The Copper Crown

by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison

  "Nay, Aeron, not that! I neither wish it nor hope for it, save to hope that you will not afflict me with it... But as to why I am come, there are several reasons, not the least of them being to thank you."

  "To thank me?"

  "How else but by following your example did I manage to tear the Curtain Wall like a worn guna? You yourself showed me the way--at Bellator." Aeron's face blanched to the hair-roots as realization struck home at last, and Arianeira smiled. "But that is not my chief reason. Say rather that I am come as a friendly emissary from Jaun Akhera, with new terms you may care to accept once you have heard them--and their alternative. Still, I fear they will be little to your liking, Aeron. But I pray you listen, and try not to allow your guilt, or your grief for your uncle Ironbrow, to cloud your royal judgment. --Oh, aye, we heard all about Elharn. You will find there is little goes on in your camp we do not know of."

  Aeron had mastered herself once again. "If that is so, Ari," she said and now there was only cool reproof in her voice, "I wonder that you seem not to know that I will never accept any terms of Jaun Akhera's devising, still less when they are brought to me by a Keltic traitor."

  Arianeira scowled, and turned instead to Gwydion. His swordpoint had wavered not an inch, and his eyes upon her face were more watchful than before.

  "Say the terms, then, Ari."

  "They are so: That this planet shall be ceded up to him immediately, without let or further contest of arms, and the fleets and armies of Keltia shall on the instant cease hostilities. Jaun Akhera will accept the submission of the Six Nations, and spare the folk in return; and he will leave here to rule in his name a Regent."

  "You," said Aeron, not surprised in the least.

  "So he has promised."

  "And what of the Ard-rian?" asked Gwydion, intent on the answer.

  "My lord Jaun Akhera has also promised," said Arianeira, after a moment, "to spare her life, so that she will make submission of fealty to him, and she must then remain a prisoner of state on Alphor for the rest of her life. That is his mercy, Aeron, not mine; my terms called for your head atop the Wolf Gate."

  Aeron's smile was small and cold. "Then if he has offered my head to you, Ari, how comes it that two days ago he offered his hand--and his throne--to me?"

  "It is no real offer," replied the Princess calmly, though anger flicked her anew at the memory. "Besides, he has since reconsidered; else I had not been here making this offer. And any road, are you not pledged already?" This time the note of jealous hatred in her voice was unmistakable.

  "Kynon of Ruabon was put to the Cremave," put in Gwydion smoothly, and his sister's eyes dropped. "Did you know that also?"

  "What is such a one to me? He and the Terran had barely the wit to carry out my bidding."

  "Such is the quality of loyalty among traitors," replied her brother. "Well, for his part, he tried to cast all blame upon you, said it was you made first overture to the Imperials and led both him and Tindal into treason. But the Cremave proved the truth of that was otherwise; of that much, at least, are you guiltless."

  But Aeron could curb her pain no longer. "How came you to hate me so much and so hardly? Ari!" It was a cry from the soul, and it pierced even Arianeira's armor. "I know we have been unfriends of late, and for that I shall ever be sorry; but why did you not come to me and speak of what was in your heart? I would have listened, and having listened surely I would have acted. You and I have known each other all our lives; did you not know that at least of me?"

  "Oh, what do you know of what was in my heart--Majesty?" snarled Arianeira, her voice venomous on the title. The face she turned to Aeron was white and pinched with hatred revealed at last. "You were born with your life's task assured, none greater or more honorable: to rule Keltia. There was nothing left for me, nothing! You took my friend from me, and my brother, and then you cut me from you. Do you wonder, foster-sister"--again her voice hissed like a nathair--"that I chose in the end to turn elsewhere? The Queen of Kelts had failed me, and Keltia herself had failed me. Keltia! The Gwrach-y-Ribyn, the Blue Hag, the Sacred Sow that devours her own young! Me she devoured early on; do not wonder, then, Aeron, at what I did in the end."

  "You might have done as the rest of us," said Aeron steadily, though her heart bled within her. "Refused to be eaten... Ari, you had only to speak--"

  "To you? To Aeron Aoibhell? Nay, Queen of Kelts, when I did come to speak, I spoke to those with whom my speech carried most weight, and did me most weal."

  "To Jaun Akhera," said Gwydion, who had kept silent while his lady and his sister spoke. "For that I loved Aeron, and she me, you chose to sell us all to the Marbh-draoi."

  The contempt in his face and voice was complete; neither woman had ever heard its like from him before, and Arianeira paled, then flushed.

  "Nay, call him rather by his true title: the next Cabiri Emperor! He who will make me his Regent here."

  "His vassal, rather," said Aeron. "I think you will find the Prince of Alphor a far harsher master than I."

  Arianeira's mouth tightened. "As to that, we must wait upon the time. Though you and those who follow you have but little left of that."

  "If that is so, then your finding shall be all the sooner... But for me, Ari, I love you and pity you. I have ever been your friend and your sister before I have been your Queen, and no matter what befalls us both in the end, I shall ever be so." And Aeron turned away from Arianeira and headed back to the Keltic camp.

  But Gwydion remained, and so he alone saw the look with which his sister gazed after Aeron. And as he watched he caught something of the conflict that was lacerating Arianeira's soul with claws of iron: the love against the jealousy, the loyalty against the perceived and imagined wrongs.

  She felt the touch of his mind, and whirled around to face him. Tears were on her cheek.

  "Why do you hesitate, Prince of Gwynedd?" she cried, and in the words was all the bitter despair she had kept hidden even from herself all these months and years. "Your sword is already drawn; strike! It would be a kindness, Gwion--"

  The sound of the pet-name she had not used for him since their childhood staggered him like a blow to the face.

  "Ari--your life is not mine to end. And even now your healing is not beyond you to accomplish." He came forward; she shrank a little, but lifted her head in the old proud defiance he remembered.

  But he only took her hand and kissed it. "Gods with you, my sister." He looked down into her eyes, sea-gray into sky-blue, then turned to follow Aeron, who was by now a small dark figure far down the glen.

  Arianeira looked after him with desperate eyes until he too was but a shape upon the moor, even the scarlet cloak he wore only a blurred patch against the autumn brightness. When she saw that the moor flamed with such patches, she knew that he was truly gone. She sank slowly down into the burned and withered bracken, and buried her face in her skirts.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The second day of fighting was fiercer far than the first. By the time Aeron and Gwydion had come again to the Keltic camp, the armies had formed for the charge; there had been some skirmishing already, off on the Keltic left. But in the main the lines held firm, and Gwydion did not hold them long in leash.

  By noon the battle had been lost and won several times over, no clear victor either way. Jaun Akhera ranged up and down along his hard-pressed line, shouting to his captains, rallying soldiers so weary they were dropping where they stood. And indeed his being there seemed to have as inspiring an effect upon his armies as Aeron's presence had upon her own, so that for a space of several hours the Imperial forces carried the field.

  The field, but not the day, and not for long: for Gwydion threw Maravaun of Cashel and several thousand cavalry straight at the Imperial center. And Maravaun smashed the triple lines, wheeled left and right and came round again with the most of his riders still horsed, to take Hanno's infantry from the rear.

  The sun was still two hours from setting when suddenly all along the front the I
mperial ranks wavered, then made an abrupt and orderly withdrawal. A great yell went up from the Kelts, who in their battle rage would have harried the retreating enemy straight into the Imperial camp. But Gwydion sent swift word to the captains of the line not to follow, and the overeager Keltic warriors were soon collected and recalled.

  Aeron, who had fought this day on foot, had made a strategic retreat of her own somewhat earlier, limping slightly from a bone-bruising blow struck at her by a Fomori pikeman. Her attacker had died for his pains under three Fian swords, but he had succeeded in putting Aeron, for the moment, out of the fight.

  She had had the raxed muscles tended by Slaine, a talented healer, who had given orders that no word of the injury, slight as it was, should reach the army at large, and had also given orders that Aeron was to keep off the leg as much as possible for a day or two.

  So it was that Aeron was in her tent, talking with Haruko, Rioghnach and O'Reilly, when there was a sudden commotion outside in the faha, and then Sabia came flying in.

  "They've taken Tindal," she gasped. "He was trying to escape in a singleship--Fergus's squadron caught him leaving the Kymric system, and Fergus sends him to you with his compliments."

  If those present had hoped for a reaction from Aeron, they were disappointed. She made no outward sign either of pleasure or displeasure, but seated herself and spoke in a dry light voice that likewise held no clue to her feelings.

  "Bring him in."

  Tindal was escorted into the tent by Desmond and Grelun. The Terran was pale, and his customary expression of scorn was for once utterly absent. A streak of dried blood smudged his forehead, and his clothes were torn; evidently Fergus's kerns had not been over-gentle with him. As his eyes adjusted to the relative dimness within the royal tent, he saw Haruko standing behind Aeron's chair. He started to say something, but the look on his former captain's face caused him to think better of it, and he flushed and looked away.

  "Doubtless you are sorry to be brought before me alive, Tindal," said Aeron crisply. "But no sorrier than I am for the necessity to bring you so, though I do not expect you to believe me. You were betrayed by Arianeira, of course."

  He stared at her. "There was no 'of course' about it!"

  "'Ard-rian'," said Desmond in a very soft voice, and his hand moved almost imperceptibly on his sword-hilt.

  "Ard-rian," amended Tindal mockingly. "Well, not at first, anyway--and without my help, she would never have gotten her message out to Jaun Akhera telling him to begin the attack."

  "Perhaps not," said Aeron. "Any road, I had enough of that from her own mouth not twelve hours since... But it makes no odds. It is war; we here are all soldiers, and we know the rules that govern war."

  "My diplomatic status--"

  "--was forfeit by your own actions, as I have informed Captain Haruko. You will find no edge on that sword. Do you wish to pray to your gods, or make a last statement?"

  "Only this--Ard-rian." Wrenching his arm from Grelun's grip, Tindal pulled a small square box of white metal from his sleeve, and with a sharp tug broke it in two, refitted it, and tossed it at Aeron.

  With a cry Haruko dove to intercept it, catching it not six inches from Aeron's head, and flung it mightily out of the tent door into the faha where no one stood. There was a soundless concussion, a flash of blue light and a momentary wind.

  Aeron for once looked fully as shaken as she felt. She had all through the brief interview not moved from her chair, but now she rose, eyes upon Tindal where Grelun and Desmond had brought him ungently to his knees. She was about to speak when Haruko, still breathing hard from his effort, detached the sword from his baldric, stepped forward, and, with a grim punctiliousness his samurai ancestors would have applauded, in one lightning motion beheaded Tindal where he knelt.

  In the silence, Rioghnach could be heard reassuring the speechless O'Reilly, who had been watching the proceedings with her from a corner of the tent.

  "It is the law, truly. Any brehon will tell you."

  But it was not so much Tindal's swift dispatch that had so stunned the Terran woman, nor even the fact that Haruko had been the one to effect it; but rather the apparent lack of emotion displayed by everyone save herself. O'Reilly put a hand to her mouth and stared at Tindal's crumpled body, headless upon the floor. Lawful retribution: It was a side of Keltia--and a face of Haruko, whom she had thought she had known well--that O'Reilly had never suspected, and it left her deeply shaken.

  "But it is like that with adders," Desmond was saying. "Best to crush their heads as soon as they are caught." He looked up from the floor, which was awash in blood, to Aeron, whose gaze was still unfocused. "Forgive me, athiarna. He should not have come before you still bearing a weapon. I failed you."

  Aeron came back into her eyes then, spoke with utter conviction.

  "Not you, cousin. Never once you--nor you, Grelun." She gripped first Desmond's arm, then Grelun's, then turned to Haruko. "I must be more weary than I know, and less courteous than I thought... I have not thanked you, Theo, either for my life saved or my justice taken in hand." She kissed him formally on either cheek, then embraced him as friend to friend.

  "I failed you also, Lady," muttered Haruko. "That was an ion-grenade, standard Navy issue. I should have known he'd have had something like that planned, or else you'd never have taken him alive."

  "And I say, I have been failed by no one! Not you, not Grelun or Desmond, perhaps not even Arianeira... Let us speak of it no more."

  *

  When Gwydion returned to his tent it was full dark, and growing colder. Morwen was waiting for him, and while he ate a quick meal she told him of Tindal's capture and its horrifying sequels.

  But he did not give way to anger as she had half-expected him to, merely inquired mildly enough as to Aeron's safety, and, when assured of that, commended Haruko's swift action; no more.

  "You seem perhaps to make strangely little of this," she said, and her voice carried more of a rebuke than she had intended.

  Gwydion sighed, and when he spoke at last his words came low and weary and freighted with all the unconfessed emotion, all the unacknowledged sadness, all the pain and frustration and bafflement he had never before expressed.

  "How? If I made more of it, both she and you would chide me for being overprotective. She is my prime and chiefest value, and I wish indeed to protect her, to shield her as best I can from whatever I can. But no more than that, and no more protection than is necessary; for to lift a burden from one whose dan requires that burden is no service but a grievous error... I know very well that she can take care of herself, Wenna, but she must also take care of Keltia, and I--I would spare her what little I can, or may."

  Morwen felt tears sting her eyes. Never had she heard him speak so, whatever the provocation. Nor had any, save perhaps Aeron herself; the Prince of Don was not one easily to lay open his soul to even his closest friends.

  But the events of the past fortnight had shattered a good many of his defenses, and Gwydion was suddenly glad of the chance to speak for once of the fears that harried his heart.

  Morwen laid her arm across his shoulders, tentatively, as if she feared he would shake off her attempt at comfort, but after a moment he reached up to cover her hand with his.

  "My dearest friend," she said, her face filled with pity and understanding, "do not torment yourself. She has declared openly to you now, and that means many things will change, and soon, as she grows accustomed to the idea. You of all people know how little she loves to depend on others for what she can do as well, or better, herself. But Aeron will ever do as she will do, indeed as she must do; nothing you or I or anyone else may wish can ever alter that."

  He laughed shortly, and the old impassive mask fell once again over his face.

  "I know that too, but it is good to hear you say so... " He rose, and her arm fell away, the moment over. "But stay a while. Morwen and Gwydion may have spoken, but the Taoiseach and the First Lord of War have much still to discuss."
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  *

  Gwydion would have been surprised indeed to know just how much Aeron felt herself in need of his protection, and, more, how much in truth she longed for it. Yet ingrained pride, or Aoibhell obstinacy, or simple reluctance to admit a weakness--or what she perceived to be a weakness--kept her from going to him. She knew it well, and hated it heartily, that kernel of hardness in her soul that would not allow her to accept the protection she not only desperately needed but desperately wanted.

  She was alone in her tent; the blood had been washed from the floor, but her nerves were still sorely rattled by the events of the afternoon.

  Yet still would she not call him to her...

  Was it Rhodri's death that had done this to her, she wondered bleakly; had made her so strong that she had grown less feeling? Unbidden, the picture that had haunted her memory for three years now formed before her eyes: the smoke-choked bridge of the crippled destroyer, the charred rubble left by Fomori laser torpedoes, the dusty light falling on a man's body stretched out at her feet, his eyes closed now, dead without her under far stars beyond the Bawn. Was that it, then?

  Or was it rather that she still possessed the undimmed capacity to feel too deeply, and all this was simply terror of allowing another into her heart, for fear of losing him too? She brushed back her hair, stared blindly at the walls of the tent bulging with the wind. That was stupid, then; a willing, and loving, vulnerability was no weakness, but the gift of a very real strength. Perhaps she was not so strong after all?

  Yet Gwydion had not come recently to her affections, but had been there always; she had chosen to make him king--had been sure enough and strong enough to forge that bond, for that title once bestowed could not be taken back again. Could she now not learn to rely a little more upon his strength and a little less upon her own?

  She shivered a little, huddling down inside the plaid that wrapped her. These were questions that bore not at all upon her present straits. Fears or no, such speculation--and such emotion--would not help her to win the war, or even the next day's battle. It had not helped her earlier that day, not with Ari, not with Tindal. It scattered her purpose and destroyed her concentration, and it was a luxury a queen could ill afford in such a time; perhaps not in any time. No warrior could, not and still maintain a hope of real victory in the fight. And far too much depended on this fight, for her as for the rest of Keltia.