The Oak above the Kings

by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison

  But I had commanded Arthur here tonight; he and I only, not even Daronwy who was closest to us of all our comrades was with us here. This was a thing for Arthur and for me; and now I turned to him as he beheld with wonder the marriage gift made to the Pendreic kindred by the kindred of the Sidhe.

  I would not have revealed it even now, even to him, had it not been made quite clear that I had no other choice. This was a thing apart from policy and politics; I was loath to sully it so, to use it as a means to even so imperative an end. But once again, as so often of late in times of stress and need, I heard Morgan's voice—and before you scoff and scout and call hard on me for delusions and fancies, I would bid you remember my lady's training and teacher, no less than her skills—and I knew I was right to do so.

  But it was still a hard thing to do: The cathbarr was so lovely, and the knowledge of its giving so precious to me, so bound up with my marriage and my love for my mate; it had been so great a comfort to me over the past years of our exile.

  For all that, though, I had not once set it upon my brow since Morgan herself had set it there, back in Turusachan, I had held it, meditated upon it and with it (oh aye, sometimes it seemed more sentient than I was entirely at ease with), even fallen asleep, once or twice, with my hand upon it as it might have been upon Morgan—it made her and home seem somehow closer. But I had not worn it, and, to be quite honest with you, had been feared to try.

  I still was; but watching Arthur's face as he beheld the cathbarr, seeing his hesitant wonder as he touched it, I knew that try I must—if only to see, or to See, what might be seen or what needed to be Seen…

  So I cast a circle in the usual manner, Arthur standing as my second what way he had so often done in time past; then having purified one another as was customary, with incense and candleflame, water and salt, we seated ourselves before the hearth, cross-legged and facing one another, touching palms briefly in ritual gesture. And then I took the cathbarr from its cushion between us and set it upon my head.

  What I was attempting was known as cailleach-na-luaith, the divination of the embers. I do not recall what I had been expecting; indeed, now I think on it, I am quite sure I had been expecting nothing at all. But the silver of the fillet had not even grown warm against my skin when I was suddenly no longer in Mistissyn, no more on Aojun, even, but back on Keltia, in a hall it seemed I knew…

  It seemed I walked unseen, a taish among my own people; my own kin, even, for I had realized by now where I was, and who were the others in the room with me, the ones I beheld but who could not see me: Marguessan was one, and she was the angriest and the most speechful. But there were others: Irian her lord, who had aged ungracefully and who seemed only eager to humor his raging wife,—Marc'h Tregaron, Ygrawn's brother, of whom we had recently been hearing so much that was so unsettling; and one other, a woman, whose face I could not quite make out—

  I touched my fingers to the great cushion-cut crystal at the frontlet piece over my forehead, and jolted upright as if someone had pulled a string in my back. The woman was none other than Gwenwynbar, Arthur's first wife, who had repudiated him so long ago and turned to his great enemy Owein Rheged; and not only could I see what passed here, I could hear as well…

  What I heard I did not understand: It seemed that Marguessan and Gwenwynbar, far from being the adversaries one would have expected them to be—both had sons, you will remember, who could be held to have some claim to the kingship; that is, if you accepted that Malgan was indeed Arthur's child, not Owein's as the public had been led to believe—were somehow in collaboration with one another, cat-of-a-kind.

  What they were now so angrily discussing seemed to be to do with Marc'h: his abortive attempt at secession, and how it worked on their own plans and schemes. Once Marguessan made reference to Ysild, Arrochar's daughter, whom Marc'h had been vainly seeking to wed before we left Keltia; it would appear he had not abandoned his purpose, and the Princess was roundly berating him—though whether she taxed him for his intent or for his failure I could not make out.

  In all, I was more profoundly unsettled by the feel of the scene, rather than by anything I could hear: the sense that here lay treason and real trouble, here were the seeds of evil. And yet they had been sown long since: Even Uthyr, back at Cadarachta, had warned of Marguessan and Irian; had later included Mordryth, their sole progeny, in that dire prediction.

  The picture wavered before my inner sight and began to vanish like smoke in a high wind. But the voices lingered a moment more, and through the gathering dimness I heard a woman's voice speak clear: "So now will boar be set against bear."

  It struck me with terror and confusion all in one; I did not know what was meant by it, or even which of the women had spoken it. But when I came back to plain everyday awareness—with a raging headache splintering my sight and a dull throb where the cathbarr bound my brows—and looked across at Arthur's face in the firelight, I had a feeling that he might know better than anyone.

  I had not imagined eyes so dark could look so cold. His gaze that was usually warm as the sun on the bark of an oak tree looked now like the wing of a stooping hawk, like a black diamond under a snow-moon at midnight; and I shrank back in real, if momentary, fear.

  He saw this at once, and reached out to seize my hands in comforting; and for my part I clung to his grip unashamedly, and stared and stared, for I could not speak. And I knew that at last, at long last, he had seen.

  He saw this, too, and smiled; that old warm smile that for fifty years and more had meant a brother's love.

  "Ah Tal-bach," he said. "Time it is we went home."

  But when he had left, and I sat on alone, the cathbarr removed and resting next me on a velvet cushion near the hearth, I stared long and unseeing into the leaping flames. Home…

  Then I reached beneath my tunic, beneath my leinna, and tugged gently on something I had worn so long I had ceased to notice it was even there. And into my fingers, out in the chill of the room, came that thing so familiar its weight and presence no longer registered around my neck: a fine, strong gold chain, and on it, a slim gold locket carved in likeness of a hawk's feather. The bright metal, mellowed with age though the fineness of its carving was as sharp as the day it was made, was warm from my body, and I raised it to my lips but did not spring it open; I did not need to.

  The locket had been made for me by Arthur himself, oh, it must be near forty years gone now, and I had never taken it from my neck but once. It contained, behind a crystal cut from water-clear sapphire, that which its shape denoted: a hawk's feather, silver and black and gray, unfaded since the day my mother found it, since the day my father passed it on to me six years later. Arthur had crafted the gold casing as a birthday-gift, and the thing had become my chiefest talisman and signature.

  And all at once I was hit by a wave of sadness and joy conjoined, so that when the tears came scalding to my eyes I did not know whether I wept for good or for ill, but knew only that I wept for change unalterable. And was not that a strange thing for me to do?

  BOOK IV

  Fiortrai

  * * *

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-four

  "SO THEN. We are back."

  It was a bright blowy spring afternoon, fresh with recent rain, the wind down the Strath still chill with the last edge of winter. I looked round at the long-absented landscape and drew into my lungs a deep draught of Keltic air that went to my head and my heart.

  And, given it was so with me and with all the rest of us, you had thought Arthur might have said somewhat of more resonance than merely the unadorned observation recounted above. After all, he was High King of Keltia, and it was incumbent upon him to do so, and he was back after seven years away, and his wife and Queen, with what seemed like half the Court, had come to meet him here on the landing field of Mardale. And all he could do was lamely observe that we were back. Not 'home,' you will note; merely 'back.'

  Not only that, but he had actually checked for just an insta
nt, in the doorway of Prydwen, almost as if he were half minded to turn and go back inside and head again straight out to space: Nay, nay, all a mistake, never meant to come back so soon, sorry to trouble you all, farewell until later… I gave him a sharp and unsubtle shove in the small of his back, and he straightened up and descended the steps to where Gweniver awaited him.

  Who gave him for first greeting a look so chilling it would freeze a flame. What in all the hells is going on here? I wondered privately, and was still shivering from that glance of hers when she turned on me. But me she gave a kinswoman's full warm embrace of gladness; and then, royal protocol satisfied, Morgan and I were free to run into one another's arms.

  Which we did, as soon as Arthur and Gweniver had departed side by side. We clung together wordlessly, heedlessly, utterly uncaring of the many watching eyes and indulgently smiling faces who were witness to our reunion. Well, it had been seven years, after all, surely she and I were entitled to a bit of a public display… and certain sure it was that Gweniver and Arthur had not met the need folk had for clips and kisses.

  When I finally prised myself apart from Morgan, I leaned back and just—looked at her. And marvelled how it could be that something human could be so little changed in seven years: Oh, there was a bit more of slimness in her face, perhaps, a new depth in the deeps of her eyes, if that was possible. But otherwise nothing: the same gold in her hair, the same cream in her skin, the same steel to her carriage. What she saw in my face I knew not, and it seemed to matter not at all.

  Under cover of the spaceport's noise and clamor, I whispered to Morgan as we followed Arthur and Gweniver off the field, "There is so much I must tell you—"

  And she whispered back, smiling all the while for the benefit of the watching eyes, "Not so much perhaps as you might think."

  We had but a brief hour or two together in private—in which time, I grant you, little was actually said—before we were required to present ourselves in the Hall of Heroes for the formal welcoming.

  As I came in with the rest of the family, I glanced around at the well-known faces. Again, I was struck by how little changed they seemed; it was almost as if some rann had been laid over Keltia in our absence, so that our return wakened them all from an ageless sleep. Ygrawn looked not a day older; Gweniver, now that I could study her at greater length, seemed, oh, I know not, taller, maybe? Of our other friends, Tarian Douglas, still Taoiseach, had wedded; Berain, captain of Ygrawn's guard, who had comforted me in her arms when I was five years old and newly orphaned, had died, which saddened me immeasurably; others had assumed lordships or taken new postings or been granted titles and duchases and rule, all at dan's decree—or Gweniver's.

  As for the folk themselves, they seemed—well, they seemed sullen, is what they seemed. Grudging, even; not unmixedly glad, in any case, to have their Ard-righ returned. And I wondered why this should be: True, they were probably still haunted by Edeyrn's long legacy, and by the necessity of dealing with the outfall from those years. Yet Gweniver and Ygrawn and the rest should have been able to help them over that jump; you would think that in seven years—Or perhaps that was it right there: They resented Artos for leaving, going off on his own personal reiving and abandoning Keltia to struggle on without him.

  But were they no whit pleased that he was back at last? I glanced round, and found myself doubting, even as my glance came once more to rest on Arthur where he sat beside Gwennach, in the carved oak and gilt chairs set side by side, in front of and one step below the Throne of Scone.

  He looked both utterly in the moment and utterly absent, all in one; and I forced myself to examine him as a healer might, seeking clues to mood and health and resource. He was dressed more royally than the occasion strictly called for, in a gorgeous new blue sith-silk tunic embroidered with Pearls and tiny sapphires,—around his neck he wore a massive torc that had belonged to his father, Prince Amris. Ygrawn must have given it to him in welcome, glad for his safe return…

  I let my gaze travel on to Gweniver. Now here was a nice contrast: If Arthur had clad himself unaccustomedly like a king, Gweniver Ard-rian had just as deliberately dressed down, and as a result drew all eyes to her. She sat quite quietly in her tall-backed throne, wearing the plainest and simplest guna I had ever seen on her. No jewels save only her Ring of State; not even a fillet bound the cloud of black hair. I nearly laughed out loud; and Gweniver seeing my small convulsive catching cut her eyes my way, and I saw one corner of her mouth flicker.

  Still, little enough else to laugh at: The ceremony was brief, and deathly solemn, and then we were all free for the hours till the nightmeal. Arthur and Gweniver vanished like asrai after a rain, presumably to closet themselves with their high officers of state—I had seen a look in Tarian's eye—but as a mere Privy Councillor I was excused for the moment. Which was well for me, since Morgan and I had plans to spend the next month or so in bed, with orders for meals to be left outside the door at judicious intervals. But since we both knew that plan unlikely of fulfillment, at the least we could hope for the next few hours, and maybe even the next few nights as well.

  "I am so hungry I could eat the moons," I boasted later, as Morgan and I left our chamber and hastened down to Mi-cuarta, Turusachan's great banqueting-hall. I am no watchpot usually; but Guenna and I had loved hard and often in our short span of privacy, and now we both were famished.

  "Well, at the feast, then." She did not look at me as she spoke, and I shook her arm where it was slipped through my own.

  "What?"

  Still she would not meet my eyes. "You and Arthur have been long away," she said after a moment. "Matters here have long been decided without you—without the Ard-righ. He must find his own way back among us. That is all."

  I thought about that as we came into Mi-cuarta and threaded our way through welcoming friends. "Will not Gwennach work with him to do just that? That is, after all, the arrangement."

  "It was the arrangement. I think my brother will find that the case has altered in his absence."

  Just how much that case had altered was made plain when we took our seats at the high table: Arthur and Gweniver side by side, of course, in the two great chairs at the table's center,—but plainer still was the silent message that sat at Gweniver's left hand—Keils Rathen, First Lord of War, tall and lean and sardonic as ever.

  And apparently most unwilling to be displaced, even by the High King of Keltia… Nor was there any reason, in law or in love, why he should be: After all, Arthur had wedded Majanah according to the way of the Yamazai, had fathered Donah—what wonder that Gweniver, in her co-sovereign's absence, should not have grown even closer than formerly to her longtime lennaun?

  I shifted a bit uncomfortably in my chair. I had always borne Keils great and loving friendship, and respect for his merit as a warrior, and honor for his devotion to Gwennach. But I could see unquiet roads ahead, and not just us to be riding them.

  As for Keils, tonight at least he was behaving as a knight and a lord of Keltia might be expected to do: He had borne himself to Gweniver in public with the courtesy due to the Ard-rian, and to Arthur with the deference due the Ard-righ, and only the tiniest touch of frost on each. Not so much as one not close to any of them would notice; but true it was that Gweniver had entered Mi-cuarta on Keils's arm, not Arthur's; and, at feast's end, he was also the one on whose arm she left.

  Morgan and I stayed on awhile, enjoying ourselves with our friends, for of course all our old Companions were here this night; and it was deep into owl-time when we quitted the banquet-hall and went upstairs to bed. I watched Morgan as she divested herself of her guna and the heavily bejewelled overtunic and seated herself before her mirror to unpin her shining hair.

  "Not so much as a touch of silver," I said, to tease her.

  She would not rise to it. "Indeed, why should there be? What point in being a sorceress if one cannot keep the gold in one's hair? Though I have noticed a snowy strand or two atop your head and Arthur's…"

 
"Aye, well, I am not surprised." I lay back on the piled pillows and linked my hands behind my head. "You know about Artos and Majanah, I take it."

  She nodded, looking only at her reflection in the glass. "He sent us word when it happened, you will recall?"

  "And what was the thinking on it here?"

  "I would guess much the same as yours there."

  "How did Gwennach take it?"

  Morgan turned at that to meet my gaze. "In truth, I think she was glad of it, Talyn."

  "You mean because of Keils." Well, I could hardly say I was surprised, or that I blamed Gweniver for a very human reaction. Arthur's taking himself a ban-charach doubtless lifted from Gweniver not a little of that which she had plainly been feeling about her union with Keils—not guilt but a kind of unease, perhaps even a sense of divided loyalty. It was all a mystery and wonder of impatience to me, for I knew as only a bard can know that Arthur and Gweniver loved each other. The impatience was for that both of them were too bone-stubborn to admit it, to the other or to themselves, and certainly not to the rest of Keltia.

  "They will, you know, in time." Morgan had shed her chamber-robe and slipped into bed beside me. "In the meantime, there are far knottier problems with which we all must deal; thank Goddess you are returned to do so."

  But what they were, she would not say that night; and after a while I was not of a mind to press her.

  The next morning Arthur and Gweniver summoned us all to a Council meeting, and those problems of which Morgan had spoken were laid out plain for all.

  "There is no easy way to say this, Arthur." Gweniver had risen to speak as soon as Tarian Douglas had called the session to order, and every single soul in the room strained forward to hear.

  "Then say it the hard way." His voice was calm as ever, unstressed.