The King's Name (2 page)

(Prof, bint Kerigan, "The Poetic Fragments of Anirin ap Erbin From the So-called Sulien Text") These fragments have been attested by many scholars as undoubtedly genuine. Some of them are very well known while others are not found elsewhere. They, at least, unmistakably date from the age of Urdo, or not long after.

Those who claim that the text is a modern forgery, especially those who attacked Prof. Kahn's religious or other motives, are no less than delusional. The manuscript exists and has
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been extensively studied in modern conditions. While there would have been many reasons one could imagine for someone to forge an account of Urdo's life—especially one as different from the accepted version and as pro-pagan as Sulien's account—there would have been little purpose in doing it without circulating it and stirring up difficulty. "If someone went to the trouble of forging this book, why did they then not go to the further trouble of disseminating it?" asked Dr. Enid Godwinsson. (In "The Sulien Text: Whose Agenda?" in Journal of Vincan

Studies, Spring 2749.)

This is not to say that the text is indeed the work of the shadowy Sulien ap Gwien. Very little is known about her except for what appears in this book, and that little is often directly contradictory to her own text. Without wishing to enter into religious controversies, it should be noted (see Camling, "Irony in 'The Glory of Morthu,'"

Urdossian Quarterly, Autumn 2685) that the Vincan word "phis" which is almost universally applied to Sulien in the later chronicles and poetry dealing with Urdo, meant at that date

"faithful," and not, as it means now and is generally translated, "pious."

In the five hundred years between Sulien's time and Al-ward's the work may have been written by anyone.

Yet, who would have chosen to do it? Indeed, who would have had the skill or the time to do so? Without need of Godwinsson's whimsical conclusion that the forger died on or before completion of the manuscript, it is worth considering her point about the sheer time such a forgery must have taken: we are not talking a few pages but a weighty work that covers two volumes of modern print. It must have taken years. The text is written in an almost classical Vincan, the sure sign of someone very well educated. Few outside the monasteries in those centuries would have had that skill. Few inside the monasteries would have had the desire.

One of the most controversial points in the text is, of course, the treatment of religion.

The monks of the

Insular Church were remarkable in their kind treatment of manuscripts from other traditions, but they did not go out of their way to forge works that would bring discredit on themselves. Sulien's general view of the

Church as being suited to idiots, her portraits of St. Gerthmol as a fool, St. Dewin as a manipulator and, worst of all, St. Marchel as a short-tempered bigot, indicate an agenda of someone who disliked the Church.

Only in her treatment of St. Arvlid and St. Teilo do we see anything approaching the hagiographic work typical of the period, and even there they are engagingly human saints, as Brother Ivor of Thanmarchel points out about Arvlid (Sulien and the Early Insular Church, 2722), "This picture of the blessed martyr helping out in childbirth and making honey is not the one the church gives us, but it is one the church should be very slow to reject." Indeed the Church has been quick to claim the picture of life at Thansethan as "Sulien" shows it, while rejecting other parts of this "eyewitness" account out of hand.

There are many parts of the text which show an intimate familiarity with the thirteenth century in which it is purported to be set. Sulien always calls the islands Tir Tanagiri and Tir Isarnagiri, though these "Tir" prefixes had ceased to be in use by the time of Gwyn Dariensson's Code of Laws, and the island was already the familiar Tanager by the time of Alward. Yet she calls the islanders "Tanagans" and "Isar-nagans" and not

"Tirtanagans" as we find in the Vincan period, for example in Decius Manicius. This is precisely as we would expect for the transition period. In many other ways—for example the description of the training of the alae and the growth of villages—she has been vindicated by archaeology. Martinsson's (Proof of Forgery of the

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Sulien Text, 2731) denunciation of the name of the otherwise unknown "Masarn" because the word "masarn,"

"a maple tree," was not in use until the discovery of maples in the Trans-Iarla lands in the twenty-second century, must be dismissed. The book cannot have been tampered with since it came to Scatha and the possession of the Hanver family a hundred years before the discovery of the New World. The name Masarn must have some other origin. Hartley's ("A Possible Southern Connection" in Journal of Vincan Studies, Summer 2745) fanciful coupling with the common Sifacian name "Massinissa" must regrettably be dismissed, as, unless he had come, like Elhanen the Great, on an elephant across all the Vincan lands, how could a Sifacian have been in Tan-ager at that time?

Yet to place against these historical accuracies we have typical miracle tales of the period. What are we to make of a work which, on the one hand contains a detailed description of a stable block that has been excavated precisely as described, and on the other repeats miracle stories like the three days' night and the magical water on Foreth? Brother Ivor's comment that "She cannot even decide consistently which set of Heathen Gods she worships" (Ivor, op. cit.) is unfair, but certainly the personal appearance of gods in the text takes it out of the realm of history into that of fable.

We must regretfully dismiss the idea that this may be the famous "boke" on which Galfrid of Thanmarchel claimed to have based his famous "The King and the Kingdom." For one thing, Galfrid states clearly that his

"boke" was written "in the ancient Tanagan language," whereas the Sulien text is in Vincan and certainly has not been re-translated back into Vincan. There is also Kunnarsson's (The Sulien Text: A Reconsideration, University of Stellanova Press, 2751) very well-considered point,

"If the author of the Sulien text was attempting to give us the history behind the myth, they made a mistake and gave us the wrong half, explaining the things that nobody believed anyway and leaving out the plausible parts of the story most beloved by the poets." I believe, with Prof. Kunnarsson, that these omissions are evidence for the genuine, or at least very early, nature of the text.

The burden of proof that the work was not written by Sulien ap Gwien under the circumstances she states in the text, lies with those who would suggest otherwise. Until we have permission to fulfill the late Prof. Kahn's dream and excavate at Derwen, unless and until we discover the lead casket she says she wished to place in the walls (and which her great-nephew says he had done to her desire), then we will have no proof either way.

—Prof. Estin Jonson, Dept. of Sub-Vincan History, University of Dunidin, 2754 AUC.

Up to now they used to shiver every time they heard mention of the Romans' skill in warfare, but now they are victorious, and we die, nobly, as befits brave men, but perishing all the same.

— Libanius, 378

Let the dead be carried gently;

let them wonder, who are living, what choice shall be tomorrow.

—Graydon Saunders, "The Pebble," 1998

—1—

The swallows fly low tonight, swooping and soaring, soon the rain will come.

I trudge uphill to the dun, children run past me.

My breath comes slowly.

They all held me mighty, then, blood on the spearblade, death in bright sunlight.

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Better the spear had caught me, in my youth, my pride.

Before my defeat.

It brings me grief, not comfort, he died long ago upright, like a man.

Very few care for me now.

Rain makes my bones ache.

My deeds forgotten.

The swallows recall to mind time gone, chances missed, and my only son.

— "The Lament of Atha ap Gren"

The first I knew about the civil war was when my sister Aurien poisoned me.

I was in her hall in Magor. I spent most of my time at Der-wen, but half the ala were stationed a day's ride away at Magor and I rode down to see them and exchange troops quite regularly. I enjoyed going, it made a break in my routine. I had nothing to do there but the work of a praefecto. Aurien needed no help running

Magor. She was always cool and polite toward me but never more. Her boys, however, were always pleased to see me. She did have the decency to wait until they had gone to bed before poisoning me, which probably saved my life. It meant she had to put it into the cider, not the food, where anyone would have just thought she had been heavy-handed with the spices. It was the very end of spring, never a good time for meat, and she had four extra mouths to feed.

I had brought Conal Fishface and Emlin with me and Emer was there, too, on her way back from a visit to

Caer Tanaga. As soon as I saw her there I thought that Conal had known she would be and felt angry with him for using me like that. He did not eat with us, of course, but he joined us in the eating alcove afterward. I

was saying good night to the boys. Galbian, the fifteen-year-old Duke of Magor, bowed like the adult he almost was. Thirteen-year-old Gwien, the heir to Derwen, was still young enough to go off reluctantly, begging for rides and stories tomorrow. Aurien over-protected them. If I said anything to her about it she would reply by saying she would bear in mind all my experience of child-rearing. But the consequence of her fussing was that they ran off to the barracks when they could and didn't tell her their adventures. I was glad Galbian would be in the ala next year; both the discipline and the training would do him good. Aurien set her lips and said nothing when they talked about winning glory at war.

Conal sat down beside me, and Aurien poured out the cider. She had brought out a board set with beakers and a heavy stone jug. She poured for Emer first, then for me, then Emlin, Conal, and for herself last. None of her people were sitting with us that night, not even Father Cinwil who was usually her constant companion.

She raised her beaker to me, and drank. I drank in return. I noticed the bitterness almost at once, but I had still in politeness drained almost half the cup before I set it down. I could feel my tongue thickening in my mouth.

"What news from Caer Tanaga?" Aurien asked Emer.

"Very little," Emer said. "Some of the allied kings are late sending their taxes this year, it seems."

"And how are Urdo and your sister?" Aurien asked.

I leaned forward to pick up my beaker to drink some more and see if it would clear the strangeness in my mouth and throat. As I did so I realized that my body wasn't responding the way it should. "I don't feel well—"

I began, but the words came out slurred.

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"I think the cider has been too much for Sulien," Aurien said, and laughed. "She went off drinking with the armigers before dinner, and that cup has set her over the edge."

I tried to protest that I had taken no strong drink since the night before, but instead I slid down toward the table. My eyes were half open. I could see, but I had lost control of my body.

Conal leaned toward me and deftly sniffed at my cup while his body shielded him from Aurien.

He lifted me so I was sitting up again. "It wasn't with the armigers she was drinking but with me," he said. "We were having a contest and it seems I have won." Again I tried to protest that there wasn't a word of truth in it, but my mouth wouldn't obey me. My mind was working slowly, because it was only now I knew I'd been poisoned. Being poisoned at meat at my own sister's table was something that I had never feared.

"These soldiers, I don't know how they put up with each other," Aurien said to Emer. Emer laughed politely. I

couldn't see her. She must have known Conal was lying. "I'll call for some water," Aurien went on.

"I think, as it is my fault she's in this condition, I'd better take the praefecto to bed," Conal said, heaving me to my feet.

"She can walk, the legs are always the last to go. Perhaps you'll give me a hand, ap Trivan?"

"Just put her straight to bed, she'll be all right," Aurien I said. "She often does this, and it always passes off by morning."

I couldn't speak to deny this. I felt Emlin heave up my I other shoulder, but I couldn't feel my legs at all. "My apologies, Lady," he said to Aurien.

"Really, it isn't you who needs to apologize," she said. "No doubt I'll hear enough excuses from my sister in the morning. I'll send some water to her room, but I don't expect she'll recover consciousness tonight now;

she never does."

"It must be very hard on her to drink so much," Emer was I saying as Conal and Emlin half carried and half dragged me out of the hall. As soon as we were outside I felt as if I was I being pulled in half.

"It's this way," Emlin said.

"The midden first," Conal said. "She has to be sick."

"If she's had that much to drink—" Emlin began, when I Conal interrupted him in a savage whisper.

"She hasn't had anything beyond that half cup. I was lying to give myself a reason to take charge of her in time. She's been poisoned and we need to get it out of her."

"Poisoned?" Emlin echoed. "Poisoned? Why?" They started to drag me again, this time out toward the midden. It was twilight outside. A chill wind was blowing. I tried to breathe deeply but couldn't even manage that. I wasn't sure if I was breathing at all, I couldn't feel it.

"Why, I can't think; it's ridiculous to poison someone at your own table but I know who, and what. It was henbane. I could smell it. From the look of her it was a strong dose—it I doesn't usually act quite that fast.