The Copper Crown Read online

  The Copper Crown

  Patricia Kennealy

  (A NOVEL OF THE KELTIAD)

  BLUEJAY BOOKS INC.

  A Bluejay Book, published by arrangement with the Author

  Copyright (c) 1984 by Patricia Kennealy Morrison

  Jacket art by Michael Embden

  Text design by Terry McCabe

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the express permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.

  For information, contact: Bluejay Books Inc., 130 West Forty-second Street, New York, New York 10036

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Bluejay Printing: November 1984

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to many, and not diminished for the sharing: to the unnamed and unremembered bards and poets and makers who set down their long knowledge in the old tales; to my parents, Joseph and Genevieve, who read me all those stories; to my grandmother Agnes McDonald, who sent me all those cards; to my sister, Regina, whose advice was worthy of a Keltic High Councillor; to David Walley (Mishkin, scribe and prince!), who never stopped listening; to Janice Scott, who helped launch the original "Kelts in Space" on a Cornish road between Treen and Penzance; and most of all to the true Gwydion ap Don, lord of bards and god of writers, who gave me wit and words enough to make this tale.

  Notes on Pronunciation

  The spellings and pronunciations of the names in The Copper Crown are probably unfamiliar to most readers unless one happens to be thoroughly steeped in things like the Mabinogion or the Cuchulainn cycle. The Celtic languages (Irish, Scots Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish, Manx and Breton) upon which I have drawn for my nomenclature are not related to any tongue that might provide a clue as to their derivation or spoken sound. Outside of a few loan-words, they have no Latin root as do the Romance tongues, and they are in fact derived from a totally different branch of the Indo-European linguistic tree.

  Therefore I have taken certain, not always consistent, liberties with orthography in the interests of reader convenience, though of course one may deal with the names any way one pleases. But for those who might like to humor the author, I have made this list of some of the more difficult names, words, and phonetic combinations.

  --pk

  Vowels

  Generally the usual, though a is mostly pronounced "ah" and i never takes the sound of "eye," but always an "ee" or "ih" sound. Thus: "Ard-ree" for Ard-righ, not "ard-rye." Final e is always sounded; thus: "Slay-nee" for Slaine, not "Slain."

  Vowel Combinations

  aoi: "ee" as in "heel"

  ao: "ay" as in "pay"

  au: "ow" as in "cow", never "aw" as in "saw"; thus Jaun rhymes with "crown," not with "fawn."

  ae, ai: "I" as in "high." Exceptions: the proper names Aeron and Slaine, where the sound is "ay" as in "day."

  a: The accent gives it length. Thus, dan is pronounced "dawn."

  io: "ih" if unaccented. If accented (io), then it becomes "ee."

  Consonants

  c: always a "k" sound. (To avoid the obvious problem here, the more usual Celt, Celtic, Celtia have been spelled Kelt, Keltic, Keltia, throughout.)

  ch, kh: gutturals as in the German "ach," never "ch" as in "choose"

  g: always hard, as in "get" or "give"

  bh: pronounced as "v"

  dd: pronounced as "th"

  Some of the more difficult names:

  Aeron: AIR-on

  Aoibhell: ee-VELL

  Gwydion: GWID-eeon

  Rioghnach: REE-oh-nakh (guttural "ch")

  Fionnbarr: FINN-bar

  Slaine: SLAY-nee

  Caerdroia: car-DROY-uh

  Tuatha De Danaan: TOO-uh-huh Day DAH-nahn

  Gwynedd: GWIN-ith

  Melangell: mel-ANN-gel (hard "g")

  Criosanna: criss-anna

  Kymry: KIM-ree

  Ard-rian: ard-REE-uhn

  Ard-righ: ard-REE

  Taoiseach: TEE-shokh (guttural "ch")

  Turusachan: too-roo-SAKH'N (guttural "ch")

  Rath na Riogh: rath-na-ree

  Ban-draoi: ban-dree

  Fainne: fawn-ya

  Fianna: FEE-unna

  Aoife: EE-fa

  Sidhe: shee

  Annwn: annoon

  Characters

  Aboard the Sword:

  Theo Haruko, Captain, FSN

  Sarah O'Reilly, Lieutenant, communications officer

  Hugh Tindal, Lieutenant, science officer

  Warren Hathaway, Lieutenant, astrogator

  Athenee Mikhailova, Ensign, technical officer

  Tarquin Gro, Ensign, engineering and weapons officer (died in coldsleep)

  Aboard the Firedrake:

  Elharn Aoibhell, Master of Sail, High Admiral

  Gwennan Chynoweth, Captain

  Anluan mac Rossa, First Officer

  In Keltia:

  Aeron Aoibhell, High Queen of Keltia

  Rohan, Prince of Thomond, her brother

  Gwydion ap Arawn, Prince of Gwynedd, First Lord of War

  Morwen Douglas, Duchess of Lochcarron, Taoiseach of Keltia

  Gavin, Earl of Straloch, Lord Extern

  Idris ap Caswyn, Chief Bard

  Lady Douglass Graham, Earl-Marischal

  Ffaleira nighean Enfail, Magistra of the Ban-draoi

  Auster, Lord Chief Brehon

  Teilo ap Bearach, Archdruid

  Rioghnach, Princess of the Name, sister to Aeron

  Niall O Kerevan, Duke of Tir-connell, her husband

  Sabia ni Dalaigh, friend to Aeron

  Morgan Cairbre, master-bard and spy

  Melangell, cousin to Aeron

  Arianeira, Princess of Gwynedd, Gwydion's twin sister

  Kynon, her retainer

  Fergus, Lord of the Isles, husband to Morwen

  Kieran, brother to Aeron

  Eiluned of Garioch, his wife

  Declan, brother to Aeron, Kieran's twin

  Gwyneira, Dowager Queen of Keltia, grandmother to Aeron

  Desmond, son to Elharn, cousin to Aeron

  Slaine, his twin sister

  Macsen, their younger brother

  Fionnbarr, late High King of Keltia

  Emer, his late wife and Queen

  Roderick, Prince of Scots, Aeron's late consort

  Fionnuala, sister to Aeron

  Struan Cameron, Master of Horse

  Denzil Cameron, his brother, cavalry commander

  Fedelma ni Garra, Fian general

  Tanwen of Marsco, infantry commander

  Donal mac Avera, Captain-General of the Fianna

  Grelun, an officer in Gwydion's service

  Indec, an Abbess-mother of the Ban-draoi

  Ithell, a woman who lives in Upper Darkdale

  Brioc, her husband

  Allyn, son of Midna, a lord of the Sidhe

  Gwyn ap Neith, King of the Sidhe

  On Alphor:

  Strephon, the Cabiri Emperor, political head of the Imperium

  Jaun Akhera, Prince of Alphor, his grandson and heir

  Tinao, Jaun Akhera's mistress

  Sanchoniathon, brother to Jaun Akhera

  Hanno, Captain-General of the Imperial armies

  Garallaz, an Imperial envoy

  On Fomor:

  Bres, King of Fomor and Archon of the Phalanx

  Elathan, Crown Prince, his son and heir

  Talorcan, Bres's son by his legal concubine Thona

  Basilea, Bres's wife and Queen, mother to Elathan

  Camissa, Elathan's betrothed

  Borvos, a Fo
mori captain

  To James Douglas Morrison.

  Without whom.

  Bydd i ti ddychwelyd.

  "Se deireadh gach cogadh'sith.

  ("The end of each strife is peace.")

  Prologue

  Extract from Federacy Space Navy Records, Terran Admiralty:

  SHIP REGISTER: Code AA-360-9-B14D. Clearance: Level 5, Military.

  FSS SWORD. Registry number: 7568-DGW.

  Vessel Class: Long-range cutter. General assignment: Sector R12-24670.

  Duty rotation: Five years Earthstandard.

  Standing orders: Alien contact. Investigation of inhabited or inhabitable planetary bodies; diplomatic prime contact.

  Modifications: Refit of emergency and cruise capability hyperdrive; hypospatial radio link; two escape pods, engineless; two powered escape boats; coldsleep berths; shuttle.

  Armament class: Light.

  Attack capability: Contraindicated. Specifications: forward and rear gunnery consoles; inboard and outboard shields; double-strength hull plating.

  Droid complement: Various all-purpose units.

  Crew complement: Captain, five crew.

  Current status: active patrol, Orion Sector.

  Time elapsed since last logged communication: two months, Earthstandard.

  Nature of last logged communication: automatic, droidoriginated.

  Last reported position: Orion Arm, outward bound.

  *

  The Federacy Space Ship Sword was almost ready for turnaround when the incident occurred, and after that nothing was ever the same again.

  The Sword was a deep-space interstellar probe ship, light and sleek, designed for long, boring journeys of incalculable length over inconceivable distances, with one purpose only: to find life on unmapped planets, preferably humanoid and preferably friendly.

  She was small but trim; as sea-sailors used to say, a "lady" of her kind. Ever since the Federacy had rediscovered a cheap, easy and almost ridiculously simple method of propulsion for its faster-than-light ships, voyages like this of the Sword were becoming routine.

  The principle behind them was minimal: At regular intervals, the Admiralty would send a wave of light, fast cutters, each ship programmed for a different distant area of unexplored space. The craft would fly themselves at first, on automatic hyperdrive with their crews in coldsleep suspension, for varying periods, also predetermined; some went for one lightyear, others five or ten or fifty.

  Then, after that first big jump, the ship would take itself down into space-normal and proceed automatically on course at just below lightspeed. This was where the mission really began. Once out of lightspeed, the ship was in its assigned search target area, and its scanners would then begin to sweep the passing star systems for signs of life. At the same time, the ship would send out signals of its own; with luck, any spacefaring civilization in the neighborhood would pick up those signals and make contact. If contact should be established, one way or another, the droid crew would then awaken the human crew. If not, well... five years in hypersleep suspension had one big advantage: It didn't age you.

  Captain of the Sword was Theo Haruko. He was career Navy, Japanasian by birth, of middle height, middle age, and above-average intelligence. This present voyage would be his last diplomatic exploratory in the Sword. Perhaps his last ever, though that was yet to be decided.

  And, befitting his final tour as master, his crew this time out was an exceptional one: Warren Hathaway, astrogator; Sarah O'Reilly, communications officer; Athenee Mikhailova, technical officer; and Hugh Tindal, science officer. Since the accidental death in coldsleep of Ensign Gro, these last two had taken on his duties of weapons officer and engineering officer, respectively.

  In the bright crowded endless "now" of hibernation, Haruko dreamed--of food, of women, of his family, of promotion into a destroyer, or a dreadnought, maybe even... ship of the line. Or perhaps this time he would finally take that long-postponed retirement, go into the merchant spacefleet and make himself a packet. With his Navy experience and seniority, he could quickly get to be skipper of something really classy, one of the big plush luxury liners like the Empress Elisabeth or the Aefensteorra. Next to ships like those, the Sword was little more than a dinghy... He never knew what the others dreamed of.

  When the automatic alarm pinged gently, insistently, on the bone behind his ear, Haruko, though he would not know it for several minutes yet, began to wake up out of coldsleep. By the time he was fully conscious, the medidroid was already standing at his elbow administering a sprayshot. By force of long habit, Haruko's first focused glance was upward, at the small monitor screens set into the ceiling of the coldsleep cell, and he gasped at what he saw.

  "Oh my God." He sequenced the droid to wake the others, scrambled into his flightsuit, and soon he was standing in the control cabin, the rest of his crew crowded in behind him, all of them staring rapt at the screens.

  The screens all showed the same picture: a black and silver ship, of no known configuration or affiliation, bearing no markings of any kind. It was coming straight at them, and it was coming fast.

  Mikhailova broke the silence. "There's not supposed to be anyone around here for parsecs. Who could they be, do you think?"

  "How the hell would I know?" muttered Tindal, who did not much care for the technical officer. "O'Reilly, say hello to them."

  But her fingers were already busy tapping out greetings on the light-coder, in Englic, Russic, Chinese, French, Germanic, Arabic, Hebraic, Swahili, Japannic and the twenty-three other spacegoing tongues, human and alien, that were currently known to the Federacy.

  The reply, when it came, was in no language any of them had ever heard.

  Then...

  "LATIN!" screamed O'Reilly. "They speak Latin! Oh my God--"

  Well, she was the linguist... Again quick tanned fingers flickered over the light-coder keyboard, and this time without even a pause more of the weird language came flooding back.

  From his chair on the port side, Tindal called out, "They're coming on visual."

  Human. Well, humanoid. Very big, very hairy, and very oddly accoutered...

  "What's that?" snapped Haruko, and instantly bit the inside of his cheeks, hoping the others had not noticed how nervous he had sounded. He was swamped with shame at his reaction; he had done this very thing dozens of times before--why now, on his last go-round, should he be so suddenly and unaccountably edgy? But there it was: a vivid and dread-imbued feeling of something cataclysmic impending, some monstrous and colossal and totally unavoidable doom. Karma.

  Well, whatever it might be, there was nothing he could do about it now. But the strangers had spoken again, and it was that which had startled him: not the Latin this time, but something that sounded like an unbroken string of consonants; all of them hard and most of them guttural, but an oddly musical tongue nonetheless.

  O'Reilly, who had by now realized that for once she was out of her depth, had cut in the computer, and she was looking stunned at what it was apparently telling her.

  "Lieutenant O'Reilly?" Haruko's voice, though unraised and unaccentuated, had nevertheless sharpened sufficiently to pierce the communications officer's sudden bemusement.

  "Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Gaelic. I mean, that's what they're speaking. Gaelic. It's not possible, but there it is."

  "Gaelic? You mean these people are IRISH? The Irish came from outer space?"

  O'Reilly riffled off some more Latin, got a great slab of it back. The first smiles, then, on both sides. "No... no, they're from Earth. Earth! Well, originally from Earth. I mean, not this lot, but--" She appeared to be caught in the grip of some intense emotion.

  "Pull yourself together," said Haruko automatically.

  "Sir." She composed herself with visible effort. "They said they are from an interstellar monarchy known as Keltia, and they, or their ancestors, I should say, have been out here since Earth year 453 A.D."

  "Ri-i-i-ght." Jade Emperor of Heaven! It had been bad enough whe
n one of the other probes had come across the Lost Tribe of Israel on Procyon VII, but this--"Do they speak Englic?" asked Haruko hopefully. Englic, the Federacy's official language, had become a sort of unofficial galactic common tongue, almost all aliens could speak a little...

  "Not these two," O'Reilly informed him after inquiring. "They're just scouts, on patrol from a destroyer in the area, and their sloop has no language computer. But they've sent a message to their ship; there are people on board her who do speak Englic, and down on their worlds plenty of people speak it, too, so they don't think we'll have too much trouble. Latin is their own diplomatic language, though, and they suggest we all sleep-study it intensively, and maybe a little of the Gaeloch, as they call it, too, before..." Her voice trailed off.

  "Before what?" asked Hathaway, speaking for the first time since the stranger ship had appeared on the screens.

  O'Reilly gestured helplessly. "Before whatever."

  Chapter One

  As worlds change, and time comes to all nations that they must stand open at last to the strong cold sweeping tides of the Alterator, still it is people who must abide these changes, and do the same simple things they have always done, no matter the gale that howls at their backs.

  It was cold that night on the heights of Caerdroia. The stars of autumn blazed diamond-hard overhead, the great stars that lay in no configuration Earth had ever seen. The Plumed Dancer, the Spearhead, the Warrior: All their cold gleam fell upon the frost that lay in the cracks of the street cobbles and glazed the roofs of the towers and rimed the high fields up in the inland valleys of the mountain range called the Loom.

  Few were abroad, for the northwest wind the Kelts named An-Lasca, The Whip, blew straight and strong off the early sea-ice in the bay, and its sharp glassy bite was edged with salt. A knot of homebound souls here, hurrying down along the curving streets of the Stonerows from a late lively party; a lone walker, there, or there, moving with steady stride, untroubled by the wind, who could not stay indoors on even so bitter a night as this. Whatever their errand, all were cloaked and hooded and muffled well against the weather.