The Hawk's Gray Feather

by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison

  "Very well! I know better! We all know better! You know best of all! But does he know?"

  "Ah. Now that is the only thing of sense you have so far said." Merlynn closed the book and leaned back with a discursive air. "Time, I think, for a small lecture to refresh your memory of the law. When a royal heir, man or woman, dies before becoming monarch yet leaves a minor child behind, that child does not become its parent's heir directly. The dead heir's siblings, if any, move up in the succession in turn to become heirs to their dead brother or sister, and the child is for the moment displaced."

  "I know this," I said crossly. "And it is most unfair."

  "No matter. Now when the new heir becomes monarch, that displaced child then becomes first in the succession, ahead of all the new ruler's own children—if children there are, or if later there come to be. Therefore did Uthyr become Ard-righ after Leowyn's death, as his next heir of line; only if Gweniver had been of full legal age on her father's death would she have followed him directly as sovereign."

  "It is just as Leowyn became heir on Amris's—oh." Too late I saw it yawn before me like a ditch before a jump, and like an unwary hunter I was in and floundering before I could pull up.

  Merlynn smiled. "Just so. Aye, Arthur was passed over as his own father's successor, just as was the Princess as hers. Of course none knew Arthur's whereabouts at that time—well, none that would have spoken up—and few even knew he existed at all. But even had Arthur been a prince proclaimed what time his father died, still would he have been passed over, and still would Leowyn have been named Tanist to follow his dead brother."

  I was concentrating so hard I almost missed it again; then it all fell into place.

  "But—that means Arthur should on Amris's death have been set first after Leowyn; ahead even of Leowyn's own child, as you have just said. Arthur should all these years have been first heir to Keltia, not Gweniver at all—

  "Now you have put your finger on a thorn that troubles many: Certainly he should have been set ahead; that is why Uthyr labors so now to make up to him for that slighting. It is only because of Darowen's spite that Arthur is not now Tanist; his father was Tanist, followed by two brothers who ruled, and the Tanistry should now belong to Arthur—Tanistry only, for that he is still too young to rule, any road, and Uthyr still lives. It is all perfectly plain in law."

  "Then why is Gweniver still Tanista? Surely she should be set aside, and Arthur named in her place?"

  "Not so easy, I fear," answered Merlynn. "For one thing, Gweniver is still the child of an oathfast marriage—though her father was a second son—and Arthur is still the child of a ceile-charach union, though his father was the elder son. His claim is held by most to be as good as hers even so, and many hold it better: He is senior heir, she is more conventional heir. To those whose opinions in such things matter most—the Chief Brehon of Keltia, for one—their claims are of exactly equal weight and validity before the law."

  "Which means?"

  "Well, they could fight it out; it has been done before." Seeing my exasperated look, Merlynn apologized with a gesture. "Nay, perhaps not… Given then that each wishes to avoid the bitterness of a disputed Crown, and the putting down by force of the other's partisans, there is but one way."

  I knew we should have had to come round to that, soon or late… "They must wed each other."

  "Aye, but that is not the whole of it. They must wed and share the sovereignty equally between them. He must be Ard-righ and she Ard-rian, to rule jointly."

  I gaped at him, but he did not seem to have all at once lost his wits… "We have never had such a thing in Keltia," I said tentatively.

  "No."

  "Few other kingdoms that I know of have had such a thing?"

  "They have not."

  "It would be something new, then."

  "It would."

  Well, much help he was; I thought on it awhile. "Given then that it would be a thing untried, and given also that those two are who and what they are—what chance such an arrangement might work?"

  "Not much chance. But what is their alternative, or ours? To raise civil war for the sake of the Crown, split Keltia like halves of an apple, take the field against each other? All while Edeyrn sits back and watches and laughs, and we do his work for him…"

  "They will not like it much."

  He stood up, went to the window; but it was night outside, naught there that even he could see.

  "What care what they may or may not like? It will be their duty, and they will do it like it or loathe it. In the end neither will fail to see that it must be done. Think again, bach," he added in a kinder voice. "There is no other way. If one of them takes the Crown over the other, it will mean certain death for the one who does not rule, certain disaster for the one who does and no hope forever for Keltia of freedom from the Marbh-draoi. Those are not happy choices; but what is their own private happiness to set against that?"

  I went away uncomforted back to my rooms. Merlynn was right, of course, as he ever was; it was my own fond foolish fault that I had not seen it so before. I had thought only of the two persons, Arthur and Gweniver—and of the two I had chiefly thought of Arthur—and the cost to them both shouldtthey be forced into a political match. I had never considered what the cost might be to all Keltia if they were not.

  But before I went to my bed I looked in again on Arthur. He had fallen asleep over his books; carefully I eased his scrolls and pen and computer-pad out from beneath his head, and dimmed the lights with a whispered word. He would have a stiff neck in the morning, but I had neither the strength to move him unaided to his couch nor the heart to wake him.

  Besides, I thought as I closed the door behind me, if all that Merlynn had said were true, the unyielding, uncomfortable table was at least as felicitous a bed as any Arthur was like to find in his future, and I left him to it.

  Others, though, were happier in heart-matters… The first to notice that Uthyr and Ygrawn were falling in love with each other were not they themselves but their children.

  For Arthur's part he was delighted; in the months we had now been at Coldgates he had come to care for his gentle uncle as deeply as ever he had cared for Gorlas. It was as if he was offering Uthyr the affection and respect he could never now in life offer his true father; and it gladdened me to see that Uthyr paid his nephew back in kind.

  As to Uthyr's niece—well, as Uthyr was not quite High King (save only in law), Gweniver was not quite his child; but her possessive jealousy would have done credit to the most father-besotted daughter in all history. As bards we learn tales of such, all most unfortunate of ending; but Gweniver would have made those daughters of old to look as uncaring streppochs. She detested the thought of her uncle marrying Ygrawn, and spoke against it night and day to anyone unwise enough to listen.

  ft was not for that she did dislike Ygrawn; indeed, she stood rather in some awe of her, Ygrawn being an accomplished Ban-draoi Domina and Gweniver even now in the midst of her own studies for the Sisterhood. She was even being tutored by Ygrawn's own old preceptress, the Bani raoi Reverend Mother Ildana Parogan. It was simply that Gweniver feared and resented anyone—woman or man—taking first place over herself in Uthyr's heart.

  Since her father's death—Seren her mother had died long since—Gweniver had had for family only Uthyr. He had been more than uncle and father-surrogate: He had been friend and confidant and mentor and advisor. Never had he refused to help or comfort or cosset her; he had praised her when she did well and scolded her when she was waspish, and she thought more of him than of any other person alive. Small wonder she would resent an interloper; how much more so one who was her loathed rival's own mother.

  And what did I myself think of the intended marriage? I thought it was a miracle of dan, and praised all gods for the granting. Ygrawn would never love another as she had loved her dead prince; she had found protection and true companionship with Gorlas; but now with Uthyr she had a thing she had never before known—freedom, and the chan
ce for real work. Ygrawn was one of those who are born for great doings; she had been wasted at Daars, it was like keeping a sun-shark in a garden pool, or a falair in a cellarage. Like them she needed scope and light and liberty, and as Queen—Queen! I had not thought of it until that moment—she would have all those things.

  Duties she would have too, of course; and if to be Queen in exile was to be confined somewhat, nevertheless it was still to be Queen. And though she would never have wedded Uthyr for that title's sake alone, the knowledge that she would soon become Queen of Keltia worked upon her; so much so that she sought counsel of me…

  "You are my son, Talyn," she said simply. "Have you no bard's advice for your foster-mother?"

  All I had for her was my loving blessing, and I gave it unstinting. But even as I embraced her I sensed her unnatural constraint, and sensed too what caused it. Still, I waited for her to tell me.

  She did so without reserve. "They say I wed him only to be Queen; that I wed Uthyr only for that Amris and I never wed, that I care not which brother it is so long as I get a crown out of it."

  Gods, jealous folk will put all manner of muck in their mouths and think it pearls of truth… "What do you say?"

  She looked up at me under her lashes, the old wicked judgmental glance. "I say plague take them all."

  "That is what I like to hear." I sat down again and smiled at her. "Folk will say what they please in any case—you yourself taught me that; nor have you ever cared what the common run did mouth on about."

  "No more do I now," said Ygrawn. "It is only for his sake—for I do love him, Talyn, and crown or no crown I would wed him all the same. Yet I cannot say that the thought of being Queen much displeases me."

  "Why should it? It is a worthy and worshipful thing, to be Queen."

  "Not that… But I shall be able to do such good, Talyn; it is duty and fulfillment and my delight in both, to serve Uthyr and Keltia and myself all in doing what I wish most to do. Do the folk then blame me aright?"

  "Not to my mind, methryn," I told her, adding with a grin, "So I may tell the folk it is purely a political thing?"

  Ygrawn matched my smile, and the violet eyes sparkled. "Ah well, I have ever been a creature of politics; too late, I think, for me to change."

  The plans for the wedding—a quiet one, just close kin and friends and Uthyr's Councillors in attendance, with Merlynn and Ildana to preside over the rite—went forward, and all seemed calm. Too calm, perhaps; even the spiteful gossip had blown away like some evil miasm of the swamps, and nothing else had been stirred up to take its place.

  I should have been grateful, for Ygrawn's and Uthyr's and Arthur's sakes, and I suppose I was; but also I felt intolerably pressed upon, hedged round with unseen briars, and not wishing to darken anyone's joy just now I dealt with it as best I might.

  Which mostly entailed solitude, a thing difficult to come by in Coldgates. But in my needy straits I had managed better than I hoped: I had found a place where no one else ever seemed to come, a tiny watchpost high up in the shieling's roof, a low-ceilinged chamber hardly bigger than a press, with one of the precious windows set deep in the stone embrasure. Long unused by sentinels now that the pale protected our refuge, it had become my refuge in my strange new mood, and as the days drew on to the wedding I daresay I spent more time there than I should.

  One afternoon perhaps a fortnight before the ceremony I found myself possessed of a splendid fit of bad temper, and selfishly I resolved not to share it with others but to keep it all for me. So I climbed to my tower, like a little black cloud growing surlier with every step, longing only to be alone in my retreat and enjoy my mood in peace.

  As I came up the last flight of the steep twisting stair I heard soft scuffling sounds above me. My hand went to the sgian at my belt—spies? assassins? rats?—then as I came round the final turn I saw, and took my hand from my knife. "Highness? Is all well?"

  Clearly not, if the furious glance from behind the tangled dark hair spoke true. Gweniver had been weeping long enough to blotch her face with it, but she was still proud enough and angry enough for it to matter greatly that I should not see. Once she saw I had seen, she threw back her hair from her face with a fierce defiance, and looked me straight in the eyes.

  "Nay, my lord, all is not well! How should all be well—how should—how—" Her voice broke and choked with tears, and the mobile face quivered like a shiver-oak in storm; without regard for my watching she threw herself down again on the seat beneath the window and wept as if her heart would break.

  I stood there at considerable loss, my own evil mood utterly forgotten. It seemed that I should do something, but what? Gweniver cared for me near as little as she did for Arthur, what comfort could I be to her here?

  On the other hand, I myself had known loss and sorrow, and I was ever deep afflicted by others' suffering. It is the empathy that lies the other side of the bard's remove: A bard may dispassionately observe, so that he may write of a thing; but that dispassion only cloaks an empathic union with the sufferer that none save another bard can truly comprehend. One is removed from emotion, but One is at the same time inside the emotion; it is a hard thing to explain. Bards will know.

  At such times, though, instinct is all we have to go on, bard or no: So I sat beside Gweniver on the stone bench, and took her hand in mine, a little fearful that she would throw it off if not break my arm altogether. But astonishingly she crumpled slowly against my side, still heedlessly weeping, and I put an awkward arm round her shoulders.

  After a while the sobbing eased, and she began to speak, and what emerged then was a long and broken tale that came near to breaking me as I did listen: She spoke of how her family had lived in hiding for their lives, for near two hundred years, since first the Marbh-draoi came to power; how as a child she had been forced to flee with her parents every few months, sometimes oftener still, from one hiding-place to another, many times just barely ahead of hunting Ravens. Then one day had come the crushing weight of the knowledge that she would be Queen herself one day, the struggle hers to carry forward; and the added burden of knowing that she must not fail, on her all depended—else the sacrifices of the past two centuries were wasted and vain.

  Her mother, she said without a tremor, had died young, of the loneliness and the terror; she herself had never had a real home or a true friend—her only family had been her father and her uncle, and then her father too was gone… And more, until I thought I would die of the hearing; yet who was I to give way under a mere telling, when she who was telling it had endured fifteen years unyielding until now?

  "—and Goddess forgive me but from the first I was sick with jealousy of Arthur." Gweniver's voice had taken on a kind of sibylline inevitability, emotionless and clear. Indeed I think that by now she no longer even remembered that she was speaking aloud at all; it was to her as if she spoke in sleep, or to her own soul, and to no human ear; and if she did remember, she no longer cared.

  "He had had a happy childhood," that low cool voice continued. "And I could not begin to imagine how that must have been. Gorlas may not have been his true father, but he was more a father to Arthur than ever my father was to me, and I envied that so sore I could not speak."

  I found my own voice. "But your own father—King Leowyn lived until you were, what, ten years or so?"

  Gweniver's laugh was frightening in its bitter brittle bite. "King Leowyn! Do you know, Taliesin, that is how I ever thought of him too? Never as my father, never 'athra' or 'tasyk' but always to me 'King Leowyn'… That should tell you much right there."

  It told me more even than she knew, for that was the first time she had ever called me by my name to my face… But she was speaking again.

  "I think that for his part he mostly forgot he even had a daughter at all. He was ever on the move, never there when I needed him, and when at last my mother needed him more than ever she had needed him before, he was not there either. Save for my uncle and me, she died alone." Something flickered in the
gray eyes, something cold and old and far away. "And then he was killed—so stupid, so wasteful; and I had no one left but my uncle."

  I said nothing for a little time, then: "I was orphaned myself before I was six years old; though I at least had brothers and sisters, they too were never there. I had only Merlynn and Gorlas and Ygrawn—and Arthur.''

  I had said his name a-purpose, to test what she might do. Though she did not answer that, still her answer surprised me: Tears came again to her eyes, and this time not for her own sorrows but for mine.

  "I know," said Gweniver. Haltingly, as if it were not a thing she had often had occasion to practice, she reached out in sympathy to touch my arm. No great distance, as I still sat close beside her on the bench; but too great a distance for her even so: Her hand closed on air and fell away. But her words could be a bridge though her touch as yet could not.

  "I have heard of Gwaelod," she said softly, "and how your father did stand against Edeyrn in Ratherne itself. A thing to be most proud of, Taliesin; he went out by his own choice with honor, and even Leowyn Ard-righ cannot say as much. But I have so pitied myself I have forgotten that others too merit pity…"

  It was a brave soul's leap in darkness: Never until this hour had Gweniver spoken so to another; she did so now knowing that she spoke to one with whom she had ever been at odds, and that by so open offering she risked rebuff. Yet she risked it all the same; and yet not all, for though I waited a few moments, she said no word of Arthur. It seemed that as yet her pity could reach no farther than to me, who had sat and listened and wept with her this hour past.

  Even so I was much moved, impressed by the courage she had shown, not disheartened by the falling short, knowing that all would come in time. It was a high fence she had set herself to; but she had proved just now that she could clear any barrier she chose—that last wall too would be leaped, if not just yet. But until then—