The Hedge of Mist

by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison

  "Beside Brendan," said Birogue softly, from where she had stood beside Gwyn. "What could be fitter, Talyn, than that she should lie here for all time? To be a protection herself to Keltia, and to be herself protected—I can think of no better place for her, save maybe one, and this is more meet, truly. Also that other place shall be finding a fate of its own—

  "Collimare," I said. "Nay; that would of course be well, and she would like it, but this is better. She will be with Brendan, and what Kelt could ask better company than that?"

  "Be it so," said Gwyn. He raised a hand; and suddenly, slowly, with a groan that seemed to find an echo in every other stone in that circle, the huge bluestone altar block began to pull itself out of the earth, and rose majestically into the air.

  I shivered once, then started forward, for I knew I had little time. Going to my knees beside Morgan, I lifted her hand and kissed it, and it was neither cold nor stiff to the touch. Nor was her brow, nor yet her lips… With the bronze knife of the Sidhe, I cut a tress of her hair and tucked it inside my leinna, and cut likewise a lock of my own, to place it upon her breast; then, gently, I lifted the Dragon disk from my neck and exchanged it for Morgan’s own, to hang beside the two medallions of hers and my mother’s that were already there.

  I took her hand again, and felt the ring upon it, the ring that matched my own—the marriage rings that the two Sidhe-folk now present had themselves once blessed, when they wedded us in this very place all those years since. At first I had thought to place my own upon her hand beside it; but it came to me that that would somehow be a declaration that the marriage was ended, that I no longer considered myself wedded, and that of course would never be. How could it, for we had taken vows that even death cannot break… Any road, the serpent ring had become part of my hand, grown to feel so natural upon my finger that I could sooner part with finger or hand than with the ring. Nay; I would wear it until I myself died, no matter where I should come to it.

  So I placed another token with her instead, something I loved and which shall remain forever secret between her and me, and kissed her hand one last time. I rose and stood back, and nodded to Gwyn. Again the faerie prince lifted his hand, and now, just as the altar had risen, the oak-trunk of Morgan’s coffin sealed itself over and moved slowly down into the vaulted dimness below, and the earth drew aside to receive it.

  I watched stone-faced until I could see it no more—nor could I see any other casket there below, in the dark, nor wished to—and then the ground closed up like water, the immense blue-stone slab settled once more into its accustomed place. There was no doubt now as to the weight of it; it thudded back into the earth a good three feet deep, looking as if it had never stirred one hand’s-breadth since the day it first was set there.

  "Well, Talyn," said Birogue, in a voice of such gentleness that I thought I would die of it where I stood. "What then to you?"

  I laughed shakily, still seeing Morgan’s calm face. "Oh, you know, the same as ever. There is Gwen to be helped, and Ygrawn, and the children; and of course there is my bardery. I shall do well enough."

  "I do not doubt it," said Gwyn. "But listen to me, Talyn: Their going was of their own willing and choice; therefore is it a positive thing, a right action. They—Artos, Morgan, all those who went in Prydwen or who stood at the raising of the Pale—made a postponement of worldly joys and a submission to dan, to the will of the One, which was also their will. Merlynn made that choice, and you shall make it yourself in your time, and Gweniver in hers. And because of those choosings you shall be the eternal heroes of the world. Even those children’s stories in your mother’s books from Earth said as much; they were couched in child’s language, and knew little of true prophecy, yet they prophesied true."

  "You will be transformed, Talyn, as they have been," said Birogue. "You will die, but you shall never perish. Growing old then young again, when age finally comes upon you, you will journey to the place of your heart and await the renewing of your body and the next turn of the Wheel."

  I gasped, for she had named something I had told no one, not even Morgan: a Seeing I had had… "To be reborn on Earth?" I whispered, awed. "Apart from all my dearest ones? I had sooner stay here, lady, and enjoy a less lofty destiny. I would not come to my next life without them."

  "They will be with you," said Gwyn. "Always, ever. It makes no differ where. Merlynn in his house of glass, Arthur sleeping in his cave beneath the mountain with his warriors about him—it is all the same. Had you not guessed it? And when that one comes to find Arthur whose dan it is, and takes on his powers, that too shall be part of it."

  I was only half-hearing. "One thing I have always wondered at: Why did it take so long for me to be conceived of my parents after my mother came here from Earth? Surely it could not be for lack of love."

  Birogue answered at once, with a full frank air I knew marked her words as truth.

  "For that in coming to and from Earth, your father and the others who sailed with him crossed and recrossed time itself. In those days only Edeyrn commanded the secrets of travel in the ard-na-speire, and your father and his comrades were obliged to use other, older means to go to Earth and back again. When he brought your mother away with him, she had to age anew, as it might be, to where she was before they crossed time; you could not be born until she had attained that same age here as she would have had she stayed on Earth. No more."

  "And Loherin? Since I am asking and being answered so readily—"

  "It is not yet the time he told you of," said Gwyn. "It will not be for long and long; but it shall come. Let be."

  I suddenly remembered something, a thing I had brought with me, and I turned to lift it from the ground where I had set it, holding it out to the two who stood before me.

  "This should go back to your folk," I said quietly. "At least for now—until you see fit to bestow it again." I flipped back the soft leather and velvet swathings, and the cathbarr of Nia the Golden shot silver sparks to every corner of Caer-na-gael.

  Gwyn took it gravely from my hands. "She wore it well, your lady," he said. "And you have the right of it; we shall keep it until such time as one is meant to wear it again."

  They were beginning to withdraw now, that sparkle I knew so well by now beginning to form around them, though this time it would be they who departed and I who remained. But Birogue’s voice came clear.

  "One more task for you, Talyn, before the end. The sword Llacharn. Restore it to its home. Let it be reforged before the end."

  I started violently, and reached out in protest and delaying. "Is that what has ever been meant by that?"

  Her voice came now as from a great height. "That; and more. But bring it home."

  They were gone now; only above Caer-na-gael I could see a broad shining road spiralling up and out and northeastward, a highroad of stars that aimed itself straight for Glenshee and the Hill of Fare. I heard a faint chime as of silver bells striking; then a brief wind, and they were gone.

  I stood looking after them a while, until the path among the stars vanished; then I turned to look once more on the bluestone altar beneath which my beloved now rested, by the side of the first great Protector of our people. Nay, I thought through tears and a smile together, it is not unfitting. I can leave her here, and not fear for her, and go…

  And so I did.

  At Caerdroia, all gradually settled back into smooth running. The Wall, a continuing marvel, performed perfectly, just as Morgan had envisioned it. Indeed, as I went through her notes on its construction, I was startled to be reminded that it had been Keils Rathen, long ago at Llwynarth, who had first kindled her interest in the possibility of such a construct. I passed this on to Gweniver, knowing she would be glad to hear it, and she was.

  "Keils was ever interested in such dream-forging," she said with a smile that recalled old memories. "Trust it to be Guenna who made it reality… But it is good to know where the thought had origin. And speaking of such—now that there is an empty chair among the Regent
s…"

  "Ah nay!" I said swiftly and with emphasis. "Not I to take Guenna’s place! Surely you and Ygrawn between you—"

  Well; suffice it to say that I was named Regent the next day to fill Morgan’s duties as best I might. As Gwen pointed out to clinch the matter, it would be but for a few years; and in these new safe days that the Pale had given us, a mere sinecure, hardly worthy of the name. Though Gweniver’s idea of a soft ride and my own were almost instantly proved vastly different, I found to my surprise that I enjoyed my new task and responsibilities, finding them none so onerous as I had feared.

  And perhaps a great deal more beside: In my new busy life I had little leisure and less energy to sink into that slough of despair and grief I knew lay so near at hand. Easy it would have been to do so; but Morgan would not have cared to see it, and many times over the next few years she let me know it, in no uncertain ways…

  But at length Arawn attained his majority, and needed Regents no longer; though he would gladly have kept us on, Gweniver held to the letter of her promise to Keltia and to herself, and dissolved the Regency on the day her son turned thirty-three. She would not have stayed even for his crowning had she not understood so well the demands of sovereignty and the need for continuity, and so watched with the rest of us as the Copper Crown was placed upon Arawn’s head.

  Strange it was, I can tell you, to see there in the Hall of Heroes only the Throne of Scone, where for so long had stood two chairs before it… But Arawn my nephew looked both grave and proud that day, and as I knelt before him and put my hands between his for the homage ‘of hand and heart’ that was required on this day and no other in all the days of a monarch’s reign, I knew both his parents had come to attend this rite; and I was not the only one who knew it.

  Gweniver stayed on a brief while more, to help Arawn ease into his new duties; but we could see she longed to be gone, and one lovely cool summer morning, I stood with Ygrawn and Daronwy and Gerrans and a few others on the field at Mardale, and bid her farewell as she left at last for her refuge on Vannin.

  "Glassary is not the ends of the galaxy!" she said smiling. "I shall expect visits from all of you, and I shall come here, too, as often as I may."

  But I was still finding it difficult to encompass: We had been through so much, been together so long—of all those dearest in my life, only Arthur and Ygrawn had I known longer than I had known Gwen—how was it possible that we could be parting after all that?

  She saw this on me, and drew me aside. "Ah, I know! But the Company is over, Talyn; its work is finished. And you have the Kinship to carry on in its place—I may no longer be Ard-rian, but I shall ever be a Dragon, and you Pendragon. The Work is still ours to do. But what shall you do now?"

  "Stay here for a while," I said, still unsure of any of it. "The children have of course told me to come to them at Tair Rhandir; Ygrawn, I think, will do so eventually, and there are Tegau’s brood too, near by. But we shall see."

  "Arawn would be glad of your staying on," she said, glancing over at her tall auburn-haired son. "Arwenna also—they have few enough kin left to them as it is."

  "Will not this be hard on her, your leaving?"

  Gweniver shook her head. "Not so much. She is in fosterage now, and I shall make a long visit with her before going on to Glassary. Any road, she will soon be of an age to go to the Ban-draoi herself does she choose that way, or the Fians even… Nay, she will do well; and Arawn too, especially with his uncle Tal near to help out should he feel the need. And this is right for me, too, Talyn," she added in a lower voice. "I am shut of all this now as it is shut of me, and I have not forgotten, nor forgiven… But do not you forget me: Come visit when you will, and bring your harp. By then you may have new songs to sing us all."

  And she was so right to say so… But as she kissed me farewell, she pressed somewhat into my hand and folded my fingers round it, and then kissing Arawn one last time she vanished into the ship. I did not look to see what it was, but watched the ship lift off and gazed after it, until it blinked into the overheaven out past the Criosanna. Only then did I open my fingers, and smiled, not really much surprised, to see what she had placed there: On my palm lay the sapphire seal ring Gweniver had worn in her years as Ard-rian. Arawn wore his father’s huge flawed emerald now, that I had brought back from Kholco, and there was no real need for this in its intended function; it was Gwen’s to dispose of as she chose.

  And though she could have had the seal debruised, she knew well that I would not be using it to any unlawful purpose, and had left it as it was. I tossed the ring into the air, suddenly lighter of heart, and caught it up again, slipping it onto my right smallfinger. I will give it to Arwenna in time, I thought, or to Arawn’s daughter should he come to have one. But in the meantime I would wear it for the thought behind it, and the memories, and the love, and for the reason Gweniver had given it me: For I too had been of the Ard-tiarnas of Keltia, and not only in my brief term as Regent.

  * * *

  Chapter Thirty-four

  So things moved and changed and shifted, as things do down the road of years. Arawn, though younger at his accession than any monarch Keltia has ever had, proved a worthy successor to his great parents; and if sometimes he found himself daunted in his heart by the splendor of their memory and deeds, he did not show it—or only to those of us closest to him.

  Unlike his father, Arawn had not that easy gift of drawing folk to him; his friends and advisors were not many, but they were of the finest, as fine as any Companion, and they were as loyal to him as we had been to his father. He would find his footing; and at the least the Pale would give him, and Keltia with him, breathing space and time to find it.

  The rest of us went on as the days took us. Gerrans had upon his mother’s death taken up her honors of the duchy of Ys, and had left Caerdroia for aye, residing now as Duke, with the Duchess Cristant, at Tair Rhandir. As Duke-dowager, I was of course welcome to dwell there also, and they had begged me to do so any number of times, but though I visited there often, still I clung to Caerdroia, still lived in the rooms where I had lived with my mate. For this or other reasons, it was not yet time for me to leave.

  Ygrawn felt other wise, and she did go to Rhandir, where she lived contentedly among her grandchildren ten years more and died very quietly. We barrowed her beside Amris her lost prince, and set up a stone for them both, as parents of Arthur Ard-righ.

  And to round off the tale of the House of Pendreic (which is now lawfully Penarvon, as Arawn has declared for the choice his father had made so long ago), Gwain, sole inheriot of his branch of our kindred, duly and dutifully succeeded Marguessan his mother, and became Duke of Eildon, and went there to dwell. When Irian his father had been slain long since by the Sidhe, Gwain had let lapse the title of Lord of Lleyn, and never set foot there again; and who could cry him blame? He wedded in time, and had a daughter and a son who would come to Court in the service of their cousin the High King. He seems happy enough when I chance to meet him at Court functions, though both of us attend such rarely. But there is a shadow to him that I think will never lift; and nor do I think he wishes it to do so.

  And, one by one, down the years, the Companions died also. Few of us indeed had been left when Gweniver took ship to Glassary; and since then, they have all gone to be with Arthur, gladly and I think with a great feeling of ‘at last!’ about it—and I cannot say I blame them, for I am envious that they shall see him before I shall.

  Elenna, now known to all Keltdom as Elen Llydawc, Elen of the Hosts, for her great generalship at Camlann and before, died the year after Ygrawn; Tanwen and our old Ferdia and Grehan the Taoiseach were not long in following. On Kernow, one autumn afternoon, Tryffin and Ysild died within three hours of each other, as seemed only fitting for a pair who had shared so great a lovematch. Tryff went first, and I know that he waited for Ysild to join him, so that they might journey together; and what could be better than that? Two rosetrees were planted above their grave by their daughter Yd
ain, a white one and a red, red for love, white for loyalty; their branches intertwined, so that only by the color of the blooms could one tell which bough grew upon which tree.

  And my dear Daronwy died on Caledon, joining her Roric at last. I felt her loss perhaps more keenly than all the others; apart from Artos himself, Ronwyn had been my oldest and closest friend and truest comrade. She had been of the Companions since the very earliest days at Coldgates, even before the first Llwynarth. We had struck a friendship from the start, and she and I had often gone together ‘raiding,’ as we called it only half-humorously, among the folk of town and mains, to find things out for Arthur in the days of Edeyrn’s rule. In the years since Arthur had gone, as one of the Seven, Daronwy had been a strength beyond strengths to Gweniver and Ygrawn, and she had never ceased to be my beloved friend. But she had longed endlessly to be with her Roric again, and with the others of our Company; and now she was. I would miss her.

  But there was one I would miss as greatly, and more: At Glassary, very quietly and unheralded one Samhain morning, died Gweniver Queen of Kelts.

  And with that last link snapping of the chain that had so firmly bound us all through so much for so very long, I felt somehow that all that was best of the Company had come down to vest itself in me; I had become their last heir, the last of us left to inherit the tasks the others had set by. It was mine to keep the name of Companion alight forever; why else had I been spared so long, and through so much, to be the last of the Companions of Arthur the King?

  It was after Gweniver’s splendid state funeral at Caerdroia—Arawn had commanded it and overseen it himself, knowing his mother’s wishes did not run to a simple burial at Glassary, just one among many humble Reverend Mothers of the Ban-draoi, and I have to say he was quite right in that—that I knew the time had come at last for me to leave Turusachan.