The Hedge of Mist

by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison

  Slaying—even in battle, even for cause—is an alteration in dan unlike all others, for slayer and slain alike. Though it can like other alterings be lawfully made, it sets up a vibration, a resonance that will sound in the end through both. Unlike the Christom, we are not commanded by our gods ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ but rather ‘Thou shalt not kill without some very excellent reasons, and thou hadst better be prepared to explain to us just what those are.’ Our gods leave it to us to decide if those reasons of ours are indeed excellent enough; and we know that we ourselves shall be called to answer for it if they are not so excellent as we thought them, and we must be willing and ‘ware, to accept the dan we may incur. We think this a good and fair system; but if you do not, peace to your bones.

  Though I must admit, after Barrendown I surely understood Athyn Cahanagh ac Douglas far better than ever I had done before…

  In all this flurry of busyness it came about that I did not see Arthur for quite some time, and when at last I caught up with him I regretted that I had spent my time even so usefully and pleasantly as I had, and wished passionately that I had remained close beside him as was my wont.

  He was kneeling in the middle of the field—the press of the fighting had moved on, and few were nearby—and across his knees he held a fallen warrior. My heart in my mouth, I spurred forward, flung myself off Feldore’s back and pounded up to Arthur, each footfall on the torn reddened ground jarring a name of one I loved: Tarian? Alannagh? Betwyr? Ferdia? Rone? Ronwyn?

  Then I came up beside him, and I saw the man’s face whom Arthur was cradling so carefully. It was Malgan, and he was dying. His gaze moved past Arthur to rest on me; he knew me, and he smiled faintly.

  "A song before I go, Pen-bardd, to ease my passing," he said in a clear voice. "You sang long for my father—"

  "Aye," I said, rocked considerably by the play on words, which, though there have been better sallies of wit, in the circumstances was past all praise. And true with it: For though I had been bard five years to Owein, Malgan’s father of record up until last week, all my life I had been bard to his true father, and still was, and would be…

  I dropped to my knees in the blood and mud, near his head. "I will make a song for you, Malgan Pendreic," I promised, and tears stood in my eyes, and I could say no more.

  "I learned too late," he said then, and I saw his spirit begin to pull back within him, so that it might have draught to set sail. "I was hurt and angry—she offered balm for that—I took it. Too far, too long—athra—I am sorry." And spoke no more this side.

  Arthur did not stir, only remained kneeling there, holding him; and I remained beside Arthur.

  "He told me all before you came, Talyn," said Arthur at last. "Of Marguessan—she has fled rather than face me here—and of her plans and wiles and treasons. Sought my forgiveness for having out of that hurt and pain he spoke of sided with her against me; and I freely gave it him. He has found his peace along with his name; perhaps it was meant to be so all along." He was silent a long time, and I dared not even think for fear I would overhear his thought. "What of the others who aided Marguessan?" he asked presently. "Her outfrenne jackals?"

  "Dead and killed and slain," I said complacently. "A little small thing it was, I was only happy to have been of some assistance… Have we won here, do you think?" I added, glancing round; it was hard to tell by looking.

  "Oh aye, if you can call it that. Marguessan and Mordryth are both escaped, my sorrow to say; they showed no reluctance to leave Malgan to take the eraic upon him. It was Mordryth and two of the gallain who cut him down, I saw it happen; two of those ones you slew, Talyn, well done."

  "Indeed." I signalled across the field to some of Arthur’s guard, who raised their swords in token of having understood and came at a run. "We will bring him back to Tara with us?"

  Arthur shook his head. "Nay; let him be borne in state to Saltcoats, to be laid there to rest. It was all the home he ever had, and he was happy there, if he was happy anywhere." He eased Malgan’s form to the ground, and I slung off my cloak and draped it across Arthur’s shoulders; his own cloak already did service to shroud the dead.

  Presently Arthur spoke again. "He said before he went that Marguessan has not yet given up on her—work."

  I felt a shock as if Malgan’s dead hand had suddenly grasped my wrist. "Her work? That can but be—"

  "Aye. The Black Graal, all over again. Apparently she no longer needs the true Cup to be perverted to her ends; she has chosen instead to try once more to bring the Cup’s dark opposite through the Gate. Well, and she must be prevented! Morgan must—" But he could not go on, bent his head to Malgan’s still form and was silent.

  I rose to stiff joints and aching bleeding cuts I had not known I had taken, and looked down on Arthur as he knelt over his dead son. A great fear was rising in me like a wind from Annwn, and all I could hear, innerly, was Morgan’s voice in bed not a seven-night since: ‘Dragon shall fight dragon’—and where had I heard that before?—and, more dreadful still, ‘Have you news from the Gate?’ What news, then, had it been that she did ask of; and of whom? And when were we to know it?

  But some had arrived at last to relieve the High King of his burden; well, of Malgan’s mortal form. The rest was a burden of which none could ever relieve him; nor would he be relieved, even if he could.

  The rest of that day was spent in the usual aftermath of battle: tending the hurt, speeding the dead, tracking the bolters who had chosen to flee rather than fight. I stayed close beside Arthur all that time as he went his customary rounds of the healers’ tents, paused by each of the captains’ standards to speak at length with his weary commanders, halted to hearten almost every kern or galloglass he passed as we walked. This had been our custom from the first battles he and I had ever seen, and neither of us saw cause to change the practice at this late date.

  Or hour, even—it was near middlenight when Arthur finally withdrew to the tent he shared with me, to eat a pastai or two, sip some shakla, try for a few hours of fitful sleep before the morning’s duties would be close upon us.

  I watched him as he paced the tent’s length and width, restless as a flame and plainly far from sleep. Once or twice his gaze went to a corner of the tent or the place under the field-desk where Cabal had been wont to curl up, near his master but safely out of treading-upon range; but Cabal had not been there for many years now, and Arthur had never managed to bring himself to acquire another hound to take his place.

  We spoke briefly, sparingly, every now and again; and at last I exercised my rights as fostern and matebrother, and all but forced him at swordpoint to his couch. I rolled myself in my own cloak and lay down upon the other pallet—the stray memory crossed my mind of that lavish tent by the stream I had found on quest, and the wonderful featherdown couch prepared for my temptation within—and was asleep almost at once.

  But I came awake suddenly to blackness, though I had left one torch alight; or perhaps I was awake on some other level. I was still in the tent, and Arthur still asleep a few yards off, but something else was here, someone—I had set wards round the tent before lacing the door-flap behind us, and had left word with the Fians on guard outside, so that they should not try to enter through the circle of protection and do themselves harm thereby; belike it would not be one of them here now. But who could, or who would, dare try to breach a Druid’s wards? And then, of course, I knew.

  But either I had suddenly become very much better at warding, or she had been weakened by the battle or overuse of her powers, for Marguessan (for it was she) could not bring herself through into the tent. I sensed her, saw a vague indistinct blue-glowing form pulsing, but more than that she could not, seemingly, accomplish.

  I watched the writhing light for what seemed a very long time. After my first start of fear and surprise, I had known she could not come at us, and so I watched with a certain interested detachment to see what she might do, and for how long. Was she trying to reach Arthur, or me, to tell us somethi
ng, to do us harm while we slept—the harm she had failed to work on us in battle? Was she cross, as seemed likely, at my dispatching of her six off-world toadies this day, and was this nighttide visit to take their eraic of me for my deed?

  We have an eraic to take of you, Marguessan, I thought, and was grimly pleased to see the blue light flicker violently as in a sudden wind-gust. So, she could hear me, if naught else… I carefully framed some very particular thoughts and fired them like lasra flams straight from my inner being, into the heart of the wavering blue light. It jerked and swayed and then it was gone; Marguessan’s failed taish had, plainly, gotten my message.

  I watched and waited a while longer, to see if she should try once more; but the tent felt right to me, its unnatural darkness gone, again the low dim torchlight I had set out for comfort. So I slept again, and without fear and without dreams.

  But in the morning, when I woke before Arthur to the faint far sound of the dawn drums and the piper’s flourish to the Royal Standard, I saw upon the tent floor where the blue lightshape had bloomed a ring of faint dark discoloring; and once again I blessed the wards, and Morgan, and Malen Ruadh Rhen who had delivered us the victory, and anyone else I could think of. And before Arthur stirred upon his couch I had taken salt and water and the smoke of herb averin to cleanse the place ere he could see or sense it.

  I was barely done with my smudging before he woke. But beyond a brief morning-greeting he spoke no word, merely splashed some water on his face and neck and hands, clad himself in the lorica he had worn in the fighting and, nodding at me to follow, went outside.

  The day was fresh and brilliant, a lovely dawn of middle spring. The Havren Mountains were so close in the clear air it seemed but a moment’s journey to reach them, while the huge blue wall of Kellanvore loomed over us like a breaking wave, and the hill for which this fight would evermore be called, Barrendown, was clean and bare of yesterday’s ghastly detritus.

  Arthur gave quiet orders: We should ourselves go on to Caer Dathyl and Tair Rhandir before returning to Tara; several of the old Companions should remain to attend to any mopping-up that might have been missed; scouts should be sent out to try to track Mordryth and Marguessan and any others who had slipped through our nets. Then, orders given and taken, he gazed out once more over the field below Barrendown, torn and quiet as it was in this morning. He said no word; but I knew he was seeing (for I saw it myself) the past four days spread out before him like a tiny living moving tapestry, a picture in small of all that had befallen, every terrible detail plain to his mind’s eye.

  "Barrendown," he said at last, not turning to me but still looking out across the plain. "Cadarachta below Agned, the first; this below Kellanvore, the last. Nay, not last. The last in Keltia, then." And then he did look at me, and I wished with all my soul that he had not. "We," he said. "Us."

  And he took my arm through his, and drew me away down the hill to where Prydwen had come in to fetch us; and so did Arthur ap Amris and I leave our Gwynedd together for the last time.

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Word of our victory had reached Caerdroia long since, but Gweniver had expressly forbidden any sort of triumph celebrations, saying that we were in posture of war, both civil and outfrenne, and could ill afford such frivolities to take our minds from our tasks and duties.

  Not that folk were all that wishful, I think, to rejoice: The shock and outrage of Marguessan’s proclaiming herself Ard-rian, sole monarch over Keltia, far outstripped any martial revelry that might have been thought of, and the mood in the City was rather one of grim contentment in resolve. If the Caerdroians had aught to say in it, Marguessan should already have paid the eraic for her offenses; and they would do all they could to see she did.

  I must say I was pleased to note this; and to note further that all the unpopularity and animosity that had swirled and eddied round Gweniver and Artos of late had vanished like taisher at cockcrow. All the vile suspicion and gossip of Marguessan’s sowings had been blasted away, as when the Solas Sidhe runs along the ground and cleanses it of old sere leaves and withered grasses.

  But that was below-text: Keltia was in arms against invaders for the first time in centuries; now we should see how well Arthur and Gweniver had built and rebuilt. It was the first real test there had been of our work since the overthrow of Edeyrn; and I was not alone in praying that we had done our work to last.

  Donah came to meet her father at Mardale, and what they said each to the other I know not, nor wished to. Doubtless he consoled her on the loss of a brother she had ever admired unknowing of their kinship, and she in turn condoled with him on the death of his firstborn at the order of his sister. (I promise you, family life in Keltia should not be judged by the tangled affairs of the Pendreics and Tregarons! We do not make a habit of slaughtering our kin—well, not that often, any road… ) She greeted me in my turn sweetly and soberly, and we all went back to Turusachan, where we were awaited.

  I had had a feeling a visitor of that ilk would come to us before the end. Oh, we had made our farewells to those beneath the hill, though I held in my heart the promise of meetings yet to come; but Arthur, I knew, had truly believed he had had his last sight in this life of the Shining Folk.

  Wrong again! I sent cheerfully, and saw his fleeting grin before he mastered himself to graveness, as befitted a High King embayed with mortal and ancient enemies who greeted now an equally ancient friend.

  "Welcome to Caerdroia, Allyn son of Midna," he said, and the tall red-clad Sidhe lord bowed in return courtesy.

  "Glad am I to see you once more, King of Kelts," said Allyn, and gave me the grace of a sidewise glance and small slow smile.

  I bowed in my own turn, the memory of Tiaquin with me as with him.

  Gweniver stirred where she sat. We were in the chamber Gwahanlen, somewhat to my surprise—I knew that on their last visit, the Sidhe had declined to venture withindoors—and Ygrawn, Morgan and Donah were the only others present.

  "My lord Allyn is come on the bidding of Nudd who is king beneath the hill," she said expressionlessly. "There are tokens he brings us, if you would see."

  Now I saw for the first time the wooden coffer that stood before Allyn upon the table Rhodaur: naught fancy, merely a plain joined box in dark wood. Presumably the other three knew all about its contents, for their expressions, or rather lack thereof, matched their Queen’s; and not a one of them seemed unhappy or displeased. What, then? I privately queried Ygrawn, as likeliest to tell me, but my foster-mother gazed back at me out of remote amethyst eyes and told me naught.

  After a glance at his wife, Arthur crossed the open space within the Table’s ring, so that he and Allyn faced each other over Rhodaur’s width, and, holding the Sidhe lord’s eyes—a very chancy thing to do, as I who had been in Tiaquin and Ashnadarragh could have told him—lifted the coffer’s lid.

  The four sides of the chest fell away like an opening flower, and revealed within were—I took a deep uneven breath to steady myself, shot a venomous glance at Morgan, who might have warned me, and looked upon the severed heads of Irian Locryn, Marguessan’s lord, and Ultagh Casnar, Archdruid of Keltia.

  Now before you start calling hard upon me for a nithart and a quease, recall of your grace that at Barrendown I had had no difficulty whatever in interposing my sword-blade ‘twixt head and neck of those six loathly slinters. Nay; it was but the surprise of it, that and the fact of these heads being whose they were. That they were here, not so much: We have taken heads in battle since before our time on Earth; and that the Sidhe too would do so. Well, a line from an old ballad rang in my ears, that praised the Shining Folk for their fierceness in war: ‘Good they are at manslaying.’

  "You have foreseen our wish as well as our will," said Arthur calmly, and Allyn bowed again.

  "They thought to invade Glenshee," he said with the tiniest hint of a smile grazing his mouth. "It pleases us that your need marched with our own: and we have long known that this one"—his
glance fell upon Ultagh—"had plotted against you with the other’s mate."

  I looked up at him with interest: Even the Sidhe, it seemed, did not care to spoil their mouths with Marguessan’s name. But the folk beneath the hill had done us yet another service, for we had not known the whereabouts of either Ultagh or Irian. The latter counted for little—as ever, he but obeyed his wife’s bidding—but Ultagh was a different case, and could have worked much ill had he been free to do so. But the Sidhe had altered his case, and ours as well…

  With a start I came out of my reverie to find Allyn looking at me; then I realized it was not myself but that which was above my head that his glance was bent upon—the great tapestry of Athyn and Morric, and those who had been their friends and their foes. I dared not turn to look, but in my mind I could see it plain. And I straightened in my seat, for I had not before thought—

  Allyn was smiling now, gazing at me direct. "Aye, Taliesin," he said, "just so."

  I twisted to look, just to be sure, and the others looked right along with me. There in the tapestry’s fine-worked portraiture was the very image I saw across the room: the same red cloak, the same dark-gold hair and proud carriage, even the same bronze stallion that now stood awaiting his faerie master in the Great Square without… Allyn mhic Midna stood before us as he had stood beside Athyn; and I think all of us felt the cold feather-touch of awe brush past.

  Then Allyn smiled again, and it was gone. "To them in their time," he said, and his voice was warm with memory, "and to you in yours."

  "And to whom in future time?" asked Donah, greatly daring, though her voice was small.

  He looked upon her for a moment before he replied. "That is the province of greater far than I," he said smiling. "But we shall see."