The Hawk's Gray Feather

by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison

  "Well," said Arthur, sharing out between us the savory charred meat and crisp hot bread that made our meal, "if you are yourself no child of the Sidhe—though I still say I could easier believe it of you than of Edeyrn—then it must be as Birogue did say, and the Lady Medeni was one of those Kelts who dare to seek the dwellers in the hollow hills." He puffed in air to cool a too-hot mouthful of supper. "She sounds the sort of mother you would have been born of—though I am still sure there is more to it, and to her, than that."

  "I know there is, and some time or other I shall learn it." I reached for the flask of shakla that had been heating on the hearth. "But what I was struck with—"

  "—was Birogue," he finished for me. "I too; to think that Merlynn all this time has had for beloved a lady of the Shining Folk, and we knew naught of it."

  I nodded thoughtfully, drinking my shakla. "I wonder what else there may be about him we know naught of… or about this whole coil."

  "Well, for one, where Birogue did take my sister. I tell you, Talyn, that was no easy thing, to watch her sail off into the fog like that, and I not even knowing what was on that fog's other side."

  "I can tell you that," I said at once, apologetic and annoyed with myself that I had not thought to do so sooner; surprised too, that he had so long restrained himself not to inquire. "They go to Collimare, the Forest in the Sea. It is an island in the middle of a finger-loch, a long curving arm of the Sea of Glora."

  "Why then is it called 'forest' if it is in truth an island?"

  "For that the trees upon it do grow right down to the water's edge; to one looking on it from the shore, it seems that the forest stands rooted in the very waves."

  He considered that awhile. "I should have asked sooner, I know; it was just that—She will be safe there, do you think, with only this ban-sidhe to ward her?"

  "Oh, I have an idea the isle is well fenced against any who might try to land unbidden; Guenna will be safer there, I think, even than she was at Coldgates. Merlynn would not allow it else; and his lady will be no careless guardian. As to alone—who can say?"

  Not I, for one: Who knew what helpers of her own race Birogue might not have to dwell with her in Collimare? And if not folk of the faerie race, then surely faerie creatures to bear her company—cait-sith, those huge sand-colored panthers; or the red-eared, white-coated hounds bred by Nudd himself… No, Morgan would not lack for company there on the magic isle.

  But as we curled up beside the quartz-hearth for a few hours of sleep before setting out again back to Coldgates, I found myself thinking once more of my mother; and just before sleep took me I put my hand inside my shirt, to close round the gold case that held her legacy and message to me, the hawk's gray feather.

  On our return to Coldgates, Arthur and I made due report of our journey and its successful conclusion to the parents of the one that journey had most closely concerned. Ygrawn seemed well content with our account of Birogue, and Morgan's conveyance into her protection; but Uthyr was seized anew with paternal fretfulness, which I did my best to allay.

  "Had you been there yourself to see her go, Lord," I said at last, "you might be better assured, but she would be no safer, I promise you and the Queen both." I ran a hand through my hair, for by all gods it is no light task to soothe a worried monarch. "The Princess was most happy and confident, and the Lady Birogue—"

  I fell silent as I saw Ygrawn cover her husband's hand with her own, sensed the calm that radiated outward from her to him. Uthyr, it seemed, sensed it too…

  "And do you not, lady, think to try your tricks on me," he said, not looking at her; but he said it with a smile, and the tender and grateful squeeze he gave her hand gave his words the lie.

  We were all ensconced most comfortably in the Queen's grianan—a cozy, warm, pillow-strewn chamber. Merlynn and Arthur had both been with us, but after Arthur's initial account they had left on some business of their own. I was far too comfortable to stir myself to follow, and besides I sensed that there was more afoot than had so far been revealed…

  "The Queen is right not to fear for Guenna," said a voice from the other corner of the chamber: Gweniver, who had been sitting on a low couch letting her uncle's new puppy gnaw happily on her hand—great-grandson of our own Luath, who had a few weeks since been called at last to a new Hunt. With a final teasing tap on the indignant puppy's nose, she sat up and fixed her uncle with a stern gray glance.

  "Your worries are causeless, uncle," she said then. "I love my young cousin dearly, but time it is she begins to learn her craft. And as a protector and teacher there is none better than Birogue of the Mountain. As Merlynn would have told you had he still been here, I have learned from her myself."

  This was news to me—though not, I could see, to Ygrawn—and I leaned forward with interest, to hear more of it. But having imparted to Uthyr her best assurance, Gweniver withdrew into herself again, and I received an impression of some trouble; sensed too that it was a trouble of long standing.

  "What is it, Gwennach?" Ygrawn's voice, low and achlngly kind, could have lured souls from Gwynfyd; so subtle were the evokers she employed that none, seemingly, could fail to respond.

  But it seemed even so that one could… "Naught to speak of, Lady," said Gweniver, which meant only that it was naught she would speak of.

  Whatever it was—and I had a feeling it was the same strain that had been between Ygrawn and Gweniver for some months now, and all to do with Arthur—Uthyr seemed well aware of it. Giving his niece a very sharp glance, he rose from his place beside Ygrawn and crossed the chamber, to one of the great chests that stood against the wall. Opening the lid, he took from its depths a battered brown leather casket, and setting it on the floor before Gweniver's feet, he opened it with the small silver key that had stood in the lock. The light of the sconces fell fierce and brilliant on the jewels tangled anyhow on mushroom-pale velvet: crown jewels of Keltia, brought perhaps from Earth, or before that, maybe even, from farther still. Heavy chains of bright gold thick with emeralds, glowering garnets, water-clear diamonds like silvered ice, carved beads of fat white jade, sunset-hued rubies and summer-sea turquoises, black pearls and blue pearls, pearls the rose-gold of an April dawn and pearls the color of cream on snow, amethysts framed in findruinna and sapphires set in silver—

  I gasped aloud, for never had I seen anything like to it, and even Ygrawn looked impressed. But Gweniver merely scowled.

  "What have trinkets to do with me? I am not the kitchen-wench, that you offer gauds to as a sop."

  "No sop," said Uthyr. "Your father left these and more in my keeping. Some were private jewels passed on to us from our mother, and these I have passed on in turn: to my Queen, to my daughters, to you; or will pass on, to Arthur and to Talyn, when they wed"—he smiled at my start of surprise—"who are as my sons. But these are kept in trust for one only: the next Ard-rian of Keltia."

  That, I saw, went home: Gweniver's thin straight shoulders went straighter still. But not yet would she give over.

  "Why show them then to me? You have two heirs now by your own wife, Lord, either of whom could be named by you Tanista, to be Ard-rian after you."

  Uthyr's face darkened with rare anger. "Do you then think, Gweniver ferch Seren, that I would flout both law and love, to set you aside? Listen now and listen well: You are my right heir, by true descent from your father Leowyn King of Kelts, and none other but you shall be High Queen after me. Though I pity your uncertainties, Gwennach, they have no cause but within yourself, and I do not wish to have to tell you this ever again."

  That was no uncle chiding his niece but an Ard-righ rebuking his heir; Gweniver flushed and dropped her eyes, and said no word. But Ygrawn and I exchanged a look in which there were many words, though all unspoken: Uthyr had said truth, but not all the truth, for as yet he himself did not fully know it—Gweniver might be High Queen as he had said, and had ever intended, but Arthur ap Amris would be High King to sit beside her.

  Though Uthyr's chief concern at
that time was for his younger daughter, he soon found that his elder daughter was giving him cause for equal worry, though for vastly different reasons. And before I left Coldgates, I was to see for myself what root his fears did have in solid fact…

  Marguessan Pendreic, firstborn of Uthyr and Ygrawn, was in all ways as unlike to her sister as could ever have been thought of; had I not known them for sisters, and born of the same birth, even, I would have believed them not related in the least degree, so different were they from each other, and in themselves. Where Morgan was quietly dignified, possessed of a grave air that spoke of inner reserves and compassion startling in so young a child, Marguessan was uncaring and selfish, even cruel at times, and desperate above all things else to prove herself her sister's equal.

  But in one thing at least had she not been thought so, and by those equipped uniquely to judge: Despite her terrible onging for the chance to do so, Marguessan was not to become a Ban-draoi.

  had surprised many, indeed, that she should not be allowed even to try; but Ygrawn, with a rather frightening inflexibility, had herself decreed that magic should be denied to her elder daughter, though when I wondered at it she was as candid with me as she had ever been.

  "She is not fit for it, Talyn, and that is a hard thing for any mother to say. But there it is." Ygrawn's lovely face was taut with the cost of those words, and of the decision that lay behind them. "Morgan is gifted in magic, but also she is gifted in those things without which the greatest gift for magic that ever was would be but vain and empty pretense. It is just these that Marguessan lacks, and I fear she ever will."

  No need to say further: Being Druid, I knew well what she meant. For the flair for sorcery, the simple talent, is never enough: The aspiring sorcerer must possess also a proper character upon which that talent may anchor—such fixed bedrock as honesty, and loyalty, and strength of character, and empathy; self-mastery and compassion; above all else, the need to seek and the will to serve.

  "Yet Marguessan is by no means untalented," I said aloud, and Ygrawn's head came sharply round to me.

  "And that is part of the problem," she said. "She has enough raw skill to make more than a little trouble does she so choose, and no great wish to use even that skill to benefit anyone save herself only. That might have been just acceptable in another time—for the talent's sake alone—but not now. Now we need only our best, and if they are few, well enough; we cannot afford the risk these days of confirming power in those who are but half-Called."

  I hesitated to voice my present thought; but Ygrawn was not only my foster-mother—indeed, the only mother I had ever known—but also my Queen, and I owed her in both roles my perception and my doubt alike.

  "At Bargodion," I began carefully, "we were taught that a person who has the gift for sorcery but not the conscience for its proper use might be—controlled."

  The grave lucid eyes met mine straight on. "Think not that I have not considered it, Talyn… And I will not say that even yet have I ruled it out entirely. But to set such controls on a person—on one's own daughter—is a decision not lightly taken nor maintained. But the Mother may grant it may not come to that: We must trust Marguessan to grow into herself, and to govern herself; and, perhaps, later—" Her voice trailed off into uncertain silence as she looked into the still more uncertain future.

  I too was silent, but for a rather different reason: Prescience had unexpectedly touched me, and I was suddenly sure that not only would it come to the desperate straits Ygrawn dreaded, but that, no matter all our Sight, we would be too late to avert the disaster that would come of it. And that disaster—

  But as swiftly as it had claimed me the Seeing was gone again—if Seeing it had been, even, and not merely hare-heartedness. I agreed with Ygrawn that to control someone so—the Druids call that particular rann 'Buarach,' the Stall-rope; I do not know what name the Ban-draoi give it—was a fearful thing. Yet a necessary thing, as it befell; and though it was not often done, never was it done save where the well-being of the many must outweigh the restricting of the one. We have never been ones for restrictions, Kelts; freedom is more than life to us, but sometimes even freedom is not the clear and highest good.

  There it was we left things for the moment; but I felt as if I had come home to Coldgates only to step into a scalding, one of those bubbling hell-pits like the ones below Bargodion. Only this one was full not of molten stone but of the scions of the House of Don, Arthur and Gweniver and Marguessan and Morgan, all bubbling round and round, exploding and subsiding and steaming up to explode again, never at rest, ever ready to drag unwary watchers down into the vortex.

  But only a few days later, I was to have my first evidence that perhaps Ygrawn might need to rein in her daughter after all, and sooner than she had thought.

  On my way to the ship-cave on some errand for Uthyr's warlord, Keils Rathen, I was crossing the watch-room, the great cavern where were installed the many viewscreens that overlooked all approaches to Coldgates, and gave warning of impending visitors friendly or other. Some of the screens showed places even more distant: the pass that led down to the Sea of Glora, for instance, on which screen Arthur and Morgan and I had been watched over during our journey, or stretches of sea-coast miles away to the west.

  As I passed by a bank of screens off to one corner of the cavern, my attention was caught by a sudden gleam of movement, and I halted to see what it was that went on.

  Marguessan was standing there, hidden away in a little nook formed by the screens. Her attention was not on me, nor indeed on aught else in the chamber, but rather fixed on the screen before her, which showed the coast at the feet of the Spindles, fifty miles away. In her hands was a small silver bowl—it was this had gleamed and caught my eye—filled halfway to the rim with water. For no reason I could name I was seized with vague dread, and I spoke quietly, so as not to alarm.

  "What do you do, Marguessan?"

  The dark-ringed blue eyes, disturbing as always, flicked up to my face, then away again. "I can make the birlinn come in upon the rocks. See, Talyn, how I do it."

  Now it was I who was alarmed, and alerted; every sense in my body and mind seemed to come at once to full stretch. I took a closer look at the screen. There was a small birlinn sailing in the bay, a fishing-vessel most like, out of one of the few villages that stood along that hard cold coast.

  Marguessan stirred vigorously the water in the silver bowl, stirred it widdershins, against the sun; and on the screen, far westaways in the bay, the little birlinn twisted suddenly and violently onto a shore tack, almost against its own will and counter to its helm, as if some hand had reached down from the sky and wrenched it over.

  Which in fact one had … I put on calmness as I had been taught at Bargodion, thrusting from my mind the picture of the boat-folk in terror aboard their doomed craft, fully prepared to act as Druid from my own power if I could not convince her to pull her magic back.

  "A most impressive trick, Highness; but as you see the coast just there is all rock, and the boat will break to pieces and the folk be drowned. Can you push it off again out to sea, just so easy?"

  She was watching the boat heading to certain destruction on the fanged and streaming rocks, a small glassy satisfied smile playing over her lips, the strange eyes abloom with dreamy light.

  "I could—if I would."

  I continued to feign unconcern, though by now my guts were churning, and my power as it sensed the growing need was swiftly building behind shields.

  "Ah well, perhaps you cannot after all, no matter your vaunting."

  That was how to do it: Marguessan glared at me, her vanity mightily stung, and stirred the water sunwise. As if released from some eccentric current, the small boat popped quite suddenly back on a seaward course, and after a quick remote thought-touch to soothe the fisher-folk's panicked souls, I allowed myself a deep silent sigh. A near thing—and it must not happen again. I will speak to Ygrawn. But first—

  Reaching out, I knocked the bowl from
her hands—the water hissed on the stone floor, steam rising where it ran—and Marguessan turned on me like a striking nathair. "Clumsy fool! See what you have done—"

  "eCall no Druid fool, young madam, at least not to his face." My voice was freezing iron, and her cheeks stained a slow dull ugly red. "Behind his back, as you please and your insufficiencies may require. To his face, and be prepared to bide the issue."

  By now Marguessan had regained her self-possession—never far lost—and she bent to pick up the silver bowl, careful to keep her eyes averted. But as she had brushed past me I had caught a quick glimpse, and was almost staggered at the cold depths of fury and hatred I saw in them, so that I had deliberately to remind myself that this was Morgan's sister, and Arthur's also. "Oh, that is nothing," she said in an even voice. "But I shall remember what you have shown me here today, Taliesin. By all gods I shall."o ok IV:

  Galtrai

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-two

  That was the year we both began in earnest that battle for which we had been all our lives preparing, Arthur and I, that autumn out of Coldgates. The sword for him, for me the harp; but the same fight for both of us.

  Which fight would begin for me at least with yet another test, though of all tests I ever faced this was the only one in which I was assured of victory before even I had faced my questioner.

  After a youth or maid has reached the rank of journeyman bard—or so at least it was in the old days—he or she may then leave the Colleges to serve at that level of training. Many positions are indeed open to such a one, for trained bards are much in demand, even the half-schooled impostors that Edeyrn would alone permit to call themselves bards. And that was irony beyond irony, that true-trained bards such as Elphin and myself and all the others like us must now study to impersonate these ones who were themselves impersonators.

  I think it was just this that rankled the deepest: that art should be so betrayed, that these counterfeits should take no shame at their own actions, that the noble and wealthy families who were the bard's traditional employers should care so little for that tradition that they would pay any fee to secure a bard of their own, no matter his skill or how his training was come by.