"We are summoned to audience," she added from the doorway, "and we must not be tardy in our coming."
"Audience?" Arthur, who had been silent all this while, now looked up with interest. "Who gives us audience in such a place?"
But Ygrawn only smiled, and lengthened her step, so that we had fairly to trot to keep pace behind her.
We walked clear round the gallery onto which Ygrawn's rooms opened, and through yet another set of doors into yet another living-cavern. I would later learn that there were near a hundred of such caves all told, most lying deep beneath the great peak Sulven, but others stretching away under the mountains to the east and south—living-caves and storage-caves and caves for every purpose imaginable. Coldgates gave shelter in all to more than a thousandscore folk, and it was by no means the only shieling, or even the largest; the Counterinsurgency had learned from bitter lessons to build well and far-flung and strong, to protect its people that were its future.
Now our destination was plain even to Arthur and me. Across the floor of the new cavern, two warriors stood guard either side of double doors made of findruinna and gold. As we drew nearer, I saw that one of the guards was my sister Tegau, and I began to greet her with delight. But my smile died half-born, for she looked straight and stern before her, a glance cold as the bare sword she bore, and never looked at me at all; and I realized that she was a guard, and that therefore within the chamber beyond the golden doors must be something—or someone—worthy of such guarding.
I had no more time to ponder this, for in crisp unison Tegau and her fellow pulled back the doors for us to enter. My eyes adjusted sharply to the light within—dimmer than any light I had yet encountered in any room of the shieling, indeed all other rooms and caves seemed more than usually well-litten—and when I stopped blinking I jibbed a little in surprise as I saw what charge my sister guarded.
On the other side of the chamber—as its light was lower, so the chamber's size was larger than any other I had yet been in—a man sat in a plain high-backed chair on dark green cushions. He was perhaps ten or twenty years Gorlas's senior, no more, and perhaps not even that; as I approached him I could see that he was aged more with cares than with years.
He was not overly tall, had not the build of a warrior, nor did he possess fairness of feature beyond the common run.
Yet despite this there was about him something that made all else unimportant and vain; and as this grew plainer to me with each instant I stared, until in the end it seemed to shout to shake the mountain above us, without one word spoken by any in that silent room I bowed my head, and placed fist to heart, and made the bent-knee reverence to royalty that I had never before made in my life, nor had ever hoped or dreamed to make.
Ailithir's voice rang now rich and deep through the silence; in it I heard his pleased approval of me, and something I had never before heard from him: I heard deference, and it was not to me that he deferred.
"So see the eye and heart of a true bard, they will pierce all disguise and concealments… I present now the Lady Ygrawn Tregaron, daughter of Bregon Duke of Kernow, latterly Lady of Daars; Arthur Penarvon, Lord of Daars, son of Lady Ygrawn and the Lord Gorlas ap Kynvelyn; and the Lord Taliesin Glyndour ap Gwyddno, youngest of Gwaelod and brother to the Lady Tegau Goldbreast."
Never in all my fourteen years had I heard myself announced so: It was a formal presentation to a royal presence; and slanting my glance sidewise, past Ygrawn who had made a curtsy that was a graceful subsidence to the very floor, I saw where Arthur had followed my lead and made the same bent knee as I. And though I saw too that he had not the slightest idea why I had done so, I knew my instinct had not failed me, and that I had been correct in both my reverence and my first assessment. It was a bard's judgment I had made, and I had judged aright.
"Rise, dear friends." The voice was gentle, clear, cultivated yet strong; the voice of a scholar or diplomatist or brehon, and the voice of no weakling. No more than that did it say, and we rose from our reverences.
Then Ailithir spoke again, and now he spoke straight to the man in the high seat, and he spoke the words I had known he would speak.
"Gods save Uthyr, King of Kelts."
* * *
Chapter Ten
I felt rather than heard Arthur's indrawn breath of astonishment; it carried not only shock that he had not known, but chagrin that he should have known, and as Uthyr Pendreic pushed himself stiffly up from his high seat, to descend the single step to where Ygrawn still stood with bowed head and to take both her hands in his, Ygrawn's son gazed upon his King with eyes that seemed to drink his presence.
My own eyes were busy with another sight entirely: The room's dimness was thickest in the corners of the dais, and as I had straightened from my reverence I had gradually become aware that someone else had been there all along, in the shadows behind Uthyr's chair.
A girl stood there, watching Arthur as steadily and openly as Arthur was watching Uthyr. Tall she was, with a grace of carriage and a straight-shouldered posture that not even Ygrawn could match. Her hair was black, not Ygrawn's blue-black nor even the usual Kymric brown-black but a true ebony; it stood out from the ivory skin like a stormcloud round a snow-peak. Her eyes were gray with gold flecks, black-lashed, with straight brows drawn out like wings above them, and her mouth was full and firm and clearly cut, near as pale as her skin.
So it was that I looked for the first time on Gweniver, and thought her fair and brave, with a kind of defiant pride that masked a desperate shyness. But Arthur too was looking at her now as she stepped down from the dais, and with a tremor of foreboding I saw that he saw only the arrogance.
But he had plainly also seen who she must be, for after the smallest of hesitations on both their parts he was bowing to kiss the hand she held out to him, and after the briefest of murmured courtesies he stood back for her to pass.
When she moved from him to me, I saluted her as he had done, proud that I was not too ill-turned-out that day to greet a princess. If my garb was perhaps less elegant than it might have been, it was certainly several cuts above my usual attire, and I was thankful for my afterthought decision to wear some of the few jewels I owned: the two rings my mother had left me, a gold tore set with seastones that had been a gift from Gorlas, a small pendant pearl in my left ear, such as Fian warriors wore of old. It was chance and vanity that had clad me even that impressively—my gear was not yet unpacked, and these things, the most precious and costly I had, had all been carried by hand in the one bundle I had refused to part with—but still I was proud.
Gweniver seemed to have read the thought, for she smiled—not unkindly, but tentatively, the diffidence in her bearing not what I had thought to find in a Tanista of Keltia. Now that she stood close to me, I could see more than surface beauty in her face. The set of the mouth told of strength of character, and humor, and implacability; and there was a lancepoint intelligence in the gray eyes, keen enough and sharp enough to make me resolve then and there never to allow myself to be its target.
As she had done with Arthur, Gweniver addressed herself briefly (and bravely, for the shyness was still uppermost) to me—I have not the least recollection of what she said, or what I answered—then she moved away with a half-curtsy as her uncle the King approached.
Uthyr had all this while been talking with Ygrawn and Ailithir, and none present—ourselves least of all—expected him to spare time and attention for a pair of greenstruck lads.
But that was not Uthyr's way, as we were to find, and now he stood before us, his assessing glance tempered by a smile warmer and more practiced far than his niece's. He spoke first to me, which surprised not me alone.
"The Lady Ygrawn tells me you are training for a bard, young Glyndour," he said, in a light pleasant tenor voice. "We have ever a need for all the bards we can come by; I know you will make us a good one."
I bowed before replying. "I thank you, Lord, for your confidence; gods willing it shall not be misplaced."
"Ne
ver that… I knew your father well in our youth, and your mother also, and I grieved to hear of their passing. I know the rest of your family even better, for they have been here often in service of the Counterinsurgency, and they serve it most well and bravely. Glad are we all to have you too safe here at last." He clapped hand to my shoulder, and through the long slim fingers I felt the strength of him; not a physical toughness—though his very survival showed he did not lack there either—but a strength of the inner self, a core and soul spun tough and fine as findruinna wire.
But he had turned his attention now to Arthur, and for no reason that I could put in words, either then or later, it came to me that Uthyr had deliberately saved this encounter for last. Yet his words when he spoke were unexceptional, and I wondered if I had been mistaken; a moment later I knew I had not been.
"Welcome, Lord of Daars," said the King, and Arthur snapped at once to respectful attention, fist to breast as Scathach had been at pains to teach us both. "A Fian to be, as your fostern will be bard… but no ceremony, amhic. I knew your father too."
And then came the most extraordinary moment of all that extraordinary meeting: Uthyr as he spoke had been searching Arthur's face with something that to me at least looked very like a hungry eagerness, and then it struck me that he had said no word of Gorlas by name. Before I could puzzle on this further, the King had lifted his arms and drawn Arthur to him in a paternal embrace.
As he did so, my eyes flew from Arthur, his face showing only carefully controlled surprise, to learn the reaction of two others in that room. Over her son's shoulder, Ygrawn was watching Uthyr, and I had not a hope of reading the thought behind her face. Her look was one of perfect composure, seemingly compounded of many other things: frankness and satisfaction and challenge, and strangest of all a smile. And Uthyr was looking back at her; still on his countenance was the eagerness of before, but now there was a different shade to it, as if some most desperate question he had not dared to ask had been answered, and answered beyond his hopes.
Yet Uthyr's was not the other face I sought… Turning my head, I found the one I looked for: Gweniver, standing by the throne and watching her uncle, tall and motionless as a young birch in that breathless quiet that comes before the blast. But though there was stillness upon her body, there was none in her face; it was alive with reflecting of the storm within. Curiosity I saw, as fierce and focused as a laser; and uncertainty, and astonishment, and jealousy, and protectiveness; and to me as I watched these play across her face the sum of them was fear.
Then she drew her glance away from her uncle and brought it up to cross my own, so hard and quick and challenging that almost I thought to hear the chime of steel on steel. I was unprepared to face that blade, and so I bowed instead, and with a nod she swung her gaze from me and leveled it at Arthur.
He did not even feel its touch. Through all this, I think, he had been aware of none save Uthyr; after the unexpected salute he and the King had made a few exchanges of converse, commonplace enough to us who were eavesdropping shamelessly, and no more than that. But now Uthyr was giving that particular inclination of the head that royalty uses to signify 'you may withdraw.' We bowed again all of us, and did so; and as the doors began to close behind us the last glimpse I caught of those within was Gweniver assisting her uncle back to his chair.
Yet not quite the last: Through the narrowing crack of light, just before the doors swung to, I felt the swift touch of a pair of glances. One was Uthyr's, and even I could sense the yearning in it; the other was Gweniver's, and even Arthur, I think, could sense the threat.
No need to say how I was bursting with questions; but one look at Ygrawn told me there would be no answers for me in that quarter. Ailithir, then? I craned to look beyond Ygrawn's cold profile to see if questions would fall upon any kindlier earth there; but he seemed preoccupied with his own thought, and did not respond to my hopeful inquiring glance.
Well, if there were to be no answers just yet, perhaps somewhat could be learned by more questions—but not here. I caught Arthur's eye, jerked my head in the direction of our rooms, then listened as he made our excuses to Ygrawn. He need scarce have bothered, for she seemed as distracted as Ailithir in the audience's aftermath, so not half a minute later we were hastening back to the cavern where our day had begun—it seemed to me days since.
I was surprised to see by the chronodials in my chamber that I had been awake a bare three hours; those hours had been wearying enough for a full day. Closing the door behind us, I leaned back against its comforting steel thickness, and blew out my breath in a long, heartfelt sigh. Only then did I look at my companion.
He was sitting before the quartz-hearth—open fires were of course not possible, here in the mountain's depths—staring at some point upon the stone floor just past his boot-tips, as if it were showing him prodigies in the plain rock. Had I known him less well, I should not have seen the cloud that was on him; knowing him better, I should have known well enough not to ask…
"So that then is the King of Kelts! What did you think, braud? Of all us present, he greeted you the most fair."
Arthur stirred where he sat, mechanically reaching out a foot to scrummage Luath's underbelly, which the hound had presented in hopes of such attention.
"I did not think ever to come before him," he said simply. "Least and last of all here in this place—"
"Well, if naught else, it proves that Coldgates is safe. They would scarce have hidden the King here else, nor his heir with him, if it were not so."
At mention of Gweniver Arthur seemed suddenly to come to life, though it was by no means admiration that sparked him, and withdrew his foot; Luath looked up indignantly, then flumped down before the hearth and went promptly to sleep.
"Oh aye, her… Did you see, Talyn, when he greeted me with the annerch"—the word meant the formal embrace exchanged between lord and liege—"how darkly she looked upon us? It was not for me, that salute, but for my father; and yet still she grudged it me." He shook his head, and I closed my lips on what I had been at point of speaking: Uthyr's strangeness of manner, and his omission of Gorlas's name. "Tanista she is, Talyn," he continued, "and as such I shall honor her. But on my soul there shall never be more between us than that."
Well, oaths have been broken ere now, and will be again after… But this was the first time since our flight from Daars that Arthur had spoken of his father, and I reached out gently with mind and heart to coax the moment along, for I thought it good that he should come openly to terms at last with his grief.
"He went most well, braud—Gorlas-maeth. It was his choice to do as he did, and by so doing he saved our freedom."
Only the corners of his mouth moved, and that but briefly; the rest of his body—and being—was better controlled. "Aye, he did so; and true it is that he did choose; even in the end Edeyrn could not command him. That, surely, is something."
"Much." I leaned forward to look more closely at him, for I had heard something—or to be more correct, had not heard something—that gave me pause. "What then? You must speak of it to someone, soon or late; can you, will you, not tell me?"
The tone was a triumph for me: I had put into the final question all the bardic tricks at my poor command—the low undemanding pitch, the gentle unheard persuaders, the coaxing that was almost a purring seduction—all only to get him to speak.
Whether he responded to my still fledgling bardcraft or his own overwhelming need must remain forever unknown; but Arthur turned to me with all his unhappy soul bare upon his face, and spoke to me from the depths of his pain.
"Then why can I not weep for him? I have tried, Talyn. I have no tears for my father."
Whatever I had been expecting to hear, surely it was never this. It did not even seem a thing I could hope to comfort; but all my love and all my instincts told me I must try.
"It is early days yet, Artos"—the childhood name came naturally to my lips—"Sorrow is not a thing can be commanded."
"I say I cannot
weep!" The violence of the cry shook the room; Luath's head came sharply up, keen hound's eyes seeking enemies. "Gods but have I not wished to? My eyes have burned with wanting tears to come to them. But I cannot, Talyn, and I do not know why. You had tears for him, there in the ship," he went on more calmly. "Elphin, Berain, Scathach even—but not I."
"Tears are not always the first answer, especially for those whose loss is the greatest." I did not know how to speak to this, could only reach back into memory for griefs long healed… "When I lost my own father, when I lost all Gwaelod—I could not grieve for him, or them, straightway. It took time to make it real, and at first it was simply too vast a thing, my mind blanked it out so that I might stay sane until I could deal with it—"
Arthur gave a short laugh. "Would I might go mad for it; even that would be far to the fore of this—this unfeeling. Almost it is as if—as if my father had not died."
The words were like a whip across my face. I think now that I knew in that instant the whole truth of it; it needed only another word or two, another link of logic, another—But no more came, and it slipped by me, and a different thought came instead.
"Do you speak to your mother, then. She will tell you, as it seems that I cannot, that you will grieve for Gorlas in your own time, and no less deeply or less lovingly for the lateness of it. Besides, she too has griefs might be made easier for the sharing with her son."
He looked at me, all his defenses down, and I could see the terrible conflict that was being fought behind his eyes—saw too the mastery he was bringing to bear on it.
"Aye, then," he said, and in his voice was only weariness. "I will speak to my mother." The voice hardened. "But not, I think, just yet."
Oh aye, he spoke to her in the end; he could not have held off from it very much longer and still have kept his reason. But he managed to hold off for a good few weeks; I had need to speak to someone, too, and I did not hold off anywhere near so long… As soon as Arthur had left the room with Luath, I went to find my sister Tegau.
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