The Oak above the Kings

by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison

  "All the more reason." I paused for a moment. "What will you do, you and Artos? You must have discussed between you how to divide up the needs of rule?"

  Gweniver laughed outright. "You mean who shall get to wear the Copper Crown when, or which of us on what occasions shall sit in the Throne of Scone? Nay, Tal-bach, I think we shall let the brehons, as interpreters of the law, and the bards, as masters of protocol, work that one out!" The gray eyes danced. "Or not… I think, Arthur shall get the Crown, I the Silver Branch, no one gets the Throne—we can have two little benches built in front of it instead—and we take it in turns to wear the Great Seal of Keltia. Does that seem fair to you?"

  I laughed in spite of myself. "A decision worthy of Sulla vhic Dhau—Or, consider: You might divide the year as do the Goddess and the God; you to rule Beltain to Samhain, Artos Samhain to Beltain… Gwennach, do you know, truly, what has happened here?"

  There was urgency in my voice—did she, in fact, understand?—and caring, as friend to friend. She drew a uneven breath, and the look in her eyes was something to panic.

  "Nay, Talyn, I think I have not grasped it," she said in a low rapid voice. "I hear myself called 'Lady,' 'Ard-rian, speak of Artos as Ard-righ; but upon my soul I cannot make myself accept it, cannot know it! Edeyrn is dead. Merlynn is gone. Uthyr is dead. I am High Queen. We have won. It is so—-much." The controlled tone caught, faltered. "But why, why, cannot I feel it?"

  And I, a bard, her friend, had no answer.

  When we took Caerdroia, there had been other things to think about; none of us had had time really to look around us and see the City we had won. Now, as we rode through the Wolf Gate, to the sound of pipes and muffled drums far ahead, following Arthur and Gweniver who followed Ygrawn who rode behind Uthyr's bier drawn upon a war chariot, I glanced about, and marvelled.

  Morgan pretended to be unimpressed. "Oh aye—a most defensible rock, to be sure. Small wonder we had to sneak in by the servitors' entrance last time we were here…"

  We were headed up through the streets of the lower city to Turusachan, the citadel that reared tremendously up at the top of the long rising slope to the foot of the Loom. I tried to cast my mind back to that time only a few weeks since; but all I could recall was utter chaos, a confused impression of battle and a certain frustration at continually finding no enemy to fight… This time was better, even though the joy at Edeyrn's overthrow was tempered by grief for the dead Uthyr.

  "They hardly knew him, Talyn," murmured Morgan, reading my thought as easily as she ever did. "Those two"—she nodded at the straight backs of Arthur and Gweniver, who rode before us—"are the rulers they have waited for. They will sorrow dutifully for my father, but it is my brother and my cousin whom they hold in their hearts. Do not blame them overmuch."

  "And Ygrawn?" I asked presently. "What of the Queen-mother?"

  But Morgan only laughed.

  The funeral rites were held for Uthyr Pendreic, Ard-righ of Keltia, at the ancient stone circle of Ni-maen, as was traditional for one who had ruled, however briefly. Not only kings and queens were barrowed here in Calon Eryri, but those of their own kindred as well; even, sometimes, those who had served the Throne, ministers and warlords and diplomats, or those whom the Throne wished to honor, great sorcerers or warriors or bards or lawgivers. A peaceful and holy place in which to leave one's mortal form; but I would not have chosen so, myself.

  The rite was but a brief one—all that had been needful had been done, back at Nandruidion, Uthyr was long since safe on his road—and soon enough we were all filing soberly down the narrow trail again. Morgan, as ever, walked beside me, and I found my gaze going to her in wonder and not a little fear, as I remembered.

  The last day before the ride to Caerdroia had seen all manner of loose ends tied off: orders issued by Arthur and Gweniver, separately and conjointly, people arriving in camp from other corners of the planet, from off-planet, even—Grehan Aoibhell from Erinna, Tryffin back from a brief dash to his homeworld of Kernow, Tarian's kindred in from Scota. But it was my Guenna who had bound off the last knot, tied it off with finality too…

  In the dawn, she had ridden up the dale to Ratherne, with me and Daronwy and a few others; and there as the light broke over that tower of iniquity she had thrown down its walls by the power of her magic. One moment it had stood there, gray and solid in the dawn; the next, it was dust and rubble, all its sorcerous defenses breached by Edeyrn's death, all its resistance withdrawn.

  I had been shaken by the thing—this was, after all, where my own father had been slain—but Morgan's face had had no emotion on it at all. Just a face in composure, a face in repose; fair and cold and pale in the early morning chill. But as the walls had begun to crack, the stones to fall like rain, the ground to roll beneath our feet, Morgan's face had stayed so; and that, I think, frightened me more than all.

  I had taxed her with it later, but she had looked at me as if I had lost my wits, even asked me if I had. And all at once I had been minded of one I had not thought of in some time… Twice, now, in my life had I seen Birogue of the Mountain (and some small part of me knew that I should see her yet again ere all was done); but now, unlooked-for, I saw her there in Morgan's face. And though that face had been never far from my own, sleeping and waking, for the past half-decade, I had looked on it then as on a stranger's…

  As I did now, walking down the back of Eagle along the Way of Souls. If Morgan noticed, she gave no sign she had done so; but kept her eyes on the notch of the pass below, where Caerdroia could just be seen through the gap in the valley walls. Arthur and Gweniver were well ahead of us; Ygrawn had wished to remain alone at the grave with Uthyr for a while, and would herself come down when she was ready.

  My attention was claimed by a most intrusive sound of weeping, and I shifted, frowning, to look for its cause. Not far to look: On Morgan's right and a little behind walked the source of the disturbance: Marguessan.

  The dead King's elder daughter leaned heavily (and all for show; she had been lighter of the prince Mordryth for many months now, and she had ever been strong as a gauran) on the arm of her husband, Irian, who looked only solicitous and concerned for his wife's well-being.

  I looked away, feeling my gorge rise. None of us had any use whatsoever for either the Princess or her cipher lord; nay, nor for their spawn, most like, what time he should come to be of an age to grate us as much as did his parents… During the last course of the campaign for Gwynedd, we had not had to much trouble ourselves with Marguessan; her pregnancy had kept her confined to the relative safety of her husband's kindred's lands in the Old North, distant from the fierce last battles before Owein had been overthrown. And, crabjaw though he was, Irian, it was reluctantly acknowledged, had contributed to the success of the sail down Glora that delivered our forces to Raven's Rift; but even that small praise was grudgingly offered.

  And, no mistake, they both knew it; they might be tiresome, and even evil, as Uthyr himself had warned, but stupid they were not. They were well aware they had been summoned to Tara only because there would have been general shock and appallment if Uthyr's interment had been held without them. Not to mention Arthur's and Gweniver's coronation, which maybe I had better not mention just now… Indeed, how Marguessan was going to cope with that would be a sight worth seeing. It was still my private, deeply held belief, you understand, that Marguessan was resentful of Uthyr's gift of the Ard-tiarnas to Arthur and Gweniver; no matter that that 'gift' had been mandated clear as day by Brendan's own law so many centuries since. Uthyr had had no choice in the thing: But plainly Marguessan felt otherwise, as the dead King's eldest child, and, looking sidewise at her now, I had the most terrible premonition that Marguessan Pendreic, Duchess of Eildon, Lady of Locryn, Princess of the House of Don, had not entirely resigned herself just yet to the reign of her cousin and her cousin-halfbrother. It was one time, dare I say it myself, where my Seeing was not clouded; but it took long to come to focus—maybe, too long…

  If I h
ave said little of Arthur in these pages just past, let you know that has been by intent as much as by the chances of the tale. At first there was too much going on, in the tremendous dislocation caused by Uthyr's death and Edeyrn's fall and Merlynn's vanishment; we were both of us simply too busy with detail to have even a quiet moment or two for one another, and after that the mantle of rulership had settled down over him, as invisibly and irrevocably as it had folded itself around Gweniver. But that night at Caerdroia, as I prowled around my new quarters, in a small tower overlooking the sea, unsettled as a cat in a new place, he came quietly in, in the old way, without knocking; just slipped into the room like a ghost, and took a seat by the fire.

  After a suitable greeting, I let him sit there awhile in silence before I turned from my contemplation of the moonlit waves so far below.

  "I hate heights, you know well, Artos," I said then, in mock complaint. "How did you let the rechtair assign these rooms to me?"

  The laugh too was his old laugh. "Oh, by policy, to be sure, did you not suspect?" The smile died away, and I added softly, "Nay—for that this tower connects to my own, and this was the nearest I could get you for just such talks as these—I will have need of them, and you."

  "Not if you still plan on leaving Keltia to go adventuring."

  I had been watching him keenly, and saw him flush. "You do not approve, I know, Talyn—but I had hoped for you to come with me."

  I startled as if he had slapped me. "I had not thought—" Suddenly I leaned forward, put my hand on his arm. "Artos—why are you going? If it is just prudence, to chase the gallain home, let Grehan or Tari or someone do it for you—you are Ard-righ now, you are needed here."

  He would not look at me. "Am I?" he asked presently. "Am I indeed?"

  "What—Ard-righ? Or needed? Artos, you are both…"

  "I wonder." He stood up, went over to where I had earlier stood, looking through a mullioned window out onto a little balcony. "I miss Merlynn, braud," he said, and I felt tears burn behind my eyes to hear him echo my own thought. "Miss his counsel—he would tell me what was my best course."

  "Nay, that is where you are so wrong; he would tell you that only you can determine of your best course. Never would he have told you what to do—what is on you, Artos? Truly—this is I Talyn. Speak."

  I had tried no bardic tricks of voice or tone on him, but he opened visibly under my words, was again my Artos, my brother and friend.

  "Gwennach has said she will wed me after all." He laughed at my goggled surprise. "Surely that does not surprise you so much? My mother was utterly unamazed to hear of it. I think it had been in Gwennach's mind all along, and only when Uthyr died—Well, she has informed me that she will honor Uthyr's wishes, any road, and more to the point, has told Alun Cameron and Marigh Aberdaron that she will do so and to draw up the fiants."

  I was for once bereft of words. That Gweniver should change her mind was perhaps no great wonder; but that she should so swiftly go on record with it to the Chief Brehon and the acting Taoiseach spoke volumes. This was real; this was going to happen after all, and very soon too—

  "What of Keils?" I asked after a while. "Are they not—"

  "They are." For the first time, Arthur looked troubled. "They are. But that need not alter anything: Keils can be far-charach, or lennaun, as he and Gwennach please; nothing to hinder. There have been royal conjuncts since Brendan's time, and will be long past our day. No great difficulty."

  "Is it not?" I asked very gently. "You and Gwennach—Artos, I have seen you together, I know how you do feel."

  "Do you? When even I do not know how I do feel? I wonder!" He ran a hand over his beard, visibly willing himself to calm. "Gweniver and I, just now, have a duty only to duty, not to love. It may come to that in future, I hope that it may, but for now, not so. We must be High King and High Queen together, by Uthyr's wisdom and the will of the folk; and now she feels, she believes, that if we wed as Uthyr wished us, things will be easier not only for the realm but for ourselves. And I cannot stay: The reiving is necessity if we are to feel safe within our borders—the maigen of Keltia, that I and she must protect."

  "And is that it?" I asked, when the silence had grown strained. "Is it all for Keltia? What about Artos? Where is he in this?"

  Arthur stirred in the window-seat where he had ensconced himself. "Since Gwenwynbar, as you know well, Talyn, I have linked myself with no one in love; oh, the odd bedding, to be sure, but even those—"

  I did know,—though I had ever thought his reluctance caused not by a still-flaming brand for Gwenwynbar but by hurt and hate and cold self-loathing. Too, those brief encounters he spoke of had been almost exclusively with women he held as friends, a kind of mutual comforting as much as physical release—he had even been with our old comrade Daronwy twice or thrice, and well I knew there was no romance in that… I faulted none of them, for Gweniver and I had done as much, one time, ourselves—

  But Arthur was looking at me, a quizzical smile touching the corners of his mouth beneath the beard.

  "I know all about it, Talyn," he said, and I started violently. .

  "You took long enough to mention it, then," I said. "Well then?"

  He laughed. "Well what? I but wanted to tell you, before Gwennach and I wed."

  "Did she tell you? It was no matter of romance, Artos—"

  "I know that. Gweniver told me, and you would have told me tonight; but it was in truth Gwenwynbar told me first, the night before she left me. I think she hoped to use it to hurt me."

  "And did it then? Does it now?" I said very low. "We did not mean to hurt any, and there seemed no reason then why any should be hurt."

  Arthur laughed again. "Just so—nay, my brother, I am only glad you and she found some joy each of the other. It but binds us closer: you and Gwennach, Gwennach and I, you and my sister."

  "Well," I said, daring to match his smile—and still I could not work out why I felt so guilty—"let us only hope it gets not garbled in the telling, down the years. Else they will be saying that Arthur the King not only married his cousin but slept with his sister."

  He rolled his eyes. "They would not!"

  But, you know, of course, they did…

  After he had gone, considerably more cheerful than I had seen him for some days, I thought about what he had not said, as much as what he had said. It seemed he had yet to come to terms with all this himself, every bit as much as Gweniver: this business of being Ard-righ. So hard it must… For I had risen at his entrance, as I had never done in all our years together, had waited for him to speak first, had addressed him in the first instance as 'Lord,' just as I had done for Gweniver—bards being sticklers for propriety.

  And I had seen how it had shaken him, that I did so; though I had returned at once to our old bantering way. But, as I had said to Gwennach, soonest accepted, least hurt; he would have to learn as quickly as she, how best to deal with this new aspect; almost a fith-fath, a shapeshift, even—Artos into Ard-righ, Gwennach into High Queen…

  As to the wedding, I knew their reasons, and would keep my counsel. Oh, it might be better to delay it, let Keltia calm down after the recent total upheaval before putting the realm through yet another drama. But maybe Gweniver was right maybe it would indeed be a way of ensuring some kind of rough stability. If the folk were to see their rulers united in flesh as well as in spirit—it might just be the strong center upon which all else could form. By far would it be not the first time romance—or at least the seeming of romance—had saved a throne…

  For the truth here was that Keltia could fall. Edeyrn's hand had been so heavy upon us all these years that the sudden freedom that had come in its place could destroy us, far surer than he could ever have done; and if a wedding could help avert that, so be it.

  But Arthur's reasons for leaving, too, had been cogently argued: And Edeyrn was guilty there as well. The gallain he had bought in service against Arthur now knew Keltia's military strengths and weaknesses better than any ought to k
now them outside our bounds; something would have to be done to alter that case, and it could not be done too swiftly, lest those we chased off come back with friends, and we have to fight them even at the coronation…

  Leaving Keltia—it was not something I had ever thought of doing, and I found myself shaken to my core at the idea. With the exception of Ravens and other of Edeyrn's creatures, no Kelt to my knowledge had left the Six Nations for many hundreds of years, save on those rare scouting expeditions that now and again some First Lord of War or Taoiseach or curious Ard-rian would send back to Earth, just to see how things stood with our ancient homeworld. This would be something very different: Kelts going out reiving, to make our hand felt in war on other worlds. Was it right, I wondered; was it even clever?

  Arthur's parting shot to me had been clever enough, that was certain… As he left, he had paused in the door, as if caught by a sudden afterthought.

  "Oh, and before we go, Talyn, you know—you and Guenna, you might wed also. Though we should not be gone all that long—"

  We were to be gone seven years, but even Arthur would not have believed that if you had told him.

  So it came to be that before the coronation, Keltia was to see a royal wedding. Two weddings, as it turned out; for when Morgan and I discussed all this in bed that night—a wonderful new bed in that tower room, carved oak golden with newness and hung about with tapestries—we agreed on it at last.

  Oh, we had asked and accepted, turn and turn about, many times before—we had known since our first night that we were wedded already, in soul if not yet in law,—known too that one day we would make that last and greatest promise. But, as other things took precedence, it seemed not so pressing; we considered ourselves to be wedded, and that had always been enough for both of us. At least, until now, when the prospect of leaving Keltia made me wish for something more formalized, something more—