The Copper Crown

by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison

  Aeron nodded thoughtfully, almost absently, then slipped from the bed and sank down beside him on the furs by the hearth, leaning her elbow on the seat of a chair and staring into the flames.

  They sat awhile thus in silence, and Gwydion continued to play softly. At last Aeron stirred, face flushed from the fire's heat, and pushed back her hair with both hands.

  "Have you seen aught of Arianeira lately? She stayed on in the City as I invited her to, but I have not heard anything of her since the night of the ceili."

  "Nay--she keeps to herself at Llys Don; I myself have seen her only once or twice, when I was there on household matters. Though I have heard that she sees much of the Terran Tindal. My rechtair at the Llys, old Pendaran, tells me Tindal comes to dine with her almost every night, and very often leaves not until morning."

  "Tindal with Ari?" she said, surprised. "How very strange... I would not have thought him a likely choice of hers."

  "Ari has ever been easily caught by novelty; and just as easily uncaught." Gwydion seemed unconcerned. "I doubt it will last... I am told also that the other Terrans find it just as surprising for him. But since Ari does stay on in Caerdroia," he added, "I should make more time for her. She has been here some weeks, and I have scarcely spoken to her. And yet..." He struck a deliberately jangled chord. "And yet when we did speak, she and I, I did feel something cold and hostile from her that I, at least, have never felt before. I would alter that, if I can."

  "If you spent more of your time at Llys Don you might find that easier."

  He laughed. "Perhaps I should go there now, then."

  "It is a cold dark ride to the Llys this time of night," said Aeron judicially. "A long walk back to your tower, even."

  "So it is." Gwydion drew from the telyn a chord so exquisite that she closed her eyes, letting the beauty of the sound flow over her. Then she reached out and took the harp from his hands, leaning back against him without a word, and he closed his arms around her. They sat so without moving, without speaking, for many long minutes; both knowing, as clearly as if it had been spoken, that this night could well be one of the last such they might share for many nights to come.

  "Play again," said Aeron suddenly. He did not let her go, but took up the telyn and steadied it upon her lap. As he began to play her favorite Erinnach air, she could feel the flex and pull of the muscles of his arms as his fingers moved upon the harpstrings, felt the absorption that enfolded him: that total engrossment of the true musician playing true music, so within himself he was in fact utterly outside himself.

  She thought with deep humility how very graced they were to have come to each other so, after all that had befallen, in the face of all the demands of duty and of rank: Many men there were in Keltia fit to be the Ard-rian's consort, some few fit to have been Aeron's lover; but for her, for Queen and woman together, of all men else there was now none but he. She was filled with a fierce fearing desire only to hold him, to have him hold her, to cling together though the stars went out around them...

  She twisted in his arms and looked up into his face, and the golden harp fell silent.

  "I have loved thee, Gwynedd," she said softly in Kymric. "Oh, but I have loved thee..."

  Chapter Fifteen

  "As the Councils are aware," said Aeron, standing at her place at the head of the table, "I have been in preliminary communication with the Terran President and Senate regarding a formal embassy. Now that we have had these weeks to consider in full what this might mean both to us and to Earth, I would hear some last brief remarks before I announce to you my decision on the matter. You may speak as you please; this is far too important to leave any thought unsaid." She seated herself in her chair as Straloch leaned forward in his, and all round the room they steeled themselves for renewed hostilities.

  "We know from Gwydion's spies"--his voice gave a contemptuous twist to the word, but Gwydion only smiled--"that there has been a meeting on Alphor, high officers and heads of state from Imperium and Phalanx both. This being followed by an invasion-level buildup of the Fomori forces, we must presume a similar weapontake by the Imperials--not to mention the levies they can draw upon from their vassal systems. We would be fools indeed, Ard-rian, to think this was pointed anywhere save square at our own throats. As soon as we move to ally formally with Earth, we shall feel the prick of that sword."

  "And we still do not have sufficient strength to resist such a double onslaught," said the brehon Auster. "Our First Lord of War has admitted as much himself... Ard-rian, not one of us here is opposed in principle to eventual alliance with Earth, but can it not be done more--temperately, so as not to inflame the situation any more than must be?"

  Aeron jumped up and stalked over to the windows. "True it is I said you may speak as you please, but by the gods I do grow weary of this milk-mouthed whining: how we dare not offend or anger the Imperium or the Phalanx. What of how they dare not offend or anger us?"

  "If you wish for that sort of certainty you must make a bid yourself for empire." That was Gwydion, and she turned on him, but Douglass Graham cut in adroitly.

  "That may be no wild thought, Ard-rian. You are already Empress of the West, by right descent from Arthur. And your rule is over out-Wall systems now as well as over our own: This war, when it comes, will be for that reason as much as for the other, make no mistake about that. If you were to declare yourself Empress in law as well as in fact, in opposition to the Cabiri, no Kelt or Protectorate citizen would fail to recognize you as such, and a thousand other systems would be eager to offer you allegiance. More, very like. Strephon could not begin to challenge such sway, not for a very long time. Perhaps not ever."

  Aeron's face was set and hard. "I do not wish for Imperial sovereignty. I have never sought that kind of power."

  "Yet it might be forced upon you, will you or nill you," said Gwydion quietly. She turned a cold glare upon him, but he continued, "Bres and Strephon must be stopped. You are the only one who has both the will and the means to do so. That is why the out-Wall systems sue for Keltia's protection in such numbers: They know Keltia cannot be moved, and that they know because of what you have shown them these past three years."

  There was a long heart-freezing silence, then Aeron slowly returned to her seat.

  "That's as may be," she said, "but it makes no odds. Imperial sway is not one of my options at this time; indeed, I pray not ever, and I pray likewise it never becomes no longer option only, but necessity... But I will not delay you further: I have decided to ally formally with the Terran Federacy, and I have already sent their leaders a message to that effect. Their embassy ship will leave there upon arrival of my offer. There will be no discussion and no more debate. My decision is by royal fiant, and so unalterable; and it will not be subject to review by the Senate, the Assembly, or the House of Peers. Taoiseach, let it be so set down."

  The only sound in the room was that of Straloch's fists slamming down upon the table.

  "Then by all the gods there ever were, Aeron, take some wit and wisdom along with your folly! Declare yourself Empress, raise the Protectorates, do anything but sit idly and wait for Strephon to act! You're as obstinate as ever your father was, and gods know he was always as stubborn as a moscra--"

  Gwydion made as if to speak, and Straloch rounded on him. "And as for you, Prince of Gwynedd--I have not been the only one in this kingdom, or even on this Council, to question your fitness to hold the offices you hold."

  "They who are Kin to the Dragon bestowed upon me the one," said Gwydion evenly, though his eyes glinted dangerously. "And she who sits upon the Throne of Scone raised me to the other. Do you, then, question Queen and Kinship both?"

  "Certainly I question whether Aeron's personal affections have not interfered with the Ard-rian's judgment! Someone of greater age and prudence--"

  "Such as yourself, my lord?" snapped Rohan.

  "Such as any who has seen and done and managed more than you or your sister or your friends! This Council, this entire kingdo
m, is run by intractable bairns who have not the sense to appoint their elders and betters to the places that age and wisdom merit. I warned you, Aeron, what any alliance with Terra would cost us, and you insisted on ignoring my advice, even though I am Lord Extern and presumably know somewhat about dealings with the world outside the Curtain Wall. I tell you now, if your stupidity brings war upon us, the guilt of it be upon you alone!"

  Aeron had listened to this tirade with bent head, only her fingers flexing and unflexing around her lightpen giving evidence of her anger, but now she looked up at Straloch, and her eyes blazed pure green in a white face.

  "Then upon my head be it," she said softly, in a voice that chilled them all. "You for one, my lord of Straloch, shall share it not, for you are dismissed from this Council from this moment, and you are much to thank me I do not banish you from this kingdom as well."

  "That will need a vote, Ard-rian!"

  "I need no vote!" Aeron was on her feet now. "Am I not Ard-rian--even to your distaste? You have already thrown it in my face how like I am to my father--go, Straloch, before I show you how like I can be to my ten-times-great-grandsir Brendan Mor, and take off your head for this!"

  "Aeron--"

  "Go!"

  Straloch bowed with frigid courtesy and paced from the room. Aeron flung herself into her chair, one hand shading her eyes.

  Into the screaming silence, only Elharn dared to speak.

  "May one ask, Ard-rian, how you came to your decision for alliance?"

  "One may ask, certainly!"

  He caught her glance and held it--not for nothing was he the son of the Ard-rian Aoife--and after a tense moment she relented.

  "We cannot keep the universe out forever, uncle. Despite the obvious preferences of my lord of Straloch... We have stood removed from the rest of the worlds these fifteen hundred years gone by. We need not drop the Curtain Wall to do so, but to stand more in the stream of events can only be to the good of Keltia. If we deny it now, this fair and excellent chance, then the next time the outside world comes to our gates may be far less to our liking. I for one would sooner make common cause with the rest of the galaxy when I please to do so, not at the pleasure of others." She pushed back her hair with her familiar gesture. "As for Straloch's accusations, they have been made before now, and perhaps true enough as far as they go. Some of us here, myself not least, are full young by comparison. I say it does not signify. Young or old, I am your Ard-rian; I have chosen my Councils to suit my needs and the changing needs of this kingdom, and I have appointed all of you, novice or veteran, as I have seen fit. I loved the Ard-righ my father most dearly, but this is my reign, no longer his; and things will be done in my reign that would not have been done in his had he lived two hundred years and died in his bed. And if, like Gavin, any of the rest of you have any smallest difficulty with that, I give you leave and blessing to withdraw now." She paused for the space of ten heartbeats, and did not look at them. No one moved. "Well, then."

  Morwen glanced anxiously at the pale profile to her left. After the unprecedented violence of the last few minutes, Aeron seemed suddenly fragile, too fine to bear the weight of the queenship's decisions and demands.

  And this was a decision that would reverberate through all Keltic history, ever after from this moment, would stand alone beside St. Brendan's command to forsake Earth and the sword-dance that Arthur of Arvon had led against the Theocracy: the Ard-rian Aeron's decision to pull aside the Curtain Wall. She would be damned or sainted, would rise or fall, by what she had chosen in this moment for her people and herself. And, meeting Aeron's eyes, Morwen saw that Aeron knew it too...

  In the corridor after the Councillors had dispersed, Rohan, looking harried, caught Morwen up.

  "She's dancing on the skirtedge of disaster," he said bluntly.

  Morwen felt her heart lurch within her. "She has always been a very neat-footed dancer--even with such a partner as that."

  Aeron's heir shook his head. "So far. Pray this time she treads not upon its toes."

  *

  "May I speak with you, Taoiseach?"

  Morwen looked up at the sound of the familiar voice. It was late afternoon of the day of the Council meeting. O'Reilly stood in Morwen's office doorway, plainly hesitant, yet equally plainly resolved to speak her mind to the First Minister of Keltia.

  "Always. Come in, then." She waited courteously while O'Reilly seated herself on the far side of the big marble table, but when the Terran finally began to speak the topic could not have been more unexpected.

  "What is this omen they're all talking about?"

  Morwen snorted. "Oh, the kingdom is forever full of omens, people seeing prodigies in bowls of milk--It comes of having a sorcerous population. If Aeron gave heed to a hundredth part of them she would not be able to stir nor hand nor foot."

  "But do people take it seriously? And what was it, anyway? Nobody would actually tell me."

  "True it is that many put faith in such things... Well, they say that last night at sunset, in the uplands of Moymore, a great black hand crawled down from Mount Keltia and shadowed all the Great Glen, reaching its fingers toward Caerdroia. There have been other portents as well, on other worlds. The Mari Llwyd, the Ghost Mare, has been seen galloping in the night on Dyved. On Erinna, the river called Destroyer ran red with blood, and the sun shone at midnight over the plain of the Leha on Kernow."

  "Does it all mean anything?" O'Reilly, consumed with guilt, could not look the other woman in the eye.

  Morwen's shrug was eloquent. "Who can say for certain? It all depends on who does the interpreting, and not even the sorcerers are in agreement. When such portents have appeared in times past, sometimes they meant one thing and sometimes another, and very often nothing at all. Aeron does not seem over-fretted by any of them, and she is a Ban-draoi, a most skilled one too, and she would surely know if any evil were toward."

  "She doesn't seem exactly over-full of good cheer lately, either."

  "No... no, she does not. What is it you would say to me, O'Reilly?"

  "Treachery," she said at last, and the word came out a whisper. "The Captain and I, we think there is some kind of plot." She halted, then finished up all in a rush. "We think it's Tindal, that he might be up to something. But we don't know what. He could be working alone, but we think he's got Keltic accomplices. Just a lot of little things that add up to--well, to possibility... the Captain found some suspicious codes in Tindal's computer, Tindal doesn't know he found them. We think--Sir and I--that Tindal was using the combanks aboard the Sword as a booster, sending secret messages to someone outside the Curtain Wall."

  Morwen's expression had grown progressively graver during the Terran's speech, and now she tapped on the marble desktop with the tip of her lightpen.

  "That is a serious charge, Lieutenant. I would put much in your word and Theo's, but--is there any more solid proof of this?"

  "No," said O'Reilly with reluctance. "Tindal left no record of the transmission--if there even was a transmission. He would have erased the computer's memory after using the codes--he could do that, he's very good with computers, a lot better than I am. So unless your own tracking stations logged the transmission, or somehow traced it back..." She shrugged.

  "I see."

  "Will you tell the Queen?"

  "I do not know just yet. Does Theo know you have come to me?"

  O'Reilly nodded. "Oh yes. He and I discussed this last night after we left you and Aeron and Gwydion, and we thought we'd wait a while before we told you, in hopes of having something more concrete to go on. Then, after seeing what went on this morning in the Council meeting, we--changed our minds. Even so, Sir asked me if I'd be the one to tell you. He sort of was afraid you might blame him."

  "Blame him!"

  "For not telling you sooner."

  "What, when he had no proof of anything amiss? He thought to be blamed for that? Oh, he can be such an amadaun!"

  "Well, he said he'd be happy to talk to you, if you eve
r even wanted to speak to him again after this."

  In spite of her growing disquiet, Morwen laughed. "Then let us fetch him here at once."

  When Haruko joined them, head high despite his guilty conscience, Morwen wasted neither time nor words.

  "No apologies, Theo, for you are not at fault here, but I must know everything that you know. I am no truth-senser to say for certain, but I feel--I cannot say how--that you may well be right. If you think Tindal does betray us, do you think he acts alone?"

  He met her gaze with steady dark eyes. "I do not."

  "With whom, then?"

  "Arianeira. But I can't prove that either. If I could, Aeron would have heard from me five minutes later."

  Morwen's face, at first unchanged in the surprise of the name, which was somehow no surprise at all, turned white, then red, then flooded with stunned comprehension.

  "Oh gods, but I think that you are right." It would explain so much that had gone unexplained in the last few weeks: Arianeira's attitude, her closeness with Tindal, even her presence at Court. And Mighty Mother, thought Morwen, how do I tell Aeron--or Gwydion...

  She stood up. "Will you both come with me now to Gwydion?"

  O'Reilly blanched at the thought of telling the Prince of Don of his sister's possible treason. But Haruko was firm.

  "We will, Taoiseach, if you think it good."

  "I do so, and I think also we will not speak of it yet to Aeron. But let us find Gwydion."

  *

  They did not find him for some time. They went first to his rooms in the palace, but he was not there. Nor was he at Llys Don, or the Fianna Commandery, or any other of the places he was likely to be, and he had left no word with anyone as to his whereabouts.

  At last they met him returning from a solitary ride in the fells to the east of the City, and they went back with him to his rooms, there to deliver the matter to him in private.

  Like Morwen before him, Gwydion gave no immediate sign that he had even heard. Haruko lapsed into uncertain silence, but O'Reilly was by now in the grip of outraged emotion.