The Copper Crown

by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison

  "Let us pray so, lady," he said, "if it be not too blasphemous a prayer... My chiefest concern is that no shadow of this plot be found in our minds by your brother."

  "Gwydion sees deep and far," said Arianeira. "But safe it is to say that his sight these days is filled by nearer things than you or I. Never did I think I should have cause to thank Aeron for commanding so completely his attention; but now that will work to our advantage. As to keeping our actions safely hid, I am not so poor a woman of art that I cannot manage a magical veil over what it is that we do. And I rather think Jaun Akhera, who is himself a sorcerer of no mean repute, will be doing likewise. Even Aeron should find that a hard armor to cut through." She pulled open the heavy oak door. "And, Kynon--my very deepest thanks."

  "When you are Queen of Kelts, Highness, is soon enough for that. Sleep well."

  But Arianeira, for all her sorcery and all her promise of revenge to come, lay not quiet in her bed that night.

  *

  Arianeira was not the only one whose sleep was broken. In the round room of the Western Tower, Aeron bolted suddenly awake with a cry, upright in the middle of the great canopied bed. In less time than the thought of it, Gwydion was awake beside her, one arm around her shoulders, the other reaching for his sword.

  She was trembling violently; but when he saw no immediate threat, he closed both arms around her and eased her back down onto the pillows.

  "Aeronwy, what is it?"

  She clutched at the iron-hard arms that held her. "A dream--"

  "No dream can come in here, cariad, save that you call it. This chamber is warded, you set the seals yourself."

  "I tell you there was a dream!" She flung herself out of his arms, turned her back to him. After a moment he reached out a hand to brush back her tumbled hair, and she flinched at the touch.

  "Aeron, nothing can harm you, nothing is here. Tell me."

  She twisted onto her back and lay still, staring up unseeing at the constellations of the Keltic sky set in diamonds into the underside of the bed-canopy.

  "I do not know," she said bleakly. "But there is great evil coming. From friend or foe, I cannot tell; but we are warned."

  His voice was deep and quiet in her ear. "What counsel did the dream give you?"

  She slammed her fist into the furs that covered them. "I cannot see, I do not know! All was blood and fire, Caerdroia fallen, warships in the Bawn, swords on the plain--" She fell silent, drained by the outburst. A dream of war. She had had prophetic dreams before; nearly every Kelt had something of the precognitive gift, and among the Ban-draoi and the Druids and the bards, the talent was highly prized, and actively trained and encouraged. "There was more," she said in a small weary voice, "but I cannot bring it to sight."

  Gwydion held her until she had fallen again into fitful sleep. He watched her a little while, then, restless and wide-awake, he slid from the bed and went to the windows that overlooked the City.

  The sight that met his eyes was wild and full of portent. The two moons were near setting, the one orb a mellow golden disk and the other a blazing blue-white crescent with sharp horns. Ragged wisps of cloud streamed across their faces, flying fast upon a high cold wind.

  No wonder Aeron was dreaming in prophecies. But what else had she seen, to so overset her usual calm? To dream of Caerdroia fallen was perhaps not the best of omens, since Caerdroia had never fallen to an enemy in all the centuries of its being. But it was not like a Ban-draoi to forget a dream of such vivid import, unless it struck so close to the soul of the dreamer that to recall it in waking life was well nigh unendurable... Gwydion glanced quickly over his shoulder at a muffled sound from the bed. but she was still asleep.

  There were ways, of course, to bring back the dream's entirety: the taghairm, for instance, a Druidic technique that involved deep-trance upon the hide of a sacred bull. For a moment Gwydion considered it, then put the thought aside. Even at the best of times, the taghairm would take too much out of them both, and Aeron especially; and at this moment neither of them, and again Aeron especially, had a scrap of energy or concentration to spare.

  No, they would have to do without whatever warning Aeron's dream had brought to her inner mind. Whatever doom was coming--for plainly it was all bound up with the arrival of the Earth ship--would be like no other doom that had been set upon Keltia before.

  *

  It was the Queen's custom, and her duty also, to spend several mornings each week hearing grievances brought to her by Kelts of every station. This was according to the brehon law, that every subject had the right to present his case to his ruler; and though in a population numbering in the billions, scattered over many worlds, not every dispute could be laid before the Ard-rian for supreme mediation, many were, in a volume and variety that would greatly surprise the rulers of worlds called democratic.

  Gwydion, who had been busy all morning with his own duties, entered the Presence Chamber unchallenged and stood in the shadows just inside the door. Sitting in the high seat beneath a canopy at the far end of the room, Aeron gave no sign that she had noticed him, but went on with the judgment she was giving, the last of the morning's cases. When her speech was concluded, she spoke to the room at large.

  "The hearing-court is closed for this day. I will see the First Lord of War alone."

  Secretaries, recorders, jurisconsults and litigants all bowed themselves out, and Gwydion came forward.

  "What is it?" she asked, smiling. "Has Straloch found some new bogle to fright me with, or has he been suddenly granted the an-da-shalla?"

  Gwydion laughed. "The Second Sight? Nay, he sees ill enough only with the first... Nothing like that, it was only that I had a thought earlier--have you invited my sister to the ceremonies in honor of the Terrans?"

  Aeron looked a little taken aback. "Nay, I never thought to do so. She has been so steadfast in her refusals to come to Court, I had long since fallen out of the way of thinking of her. But you are right, she must at the least be asked. However far apart we have grown, she is still my foster-sister." A sudden memory struck her. "She was in my dream last night--perhaps that is all it was about, guilt for how I have behaved to her." She looked up at him. "I have felt myself much to blame for Ari's unhappiness, and maybe her anger toward me has not been all so unwarranted."

  "Meaning?"

  "That I have demanded too much of your time--time that formerly was hers. You and she used to be so close, as twins are; I know that from watching my brothers Kieran and Declan. And now that it is you and I--well, I felt Ari blamed me for your absences from her. She is your sister, and she loves you dearly."

  An expression of acute discomfort passed over Gwydion's face. "She blames you all unfairly," he said. "Whose choice was it but mine to come here--or to love you? Nay, it goes much deeper and further back than that. And you are not to blame, Ard-rian, though she has made you the focus for her bitter discontent. She has resented you for a long time, though she admits it not, and though perhaps you do not know it."

  "Nay, that I did know," said Aeron quietly. "Even as children, when she and Morwen and I were being reared together here at Turusachan and at Kinloch Arnoch and at Caer Dathyl, even then it was always Ari who would throw the future in our faces: that Morwen would have rule as a Duchess, that I would be Ard-rian--and that she would be no more than a prince's sister. When I chose Morwen to be my Taoiseach, Arianeira was jealous, and accused me of stealing Wenna's friendship altogether. When I chose you to be First Lord of War, that angered her far more. We have been unfriends, she and I, a long time now. I did try to make amends to her--I thought, at least, that I had tried my best; clearly it was not enough. But she must come, Gwydion, now. Do you think she will come? It would be good to see her after so long, and to be her friend again."

  "If the asking comes from you, I think she will come."

  "No more, then. It is done." She smiled, a little shamefaced. "And I shall not tell her it was her brother who had to remind me of my duty. She thinks ill enough of
me as it stands. Come, let us speak to her now."

  *

  "Aeron! This is a happy surprise." Arianeira's face, sharper than Aeron remembered it, smiled at her from the viewscreen.

  "Far too long since we have spoken, Ari. All is well with you?"

  "Well enough, Ard-rian. But if you seek my brother Gwydion, he is, as usual, away from his homework!."

  Out of the tail of her eye, Aeron caught the Prince of Gwynedd's expression.

  "Nay, he is here with us in Turusachan--but that is not the intention of my call... Ari, I would like you to join us here, for the ceremonies that will celebrate the arrival of the Terran embassy."

  Something flickered in Arianeira's eyes and was gone before it could be truly seen.

  "It is good of you to think of me, Aeron. Yes, I should very much like to come to Court." As if it had been an afterthought, "May I bring a 'tail' with me?"

  Aeron frowned, puzzled and a little surprised. It was not like Arianeira to think ahead about bringing a retinue, still less like her to inquire for permission. But it was true enough that no Keltic noble, and few commoners of any consequence, ever travelled without a tail of some kind; certainly no princess of Gwynedd could be expected to come unattended to the Throneworld on an occasion of state.

  "Bring whom you will," said Aeron. "The rechtair will have your old rooms prepared for you."

  Arianeira's brilliant smile lighted her face, but the blue eyes remained glacial.

  "I thank you again, Ard-rian, and I will see you shortly at Caerdroia. Tell Gwydion that I come."

  The screen blanked out, and Aeron's face as she turned to look at Gwydion was nearly as blank.

  "Did I miss something there?"

  But he shook his head. "I am not certain. If you missed it, then I did also. Perhaps it was not there?"

  "Nay, it was there." Aeron pondered the screen again, as if the fleeting wrongness she sensed had left some visible mark upon the crystal surface. "It was there. And I think we have not seen the last of it."

  Aeron was not the only participant to that conversation who had had a silent witness just beyond the screen's range. In the solar on Gwynedd, Arianeira cast a sidelong glance at Kynon.

  "Does that please you, then, that we are invited to Court?"

  "It pleases me well, so that Your Grace is pleased," he said, bowing mockingly over her hand.

  She pulled the hand sharply out of his grasp. "Save your courtly words for Aeron's ear, they will serve you better so."

  "Then I am to go with you to Turusachan?"

  "You are; did you not hear me ask if I might bring a tail with me? Certainly you will go with me." She paused a moment. "I do not know what put it into Aeron's mind to summon me to Caerdroia," she said then, "but it is a summoning she will soon have cause to regret."

  Chapter Six

  It was probably accurate to say that the Terrans had been anticipating something rather different by way of quarantine facilities. From space, the planetoid Inishgall--Gaeloch for "Isle of the Foreigners"--had looked much the same as any other small, habitable, field-shielded green world. By the time their shuttle touched down on the landing field, at coordinates supplied by the astrogator of the Glaistig, it was full dark, and the landscape was obscured by a driving rainstorm.

  But a small drone surface car was waiting to convey them to what would be their abode for the next three days, and as it zipped across the mile or so that separated the landing field from their destination, Mikhailova peered out through rain-dappled windows.

  "It's a palace," she said, her tone one of either delight or acute dismay. "Look at it."

  They looked; she was right. An indisputable castle, all its windows ablaze for their arrival, raised itself up through night and rain.

  Leaving the groundcar at the sheltered entrance, they found themselves in a hall that would have graced an Imperial domicile. All round them was marble and silk and silver wrought in intricate knotwork patterns. They peered shyly around, then looked at each other half in wonder, half in fear, feeling like children in an old story, creeping into the palace of the elf-king.

  "Doesn't look much like quarantine," observed Hathaway, breaking the awed silence. Haruko glared at him, but the handsome black face was bland as a baby's. "What now, sir?"

  Haruko shook his head. "I haven't the slightest idea."

  But before they had time to become really alarmed or doubtful or desperate, their hosts arrived: the embassy Elharn had promised.

  It came in the form of a master-bard, a brown-haired giant called Morgan Cairbre, who was, he informed them cheerfully, to instruct them in Keltic history, politics, etiquette; as he put it, "matters which matter much among us." There was also a medical team; and twelve Fians chosen from the Royal Guard itself, for an "honor guard," a euphemism which fooled nobody and which, of course, was not expected to; and most surprising of all, the Queen's own first cousin, the Princess Melangell, as Her Majesty's personal emissary.

  The bard Cairbre apologized that no one had been there to greet them, then formally presented the Princess to the Terrans, whose reactions were various. So this is Keltic royalty, was the main thought. Haruko, whose business it was as captain and chief diplomatist to think otherwise, reflected that this unknown Queen could hardly have chosen better, if her intent was to flatter them off their guards: The Princess Melangell, besides being of royal blood, was exquisitely lovely and equally exquisitely courteous.

  Haruko performed the introductions of his crew to their hosts, and when he had finished Melangell bowed.

  "It is my cousin Aeron's wish," she said in a shy soft voice, "that I extend to you her very personal welcome, and that I tell you whatever you may care to know"--here casting a sidelong humorous glance at the tall bard beside her--"and which you may not care to ask Master Morgan. But doubtless you are all fatigued with your voyage, and will wish now to bathe and rest. I look forward to joining you at the nightmeal." She smiled and bowed and left, before the Terrans could complete their own self-conscious bows. Morgan Cairbre looked after her, his face respectful.

  "The Princess Melangell is a true cousin to her cousin the Queen," he remarked. "But I delay your rest." He gestured, and half a dozen people appeared in the hall. Each wore a livery of dark green with a small badge sewn to the left breast of the tunic, and they seemed to be retainers of some status. "Go with these," said Morgan. "They will show you to your chambers and attend you while you remain here."

  The Terrans followed their guides up the graceful double-spiral stairs to the upper halls of the castle. The suites of rooms to which they were conducted were so luxurious as to elicit a low whistle from Tindal.

  "Bit of a change from coldsleep bunks, eh, Captain?"

  Haruko had to agree: The rooms were truly palatial, hung with tapestries and arrases of heavy silk, floored with marble and strewn with fur rugs over the stone. Heavy silver wall-sconces set with curiously faceted crystals provided lighting; the heating elements, as Haruko soon discovered when he stripped to bathe, were concealed beneath the floors--the marble was warm to the foot. He wiggled his bare toes luxuriously, and stepped into the bathing-pool.

  The stinging hot water, paradoxically, lulled his muscles while clearing his mind, as he sat submerged nearly to the chin in the vast marble pool. His instincts told him all was basically well; no one would have to fret about being slaughtered while asleep. They were being received as honored guests, in the most impeccable traditions of diplomacy as understood and practiced by all polite nations. And that was right and good.

  But the quarantine itself puzzled him. Obviously, it was more for the benefit of the Kelts than the Terrans, and not for any trumped-up biological reasons either. Any civilization that could whip up something as technologically terrific as that gold dragon ship could certainly manage some form of decontamination procedure both briefer and subtler than this isolation in splendor. Therefore--Haruko emerged pink and dripping from the bath--it was all to buy time, a delaying tactic. But for w
hat? And for whom?

  Perhaps this Queen Aeron was having more difficulty with her people than she might have liked. For the moment, though, Haruko would guard his thoughts, keep his peace, and learn everything he could; indeed, he could do little else. Well, he would pump that bard, and the Queen's cousin, and anybody else who would talk to him. Good job everyone so far spoke passable Englic. Knowledge was power, all right, and often it was found in the unlikeliest places. With that comforting thought, Haruko was asleep on the wide soft bed.

  *

  In the other guest chambers, the other Terrans had been occupying themselves similarly, and most of them had reached the same conclusions as their captain.

  Down the hall, O'Reilly was still awake. She lay looking up at the figured ceiling high above her bed and listening to the rain with a vast warm contentment. She had not spoken of her true feelings to anyone, fearing Tindal's sharp-tongued sarcasm or Haruko's cold-eyed neutrality. But from the very first exchange of words with the scout ship, O'Reilly felt that she had come home at last. She was of unmixed Irish descent, and extremely proud of it; not many Terrans these days could boast unmixed ancestry of any sort, and those who could, of whatever derivation, rightly bragged about it.

  But when those two warriors in the scout sloop had spoken to her in their own language--the Gaeloch, as they called it--which was really her own ancestral language too, even though she had never learned it... well, it was so strange, but she had felt something leap inside her, something joyous and expectant and incredible, something that made her almost ill with excitement, as if some great and shining present, some wonderful gift that she had always wanted desperately but had never known exactly what it really was that she so longed for, was awaiting her only a few days away...

  A few doors down, Mikhailova and Hathaway were totally and instantly asleep, not with each other.