But words were winged in those days, and it was Elphin taught me first how they might let me soar.
Yet before the soaring must come the slogging: I was bent over my copying one afternoon—a particularly hellish passage from an old Erinnach text—when Ygrawn came into the room. This was of itself by no means unusual; the lady of Daars often came to look in on her son and foster-son in the schoolroom or on the practice-field—though I do not recall Gorlas ever doing the same—and our teachers were no more troubled by her presence than were we.
I glanced up at her with a quick smile and a look of amused despair for the heavy weather I was making of my copying. She answered with a smile of her own, but only after the smallest of hesitations, as if some distracting thought or mood had caught her up. But then she took her customary seat by the windows, and so quiet was she that after a very short while I forgot she was even there.
All the same, some message must have passed between teacher and mistress, for when I glanced up again Elphin had gone, and Ygrawn was watching me in steady silence. My apprehension must have shown on my face, for I saw her expression change at once.
"Ah, Tal-bach, I am sorry! Go on with your work—"
I put down the light-pen, grateful for the excuse to leave off, and set aside the much-mauled text. "Nay, it is done; or as done as I shall make it today… Is aught wrong, methryn? Just now you looked—well, I have never seen you look so, and though I would not pry—"
Again the lovely face shimmered with change. "Between Elphin and Ailithir, you are learning to look far and deep! A Sight to serve a Druid, and words to put point to your Seeing—' There was true-praise in her voice, and I flushed to hear it; not often did Ygrawn commend, and never but for cause.
She leaned back in her chair, putting her two cupped palms together in a gesture full of grace—and one habitual with her when she would speak of serious matters. But when she spoke, it was on a topic I had not expected.
"Talyn, have you been happy here with us? I have ever thought you have, to be sure, but perhaps it is not so after all."
My store of words, so lately commended, seemed to rush and stumble over itself in its haste to reach my lips. "So happy—I cannot say how happy—you and Gorlas-maeth—Ailithir—Elphin—Scathach—''
"And Arthur?" came the cool quiet voice.
"Arthur!" The words went up like fountains. "He is my brother, my comrade, my anama-chara—if I had not had him to my side these years—
"Yet you have true brothers and sisters of your own."
"Oh aye; but save for a few brief messages I have heard naught of any of them since—since Gwaelod." Ygrawn was watching me even more closely than before.
"There is word now," she said after a while. "From your sister Tegau."
Cold blankness closed round me, and for an instant I could not speak nor move nor breathe. Then:
"She is not—none of them is—they are all—" Words failed again, and I could only stare in mute imploring, arming my soul against what she might now say.
Suddenly it seemed to dawn on her what I had asked. "Oh, nay, Talynno, my sorrow to fright you! Stupid and cruel of me—nay, they are all well; at least they were when Tegau last had word of them."
"What then?" My heart began to settle back into its place behind my ribs.
Ygrawn leaned forward, a look of grave purpose on her face. "I must share this with one of my sons, Taliesin, and when you hear you will know why Arthur cannot be the one… Tegau sends to let me know that the Marbh-draoi turns his attention toward Daars."
I must have made some small protesting sound, for she smiled grimly. "Aye, it was of that I too thought: Gwyddno, and what befell him and his province alike when he came to Edeyrn's notice."
I found my voice again. "But my father was a partisan of the Counterinsurgency, it was well known—Ailithir has told me—more, he had six children enrolled in its ranks. Gorlas-maeth—"
"—supports the Counterinsurgency no less than did Gwyddno his friend," she said evenly. "We have never spoken of this to you or Arthur because we thought it best you did not yet know. But now Edeyrn's eye is upon Daars, and Gorlas may be called to account. This is what Tegau wishes us to be prepared to face."
"Surely my foster-father—"
Ygrawn sighed, and took my hands in hers. "Your foster-father is not a politic man, Taliesin; I would be untrue to what is yet between us did I not recognize that in him… He is not even so politic as Gwyddno was, and look what befell him in the end. Gorlas will not silver-tongue his way along for years, what way your father did; he will confront, not conciliate, and never dream he might do other." For a moment a strange smile lighted her face—composed of rue and pride and affection and exasperation, it seemed to have the measure of Ygrawn and Gorlas both in it, and I stared, for it was the first time she had let me see as an equal into her heart. Then the smile faded, and fear and care were plain in its place; but her voice was steady still, as if she spoke of some lord who was a stranger to us both.
"But all of duchas rank are suspect these days," she said then. "The Marbh-draoi fears—rightly fears—that one, or many, may rise up against him out of one of the old houses that have never truly accepted his rule. Still, he cannot replace all such chiefs with his own creatures; therefore does he suffer such as my lord, and your father, to go on—until such time as it no longer suits him."
"Why do you tell this to me, methryn, and not to Arthur?"
There was no mirth in the laugh Ygrawn gave. "I cannot say for certain. Perhaps because the word came from Tegau, and she is your sister; perhaps because this—forgive me, bach—is a thing not unfamiliar to you; perhaps because I know too well how my son would answer it." At that the laugh became true-mirth, and I joined in it. "Aye, truly! Yet even so, Arthur is already better able to subdue his feelings and master himself to his own ends than ever Gorlas was. He will never be a trimmer the match of, say, his uncle Marc'h, my brother who is Duke of Kernow; but nor do I think he will himself ever come to face a summons to Ratherne. Other things, aye; but never that. At least, may the Mother make it so…"
Ygrawn rose to leave, and I rose too for courtesy. "I know you will say no word of this to Arthur, Tal-bach, and so I need not offend you by begging your silence. But I would ask you to speak of it with Ailithir: I have myself told him of Tegau's warning, and it seems he has had warning of his own, so that you need not fear to break confidence. It may be you and he together will see a thing that I have not."
"There is not much Ygrawn fails of seeing," remarked Ailithir when I recounted all this to him later that same day, up in the tower chamber with its long views down the glen. He looked for a moment as if he were about to say more—something to do with Ygrawn's powers of perception, or something else entirely—then just as visibly he changed his mind. "Your own Sight grows sharper these days—what do you See in this?"
Before I could think I had spoken. "That Ygrawn fears I might be discovered, or else that the Marbh-draoi already knows that I am here." The words shocked me, for I had not thought any such thing with my conscious mind, but Ailithir only nodded, as if that were what he had thought himself, and my saying it but confirmed his thinking.
He said no word on it, though, and I began to consider the implications of what I had just pronounced. What if Edeyrn did indeed know that Daars had sheltered the last of Gwaelod? There were other survivors of the wave in Daars this very hour; I was by no means the only waif that Gorlas had taken into sanctuary. Would Edeyrn in his vengeance bring upon the Caer-in-Arvon the same death that he had sent upon Tair Rhamant?
It seems strange to say it now, but for myself I had no fears whatsoever. Perhaps my Sight saw dimly even then the glow of that unimaginable future, already blazing below time's horizon like a yet unrisen sun; perhaps I had simply not the traha to think that the Marbh-draoi would destroy Daars on the odd chance that Gwyddno's son might perish in the ruins. It might have been better for us all had I thought so…
Ailithir had fixed me
with his eye, as if he knew my thought—as very likely he did. "What must be shall be; but let not your love for Gorlas, or for Arthur, keep you from Seeing when seeing most is needed… even if that Seeing be a thing you would rather not have seen."
"I would never do so," I said, a little hurt that he should think I needed such a cautioning.
He saw the sudden stiffness in my manner, laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. "I know, bach; but Sight may be our saving. These days, none of us can afford to blink."
For all my resolution to keep this new care out of my face, something plainly yelled itself aloud to Arthur, for I caught him observing me during the nightmeal, a quizzical gleam in his brown eyes; more than once I felt the touch of his mind on mine, as his loving concern tried to sound my defenses. But I was as skilled by now as he in such matters, so that my will garrisoned the walls of my mind against him, and after a while he withdrew the touch.
I was relieved that he did so, for I knew well that his inborn good manners would forbid him to inquire outright. Having been put off, however gently, Arthur would not attempt my mind again, and so Ygrawn's confidence was safe—at least for some while longer. But I had reckoned without my fostern's persistence, that to the end of his days was never to let him leave a thing unresolved or a question unanswered; which was Keltia's great gain, and in the end her greatest loss…
It had become our custom to pass the hours between nightmeal and sleeptime in our grianan—what had once been known as the nursery and was still on occasion of our forgetting our new dignity referred to as such—in study or relaxation or plain bone-idleness, according to our mood. Sometimes we talked, but mostly this time was our quiet time, which I preferred to spend with book or harp, and which Arthur most often used these days to make something.
A little in envy, I think, of my bent for words and music, he had sought for something creative of his own, and found it too, in a great and genuine gift for artificing. It did not seem to matter much what he put his hand to, the skill served him well for all: painting or carving or the crafting of things of beauty—jewels, daggers, one time a tiny gold falair with ruby eyes, as gift for his mother. Arthur used his talent to escape into himself from the demands of the day; my talent was no escape but only another demand, and in the end it took me out of myself altogether. Yet each of us created truly in his own way.
Tonight, though, there was no making of any sort. Foremost for us were the staggering tidings announced by Gorlas at the nightmeal: Leowyn King of Kelts, rightful ruler of the Six Nations, prince of the House of Don, was dead. The bright Sun Lord had perished without point, in a dreary nighttime roadside brawl, casually killed by drunken Ravens who did not know whom they had slain.
Well, no doubt they knew now, and much to their regretting: Edeyrn could not have been pleased that Leowyn Pendreic should die at any man's hand save his, and the Ravens had paid for their offhand murder. It was some small consolation to those loyal to the true Ard-righ that his slayers were now themselves slain, and neither swiftly nor pleasantly. But for the most part, Leowyn's death, without meaning and without hope, came but as one more grief to a folk already near foundered with despair.
It did not occur to any of us at Daars—not even Ailithir—to wonder at the timing of the day's two events. Edeyrn had long since closed his fist upon any widespread transmission of news in Keltia—save what he wished us to hear—and Leowyn might have been a year dead, or an hour, and we would know it not if the Marbh-draoi wished us not to know it. So we had of force developed an informal net of whispers—true ones—that stretched from planet to planet. It was this word-web that Tegau had touched, to bring warning to Ygrawn; and later it had carried word of the King's murder.
But Tegau's warning and Leowyn's slaying were unrelated in our minds at that hour, and stayed so for long after—to our very great sorrow. Perhaps if we had thought to link the two—But we did not, and the mistake was to cost much for many folk.
Now, though, we sat in our grianan, as people were doing all across Keltia, and thought on this Ard-righ we had never known.
Arthur stirred where he sat brooding before the fire. "Still," he said, "though the King be slain, there is yet a King of Kelts."
He looked as doubtful at that as I did feel: The dead King's successor was his brother Uthyr, about whom little was known, save that he had a name for gentleness and rare scholar's gifts, and was thought to abhor battle; not perhaps the likeliest of rulers in such a time.
"We would have a High Queen instead," I said in answer, "were she not too young in years to claim her rights."
Arthur's whole being seemed to spark at that, and had I been Ailithir in that moment, or even Ygrawn, I might have seen that spark for the fire-seed it truly was. But I was only a lad myself, as oddly intrigued as my fostern at the thought of a princess no more than a year or so younger than were we.
"Gweniver," said Arthur, and I wonder now that the very night outside did not shiver at the saying. "She is Uthyr's heir-apparent, by her right from Leowyn her father. Do you know, Talyn, she shall be Ard-rian even in despite of any children Uthyr may come to have of his own; such is our succession law."
I knew it as well as did he, Elphin had drilled it deep enough. But it is law from our most ancient days in Keltia, and Earth before that, and maybe even from somewhere else before Earth, if the old tales are true, and there is no reason to think they are not: Should a monarch die, that monarch's successor is the next nearest in blood who is of age to rule; a son or daughter, of course, if one or the other should be to hand; a brother or sister, aunt or uncle, niece or nephew or cousin if not. Few Kelts, and no royalty, lack at least one or two of these.
As King Leowyn's only child, therefore, Gweniver had been Tanista since her birth. Had Leowyn died before becoming King, Uthyr would have succeeded Darowen their mother; but in any case Gweniver would have been heir. Now Uthyr was King because of his niece's lack of years—our law also provides that none may wear the Copper Crown, or claim it, who has not reached thirty-three years of age. So Uthyr was King in exile, but it would be Queen Gweniver to follow him, and no heir of his body.
"They say Uthyr would sooner be a Druid scholar-monk—if any such still were—than hold his place as King," I said after a while. "For all that, Arthur, you and I or the sheepkeeper could be cried as sovereign tonight and it would make the same differ—which is to say no differ at all. If there is any king in Keltia it is Edeyrn, and it has always been Edeyrn, and it will most like always be Edeyrn. Uthyr and Gweniver are maybe themselves as dead as Leowyn, and there will come no savior for Keltia out of the House of Don."
Arthur shook his head impatiently and rolled over to stare into the flames. "They live—where, I cannot say; but I am sure they live. As for Edeyrn, no tyrant yet has lasted, in Keltia or beyond. And if we speak of saviors, did not Athyn herself prove that saviors may come of humble houses as well as mighty ones?"
I smiled and said nothing, knowing his secret dreams. Athyn Anfa, that indomitable one who had risen from simple Erinnach horsegirl to Queen of Kelts, Ard-rian by acclamation, was one of Arthur's great heroes; ever in his mind was the hope that as she had once done, so too might he one day do. Athyn's modest origins were comfort and goad alike to him: Although never a glozer or worshipper of rank for rank's sake—what I have since heard outworlders call a snob—Arthur sometimes lamented a little, I think, that his house was not a grander one.
Not, I hasten to add, for any vain pride of name or mere self-glory—Kelts are among the most democratic peoples in the galaxy; we are more impressed with persons than with pedigrees, and for all our reverence for our rulers, in the end it is the aristocracy of soul that matters most with us; and all his life to Arthur it mattered more even than that—but simply because Arthur could not conceive of such deeds as he felt it in him to do being done by one who was no heir to kingdoms but only to a minor duchas on a minor world. Like Arthur, Gwynedd was as yet but poor in power; at the time of which I am telling, the great worl
ds of Keltia were Erinna, Kernow, and, then as ever, Tara herself; and in Gwynedd, Arvon was the beggarly cousin of fat and important provinces like Berwyn and Sarre.
So I looked at my fostern's face in the firelight, that face I have never ceased to love: thin, eager, fine-featured, the chestnut hair a tangled curling thatch to his shoulders, the clear dark eyes shining with possibility. Looked at him, and thought again of Athyn…
But however removed she might have been from the direct succession, Athyn Cahanagh had at least been of the righ-domhna. To the best of my then knowing, Arthur's claim to any such lineage was a poor and stretched one—though every Kelt alive, or dead for that matter, can boast royal, even divine, blood, if one goes back far enough. Ygrawn of course was of high descent, but of ducal rank, not royal or even princely, and in any case not of the House of Don. Gorlas, surprisingly, did have some link to that all but vanished kindred, but by no herald's tricks of tracing could his claim be seen as a close one, and there must have been many hundreds in Keltia at that time who stood nearer the Copper Crown than did the blood of Daars; if not near enough for Edeyrn to think to slay.
Nay, for the folk only the true blood of the Doniaid would suffice; and that, now, meant two persons only: Uthyr and Gweniver, wherever they might be hiding, and if they yet lived. It seemed to me a hope vanishingly small, either way, and the Crown restored the most vanished hope of all, and I listened with only half an ear to Arthur muttering over the names of the Pendreic rulers-in-exile, like some failed or forgotten rann: Alawn, Seirith, Elgan, Darowen, Leowyn, Uthyr; and Gweniver that would be.
The Hawk's Gray Feather Page 6