The Oak Above the Kings
A Book of the Keltiad
Patricia Kennealy Morrison
Also by Patricia Kennealy
THE COPPER CROWNTHE THRONE OF SCONETHE SILVER BRANCH
Volume II of The Tales of Arthur
The Oak Above the KingsA Book of The Keltiad
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks are due this time to the usual suspects: the Keltic kitchen cabinet, for assorted and sundry plot thickeners-James Fox-Davis, Susan Harwood Kaczmarczik, Regina Kennely; the Kelts board on GEnie, for real as well as virtual aid and comfort; and Mary Herczog for wise counsel and general'tude.
Thanks long overdue to Tom Canty (Thomas the Limner!), by whose incredibly beautiful covers I am so very proud my books are judged.
And thanks beyond thanking to all you loyal, loving and patient lieges of the Copper Crown and the Lizard Throne, whose support, belief and faith have meant so very much to me and to my beloved lord.
For my brother Timothy Joseph
KELTICHRONICON
IN THE EARTH YEAR 453 by the Common Reckoning, a small fleet of ships left Ireland, carrying emigrants seeking a new home in a new land. But the ships were not the leather-hulled boats of later legend, and though the great exodus was indeed led by a man called Brendan, he was not the Christian navigator-monk who later chroniclers would claim had discovered a New World across the western ocean.
These ships were starships—their passengers the Danaans, descendants of—and heirs to the secrets of—Atlantis, that they themselves called Atland. The new world they sought was a distant double-ringed planet, itself unknown and more than half a legend; and he who led them in that seeking would come to be known as Saint Brendan the Astrogator.
Fleeing persecutions and a world that was no longer home to their ancient magics, the Danaans, who long ages since had come to Earth in flight from a dying sun's agonies, now went back to those far stars, and after two years’ desperate wandering they found their promised haven. They named their new homeland Keltia, and Brendan, though he refused to call himself its king, ruled there long and well.
In all the centuries that followed, Keltia grew and prospered. The kings and queens who were Brendan's heirs, whatever else they did, kept unbroken his great command: that until the time was right, Keltia should not for peril of its very existence reveal itself to the Earth that its folk had fled; nor forget, for like peril, those other children of Atland who had followed them into the stars—the Telchines, close kin and mortal foes, who became the Coranians, as the Danaans had become the Kelts.
Brendan had been twelve centuries in his grave when a time fell upon Keltia at which the Kelts still weep: a reign of blood and sorcerous terror, civil war and the assassin-murder of the reigning king and the toppling of the Throne of Scone itself, all at the hand of Edeyrn the Archdruid, known ever after as Marbh-draoi, 'Death-druid'—and rightly so.
Edeyrn fastened round Keltia's throat the iron collar of the Druid Theocracy and Interregnum; and, with the help of traitor Druids, collaborating Kelts and the terrible enforcers called Ravens, kept it locked there for two hundred fearful years. The royal House of Don—such of it as did survive the Marbh-draoi's methodical slaughter—was forced into hiding, while a great resistance movement, known as the Counterinsurgency, was raised to fight against the Theocracy's forces.
Yet even iron collars may be broken by a single sword-stroke, so that the sword be sharp enough, the blow well enough placed; and if the arm that wields the sword be strong enough—and so fated…
In the year 1946 of the Common Reckoning were born in Keltia three children: a girl and two boys. As has been already told in The Hawk's Gray Feather, Gweniver Pendreic, Arthur Penarvon and Taliesin Glyndour—princess, prince and bard—grow up in the Marbh-draoi's despite. Hunted by Ravens every hour of their young lives, nevertheless they survive and thrive, to lead the Counterinsurgency in what are to be its most fated hours.
Arthur and Gweniver are royal cousins, scions of the all but perished House of Don, though Arthur is kept in ignorance of his true parentage for many years, until it is revealed at last by his mother, Lady Ygrawn, and his teacher, the mighty sorcerer Merlynn Llwyd. More than that, they are co-heirs, equal lawful inheritors to the Throne of Scone, the rulership of Keltia; and it is thought from their early days that when their years allow, they shall wed and win back their birthright together. Arthur and Gweniver agree on this, but on nothing else: Indeed, they loathe each other, and each takes another partner for lover and for mate.
Taliesin, who will become the greatest bard of Keltia since the order's founding, himself falls in love with Morgan, Arthur's half-sister, and she with him. He and Arthur were reared by Ygrawn, as foster-brothers, from early childhood-and when they come to their years as men, they work together with their trusted Companions, men and women alike, to win back Keltia for the House of Don.
So well have they wrought that now, for the first time in two hundred years, by Arthur's arm and mind and the valor of his Company, a victory of arms has been won against Edeyrn at Cadarachta on the planet Gwynedd; and the right high King of Keltia, Uthyr Pendreic, has been proclaimed with Ygrawn his Queen.
But victory, as ever, comes at great and terrible cost.
Twelve musics we learn in the Star of Bards, and these the twelve:
Geantrai, the joy-song,whose color is gold and whose shout creation;whose number is one, and one is the number of birth.
Grdightrai, the heart-lilt,whose color is green and whose descant rapture;whose number is two, and two is the number of love.
Bethtrai, the fate-rann,whose color is white and whose charge endurance;whose number is three, and three is the number of life.
Goltrai, the grief-keen,whose color is red and whose cadence sorrow;whose num ber is four, and four is the number of death.
Galtrai, the sword-dance,whose color is black and whose blazon challenge;whose number is five, and five is the number of war.
Suantrai, the sleep-strain,whose color is gray and whose murmur calmness;whose number is six, and six is the number of peace.
Saiochtrai, the mage-word,whose color is blue and whose guerdon wisdom;whose number is seven, and seven is the number of lore.
Creachtrai, the wound-weird,whose color is brown and whose burden anguish;whose number is eight, and eight is the number of pain.
Fiortrai, the honor-hymn, whose color is purple and whose banner justice;whose number is nine, and nine is the number of truth.
Neartrai, the triumph-march,whose color iscrimson and whose anthem valor;whose number is ten, and ten is the number of strength.
Dochtrai, the faith-chaunt,whose color is silver and whose crown transcendence;whose number is eleven, and eleven is the number of hope.
Diachtrai, the soul-rune,sum of all before it,whose color is all colors and whose end perfection; whose number is twelve, and twelve is the number of God.
—Taliesin ap Gwyddno
"As the oak stands above all other trees, so shall you stand above all other rulers—to be the oak above the kings."
—Merlynn Llwyd
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Foretale
SAY OF THE DAWNING: or rather, that moment just past, when the sun that has been rolling up from shadow stands balanced on the edge of the world, its white fire like a flung spear between your eyes, dazzling you, dizzying you, so that you lift a hand to it as much in self-defense as in salute.
The night this new sun dispelled had been a long hard night for Keltia—two hundred years and more of black despairing—but for us who stood that day on the field of Cadarachta, true morning had come at last; and he who had led us to that field was the sun himself.<
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Hard it is now to cast back my mind upon it, across so many sunsplashed years of peace and freedom: Light has been so long with us now as to drive away even the memory of shadow; or much, at the least, of its darkest shade. Still, have heard the healers say that the body retains no real memory of pain,—not the pinprick, not the deepest wound. We can recall the fact that there was a hurting, even the remembrance that terrible pain had been,—but the Mother in Her wisdom has decreed that more shall not stay with us, lest we in fear of hurt should fear to live—for to live is to hurt, and so it must be. But though the body can militate so against pain's recollection, it is far otherwise with the pain of the soul…
Here in Caerdroia, city of Brendan and Raighne and Athyn and Arthur, and others greater still perhaps to come, how often easier it is to not forget, just so, the past's pain, but rather to look upon it with a kind of dismemory, as one who has survived an all but mortal wound—aye, or even a well-placed pinprick—will hold in mind the fact if not the feeling of that wounding. One remembers,—but one does not remember.
Even, it would seem, a bard of the order can be subject to such a failing: For so I am, I Taliesin, son of Gwyddno, of the House of Glyndour, called by some Pen-bardd. Yet it is all my task, and all my joy likewise, that I should and must remember; not for myself alone but for all you who hear the words of this my tale, not for Keltia alone but for other worlds beside: to remember forever how it was for us then—how it was for him, for Arthur…
And Seren Beirdd, Star of the Bards, is the kingplace of remembering that ever there was or will be. Our home from of old at Caerdroia, it is home for all and any with the bent for bardery: a college and a library and a songhall all together. I dwell here by choice as much as chance, for I am alone now,—those I loved best and hated most have all gone before me, and even had they not still would I sooner be here than any other place. I teach a little, still, and still I learn—aye, and shall until I can no longer lift harp to shoulder—but most of all I strive to set down these histories, for I sense that I have need of haste.
Yet in that very haste I see that I have outpaced my own story: a bad thing in any teller of tales, but fault unpardonable in a bard. To begin aright, then, come back with me two hundred years and more: back to Edeyrn.
Passing strange, is it not, that so complete a lord of darkness should be called by so bright a name. And yet not so, perhaps, for it has been many times seen that a fair morning can oft as not turn to full storm before high twelve has struck.
That dark of Edeyrn's making had a name as black as It merited: We who lived of force beneath its evil pinion called it the Theocracy. As for Edeyrn himself, he who had been the mightiest of sorcerers in a realm whose soul is sorcery—Archdruid, Ro-sai of the Pheryllt, friend and confidant and trusted minister to his master, the High King Alawn Pendreic—him did we call Marbh-draoi, 'Death-druid,' and never was name more truly earned.
For Edeyrn betrayed Alawn, betrayed him and overthrew him and murdered him; killed his Queen, Breila, and his heir the Tanista Athonwy, and her brothers the princes Brahan and Cador, and her two half-grown children and their father with them. Indeed, more died than those alone for Edeyrn's will, for it was his plain purpose to put an end forever to the House of Don, that had reigned in Keltia for half a thousand years, and all those loyal to that House and its members.
Therefore were slain alike Alawn's brothers and sisters, another infant grandchild, uncles and great-uncles, aunts and grandaunts and cousins to the fourth and fifth degree. Not his widowed father, Rhain the King-dowager (Righ-duar, as we call such a one), nor his grandmother Queen Kentiarn, ancient lady though she was and no danger to any, nor any child of his body or even of his fostering was spared; save one only—the Princess Seirith, Alawn's youngest daughter.
Though ‘spared' be perhaps the wrong word… By dan, then, and the grace of the gods, Seirith narrowly escaped the slaughter of her kindred and those who had served them. She who had never thought to be High Queen herself—who had wished it still less—took with her into exile her lord, Rhys, and such companions as were loyal enough and loving enough—and brave enough, and alive enough—to follow her. Her second and last child, the boy Elgan, was born in that exile, and Rhys his father perished in it; but through that young prince, only last survivor of all his House, would pass the entire descent of the Doniaid.
In my own youth the latest inheritor of this outlawed dominion was a lass of my own age: the Princess Gweniver. She in her turn had felt the sword's steel kiss as near as any of her line, for her father, the Ard-righ Leowyn, was himself slain by Edeyrn's order. He fell by chance one evil night into the claws of Ravens, those butchers sworn to the Marbh-draoi's service, by whose arms (as by his bent Druids' magics) he kept Keltia so fast against us.
But as I have recounted elsewhere and earlier, when secrets long held close and careful were declared openly at last, Gweniver's right to the Copper Crown of Keltia's sovereigns came to be shared by another, one with as lawful a claim as hers to that crown, a claim of blood and, well, blood; and he my friend and fostern: Arthur of Arvon.
It is said by the metaphysicists that every force has by dint of its very existence not only its own opposite but also a twinned opposite, one outwardly to face and one contained within itself that must also be faced; and for all his long dark mastery, Edeyrn himself could not in the end escape that law and judgment.
His outward enemy had been born in the very moment of his great treason; no single dam or sire but many parents did it have—all whom in that moment he betrayed. We who this day had fought at Cadarachta were but its latest offspring: Branded'rebels' against the Marbh-draoi's rule, we rejoiced in the name of Counterinsurgency, and had called ourselves so from that first moment forward. (As for Edeyrn's 'inward' enemy, well, let me save somewhat for the tale yet to come—but that enemy too came to be in that fateful instant, and outlived it in stranger ways than any of us could have imagined…)
No need to recount yet again the Counterinsurgency's many advances and reversals down the years: Those have been most scrupulously chronicled otherwhere by better historians than I. Not that those other tellers are of necessity any better than I at the actual telling, mark: They have words as I have words—other words, different words. If they deal with facts, I deal with truth; and if perhaps you have heard from other voices what I shall speak in these pages to come, have heard the tale cast in other mold, heard it told otherwise and diversely, know that what you have heard from them is no less true for all that, and that what you shall be hearing from me no more false. For the truth wears many cloaks; and bards are trained to weave, on a different loom, a weft that is built to last. * * *
Let me say only—lest this foretale should itself become a saga—that although the Counterinsurgency had endured two centuries against the Marbh-draoi, had preserved five monarchs and uncounted millions for an unguessed and oft despaired-of future, had even turned Edeyrn's own dark tide against him times not a few, not until the coming of Arthur did that striving light-tide become the mounting swell that would rise in its own time to a flood of change.
We had been together, Arthur and I, from our early childhood; had seen both our fathers fall to Edeyrn as so many others, men and women alike, had fallen before them, and would fall before the end. Arthur's own city was destroyed before his eyes, and my whole province before mine,—and all this before we were scarce more than lads.
Gwynedd, third world of Keltia to be founded and first of the Kymric system, was our world then—indeed, we had never known any other—and there it was that we grew to manhood, studying for Druids together under the iron tutelage of Merlynn Llwyd himself, before Arthur went to the Fians and I to the bards, each to pursue his own particular calling and do honor to his Gift.
After those early learning days were done, together we had worked side by side with friends and kin and strangers, all of us part of the same dream and daring: to win Keltia back, one province at a time if so we must, from the grip of
Edeyrn; and from the many puppet lordlings who ruled those provinces, or even worlds, in Edeyrn's name, who served as willing fingers upon that bloody hand.
We had worked, and we had won—so that now above the field of our first triumph—Cadarachta, below the horns of Agned—flew the Galgreine, the sunburst banner of the Counterinsurgency, the white-and-gold vexillum that had floated in defiance and defeat over too many stricken fields.
And beside it flamed the sign and seal of that triumph: the Gwynedd stag, gold-antlered, white on blue, the Royal Stana of the House of Don that had not been flown beneath heaven for two hundred years. It flew today for the first High King since Alawn openly to be proclaimed so: Uthyr Pendreic, uncle of Gweniver and Arthur both. And it flew also for his Queen who shared the day with him: Ygrawn Tregaron, my own foster-mother; mother by her first lord, Uthyr's brother Amris, to Arthur.
And it flew against Owein Rheged, our first real adversary, who until this day had ruled the planet Gwynedd as Edeyrn's adopted heir; who this day had gone down before us, we whom Arthur wielded as his arm did wield his sword; and deliverance was what that wielding had won us.
For us at Cadarachta, then, it seemed that at last our sun had risen. Yet even in the hour of its rising would it be plunged into bloody eclipse…
BOOK I
Creachtrai
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Chapter One
I RACED THROUGH THE SLEEPING CAMP as if the Far Darrig, the Red Man himself, and the Cwn Annwn that are Lord Arawn's hounds, and all the barguests ever whelped were close upon my track, crying out to any who might hear me that by all gods they should hasten sword in hand to the King's tent, for all our lives,—but either they were leadfoot that night or I was winged, for I came there before them all. And all the while as I ran I cursed myself and everyone else I could think of for fools and boneheads and fatal idiots, that we had not seen and did not guess. No matter, that the thing had been so cleverly contrived—who among us, even the sorcerers, even Merlynn or Morgan, would have dreamed in darkest nightmare or most furious of fancy that Owein Rheged, whom all had thought to have slunk off after losing the fight, had instead used sorcery for his vengeful riposte? had cloaked him with the outward semblance of his hated adversary: had cast a fith-fath upon him, to steal the face and form and seeming of Arthur himself.
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