For King and Country

by Robert Asprin

  The coastline here was rugged, with a slope of rocky beach above which rose an outcropping of rock. It was there the Irish had built an immense stone fortress, with a commanding view of the harbor and the sea beyond it. The town which huddled at the fortress' feet was a substantial settlement, housing several thousand people, at least, with smoke curling black as peat from the chimneys of low, solidly built cottages. Thatched roofs rustled in the wind, held down with nets of rope weighted in place with heavy rocks at the end of every single strand of rope netting. The heavy grey stones hung down nearly to the ground along the cottage walls, one for every twelve inches or so of roofline, swaying in the storm winds like beads on a rosary. It was a technique the Britons would do well to copy, Lailoken had to admit, earning a derisive snort from Banning.

  By the time the fishing boat had crossed Dunadd Harbor, Lailoken managed to drag himself out of the hammock and reach the boat's rail, tottering but on his feet. Medraut glanced briefly his way, then turned his attention back to the shore, where a group of men had begun to gather, fisherfolk, from the look of them, curious about the foolhardy sailors out in the storm. Certainly they weren't armed soldiers, although movement on the road from the fortress suggested that someone had noticed theirs was not an Irish boat and was taking steps to determine just what the boat was and what its crew wanted. Lailoken was still too seasick to be overly alarmed and Medraut merely seemed excited by the whole grand adventure.

  They dropped anchor where the water shoaled and when the sail came rattling down, wet and heavy and ponderous as a sow's belly, the sailors threw a rope ladder across the gunwale, down which Medraut skinned, landing in hip-deep water and holding the bottom of the ladder for Lailoken. He swallowed back nausea, muttered to the captain, "Send someone ashore with the gifts, eh?" and limbered himself awkwardly over the side. The seawater was cold, soaking him to the skin as he waded grimly for shore.

  "You'd think they'd build a pier, at least," he growled under his breath, prompting a nervous chuckle from Medraut.

  The knot of fishermen on the beach had grown to a lively crowd of curious men and boys. A few women had put in an appearance as well, but stayed back from the water's edge, watching from a safe distance. A babble of voices speaking incomprehensible Irish Gaelic deepened Lailoken's uneasiness, but no one had drawn weapons, which was a mercy, particularly since they'd been recognized for what they were. Several voices sent the word racing outward through the crowd: Britons!

  A moment later, the crowd parted for new arrivals from the hill fort above the harbor. The newcomers were armed with long swords and shorter, wicked belt knives, but for the moment the blades remained sheathed, their owners more curious than threatened by a handful of Britons very far, indeed, from their home waters. The man in the lead, a stocky fellow with the characteristic blue-black hair and ice-blue eyes of the dark variety of Irishman, looked them up and down, then spat out a question in language that left Lailoken's tongue aching, just hearing it spoken.

  Lailoken, as the designated messenger, spread his hands in a gesture of incomprehension and said very slowly and clearly, "We speak no Gael. Have you anyone that speaks Brythonic?"

  The man frowned, rubbed his heavy black beard thoughtfully for a moment, then turned to a lad at his elbow and issued some sort of instructions that sounded like a cat swallowing its tongue. The boy raced across the beach, pelting up the road toward the fortress. While they waited, everyone on edge and uncertain what would happen next, one of the women came down to the water's edge, handing them thick, dry cloaks to wrap around their sodden clothing. Medraut flashed her a smile of intense, crimson-cheeked thanks, which prompted giggles among the younger girls watching from behind their mothers' skirts.

  "They're more like us than I'd ever believed possible," Medraut said in quiet astonishment. "I'd not expected them to make such an offer." The loan was deeply generous and very welcome, as the wind whipping across the harbor drew a foul bit of shivering from both of them.

  "Aye," Lailoken was getting his stomach back under some reasonable semblance of control again, "it's rare that an offer to trade goes sour at the beginning. It's what you're offered for your goods—and what you think of their offer—that causes war to break out in little sheltered bays like this one. Pride is a fine thing, so long as it doesn't plunge a man into trouble by the refusal to bend his head. A trader's job is never an easy one."

  "Nor a matchmaker's."

  "Hah!" Lailoken wiped his mouth with the back of one hand and wished mightily for that drinking skin he'd sampled just before coming aboard. "That's the bloody truth."

  Another delegation was descending from the hill fort, headed by a woman this time, who was surrounded by a group of older women and a few men with white in their beards. The younger woman's eyes were a soft blue-green shade, like deep waters of a steepy loch in summer's haze, eyes that were violently alive and intelligent. Her copper-flame hair, caught back in one long plait and held neatly in place by a tubular hair net that glinted with threads of gold, hung down her back like a thick and immensely expensive jeweled serpent from some pagan god's pleasure garden. As she approached, several of the fisherfolk whispered, "Riona the Damhnait!" passing the astonishment back amongst themselves.

  Lailoken stared, having picked up just enough Gael at waterfront tavernas to comprehend that much of the conversation out of the general babble of speculating voices. Riona the Bard? The king's own councillor?

  Lailoken studied her intently as she approached, wondering whether the king's own councillor might be a good omen, or a sign of trouble. She halted before them and saluted them with a gesture of greeting, which Lailoken and Medraut gave back again, taking care to mimic the formal flourish.

  "You are Britons, I see," she said, studying them with long and slow curiosity.

  Her Brythonic was not, perhaps, astonishing in its quality, for her command of the language was obviously strained. But it was astonishing, nonetheless, that she spoke it at all. "I am Riona the Damhnait, Druidess to King Dallan mac Dalriada, the Scotti, and tutor for Keelin, Dallan mac Dalriada's daughter and heiress, who will one day be queen of the Scots. Why have you come into Dunadd Harbor? Do you seek shelter from yon storm?" She lifted a graceful hand to indicate the low-scudding rainclouds and the squall line even now pouring its way across the long reach of the harbor. The wind picked up as she spoke, rattling sails and flapping cloaks and long-skirted gowns against their owners' knees.

  "Aye," Lailoken nodded, "but there are more storms than those which fly above men's heads on the wind and more ways than one of meeting them."

  "Speak your meaning, then, and plainly, for I do not know your tongue well enough to translate niceties of phrase."

  Medraut, foolishly in Lailoken's opinion, blurted out, "Where did you learn Brythonic so well?"

  She measured him with a glance that seemed to find him well-intentioned, if not overly tactful or bright. She favored him with a slight smile. "Britons have visited Irish towns and royal courts a time or two, lengthy visits, for the most part, and often ending unhappily for at least one of the parties involved. It pleased me to learn their language, for one never knows when knowledge of an enemy may help create a friend in time of critical need."

  Medraut brightened, since that was precisely what his aunt was hoping to accomplish with Irish alliance, even as Lailoken's stomached knotted painfully. Slaves... Poor British bastards taken off their fishing sloops, dragged from coastal villages and put to work in Irish fields, in Irish workshops as millers and coopers and smiths, all the trades it was cheaper to steal a slave to perform than to pay wages to a craftmaster to produce the same work.

  "So," she smiled to remove the worst of the threat from her reminder that they were on very shaky ground, indeed, "what brings you to Dunadd?"

  He cleared his throat, summoning his best official voice. "I, Lailoken the Minstrel, bard to the Queen and King of Rheged, bard to the Queen of Galwyddel and Ynys Manaw, come bearing a private message for the
King of Dalriada." He produced Morgana's signet. "I bear the seal of Galwyddel and Ynys Manaw, given me from the hand of Queen Morgana herself, whose sons will rule Ynys Manaw and Gododdin and whose nephew will soon, if things work out as may be hoped, rule Galwyddel." He turned to the boy and introduced him. "Medraut, nephew of Morgana, Queen of Ynys Manaw, Queen of Galwyddel, who has come to Dalriada seeking alliance."

  Despite what must have been excellent training in political affairs, Riona's brows rose in astonishment. "Alliance?" she repeated blankly. "What sort of alliance?"

  "Ah," Lailoken smiled, "that is for the king of Dalriada to hear. I am certain he would be pleased to have you translate our generous offer. We bring gifts, as well." He gestured to the fishing sloop. "With permission, they can be brought ashore."

  Riona turned to her companions, clearly the Irish equivalent of the Britons' councils of advisors, and spoke rapidly, voice low to prevent it carrying to the curious crowd. A ripple of surprise washed across their faces, then they answered in brief. Riona turned back to Lailoken and Medraut. "We would be pleased to see your gifts and hear your message."

  Lailoken turned to call across the water, "Captain, have your men bring the gifts ashore! And our baggage as well, I think?" A swift glance at Riona gave him the hoped-for nod of welcome, since the storm showed no sign of letting up and night was not many minutes away.

  A few moments later, several dripping sailors had wrestled ashore a heavy chest, a hogshead of fine wine imported from Rome, a variety of misshapen leather bags containing Medraut's personal effects and gifts for his prospective bride, and a heavy trunk that was Lailoken's personal baggage, in which several bottles of death were layered beneath clothing and a generous amount of ordinary hay, to keep the bottles from shifting or breaking in the rough seas. Banning smiled secretly as the sailors staggered across the beach with their fine gifts, following Riona Damhnait and her retinue across the stony beach and up the access road to Fortress Dunadd.

  The fortification had been solidly built, with respectably thick stone walls, although it was nothing compared to the fine Roman forts like Caerleul—doubtless, Banning supposed, the reason the Scotti would never manage to invade further south than Hadrian's Wall. The interior was gloomy, damp, and cold, the walls hung with furs and the floors strewn with rushes cut from the coastal marshlands. Light filtered in from narrow, archer-slit windows and flickered from torches set into brackets, long tapers of wood wrapped with more of the marsh-cut rushes, soaked in oil to burn longer.

  The place smelled of cold, damp stone, marsh grass, and rancid fat. An immense hearth along one wall sent heat pouring into one end of the room, supplied by what must have been half a tree blazing cheerfully away. It was near this hearth that a large chair had been placed, hewn from stone and lined with cushions and furs. Beneath the occupant's feet was a curiously carved flagstone in which Lailoken made out the hollowed-out shape of a human footprint.

  Ah, he smiled to himself, having been told by Banning—who had, as a young man, visited the ruins of Fortress Dunadd—what he would find beneath the king of Dalriada's foot. The Stone of Destiny, as you called it. The king was gazing at them in considerable curiosity, understandable given their bedraggled, sea-soaked appearance and the sailors at their heels, sweating under their burdens.

  Riona Damhnait gave the king a small bow and began to speak. Lailoken composed himself to recall Morgana's offer word for word. King Dallan mac Dalriada, the Scotti, listened in attentive silence. Medraut's attention wandered between King Dallan and the girl who stood a little way behind the throne. It was clear that she was Dallan mac Dalriada's daughter, for the likeness was striking—and so was she.

  Perhaps sixteen, with an air of innocence about her, oddly paired with an expression in her eyes that spoke of steely strength of will, she was a slender and comely girl, her hair falling in long, chestnut ringlets and waves, most of it caught back in the same kind of jeweled netting Riona Damhnait wore; the ends of the girl's hair swept her knees, while her skin was a fine, clear shade of cream with the faintest blush of roses beneath the surface. Her eyes sparkled like sun-struck water. Medraut couldn't stop staring at her, utterly entranced. Even Lailoken felt the magnetic pull of her beauty.

  The king made his answer and Riona turned back to Lailoken and Medraut.

  "King Dallan mac Dalriada, the Scotti, would hear the message you bear from Queen Morgana of Galwyddel and Ynys Manaw."

  Formalities thus successfully launched, Lailoken began his rendition of Morgana's message. "From Queen Morgana to her brother king of Dalriada," he began as Riona's eyes widened over that startling, opening phrase, "I send offers of alliance, of mutually beneficial trade, of protection from common enemies, of joining our two peoples as one through an alliance of marriage between the heiress of Dalriada and the heir of Galwyddel, my nephew Medraut, son of Marguase, Princess of Galwyddel, now deceased. Galwyddel is my sovereign right to rule or to give to an heir of my choice. I have two sons by Lot Luwddoc of Gododdin, who will inherit Gododdin and Ynys Manaw. Medraut, who has been more son than nephew, I will give Galwyddel to rule as sovereign king, should the treaty of alliance be fairly met by both our councils and serve both kingdoms as greatly as I believe it will."

  "This is a custom amongst Britons? To hand kingdoms to whomever they please?" Riona asked, interjecting the question before he could finish reciting the message. It was, he supposed, a fair question to have answered, but he disliked losing the rhythm, once well begun on a recitation. He was a fair minstrel, with his gift of comic bawdiness, but he was not in the same league as this Irish Druidess Riona Damhnait or the greatest Briton Druid ever to live, Artorius' own Emrys Myrddin. He needed all the assistance he could muster, dealing with alliances at this level, and fervently hoped his knees were not shaking.

  He cleared his throat, looking longingly at a wine flask, so that the girl behind her father's throne spoke to a servant. Wine was poured and carried to them on a carved wooden platter, rough stuff in ordinary clay cups, but it served wonderfully well for all its metallic burr on the tongue, to wet his throat and warm his quaking innards.

  "Aye, it's a grand custom that, keeps the peace in families with proud sons and nephews and daughters looking to be battle queens in their own right, as is Morgana of Galwyddel and Ynys Manaw."

  "You do not name her queen of Gododdin, yet her sons will rule there." Riona waited patiently for the explanation. Medraut started to answer, flushed, and glanced at Lailoken, the properly designated spokesman. He gestured at the lad to continue, for the alliance would sink or swim on how Medraut disported himself in this hall, not on any eloquence Lailoken might muster. If the king's daughter found him repulsive, if the king found him a doltish colt with no hope of ruling much of anything save a household of ill-mannered brats, nothing that Lailoken said would alter the reality—or King Dallan's decision. They'd best know straightaway what sort of lad they would be marrying their heiress to, the sooner the better.

  Medraut, catching at least some of Lailoken's train of thought in his rapidly shifting expression, nodded and took a moment to compose himself.

  "I, Medraut, nephew to Queen Morgana of Galwyddel and Ynys Manaw, will explain, if it is permitted?" The boy's voice only quavered on a couple of the words. It was a gallant effort, one not lost on Dallan mac Dalriada's daughter, who smiled and blushed prettily in understanding, a smile so radiant Medraut blossomed under her approving regard. He bowed to her father and then to her, then launched into his portion of the explanation.

  "My aunt is sovereign queen of two Briton lands, Ynys Manaw from her father Gorlois and Galwyddel from her mother. Her sister Morguase was my mother. When she died, Aunt Morgana raised me with gentle and loving concern for my education and my place in the royal affairs of my family. Morgana married the king of Gododdin and bore him two fine sons, my cousins Gwalchmai and Walgabedius. Gwalchmai is but six years of age and Walgabedius younger still.

  "This is critical, for their father, Lot Luw
ddoc of Gododdin, was killed not yet a fortnight ago fighting Pictish raiders at the northern border with Fortriu. Gwalchmai and Walgabedius are too young to rule the kingdoms they have inherited. Lot Luwddoc's brother Ancelotis has been named king by Gododdin's council until Gwalchmai is of age to rule in his own right. The throne was offered to Morgana, as his widow and mother of his heirs, but she has strong responsibilities in Ynys Manaw and Galwyddel and these are uncertain times. So she has left her sons' inheritance in excellent and capable hands and has turned her attention to her borders on the western coast of Britain."

  Riona nodded. "Where Dalriadan Irish have invaded through Galwyddel, albeit striking immediately north." She smiled to acknowledge the high price Irish fighting men had been made to pay at the hands of Briton military strength along that particular border. "I am told the Irish traders sailing the waters between fair Eireland and Dalriada are not above piracy. And the Picts are barbaric trouble for us all."

  Medraut bowed. "You grasp our situation well."

  Too well, perhaps, given the speculative look in her eyes. Lailoken hastened to interject his own spin on the situation and take the conversation back to Morgana's official offer. "It has occurred to Morgana that catching the Picts between two allied forces would help put an end to this particular blue-tattooed irritant. But there is much more to this offer of alliance, much that is of very great importance to both our peoples, of Britain and of Dalriada—and even of great importance to Eire, as well."

  Riona translated all of this to King Dallan, who gazed at them for a long moment through narrowed eyes, then gestured for them to continue the tale they were spinning.

  Here it goes, Lailoken took a deep breath, the most important bloody speech of your life... Then he launched once more into Morgana's message.