The one thing that had been decided since two days ago was that I should leave on my spy tour as soon as might be arranged; and after discussing it with Morgan, I had myself decided to leave the very next night. Delay seemed not to our interest: If Marguessan were up to something more, or new, best we learned of it soonest. For a delicious idle moment I contemplated just what it would cost to rid Keltia forever of my matesister: We would have to take out Mordryth also, most like—did we leave him alive he would only start down another tiresome road of revenge—and probably Irian, though Marguessan’s lord had ever seemed incidental to any of her machinations, or to anything else, come to it…
My ashling of a Marguessan-free Keltia was broken by Morgan’s entrance into Gwahanlen. She took a seat a little ways away from me, but said no word; and after a while I glanced up at the tapestries that hung round the walls. And was heartened thereby: Strange days and trying ones had been in Keltia before now, and doubtless would be again—if any of the various prophecies I had been hearing since the Graal quest had truth in them, and I doubted not for the smallest instant that they did—and Keltia had survived; thrived, even.
And we had so much now: We had the Treasures back, the Cup again safe among us, and the promise that even if they went, their benisons would remain with us, and they also would return even so…
"You are planning to leave," said Morgan, and I startled to hear her, for truly I had forgot she was even there. "Where away?"
"No name springs straight to mind," I admitted. "This is not the time of the Counterinsurgency, where as a rule I could come by information of some kind no matter where I put myself in the way of it—but I have a sort of idea that Gwynedd would not prove entirely barren a ground."
Morgan smiled. "I have ordered our rechtair at Tair Rhandir to be ready to receive us," she said in a pleased tone. "And Gerrans and Cristant and the children are thrilled we are coming."
So we went.
Almost it was like the old days. Nay, I can hear you jeering at me across the pages: Very well then, it was exactly like the old days, and I was glad of it; does that content you?
I had left Morgan at Tair Rhandir, according to plan, and I had set out on foot across Gwynedd. I did not look like myself, thanks to my lady’s magic, and when I contemplated myself in a mirror after Morgan had finished her work on me to her satisfaction, even I was hard put to think that Marguessan would recognize me. I had true-change put on me, not a mere fith-fath or a glamourie that Marguessan, with skills of Seeing the Marbh-draoi had honed, would have no trouble piercing at a glance. Nay; this was other, a change that was change.
So I looked into the gold-framed mirror, and another man looked back at me. I could not decide: Sometimes he seemed older than myself, other times younger. He was lighter of hair and darker of eye, with the ruddy clear skin of a countryman and the build of a fistfighter. We had agreed that for me to go in guise of a travelling bard would be too obvious, and had settled instead on the profession of itinerant bootmaker—I even had a well-stocked pack-pannier for each of my three baggage-horses, full of beautiful hides of suede and leather, and the tools of my new trade.
So I bade farewell to Morgan and Gerrans and Cristant, and to the young Cathelin—the twins being away in fosterage on Erinna—and set out eastwards. I had arranged with Morgan to contact her each evening for exchange of news, but apart from that I should be very much on my own. Plans had been put in place for me to be able to go for help to certain of our loyal lieges, should help become necessary; yet even this seemed fraught with risk. Better I should stay apart from any possible link with Tara, or with the truth of my masquerading…
And as yet I still had no idea where I should go. The Old North, Irian’s lordship, his family’s lands since the High King Elrick’s reign, was the logical choice; but to go there first, blatantly, seemed not only unsubtle but unsafe. And there was not overmuch time, either, to learn all I desperately needed to know…
And so, of course, in spite of my better judgment, I turned my steps in that direction, a little north of east.
The Old North of Gwynedd, strictly speaking, is neither very far north nor even particularly old. But it had been among the very first settled regions, centuries since, when Brendan’s dear friend Conn Kittagh had come here alone to found his duchas, and it was much the norther of any other townland on the planet for centuries to come.
Even still it was: Coldgates, and Tair Rhamant when there was still such a province as Gwaelod, a few other places, were more to the north of Lleyn; but not many more than that. And I wondered as I rode through the Mains of Gwynedd, passing Agned, sighting Glora, had Conn chosen a-purpose to dwell in so lonely a spot; and did the kindred of Locryn, no kin to him, choose for purpose of their own to dwell there now?
Any road, the country was lovely, all rolling plains rising to the Lleyn foothills and then real mountains that rimmed the Sea of Glora on its western edge. Collimare was norther still, I remembered, and I wondered if Morgan would find time during our stay to visit her old school-haunt—or if Birogue herself ever came there these days…
But the small villages and maenors and townlands through which I travelled held custom quite sufficient for a fraudulent travelling bootmaker; I was kept busy enough at my hastily assumed trade, and thanked the gods that I had of necessity learned the basics of this honorable calling during my days at Tinnavardan, when besides bardery would-be bards were obliged to set their hand to anything that needed making or mending. I found to my surprise that I had chosen a disguise better and more effective than I knew: Not only were folk well disposed and eager to recount local gossip to me as I measured their legs or stitched up torn boot-shafts, but the making aspect of the craft satisfied my own need to make—bardery being pretty much denied me on this jaunt, since though Morgan might put change on my countenance, never could even she have disguised my art against detection…
I learned more than you might think. They knew the Locryn kindred well in that region; had little good to say of Irian save that he was seldom seen or heard of, no good whatsoever to say of Marguessan. On Galeron and Gwain they were silent—apparently there were wounds not yet healed even among the folk—and on Mordryth, surprisingly, they were deep divided. Some chaunted his praises, other some used bad little words that as a bard I found professionally interesting, and had not heard before but filed away for future use.
One of the two most interesting things I learned, though, was that a small trading enclave originally established on Powys, for the convenience of outfrenne traders needing more immediate access to Keltic sources than our merchant planet Clero allowed, had recently been moved to Caer Dathyl at Irian’s petitioning. I minded me vaguely of Gwen or Arthur speaking of it, and had given it no more thought than that; but when a talkative lordling (who must have been more than usually hard on boot leather, for he brought me four pair to mend and gave order for four more) informed me gaily that aye indeed, there were gallain in Caer Dathyl, and thick as wax they were with Mordryth of Lleyn too, I began to think perhaps the capital city of Gwynedd might be better harvested than the grounds of the Old North.
Besides, it was a damn sight too near to Oeth-Anoeth for my comfort, this region, and the sooner I was quit of it the better I would feel. So I bespoke Morgan that night, as we had arranged, and I informed her whither I now was bound. She did not like it much; but, well, she was not here to like it, was she. I did not like it much more myself.
So I came to Caer Dathyl, still in my bootmaker’s guise—I would be able to find custom even in so large a place as that—and took humble rooms at a bruidean just at the foot of the castle’s massive outcrop.
I had friends and contacts here—well, Taliesin Pen-bardd did, and so also Prince Taliesin—and went to seek them out, to hear what I might hear. I wound up giving them more news than I got, particularly about the fior-comlainn and Donah’s kidnapping (or what I could tell them, at least), but they had things to tell me as well. For one thing, that trading en
clave just relocated from Powys; for all it was strictly supervised, those dwelling within being most carefully watched and regulated in their comings and goings, it was commonly held by just about everyone who lived in Caer Dathyl to be a nest of spies.
And not just any spies, either, but Coranian and Fomori and Fir Bolg spies. And blame my evil suspicious devious bard’s mind if you must, but no sooner had I heard that than I knew very well where had been Marguessan Pendreic all these times when she could not be found in Keltia; and what Mordryth—and maybe even Malgan—was keeping busy with of late…
Of the gallain present just now in Caer Dathyl, five or six interested me most particularly. Not chiefly for their planetary origins—some were gallain, some half-Kelt—but for their previous job of work and place of location before coming here to Keltia to play merchant aide.
All of them—the slot-faced Coranian Tembrual Phadapte, that other of her ilk calling himself Sleir Venoto, the pair of cooperative (or co-opted) half-Kelts by name Phayle Redshield and Kiar mac Ffreswm—had been to some extent or other involved in the trade treaty made between Melwas of Fomor and ourselves some years since. And all of them had come here from Clero.
Now it seemed to me passing strange that they should have all just happened to turn up together again in Caer Dathyl, a happy chance indeed; and when further investigation made by my contacts let me to know that working hand in paw with these four were Granumas, the simian-being of the race of the Voritians, from the planet Uxellos, and Rannick of Lissard—aye, aye, that same very Rannick who had been so helpful to the late Errian of Kerveldin—I felt my senses quicken.
"Aye, it sounds most likely, but you would think they had covered their tracks better than that," said Morgan when we spoke mind to mind through our link that evening. In the light marana trance in which this sort of communication was conducted, I could see her face before me as clearly as if she had been in the room with me. Her expression too: And the thing most clearly stated there was doubt.
"True, they might have done better to have taken on other identities," I agreed. "But they have no cause just yet to be suspicious, and perhaps they fondly imagine Marguessan’s protection to be enough, or to be there always. Little knowing how quicker than knife she would fling them to hungry tigers if by doing so she could save herself some trouble. Any road, though they seem wary enough, I do not think they know themselves twigged."
"Well, nor have they been, not yet," said Morgan tartly. "We have still only circumstance and threadwork to go on… Any news of my sister’s likely whereabouts?" she asked, changing the topic rather abruptly, and even in the mind-link I could not forbear a snort: For almost never did Morgan refer to Marguessan by name. Always it was ‘my sister’ or ‘your matesister’ or ‘my mother’s other daughter’ or even ‘the Duchess of Eildon.’ As if she so much misliked framing the name that she would not have even the touch of it upon her tongue…
"Aye!" I hastily responded, for Morgan had asked again, rather more testily this time too. "And you will never guess where—"
No more did she: For this was the second of those interesting snibbets of information I had culled from that tattletongued boot lover in Lleyn, and had not imparted to Morgan until I knew for fact it was true, for if true it was devastating.
And it was true, true beyond all doubting: Marguessan Pendreic, when she deigned to dwell at all on Gwynedd these days, lodged not with her lord Irian in his ancestral maenor but some long ways to the south—at Gwenwynbar’s old haunt of Saltcoats.
"And well we know who has dwelled there himself these last years," said Morgan bleakly when I told her.
Well we knew indeed. Malgan Rheged.
It was all beginning to fit itself together very neatly and very swiftly now, but still I could not return to Tara without some more crucial chunk of the central puzzle-picture completed.
Gweniver—and more especially Arthur, given that he was returned by now from Fomor or wherever, the which we still had not heard—would never act against a princess of the blood without something very much more definite and very much more damning by way of evidence than that which we could just now offer. However much the Ard-rian, or Ard-righ for that matter, might share (and oh, they did share) our own certainty of Marguessan’s guilt, the link to spies and hostile outfrenne powers had yet to be proved. Nay; I should have to bring to Artos and Gwen something substantial, and I should have to be most careful about how I got it. For venturing to Saltcoats—and I minded me of the last times I had been there, and those not happy memories—would be like to putting my hand into the very mouths of those hungry tigers I spoke of earlier, and I thought long and hard on how it could be done and I myself still get safe away with my proofs.
Then, considering blackly, all at once I smiled. I was still clad, as if in armor, in Morgan’s magic of change; why should not my original plan now serve at Saltcoats as I had intended it to serve at Lleyn? I leaned back on my bed-pillows and smiled again. Perhaps Marguessan, too, had need of a new pair of boots…
As I crossed the Saltney Marshes on the coast road from Caer Dathyl, I saw on the morning of the fourth day the castle from which marshlands it had taken its name, rising up across the wide curving calm-watered bay. And though I knew I was well disguised and equally well defended, still I could not forbear a shiver or two, for Saltcoats held for me many memories, and just about all of them greatly unpleasant.
The castle itself had changed not at all from Gwenwynbar’s day, and as I rode into the outer faha I could only think that Malgan himself had kept it so, for his mother’s memory, and his own too, who had been a little lad here. It had ever been a fair place—I grudgingly gave Gwenwynbar marks for that, and for preferring its isolation to the splendors of Caer Dathyl, though if truth be told Gwenwynbar had made herself a court here of queenly scope and style—and it was still.
For all my misliking of the place, I had in truth been here only twice or thrice. When I was in bard-service to Owein Rheged, spying for the Counterinsurgency under the somewhat pretentious falsename of Mabon Dialedd, and when Gwenwynbar was mistress here as consort to Owein, I did my best to avoid being commanded here, for obvious reasons. And so only a few flying errands, message journeys for Owein, had seen me visitor to Saltcoats. I had never gone within; and I resolved me, staring up at the outer walls of the great keep and feeling Marguessan’s presence like a coiling dank darkness, that I would not for any sake go within now. Nay, the new mistress of Saltcoats—and a fit successor to the last—must needs come out to me. And I thought I saw a way to make her do so.
I had customers before even my packs were unloaded from my patient beasts. Perhaps travelling crafters were scarce on Gwynedd these days; or more like such as there were did not much care to come to Saltcoats. Whatever, folk longing for new boots came clustering round, and I accepted all their orders and did my best to humor their requests; and before very long, as I had hoped, word came down from the keep that the Princess Marguessan had seen some of the very fine work this sir bootmaker had been doing, and would do him the honor of allowing him to craft a pair for her.
I grovelled quite satisfactorily to the rather arrogant cow of a lady-in-waiting that Marguessan had sent, and presently certain foot measurements were forthcoming—the which, being the same as Morgan her twin’s, I already knew well, and had done some work beforehand to prepare. I humbly inquired as to her highness’s choice of leather and ornamentation, and when provided so I ran up a fine pair of boots of Kernish leather, with turn-down cuffs for riding. They were by no means cheap, and the lady-in-waiting, impressed with the looks of them, paid me at once and took the boots into Saltcoats.
The next morning she was back, looking more like a goat than a cow, and complained that the boots had not fit her mistress, they were too loose in the shaft and too short in the foot. I need not return the payment, but another pair would be required. I apologized profusely, and set aside all other commissions to make another pair of gilded leather boots, and was paid acco
rdingly.
Back again next morning came the lady-in-waiting, and I found myself hard put to think just what animal she was resembling today. Her speech was a good deal sharper, and simpler also, as if she was beginning to think she spoke to a lackwit, no matter how skilled he was with leather. Well, and plainly not all that skilled either, she immediately informed me, for the second pair of boots had been rejected also by the Princess, who had found them too big in the foot and too tight in the shaft, and besides that the cuffs were mismatched. Again, I might keep the crossics, but yet another pair must be made, and this time there was no mention of payment.
"Well," I said at last, sighing hugely and throwing down someone else’s rather humbler piece of footwear, "I shall make no more boots until the Princess comes down herself and permits me to take her measure. Royalty perhaps have feet unlike common folk, for never have I had such difficulty making boots for anyone as I have had these past days in making these for her. Tell her I have said so."
The courtier flounced away—I had it! A cross, deeply offended, long-legged storkish bird of some kind—and I settled comfortably back to await Marguessan’s coming. For that she would come to me I had no doubts: I had seen the gleam of her covetousness in her servitor’s face. She craved the boots with the gleam of their own in the leather, and she would condescend right gladly even to an itinerant cordwainer if that was what she must do to have them.
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