no warrior," I said aloud. "And who was it spoke of the Dolorous Blow—
"Who indeed," came a voice from out the darkness on the other side of the firelit circle. I looked up quick as a flash, but did not move nor attempt to defend myself. Whoever it was that had come so close undetected could surely manage to slay me with little further trouble; and perhaps all the better did they so, for it would save Arthur the pain later on.
They came forward into the light, two of them, a woman and a maid. I did not know the lass by sight, but the woman—
Marguessan Pendreic halted on the far side of the fire and stood gazing down at me where I crouched dumbly and all but out of my wits. For I tell you, even in that moment I still did not tumble to it. Nay, it seemed to me quite natural that the murdered youth’s mother should turn up by my campfire after nightfall, in this region hundreds of leagues from anywhere at all, with her young daughter by her side.
Well, dazed I might have been; but this—Nay, this was beyond all reason, and its very madness shocked me back to my senses. This was the Wood of Seeming: All at once my mind cleared, and I struggled to my feet, seizing a burning bra
nch from the fire as I rose. Without a second’s hesitance I thrust the blazing stick right at Marguessan’s eyes, and was not surprised to see it pass straight through her face.
"A taish, then." This was but a sending, a bloodless projection; I remained on my feet, hastily drawing my wits and the remnants of my power round me like a mantle of protection. But my wits were dull and poor just now, that cloak of power ragged and torn; and not even in the best and strongest of times would either have been proof against the living darkness that stood on the other side of the flames. She had become as her teacher Edeyrn had been, a gate into the Dark.
Marguessan smiled. "Do you not welcome us, Taliesin? Since your most incontinent leavetaking from Oeth-Anoeth, my castle has gone guestless. So I thought to seek you out this night; you were so entertaining a guest…"
I never took my eyes from hers. "It was you, not so? You who set Gwain on to attack me all unknowing, you who caused me to strike him down. You, out of—" I could not go on, the words froze in my throat. Whether Marguessan claimed or denied it, it was truth all the same. She had killed her own son, had used me as the weapon to cut him down; and had cut me down as well in so doing.
I found my voice again past my gorge rising. "A crime against the Cup, Marguessan; nay, but then you stole it in the first place, another crime against it would be as nothing to you. Against your own son, then. Against your kin. Against the Light." She laughed, a sound I remembered well from Oeth-Anoeth; crime and denial seemed alike in her eyes, and the last thing on her mind.
"He had joined your side, Taliesin. He rode with you against me, to find the Pair and bring it back; and after I had gone to such pains and trouble to fetch it away, too. He stood with my brother against me, and he was no son of mine."
"Nay," I said savagely, "I bear witness for his soul that he was not…" I glanced aside at Galeron, who stood silent and calm beside her mother. "So—though he was not your son, is she your daughter? Where stands Galeron nighean Irian in all this?"
Marguessan laid a possessive hand on the girl’s thin shoulder, and I was startled and alarmed to see both their faces change expression. Just what that expression might mean or be, I could not tell, nor much wished to; indeed, I think my high self stepped in just then to shield me from it, lest I run screaming away, or perish simply from looking upon it… After a moment I mastered myself and studied the girl. She was older than Donah and Gerrans, though not by more than a year or two, and in looks favored her father, with long curling black hair and eyes of an astonishing shade of green. Fair to look on, if only outerly: She was her mother’s creature, body and soul, spirit and heart.
"She is the Dark Princess," I said, coldly, suddenly sure, and Marguessan gave me the supreme satisfaction of seeing her confounded. I was grimly glad to know I had guessed aright; but it was after all not so great a shot in blindness. Had not Gwyn himself spoken of his father’s fears of a Black Graal, a Cup of the Dark? Then it followed that so blasphemous a thing would need one to serve it, one consecrated to Unlight; and who would make a better handmaiden than one Marguessan had raised up to it, one bound to her by blood and love? For I could see there was love here between mother and daughter, a sort of love, if I may use so clean a word in so noisome a context…
I pressed my advantage. "So it comes to this, Marguessan of the House of Pendreic," I said, in the tone bards reserve for rightful cursing and the doom of anathema, and despite her art and arrogance I saw her shiver as she recognized that which was now in my voice.
And I spread my arms to either side, as I felt the power of Arawn, that one of the High Danu who is Doomsman and Prolocutor of all that is made and moves, and I spoke with his voice to enumerate Marguessan’s offenses.
"You stole the Cup of the World, or caused it to go missing from its rightful guardians. You brought unhealth and loss of healing upon the land and the folk. You used unwholesome arts you acquired unlawfully from the darkest lord of magic Keltia has ever seen—you were his disciple!—and committed therewith other acts of evil I have neither time nor stomach to enumerate. And today you have killed your own son by causing him to attack his uncle, each unknown to the other, and caused me to kill him in defending myself. The Marbh-draoi is doubtless proud of such a slate of deeds, wherever he is just now. Oh, aye, he trained you most well!"
During my denunciation, Marguessan’s face—fetch-sending though it was—had registered a run of emotions for all she struggled to control it: pride, satisfaction, pleasure, a kind of urgent hungry need. Fear and guilt, if they were there, were well hid. And though I had ended on a note of such bard-honed, Druid-trained, god-inspired avengement as could by its righteous wrath have flayed a palug, Marguessan seemed still whole-skinned. But I found to my surprise that I was not yet done.
"And now you lead your daughter to follow after you—to keep alive the ways of the Marbh-draoi, to keep the Dark in Keltia… Marguessan, in the Goddess’s name, why? How came you to take such a dark road?"
Everything I had, I put into that cry and question: every ounce of bardery in me, every rann I had as Druid, every scrap of strength of spirit and kinship. Arthur was in that cry, and Ygrawn who had given birth to this monstrousness, and Morgan who had shared the womb with her, who could be closer to her than that? And almost, almost it turned her. I say it without pride and without shame of failure. I felt it, saw it. It almost turned her. Without question it reached her; touched her, even. But turned her? Nay. That it could not. I think now that by then nothing could have.
So I saw her face change, blur; saw the dark thing at the back of her eyes lift and blaze and shiver, saw for one last instant more the charming child I had known at Coldgates, before the blackness had coiled inside her. I saw what toll her evil had taken of her, and what more it would demand of her before the end; saw how in guise of mother’s love she had passed the darkness on to the girl at her side; saw with certainty, truly Saw, that the battle joined so long ago was moving now upon the third generation. With Edeyrn had it begun; his children—in spirit if not in flesh—had been Owein Rheged, Gwenwynbar and Marguessan the greatest of the three. Now Edeyrn’s last living heir was passing her legacy on: Galeron, dark princess of the Black Graal, would be Donah’s adversary and opposite, and there was naught anyone could do now to stop it.
And I knew that as well as Marguessan… "For it is not over yet, is it, Marguessan, not yet done?" I asked, and now my voice had narrowed and chilled and sharpened, cold and thin and silky had it become, the cursing-voice of the bards I had never yet employed in all my life; had prayed, indeed, I would never be called upon to use in any life. What power it might have against such as this, I did not know, nor could my tutors have imagined; but I owed it to them, to all Keltia, at the least to try.
To my eternal surprise it rocked her as a blow to her body must have done; the curling tendril of steel-cold magic was finding chinks in her armor of unlight. But my own lorica was the Light…
"The Black Cup, the blasphemy, the obscenity you seek to bring through into the world? Leave it, Marguessan. Leave it where it is, on the other side, in its destined home. It is not for here, for us, for you. You have not the strength. Power, aye. Strength, nay. It will destroy you, and your daughter with you. Your son it has already destroyed."
Somewhere cold and far she laughed, and I nearly fainted before I could draw myself back. "Well enough, harper, so long as it destroys my halfbrother and his cousin-wife and their get and the rest of you as it does so. You it has already touched. For you see"—she jerked her chin at Gwain’s mantled form, over on the edge of the clearing—"it is even now at work. And when I am done—"
Her face was drawn and terrible to look upon, her hands raised with palms facing, shoulder-high, her mouth working to shape some dire rann. But though I lifted my head to face my doom as proudly as I might, it never came. All at once, she was gone, as if some mighty wind had blasted her away, and I was fallen retching to my knees in her aftermath. But she was gone, and Galeron with her; and I knew
it had been no power or virtue of my own here demonstrated that had hunted her off. Nay; it had taken an art and power greater far than mine. Not Morgan’s, even; but whose it had been, I did not care even to guess.
And in my boundless relief I had an utterly irrational hope that all had changed, that all had been made different, and I turned eagerly to Gwain, fully expecting to see him battling off his shrouding cloak and getting to his feet, smiling and jesting all the while with his uncle. But nay; he lay there still, and stiller; and after a while I sat down again as near the fire as I could get, shivering, my back against a tree. In my hand now was the bronze dagger that I had received under the hill; though it would have been of no use in the fight that had just now been waged here, all the same it gave me comfort to hold it now, and I turned it over and over in fingers that seemed made of water, watching the firelight flare along the thick blade that was not sharp.
I felt—well, ‘better’ would not be the word, but it was the only word that I knew. Gwain was still dead, and I had still killed him. And though I now knew Marguessan to be the real murderer, it did little to requite me for what I saw to be my guilt. Never in a hundred lifetimes would I have imagined that Marguessan could slay her own son; though now she had done it I had no difficulty whatsoever in believing it, mind; it was just that I would not have thought so to start off with, not even of her…
I must have fallen asleep—for I was exhausted beyond imaginings in body and soul—because I woke with a start moments later, and proceeded to erect a circle and proper defensive wardings against any more such visitors, and by the time I was done even Marguessan would have hesitated to break through my shields. Gwain and the horses were included in the compass; who knew what might happen if they were not?
The Hedge of Mist Page 14