The Oak above the Kings

by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison

  They paid me no more heed, intent on their own battle. Yet if it were in truth battle, it was like to no fight I had ever seen: They stood still as two great trees in the hush before a storm—yet the storm was raging even as we watched.

  I looked from the dark glory that burned before me to the white fire at my side. Edeyrn ap Seli and Gwyn ap Nudd faced each other at last, and the thing of most terror in that most terrible of moments was that they seemed one and the same.

  A match of equals, then, a standoff not to be broken by even more than mortal means; therefore only mortal ways would serve… I was not the first to whom this had occurred, for off to my right I saw movement, and it was movement of a nature I knew all too well.

  Arthur surged forward like the tide that had rolled over Gwaelod, just as strong, just as invincible, just as inevitable in his moving. In his hand was Fragarach, gift of Nudd the king. It may seem strange that the matter was settled with swords in the end, and not magic,—but so it was. To his credit, or perhaps his foreknowledge of dan perceived, Edeyrn gave no blow, as if some strange form must be satisfied, then fell without a groan under Arthur's sword.

  It seemed even stranger that all this took place so swiftly: a matter of seconds, to put an end to an evil that had scourged Keltia for two centuries and more. Perhaps only Fragarach could have dealt such a blow,—perhaps only Arthur could have dealt it; and perhaps Nudd and Gwyn and Edeyrn, and even maybe Arthur, had known it. Just then I was only glad it should be so; but I think we were all surprised. Well—stunned into silence and disbelief would be more like it, jaws all round the field of Nandruidion were well agape.

  I heard myself asking very far away, "Is that it, then? Is there no more to it than that?"

  Arthur began to answer me, but Gwyn was there before him. "Much more to it, son of Gwyddno. But, for now, all."

  Arthur gave him a long unreadable gaze, then deliberately looked down upon the form at his feet. I take no shame in confessing that I myself would not have had the nerve, had barely the stomach, even, to watch from a distance; but Arthur Penarvon, his face impassive, with the point of Fragarach flicked back the cloak where it had fallen over Edeyrn's face.

  What was revealed then was not the face of a man of eightscore years, as he had so long willed himself to appear. Nor yet was it the ageless timeless countenance of the Sidhe, whose faces in death no mortal in Keltia had yet beheld but which are fairer so even than in life. Nay—it was the face of one who had lived unlawfully far past any natural span, Sidhe or mortal both, a wreck of bone and leathered skin that looked as if no human had ever inhabited it. Perhaps none ever had.

  And yet, as I stared, revolted and fascinated both, upon the dead countenance of Edeyrn Marbh-draoi—and how strange that seemed to me then, to think that, to know that, for it seems strange to me even now—clear upon that countenance was the strangest and yet most human emotion of all, to be read by any who looked. Edeyrn ap Seli ac Rhun, Marbh-draoi of Keltia, had gone grateful to his death.

  I do not know how long we stood there, Arthur, Gwyn and I. Moments, minutes or hours, it was all one to us. Morgan came; Gweniver, Keils, and others of our Companions, though they stood carefully back from Edeyrn's uninhabited form. Around us, the battle was suddenly over,—like one awaking from sleep or deep-trance, I startled to note the quiet where once the fight had roared.

  And all this time Gwyn and Arthur gazed unspeaking into one another's eyes; into one another's souls as well, maybe, even—and be very sure that none there present, not even my Morgan, chose to intrude upon that colloquy…

  At last Arthur stirred and drew a deep breath, looked round him as if mazed at where he found himself, and in whose company. Then he glanced down once more at Edeyrn, and his face changed in a way I have no words for.

  Gwyn's dark glance followed his. "We will take him back with us, to our own place," he said quietly, and I thrilled to his voice's deep timbre as I had done when first I heard it. He half-turned from us then, to where his host circled restlessly over the breast of the hills, then turned back again, and now his eyes were darker still.

  "And he too," he said even more quietly, and nodded once toward the crystal treetrunk that had taken Merlynn. At my and Arthur's uncontrollable jolt of protest: "Nay, it is all dan;never think it is not. Others will need him too in time to come, and he will be there for them,—a queen-empress, and a king with a cloak of gold." But more than that he would not say, then or ever.

  I stepped forward, and he did not hinder me; after a moment Arthur joined me. The crystal seemed cold and warm at the same time; I could sense Merlynn's life within it, and also a life of its own. Not evil, for all it was the Marbh-draoi's last magic,—perhaps he too knew of this future need, and remembered he was Kelt enough in the end to take vengeance only so far.

  But gods, how I would miss my teacher,—never since my earliest childhood had I been without him, and even when we had by necessity gone our own ways we had never been long apart, and ever we spoke to one another, mind to mind.

  And so it seemed now: From an immense distance I caught a faint trace as upon a wind from the future, sensed the unmistakable wry humor Merlynn had been wont to show us, the indulgent affectionate impatience, even the mocking sigh he had so often affected with Arthur and me when another teacher would have caught us both a clout.

  Have you heard naught that I have taught you? it seemed to say, and beside me I sensed Arthur startle and smile, as if he too had been spoken to in the old dear way, and through my tears I smiled too, and bade my teacher Ailithir a pupil's farewell.

  Gwyn had been watching us both, and when I looked at him again I could see no emotion that I could read upon the fair stern countenance. He nodded once to Arthur, once to me, once to Morgan; then raised the gold horn to his lips. At the sound of the horn's cry I closed my eyes as I had done before, and when I opened them again Gwyn had gone. And with him went Edeyrn, and Merlynn, and all the faerie host.

  In the ringing silence I sought Morgan's mind, but she was wrapped in her own thought, and I let my gaze shift to Arthur, then out to the armies below. I looked at their faces and heard myself say with quiet urgency, "Artos—they will run mad if you do not calm them. Speak to them. Now."

  And this I knew because I myself was not far off it: I was trembling as if I had been too long outdoors in the bitter cold, or had carried too far a burden far beyond my strength. I myself would go mad did not Arthur speak to bid me other. .

  He started violently as Morgan laid a gentle hand upon his arm to underscore my words; glanced wildly around him as if he sought one who was no longer there, and I knew from that how much he himself felt Merlynn's absence, for he would not have let any see even that if he could have prevented it. But as ever with Arthur, the need of others was paramount, and perhaps the terror of reaction and incomprehension in our faces—for we were all a nail's thickness away from breaking point by now—did somewhat to ease his own.

  Then his face altered, and he bent to scoop something up from the trampled earth. When he turned round to Morgan and to me, I saw, with a shiver that caught me between laughter and tears, what he had in his hand: the Bratach Ban, plucked from the ground where Merlynn Llwyd had let it fall.

  Morgan reached out to take it from her brother's convulsive grasp. "It will be needed twice again before its work is done. Let me keep it safe for now."

  He relinquished the banner into her keeping,—then, sheathing Fragarach that had hung, unheeded, unneeded, in his right hand all this time, he leaped to the flat top of a boulder nearby, calling out to those who were near to gather in. And, Companion and Raven alike, all of them came at his calling.

  I came too, of course, and I have not the slightest recollection, of a single word that Arthur spoke then to us—and for a bard to admit to so egregious a lapse is no easy thing, believe me. Though whatever he said to us, I am sure it must have been fine and correct, for I could see the terror fading out of the upturned faces, felt the fear draining from my own sou
l as I listened with the rest.

  But though that was the most immediately pressing of the duties that crowded now upon us in victory's wake—for it was our victory, all seemed agreed on that by now, and Arthur's peace, the Pax Arturus, was already spreading out like ripples in a pond; I could sense the panic vanishing, the evil mists burning off forever, taken away as surely as the Marbh-draoi himself had been taken—it was by no means the most difficult.

  That lay still ahead of us, for now Daronwy approached us from the direction of Uthyr's tent, and I knew at once what she had come to say.

  And so, indeed, did Arthur.

  * * *

  * * *

  Chapter Sixteen

  "NOT DEAD," SAID YGRAWN my foster-mother; the Queen of Keltia. "Not yet—he waits for you four before he goes." The violet gaze, undimmed as yet by any tear, rested on each of us in turn: Arthur, Gweniver, Morgan, me.

  We gave her back gaze for gaze; not for worlds would we have proved lesser at the test than this woman who had been the only real mother all four of us had ever had. But Ygrawn was leading us into the tent's inner chamber, where sconces glowed and the dying King lay, barely there, upon his couch.

  The first thing I laid eyes on as I walked through the door was Uthyr's polechair, that had borne him to and from the battlefield this day. And I remembered how like a throne it had seemed for him, this King of Kelts who had not once sat upon the Throne of Scone, high seat of Keltic monarchs since Brendan's day. No matter; he was no less a king for that, and more king than all the rest, again for that…

  Morgan had laid a hand upon my arm, and with a start I was aware again of my surroundings as she hastened me into my proper position at Arthur's right hand; for I was his fostern, and wife's foster-son to him who lay so still beneath the coverlet.

  Uthyr's eyes were closed, his fine narrow face drawn to a blade-like sharpness, the dark hair and beard seeming even darker against the waxen translucence of his skin. I had, I think, hoped against hope that the King might yet live; but seeing that paleness I had seen so often before, I knew my hope dashed before it had ever risen. It was the light of the withdrawing soul, the blaze of the spirit setting sail, its work completed, free to go home to the courts of heaven.

  Across from Arthur and me, Gweniver and Morgan mirrored our mien and stance and thought. Ygrawn, by the bedhead, looked only upon Uthyr,—at the bed's foot were Uthyr's closest friends and officers—Keils Rathen, Marigh Aberdaron, three or four others; no more. This was no passing of state, by Ygrawn's wish, and we were glad to have it so.

  How long we stood in silence and remembrance I know not; but all at once the tent seemed to hold its collective breath, as Uthyr opened his eyes.

  His gaze went first to his Queen. Ygrawn Tregaron did not weep nor flinch nor falter as she returned that loving regard, and I knew from our long shared past that she would do none of those things, not so long as Uthyr was there to see it. Afterwards would be another matter, and her concern.

  Then the gentle glance, already turning its focus outward, beginning to make that great shift from physical vision to Sight that comes ever at the end, as the senses are set to higher modes of sensing, moved on to rest on Morgan. Uthyr's younger daughter wept no more than had her mother, but smiled down into her father's face, and whatever was exchanged between them in that moment was too precious and private to be entrusted to spoken speech.

  Lifting his gaze to the other side of his couch, Uthyr looked on me where I stood beside Arthur, my hand resting lightly on his shoulder. It had not been given to me to attend my own father's going-out, nor that of my foster-father Gorlas: Both of them had been killed in combat, as it were, and both times I had been in flight for my own life. Now Uthyr would be my third father to whom farewell must be made; indeed he had been lasathair to me since I was scarce fourteen, athra-cheile these seven years past in all but the last vow of law; and I thanked Kelu and all gods that this time at least I was able to make my farewell face to face, on this side of this life.

  So I reached out to the King as my Druid masters had long ago taught me in my priesting, and felt flowing back to me the comfort he took of what I gave him, and the love he had ever had for me. For myself, I had comfort in it as well, and felt too the pride and love that came shining at me from Morgan and Ygrawn.

  And still no word had been spoken aloud, not until Uthyr turned his eyes at last to the two who were to follow him as rulers over Keltia. Gweniver leaned forward, knelt beside the bed, as if to reach her uncle from across a swiftly widening distance,—and from his place beside me, Arthur pulled back, as if to stand away, so that that distance should grow unhindered, and the leaving soul be free to sail.

  For it is one of the great pillars of our faith that the liberated soul can be followed out a certain distance, and it is the bounden duty—the joy also, for it is a charge of love—of that soul's nearest to ride escort for as long as may be safely allowed. Never think we go alone, when we come to make that journey for ourselves,—they are with us, and unseen guards as well, to ensure safe passage for the voyaging spirit and safe return for the escort soul still bound to earth. Our duties differ by nature of our standing to the journeyer: Ygrawn's chief charge from now would be to companion her lord out as far as she might and her powers permitted; a considerable way, I had no doubt, for knowing her I knew we would go farther than any other could, or would, have done, not turning back to earth again until the gates of Caer Coronach had safely received her consort within.

  But the rest of us too had our charge laid upon us: to ride with Uthyr on his road according to our own powers, to protect Ygrawn and help her safely home, to hold Keltia together for Arthur and Gweniver and itself. And perhaps of all these it was this last that would prove most difficult of doing…

  But if Uthyr the King had looked on us others—wife, daughter, niece, adopted son—with love, he looked on his nephew with something nigh to reverence. And yet not for Arthur, not as Arthur: The reverence in Uthyr's face now was for the High King that would follow him. That was whom he saw now, not his brother's son, nor the prince he himself had helped to train, nor even yet the warrior-lord who had won him this brief, true reign. Uthyr Pendreic, first King of Kelts to claim that title in truth since Alawn Last-king, was seeing a future that was yet years distant and at the same time all but upon us: the reign of Arthur Ard-righ.

  Yet by Uthyr's own decree, Arthur Ard-righ would not be alone upon the Throne of Scone but would share it with Gweniver Ard-rian, and this had not been forgotten. He lifted strengthless fingers to Gweniver, who closed both her hands over his; the other hand reached out to Arthur, who came back from his distance, himself falling to one knee to take the King's hand in his own. Some moments the three of them remained so, silent, unmoving,—though what moved between them then spoke louder than all words.

  Then Uthyr spoke, and the words of the ancient formula came faint and labored; but they came, and they were heard.

  "I confirm you both in that rank which has been attested and sworn to, to which you have been called: Gweniver Ard-rian, Arthur Ard-righ." He continued in a lower, stronger voice, his eyes brighter now. "And until such time as true peace shall come to Keltia, I continue Arthur of Arvon in his place as Rex Bellorum, sole and final master of war in this realm, and charge all Kelts else to obey him and him alone in this task. So say I, Uthyr King of Kelts."

  He was looking at his Queen as he spoke, and now Ygrawn moved closer to him, Gweniver giving way for her, and seated herself beside him on the couch's edge. She bent over to him, her hair falling forward to hide their faces; she was talking to him in a low soft voice, saying things to him that none but he could hark to.

  At the foot of the bed, Keils Rathen, Uthyr's sword-arm for forty years, said the only thing that could be said.

  "Gods save Uthyr, King of Kelts!"

  But the King did not hear.

  So passed Uthyr Pendreic, King of Kelts. As I stood there behind Arthur, who had not risen from his knees nor relin
quished his uncle's hand, I looked across at Gweniver where she had withdrawn to stand behind the widowed Queen. And upon her face was something extraordinary. Sorrow that Uthyr was gone, gladness that he was free at last of his pain—the sorcerous wound in his thigh had healed just now, as if it had never been—but also a kind of dazed despair, and a kind of freedom. She was High Queen now, who had never thought to be, never dared to dream of being; so that what happened now came, doubtless, as the most unlooked-for of surprises.

  It was said in all innocence, for that I am quite certain; particularly considering who it was that said it. But said it was, and so…

  "Gods save Arthur and Gweniver, King and Queen of Kelts!" Keils it was who said it, and I knew the hunt was up.

  I felt rather than saw Arthur's whole body go rigid with shock, and across the dead King's bed I saw Gweniver's face like a small bright moon that all at once had been eclipsed. Both of them looked as if someone had thrust a spear through their hearts; perhaps someone had.

  I turned away, unwilling for anyone to see my own face just then. It felt as if some great claw had reached down from the sky, or up out of the ground, and had torn away the scar tissue that had grown over those old wounds of mine; had stripped away all the poor protection that years and will had made for me, and now left my soul bare and bleeding again in the cold.

  For a moment, as I strode out of the tent unheeding of questions and clutching hands, I did not think I could endure it; not again. It had been terrible enough before; indeed, it was pain, and pain's aftermath, that had made me who I now was, who I of force became. I never thought it was ended, only that I had put it by, had found a place for it to live so that I could live too,—but now I knew that I had only stood aside from it. I had dealt with it, but it was greater than I, and now it dealt with me…