The Oak above the Kings

by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison

  The hazel eyes veiled themselves for a moment: Morgan might be versed as none before her in the sorceries of the Sidhe, but she was still her father's loving daughter, and in any case it is never easy to watch those you love in pain.

  "No ashling," she said slowly. "But a true Seeing—Let us go back now to the others, and I will tell all of you what must be."

  The news that awaited us in the King's tent was better than I had dared to hope; and yet, and yet—Ygrawn met us with outstretched hands. Somewhere she had found a few moments to shed her stained garb and wash away the blood; but I saw the fine red lines that still scored her skin: the now-healed marks of Owein's sword that would fade from her palms in a day or two—if never from her heart.

  "He sleeps, careddau," she said, embracing us both. "And Arthur's hurts are healed—" But to a bard's ear her voice held something else.

  "Methryn?" I asked then, carefully, when Morgan did not speak.

  "My lord—his wounds are healed, save for one. And this one wound will not—aye, they say cannot—close: the wound in his thigh." Ygrawn turned in sudden fear renewed, a quick glance over her shoulder,—but Uthyr was quiet, and the healers sitting vigil beside him gave her grave smiles of assurance and support.

  "But he will live!" The protest burst from me before I thought.

  Ygrawn nodded. "Aye. He will; at least a while yet, but—"

  The word hung in the air between us: 'maimed.' According to Keltic law, a crippled king was no king at all; and unless he was swiftly—and rightfully—deposed in favor of his named heir or another, elected, successor, his land was doomed to barrenness and death.

  So if Artos and Gweniver do not take the throne now… I laughed grimly to myself: The throne was still effectively to be won from Edeyrn; premature by far to trouble about the name of its lawful occupier. Suddenly I saw again the face of the wounded king in my vision, and began to shake anew. Was this what my Seeing had meant? That the wasted land and Uthyr's wounding were all one? Or was the ruined land Edeyrn's doing, and the dead king not Uthyr but Leowyn, or even Amris, who should have been King and never came to it? And what of the three veiled queens, who were they?

  I came out of my reverie to find Morgan peering up at me with concern, and with an effort called up the echo of her question.

  "Aye, I will come now; only let me first bid the King goodnight."

  She withdrew to the adjoining pavilion with her mother, summoning selected friends and counselors with them, while I went to stand by Uthyr's bed.

  He was deep asleep, and seemed comfortable enough; but I could see where the ugly, angry wound in his right thigh had been vainly tended, and at last bound up as best it could be. An open gash with ragged edges, it still bled through its packings, though little, and slowly,—and as I looked on the King's face I thought on the royal sacrifice, the ruler's life that must so often be given for the life of the land.

  We in Keltia have never had a true tradition of sacrifice, what barbarousness some say we had once on Earth along with so many other races; indeed, as so many other nations have even now. But we have ever had among us the tradition of the given death, the unstinting gift freely offered so that others might live and thrive—a gift unthought of, unprepared for, unplanned and undevised, but in the instant of its offering intentioned well and completely, without reserve, felt to the soul's roots, given and accepted.

  And this it was I saw in Uthyr's face, and tried to drive from my mind the thought that some time to come I might see it likewise in Arthur's…

  When I stepped through the curtained doorway into the pavilion that adjoined the royal tent's sleeping quarters, I saw that I had been waited for by those already assembled. The pavilion had been furnished for the King's conferences with his commanders—a long table, camp-chairs, field-desks—and to this particular conference the King's daughter had summoned not only his commanding officers but family and friends and close advisors: Tarian, Keils, Grehan, Marigh the Taoiseach, Merlynn, Ygrawn's nephew Tryffin, who was heir of Kernow, most of those, in fact, who had been present at that night's earlier assembling, when Uthyr had named Arthur and Gweniver to an unprecedented joint sovereignty of Keltia.

  Something, someone, though, was missing; and as I made my way to the seat left for me between Ygrawn and Morgan, I puzzled on it. Who, or what, could it be? Not Arthur whose absence was in question: The healers had by now dealt with him, and he was grinning up at me from a pillowed longchair a few feet from my own place, Cabal's huge head resting on his knee—since his master's wounding, the great wolfhound had not let Arthur out of his sight, nor taken his eyes from his face.

  I knew well how the beast felt… "I thought Elen would have long since packed you off to bed," I remarked. Elen Llydaw was the healer for our inner circle of Companions; not to mention one of the best generals we had, and heir to half the planet Arvor.

  "Not I!" boasted Arthur. "It takes more than Elenna to put me out when I would stay awake to talk. Though she it was who insisted on this softling's couch—one might think I had been something like injured…"

  "Bonehead!" I told him fiercely. "Will you never learn, Artos? Very well then, stay and speak; only, if I see you tiring at any instant I will order you carried—aye, carried—straight to your tent; so mind how you tax yourself."

  Arthur only grinned again and rolled his eyes; but I sensed him schooling himself to relax. Well, insofar as any of us could relax…

  For Morgan now had risen in her place beside me, and lifted her hands, gathering the room together with one compelling glance. Before she could speak, however, Gweniver turned her whole attention on her cousin, her eyes as gray as winter, with a kind of focused ferocity that actually made me flinch—as even the day's battle horrors had not done.

  "Well?" she snapped, all of her fears to be heard in that one word. "What has been done for the King?"

  Morgan took the fears into her own calm. "What the King will have to be done for him; nothing more nor less."

  That gave Gweniver pause a moment; but before she could rally with another question Grehan Aoibhell spoke up from the far side of the table, with all his usual bluntness.

  "Will the King die?"

  All eyes went not to Morgan, but to Ygrawn as Morgan answered.

  "It might be better for him not least did he so," she said quietly. "But that is not his dan, nor yet ours. Nay, the King does not die, not this night nor any time soon, not until—

  "Until?" That was Gweniver again.

  "Until the time comes for it, as it shall. But the King will live to, see Edeyrn cast down, and Arthur nearly the same"-even in my shock to hear her say so I smiled; for almost never did Morgan call her brother as did all the rest of Keltia, by the shortname 'Artos.' Not since her childhood at Coldgates; surely not since her time in Collimare… Nay, it was ever 'Arthur' to Morgan, though she was often as not 'Guenna' to him…

  But the room was in a tumult, and I wondered briefly if I were not losing my mind under the stress of it all. Even Tarian, our usually unflappable war-leader, had been so far shaken as to stare at Morgan as if the Princess had unaccountably lost her wits. And as to her speaking of defeat, even near-defeat, in connection with Arthur—

  "It may well take months, Guenna—years, even, if dan holds against us—before ever we get to Tara," said Tarian protesting. "Let alone throw down the Marbh-draoi—and as for Uthyr…"

  Merlynn stirred, and the room stilled. "The King will live until then all the same: live weak and wounded, live in pain and in patience, live bound and bleeding, but live. And as the King lives, so shall the land live with him; until in the end both land and King find healing."

  Such was the power and sureness that had grown in his voice as he spoke that the room was struck into silence; even Gweniver, it seemed, was disposed to accept the Archdruid's words. Looking up then, I met Merlynn's eyes, and saw him smile; and turning my head, I found Arthur's eyes on me in my turn, and in my turn I smiled.

  But that pronouncement of
Merlynn's had hit them hard, with all the force of law or prophecy. Suddenly the tenor of the moment had changed, and now all the talk was of how to make things as easy for Uthyr as we might, when we should begin the advance on Caer Dathyl, when that on Tara itself… But I was still caught up in that nagging thought I had earlier entertained: that somewhat was lacking here, that something had not been said, someone had not been summoned…

  Then I had it, and icy dismay swamped me as the answer came storming to my mind; even as its living exponent came storming into the tent.

  * * *

  * * *

  Chapter Three

  IT WAS NEVER LIKE MARGUESSAN to make a gentle entrance where a wildly dramatic one could be made instead; and, despite her father lying sore wounded in the outer chamber, her mother and brother themselves not unscathed by the events of the night, Marguessan did not so now.

  During the fighting that day at Cadarachta, the Princess Marguessan, elder of the twin daughters of Uthyr and Ygrawn, had been safely kept out of it, far behind the lines at our hidden shieling of Llwynarth. The reasoning had been that as she was no warrior nor yet sorceress, and could be of little count in the battle, and also as she was near her time with a babe who, did we lose the day, might well be the last heir of the House of Don for many years to come, for her to have joined us on the field would have been purest folly.

  Those were the noble reasons, somewhat too eagerly and too loudly subscribed to by all consulted to be quite real. The truth was nearer this: that not one of us Companions was fond enough of Marguessan to wish to die in her company; and so we kept her away.

  But now she was here, standing like dan itself in the door of the tent, her sense of slighted self furiously apparent in every line and lineament. In my cowardice I resorted at once to thought-speech, and besought Morgan in desperation: Who in all hells was it sent to Marguessan?

  Her answer came back swift and tart: Not I! Nor any here, I think; but my sister has never needed any bidding but her own, to come where she has not been asked.

  I looked over to where Ygrawn was standing talking in a low calming voice to her daughter, and I was a little abashed for my lack of delight. However much I might detest her—and by all gods I did so, and my loathing went long time back, and had good cause—still was Marguessan Arthur's sister as well as Morgan's; and daughter to Ygrawn who was my foster-mother, which bond among Kelts is as strong as, oft-times stronger than, the bonds of birth.

  Also Marguessan was as I have said near to term with a royal grandchild—fathered by her lord, Irian Locryn, heir of an old loyalist family—and would, in time not far off now, be my sister-in-law, when Morgan and I should come to wed. A little charity on my part might well be called for, no matter what I knew of her from of old… Then Marguessan's voice came cutting through the low hum of talk, and charity was all at once the last thing I felt disposed to offer her.

  "Nay, mother, your pardon but I will see the King, and I will see him now! He is my father, and like to die, and before he does so I would have his blessing on his grandchild."

  The undercurrent of talk redoubled: folk in their embarrassment desperately feigning to ignore the Princess's outburst. Ygrawn looked for one tense moment as if she would box her daughter's ears in public; then gave a small tight nod and went back into the outer tent with Marguessan smirking alongside her.

  Seeing that Arthur was taking my earlier warning to heart, was now talking quietly with Grehan and Tryffin, I judged it safe enough to leave him unwatched for a moment or two; any road, I was mightily curious about what would be Marguessan's reaction when she saw her wounded father.

  So I sloped off as unobtrusively as I could manage, though I did not escape Arthur's mocking raised eyebrow as I did so; nor Morgan coming casually after me.

  In the outer tent all was as before, or at least it was so until Marguessan altered things to suit herself: Making as much stour and difficulty as was in any way possible, she crossed the chamber and knelt, her heavily pregnant condition making her less graceful than she might have liked, by her father's couch.

  I leaned against the tent-pole and watched with interest, the most charitable thought I could summon up—in keeping with my new resolve—being that were I the one who lay so wounded, Marguessan Pendreic would be the last person in this world or any other that I should choose to have hovering over me. I did not realize I had been sending in thought-speech until I felt Morgan give my ribs a sharp dig with her nearest elbow.

  It seemed that Marguessan had heard my thought as well; or perhaps it was just that she was no fonder of me than she had ever been—which was to say not at all—for the glance with which she favored me just then would have soured milk in a cow's bag. But then she turned all her attention to her father,—and for no reason I could put name to, not then, I tensed as if to ward off some unseen blow or harm, and beside me I felt Morgan draw in breath to do the same.

  But now Marguessan had lumbered down to her knees, weeping showily—pure past-tears, no more—and kissing her father's hand, and in general making the kind of spectacle that Ygrawn and Morgan and Gweniver themselves had thought scorn to make. But Marguessan was ever cut from lesser cloth.

  For all her noisy lamentations, though, it took some time for Uthyr to take note of her presence. He had fallen into that deepest sleep which is more akin to trance than to slumber, that to awaken from which is to awaken not to alertness but to disorientation and daze; and as I watched Marguessan's selfish importunings I was half-moved to put a stop to it, and order her removed. But again I felt my lady's elbow—and none had an arm more to the point than Morgan—and again I held my peace.

  It seemed that Marguessan's efforts were not in vain at the last, for Uthyr stirred a little, frowning; then his hazel eyes came slowly open. He looked up straight at Ygrawn, as if he had seen her even with his eyes closed—as perhaps he had—and smiled a real, if tired, smile. But when his gaze moved past her to Marguessan, such a look of appallment came over his countenance that even I, clear across the tent, shrank back a little.

  Marguessan plainly felt no such compunction, but began at once to babble on about herself, not Uthyr: how she had felt, how she had suffered. Still, soon or late even such an insensitive self-absorbed trimmer as Marguessan must see such rage and recoil as Uthyr's; and as it began to sink in, bringing with it an uncomprehending terror, Marguessan began to babble more wildly still. And when Uthyr struggled to rise up off his pillows, to point a trembling finger at her where she knelt now cowering by the bed, even I felt impelled to pity her.

  "Father? Nay, father, it is I, Marguessan—do not look so hard upon me—will you not bless your grandchild which is here within me—"

  "To Wess?" Uthyr's voice, if harsher with pain, had lost but little of its strength, and indeed was growing stronger with every dan-echoed word. "A better blessing for Keltia if that child you carry died of its bearing and you with it; sooner that a thousand times over, than have him raised to treachery and treason, to lift his hand against his King…"

  He was shaking now, and fell back speechless and breathless alike upon the pillows; Morgan dashed across to try to calm him, while Ygrawn and I hastily helped Marguessan from the chamber, the Princess so wild with injured self-pity that she was well pleased to be removed.

  "Not in with the others again, Talyn," murmured Ygrawn. "They will mean well, perhaps, but they will only upset her more. Help me get her to my own chambers, and leave her with me."

  By the time we had gotten Marguessan, who was still weeping copiously and overloudly, settled in bed in her mother’s quarters, an hour or more had gone by. I looked in on Uthyr—peacefully asleep, said Morgan's voice in my mind—then went back to the pavilion to see what had become of those we had so abruptly left there.

  Most of them had by now drifted away, returning to their own duties, and at this hour only Tarian and Keils remained. They greeted me cheerfully, and invited me to join them for their refighting of the day's battle. But it had been a long
and strainful day, crammed with incidents any one of which would normally overtax even the strongest soul, and all at once I was unspeakably weary. Still, there was one thing more I needed to do before I could allow myself my rest…

  He was ensconced in his own tent by now, having taken my words of warning very much to heart; but he was working, and he looked up guiltily as I entered. Cabal lashed his tail furiously, but did not stir from his usual bed on an old cloak of his master's: the great hound seemed cheerful enough now, but I remembered well—and I daresay so did much of the campment—his anguished howling at Arthur's injured state; and the silent imploring vigil he had kept by his master's side until the hurts were healed and he had been reassured by Arthur himself.

  "Where in all the hells have you been?" demanded Arthur crossly, and I knew by that very crossness that he was hoping to forestall a scolding. "Never mind, come and sit by me and tell me what you think of this,—we must move on Caer Dathyl before the week is out, and you having spent so much of your time there—"

  "You are moving nowhere just now, save to that bed over there in the corner." I pulled the order diptych from his hands and made great show of closing it up and stuffing it out of sight. "In the morning, we will see. But just now, bed you, and not another word on it."

  He made some token grumbling protest, but obediently stripped off tunic and trews and boots and flung himself down amid the soft blankets.

  "A long and bloody day, Talyn," he said, already all but asleep. "But a wonder?"

  Indeed… But my only wonder was how he had managed to stay so long awake, with all the demands on body and soul, all the weight of battle and victory and wounding and worry that had been on him. After all, in the space of barely twice ten hours he had led his army in their first great battle, and had won; had fought epically himself; had seen his uncle and his mother struck down before his eyes and had been himself both wounded and wounder… Had I been in his boots, by now I had been crawling on the ground, cloak over my head, wailing piteously to myself and to any who would hear of the manifold unfeeling ways of dan. But that was ever the difference between Arthur and me…