The Oak Above the Kings - Patricia Kennealy - Morrison, ebook
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The Oak Above the Kings
A Book of the Keltiad
Patricia Kennealy Morrison
released in #bookzSeptember 26, 2002
CONTENTS
Also by Patricia Kennealy
THE COPPER CROWNTHE THRONE OF SCONETHE SILVER BRANCH
Volume II of The Tales of Arthur
The Oak Above the KingsA Book of The Keltiad
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks are due this time to the usual suspects: the Keltic kitchen cabinet, for assorted and sundry plot
thickeners-James Fox-Davis, Susan Harwood Kaczmarczik, Regina Kennely; the Kelts board on GEnie,
for real as well as virtual aid and comfort; and Mary Herczog for wise counsel and general'tude.
Thanks long overdue to Tom Canty (Thomas the Limner!), by whose incredibly beautiful covers I am so
very proud my books are judged.
And thanks beyond thanking to all you loyal, loving and patient lieges of the Copper Crown and the
Lizard Throne, whose support, belief and faith have meant so very much to me and to my beloved lord.
For my brother Timothy Joseph
KELTICHRONICON
IN THE EARTH YEAR 453 by the Common Reckoning, a small fleet of ships leftIreland , carrying
emigrants seeking a new home in a new land. But the ships were not the leather-hulled boats of later
legend, and though the great exodus was indeed led by a man called Brendan, he was not the Christian
navigator-monk who later chroniclers would claim had discovered aNew World across the western
ocean.
These ships were starships—their passengers the Danaans, descendants of—and heirs to the secrets
of—Atlantis, that they themselves called Atland. The new world they sought was a distant double-ringed
planet, itself unknown and more than half a legend; and he who led them in that seeking would come to
be known as Saint Brendan the Astrogator.
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Fleeing persecutions and a world that was no longer home to their ancient magics, the Danaans, who
long ages since had come to Earth in flight from a dying sun's agonies, now went back to those far stars,
and after two years’ desperate wandering they found their promised haven. They named their new
homeland Keltia, and Brendan, though he refused to call himself its king, ruled there long and well.
In all the centuries that followed, Keltia grew and prospered. The kings and queens who were Brendan's
heirs, whatever else they did, kept unbroken his great command: that until the time was right, Keltia
should not for peril of its very existence reveal itself to the Earth that its folk had fled; nor forget, for like
peril, those other children of Atland who had followed them into the stars—the Telchines, close kin and
mortal foes, who became the Coranians, as the Danaans had become the Kelts.
Brendan had been twelve centuries in his grave when a time fell upon Keltia at which the Kelts still weep:
a reign of blood and sorcerous terror, civil war and the assassin-murder of the reigning king and the
toppling of the Throne of Scone itself, all at the hand of Edeyrn the Archdruid, known ever after as
Marbh-draoi, 'Death-druid'—and rightly so.
Edeyrn fastened round Keltia's throat the iron collar of the Druid Theocracy and Interregnum; and, with
the help of traitor Druids, collaborating Kelts and the terrible enforcers called Ravens, kept it locked
there for two hundred fearful years. The royal House of Don—such of it as did survive the Marbh-draoi's
methodical slaughter—was forced into hiding, while a great resistance movement, known as the
Counterinsurgency, was raised to fight against the Theocracy's forces.
Yet even iron collars may be broken by a single sword-stroke, so that the sword be sharp enough, the
blow well enough placed; and if the arm that wields the sword be strong enough—and so fated…
In the year 1946 of the Common Reckoning were born in Keltia three children: a girl and two boys. As
has been already told in The Hawk's Gray Feather, Gweniver Pendreic, Arthur Penarvon and Taliesin
Glyndour—princess, prince and bard—grow up in the Marbh-draoi's despite. Hunted by Ravens every
hour of their young lives, nevertheless they survive and thrive, to lead the Counterinsurgency in what are
to be its most fated hours.
Arthur and Gweniver are royal cousins, scions of the all but perished House of Don, though Arthur is
kept in ignorance of his true parentage for many years, until it is revealed at last by his mother, Lady
Ygrawn, and his teacher, the mighty sorcerer Merlynn Llwyd. More than that, they are co-heirs, equal
lawful inheritors to the Throne of Scone, the rulership of Keltia; and it is thought from their early days that
when their years allow, they shall wed and win back their birthright together. Arthur and Gweniver agree
on this, but on nothing else: Indeed, they loathe each other, and each takes another partner for lover and
for mate.
Taliesin, who will become the greatest bard of Keltia since the order's founding, himself falls in love with
Morgan, Arthur's half-sister, and she with him. He and Arthur were reared by Ygrawn, as
foster-brothers, from early childhood-and when they come to their years as men, they work together with
their trusted Companions, men and women alike, to win back Keltia for the House of Don.
So well have they wrought that now, for the first time in two hundred years, by Arthur's arm and mind
and the valor of his Company, a victory of arms has been won against Edeyrn at Cadarachta on the
planet Gwynedd; and the right high King of Keltia, Uthyr Pendreic, has been proclaimed with Ygrawn his
Queen.
But victory, as ever, comes at great and terrible cost.
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 Twelve musics we learn in the Star of Bards, and these the twelve:
Geantrai, the joy-song,whose color is gold and whose shout creation;whose number is one, and one is
the number of birth.
Grdightrai, the heart-lilt,whose color is green and whose descant rapture;whose number is two, and two
is the number of love.
Bethtrai, the fate-rann,whose color is white and whose charge endurance;whose number is three, and
three is the number of life.
Goltrai, the grief-keen,whose color is red and whose cadence sorrow;whose num ber is four, and four is
the number of death.
Galtrai, the sword-dance,whose color is black and whose blazon challenge;whose number is five, and
five is the number of war.
Suantrai, the sleep-strain,whose color is gray and whose murmur calmness;whose number is six, and six
is the number of peace.
Saiochtrai, the mage-word,whose color is blue and whose guerdon wisdom;whose number is seven, and
seven is the number of lore.
Creachtrai, the wound-weird,whose color is brown and whose burden anguish;whose number is eight,
and eight is the number of pain.
Fiortrai, the honor-hymn, whose color is purple and whose banner justice;whose number is nine, and
nine is the number of truth.
Neartrai, the triumph-march,whose color iscrimson and whose anthem valor;whose number is ten, and
ten is the number of strength.
Dochtrai, the faith-chaunt,whose color is silver and whose crown transcendence;whose number is
eleven, and eleven is the number of hope.
Diachtrai, the soul-rune,sum of all before it,whose color is all colors and whose end perfection; whose
number is twelve, and twelve is the number of God.
—Taliesin ap Gwyddno
"As the oak stands above all other trees, so shall you stand above all other rulers—to be the oak above
the kings."
—Merlynn Llwyd
Foretale
SAY OF THE DAWNING: or rather, that moment just past, when the sun that has been rolling up from
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shadow stands balanced on the edge of the world, its white fire like a flung spear between your eyes,
dazzling you, dizzying you, so that you lift a hand to it as much in self-defense as in salute.
The night this new sun dispelled had been a long hard night for Keltia—two hundred years and more of
black despairing—but for us who stood that day on the field of Cadarachta, true morning had come at
last; and he who had led us to that field was the sun himself.
Hard it is now to cast back my mind upon it, across so many sunsplashed years of peace and freedom:
Light has been so long with us now as to drive away even the memory of shadow; or much, at the least,
of its darkest shade. Still, have heard the healers say that the body retains no real memory of pain,—not
the pinprick, not the deepest wound. We can recall the fact that there was a hurting, even the
remembrance that terrible pain had been,—but the Mother in Her wisdom has decreed that more shall
not stay with us, lest we in fear of hurt should fear to live—for to live is to hurt, and so it must be. But
though the body can militate so against pain's recollection, it is far otherwise with the pain of the soul…
Here in Caerdroia, city of Brendan and Raighne and Athyn and Arthur, and others greater still perhaps
to come, how often easier it is to not forget, just so, the past's pain, but rather to look upon it with a kind
of dismemory, as one who has survived an all but mortal wound—aye, or even a well-placed
pinprick—will hold in mind the fact if not the feeling of that wounding. One remembers,—but one does
not remember.
Even, it would seem, a bard of the order can be subject to such a failing: For so I am, I Taliesin, son of
Gwyddno, of the House of Glyndour, called by some Pen-bardd. Yet it is all my task, and all my joy
likewise, that I should and must remember; not for myself alone but for all you who hear the words of this
my tale, not for Keltia alone but for other worlds beside: to remember forever how it was for us
then—how it was for him, for Arthur…
And Seren Beirdd, Star of the Bards, is the kingplace of remembering that ever there was or will be.
Our home from of old at Caerdroia, it is home for all and any with the bent for bardery: a college and a
library and a songhall all together. I dwell here by choice as much as chance, for I am alone now,—those
I loved best and hated most have all gone before me, and even had they not still would I sooner be here
than any other place. I teach a little, still, and still I learn—aye, and shall until I can no longer lift harp to
shoulder—but most of all I strive to set down these histories, for I sense that I have need of haste.
Yet in that very haste I see that I have outpaced my own story: a bad thing in any teller of tales, but fault
unpardonable in a bard. To begin aright, then, come back with me two hundred years and more: back to
Edeyrn.
Passing strange, is it not, that so complete a lord of darkness should be called by so bright a name. And
yet not so, perhaps, for it has been many times seen that a fair morning can oft as not turn to full storm
before high twelve has struck.
That dark of Edeyrn's making had a name as black as It merited: We who lived of force beneath its evil
pinion called it the Theocracy. As for Edeyrn himself, he who had been the mightiest of sorcerers in a
realm whose soul is sorcery—Archdruid, Ro-sai of the Pheryllt, friend and confidant and trusted minister
to his master, the High King Alawn Pendreic—him did we call Marbh-draoi, 'Death-druid,' and never
was name more truly earned.
For Edeyrn betrayed Alawn, betrayed him and overthrew him and murdered him; killed his Queen,
Breila, and his heir the Tanista Athonwy, and her brothers the princes Brahan and Cador, and her two
half-grown children and their father with them. Indeed, more died than those alone for Edeyrn's will, for it
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 was his plain purpose to put an end forever to the House of Don, that had reigned in Keltia for half a
thousand years, and all those loyal to that House and its members.
Therefore were slain alike Alawn's brothers and sisters, another infant grandchild, uncles and
great-uncles, aunts and grandaunts and cousins to the fourth and fifth degree. Not his widowed father,
Rhain the King-dowager (Righ-duar, as we call such a one), nor his grandmother Queen Kentiarn,
ancient lady though she was and no danger to any, nor any child of his body or even of his fostering was
spared; save one only—the Princess Seirith, Alawn's youngest daughter.
Though ‘spared' be perhaps the wrong word… By dan, then, and the grace of the gods, Seirith
narrowly escaped the slaughter of her kindred and those who had served them. She who had never
thought to be High Queen herself—who had wished it still less—took with her into exile her lord, Rhys,
and such companions as were loyal enough and loving enough—and brave enough, and alive enough—to
follow her. Her second and last child, the boy Elgan, was born in that exile, and Rhys his father perished
in it; but through that young prince, only last survivor of all his House, would pass the entire descent of
the Doniaid.
In my own youth the latest inheritor of this outlawed dominion was a lass of my own age: the Princess
Gweniver. She in her turn had felt the sword's steel kiss as near as any of her line, for her father, the
Ard-righ Leowyn, was himself slain by Edeyrn's order. He fell by chance one evil night into the claws of
Ravens, those butchers sworn to the Marbh-draoi's service, by whose arms (as by his bent Druids'
magics) he kept Keltia so fast against us.
But as I have recounted elsewhere and earlier, when secrets long held close and careful were declared
openly at last, Gweniver's right to the Copper Crown of Keltia's sovereigns came to be shared by
another, one with as lawful a claim as hers to that crown, a claim of blood and, well, blood; and he my
friend and fostern: Arthur of Arvon.
It is said by the metaphysicists that every force has by dint of its very existence not only its own opposite
but also a twinned opposite, one outwardly to face and one contained within itself that must also be
faced; and for all his long dark mastery, Edeyrn himself could not in the end escape that law and
judgment.
His outward enemy had been born in the very moment of his great treason; no single dam or sire but
many parents did it have—all whom in that moment he betrayed. We who this day had fought at
Cadarachta were but its latest offspring: Branded'rebels' against the Marbh-draoi's rule, we rejoiced in
the name of Counterinsurgency, and had called ourselves so from that first moment forward. (As for
Edeyrn's 'inward' enemy, well, let me save somewhat for the tale yet to come—but that enemy too came
to be in that fateful instant, and outlived it in stranger ways than any of us could have imagined…)
No need to recount yet again the Counterinsurgency's many advances and reversals down the years:
Those have been most scrupulously chronicled otherwhere by better historians than I. Not that those
other tellers are of necessity any better than I at the actual telling, mark: They have words as I have
words—other words, different words. If they deal with facts, I deal with truth; and if perhaps you have
heard from other voices what I shall speak in these pages to come, have heard the tale cast in other
mold, heard it told otherwise and diversely, know that what you have heard from them is no less true for
all that, and that what you shall be hearing from me no more false. For the truth wears many cloaks; and
bards are trained to weave, on a different loom, a weft that is built to last. * * *
Let me say only—lest this foretale should itself become a saga—that although the Counterinsurgency
had endured two centuries against the Marbh-draoi, had preserved five monarchs and uncounted millions
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