The Oak above the Kings

by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison

  Now, before you think hard on us for thinking so, remember that this was, after all, war to the knife; and we had been cozened before, to our lasting sorrow, by just such dissemblers, who passed as supporters, wronged and persecuted even as ourselves but who were in truth Edeyrn's creatures; and who wrought great harm before they were found out. Doubtless some of these who now hailed and honored us were traitors of that stripe, spying for their master in our midst; but we felt for them pity as well as the pitilessness with which we would deal with them in the end. They had lived with Edeyrn's hand so close above them for two hundred years, in a kind of oppression we who chose to fight openly cannot know. No surprise, then, if they had gone to his side, for who can say truly what he or she would do in like case? We love to think we shall ever choose the noble road; but that is not the same as knowing we shall do so, or in fact so doing…

  So we kept cautious in the face of triumph, and our joy was not too much tempered. But now the folk those others had fought for came timidly out to us as well, scarcely daring to believe what had befallen: shy, dazed, weeping with joy and fear and fear's ending. Of all the battle-aftermaths I have in my time been witness to, this one was by far the most poignant; if I was not on the verge of tears, it was only for that I was already weeping. Of all those I saw, it was the children and the old folk that moved me most: the bewildered children who could not understand their deliverance, and the bewildered old ones who could not believe they had been at last delivered…

  Scenes all around me of piercing feeling: I saw Morgan comforting a sobbing woman of an age to be her grand-Mother, who kissed her hands and wept and talked incomprehensibly in confusion and joy,—saw Tryffin with a child on her arm, all three of them laughing in purest delight; and the others, those who stared hungrily at our Companions, swept our modest auxiliars into delirious embraces; who offered stammering thanks to our overwhelmed commanders.

  To me they showed the awed respect and the deference they knew was the due of a ranking bard: I had for the first time today worn my golden star of ollaveship openly upon my battle dress; as Arthur and Morgan and Tarian and Tryffin and so many others had worn the interdicted arms of their outlawed Houses, as so many more had borne their own kindreds' devices openly into the field; it seemed an hour for declaring, did we win or did we fall. Perhaps in especial did we fall…

  But the deference had swiftly altered in the mood of the moment: Though no whit less respectful, it was transmuted into warm loving eagerness, to hear and be heard, as they crowded round the first true ollave they had ever known, to tell him of their thoughts and deeds and hopes this Brighnasa morning. Brighnasa… Had Arthur planned it so, or had some Other worked it? I wondered; and resolved to remind Morgan, that we might that night give proper thanks to the Goddess on Her feast day, for Her hand had surely been with us in our need.

  But now all around fell silent, as Morgan and Arthur stood out from the host, and, hand in hand, claimed the City for the High King Uthyr Pendreic. Then, slowly, as if in a dream from which they prayed they should not awaken, the folk of Caerdroia went as one to their knee, before their Prince and his sister.

  Now Arthur hated this sort of thing, and Morgan detested it even more,—but I sighed with relief to see that they had accepted the fealty of the folk. Now is neither time nor place to assert your dislike of homage, I sent to both of them, and sensed their wry assent. In any case, not to them did the folk offer it, but to that long-doubted and despaired-of legend called the House of Don; and as such did they accept it.

  Arthur spoke to them then, made some small speech claiming Caerdroia, thanking them for their aid, praying them to keep their city for him when he rode out—"as ride I must"—against Edeyrn, who was still at Ratherne for all anyone knew,—spoke of Gweniver, and the fight that was yet to come, and begged their aid for her; thanked all gods and avowed his cause anew. Not a long speech; as for Morgan, she merely thanked the fighters and blessed the folk, and I was interested to see how reverentially they did receive her blessing. But I think we all had ever done so: When Morgan blessed you, by gods you felt blessed…and the people of Caerdroia did so now.

  But longer formalities would have to wait: We were all too exhausted just then, Companion or Caerdroian, it was all the same. So much had to be done, too, before Arthur could ride out as he had said; yet Gweniver and Keils could not be kept waiting one hour, one minute, longer than must be…

  Still, some things could be dealt with: Arthur swiftly appointed a military governor for Caerdroia, to act in conjoint with a mormaor, last of the City's proud servants, and a council of civil and military officers alike.

  As it turned out, there was in Caerdroia a Counterinsurgency presence stronger even than we had dared hope in our wildest ashlings. Warriors, provisioners, armourers, horsemasters, all manner of artisan and artificer, and every one of them keen as wind to do service to Arthur Penarvon. Who, for his part, was a little overwhelmed that so many should be so eager to serve: After so many years of hiding and being hunted, I think all of us found ourselves somewhat daunted, at first, by the unexpected seductiveness of being adored by the folk. Oh, to be sure, the dazzle passed swiftly—being worshipped is hard and thankless work, and leads only to contempt on both sides in the end; much better to meet on equal footing, whether it be one being to another or one to one's god—but for some I fear it never passed entirely, and much sorrow would come of it.

  For now, though, we bent all our energies to the relief of the main army, of whom we had had no word since we had gone into the Loom a fortnight since. Time for aught else was scanted; no time even to rest our auxiliars as they so well merited. We the Companions were well used to Arthur's demands, but the regular troops, however battle-hardened otherwise, were not 'customed to such degree of rigor as went with those who went with Arthur. They had shown extraordinary pluck and dash and good humor on the snow—which was already legend, a war-tale for the ages (and I had not even had my harp in it; not yet, at least)—but by now they were all but collapsed. Yet there was no slack for any of us: The rope was running taut and swift and near its end, and we must move before the noose caught and held.

  There was council that very first night in Turusachan: Arthur, diffident at first, had been persuaded to commandeer the palace for our use, and now we sat—some of us less comfortably than others—in the ancient chamber used for council by Keltia's monarchs for a thousand years and more.

  Some had been wondering openly why no gallain had been sent against us, nor yet an attack from space. Edeyrn still had vast reserves of mercenary outworlders, many more ships than we had as yet acquired for ourselves; why had he ventured no throw of either?

  Arthur addressed this matter first of all. "Not hard; the Marbh-draoi wishes to husband his forces for what he considers the real fight. A space attack would have levelled Caerdroia, and that he does not wish, even though we would surely be levelled with it… More than that, such attack can only be made from space; no ships can fly in air on Tara, save only the smallest aircars. No one knows why, unless Edeyrn himself knows—but any ship that tries will crash almost as soon as it clears the ground. And, for reasons of his own, he chooses not to bombard from space. So—we fight as we have always fought, and let us be thankful."

  I was only half-listening, as I had heard all this many times that day alone; but looked around me with considerably more interest. This was a real Council, by gods! Companions and City folk of rank and consequence all working together, as had never happened before in all our years of campaigning. Held in Turusachan's council chamber, too: Maybe Brendan himself once had stood where Arthur was even that moment pacing, maybe Raighne herself had sat in that very chair, Alwen's elbows been propped on this very table…

  I came to myself abruptly. One of the City folk, a woman who had been among the foremost in command, was speaking to something Betwyr had said.

  "You wonder, lord, that the City was so sparse defended. All we here know that had you arrived so much as three days
sooner, you had tens of thousands to deal with, not hundreds merely."

  Arthur nodded somberly. "They have all gone eastwards to the front; well for us, but very hard on our friends—" He stood up, and the room rose with him. "Well, though Edeyrn plainly did not think Caerdroia worth the work of holding, I myself think far otherwise. If naught else, it will be a sign and beacon to the folk of Tara and the other worlds. We have taken Caerdroia back from the Marbh-draoi, and Gwynedd also,—and all but retaken Caledon and Erinna, thanks to the efforts of our Companions Grehan and Aluinn, among others. Who will soon be rejoining us," he added as he left the chamber. "They judge those worlds can now be held by their rightful lords, and we need them with us once again. Give you goodnight, sirs and ladies…"

  I remained awhile, with Morgan and Alannagh and Betwyr and some others, talking to those of our riding who had come to Caerdroia by different ways than ours, acquainting the Caerdroians with Arthur's way of attending to business, simply making friends with the folk of the City.

  And so it went, deep into owl-time; but when Morgan and I at last staggered to bed, stupid with fatigue, we saw that the lamp in Arthur's chamber yet burned.

  * * *

  * * *

  Chapter Twelve

  WE SECURED THE CITY for the Counterinsurgency and the High King Uthyr Pendreic in barely five days' time, taking a few days more to rest and resupply ourselves and attend to our hurt and slain; but even Arthur, I think, was surprised at the speed with which things arranged themselves. In truth, though, it was the Caerdroians themselves were chief cause of this ease and quickness, and of the success that followed: Give them the praise, then, for so well did they hold to their own that four separate assaults by Edeyrn's remnant forces were turned away, and not one loss on the side of the defenders.

  But that, as I say, came later, after we had marched out: On a cold and cloudy morning halfway to the Wolf-month Arthur gave command in the City to Betwyr and Alannagb Ruthven, with Aled and a few others of our tried officers to assist. Then, using as much of captured technology as we could master in so short and crammed a time, we led out prouder and greater army eastwards, to close upon Edeyrn from the rear…

  Now any prudent general, when confronted by two perils at the same time, will know it clear duty to dispose first of the greater of the two. Any road, so Arthur had always held; and it was just now by no means certain that Edeyrn even had knowledge of what we had just achieved. But perhaps it was as well for us that the Marbh-draoi was no general, nor even, in the event, particularly prudent…

  From Caerdroia to Ratherne is twenty-five leagues along the Loom's northern skirts; more, if you take the road that runs by the Avon Dia, a pleasant broad way lined by many country maenors and hill brughs. We took neither, cutting straight across broken country that the two highroads bend to miss, for now it was all our purpose to get to Edeyrn as quickly as we might, and concealment was no longer our concern. We went openly now, and we gathered folk to us as we went; but when we came in sight of Nandruidion, we found to our neverending astonishment that Edeyrn, far from having engaged Gweniver as we had thought he surely must have done—he had had near a month to do it, and all unhindered—was drawn up waiting for us instead.

  "Fine for all of me!" said Arthur when he saw it, and lowered the spyscope, grinning from ear to ear.

  I started as someone gently touched my shoulder; it was Coria Rhikenn, one of the Caerdroian officers that Arthur had permitted to march with us.

  "I have not much knowledge of matters in the field," she said apologetically. "Our war in the City was purely strike-and-scurry… But Prince Arthur seems pleased that the Marbh-draoi has not engaged the army?"

  ''Artos'," I corrected gently, not for the first time, and left to Tryffin and Morgan to instruct her in our commander's preferences in address. For myself, I was more concerned just now with something troubling in the Marbh-draoi's lines, something strange, something there that should not be, or not there that should, but which in either case was not quite right, though I could not twig it…

  Then I did, and spoke abruptly, interrupting Tryffin's discourse. "Are we altogether sure there has been no fighting here—or anywhere else?"

  "Nay," said Morgan, picking up on my unease. "Only that we have heard of none, and so we assumed none had taken place. But we are waiting even now on reports coming in; messengers have been sighted. Why do you ask?"

  I shook my head and stared back over the distant enemy lines. "No reason; only that that below"—I pointed to the Theocracy ranks—"looks to me like an army halved, or an army chastened elsewhere."

  When the messengers arrived at last, we learned that it was both.

  "Second Moytura, they are calling it," said a jubilant Daronwy, who had, with my old teacher Elphin Carannoc, carried the news all the way from Gweniver's own hands. "And that is why Edeyrn waits here for you, Artos; we destroyed his gallain groundtroops six days since."

  She drank off a quaich of ale someone had thrust into her hands, continued in a lower, calmer voice.

  "And'destroyed' is indeed the word, as Elphin—for all his native bardic caution—will well attest."

  Elphin grinned at us all and quirked a brow at me. "Caution is no bad thing, even in bardery,—but still… We met them at the very same place as our first encounter"—every eye in the room went covertly to Arthur, but his face did not change at this reminder of his first great strategic blunder, or the memory of what it had cost him—"and all that went so wrong for us then this time did go so right that I could scarce credit it."

  "Gallain? Of what kind?" That was Morgan.

  "Fomori mostly, some Fir Bolg," replied Daronwy. "And I would not be so sure to think we have seen the last of them, Artos, for all we routed them here and now—

  "All in its hour," said Arthur, and I could tell by his voice that he knew something the rest of us did not; though now was not the time to ask him of it.

  "Dan for sure," Elphin was saying. "But Gwennach merits all praise; aye, and Keils. Had they not carried the day at Moytura you would now be facing all Edeyrn's massed groundforce here at Ratherne, not merely half as is the case. Which half is still formidable, never think for a minute it is not."

  "Oh aye?" came a voice from the rear of the tent. "And whyso?"

  Daronwy answered, her dark eyes thoughtful as they rested on Arthur. "It is almost entirely Ravens—and Owein Rheged leads them."

  Arthur leaned back a little in his chair, and our glances met. Owein, our old nemesis—and yet it seemed to me right that it had come to this.

  To Arthur too, seemingly… "Most fitting," he said lightly, "that our first foe should also be our last."

  Well enough if that were true; but for myself I was not so sure, and voiced my concern to him later that night, when the last of the staff command had gone and we were alone in the tent.

  "You were better pleased earlier, I think," I said accusingly, "when you believed that Gwennach had not even fought the Marbh-draoi, much less won. What is on you? Do you still grudge her a triumph or two? She is by no means your equal in the field, Artos, but she has ever been a fine commander. And Keils—"

  "Aye, well for them," said Arthur shortly, cutting me off and leaping to his feet so quickly he all but tripped over Cabal, curled up as usual beside his master's chair. Avoiding my eyes, he went over to the table to pour himself some ale; finding the keeve empty, he turned again with a mild oath and looked me in the face at last.

  'I wished to have won here without need of Gweniver and the army," he said slowly. "Not for glory! But if we fail here, then they must pull back to safety and carry on; and of all matters in the balance just now, it is Uthyr's safety is the most important matter of any."

  "Is it?" I heard myself asking. "Is it most important, Artos,and is it in truth as important as you would have us think?" As his angry protest lashed out: "Nay,Artos, this is I you speak to, I Taliesin, not a breastling Companion nor yet some green-awed Caerdroian but your foster-brother who knows
you well! Now I love Uthyr as much and as deeply as do you or Guenna, but let us face facts here: The most important matter is winning. We have staked all on this Taran throw—we could have dug in on Gwynedd and fought for years from that safety; but nay, we chose the risk of taking war to the other worlds."

  "And we have been well repaid for that risk." His tone was almost a question, and it hurt my heart to hear him sound so unsure.

  "Aye. Aye, we have," I said after a pause, more gently. "But we have done so for one reason only: to defeat Edeyrn. And it makes no differ how that shall be done, so long as it is done. And less differ who it shall be that does it… if Uthyr dies for it, if we die for it, no matter; and if you must accept Gweniver as your equal on the field, if it is but half an army we now face because of her great victory, then be it so! I had not thought you so small-souled as that, but perhaps I was wrong."

  Arthur's face had flushed slow red and paled again as I spoke,—now he dropped his glance before mine, and flung himself back into his chair without speaking. Well, it would be he spoke first, I had said all my say…

  When he did not, I turned on my heel and left the tent.

  After the snows that had choked the Loom valleys on our westward march, the present weather seemed like Briginda's own spring: Storms had come whipping in all day off the Western Ocean, nipping at one another's heels down the throat of the Great Glen, far inland past Nandruidion. Though the air was cool and fresh, there had been a glint that day in the wind's eye, and now as night fell that glancing light took on visible form.

  As I plodded from Arthur's tent to my own, Cabal having taken it into his huge shaggy head to accompany me, the greatest storm of the day was rushing down upon us, so fast that we could feel the breath of its oncoming like fingers upon our faces. I flung myself, not a moment too soon, into my empty tent—late as it by now was, Morgan was yet out upon some errand of her own—and huddled there unhappily, as far back as its altogether inadequate depth allowed, while the storm broke overhead.