The Hedge of Mist

by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison

  I thought some more, about the prospect of being shut in for the solstice revels with Fomori and gods knew what other folk…

  "There will be spies in the delegation," I said after a while, and was rewarded to see the look of complete eyerolling exasperation on Arthur’s face.

  "Well of course there will be spies! And never fear, we shall have our own spies’ knees under their table! I have spoken to the Queen about it, and she agrees, if not gladly; and of course I did not take the decision alone, to have them come—Tari and Grehan and Keils and our mother approve of the course."

  I brightened. "Ah well then, if methryn approves—’ Little chance Ygrawn Tregaron would consent to any plan, even one of her son’s, if she had not gone over it most minutely and found it to Keltia’s weal.

  Arthur raised his brows and quirked his mouth, but said nothing.

  "You said there were three things," I prompted him after a while. "Melwas; and—?"

  He looked a touch cast down. "I have had word from Majanah. She wishes Donah to be sent home to her after the solstice season is done. I did not know how much I had come to count on the lass’s being here."

  "Well, Artos," I said, trying to comfort, and also feeling strangely and suddenly forlorn myself, "we knew Janjan would not let her stay here forever. Time it is for her to begin to learn now to rule her own world, as one day she must. And you have Arawn now, it is not as if Donayah is your one chick, or could inherit Keltia after you."

  "All very true. Still, I shall miss her so much."

  "As will all of us here. But we shall have her back again soon, and maybe even Janjan with her." I paused again; gods, it was like pulling teeth with him sometimes… "And the third thing?"

  "Ah, that." Arthur leaped up, caring nothing for the stab of vertigo that shot through me from my breast to my boots. "I do not know how to speak of it."

  "Artos. Speak."

  "Well then, it is Malgan Rheged." When I said no word but only stared: "Surely you recall him? At least as well as, say, Melwas?"

  I glared at the sarcastic edge he had put on it. "Rather better, I would say… What is it with him?"

  For the first time in all our talk Arthur let his uneasiness be seen upon his face.

  "That is just it, Talyn. I do not know. No one knows. He went from Court not so long after you were taken by Marguessan, as I think I told you when you were rescued, and established himself at Saltcoats. I gave my permission for him to do so, of course, though Gwen was not best pleased to see it. But she never liked the lad."

  I was silent, thinking furiously. Of all those closest to Arthur, I alone—and later, perhaps not so surprisingly, Ygrawn—had not assigned to Malgan Rheged the manifold sins and offenses of Owein his late father. Or alleged father, I reminded myself yet again: All that could be said with certainty of Malgan’s parentage was that Gwenwynbar, Arthur’s first wife, had been Malgan’s mother. The other side of the pedigree had yet to be filled in to Keltia’s satisfaction.

  "Is he working some treason or miscontent?" I asked then.

  "Not to my knowledge."

  "Has he spoken out against you or Gweniver?"

  "I have not heard that he has."

  "Has he refused any due or obligation you as King have set him?"

  "Discharged all with great correctness."

  "Well then!" I threw back my head. "What is your problem? Or, nay, wait, I know—it is the same problem there has been from of old with Malgan, not so?"

  Arthur’s sullen silence confirmed it; and, truth be told, I could not blame him for it. I do not think Arthur had ever managed in all these years since his first marriage ended to convince himself that his wife’s son was not of his own begetting. True, Malgan had been born a mere seven months or so after Gwenwynbar had ended the marriage and run off to attach herself to Owein; but Owein—and more telling to my way of thinking, the Marbh-draoi Edeyrn himself, whose adopted heir Owein was—had never (at least publicly) shown the smallest sign that he was convinced the lad was not of his own begetting, if born a trifle early.

  But if Malgan were Arthur’s son, gotten in lawful brehon marriage (if perhaps not born so), then according to all laws ever made he was the right heir to Keltia.

  Which put him into crowded company… I reflected on the current field of claimants both subtle and plain. Arawn, of course, was as child of Gweniver and Arthur the front-runner and lawful Tanist; but there rose up here all that old coil of the correctness of Arthur’s own claim to the Copper Crown, and curst Marguessan of Lleyn still held to her stubborn belief that as eldest daughter of the restored King Uthyr, she should be High Queen, and her son Mordryth to rule after her. Not to mention Donah’s claim; and who knew if Avallac’h the recent Graalkeeper had not a line of his own hidden away somewhere, senior to the stem of Pendreic that now ruled?

  It was all most ‘scruciating complicated, and it was making my head hurt… In the end we both went down from the Keep in silence. But the doubt was real.

  In the two years of my enforced absence Morgan had busied herself with a number of matters so that she did not go mad entirely, and one of the most successful of these was the building of a castle of our own. We had dwelled, since the war ended, at Caerdroia, in the palace; but it had never been home to us, and even before that, in the long years of our hunted and hiding existence on Gwynedd, we had built skycastles to ease our hearts, thinking of a time when we might have a true place that was ours only.

  So Morgan, in part as fulfillment of those dreams of ours, had had built a place for us on Gwynedd, not all that far from my own lost Gwaelod. She had called it Tair Rhandir, in honor of Tair Rhamant of my boyhood; but that was where the likeness ended. Rhamant had been the simple castle of a rather minor and far from wealthy local chieftain, lord of a poor province; Rhandir had been raised by a princess for a mate she feared was lost to her.

  Its white walls were visible thirty miles away; faced with quartzite, they gleamed in daylight and flamed at dawn and dusk. Four huge towers stood at the airts, concentric walls made it a most defensible place: But the chief charm of Tair Rhandir was its lightness of heart. If ever gaiety and young love had been made manifest in stone, it was here; Morgan had made Tair Rhandir a tale of ourselves.

  So now for the first time I came to the home my lady had built us; Gerrans was with us, and Donah, and Gweniver and Arthur and Arawn, my sister Tegau and her lord Eidier from their own place not many miles distant—a family holiday after the stresses of the Graal quest and before the arrival of the Fomori king. Morgan had invited some guests also, and for the first time ever Tair Rhandir welcomed me as lord.

  I needed the time it gave me, and badly; my imprisonment had left me unsettled, edgy, unwilling to be alone, and the quest had hardly helped cure that. It was better than I can tell you, to be here, in this house of love my mate had made for me, with all my dearest kin and friends about me; it was just what I needed right about now, and I blessed Morgan’s wisdom, doubly, for bringing me here and for building it to begin with.

  Good it was, too, to spend time with my son. Gerrans had had as eventful a quest as the rest of us—for the most part he had travelled with Loherin, or with Gwain before the incident of the Sorrowful Stroke—and though he too would not admit to it, this holiday came at a good time. He had brought a guest with him, a young Ban-draoi priestess whom I had met at Caervanogue, and who had seemed even then to be rather more to Geraint ap Taliesin than just another Graal companion. Her name was Cristant, a close connection of the Aoibhells of Thomond; Morgan spoke well of her as sorceress, but more than that I did not know.

  Tryffin and Ysild were here too, though their infant daughter Ydain had been left at home on Kernow. I had not seen either of my old friends since the end of the quest and the translation of their only son—Arthur and Gweniver together had gone to Kernow to tell them of Loherin’s calling, and that he would not be coming again home—and I was saddened at the change I saw in them.

  "Well, it is hardly to be o
therwise," said Morgan when I spoke of it. "They adored him—as did all who knew him—and though the grandeur and glory of his task are honor enough, still and all they have lost their son. A hard thing for any parent."

  "And to lose him so strangely—" I was caught up in it all over again: could smell the sea-tang at Beckery, could see the beauty of Loherin and the ancient wisdom of Avallac’h… "But to know that he will live with the life of the Cup, and for it, centuries uncounted—surely that must be worth all? Do you think?"

  "Oh aye, and they do so, but still it is hard. Thank the Goddess they have this new Ydain to help them, and to be Duchess of Kernow one day to follow her father…"

  "‘Princess’ it may be by then," I remarked. "Artos has thoughts of elevating the Dukedom, so that the ruler of Kernow would be a planetary prince to rank with those we have from of old: Gwynedd and Dyved and Caledon and the rest."

  "Tryff cares little enough even to be Duke," Morgan said smiling. "Nor yet Ysild, though knowing her as I do I doubt me she would turn down the coronet! Great scout to Marc’h’s ghost, though; he must writhe in Annwn to know that Tryff, whom he so despised, should be prince where he was not."

  "Never mind Marc’h," I said hurriedly, for I minded me of how it had come about that Marc’h was a ghost, and of how it had worked on me in the process… "We have pleasanter things far to think on, at least until the Fomori arrive. I would not waste the time."

  But it seemed that none of us could distance ourselves just yet from the quest, and seemed also that talking about it was the only way to try…

  "I wonder does Loherin get to sleep for a thousand years," I speculated aloud, as I soaked luxuriously in the huge pool-bath of Morgan’s own design; she was in it with me, as were also Donah and Gweniver and Gerrans and young Arawn, who squealed with delight and splashed water at me from where Gerrans carefully held him half-submerged.

  "Or at least until such time as Merlynn wakes and he himself is needed, as Gwyn told us," I continued, carefully avoiding Arawn’s very good aim. "Tell you all, I would not mind that so very much myself."

  "Ahe! For my part, I would rather spend the centuries in such a bath as this," said Gweniver. "One long warm soak—" She sank down until only her eyes showed, her dark hair spreading out like seagrass, and floated over to tease her giggling son.

  "And think how you would look when you came out," said Morgan.

  "I would be at the table, I think," put in Donah. When the rest of us shouted with laughter and scudded water at her, she bridled, but grinned. "Nay, truly! I am no usual watchpot, as you well know; but I say I could do great deeds in Mi-cuarta for the outside of a sevennight just now! Little enough faring we had of it on quest."

  "All part of the trial and testing," said Morgan, ducking the girl under and smiling when Donah came up laughing and sputtering. "A fine easy time! No sleep, baths in freezing streams, talking beasts, walking mountains, rivers of blood, prodigies from morn to middlenight… Not a dull moment in it—and what sort of a quest would have been otherwise? They are not built for the comfort of those who go on them."

  "Aye so, but the Graal?" asked Gerrans. He had been more subdued than was his wont these few days we had been here at Rhandir. Part of it was plain reaction to the quest’s rigors—as it was with us all—and part of it was due to another cause entirely, and I thought I knew what that might be, and resolved to speak of it to my son’s mother directly we exited the bath. But Gerrans spoke again, a plaintive note to his voice.

  "If the Graal is gone, or not real, whatever it was my lord Gwyn said it was, how then can my cousin Loherin be its Guardian, and why is he gone?"

  "When we see the Cup," said his mother gravely, all at once the mighty sorceress she was, "it is in the created world, but it is not of it. And so did I say to your father, before the quest began. And when we do not see it, it is of the world, but not in it." She laughed at the blank stunned faces peering at her through the steam as uncomprehendingly as cows. "No fear! We have done our part. Well, for now, any road."

  "For now?" repeated Arthur darkly, as he stripped off tunic and trews and joined us in the pool. "Well, no matter that ‘now’… I have other news, which you may like still less than that," he added, turning to Donah who was disporting herself noisily and very wetly indeed with her delighted infant brother a few yards off.

  She saw the look on his face, and divined instantly his news. "Ah nay, tasyk! Not yet—not now—"

  Arthur nodded, shrugged helplessly with it. "Your mother calls you home, lass, before the solstice—nay, it will be only for a brief while!" he added hastily, to forestall the mutinous protest he saw building like a thundercloud upon his daughter’s fine high brow. "I shall be sending Daronwy and Roric with you, as it happens, and back you all shall come in a year or maybe two." Donah sent some water his way, but her heart plainly was no longer in it; and as it turned out it would be longer than Arthur had promised before she would come again to her father’s realm…

  So Donah left for Aojun in the week before the winter Sun-standing, happy enough, in the event, to see her mother again and her homeworld. As Arthur had ordered, Daronwy and Roric accompanied her, with their son Harodin, who was a year or two her junior, and a tail of suitable size and composition as to be fit for a princess of the reigning Houses of Keltia and Aojun both. All this time had it been Donah ferch Arthur—Duanagh Pendreic in the Gaeloch, or Penarvon as she styled herself, following her father’s stubborn preference. Now once again it was Jai Donah, daughter of the Jamadarin Majanah, of the Clan Mancheden of the Yamazai: You could see it come upon her; indeed, she put it on like a long-unworn cloak, wrapping it around her, comfortable inside it.

  Roric also was glad of the chance to go home for a time. Though since Ronwyn had chosen him for mate he had become more Keltic than the Kelts, as our saying goes, still and all he remained a lord of Aojun, had not been born one of us—though this he seemed to forget even as did we. As for Daronwy, she was well pleased to accompany Donah as a sort of foster-aunt; she loved the girl dearly, for her sake as well as for Arthur’s, and she had remained dear friends with Majanah and other Aojunese down the years since our time there. Too, she wished to present her son to his kindred as Yamazai law and custom dictated—so it worked out very well for all.

  Just as they were departing Keltia on the first stage of their voyage, Melwas the King of Fomor was arriving. Indeed, I fancied their ships passing each other in the space beyond the Criosanna, could picture Melwas and Donah gazing all unknowing at one another’s ships across the starry dark. I wish I could also tell you I had a stab of Sight then, a bolt of an-da-shalla, so that what would happen years along might never have taken place; but I would be lying if I did so…

  Any road, I stood proudly near my King and my Queen as they welcomed for the first time in peace a Fomori to Keltia. Melwas had become a finely grown young man from the spirited, gifted lad I remembered; he had only recently come to his throne, upon the death of his father Tisaran. Nanteos his grandfather, with whom Arthur had played so dangerous a bout of fidchell, all our lives as pawns, had died not long after our one encounter, not much mourned.

  I could see too that Melwas had lost none of his youthful hero-worship for Arthur Penarvon. Indeed, I daresay that that admiration, the shining memory of Arthur’s fair dealings and kindness to a young hostage prince, was the chief cause and reason why this breathtakingly delicate new treaty was even being signed…

  All the same, it was surprisingly straightforward for so momentous a document. Not ones to leave aught to chance, both Arthur and Melwas had taken care to import jurisconsults from Ganaster, to have them in attendance for both sides during the treaty negotiations, as utterly impartial witnesses who could attest before all challengers to the strict legality of the thing; and, as matters were later to prove, it was as well the lawdogs had been there.

  It was Arthur who handled the diplomatic treaty; with his superior knowledge of and acquaintance with his Fomori counterpart, it made
sense he should do so. But Gwen it was who arranged the other part of the business, the trading contracts; and that was rather less speedily hammered out. Oh, not for any lack of good will on either side; but, though it sounds strange to say so, the trade agreements were of vastly greater complexity than the political ones, and so took more time and care.

  She did not act in vacuum: Some of our own merchant chiefs had been ordered home from our trading planet of Clero for the negotiations, and they brought with them certain agents (Melwas too had his own experts), and I noted these with more interest than I had shown for the rest of the admittedly complex proceedings. Some of our agents were Kelts, resident on Clero to do our tradework with the other worlds; some part-blooded; others not Keltic at all but of other species entirely, who had thrown in with our interests on Clero for pure profit’s sake.

  Of those last, half a dozen caught my eye and notice: first among them one Tembrual Phadapte, Coranian, a plausible sleekit streppoch whom I loathed upon sight and instinctively shrank from, as from some noisome clinging muck one might step in by ill hap and clean off grimacing from one’s boot. She had with her hangers-on to do her bidding: several half-Kelts, by name Phayle Redshield, Kiar mac Ffreswm (especially maukit) and Rannick of Lissard; another Coranian, Sleir Venoto, a smooth smiling chiel with the look of a liar about him; and oddest of all, a creature of some simian race I did not know, a smallish long-armed bony hairy thing with sly light-colored eyes, called Granumas, who was cleverer with the crossics than all the rest. Less ethical too, though never so that one could charge him outright with fraud. Yet our merchant chiefs seemed to rely on them, and Melwas showed them marked favor.

  In the end, saving my misgiving, I had no reason to distrust them either; indeed, they fulfilled their parts perfectly, and Gweniver herself acknowledged their contributions. Melwas left Caerdroia after the Brighnasa feast with a treaty both sides could happily live with, and the trade envoys returned to Clero with fat contracts all round; and all seemed most well.