I began, slowly and laboriously, to untangle it in my mind. Had Amris and Ygrawn chosen to wed, they might have contracted for a night or a month or a year or for life; so long as the term was clearly stated, the contract witnessed, the thing was lawful. Even though they had chosen instead the ceile-charach union, Arthur was still heir by law to his father's name and rank and estate as well as to his mother's. He was sole and chief heir only for that Amris had fathered no others, and so his right in the royal succession could not be denied; but if Amris Pendreic had had ten wives and had had ten children by each of them, still would Arthur have held place among them as the firstborn of his father.
So. Knowing all this, then, Uthyr was not likely to attempt to have his new-found nephew set aside; remembering how the King had looked upon him, embracing him for all to see, I concluded it was most unlikely Uthyr would even wish to try. Which meant—
But I was not ready to face that fence just yet. All in all, a thorny matter, the more so since it concerned a throne—even a fallen throne. Whatever the outcome, no shame attached to any of the principals in this, and my fostern would be feeling none now, only… Arthur knew himself now to be royal, to have that highest blood he had always yearned after; and not just royal of the righ-domhna, one of many kinsmen in vague orbit round the throne, but heir of line to the Copper Crown itself. And what in the name of all gods did he think now to know it?
And Ygrawn… I almost groaned aloud, for in my boggled daze at Arthur's revelation I had forgotten entirely that the revelation had been in fact hers. Ah methryn, dearest mathra-chairda, what a secret for you to have kept all that time—Knowing that any breach of that secrecy would mean her son's death, and very like hers as well, she had kept it—and them—safely hidden, but only by means of a lie. And knowing Ygrawn as I did, I knew that for her that part had rankled the deepest.
A plain lesson in necessity, as Tegau would say who had been teaching it me. Edeyrn and his creatures would have been relentless in their hunt for Amris Pendreic's heir and lady. He would have seen in them what I had already seen: a new hope for the resistance, a banner to rally the Counterinsurgency, blood of the House of Don to secure the Throne of Scone.
My thought turned then to Gorlas, and the love and admiration I had ever felt for him grew tenfold. He had known all, had sought to protect his wife and her son by making Arthur the heir he himself could never have. By so doing he had earned his own measure of glory; he had done a thing for Keltia that would live forever, and he with it. He had dared greatly, and had succeeded beyond all imagining: Never in all my years at Daars had I heard a breath of intimation that Arthur Penarvon was anything but Gorlas's own child.
It seemed that Arthur had been following my track of thought. "I could not weep when my—when Gorlas—when my father died," he said, voice firm and clear on the title he would ever give Gorlas in his heart. "I did him, and myself, no honor thereby—though now at least I know whyfor. But neither can I rejoice in that knowing: It seems my father died long since, Talyn; before ever yours did. And there is more—"
I closed my eyes. "Artos, I do not think I can stand any more."
"You must," he said evenly. "For it concerns you as well as me—I have said that I was two years old before I became by law the son of Gorlas. For those two years it was Ailithir who stood as father to me, and protector to my mother. She had been turned out by her own kindred, and denied by Darowen—though, to his everlasting honor, Uthyr helped her as much as he might—and after Amris was gone she was alone, with few resources of her own and an infant son to tend."
In spite of myself, I laughed. " 'Few resources' if they be Ygrawn's outmeasure a planet's resources for anyone else."
Arthur's old charming grin flashed then, and my heart soared to see it. "Oh aye, she managed well enough, as they both tell it—I forgot to mention that Ailithir came to confirm this, once my mother had finished her tale."
"And he did so?"
"He did, and told me more beside… Any road"—he resumed the telling much as a bard might have done—"I was two years of age when my mother wed Gorlas—who knew all the truth from the first, by the way—and took me to live at Daars as his son and heir.''
I had been calculating under my breath, tallying dates and years, and now I sat up in surprise. "And it was then, once you were safe hid at Daars—" Arthur nodded. "It was then that Ailithir came to you at Tair Rhamant. It seems that he has been a prime mover of all this coil, to what end I know not—and he will not say—and just now I think I never wish to know."
Yet even as he claimed not to wish the knowledge, both he and I knew well that he did wish it, if perhaps not yet awhile; but as for me—
"If I leave you for a little, braud? You will be well enough alone?"
The laugh this time was gentle and weary and sad, as if all the white fire of emotion had been reduced to grieshoch by the fierce passions of the hour past.
"I will be well enough… You would speak with our mother, then? That is kindly thought of; she will be needing comforting just now. Go to her, and I will be here when you return."
I hesitated, then went to the door. As I coded the touchplate so that none else might enter until I did return, I sensed the exhausted peace that clung round him and was glad. A poor substitute for his usual cheer, but by the Mother it would do for now… I looked up at a sudden movement from his direction, and for the first time in all this hour tears came burning to my eyes.
The movement had been Arthur burying his face in his hands and bowing his head to his knees, and I quickly shut the door behind me lest I should see any more.
* * *
Chapter Twelve
For all my words to Arthur, strangely enough it was not Ygrawn to whom my steps first led me, but Ailithir.
Plainly, by some magical means or other, he had been expecting me, for he was in his chair by the window when I entered the chamber. By some other equally plain magic—as tribute to his rank as Druid, or perhaps simply as tribute to his powers of persuasion—Ailithir had acquired for himself one of the very few windowed chambers in all Coldgates. A tiny window, true, deep-silled and field-shielded and tucked well back beneath an overhanging brow of solid rock, but a window all the same, that looked down over the snowy sides of Sulven. He sat in his chair, outlined by the diffuse blue of the reflected snowlight, and he did not look at all surprised to see me. Then he lifted a hand, and I came obediently forward.
On my way here I had resolved that I should not speak first, that it was I who was owed the explanation: I was feeling vaguely insulted, and I was very angry indeed on Arthur's behalf, and I had also a half-formed sense of having been somehow managed—chivied and channeled into some predetermined course, all for some great purpose not my own. So I stood on the other side of the window-nook from my teacher, and did not take the indicated chair but only stood and glowered.
"Sit, Taliesin," said Ailithir at length, his voice mild as but seldom I had heard it. "We have much to discuss, and you will be more comfortable in a chair than not," he added, and with a sulky flump I obeyed.
But no sooner had my rump touched the cushion than I flung myself forward, all my questions battling to be first upon my lips, all my angry pain plain upon my face. Again Ailithir lifted his hand, and my questions quieted, and even the pain eased away into a kind of half-pleasurable sadness.
"It is true," said Ailithir calmly. "My greatest sorrow is that he could not have been told before. But we dared not tell him, not before we had him safe at Coldgates, nor before his uncle had seen him and approved. Not wise, that he should have been told sooner."
"You might have given some—"
"You think so? Listen, then: My charge in this, sole and sacred and laid upon me by my masters, was to save his life; and that I have done. Everything that his mother did, she did according to my counsel and her own judgment. Would you then blame her? Or Gorlas? If your wrath needs to fix blame on someone, Taliesin, I am very much at your service to accept it."
/> At that my anger left me, and I shook my head. "Nay… But from what I have heard, perhaps I should rather be blaming Amris Pendreic. His late Highness cuts not so brave a figure in all this: To leave his ban-charach and their baby not yet a half-year old—"e
"—to go on an errand of danger and darkness, in the service of the Counterinsurgency, and to die thereon. Is it for such that you would blame him? Amris was a brave and bonny lord; I looked on him almost as my own son, and surely Ygrawn would not have loved him had he been any less worthy than he was. But since you are longing so to hand blame around, perhaps you would blame Darowen Ard-rian?"
All my rage came rushing back. "I might!" I snapped. "And now I think of it, I do; and I blame Bregon Duke of Kernow right along with her."
Ailithir said nothing, did not even look at me; only waited in patience—a half-understanding, half-disappointed kind of patience—for my anger to cool once again. Presently he rose and went to the window, leaning against the stone sill and staring down over the bone-white valley below.
"I know it must seem to you and to Arthur that your lives have been intolerably meddled with," he said after a while. "And you hold me to be the chiefest meddler… And in many ways you are right: I contrived to leave Ygrawn and Arthur in safety in Daars, and then having managed that to my satisfaction I went on to Tair Rhamant to begin managing your life… That is what you think, and I say freely that that is how it must now be looking to me, were I in your boots. Yet I say also that I had a charge as well where you were concerned, to save you; but I could not save your father and Gwaelod any more than I could have saved Gorlas and Daars. All I can offer you by way of reason or motive is that it has been Seen, by those whose Sight in such matters is the longest and most to be trusted. You have been saved for a purpose: Arthur, you, Uthyr, Ygrawn, Gweniver, all of us here in the shieling even—all part of a vast and varied plan; and the plan is not mine, nor yet my masters'."
I glanced up, but his back was still turned to me. "That is the second time you have made mention of your 'masters'. I did not know you had any."
At that Ailithir gave a bark of laughter and spun on his heel to face me. "Meaning, I suppose, that I have not seemed to behave as anyone's humble and obedient servant… Well, that may be, but I have masters all the same; though by another reckoning it could be said that I am one of those masters myself.'' He pushed his heavy chair a little closer to mine, and before seating himself again he faced the door and murmured somewhat under his breath. Instantly a sparkling wall sprang up, a barrier of dancing light between us and the rest of the room, and he looked at me unapologetically.
"A precaution only, against listening ears or uninvited guests—for what I shall tell you now is for you alone to hear."
"Then I may not tell Arthur, even?"
"I will myself tell him, when the time is right for telling; he has greater things to think on just now…" Ailithir put the tips of his long thin fingers together, tapped them several times thoughtfully, as if he were weighing between them the right words to frame that which he would impart.
"You have known for some years now that I am Druid," he said at last. "What you have not known is just what kind of Druid I am… I spoke of masters: These masters are called the Pheryllt, and I am of high rank among them—nay, not the highest! That burden falls upon another…" A smile had lighted his face like sudden sun on snow, but now it passed, and it was winter again in his eyes, and I wondered briefly who that other might be.
"We are the most secret of Druids," he went on. "Teachers for the most part, whose duty and joy it is to raise up certain of our Brothers to be masters themselves. But sometimes it falls to us in very special case to take on pupils from an early age, and school them from the first in the way that they must go—gifted pupils, blessed with talents seen perhaps once in a hundred years. Two such are you and Arthur, and I was the one given the charge over you, for this great reason of dan I just now spoke of.''
I accepted this in silence, only hitched my chair closer still; he saw, and smiled.
"We of the Pheryllt are not teachers only, Taliesin; also we are custodians of the highest and holiest truths of Druidry, come down to us from the sainted Brendan himself—such things as are known to few even among Druids. And I say now, son of Gwyddno, that in time these things will be not unknown to you."
I had been hanging upon his words and mien and countenance—my eyes must have been by then as round and bright and spinning as two tiny moons—and in my wonder I questioned him as simply and openly as a child. "Who are you, athro?"
And Ailithir—for the last time now 'Ailithir' in my life and in these pages—put by his grand and weighty words, turning upon me a smile of beauty and loving sweetness, and answered me as gently and softly as a father.
"I am your teacher, Taliesin, and my name is Merlynn Llwyd."
In the hush that followed his words, as if with the speaking of them all thought and movement in the chamber were suspended by force, one thought alone was left to me, reverberant in the stillness: This day must from all time have been destined to be a day of revelations. For first my fostern had been revealed to be a prince of Keltia, and now had my tutor been revealed to be a Druid of Druids. Even I had heard rumor of Merlynn Llwyd—rumor that would be better described as legend and fable; had heard those tales as of some mighty hero of the past by chance living in our time, such a lord of magic as I in my humble estate might never hope to know. For the tales said many things, and most perhaps were myth, but on one thing all tales agreed: Merlynn Llwyd was the Marbh-draoi's chiefest adversary, all but his equal—and perhaps even that—in sorcery and strength.
And now, as I had earlier with Arthur, I wondered only that I had not known all along: In the strong clear light of retrospect both truths seemed so plain that the blindest talpa in earth might have read them. It seemed that for years I had had a prince for my brother and a wizard-lord for my teacher, and I had lacked the sense and sight to discern either one.
"Nay, Taliesin, that is one thing you must never think." So sunk was I in my self-pitying gloom that I had forgotten Merlynn still seated not three feet away. Merlynn … I tried the name out silently, and it fitted well—both the man there present and the image of him in my mind; but it comforted me that his look was still that of Ailithir who was no more.
"Do not blame yourself for not seeing; there was greater magic at work to veil both truths from you, and from all the worlds beside, than you shall ever know. Nay," he said then, catching himself up sharp, as a rider will snatch at the reins to steady a horse that has stumbled, "there shall come one to command greater magics still, and you shall know her well, for she too is part of the pattern; indeed, you and she together shall weave much of it ere the end."
His eyes had taken on a look of distance as he spoke; with a shiver I knew that what he was Seeing was not in this room to be seen. But now he came back into his eyes, and smiled, and I knew that whatever or whoever else he might be, though the name so long familiar be never said again, to me he would be, still and always, Ailithir.
I was about to say as much when the door opened behind us: Ygrawn stood there, beyond the sparkling veil of power that was still thrown up like a curtain-wall across the room. She was grave of face, but her head was high and her eyes steady as she glanced from me to Merlynn and back again. Then she smiled, and I could not keep back my gasp of surprise as she lifted her hand, fingers close and stiff as a blade-edge, and cleaved a pathway through the magic barrier as if it had not been there.
"And that, Talyn," she said, still with a smile, "is the last surprise for you this day; I so promise!"
Merlynn's deep voice cut an explanation across my bemusement. "The Lady Ygrawn, Taliesin, is long time a Domina of the order of the Ban-draoi."
Had he said she was in truth not my foster-mother at all but the Queen of the Sidhe, I would have been no more surprised; it seemed I had lost all capacity to feel astonishment, and cared not a jot that it should be so. So although
I had fully intended to be as angry with Ygrawn as I had earlier been with Merlynn, instead I found myself on my feet making her the reverence due to a high priestess of the Mother; and she for her part returned my salute as solemnly.
I was only vaguely aware of Merlynn—strange how swiftly that name had replaced the other in my mind and heart; I had heard the one since I had been a five-year-old at Tair Rhamant, had known the other for but the past quarter-hour, yet already it was as if Ailithir had never been and Merlynn had been always—leaving us alone together, striding through the veil and sealing it behind him as he left the room.
Not knowing how to begin, for my heart was very full and my brain most muddled, I stared piteously into Ygrawn's violet eyes, and, as she had ever done when I had had need of comforting, she took both my hands in hers.
"Do you hate me then, Talynno?" she asked quietly. "I would well understand if you did so."
I could only shake my head. "Not that ever; but—ah, methryn, how could you bear it, all those years…"
Ygrawn smiled at that, but the smile was that one which makes light of past pain, dismissing it as a thing of no importance; and I saw well by that very dismissal how important, and how painful, that past had been.
"Such things look ever worse at a distance, and over someone else's shoulder; had it been yourself back then, and I asking of you now, doubtless you would be saying much the same… though I will admit it was no revel! When such dan comes upon you, Talyn—and it will—you will find that there is a kind of peace in perfect inevitability. Each choice you make denies forever all the other choices, until at last there is no choice left for you at all, and you but follow the path that is the only one your choosings have left you; and that path is the path of dan."
The Hawk's Gray Feather Page 13