The Oak above the Kings

by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison

  "He is ollave, a master-bard," continued Arthur suavely and serenely, "well versed in diplomacy. But he is needed with me, and I will send instead whomsoever seems good to me to send. You will be informed."

  With that he terminated the link, and closing his eyes blew out a long deep heartfelt breath, and half-collapsed against the bridge railing.

  "My gods, Arthur Penarvon! What a chance you took here today!" That was Daronwy, but she spoke for us all. "This is very like the worst day's work, with the best result, that you have ever done! How dare you risk yourself so!"

  For once Arthur seemed quite content to be publicly humbled, listening with a chastened air to Daronwy's tirade and making no attempt to defend himself. When she tired, others took up the theme; as for me, I sat and watched and listened, arms folded, eyes on Arthur.

  When at last all the Companions had had their say, and left the bridge, Arthur still remained leaning against the railing, head bowed, not looking at anyone or anything but, apparently, the floor in front of his feet. I began to move away myself, but still without turning his glance to me Arthur spoke.

  "Well, Talyn? Have you naught to flail me with? You generally have had enough to say all other times I have been in such error."

  I closed my eyes against the—the smallness in his voice; then I went to him, took him by the shoulders and led him off the bridge. He came with me unresisting; it seemed as if he had no will of his own left, as if the encounter with Nanteos had drained him like a dulcaun's glut.

  "Nay, braud; you have already said to yourself all that I would say to you, I think… And anything that might have been left out was surely said by Ronwyn and the rest. Silence has many tongues."

  "If thrawn ears can hope to hear them." He stumbled as we went, leaned on me for support, and I was a little alarmed. Was he well? Why did he seem so wearied?

  "Never mind." We had reached the door of his cabin, and I half-carried him inside. He flung himself onto the blastcouch without so much as another word, and was asleep as if someone had slain him.

  I watched beside him for an hour or so, concerned for his state of mind, reading it, as far as I might, while he slept unmoving. He had pushed himself harder and farther and more harshly than we had realized these past weeks since leaving Keltia; the same mistake, I realized with ruefulness that we had ever made on Gwynedd and on Tara—he might be Arthur, but he was only human after all. He might forget it from time to time in Keltia's need, but we ought never to forget, and surely not those of us who so loved him.

  So I kept watch, and gave him what healing I could, and hoped that whatever he had in mind to do next would be kinder to him than his actions of late had been. And knew, of course, that I hoped in vain.

  We sailed on, still on Arthur's reiving, which he yet adjudged to be insufficient to his purposes—whatever those might be. Once we had worked out a preliminary agreement with the Fomori, and had seen them take it to Ganaster, we sent our own representatives there also—Alannagh Ruthven, Betwyr and some others, escorting our young hostage prince.

  Oddly enough, Melwas seemed reluctant to depart our company; in the weeks of his enforced guesting he who had been at first hostile and angry as only a wronged child can be had reversed himself, to where he honestly grieved to bid us farewell. I knew better than most what had in truth happened here: Like so many others before and so many yet to come, Melwas had fallen in love with Arthur Penarvon, with all the adoring hero-worship which only a fourteen-year-old can muster.

  Arthur, of course, knew very well that he had a worshipper on his hands, and dealt with the lad kindly and firmly, as he would have done with an awestruck nephew or the son of a friend; as, indeed, I was well used to see him do. Though, perhaps, the kindness and firmness he exerted here had as much to do with the smooth running of the future as of the Present…

  "And aye, why should it not?" he admitted to me on the evening we had packed young Melwas off to Ganaster, as promised. "He may well come to rule Fomor one day; better it is he is better disposed to us than his grandsir has been. Anyroad, he is a likable lad; and kindness costs nothing, and is well seen in anyone."

  'A king still more," I agreed blandly, and laughed when he glared. "But, Artos—"

  "Before you even ask, Taliesin"—he had flung up a warning hand to forestall further speech—"the answer is Nay I have not done with what I have set out to do."

  "My question was not if, Ard-righ, but when."

  Again the glare. "When I say."

  And Arthur did not say, not for many months: We were hunters, living off our raids, systematically tracking down and punishing as we could all those allies who had sold out our true Keltic order, all those worlds that had traded for profit in Keltic blood, all those mercenaries who had hired themselves out to the Marbh-draoi against us over the years the Theocracy had ruled in Keltia. It made a formidable list: After the Fir Bolg and Fomori had been duly chastened, we went on to fetch a sizable swat to people as far-flung as the Thallo and the Parishen, the Hadulin and the M'drani. Even the Dakdak, far away on Inalery in the icy strongholds they so love, took a thump or two as reminder: Not wise the thought, to try the Bear's paw.

  Indeed, it seemed that Arthur these days was as sore-headed as his namesake wakened too soon from winter sleep: Prydwen was large as ships go, but we all went in fear of its master from time to time, and were glad of the raids—at least they got us off the ship and, for a while, out of reach of Arthur's moodings.

  It was in the course of one of these raids that we met the Yamazai, and the manner of that meeting was in this wise…

  We had been pursuing a vessel belonging to the Duvan Cheteri, yet another of the many folk on Arthur's list to be chastised, when all at once we blundered across the track of a greater battle, and perceived that it would be well for us to intervene.

  As a rule you do not do this in space warfare, but when on occasion—as on this occasion—an unarmed civil craft being pounded by the guns of a dubious-looking intrude ("Smuggler if I have ever seen one," said Arthur, and that was all he said until after), rules are often broken.

  Even so, we were more than a thought reluctant to intervene. Could be a matter best steered clear of, could be a trap… But when the cruiser sent out an agonized call for help, and the smuggler ship began closing in on it like an orcaun on a wounded seal caught in the shallows, we knew we had no choice.

  Knew still better, when Daronwy, who had been monitoring the smuggler ship, told us who the attackers in truth were.

  "Fomori?" That was Arthur, for once discountenanced. "Are you sure, Ronwyn? They are very far from home."

  "When did that ever stop the Fomori? Nay, they may be sailing outside the law, or under Nanteos's own letters of marque, I know not; but certain sure they are of Fomor."

  "Then whom do they attack?" I asked.

  "Their enemies," answered Arthur. "And the enemy of my enemy must be my friend…"

  "Ah, but are we not ourselves now not Fomor's friend?" I countered, and was dismayed to see on Arthur's face that smile I knew so well.

  "And if we are, who is to say these here have not heard word of it just yet? Ganaster is a long way off, messages take time…"

  I shot him a hard look, and I was not the only one to do so: He seemed almost too unconcerned, even as the crippled cruiser's hull began to bloom with fireflowers, seeded by Fomori guns.

  "Artos—" That was Daronwy, moved by the strangers' plight; whoever they might be, nobody deserved this. And if the Fomori were attacking them, all unprovoked as it did seem, almost certainly they were folk we should wish to have for friends…

  "I know," said Arthur. "Take us into it."

  Prydwen leaped ahead before he had quite finished giving his order.

  I tell you now, we had nothing but the grace of the Mor-rian Herself to thank for that we ourselves were not blown to spacedust right along with the ship we went to aid. Though we both came away unbroken, we were both mauled more sharply than we might have liked; but the F
omori smuggler ship was the one to die.

  We had scarcely drawn a breath upon our victory before were hailed by the captain of the rescued ship. Arthur took the hail himself: Our viewscreen blurred, then cleared to show the image of the cruiser's bridge, and the captain who stood there.

  She identified herself, in the Common Tongue, spoken by one clearly used to its quirks.

  "I am Sastria, first officer—now captain—of the ship Aloyu, out from the planet Aojun. May I know who has saved us?"

  I came up beside Arthur, staring openly at the screen. Oh not for that the craft's officer was a woman—a commonplace in Keltia, if perhaps not in all cultures we have encountered—but for another reason. The thing that had caught my attention most and first was the mark she bore upon her forehead, between her fine brows: a crescent moon, tattooed in blue ink, intersected by two angled cuts in shape of the letter V.

  In my astonishment I heard Daronwy's little gasp of surprise; but I was no less surprised myself: This foreign officer—how could she carry on her own flesh the sign of the Ban-draoi of Keltia?

  "No surprise at all," said Sastria later, sitting very much at her ease in my own quarters and inhaling appreciatively the fragrance of the herb tea I had prepared. "We who serve the Mother are a sisterhood on all worlds, and the sign is not so uncommon as you might think, lord."

  "I daresay not." I held out to her one of the pottery cups, filled with steaming brown tea, and she took it eagerly. "And your people are, as mine, children of the Great Mother?"

  "And of the Allfather." She made a curious sign with her left hand, and I started violently, for out of my Druid training I recognized that too, and made it back, as casually as I might. "But He is for the men to follow; on Aojun it is the women who deal most with outsiders."

  Daronwy stirred in her chair. "With us it is equal; we find it more harmonious."

  Sastria laughed. "Not in our midst! We have found it better for the men and the women to go their separate ways most of the year's turning, and we have cast our lives to order it so. With us, the women live in the towns and cities most of the year, and the men stay out in the hills and wood and herdlands, out in the campments. Women, I think, have chosen the better part! But the men are herders and growers,—women are makers and traders and artificers."

  "And warriors?"

  She met my eyes, and in hers I saw amusement. "Oh yes. And warriors. Rulers, too."

  "Who then rules your folk?"

  Sastria drew herself up, with an air that partook in equal parts of formality and eagerness and respect.

  "The Jamadarin, who is Dar Majanah, in the sixth year of her reign. You will meet her."

  My start of surprise was not lost on the Yamazai captain, and she smiled again.

  "Has your captain not told you?" she asked. "We sail now to Aojun. Your ship needs repairs and refuelling and resupplying, and you have some few injured to tend to, as do we. Aojun is not far off."

  Daronwy looked down into her cup. "Why were the Fomori raiding so close to your home planet?"

  A good question, and I looked expectantly for the answer. But Sastria only smiled.

  "Ah, that is a thing the Jamadarin herself can answer better than I… in good time."

  After she had gone, Daronwy and I looked long and hard at one another, and went as with a single tread to seek a swifter answer. Arthur, when we found him in his cabin, was less than forthcoming.

  "Aye, well, where could we go else, save but to Aojun? As Sastria did say, it is near at hand, and it can supply our needs. What is more, it is happy to do so, to discharge the debt of honor they now have to us. They take such debts as gravely as do we."

  "Indeed," I said, trying vainly to quiet the great rising groundswell of doubt and dan I now felt coming over me. Aojun… "And how long do you mean to stay there?"

  Arthur shrugged. "Why, Talyn; just long enough."

  Perhaps we stayed too long; but I outpace the telling.

  * * *

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-two

  "WHAT A FAIR WORLD that is below us." Daronwy it was who had spoken so, but I would have said as much myself given the chance. We were in orbit off Aojun, readying ourselves to follow the Aloyu in; to help us in the navigating, the Yamazai captain Sastria had left us two of her deck officers, and they both smiled proudly and shyly on hearing Ronwyn's remark.

  "We have tried to keep it as we found it," said the senior of the two; a man, for all we had been told men did not go for warriors so readily as did the Yamazai women. He was called Mahago, and he had been helpful in the days of our slow journey to the planet Aojun. Slow for that the Aloyu had been too badly damaged to sail the overheaven; so we held back for our new friends, and paced along in straightspace.

  It had been an interesting and instructive journey. Daronwy had already made fast friends with the woman officer, Julitta, and I with Mahago. He was, like me, a bard, though he was also quick to modestly inform me he was but a 'summer-poet,' as he called it, an amateur who makes but for his own pleasure. Still, shop-talk is always enticing, and from them both I learned much of the culture of the Yamazai.

  Though the name of that nation has ever connoted a woman's world to outsiders—and women warriors at that, the ferocity of the Yamazai is a byword in matters of the sword—it seemed the race had as ordinary a civilization as any other, structured along the familiar lines of trade and industry and agrarianism.

  Like us, they lived under a monarchy; but with them, the crown descended in the female line only: The Jamadarin, as the ruler was styled, had her throne by right from her mother or aunt or sister, from the women's side alone, and brothers, whether elder or junior, were forever barred from the succession.

  They did not seem to mind much, at least according to our new friends: "It has ever been so with us," said Julitta, who was a distant cousin, in fact, to the current monarch.

  "Is that not perhaps something unfair?" I asked gently.

  She seemed surprised. "On your worlds, perhaps so; but every time the law has been put to a vote of change, it is the men who choose to keep things just as they are."

  We were sitting in the common-room of Prydwen—Daronwy, Julitta, Ferdia and I—waiting for the call to the bridge that would signal our descent to the planet's surface. Mahago had some time since been himself summoned, as it seemed Arthur needed him to communicate with certain of the planetary authorities.

  "We will be setting down, I think, in Mistissyn itself," said Julitta, appealed to. "I am not sure if Dar Majanah has yet spoken to your leader, but she has been informed of all that has occurred, and is most grateful for Keltia's help. You saved a civil craft from an unlawful attack by Fomori warships, and that means much to her, and to us all."

  "My enemy's enemy—" murmured Daronwy in a tone just the tiniest bit edged with skepticism, and the Yamazai laughed.

  "Aye so… But I think you will find Janjan—Dar Majanah should have been a friend to Keltia in any case. And I know she will find Dar Arithor the same."

  Dar Arithor… That was how they turned Arthur's name in Aojunese; the royal title 'Dar' was the same for him as for their own ruler because the Aojunni had no provision in their tongue for anything else.

  I mulled this over in silence for a while, playing with words as bards will, when Mahago craned his head around the common-room door.

  "Dar Arithor's compliments, and the honor of your presences upon the bridge. We go down now to Aojun."

  I knew we were in trouble as soon as I saw her. Some things you just know, so, and there's an end to it… But to his credit, so did Arthur.

  She was not much like to his usual partners: Chiefest, she was a queen, and that alone was something greatly new. Oh, surely, she was beautiful—well, not beautiful maybe, but handsome in a way I had seldom before encountered. Strength shone out of her, strength both physical and mental; and spiritual too, she was together with herself, she was all of a piece. But she was lovely as well: a lion-colored woman from head to toe�
��dark gold hair of many shadings, golden eyes that could darken to clouded amber with anger or passion, even her skin gleamed like the sun's metal.

  But that was by no means all of it: Something there was about Majanah, Queen of the Yamazai Nation, that explained everything, and excused much.

  We had been received as honored friends by the first minister to the Jamadarin, a tall dark woman named Saldis, who looked as if she could give our own Tarian lessons in elegance and guile. But we were too busy staring about us—gazing up like ducks in a thunderstorm—at the wonder of the city that rose above us on the hill.

  Mistissyn has much in common with Caerdroia: It sits in the lap of a most picturesque mountain range, low wooded hills rising in ranks to bare crags against the sky. Walled, too; but that was only prudent… But that was where the resemblance ended: Caerdroia was built of stone, every color and texture of stone from every quarried cut in Keltia; this city was a town of wood.

  And wood worked into every fantastical shape a wright could think of: gables and step-roofs and fabulous carved porches that looked like the stern cabins on sailing ships of old. There was the odd stone building here and there, poking through the wooden roofs like a tor in the middle of a forest, and looking just as out of place; but Mistissyn had all the charm of a great capital and a rustic village at the same time, and we all of us fell in love with it on the spot.

  If not, perhaps, quite so quickly as our King fell in love with its Queen… If I had thought Arthur instantly taken with Majanah, it seemed plain to all that she was as caught by him. Plain to see neither of them gave a cat's-lick for formalities, not in the aftermath of that first slamming blow of the gra-tintreach—But they both kept to their public faces, at least for the moment; they were princes both, and knew how it should be done…

  We had been presented in a formal ceremony, had received the thanks of the Jamadarin and the Yamazai Nation, had been given assurances of alliance to come—welcome news to Arthur, I knew; we could use all the friends we could find. Now we were escorted with no small degree of pomp to the Great Hall of the royal palace, for a banquet that seemed to my feast-familiar senses as if it would go on until morning—launa-vaula with a vengeance.