The Oak above the Kings

by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison

  Those last were a thornier problem even than the seal rings: They were traitors, of course, and as such drew sentence of death; but really now, could we truly call them traitors to have gone along with a ruler who had been at his evil-doing before their grandparents were born? They could, it is true, have chosen the Counterinsurgency, the life of exile and hiding and fear that we ourselves had elected; and perhaps they should be made to answer for that they had not. But death? I am not the gentlest or most forgiving of souls, not by a long road; have done my share of slaughter. Yet when it came to this I found myself gored by the horns of that familiar beast Dilemma (and it never has only two, you know); so pointed were its jabs that I brought the matter up in one of our early Councils.

  Now Arthur and Gweniver were already ruling conjointly, and the first thing they did as one was to choose themselves a working Council; and one of the first people they named to it was Taliesin ap Glyndour. I was not surprised to be so named—indeed, I would have been devastated had I not been chosen—but had misgivings all the same. Then again, so did most of those who were ordered to the Council, even (or especially) those who had best deserved it: Keils Rathen, Arthur's—aye, Arthur's, not Gweniver's—first appointment, the post of First Lord of War; Tarian Douglas, to take over from the weary and ailing Marigh Aberdaron as Taoiseach; Grehan Aoibhell, as Earl Marischal; Scathach Aodann, teacher to Artos and me at Daars, victor at Ravens' Rift, as Earl Guardian; Elen and Daronwy and myself as common or garden Councillors. The rest of the positions were filled by veterans of Uthyr's service, or mutual choices of the High Queen and High King. All in all, a likely lot; and so when I made my halting protest, it was scarcely as if none of them had heard it before…

  "Death," said Tarian unemphatically. "It is Elen's opinion and Alun's that they cannot be successfully reclaimed. Our new Archdruid, too, and our Ban-draoi Magistra agree with this course, Talyn. My sorrow you cannot see it so."

  Across the table, those she had named looked back evenly at me: Alun Cameron, Chief Brehon, my old dear friend Elenna, the Magistra Becney Vechan; and sitting apart a little from the rest, Comyn Duchray, Merlynn's successor. And that was part of the problem right there, for I had violently opposed naming anyone to the post just yet, though doubtless this Duchray was as worthy as any, and had been loyal to us since the Coldgates days—indeed, he came from the same country as Irian, Marguessan's lord.

  I shook myself and looked away. No doubt it was just the resentment of grief, that any at all should sit in Merlynn's chair, and certainly not so soon after his—going; but I could not rid myself even so of a vague feeling of unease.

  Arthur rolled right over me, as he knew from long experience was the only way; and so it was that we began our rule in blood, not the hot blood of the battlefield but the vein-ice of execution. No help to think that, as Gweniver reminded us all, Edeyrn would not have been slow to do as much to us and ours had we been the vanquished; and I knew in my heart it was grim necessity. But thousands died, perhaps rightly, perhaps not; and it was not forgotten.

  It was Arthur's resolve to leave Keltia by Samhain at the latest, for his reiving against the Fir Bolg and Fomori and the other gallain mercenaries who had hired out their swords to Edeyrn's last-ditch throw. Though this plan was not yet common knowing—Arthur deeming, and quite right he was too, that the folk would be dismayed at his going, and they still so unstable and rattled by all that had happened to take his departure out of all proportion—in the circles of the new Court it was well known, and not at all liked.

  But I knew from of old that Arthur with his inmost mind made up could not be turned—as well try to stop the planet from spinning. And so I went quietly about my own business setting my personal affairs in order, doing what I could to order Keltia's affairs, before the year did turn,—and what I wished first of all to do was to wed. And my lady being for once of that same mind, we set about it.

  * * *

  * * *

  Chapter Nineteen

  GWENIVER AND ARTHUR may have wed in civic splendor at the stones—they were, after all, Ard-rian and Ard-righ, and as such owed a certain show to the public, who as a rule loved royal display—but despite our own rank and position, Morgan and I were not so bound, and had chosen for ourselves a different way. And so it was that some eight weeks after the double crowning, upon the day of Midsummer, we found ourselves climbing MountKeltia hand in hand accomplish it.

  We had determined, as I have told you, on a handfast wedding in the ancient tradition; but Morgan herself had suggested MountKeltia, and the great bluestone circle of Caer-na-gael that crowns it, as the proper place for so significant a rite.

  She was most correct to choose so: Caer-na-gael is the oldest and holiest of Keltia's many nemetons. Its origins are lost to even our careful recordkeeping—or perhaps it is that they have been deliberately obscured, for what reasons I know not—but it is commonly believed that the stones were raised below the Gates of the Sun by Saint Nia herself, mother of these two were—well, they were not like us, were they, and they were mighty among their folk.

  "Taliesin? Is there a problem here?" That was Birogue, and I turned to her and bowed—not the king's reverence I had given Gwyn, but one suited to Morgan's teacher and my mother's friend.

  "Nay, lady," I said at once, with again a little sigh to find myself so easily read. "Only a small daunting, to think that the Prince of the Shining Folk and the Lady of the Loch shall stand for me before the God and Goddess at my wedding."

  For that is a deep part of handfasting's mystery: The man and the woman are God and Goddess to one another, both in the wedding circle and ever after,—but also they are wedded by the Goddess and the God in the persons of those who conduct the rite. The priest and priestess act for the divinities; but the couple become the divinities: action and indwelling. It is a solemn and exalting way to wed, and so we had chosen it.

  We had chosen too to wed for all time: The vows taken at a religious ceremony such as this can be as the couple do wish them—for a year and a day, for a lifetime, for all lifetimes yet to come. This last Morgan and I had chosen: We had done so before, after all, and we would do so again.

  Birogue seemed to understand me, and held out her hands.

  "Glad your mother would have been to see this day,—Taliesin; my everlasting sorrow that she could not."

  "And mine." I was about to ask her, point-on, what had it been, this matter of my mother that none had ever yet dared to tell me; but Gwyn had risen from the stone chair, and I had other things to think on.

  So we were wedded on the day of Midsummer by two of the Shining Folk, Morguenna Pendreic and I: were censed and asperged, passed our right hands through the sacred fire and had our foreheads smudged with ash from the thirteen sacred trees. We made the third of the Three Cuts upon our wrists, drank the few droplets of our mingled blood in the consecrated wine, spoke our vows, set rings each upon the other's hand: gold rings in form of interlaced snakes, an old, old style of marriage ring (some say even from our time before Earth) that bespeaks eternity, a bond that is ever new yet never dies. And through it all it never once occurred to me to wonder if Birogue and Gwyn even had the right to wed us; for it came to me that their right and their power, coming from a different spring of the same source as that which feeds our mortal faith, are every bit as true and valid as our own. So when Birogue at last pronounced us wed before the Goddess and the God, and Gwyn joined our hands, bidding us live and love in the name of the Highest, I looked at my wife, and she at me, and we were content. And it seemed at one and the same time a new thing and something we had known and been forever; and this too seemed just as it should be.

  When we returned from the Holy Mountain to Caerdroia, it was to find preparations well advanced for Arthur's reiving; and those who had been for it were for it still, and those who had been against it were more against it than ever.

  As for the two principals, it seemed that both were for and against together. Gweniver could see and approve the mi
litary necessity, could think Arthur's absence a debatable thing for Keltia, and could, by turns, be delighted or indifferent to have him gone. While Arthur, for his part, had doubts about leaving the folk so soon after his rule's commencement, but plainly chafed to get himself gone as soon as might be.

  For myself, I partook in equal parts of all arguments and feelings,—but chiefly I regretted the separation from Morgan.

  "All those years on campaign we were no more than a pillow's breadth apart and not wed," I complained one evening. "And now we are wedded, and I must leave and go gods know where on Artos's sleeveless errand."

  "Sleeveless, maybe; bootless, never," said Morgan calmly. We were sitting in the solar of the chambers that Gweniver, when she heard of the wedding, had ordered us given. Tremendously more opulent than my old, preferred rooms, indeed than anything Morgan and I had heretofore shared, or so they seemed to me; Morgan, with her usual equanimity, had merely taken them as given—but then, she was a princess. But now, I was a prince, and not yet sure I liked it: Keltic marriage law dictates that in a union of two partners of unequal rank, whoever ranks the lower is raised to the title of the higher and takes the higher's name (as do any children born to the union), and which is man and which woman has nothing whatever to do with it—not as it is in some societies I could name.

  But we were speaking of the reiving… I turned the topic "How does Gwennach feel about ruling here alone? Is she daunted, or cross, or does it please her, do you think?"

  "Why not ask her yourself, Prince Taliesin?" came a voice from the doorway, and Gweniver came in with Ygrawn, both of them showing all the signs of intending a cozy family midnight chat.

  I kissed them both in greeting, and offered them places to sit and wine to drink; Ygrawn took the proffered chair, but Gweniver disposed herself on a heap of rugs and pillows in front of the fireplace, pulling off her low boots and curling her bare toes luxuriously in the furs.

  I studied her covertly as she sipped her wine and talked softly with her cousin and her aunt. She seemed, in the firelight, but little changed from the maid I had met nearly four decades since: the same face and form, the same cloud of dark hair. But now she was High Queen; and, I tell you, that made a difference. She had always been royal; but now she ruled, and you could see that every time you looked at her.

  "Well then," I said after a while. "What about the answer to that question I was asking when you came in? How does the Ard-rian feel about the Ard-righ's reiving?"

  Gweniver laughed, and shifted to lie on her stomach. "Artos will do as he feels he must—you know this perfectly well, Talyn, since you will be going with him to protect him, I trust, from the full extent of his folly. We three"—she indicated Ygrawn and Morgan—"will manage well enough without you. Nay," she added, sitting up tailor-wise, her mood perceptibly altering. "I have something to speak of that concerns us all, as family; and especially does it concern you, Lady." This last to Ygrawn, whom she often still addressed by her queenly title.

  Ygrawn for once looked at a loss for words, so Morgan found some for her.

  "Well then, let you tell us, Gwennach."

  "It is to do with the Duke of Kernow."

  "My brother?" said Ygrawn, more puzzled than ever. "Marc'h? But he is such a switherer—naught but riding and hunting and dicing and drinking, no care for governance. Tryffin will do better at managing the dukedom when it comes his turn."

  Gweniver looked even more uncomfortable than before. "That is just part of the difficulty—Duke Marc'h wishes to wed again, and as liege he has petitioned Artos and me for leave to do so."

  "No surprise there," remarked Morgan. "My uncle Marc'h and my good late aunt Senara had been at odds for years. The succession is assured with Tryff; why should not Marc'h choose to remarry?"

  "Oh, no reason not, but it is the lady his eye has lighted on that causes the problem. She will not have him at any price, and moreover is yet too young to decide for herself."

  I was interested deeply by all this—bards often serve as marriage intermediaries for all ranks of Keltic society, and we are most well versed in the laws and customs appertaining thereto—and poured out more wine all round.

  "Well, do not keep us in suspense! Who is it, Gwennach?"

  "The lady is the daughter of the Lord of Arrochar; his only child and heir."

  "I know her well," put in Morgan. "We studied together with the Magistra Ildana, back at Coldgates. She was clever and funny and fair, and suffered no fools, gladly or otherwise. Her name is Ysild."

  "Aye, well, this Ysild is giving your uncle Marc'h a good many sleepless nights—and not for that you are thinking, Talyn," she added swiftly.

  But I was wondering about something else… "If you two studied together, Guenna, she must surely now be of age to choose her own mate."

  Morgan shook her head. "Nay—by the time she came to the Ban-draoi to be taught, I was already done with my first training. Still, she cannot be less than thirty, and in another three years or less she will be free to choose for herself."

  "Unless her parents sell her off first." Ygrawn had spoken evenly, but we all of us looked up in some surprise at the bitterness behind the words.

  "Would Marc'h be buying?" I asked after a moment.

  Ygrawn laughed. "Marc'h is always buying." She cut her glance to Gweniver. "What will you decide, Ard-rian?"

  Gweniver looked a little startled; she was still not used to the title, and especially was she not used to hearing the former Queen so address her.

  "Artos has given the decision entirely into my power," she said then. "But I think that 'The Ard-rian shall take it into advisement.'"

  I hid my grin behind my wine goblet. That was the old courtly evasion practiced by monarchs since monarchs were first thought of; Gwen learned quickly. But she had been watching masters all her life…

  "At least, for the next couple of years," she added, getting to her feet and brushing off her tunic. "Naught will come of delaying a match for which the bride is so reluctant, and Marc'h may well find another choice."

  But, of course, he did not, and much did.

  But we had more to do in that time than force unwilling heirs into marriage with lords thrice their age: We were securely in possession of most of Keltia by now—between Grehan and Tarian, every single one of Edeyrn's warlords and creatures had been accounted for, either dead or turned or prisoned on the inhospitable moon Teallach—the Anvil, named long ago in grimmest irony.

  There had been executions, as I have already mentioned; too many, some of us thought. But they had been killings of necessity, of those too deep in Edeyrn's councils and workings and affections ever to be a tenth part trusted in our own. The rest—the spear-carriers and trimmers—were cast in durance, with Druids and Ban-draoi to work on them in hopes of their being reclaimed for us.

  There had been some famine, and some epidemics, and some fierce bustle about resettling those made homeless by Edeyrn's depredations—Artos and Gwennach worked day and night for longer than was good or healthy—and for the Council of Keltia, work of our own. One of the first things that had been done was to restore the Fainne, the Ring, the supercouncil of the six system lords, the viceroys and vicereines that ruled the Six Nations in the name of the Ard-tiarnas itself. As it had been two hundred years since the Ring was broken, and no general agreement that the positions had been hereditary, Artos and Gweniver reckoned that they could with impunity appoint whom they liked; but in the end they had left this to us of the Council to effect.

  Oddly enough, all our appointments were well received, save for one; even more oddly, that one was the viceroyalty of Kernow, and it was Ygrawn's brother Marc'h who claimed it loudly and insistently for himself. When the Council denied it him, on the reasonable (to us, at least) grounds that he stood too close to the Throne and our granting him the post would smack over-much of family favoritism, he took it ill indeed—though how ill would not be made apparent until years after.

  But, as I say, that was the only t
horn in our collective paw: The rest went more smoothly and happily than it seemed we had any right to expect. So much so that by Lughnasa—and a fairer, finer time we had of harvest that year than any could have hoped for—Arthur was already revising the departure date from Samhain to Fionnasa, a month earlier than his first decree.

  I taxed him with it. "Why is it you hasten so to get us gone? There is so much yet to be done, Artos—"

  "—and Gwennach to perform it perfectly, and our mother and your wife to help her," he countered. But something in his voice, or not in his voice, caused me to look more closely on him as he sat there at his cluttered desk, Cabal snoozing in the patch of sunlight that crept along the floor behind him.

  Since Nandruidion, since his crowning, even, Arthur Penarvon, as he still insisted on styling himself, had changed both subtly and grossly, in a way that I could not put my finger on. As with Gweniver, of course now the aura of the Ard-tiarnas had closed round him, the invisible crown sat firmly upon his head; indeed, the very visible Seal gleamed green on his left hand. But there seemed something more… I knew Arthur's face as well as I knew my own, since my fifth year in this life; and yet it seemed, now, that I did not know it at all, and I wondered.

  Arthur had been watching me as all this went on behind my eyes, and now he gave me the old grin, that at least unchanged since our schooldays.

  "Leave it, Talyn," he advised me kindly. "I know what you are seeking; but I do not know myself what it is. At least, not yet do I know."

  "And will you?" I asked as forthrightly. "Shall you?"

  He nodded slowly. "Oh aye. When there is need, braud. When there is need."

  On the night before we left Keltia on our reiving, I stood alone with Morgan on the little terrace outside our new rooms. It faced the great bay below Caerdroia, catching the sunset full on, and had quickly become one of our favorite places simply to sit and be together.