"May the Queen Janfarie forgive me," she said, "but I will drink first, to pledge her and Arthur the King, who is Arith of Aojun." And she drank deeply of what the cup held for her.
I have never heard such a hush as fell then; it seemed as if all the City, all the planet, all Keltia even, held its breath as one. What ought to have happened, at least according to Marguessan's vile design, was simple and terrible: Majanah should drink; the wine would choke her as the magic deemed; and she would stand accused before all—leaving her and Arthur shamed, Gweniver with further shame to come perhaps even the alliance between Aojun and Keltia in ruins. Not a bad night's work even for Marguessan; but what did happen was very much other wise…
So Majanah drank; and when she raised her head again to look at Mordryth she was smiling.
"A strong vine to make so rich a pressing." She turned then to Gweniver, and in her bearing was only courtesy, though a certain glint now stood in the golden eyes. "Lady, will you drink as well?"
Gweniver took the cup, for it could not be refused, all the time holding the other's gaze. And she must have trusted well what she read there, for without a moment's hesitation she lifted the cup as Majanah had done, gave salute to the Yamazai queen and drank off the rest of the cup's contents. When she lowered the shining bowl from her face, her eyes were closed, and as they came slowly open again I flinched where I did bide, for the look that stood in them was terrible, and it was bent wholly on Marguessan.
Who was staring at the cup as if it had suddenly turned to a mass of noisome writhing crimmocks: For some reason Marguessan could not comprehend, the magic had not worked as she had willed it; and her mind, if not numbed by the magnitude of her miscalculation, was surely wheeling frantically amongst the possibilities, like a horse in a burning stable.
I could track her thought as clearly as if she had blazoned it out upon the walls of Mi-cuarta in letters of fire: What had happened? The wine should have been ashes in their mouth, should have choked them where they stood as false to their vows of union with the same man. But clearly they had drunk nothing more nor less than good Arvorican red… Had the quaich itself been to blame? Or had other magic, more powerful still, thwarted Marguessan's aim, balked her throw? Had it been Arthur, perhaps, or maybe Morgan, who had foiled her, or even, gods forfend, that graceless tunesmith who fancied himself Druid as well as prince—meaning me, of course. As I say, her thought was plain for me to read; but I was wondering just as hard myself how she had been so featly parried out of hand.
Arthur had come up beside me, seemed about to speak. But again the Yamazai queen was too swift for any of us: By some means—and the Yamazai are by no means unskilled as sorceresses, let me tell you—she had determined, just as had Gweniver, that Marguessan was the author of the insult that had just been played out, that Mordryth was but a tool. So now, stepping forward before any of us had an inkling of her intent, Majanah slapped Marguessan across the face, thrice; left, right, left again. No word spoken, and none needed; the clear print of her hand showed red and mottled against the sudden ugly pallor of Marguessan's cheek.
But it did not end there. Again, before any of us could move—we were rooted like trees by now, sunk knee-deep, seemingly, in the marble flooring—Mordryth stepped forward in turn, and struck Gweniver Ard-rian in the face.
The silence screamed in our ears as the slap echoed off Mi-cuarta's walls. The moment seemed unbearably, impossibly long, stretched and endless and timeless: We were no longer living breathing folk here but tiny painted figures, and the sound of the blow that Mordryth struck went on forever and forever, never had it not been, never would it cease to be…
Yet end it did, and in no manner we could have dreamed of, for in the midst of the silence and the intolerable shrieking tension and the reeling impossibility came a high singing sound, like a silver wind in the room. It seemed to come from all directions and no direction, and was of a great and lovely sweetness of tone, such as even I, a bard, had never heard before, or would have believed could be.
And with the sound came a light: The rest of that vast chamber dimmed as with a sudden mist that shadowed the corners and clung to the walls, a vague and somber mantle cloaking us all, and light fell from the air on the quaich that Mordryth still held in his hands, where Gweniver had thrust it.
It was from that cup that both sound and light, aye, and darkness too, had origin: The bowl of the quaich was beginning to vibrate and shimmer, the sound building, the light beginning to bloom blue on the whiteness of the polished metal. As the note reached a pitch on the edge of pain, suddenly Mordryth gave a harsh cry, and threw his hands wide thinking to fling the cup from him.
But though he loosed his hold on it perforce—we saw later the red and black scorches across his palms, where the quaich had burned the skin—the magic that was now at work in the cup was not the magic that had been before. This was not the magic on which Marguessan had relied for her evil, not the enchantment laid on this thing from of old. Nay, this now at work was no sorcery that any of us had ever seen, and we were as feared and dazed as he.
For the cup that Mordryth flung away did not fall and clatter to the floor, but floated high in the air, a span above the heads of even the tallest among us; and there came a fragrance from it, that seemed somehow to partner the light and the mist and the clear high note that transfixed us like a spear, and there came in the room a sound of thunder.
It takes longer to describe than the event itself required: As we stared and stared—none of us could move by now, not even Marguessan, not even my Morgan, we were all frozen where we stood—the cup suddenly grew, enlarging and overlapping itself as it hung floating above our heads. The black pearls round its rim—rough-shapen, not perfect rounds—now blazed blue-white in the strange eerie luminescence; and the cup, or the light, began now to pulsate and contract and spin, in a three-armed spiral such as we see graven on dolmens from Tara to Vannin.
Faster and faster the spiral whirled throbbing; the note grew plangent and unbearable in beauty; the light coming from the cup, or resting on it, I could not tell which, grew brighter still; the fragrance stronger, as of roses and burned iron together, a hot wind, surely the Forge of Gavida himself must give off such a scent as this—And then all in one blinding flash it was gone. The hall of Mi-cuarta was as it was, and we who had not been able to stir nor hand nor foot could move once more. And still we did not so.
It was all settled very quickly after that. Once we found ourselves free to move, Arthur's Fian guards cleared the hall of everyone save the immediate participants in what was, after all, merely a little family drama—once the other elements were set for the moment aside. But the aonach guests were most respectfully if firmly moved along; and not one of them was other than eager and grateful to take leave.
We were perhaps a score or so left in the banqueting-hall: Arthur and Gweniver and Majanah standing off to one side, Marguessan and Mordryth over against them, Malgan somewhere between. Irian was not there; indeed, I could not recall seeing Marguessan's husband at all that evening. But Morgan and I stood with Donah, each of us with one arm round the child, who was shivering a little and staring at her parents; she did not weep and carry on, I was pleased to see—but she was a princess.
Of others who remained at Arthur's command, I noted Tari Douglas—well, as Taoiseach, no question but she would be present—Comyn the Archdruid, and Alair Kinmont who was now Chief Brehon, and Therrian the new Ban-draoi Mathr'achtaran; and, unobtrusive in the shadows by the wall, shadows cast now by purely natural sconces, several of the strongest and most trusted of Arthur's personal guard of Companions.
It was the time for justice, Keltic justice according to the law of the brehons that came with us from Earth, and justice was the least and the swiftest of it: Arthur spoke, few words, cold and to the point. Marguessan and Mordryth were banished forever from Court, and to my thinking they were much to thank the King that they went from there with their lives. The Chief Brehon herself was witness to
the lawful execution of the doom, I spoke for the Bardic Association, Therrian and Comyn for their orders, Tari for the Council and government. Gweniver stood unmoving, and she said no word at all. Only Majanah, looking after Marguessan and Mordryth as they were escorted from the hall by stone-faced Fians, into their exile, voiced what we must all have surely been feeling
"Artho," she said clearly and honestly, "you had done better to kill them."
And we knew, gods help us all, that she was right.
* * *
* * *
Chapter Thirty
As FOR THE REST of that night's remarkable events: Well, even Morgan could not give us the truth of what had taken place there in Mi-cuarta. The cup had been a genuine relic of Olwen and Llariau, two noble and notably maritorious queens of old, which Marguessan had somehow come by; and the spell that had been on it was its own, naught owing to my matesister, merely used by her for her own hateful ends. Why it had worked to her detriment, none could say for certain, though there was no lack of theories, and much joy too that it had done so.
Again, it was Majanah who came perhaps the closest of us all to what may have been the truth, when she tossed her own thought like a ball of string into the midst of our discussions.
"I know from your sojourn in our midst, as well as mine here, that magic is different on every world," she said reflectively. "But to me it seems that here the form of the magic itself, the integrity of the cup, was what came back against the Princess Morgaes"—so she turned Marguessan's name in the tongue of Aojun. "And that is?" asked Therrian.
"Truth is ever the best defense. She called down shame on any who had violated sworn vows. Well, neither I nor the Queen Janfarie has ever done so; hence the magic would distinguish, and could not hold."
Tari breathed an incredulous laugh. "And so the wine was wine only."
"Just so."
I stirred and shifted in my chair,—we were all weary beyond speech, but some things must be addressed.
"And the rest of it? That was no simple magic worked five hundred years ago by a loving and notoriously faithful queen! You were there, you saw what it did! The cup, or whatever in all the hells it was—
Silence reigned, for they had no answer any more than I did. We were sitting slouched around the Council chamber, those of the royal family and associates whom the thing concerned most nearly, still shaking from our ordeal, tired and angry and cranky and feared, trying to make some sense of what seemed like in the end to have no sense to it at all; or no earthly sense, at the least.
For myself, I firmly believed that we had witnessed a miracle of some sort: a portent, perhaps, a foreshadowing of some greater thing to come. But that thought too held fresh fears: If this was the omen, what then must be the magnitude of the event to come, so mighty and so perilous the sign…
But we were all of us too shaken by far to come at any solution that night, and after perhaps another hour of vain crosstalk Arthur abruptly rose and ordered us all off to our beds, and we obeyed with glad grace.
Once there, though, even with Morgan warm and sleepy cuddled against my side, I could not keep my mind from scrolling through the events of that night, again and again, replaying them like a viewtape, and something caught at the edges of my thought. I pushed at Morgan, and she muttered some swart swearing word back at me.
"Talyn, let me sleep—"
"Why think you Gweniver so readily accepted the cup from Majanah? She had heard Marguessan say what would befall any faithless who drank from it—" Morgan snuggled closer. "Two things, and then I will sleep, and by gods so shall you—Gweniver knew she had been faithful, and she knew she could trust Majanah. That is all. Go to sleep."
But I lay awake a while yet, listening to Morgan's even breathing in the room's stillness. She was doubtless correct in her assessment: Gweniver had been true and faithful in the smallest particular to the bonds of her marriage with Arthur—it had been only tonight that it had in truth become a marriage—she had not violated her vows, therefore she knew she could drink safely. And even if she had not known, she had a genuine trust and respect for Majanah; and if the Yamazai queen bade her drink, then drink she would, and did…
I thought about that for a while, as I waited impatiently for sleep to claim me. All praise to the Goddess that Majanah was cut of the fine cloth she was; had she been another Gwenwynbar, say, who knows what disaster might have come to be? But Janjan and Gwennach were equals, in mind and soul and spirit, true queens,—and because they were, and were both Arthur's chosen, it did honor and credit to all three of them, and instead of contempt and scorn and enmity there was understanding; respect also, even friendship. And I was glad it had fallen out so, for I loved all three of them.
But the more vexing question remained. Marguessan had been exiled only, not destroyed. Perhaps Arthur had not wished to condemn his own sister and nephew to death for what had been—as our Chief Brehon Alair Kinmont had taken pains to point out—an act well short of treason, however ill-advised. We had honor-prices for that sort of thing, after all…
Still, even exiled, Marguessan would be free on her own lands, amongst folk loyal to her and her husband and their offspring, free to make what plots and plans she would. And, oh, she would surely do so: Marguessan had never from childhood been one to leave a grudge before it had given its all to her purpose,—and this particular grudge had much service left in it. She would be fueled, too, by her very public humiliation; well aware that we intended to keep close watch on her, she would also know we could not, would not, go beyond the bounds of our own laws and customs. Within the maigen her lands and Irian's, Marguessan would be free to do as she wished; and, I doubted not, she would take full advantage of that fact.
I yawned prodigiously, and prepared to follow Morgan down into slumber at long last; then was jolted awake again by a thought that had been niggling at the edge of my awareness all night long. And the thought was this: What had become of Olwen's cup, that had so spectacularly confounded its abuser?
The silver quaich had duly performed its astounding transformation, the which had still not been satisfactorily interpreted by the sorry parcel of brilliant brains loitering round the Council table until three past middlenight. But it had not been seen or found or heard of since: We had thought to find it lying on the floor of Mi-cuarta, after; or perhaps magically restored to the place whence Marguessan had filched it. But it had vanished without a trace; and, somehow, that troubled me even more than all the rest of it.
Still, though we at Turusachan thought much on the matter, it was soon all but forgotten by the rest of Keltia: The thinking being, Aye, well, so the High King has banished his sister and her brood; she had never been well loved by the populace, and they were neither glad nor stricken to see the back of her. Doubtless, they thought, all would blow over, next month, next year, fifty years from now, and Arthur and Marguessan be friends. No matter that they had never been friends in all their lives, those two,—but so the folk thought, and we considered it best to let them think so.
But we were greatly sorry on another matter entirely: Majanah was returning to Aojun, and we did not want her to go.
"A sixmonth is substantial enough for a first visit, Talghen," she said when I went to her to plead for a stay of departure.
"Aye, well, when we came to your planet we stayed seven years—
"True enough, I could not get rid of you tried I never so hard…" We laughed, but quickly grew solemn again. "I will be coming back, you know! Any road, I have consented to let Donah remain here with her father for a while. It is good that she should come to know him, and Janfarie and you and Morgauna and the other dear friends we have here. Also Roric will be near to help her—it will be best so. Most especially now that Artho and Janfarie are truemates—"
I gaped. "My soul to the mountain! How do you know that?"
Majanah laughed again. "A cavebat could have seen it coming—even though Artho and I are no longer each other's in love, nor have wish to be, still can
we tell how it is with one another. He was wedded when he came to me in Mistissyn—you were there, you know how it was—but he and Janfarie were not partnered, indeed, were not so until last night. So we had each other, and she had the Lord Keils… If they two had been truemates then I should not have taken Artho for all the life of the world; but now they are so, and for my part I have my own lord, Brone, who rules Aojun and the Aojunni while I am away. Even Lord Keils has found a new friend in the Lady Meloran; and if she is not his truemate he will find her in another, but all will go rightly on. You will see."
"Aye, I daresay I shall—but in the end?"
"In the end, Donah will be Jamadarin over Aojun in her turn,—she will bring her Keltic half to that estate as well as that part of her which is Aojunese. And you too will have had a hand in the queen she shall become… Which is why I ask you now to look after her while she is here, you and Morgauna. I know Gerrans is still from home, and that Morgauna prefers it so, but there is in Donah that which a Ban-draoi can teach to grow and flower, and I would she did."
"Surely Artos—"
A wise smile. "Artho and Janfarie will soon have cares of their own, heirs of their own—I have read it in the wind, it will surely be. A boy and a girl, not of the same birthing but of the same heart… Any road, I know you and your lady will care for my daughter; she loves you both."
"I will make a bard of her yet," I promised; but I was deeply moved by what she had said. "Janjan—"
"Ah, you do not know the good it does me to hear you call me that! But sit now, and I will sift the stars in your hand one more time."
I obeyed, dropping to a cushion by her feet and holding out to her my open right hand, palm uppermost, for I remembered well her skill at this form of kenning. Majanah took my hand across her knee, running a fingertip over the lines and creases of my palm, smiling as she saw again a thing she had seen before, or had not seen until now.
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