"And as for you," said Arthur, catching my cloak as I made to leave the council room, "I have one task in especial. Let us speak of it now."
"I am to go to Coldgates." I glanced down at Morgan with a grave face, then broke into a grin. "To fetch your father—or I should say rather, the Ard-righ Uthyr—down to Llwynarth."
She threw both arms round my neck. "Ah Talyn, glad I am it is you to bring him home! He will be pleased too, I know it… I would go with you, but for that my mother is already on her way here from the eastern shielings, and my sister too comes down from Erith."
I felt a jolting shock. "Marguessan? I did not know she was to come to Llwynarth."
"Irian her lord commands levies for my brother; since she is near her time, he liked not to leave her so far away, and asked if she might come here. To which Arthur agreed most willing."
Would that he had mentioned it to me before he did so… "You do not mind, cariad, that she should come?"
The luminous hazel eyes turned up to meet mine. "The meaning being, clearly, that I should mind… I have not seen my sister for some years, Talynno, and we were never close, though we were born of the same birth. If there is aught to be seen, be sure that I shall See it." Morgan changed the subject with an air of finality. "But I shall remain for other reasons as well: There is work here for sorcerers, and Merlynn and I must command it. Also there is something else I have in hand."
"Oh aye?" I asked, noting that she did not specify the nature of the magical working, and knowing that I could not ask. But this other thing it seemed I might safely inquire about, and I was glad of anything that had naught to do with Marguessan. "What then?"
She slipped her arm round my waist as we walked. "I have been learning from Keils," she began, "how the pale round Sulven, that protects Coldgates, is maintained; and how it was raised to begin with, and how adapted to shield small craft."
"Do such matters interest you? Whenever it was explained to me, I could never see it. The magic of it I could master; it was the mathematicals destroyed me."
"Oh, they are not so bad as that… I was wondering if such means can be used only in the concealment of small things?"
"Such small things as starships and mountains?"
Morgan laughed. "Aye, well, not so small then! Nay, I was thinking—how if a pale could be raised to protect all Keltia?"
I blinked in genuine surprise. "Seven star systems, and all the space between! That would be the mightiest work our people ever made, here or on Earth or in our first home."
"It would, else why should the thought so appeal to me!" Her face grew serious again almost at once, and I saw that, incredibly, this was a thing she had thought much upon. "Consider how safe we should be, Talyn, behind such a shield. None outside would know we were here, no gallain ever again could enter save that we did permit it—"
"Perils in it, too. Such a wall would keep out more than foes."
"You mean it would keep out change, and free commerce of thought and ideas; that we might grow stagnant and selfish behind it, to stand so apart from the galaxy. It might be; but any road, such a wall is itself only a thought just now."
So we laughed, and our converse turned to other matters, and if Morgan fed her great new thought she did so from then on in secret. But we had no other secrets between us: We had been together six years now, to our great joy and Arthur's delight; and though our union was not always harmonious—all is not invariable serenity even between two persons who loved one another as completely as did we—it was ever in harmony, which is not by any means the same thing.
On the morrow I rose betimes, and left for Coldgates with a small company; we went in one of the aircars, for our master now was haste, and we were with Uthyr in the shieling before high twelve had struck.
For all his long exile so patiently borne—or perhaps because of it—Uthyr Pendreic needed very little time to bring his years at Coldgates to an end. He had ever shared with his nephew the belief that swift changes were the best and easiest changes, and now he acted on that belief with a vengeance.
So we rested in Coldgates one night only, after a farewell feast at which the King took loving leave of his longtime companions, and thanked them for their care and protection, and pledged himself to their preferment when he was on the Throne of Scone. He did not scant the moment, for he was much moved by this parting he had never thought to live to make; but he had a king's duties now, and they had duties of their own—some to join Arthur, others to another venture—and goodbyes on both sides though deeply felt were swiftly said.
I had some farewells of my own to make—to people and memories both—and taking a page from Uthyr's book I made them and looked not back again. One last night in Sulven's shadow, then, and in the morning we should ride for Llwynarth, and the battle that would be.
* * *
Chapter Thirty-one
Thus did I leave Coldgates for the last time in the old fashion of secrecy and stealth; and though I knew well that I should see it again—had Seen, indeed, Morgan and me there together one time in the future, an era of peace and joy—my leaving had something of valediction about it all the same.
The mood of sorrowful parting was strengthened as I looked behind me, heading down into the plain below the Spindles, back through the narrow stony pass called the Throat. Today Sulven wore its storms like a battle flag, or a veil of royal mourning: Clouds of blowing snow swirled round the summit, diamonded by the rays of the rising sun. Alongside the path we rode all morning, and in the narrow steep valleys that ran in from every side, streams foamed like milk in their channel-cut gorges. Spring had come to the End-lands, and in the south, where we and so many thousands of others all were bound alike, it was already green and growing.
I was leaving Coldgates with the one last value without which all our labors had been in vain: Uthyr, King of Kelts, rode at my right side. At Arthur's order, we were conveying the Ard-righ to the battle that would proclaim and set seal to his rightful lordship; and be very sure that all of us felt the honor and the joy of our task equally with the responsibilities.
Some in Llwynarth had argued that we should go in strength, that the High King should come south so hedged with warriors that Ravens could not think to reach him, and some had spoken for a fleet of the precious aircars to bring the King and escort him. But others—and Arthur and Uthyr were foremost among them—had thought a small, anonymous marchra, riding swiftly and by well-travelled ways, but riding openly, should be the likeliest surety for the King's safety. As Arthur had observed, none outside ourselves even knew what Uthyr looked like—certain it was that Edeyrn and Owein did not know—and as for the rest of us, though some of us had more recognizable faces than did others, our everyday aspect should serve us for disguise—by which he meant our 'customized disheveled state. Oh, we were all scrupulously clean, I hasten to add—no Kelt born will go in filth when there is a choice, the Kelt and the Bath have a long co-history—it was just that the campaign's demands had left us little time or energy to devote to primping up garb and harness.
Which suited us, and our errand, and our royal charge, very well indeed: though Arthur could ill spare any of his Companions, he had sent four of his finest with me—Elphin my old teacher, Daronwy, Betwyr and Elen—as escort for his uncle. "Let there be round Uthyr a hand for every skill," Arthur had said in making the selection; and among us were represented every magical and martial and craftly discipline that Keltia could boast. We were Druid, bard, Ban-draoi, Fian, pilot, healer, hunter, apothecary, horse-leech, farrier and more besides—any need the King might have could be met by one or more of us. From Coldgates also came Marigh Aberdaron, his Taoiseach, and a few others.
Though caution was the watchword as we rode, we were also merry; even Uthyr himself was in unaccustomedly ferocious high spirits. That first day I kept a careful eye on him, as indeed I had been bidden by everyone from Arthur to the humblest kern in Llwynarth; and often as I stole glances at him I would meet the glances, also covert, b
eing thrown his way by Elen, the healer of our riding. Yet Uthyr never looked other than most hale and happy, and when I questioned Elen wordlessly she nodded and smiled satisfied approval.
But if we Companions could scarce control our eagerness and delight that the struggle was at last an open one, and soon to be decided for good and all, and to our triumph, how much more so must it have been for Uthyr. His kindred had suffered in hiding for their lives for two hundred years; today he rode at last to claim before all Keltia their birthright and his, the Copper Crown itself, and by Arthur's arm to wear it as no king or queen had worn it since Alawn, to wear it in Edeyrn's despite. He would have been more than human had he been able to encompass it with calm detachment; and we would have been less than human had we demanded that he do so.
As Arthur had prophesied, our journey south was an uneventful one. We encountered no Ravens between Coldgates and Llwynarth—all had been called back to their nests, to prepare for the coming fight—and few travellers of any sort. Perhaps rumor of battle had frightened folk from the roads; or perhaps it was simply that the god of journeys and good causes, shining Aengus, held his hand above us on the southward road, for never did we lack for shelter or forage or fair weather, and Uthyr looked younger and stronger with each passing day.
Still, I could not but ponder on how strangely sure Arthur had grown of late that we should triumph; he had ever been confident, but such absolute certainty was not like him. True, it had all been prophesied long since by Merlynn, and Seen, however imperfectly, with almost comic regularity by one or another of us down the years. Yet prophecies have failed of fruition before now, and even Sight may see amiss; but though I reminded myself of this daily, sometimes almost hourly, Arthur's assurance seemed to have passed to me, for the certainty that countered my doubts was so strong as to near collapse me with delight, and I would ride grinning like an idiot with the sheer pleasure of it.
For all his confidence, though—bringing Uthyr from Coldgates, naming him High King openly, challenging Edeyrn's rule and hold as they had never been challenged before—
Arthur had not closed his ear entirely to his inner voice of caution; and so he had instructed us to bring Uthyr not to the regions round the great mountain Cruach Agned, where his leaguer was already forming, but to Llwynarth.
Not for that reason alone: Queen Ygrawn was at the Bear's Grove, and Marguessan was with her. Heavy with her first child—Uthyr's first grandchild—the Princess was down from the North, seeking safety while her lord went to the wars in her brother's cause. As for her sister: Morgan tarried at Llwynarth only for me to return there and to greet her father; once Uthyr was safe in our stronghold I would ride to join the others at Agned, and Morgan would ride with me.
Our journey continued peaceful, for which I gave profound and fervent thanks to every god and goddess I could think of—my grateful requitals even now to them all again, and any I may have forgotten that first time in my haste—and a fortnight after leaving the shieling we came to our destination.
To bring the Ard-righ of Keltia to our own place, through masses of cheering, weeping, shouting Companions and Fians and kerns and other inhabitants of Llwynarth, and those who had gathered there from other shielings, eager for one glimpse before riding to war of the man for whom that war would be made—it is a thing that brings tears to my eyes even to this day. Yet it should have moved me just so had I never had sight of Uthyr Pendreic before that hour; knowing him as I did, and loving him as I had, how much the more did I feel his triumph now.
For triumph it was, and no mistake; no matter that it was yet to be won, that much Keltic blood was about to be shed to uphold Uthyr's right to the Copper Crown—or to continue to deny it him. That would be as it would be: No more was it a matter for men and women, or even for Arthur, to think to determine, but for the lords of dan; and so, of course, it had been determined long since. We had only to play it out, and so we would; but in the meantime there was this interval of dreams that anticipated reality, and we deserved it, for it had been hard earned.
And when Ygrawn came out to meet us, and greeted her husband, and stood with him for the first time publicly as Ard-righ and Queen of Keltia, our joy knew no bounds; so that I think even Edeyrn, far away on Tara in Ratherne, must have sensed the upwelling of rapture, and the martial resolve that underlay it, and been troubled where he walked. As for Uthyr, he was a man transfigured; he and his Queen and his people were met that day, and had he been cut down in that very moment—and this I know for fact for he did tell me—he would have counted his life well spent in the buying of such an hour.
But the glad tumult died down at last, and we each of us turned to our sober tasks in preparing for the battle to come. Uthyr and Ygrawn went into Llwynarth for some privacy with themselves and those closest to them; yet for all his gladness to be with his Queen and his daughters—Morgan he saw but seldom, and Marguessan he had not seen since her marriage—for all that happiness Uthyr's chiefest preoccupation was with his absent nephew.
He spoke of it to me privily, before I left Llwynarth two days later with Morgan and such of the Companions as had tarried there on Arthur's order and were now bound with us for the battle. And once again, as I had been on the ride south, I was struck by Uthyr's shining aura of force and living energy: He seemed to have thrown off all his old weaknesses and infirmities, and had in that hour such a strength as might have more properly belonged to the Sun Lord Leowyn, his slain brother.
And, thinking this, I did not like what leaped all unwillingly into my mind: Might not this sudden splendor be the last burst of leaf and vigor that a dying oak puts forth, or the blazing brilliance of the woods before the first killing frost, or the song a swan is said to sing before the end? But I turned the thoughts aside, and hailed my much-loved guardian as King.
"Beannacht do Righ! Pendreic an uachdar!"
A smile of extraordinary sweetness touched Uthyr's face. "And blessing likewise upon those that do hail him so… Ah, Talyn, I tell you now, in those dark days at Coldgates, though I never lost faith that this day should come, and better ones still to follow, even so many times there were when that faith did falter.''
"And now, Lord?"
Uthyr put back his head and laughed. "I think faltering is done with! At least it is for my part…" He grew grave again at once. "There are some things I would say, Talyn, and I would say them to you, and not to any other, for many reasons: for that you are the inventor of the Hanes, and growing into such a bard as Plenyth himself would not shame to call cousin; and for that you are beloved of my youngest child, and my dear wife's foster-son, and fostern to my brother's son, and birth-son to a friend I loved; and most of all for that you have been a son to me these many years."
I took his hand and kissed it, deeply moved. "You are my father, Lord, and Keltia's father; not one of us lifts sword in this quarrel for any other save yourself alone."
The hand tightened briefly on mine, then was gently withdrawn to rest upon my shoulder; seldom did Uthyr permit in himself, or in others for that matter, such displays of open emotion, and only did so now for that he was as moved as I.
"You will lift your swords in my name," he said then, "but you will bring them down in Arthur's; and I am well pleased it should be so. He will be High King after me—nay, do not interrupt, you know it well—and Gweniver will be High Queen; they shall rule together, and their rule is not far distant. This have I long known, and Merlynn has confirmed it: I shall live to see myself High King in truth, and Keltia restored, but I shall not see it long. Therefore I tell you these things, so you may tell Arthur when I cannot."
"And those things?" I found myself more than a little disconcerted by Uthyr's revelation that he should perish even in the triumph of his kingship, and wondered briefly if Arthur had Seen this as well.
Uthyr was silent a long time. "My daughter Marguessan and her lord Irian," he said at last. "It is a terrible thing, Tal-bach, to speak distrust of one's own child, and I pray that never you come
to it. But I have not been King so long to pay no heed to a kenning, and something there is in those two that I would bid Arthur be most wary of in future."
He glanced sidewise at me as if he expected some disagreement or denial; but he would find none for my part. I had been keeping a magical 'eye' on Marguessan these many years now, ever since her attempt to practice distant murder on the folk of that birlinn, back when she was an innocent lass of ten. Somehow I did not think she had changed much since that day, and as for Irian, her husband… Well, true it was I had heard only good of him as yet—which made him suspect right there: how devoted he was to his brother-in-law's cause and person, how fine a strategist he was, how skilled a warrior. His kindred had been unimpeachably loyal to the House of Don for centuries in exile and many more before; but then so had Gwenwynbar's family, and just see how she had turned out… Blood was no guarantee anymore; not unless it was spilled, and even then one could be in error.
"I will bid him so, Ard-righ," I said at length. "Though I pray your mistrust may be mistaken. What more?"
"Only what I need never say to you: that you love and cleave to my other daughter, who shall be your wife, and to your fostern, and to your methryn, as you do now and have ever done before."
"No command could sit lighter upon me," I said smiling, but again I felt running through my bones a cold thread of dread and misgiving, deep beneath the moment's joy. If Uthyr were having genuine presentiments of death—his own death, as he had hinted earlier—then should we perhaps not speak of it straight out? I was Druid priest as well as bard, and though I was not belike so skilled in counsel as were others of my order, I was certainly able to pray with and for folk in the face of death. Any road, death to a Kelt is not the thing of dread and terror I have since learned it can be—sadly, needlessly—to other races. To us it is merely a change of life: When those we love die, we sorrow for ourselves, who are deprived of their bodily company for a time, but for them we feel only joy; and even a little envy, for that they are free, and dwell between lives in the Light.
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