"Well, what then, War-leader?" snapped Gweniver. As a rule she did not display open peevishness to or even in front of Tarian, whom she greatly admired, and, a rarer thing with her, very much liked; but demands of duty, and anticipation of battle, and hope and terror of its upshot, and the stretched nerves and sleeplessness that came of all this, had altered her case.
'What then'? Then we shall fight, of course," said Arthur, more good-humored even than his wont, though he had no right to be.
But all too plainly too much so for his cousin: Gweniver flushed a little and turned on him.
"If I may inquire of the wisdom of the Rex Bellorum—"
Her tone was a snarl, and I and several others moved swiftly to balk the vicious little rippet that seemed about to speak. Arthur ignored us all, and left the room in silence, after a hesitation I went after, catching him up in the passageway. He did not seem unwishful of my company, and we were soon back in his own chambers on Carnwen's main deck.
But once there he did not appear disposed to speak at all, only stood in the viewport bubble and stared out at the streaning stars.
"Artos?" I heard myself asking humbly. "Are we ready? Even then he did not turn. "You have real doubts then, Talyn?"
My patience went the same road as Gweniver's. "Nay, I ask only for sake of breaking silence! Surely I have doubts! Do you say you have none?"
"None to speak of," he said calmly.
"What a liar you are, Arthur Penarvon. The dullest truthsenser in Keltia could hear the sham in that from half a world away."
At that he laughed, and came to sit in the chair by my own.
"Well, so long as it is only you who hear it, and not the rest of the army, I daresay I can live with it."
I let a moment pass. "Was it that, that Gwennach heard, to make her so angry just now?"
"Very like." He regarded me frankly and with just the faintest trace of a smile upon his face. I returned his gaze, waiting him out as I had done since our schoolroom days. "Gweniver thinks I take all this too lightly," he said at last. "Edeyrn, and Owein who will be waiting for us on Tara if not before, and again Edeyrn, and the fighting on Erinna and Caledon, and Edeyrn once more, and Uthyr the King… It is not that I take it lightly, but that I must be seen to take it lightly; else the armies will take it too dark by far."
"Just how dark then is it?"
"Dark enough," said Arthur, rising again and beginning to pace. He seemed to come to a decision. "Has Guenna spoken to you, of late, of some—some task there may be for us on Tara?"
I stared at his averted back. "Indeed… though as yet she has not told me what that task may be. Do you know more of it, then?"
He nodded, still not turning to face me. "We have stood together in some terrible places, Talynno, but this—Well, it is not yet, and we will not be alone entirely when we come to it."
"Then leave it," I said, and we did.
But there was little time to spare for brooding on some future trial: The trials we had first to surmount were more than daunting enough.
After what seemed like years but was in truth only a day or so as days were counted on Gwynedd, we came to the end ,f our hyperspace crossing. Before we emerged into space-normal, Arthur called a halt to all ships, and with his commanders and closest Companions round him, with Ygrawn on his left hand and Gweniver on his right, he stood on the bridge of Carnwen to speak to his armies. As many of us as could crowded into the bridge-well below to hear him, while the viewscreens carried his words and his image to every ship in the fleet. Only Uthyr the King did not choose to be part of that grouping, but in his infirmity remained, with Morgan in attendance, in his chambers, and watched as did the rest of us, as Arthur addressed the ages and his Kelts.
What he said is by now part of the loom of legend; what I would now call to memory's eye is rather the look of him, the way we saw him that day, and the way he saw us in his turn.
And what we saw was our King that would be: to speak as we bards speak, the full statement of that theme of kingship which had sounded round Arthur since the night Uthyr had had him proclaimed Prince of the Name, so long since in Coldgates. Then it had been the merest sketch of melody, picked out as it were upon cold harpstrings by a single unskilled finger, no harmony or chording, no concord or consonance or chime.
But now, as he stood there and spoke to us, it was as if the lull diapason of royalty were pouring through him, from Brendan long since to kings and queens centuries yet unborn. And the counterpoint was as it has ever been: The life of the land and the life of its ruler are as one,—but though they are one, they are not the same, and that is kingship's great mystery.
For so awe-filled a moment, the words Arthur spoke were what any bard would class as in the heroic mold; they were plain words, for what he saw as a plain hour. Yet as he spoke them, and as we saw him speak them, they became anything but plain, transformed through some desperate enemy into words of legend, and we stored them up forever in our hearts.
First he thanked us for our loyalty and constancy in service to King Uthyr and Queen Ygrawn; only then to Gweniver and to himself. He spoke of our years together, and the triumphs we had had, and the years and the triumphs, gods willing, that were yet to come. He spoke of his much-loved Companions,—he spoke of the many we mourned, Companion or conscript or irregular auxiliar or citizen Kelt, all alike in their dying so that we here might come to this place in such an hour with such intent.
I watched him as he spoke, one part of me the eternal observer-bard, another the loving fostern concerned for the well-being of his foster-brother, and another part still as one with every other Kelt who watched and listened, a participant like any other in this great drama about to be played out on so tremendous a stage. Arthur was one of those annoying folk who seldom allow their faces to reflect their feelings: He looked grave enough as he spoke to us, but it was not so very different from his usual gravity,—confident, aye, and even brought us to cheering laughter once or twice, on which occasions he did permit himself a smile as well. But of that inner uncertainty I knew full well he felt, I saw no outward I sign upon him,—and if I his brother saw none, certain sure no other saw any.
He was clad as he had been at Cadarachta, in battle-dress I of black tunic and trews and boots, with a findruinna lorica beneath a surcoat blazoned with the arms of Don. The sword Llacharn hung upon a worn brown leather baldric studded with red gold, and his chestnut hair fell past his collarbone. No mark of royal rank did he bear save his father's great ruby seal upon his hand; no more did he need, and not even that for our sakes. Save for the thirty or so added years, he looked soul-stabbingly like that young Arthur who had stood before the folk of Coldgates that long-ago night, when he had flung himself at their hearts like a cast spear, and had not failed of his mark.
Beside him, Ygrawn and Gweniver were for the moment eclipsed; and truth to tell, neither was displeased to be so. This was Arthur's moment; he had fought since boyhood to stand there, and not the present Queen-consort nor the future Ard-rian seemed minded to dispute his place or his right. Or, indeed, his force upon the folk: As I glanced round, I saw the light upon the upturned faces, the love and loyalty in the shining eyes of those standing by me, and knew it must be even so with all those on all the other ships. What Arthur gave to them freely and fully, they gave back to him full measure, and that was ever the cause of his success—and of his failures also, and his downfall in the end…
But such darkling times were far off just then; and though we knew our present state was a desperate one, and that many of those who now heard Arthur's words here as Prince would not live to hear him speak to them as King, still we rejoiced—in him, and in ourselves, and in the great cause for which we had come so far and fared so hardly.
Arthur was coming to the end of his speech now; he spoke again of Uthyr the King (though not of the unhealed and unhealing wound from which the King continued to suffer); of Leowyn Ard-righ, Gweniver's dead father; of his own dead sire, Prince Amris, and of the
death of the only man he ever knew as a father, Gorlas Lord of Daars.
"By the price they did pay, the price we ourselves will pay today and have paid in the past," he was saying, "Keltia will be ransomed back for its people. Not for any great merit of our own has it been ordered that we and not they, nor any of those millions of others who paid a like price, should stand here so; but the gods have made it so, the Mother has allowed it, the Father has confirmed it, the Alterator has set it into being and the Highest has ordained that it should be. All we must now do is that which we must do. And that, we can, and shall, and will." He paused a moment, then smiled a smile of the morning of the world, bright, unshadowed, informed by love and joy. "Lean thusa orm!"
'Follow on,' it has been translated; more accurately, 'Follow thou me.' That was the first time Keltia heard the battle-cry that was to ring across so many fields on so many worlds for so many years to come. And we who heard it now did as those who ever heard it would do: We took it up with a glad shout, and took it to our hearts.
But before that shout had died away, Arthur stepped forward from where he stood, and not one of us there but knew it was to come. Suddenly solemn, without another word we ebbed away like some silent tide, to take up our battle stations, to await the next word that Arthur would speak.
Not long in coming, that: He consulted briefly and swiftly with Keils and Tarian and the captains of the fleet, to verify that all was in readiness for battle, ships and forces alike,—had word sent back to Gwynedd, to give Tegau and Ferdia and the rest what might perhaps be the last word they would ever have from us; spoke a few soft private words over the transcom, overheard by no one, to Uthyr in his chamber,—then stepped forward a little, still staring out the viewport, though the screens gave a better view by far.
Gweniver and I, a few paces behind, exchanged grave glances: As soon as Arthur spoke, Carnwen would drop down from hyperspace into space-normal off Tara, and all the other ships would follow her. Into what we would be emerging—enemy fleet or pitched battle or peaceful space—we had no way of knowing. None among us could even say if we had reached clear space or an asteroid belt, as no astrogation charts were available for current conditions round Tara,—the best information we had was two centuries old. Even Owein Rheged's captured pilots had not been trusted with such knowledge. But we were here, and we would soon know what we had come to…
A movement from Arthur's direction caused our gazes to shift: As before, he lifted his right hand to shoulder height, paused so fractionally that only Gwennach and I marked the hesitation, then—not as before—Arthur flung his arm out and down, as one will do who starts off a race or a duel or a contest. And, again as before, "Ymlaen!" was all the word he gave.
It was enough: The stars reeled around us as we dropped out of the overheaven into space-normal, where time was as it was and ever would be. I glanced at the screens: The rest of the fleet was out of hyperspace and forming up behind us, but as yet there were no signs of attackers, gallain or otherwise.
Perhaps our fears had been in vain? But even as I thought this, and turned to Gweniver to voice my hopeful thought, my sidesight caught swift motion on one of the screens that was mirrored by motion outside the viewport. An incoming ship, gallain by the look of her…
Arthur had already taken note of the attacker, but so well-schooled was the bridge crew that without a word of command Carnwen's course was altered, weapons were fired, and the enemy craft vanished in a bloom of deadly light. First blood to us…
But only first, came the thought from Arthur, wry and warning. I spun around as the screens blazed with light lancing from half a hundred attacking craft gyring in upon us.
"Where did those come from?" muttered Gweniver, taking her place at a weapons console.
"No matter where they came from,—only let us make certain they do not keep us from where we are going." I looked again at Arthur, who at least seemed unconcerned enough, and bent my efforts to my communications work…
Two hours later, the remaining enemy vessels broke off and raced for one of Tara's moons, where presumably they were based. I scanned for any signs of reinforcements or renewed attack, but the stars were clear. Arthur wasted no time wondering, but ordered the fleet to make planetfall with all speed.
The plan to take Tara had been worked out, insofar as it could be worked out from afar, in our days at Caer Dathyl following the victory below Agned. Taking a leaf or two from Brendan's book, we had resolved to land just east of the entrance to the Strath Mor, far enough from Caerdroia so that Edeyrn's forces must march to meet us and near enough to the City so that we could, with an early victory, roll right through with least cost to ourselves. Not a bad plan, all in all, but no one was entirely pleased with it.
'How many times have I said it?" demanded Tarian. "Moytura may have worked for Brendan, Artos, but I do not think that the Marbh-draoi is going to make the same mistake as did the Coranians."
A ripple of discontent ran round the table, but no one disputed her, not even Arthur. We were involved in one last council before the actual landing; the fleet, still suspiciously unchallenged by any further Theocracy war-craft, was perhaps an hour off from Tara, and here we sat still wrangling about our invasion strategies…
Arthur looked up at last; I could tell by his bearing that he was angry and weary, but he allowed none of this to show upon his face.
"Even so, we have little choice of landing-place. Look here"—he stabbed the hologram map with a light-pen—"I do not wish to entrap us by these Cliffs of Fhola, the land is too rough there and the vale too narrow. More to the east, and we will be out of effective striking range of the City. South is only Bwlch-y-Saethau, and there are no passes, or few and difficult ones, by which we may cross over the Loom."
I sat with my chin in my hands, only half-listening to the ancient argument. What I was waiting for was the reaction of those who did not yet know what Arthur's real plans were… I did not have long to wait. One of the new Companions, Alannagh Ruthven, a dark-haired, blue-eyed Erinnachin who had been seconded to us by Grehan Aoibhell from his command at Errigal, was new enough to our ways still to be in a little awe of most of us, even me, and of Arthur in especial. But she never once had let that awe stand in the way of her speaking her mind; and did not do so now…
"Artos, after we land at Moytura, where shall the ships be taken to keep them safe? Most like the Marbh-draoi would destroy them do we leave them sitting in orbit, and we shall have need of them after."
Arthur grinned, and I could see that he had been waiting for someone to ask just this.
"Not hard, Lann-fach… But in truth we shall not be needing the ships after, for after we have landed with all our gear I shall order them destroyed. We are here, to live or die; escape is not an option I will allow us. Either we will triumph in our cause, or we will die in it."
Uproar unparalleled. This was news indeed to most of them around the table—though Gwennach and Tari and Keils and a few others of the inner circle of Companions had known Arthur's plan—and judging by the whiteness of their faces and the anger thereon, the news was less than welcome.
"You cannot be serious, Arthur!" Even Carnwen's captain, Bruan Corridon, had not been party to this decision, and he was staring at his Prince as if Arthur had just confessed totreason; which, perhaps, at least in Bruan's book, was not so far off the mark.
"Do I look as if I jested?" said Arthur impatiently. "My sorrow if this comes as a surprise to most of you, but it is not a choice I have made easily or lightly, and I will not be turned by aught any of you, or anyone else for that matter, may say."
The small tense silence was broken by, again, Alannagh Ruthven. "What does Merlynn Llwyd think of this—or, for that matter, King Uthyr?"
It was Gweniver who answered her question, though the response seemed meant rather more for the others than for Alannagh, and carried warning.
"My uncle stands by all decisions of his Rex Bellorum; as for the Archdruid, why, he can speak for himself." She
nodded toward the far corner of the chamber, where, all unnoticed in the earlier tumult, Merlynn had come quietly in.
He did not move from his place in the dimness, but somehow he seemed to make himself suddenly visible, and the room fell silent as he did so.
"I am no warrior," said Merlynn, "but this is still my fight as much as it is any of yours,—and for all of me, Arthur has chosen the Heroes' Way. No other path will serve us now. Aye, it is desperate; aye again, I am with him in his choice."
Arthur had been watching the faces round the table as our old teacher spoke, and now he stood up, looking as pleased as any man would who has just gotten his way—even a way he did not particularly love getting, for better than any of us he knew what his choice might mean. To invade Tara was one thing,—deliberately to strand ourselves here, where the alternatives were victory or destruction, no middle ground, was quite another. But he spoke now as if the whole matter was no more importance than the choosing of one tunic over another. Perhaps his way was best.
"Then I suggest we each go to our quarters and gather our gear together. We will not be able to come back for anything that may have been forgotten in our haste."
There was little converse in the passageways of Carnwen, and as I headed to my own chambers I thought that it must be the same on all the other ships, where by now Arthur's edict would have been made known to all our forces.
"Well, Talyn." Arthur had come up beside me while I brooded, and now put an arm round my shoulders. "And do you too think me deranged to destroy what may be our only sure way home to Gwynedd?"
Not for worlds would I have let him know what I thought in truth, and thanked gods I was by now a bit more skilled than he at hiding that truth from him… "Not a bit of it," I said coolly. "If we win out over Edeyrn, we shall have goleor of ships, and shall not need these ones,—and if we lose, why, we shall have no need of any ships at all."
The Oak above the Kings Page 7