"And it was so for you and—and Prince Amris?" Her whole face lighted with a gentle warm remembering. "You would have liked him well, Talyn; he was gifted as are you, with the bard's gifts of words and irony. He saw through all, and laughed at most; but never unkindly, and malice was to him a thing unknown. Arthur is sometimes so like to him it makes my heart turn over; and yet not entirely like, for Arthur knows how to hate."
I was careful not even in my deep mind to frame my instant thought: that after this day Arthur would know perhaps even better how to hate… But it seemed Ygrawn did not need my thought to know it.
"I should be surprised if he is not hating me just now, and more than a little, for that I have so long kept the truth from him, thus keeping him from his heritage and his rank and his place as Amris's heir. But keeping him in ignorance meant keeping him in safety; that secrecy was the only choice I could make, that last path of choosing all other choices did lead to. Amris was dead, and both his kin and mine had turned us away, and I had a son at my breast whose dan mattered more than all other dans together."
I stared at her, thinking of Arthur as I had glimpsed him the night of our escape from Daars: not the Arthur of now, but the Arthur who would be—the future King.
"Did you See, then, methryn?"
Ygrawn shook her head. "Not then I, but Merlynn; though later, even I—When first I knew I was to bear a son to Amris, I was of two minds as to whether I should choose to bear the child at all. We were homeless then and all but friendless, moving like fudirs from shieling to shieling—such ones as would even shelter us, for few places dared defy Darowen's edict. She had in her wrath against us commanded none to lift a hand in our aid, not to give us so much as a farl of bread or cup of water. Yet for all that, we were helped, generously and often… Any road, it seemed the purest selfishness to bring a child into so hard a life, for no better reason than that we both so dearly wished one. Well, merely to want a child is not enough: There must be safety and security and the promise of a good and happy future for a child to be born to; else the child is better off if it never comes to be born at all."
"But can such things be ruled?" I asked shyly. "Oh aye," I quickly added, blushing as I saw her smile, "I know how it is that folk may choose that a child should not be conceived, but—"
"It is the Goddess's gift to all women," said Ygrawn, and now she was not smiling, "that any child for whom life would be less than—less than kind may be embraced again into its mother's body. Better for all three souls, child's and parents' alike, that a fitter housing should be found for the returning spirit. It is no great tragedy for a soul to wait a little time in the timelessness between turns of the Wheel, and in such case the lords of dan will never fail to find that soul a better vehicle in which to make life's journey. All women know this, and as Ban-draoi, I knew it more throughly than most: that it was for me to decide this for my child. And yet in the end it was not I who decided."
"Amris, then?" I breathed, awed at her words. This was a great mystery of which Ygrawn was speaking; it seemed to me then—as indeed it does still—to be the greatest proof of love that a woman may show for her child. For in the end it is solely the woman's choice: She is the child's mother, and she alone knows what will be best for her child. But it is the hardest of choosings: To consider only what is best for the babe and the person it will be, not merely what she might selfishly wish for herself; to love a child enough not to let it come into a harsh and hungry world, but to give it back into the keeping of the lords of the Wheel, in the certain faith and knowledge that they will find the soul another, safer, home, even though it be not with her… "Amris?" I asked again.
"Nay," said Ygrawn, seeming to wonder yet again at the high strangeness of it. "It was not Amris but Ailithir—Merlynn. He spoke from Sight, said that though the child were born to grief and hardship, yet would he be High King in the end, to overthrow Edeyrn, and bring back to Keltia all that had been lost." She gave me a side wise glance out of brimming eyes, and laughed. "Oh aye, I know what you are thinking! That Ygrawn Tregaron had delusions of grandeur, wild aislings puffed up by her vaunting vanity to appear as prophecy. Indeed, there were many times I thought so myself—it was Amris alone kept me grounded in the real. And then he was gone…"
"But Arthur was come."
The look she gave me then dazzled with wonder and joy and gratitude, and I had to lower my eyes. "He was; and however bitter and grievous and unconformable the manner of his coming, he is here, and he is uncontrovertibly blood of the House of Don."
"A prince," I said, and even in my own ears my voice sounded flat and strangled. "To be King in time, as Merlynn has Seen and you have said; never have I known him See awry, or you decree in vain."
Again Ygrawn took my hands in hers. "It changes naught," she said softly. "He will need you more than ever now—aye, and in that time to come. From the very first day I met you, Talyn—nay, even before, from the hour your mother told me of your coming—I knew you would be first to stand by Arthur's side and last to leave him. Would you leave him now, before he has even begun to think of beginning his great task?"
I looked down at the slim, strong-fingered hands, cool and pale, that held mine. Fifteen years since, those hands had held the dan of all Keltia; had proved strong enough to grasp that flaming future, for duty and for love—should mine now prove any less strong than hers? I had the same reasons and none of the risks—only my own silly pride, to think that aught was changed between Arthur and me save the name of his father…
Without conscious willing my fingers tightened on Ygrawn's, and I looked up into her sad, loving, questioning eyes; and in my eyes she saw my answer.
* * *
Chapter Thirteen
Before leaving me to my thoughts and new resolve, Ygrawn had mentioned that Uthyr wished to make Arthur known as his nephew to the folk of the shieling, and as soon as might be; and too, though not just yet, to all the rest of Keltia. To that end, he would be calling a general aonach, perhaps even that very night: This was not the sort of news could long be kept a secret, even behind the stone walls of the shieling; and once known there, it would not long remain unbruited beyond. Best therefore to come out with it at once.
I had my doubts. Angry and hurt as he had been when I had left him, Arthur would be in no accommodating mood, even though the one he was being asked to accommodate was not only his King but his uncle. Or so at least I thought: When I returned to the grianan, I found an empty room and a scrawled note coded for me upon the touchpad, to the effect that he was well enough but wished to be alone for a while longer.
Yet in my own chamber, when I went there to change for the nightmeal, I found another message, this one from Ygrawn and of very different burden. It seemed that Uthyr was resolved to proclaim Arthur that same evening; the aonach had already been called, and my attendance upon my foster-brother was commanded by the King himself. I was therefore to attire myself suitably, and go straight to the place of assembly.
What magic had been wrought, to turn Arthur so suddenly compliant, I could not guess. But with a kind of angry rebellious obedience, I dressed 'suitably'—a new blue velvet tunic and trews, white sith-silk leinna, boots of soft embroidered leather, and every jewel I possessed. If my fostern was to be declared a prince of Keltia before the leaders of the Counterinsurgency, I reflected sourly, far from me to disgrace him by looking like a peasant. I rammed one last ring onto my finger and went out.
"No magic at all," said Arthur in answer to my question. "I but sat and thought while you were gone, and then Merlynn came to speak with me." He grinned at the look on my face. "Oh aye, he has told me; in fact, he came straight to me from telling you. That is goleor of owning up, all in one day… And before you ask, nay, I had not guessed either who he truly was, so you need not call hard upon yourself for not knowing."
He spoke lightly, but I could see his glance running nervously over the curious faces turned our way, and wondered again at how quickly he seemed to be accepting th
is vast alteration of his entire life, past, present and to come. True, there are probably few pleasanter things than suddenly finding yourself to be of royal birth; but I had seen the shock and anger that had been his first, instinctive, reaction, and I knew well that this new and rather impressive calm was a product of sheer strength of will. Knew too that it was but a leash cast round a thunderstorm; a most temporary measure indeed.
Still, there was no sign just now of the leash's breaking: Arthur was certainly paler than usual, a little more distracted, a little less attentive; but otherwise the only outward sign of his inner conflict was a restive reflex gesture he had had since childhood—a flexing of the fingers of his sword-hand, in an unconscious rippling motion from smallfinger to thumb and back again. He made it now, twice, and saw me watching; though he flushed a little, he said no word but looked out again over the hall.
We were standing just within the entrance of the immense cavern that served as a great hall in quiet times, and as an adjunct ship-bay and even field-hospital in times of more urgency. Save for the main ship-cave itself, it was the only place in the shieling of a size to hold a gathering of all the folk together.
And gathering they were: From every cavern of Coldgates people were streaming past us into the assembly-hall, had been for a half-hour past, their faces uniformly alive with curiosity, their voices making a low thrum of expectation. Such a summoning of all the shieling's inhabitants was all but unprecedented, and though there was much speculation as to the reason, by Uthyr's command no explanation had been given out, and so they wondered.
I had had shameful thoughts of losing myself in the throng once the thing was well under way; but Arthur had grimly advised me to think again, saying with point and fervor that if he had to be the unwilling chief actor in this unlikeliest of masques, then by all gods I was going to stand beside him and give him countenance, and if I tried to do aught else he would break both my legs for me. I heard beneath the jesting threat the terror flare out for an instant that he had been at such pains to conceal; and though to amuse and distract him a little I made comic pretense of escaping, I would sooner have broken my legs myself than left his side.
So it was that I was there to see it when the two royal cousins, both of them grandchildren of Darowen Ard-rian, met as kin for the first time.
I marvel now that Gweniver and I began so badly with each other; but in those days she was so with everyone, thrawn and waspish, cross-grained and froward with even the friendliest folk. Even with Arthur. With Arthur in especial…
She entered the great cavern unattended—Uthyr kept no state to speak of at Coldgates, deeming it vain and silly, and doubtless he would have kept little enough even had he been Ard-righ at Turusachan; Gweniver merely disliked having folk around her—and stopped in front of us, running a very cold, very gray gaze over us both. Plainly Uthyr had told her of her new-found cousin, and just as plainly she was far from pleased to learn of him.
She was tall for a lass of her years, taller than I; even Arthur did not have to look down more than a half-hand to meet those frosty eyes. That night she was wearing a most becoming guna of green and gold, with a chain of dark emeralds straining back the hair from her forehead and diamonds glittering in her ears.
Easy to see she had had already far more practice than ever Arthur would at being royal. She would never have to bid folk remember that she was a princess born; her royal bearing was innate, she could no more have set it aside than she could have stopped breathing—and were she ever faced with such a choice I had no doubt but that she would have far preferred the latter.
Tonight's encounter was by no means like to the last time we three had met together, in Uthyr's presence chamber, when Arthur and I were but newly arrived at Coldgates. Then, at least, for a moment I had sensed some faint friendliness in her; today there was not a glimmer of it. She stood a few feet off, her face a mask and her eyes cold as a piast's. It was for royalty to speak first, and so both Arthur and I remained respectfully silent—until all at once it dawned on him that he was now as royal as she, and that perhaps it would be the diplomatic thing for him to initiate their converse.
But Gweniver had noted both his lapse and his blushing recovery, and just as he opened his mouth to speak, she disdainfully slid in the first word—clearly wishing it had been no word at all but a sgian between his ribs. Even so it was every bit as pointed…
"Greeting to you—cousin," she said, the brief pause before the appellation perfectly timed to convey both reluctant acceptance of fact and grim resistance unto death. She turned then on me: "And to you, my cousin's fostern. You must then be my cousin too, for that you are his foster-brother."
I looked at her and met the full blast of her loathing, as she had not dared to loose it on Arthur—whose name you will note she had still not spoken, nor mine neither. Presumably she felt freer, or safer, to vent her displeasure on me, who was after all only there that night as adjunct to my fostern. For my part, I cared not at all, thinking it better far that she take out her wrath on me than on Arthur, who had already quite enough with which to deal this night. Still, I was surprised that she should allow her enmity to show, and I murmured some banality in answer.
Which seemed only to enrage her further, or perhaps it was simply that she was bent on taking offense and would have done so regardless. All at once she extended a hand for us to kiss—we could scarce refuse—and then withdrew it sharply, as if she had by accident touched some noisome slimy dead thing and it was only her perfect mannerliness that kept her from wiping clean her fingers then and there.
After that Gweniver seemed to tire of the exercise, for she ignored us altogether; but her mood, evil enough already, was surely not improved a few moments later, when Uthyr entered the now-packed cavern. Ygrawn and Merlynn and some others accompanied him, but all his attention was for his nephew and not his niece. And however uncivil Gweniver's bearing had been to us thus far, I suddenly knew it for that self-defensive combativeness I had noted in her from the first; and was sorry for her, though she would surely have hated that still more had she but known.
And yet I felt the pain she now was feeling: All her life Gweniver had been first her father's, then her uncle's, pet and pride. The one she had lost, and now it must surely seem to her that she was losing the other. Worse, she was being forced to watch her loss, and smile, as Uthyr took to himself his brother's long-lost son. I say all this not to fault her; indeed, I think there are very few in Keltia, or anywhere else, would not have been in as towering a fury to be so treated, and in public too. Even I—and I have always counted myself a placid person—would have been by now fairly choking on my wrath. I was only surprised that Gweniver could discipline hers so well. But then she was a princess.
Uthyr I did fault: Though he had not set out a-purpose to humiliate his niece before her future subjects, in his eagerness to welcome his nephew he was doing just that. And though I also believed that with only a little thought he might have managed it all far better—thus averting many future sorrows—so caught up was he with Arthur that I doubt he even noticed how his lack of tact was working upon Gweniver.
Which of course only made things worse. Impossible for her to withdraw to save face; she had to sit there on the dais, in the heir's traditional place on the monarch's left, while Uthyr gave the right-hand place to Arthur. Who, I must say (and it is the bard and not the brother who says it), bore himself most well, though he flushed to the very roots of his hair as he took the seat, giving a half-bow to the King, and to Gweniver who sat with face averted as far as she dared, and to his mother, and to the assembled inhabitants of Coldgates.
I was watching all this from my own seat some few places away—Arthur had thrown me a glance of pure terror when he realized we were to be separated, but there was no help for it—with Ygrawn on the one side of me and my sister Tegau on the other. I could not see Merlynn without discourteously craning my neck, but I knew he was there on Arthur's right, and I was heartened to know it; he wo
uld not let Arthur's nerves get the better of him. The rest of the row of chairs on the dais held folk I knew only vaguely: those high in Uthyr's councils and the shieling's governance.
Strangely enough, we were not there to dine; that would come later. This was an aonach, not a feast; its sole purpose was to present Arthur to the people, and as Uthyr was not one for much ceremonial, that purpose was quickly achieved.
Rising from his chair between Arthur and Gweniver, Uthyr stood a few moments in silence, as a king should; then he began to speak. His light clear voice was given weight and depth by the cave's granite walls, and the throng fell hushed on the instant to hear his simple words.
"My friends," said Uthyr, "I present to you Arthur Pendreic, son and heir of Amris, eldest son of Darowen Ard-rian and Gwain King of Keltia." He turned to his right, gesturing Arthur to rise, and upon Uthyr's worn, tired face was a look of such joy as I had not thought him capable of showing.
Yet it was not altogether to be wondered at: Uthyr, the gentlest and most sensitive of Darowen's three sons, had been greatly troubled at her treatment of Amris and Ygrawn; more troubled even than that, at the Queen's denial of her firstborn grandchild. Trained as a brehon and scholar, in character Uthyr was vastly different from his brothers: Where Amris was ruled by love of lore, and Leowyn by love of war, Uthyr was ever ruled by love of justice. To his mind, Darowen, High Queen though she had been, had set herself in the law's reverence when she forced outlawry upon her son and his ban-charach; and when she pronounced their child to be no blood of the House of Don, in the eyes of that child's uncle she had pronounced herself a tyrant.
But now, as by some great gift of the gods, it had come within Uthyr's powers to set right this vast unjustice. No wonder he rejoiced; as I looked on him in that moment, I saw that to him this was the best deed he had ever done or ever would hope to do. In the end it was to prove not so; but just then to him at least it seemed so, and he was glad beyond all measure.
The Hawk's Gray Feather Page 14