Chapter Three

After escorting Gwenhyfar to her elaborately carved throne seat and being acknowledged by the High King, Alyn wove his way through the crowd, looking for Daniel and hopefully a vantage point from which he might see the key players in the rapidly unfolding drama.

The influence and power of the members of the assembly was impressive, even though Merlin Emrys’s tribute solely accounted for many. A well-planned strike in this hall by a Saxon contingent could wipe out most of the kings of the North and many of the South and West. To Gwenhyfar’s right sat the steward of her land of Gododdin, King Angus of Strighlagh. On the High King’s left was the red-robed archbishop, his pointed chin jutting out with an air of arrogance. Or perhaps it was the close trim of his beard that gave that illusion.

Alyn wasn’t ready to judge the man yet, if at all. It wasn’t his place or what he’d come home for. Then again, neither was playing the queen’s eyes.

Next to Archbishop Cassian was the empty chair usually occupied by King Modred of Lothian. Given Modred’s position as an archbishop of the Celtic Church, some interesting conversations must have taken place between the two church fathers. Neither Roman nor Celtic priests would give on their positions regarding the proper worship of the Christos. Alyn wondered if the time Easter was celebrated or the way a priest cut his hair was all that important to God. Short of the bloodletting done away with by Jesus’s sacrifice, Alyn figured it was the heart behind the various ways of honoring and worshipping the Almighty that mattered most to Him.

“O’Byrne!”

Alyn spied Daniel of Gowrys motioning him over to the column where they’d previously met. By the time Alyn arrived at the spot, a blast of trumpets heralded the beginning of the session. Arthur, wearing the scarlet of his maternal Brito-Roman lineage, rose and waited for the verbal buzz in the hall to fade. Before the dais, forming an elongated semicircle to either side of it, stood the kings and princes of Britain, shields presented before them.

There were lions, bears, wolves, boars, stags, wildcats, and foxes—representatives of the animal kingdom adopted by the old ones to represent the tribes. Most Christian kingdoms had replaced the old symbols of creation with crosses, while some incorporated the cross into their ancestral theme. Regardless, each shield told something about the man who stood behind it.

Most brilliant of all was the image of the Virgin painted on the High King’s shield, where once a red dragon had breathed fire. The way the torchlight glanced off the polished, lacquered surface, Christ’s mother shone as if with divine light. Alyn wondered how many times she’d been beaten and battered in battle while protecting Arthur, then repainted and restored. The High King was first and foremost a warrior, a leader into the fight and an example for lesser kings.

A king of kings.

But was any man up to that task, save Christ Himself? Would even Jesus be able to please the whole of this assembly, so rife with rivalry and suspicion?

“We welcome each of you, free men of Britain,” Arthur began. He glanced around the circle of shields, which was broken only by the dais and open at the opposite end so that the rest of the assembly might more easily view the key players. “We entreat the Lord God Almighty to reign over these proceedings, that they might glorify Him and His plan for all of Albion. My lord archbishop, will you pray?”

A significant groaning and shuffling of feet evidenced that not all the participants recognized God as sovereign, or perhaps the archbishop’s authority. But tolerance was ingrained in the Celtic mind, if not acceptance.

While Arthur ignored the contention, Cassian scowled at the gathering, his eyes narrowed as he searched out the dissenters. After a moment, the scowl was schooled into a beatific face. Cassian’s voice put Alyn to mind of a bees’ nest, producing an inflectionless hum. Thankfully, having exhausted himself of words at Merlin Emrys’s service, the priest merely repeated Arthur’s request for God’s sanction of the proceedings, exacting an audible sigh of relief from the onlookers as he returned to his seat.

Again the center of attention, Arthur stepped off the dais and walked the circle of knights before him sunwise, stopping to briefly meet the gaze of each and offer welcome. His reception was clearly more favorable in the northern contingent than in the southern.

In the southerner’s eye, Arthur of Dalraida fell short of the first Brito-Romano arthur, the great warrior who had preceded him at the battle of Mount Badon and ended Saxon incursions in the south for nearly half a century. The Grail Church had tried again and again to reproduce such a hero from matchmaking the apostolic bloodlines and those of the Irish-Davidic heritage, but to no avail.

After the present arthur had made a full round of his guests, he returned to stand before his throne like a giant sun god adorned in gold from his crown to his fingertips. “I will make this brief,” he boomed, “for our kitchens are bursting with food and our cellars with drink.” After pausing for the murmur of unanimous approval to subside, he went on. “I planned to make this announcement at the May fair in Strighlagh, but since all of our northern allies are here, as well as most of the rest of Britain’s rulers, it seems fitting—”

“Not all are here,” someone interrupted from the masses beyond the circle of nobility.

“Aye, King Modred belongs in that empty chair,” another chimed in.

Like a gathering storm, discontent rumbled to the rafters as various factions took sides. Christian kingdoms mostly against the still-pagan ones, Alyn noted. Politics were complicated enough without a contest of faith stirring them.

Arthur raised the famed Excalibur from its jeweled sheath and beat the sword on the wooden planking of the dais.

Alyn flinched as if the shining blade had broadsided his temple. Black splotches winged across his vision, and he viewed the king and his company as through a haze.

Father, no, not now, he prayed. ’Twas the foreshadowing of a pain that, since the day of the explosion, oft sent him to bed, his brain writhing in his skull. Alyn thought the headaches had gone away after he’d made the decision to return home. Not one had he suffered on the return journey. He’d taken it as a sign from God that he was doing the right thing.

He blinked away the blotches and second thoughts until only Arthur was in focus—but the pain was setting in.

“The fact that my cousin Modred is not here is all the more reason for me to question his qualifications as my successor,” Arthur claimed. “A High King should hear all his people, whether he agrees with them or nay. Not avoid them when he differs in opinion. A High King thus informed must then rely on the advice of his round table and God.”

“My son has heard your mind is already made up.” Queen Morgause stepped forward into the elliptical space before her nephew, the king, her chin lifted haughtily in challenge. “Why waste a trip here when his own people need and want him more than you?”

Cassian bristled in his seat, his disdainful gaze taking in the Orkney queen’s white and gold-embroidered church robes that indicated her rank as an abbess. Alyn couldn’t blame the archbishop for questioning Morgause’s trueness to the faith. She had been a druidic priestess prior to her conversion to Christianity. During this time of transition from the old ways to the new, the understanding of the Way sometimes became as blurred as separating sciencia, or the wonders of creation, from superstition.

Or misuse. Alyn smothered a flashback of brilliant fire and the black aftermath of roiling smoke. The school elders had demanded he recount what ingredients had caused the fierce explosion. But he couldn’t recall exactly. And even if he did, dare he reveal a knowledge with such terrible prospects? That they’d nearly imprisoned him until he revealed it was proof enough that it should remain secret.

“He should have heard such news for himself,” the High King replied, pulling Alyn back to the present. “I need every one of the Cymri and Pict kings if we are to stop the Saxon wolves at our doorstep, milady abbess … my cousin Modred included.”

Morgause simmered beneath her serene demeanor with the same distrust that fueled the tension over the crowd. “Then make your announcement, nephew, and may God have more mercy on your soul than your pompous little redbird adviser has on any who disagree with him.” She turned in a swirl of robes, addressing the room. “Rome conquered our people once with the sword. Now it uses the Savior’s sacred cross to force Britain to kneel once again to its authority.”

“God is my authority, Abbess Morgause.” Cassian sprang to his feet, unable to contain his contempt any longer. “It is His counsel I bring the king.”

Alyn could hardly see beyond the dark splotches. Like ravens to a carcass, they would not go away, no matter how Alyn tried to clear his vision. And oh, the agony their wings beat in his brain, though his hearing was acute and stabbed pain through his head with every sound.

Morgause laughed without humor. “God is the authority of the British church as well. You would forget that in the first century our Lord’s family and close friends brought the Word to King Bran the Blessed, while Bran’s daughter Claudia and her husband, Pudens, opened the doors of their villa for Paul and Peter to found Rome’s first church. They followed the apostles into martyrdom, and their son Linus was your pope’s first predecessor. Britons, my lord archbishop,” she declared above the rising tide of support in the hall. She pivoted, facing off with Cassian. “Britons helped found even your church in Rome, yet Rome has the arrogance to claim authority over us?”

Authority. Alyn swayed unsteadily. Lord God, who has authority over these visions that refuse to let me heal?

He grabbed his temples, as though to squeeze out the scene playing before his open eyes….

A raven, bigger than usual and black as night, flew without flinching at an eagle. The clash scattered the other birds away. The eagle was the larger, but the raven more tenacious, especially when the other birds circled round and joined its attack….

The swirling flurry of feathers made Alyn’s stomach churn. He swallowed hard and breathed deeply to quell the nausea. Then, out of the corner of his eye … a beautiful white dove strayed into the fray. Spying the easy prey, the eagle withdrew from the raven’s territory, but not before snatching up the dove in its talons and flying off.

A roar threatened to shatter Alyn’s ears. The room spun—

“Easy, laddie!”

Alyn became aware of the iron brace of Daniel’s arms as his friend helped him down to a bench built around one of the great columns. “Since when have you taken to swooning like a lovestruck maid?”

Alyn’s head still hurt, but the vision was gone, and the hall shifted back into focus. He pulled his tunic and shirt away from where they clung to the clammy skin of his chest. “I … I had a terrible accident in the East. It’s left me with crippling headaches and the strangest of hallucinations. Animals, birds …”

And the dragons, he thought. But Alyn could pinpoint a source for the dragon dream. Emrys had long ago prophesied the Saxon white dragon conquering the Briton red, though no Briton wanted to acknowledge it.

“What’s happened?” Alyn asked abruptly.

“Morgause took the first fray with unanimous pagan and Christian support,” Daniel whispered. “But Arthur ended any religious debate gathering in Cassian’s skirts, insisting this was a political alliance he sought, not one of faith.”

“Wisely done,” Alyn mumbled. Rising, he was surprised his knees were still wobbly. He shored them with prayer and sheer will. At least the pain was bearable now, and the nausea had subsided.

Arthur’s voice penetrated Alyn’s personal struggle. “I hereby name Urien of Rheged as my successor.”

Protests battled cheers as the lord of Rheged stepped forward from the circle and, shield before him, took possession of the empty chair once occupied by Modred. Had swords been allowed in the king’s hall, undoubtedly violence would have broken out. Instead the men beat on their shields, and the thunder nearly put Alyn on the bench again.

Lord, I promised to watch for Gwenhyfar, he prayed. Help me to help her.

“Then glorify Me.”

The noise wreaked havoc in Alyn’s head, save that one thought. Yet it was all he could do to keep his eyes open or avoid heaving his breakfast. And who would listen to a failure from the East, returned to lick his wounds?

The disorder grew to such an extent that Arthur could only silence it by driving the gleaming Excalibur into the dais. One could have heard a babe’s sigh as several contingents of men walked out of the hall, mostly of the border or Pict tribes, rather than pledge their swords to Arthur’s British heir apparent. Daniel was clearly torn between allegiance to his brethren of Alba and the High King.

“I prayed for something different but am not surprised,” Daniel mumbled under his breath. “Still, Glenarden gave its word that its sword belongs to Arthur.”

Alyn didn’t reply. His gaze fixed on the large black raven painted on Urien’s shield. He could feel the blood draining from his face, leaving a tingle of disbelief on his scalp. The raven—Urien—smiled across Arthur’s empty seat at Gwenhyfar, though the queen did not return the gesture. She looked away, staring off at nothing as if oblivion was to be her fate.

Alyn frowned. Urien was married to Arthur’s sister Morgein, though he’d been promised Gwenhyfar before Arthur, on Emrys’s advice, had swept in with his Scottish military and saved her lands from Saxon invasion. And Urien had to settle for Morgein, the paternal half sister of the High King, a disappointment for an ambitious soul like the lord of North Rheged.

“What is the matter with you? Are you sick again?” Daniel queried at Alyn’s side. “You’re white as death.”

“I’m fine.” But Alyn wasn’t fine at all. If he’d just had a prophetic vision, he wanted no part of it. Better the result of a head damaged by the exploding concoction he and Abdul-Alim had been working on. A punishment for Alyn’s carelessness.

Around the room, shield after shield was raised to Arthur and Urien. Strathclyde, Gwynedd, Byrneich, and Elmet led the tide of allegiance, followed by lesser kingdoms.

“Do you not raise your shield to me, Llywarch?” Arthur asked when all those who remained had spoken.

The South Rheged king was tall of stature like Alyn. Despite his slighter build and the grace of a poet, Llywarch was known for his prowess on the battlefront. “Aye, I’ll raise my shield to whom my kinsman of North Rheged raises his. Mind you,” he added, voice raised for all to hear, “but for Urien, I would not be here. Your war in the North is of no concern to me or mine.”

“At least Arthur’s choice of Urien is bringing on some of the southern armies,” Daniel observed.

Alyn nodded, but the replaying vision refused to release his fascination. Raven, dove, and eagle. A red eagle on a black banner leapt to Alyn’s mind. Lothian’s banner. Surely Modred wouldn’t abduct Gwenhyfar. He’d not dare.

“Tell that to your people if the Saxons spill past us and into your land,” Arthur told Llywarch, pulling Alyn’s focus to the present.

“Your wily father Aedan and his Irish Scots would seize British land as fast as the Saxon Aethelfrith,” Llywarch claimed. “Surely you see reason for my concern. And your father’s fathers did not support ours when our first Pendragon held back the Saxon wolves gnawing at our eastern territory. Why should we support you now?”

“Because if we fall, the wolves will turn upon you, Llywarch,” the High King shot back, as undaunted on the dais as on the battlefield. “Just as they have fallen upon us for not helping the first arthur, as you say.” Arthur lifted his shield for all to see the shining Virgin in blue. “I give you my word, by the Lady on my shield, that my father Aedan is allied with us. And I welcome you, even those of you with similar reservations, for I am confident there is no meat to them and you are a great benefit to our—”

The great twin doors of the hall swung open, cutting off the High King. Arthur seized Excalibur as his royal guards admitted a rider and his mud-covered horse into the hall. Warriors groped instinctively for the swords checked in before they were allowed into the hall. But the sight of the king’s red dragon on the rider’s tunic quelled the alarm.

“What is this?” the High King demanded.

“News, milord,” came the messenger’s breathless reply. “Grave news.” The young man slid off the lathered animal. “The Miathi have invaded Manau.”

The Angus, a thick-muscled bull among men, bolted to his feet. “What of Strighlagh?” he roared above the furor spreading through the room.

Alyn’s breath caught. The whole of Alba was unraveling before his very eyes. Arthur’s grandfather Gabran had driven the Miathi—those who would not accept their new Scot overlords through marriage or surrender—north of the River Clyde a generation before. The remainder had merged in peace with the Scots like Alyn’s mother and Gwenhyfar.

“Strighlagh held, milord,” the man said. “Though the fortress is fire-damaged.”

Gwenhyfar paled. “What of our men?”

The messenger shoved his dark, sweat-soaked hair off a pain-wrenched face. “’Twas a ruse, milady. Our soldiers gave them chase beyond the Ochill Hills.…” He hesitated, then forced himself to go on. “Only a handful of our men returned.”

A loud groan drew Alyn’s attention to where Kella had dropped to her knees among the queen’s attendants near the dais. She looked pale, as if death itself had kicked her full in the stomach.

Only then did the full blow of the news strike him as well. Egan O’Toole and Kella’s betrothed were part of Strighlagh’s border guard.