Taliesin

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The high king’s body was taken to an inner chamber in the Temple of the Sun where it was prepared by the Magi for burial in an elaborate and ancient rite lasting six days and nights. The funeral of the High King took place three days later: a cautiously splendid affair, attended by the remaining kings who wore appropriately somber expressions and spoke the required eulogies in words carefully measured and precise. Though undoubtedly some other than the High Queen were genuinely sorry at the death of Ceremon, the secret was well kept.

Seithenin, anxious to return to pressing business at home, left Poseidonis the morning following the funeral. Avallach and the other kings lingered a few more days for appearance’ sake. The matter of succession had been settled and there was little to be done, either in the way of comforting the grieving widow or in seeing to official details.

For Charis, however, the extra days were special ones. Since there was nothing else for her to do, she was allowed to roam the city at will with her brothers, visiting one famous site after another: the Royal Temple of the Sun with its subterranean bull pits and astronomical towers; the magnificent harbor, with the monstrous bronze statue of Poseidon rising from the waves, golden trident in hand, surrounded by a company of boisterous blue dolphins; the royal library, boasting hundreds of thousands of volumes in every known language of the world; the enormous, teeming market square with its sphinx fountains; the hot-spring grotto shrines in the hills… and more.

When the day of their departure finally arrived, Charis climbed reluctantly into the carriage beside her mother. She stared sullenly as the carriage wheels rolled out upon the Processional Way and over the ordered succession of bridges, passing through the three concentric zones of the city. As they reached the Avenue of Porticoes, Queen Briseis turned to her daughter and said, “Cheer up, Charis, you will come back again one day.”

Yes, I will come back, she thought. I will make this city mine. Thereafter Charis ceased looking over her shoulder and set her face to the road ahead-the road which would one day bring her back.

The next days were as much the same as if they had been drawn by the same hand from the same well: Bel’s disk rose and set, they slept under cloudless, star-splashed skies, and the white road passed slowly beneath their wheels.

One morning early in the second week of the journey, the long train of coaches entered the dark fastness of forest at the far border of King Seithenin’s lands. Glad for a respite from the hot noonday sun, Avallach allowed them to linger in the shade-bound coolness after their midday meal. He and the queen napped, as did the rest of the retinue, all stretching out under leafy bowers to sleep oif the thick, noonday torpor.

Charis could not bear the thought of a nap, however, and instead wandered the nearby forest pathways plucking late-blooming wildflowers and gathering a small bouquet of delicate acacia roses and camellias, humming the song she had begun singing the night of the bull sacrifice, her voice falling like small silver rain into the silence of the forest.

She did not realize exactly how far she had strayed from camp until she heard a distant shout and knew that someone had been sent to fetch her. She turned at once and began running back, dodging along the winding path, hoping to recover the distance before she was found.

Closer, she heard more shouts. Men’s voices, taut and fearful. She dropped the bouquet and ran faster. Horses screamed. She heard the solid ring of weapons as they clashed in the shattered stillness. “What is happening?” she wondered, suddenly terrified. What could it be? Moments later, out of breath, heart lumping terribly in her chest, she reached the place where the traveling party waited.

An unthinkable horror met her eyes: men staggered bleeding with cloven heads, or, limbless, sat in mute shock contemplating their severed members. Many more lay on blood-soaked ground staring upward out of cloudy eyes, arrow shafts bristling from their throats and chests.

Avallach was nowhere to be seen, nor was Briseis or her brothers. Charis shrieked and rushed into the nightmare, panic a cold fist in her stomach. She raced among the dead and dying, crying for her family in a voice choked with terror.

She stumbled over something on the ground, fell headlong over it to discover herself in the unfeeling embrace of the half-headed corpse of the queen’s maidservant, Dean. She gathered her feet under her and reeled away. “Mother!” she screamed. “Mother! Where are you?”

The queen’s coach still waited where it had stopped beside the road. One horse had broken free of its harness; the other lay sprawled, sides heaving, four arrowshafts protruding from its stomach. Charis went to the coach. Queen Briseis lay on the ground beside the rear wheel, a long, ragged gash at the base of her throat and another on her wrist where she had thrown up a protecting hand.

Her skin shone with the waxy pallor of death and her unfocused eyes stared fixedly at the vast blue nothing of the sky above, as starkly empty as the eyes that beheld it. There was blood, too much blood everywhere; blood stained the ground beneath her head, stained her broken skin and the torn clothing, and still it flowed from the deep and savage wounds.

“Mother…” whispered Charis. “Oh, Mother…”

Briseis’ eyes shifted but remained empty and softly veiled. “Charis,” said her mother thickly. Crimson bubbles formed at the corner of her mouth. “I… cannot see you, Charis…”

“I am here, Mother.”

“Charis… can you hear me?”

“Yes… I hear you,” she said and bent close, taking her mother’s face in her hands. “I am here. We are safe now.”

“Oh… The others?”

“Safe, too, I think. I cannot find them. I cannot find Father.”

“It is cold here… Cover me, Charis…”

“Yes…” Charis reached for a travel robe from the carriage and arranged it over Briseis. “Is that better?”

“I am tired…” Briseis’ eyes closed slowly. “… so tired… Hold me…”

“No. Please, no!” Charis cradled her mother, pressing her cheek against Briseis’ forehead.

“Take care of them, Charis…” The queen’s voice was the breath of a whisper. “There is… no one else…”

Briseis coughed once as a tremor passed through her body, and then lay still.

When Charis lifted her head a little while later she saw Annubi’s long form shambling through the carnage. She rose from her mother’s side and went to him, catching his hand as he stumbled along. “She is dead… My mother is dead.”

“This should not have happened,” he said, turning neither right nor left. “This was not foreseen.”

“Where are my brothers, Annubi?” demanded Charis shrilly. “Where are my brothers?”

“Safe. I kept them safe,” he answered.

‘ ‘And my father, Annubi-where is he?” She was sobbing again.

“Rode after them… Nestor’s men. They attacked while we slept-slaughtered us in our sleep. Treachery. I have been asleep.”

He stopped and turned to Charis, his features quickening once more. “You said something about your mother?”

“She is gone!” Charis cried. “Oh, Annubi, she is… dead… dead.”

“Where?”

“Over there,” replied Charis, pointing toward the coach.

The seer went to the body, knelt down, and placed his hand against the queen’s cheek. “I am sorry, Briseis,” he murmured. ‘ ‘We saw but did not see… So blind… I should have seen this; I should have prevented it. A royal death… I thought… the High King’s…”He shook his head wearily. “I did not think there would be others. I was asleep… too long, too long.” Charis, standing near, began to sob.

He stiffened and turned abruptly, taking Charis by the shoulders. “No, Charis, there is no time for tears now.”

“I do not understand,” she cried. “I was picking flowers… I heard… I found her…” Her chin began to quiver.

“I know. But you must not think of yourself just now. There are others to tend to. We will mourn later; now there is work to do. I need you to help me with the wounded.”

She sniffed and wiped at her eyes, and together they began surveying the horrid scene, searching among the bodies, separating the living from the dead and administering what little aid they could.

Charis worked without thought, senses numb, her hands and feet moving to Annubi’s direction. She helped bind wounds and set broken bones-pulling here, holding there, lifting, tugging, wrapping, tying as Annubi instructed her. They were still so engaged when they heard the sound of horses on the road ahead.

“Hide yourself!” Annubi hissed.

Charis stood unmoving. The seer took her arm and spun her around. “Under the carriage. Quickly!”

At that moment a chariot flashed into view. Avallach, bleeding from wounds to his shoulder and chest, lit from the chariot and came toward them. Charis ran to him, throwing her arms around him. “Father, are you all right?”

Avallach disentangled himself and moved slowly to the queen’s carriage, stood a moment looking down, then knelt and gathered up the body of his wife. He carried his queen to the shaded place beneath the tree where they had been asleep before the attack; he lay her down gently and folded her hands over her breast.

Charis came to stand beside Mm and reached for his hand. “She came back for you,” said Avallach without looking at her. “She was safe but came back to find you.” He pulled his hand away.

Kian rode in just then with the remains of Avallach’s entourage-fewer than half the troop that had left Sarras. The king turned quickly and began shouting orders, saying, “We will ride on to Seithenin’s. I want to reach his palace by nightfall.” He turned to his seer. “Annubi, bring the princes. I want to see them now.”

Shallow graves were scratched in the dust, and the dead buried where they had fallen. The body of the queen was covered and placed in her carriage. Charis was made to ride alone with the body. Annubi, thinking this a harsh and unnecessary punishment, tried to intervene. “Sire,” he offered, “allow me to keep the child with me. You need have no thought for her then.”

“She rides with the queen,” declared Avallach firmly.

By late afternoon, the king’s party was moving again. As the coaches rolled away Charis looked back: a morbid tranquillity had claimed the scene, with bare earth mounds scattered alongside the road and among the trees, and the corpses of horses, already swarming with flies, bearing mute witness to the atrocity that had taken place.

They reached Seithenin’s palace in the dead of night. The gates had long since been closed but were hastily reopened when it was learned who waited out on the road. Seithenin, barefoot and dressed in his night robe, met them in the forecourt of his many-hailed palace. He greeted Avallach and, after a brief consultation, sent his seneschals scurrying back into the palace. Magi appeared a few minutes later and the body of the queen was consigned to their care. “Go with them, Annubi,” Avallach ordered, and followed Seithenin into the palace.

“I will come to you later,” Annubi told Charis. “Eat something if you can.”

Charis nodded sadly. The stewards came for the others and conducted them to sleeping quarters. Charis and her brothers were given rooms in the royal chambers-Charis alone, the princes in rooms of their own.

Bare to the waist, Avallach sat on a stool while a Mage worked over him, cleaning his wounds with an aromatic salve and wrapping them in new bandages. Seithenin sat opposite, his expression fierce but his eyes coolly remote as he listened to Avallach’s recitation of the tragic events of that afternoon.

“They came upon us from both sides at once,” said Avallach. “There was no warning. We were asleep beside the road. There were four of them to every one of us. Swords and bows. They shot from horseback and then rode over us, hacking with their blades at anything that moved. It was over in an instant and they scattered.

“Ahh!” Avallach grimaced with pain.

“Be careful, you clumsy half-wit!” Seithenin shouted at the Mage, who apologized benignly and continued with his work.

Avallach gulped and continued, ‘ ‘I rallied a handful of men and we rode after them. They left the road and we lost them in the forest soon after.”

The Mage finished and withdrew silently. Seithenin produced a robe and draped it over Avallach’s shoulders, then handed him a bowl of unmixed wine. “Drink this… it will calm you.”

Avallach raised the bowl to his lips, saying “Dragging Nestor through the streets behind my chariot and nailing his headless carcass to my gate would calm me more.”

“It was Nestor? You are certain?”

Avallach gave Seithenin a sharp look. “Who else?”

“Did you see him?”

“No!” Avallach started from his stool. “But by the gods I know who it was.”

“Sit, sit.” Seithenin motioned him back down. “Drink your wine. I only wondered if he dared show himself.”

“Would you?”

Seithenin shook his head. “No, I would not.” He paused, looked at Avallach sadly, and said, “That this hateful thing has happened on my land fills me with anger and remorse. My men are yours to command, Avallach, if you wish to send them out”

Avallach shook his head wearily. “I would do so if I thought there was even the narrowest hope of catching him. No, he has run too far to catch him now.”

“What will you do?”

“I will go home and bury my wife,” Avallach replied dully. He sipped the wine, and his features relaxed as some of the tension left his muscles.

“And then?”

“I cannot say.”

Seithenin rose abruptly. “Of course. There is no need to think about it tonight. I will leave so you can rest. We will talk tomorrow.” He moved toward the door where he paused and turned back. “I am sorry for the death of the queen, Avallach. I grieve with you. Briseis was a remarkable woman. You have my sympathy.” He bade Avallach good night and left, closing the door gently behind him.

Charis sat on the edge of the bed and stared at a wall painting of a smiling brown boy on a blue dolphin amidst a sea boiling with creatures of all descriptions. She heard the door to her room creak as it swung open and then hesitant footsteps as someone entered.

“Charith?” said a soft voice. “Oh, Charith, I am thorry.”

The princess looked around slowly. It was Liban, wearing a thin nightshift, an expression of deepest sorrow on her round face. “I heard about your” She could not make herself say the words but came to her friend and put her arms around her. “Oh, Charith… I heard.”

“It was terrible,” said Charis. “Terrible, Liban. She was all chopped up… I saw her die…”

“Do not thay it.” She took Charis’ hands and sank down beside her on the bed. They sat for a long time in silence; there were no words for what they were feeling.

The moon rose and poured pale light into the room. Liban stirred, taking Charis by the hand. “Here, lie down and try to thleep. I will come back in the morning.” Charis lay down, and Liban pulled a cover over her and tiptoed out. “It was my fault,” murmured Charis, dry-eyed in the darkness. “I am to blame.”

The next morning Charis awakened early, alone in her room. When Liban came for her she found Charis sitting on the bed, her hair pulled back and tied, her clothes rumpled in the night. Together they went to the kitchen to eat breakfast with some of Seithenin’s younger children. Eoinn and Guistan were among them, subdued but apparently unscathed by the attack. They acknowledged her presence as she passed and continued their conversation with three of Seithenin’s sons.

“… a thousand,” Eionn was saying. “No, ten thousand!” put in Guistan. “And all with long swords,” said Eoinn. “And arrows a span long!” added Guistan. “Their horses were fast,” said Eoinn. “Kian said they ran so fast they disappeared!” replied Guistan.

“Vultures!” Liban snapped, stamping her foot.

“Aw, Liban,” whined one of the older boys, “we just want to hear what happened.”

“I will tell you what happened! People were killed-that ith what happened.” Her glance lit on Eoinn and Guistan. “Your own mother wath killed. Do you even care?”

She whirled away and led Charis to a far corner of the room where there was a small table near the hearth. One of the cooks brought them a plate of wheat cakes and fruit. They ate quietly and in a few minutes the boys trooped out.

“They are not really my brotherth,” Liban lisped.

This brought a brief smile to Charis’ lips, but her eyes remained dull. “My own brothers are just as bad.”

“Thumtimeth I think the midwife thtole the royal children and put their own brath in the cradle inthtead.”

“Not likely is it?” Charis brightened somewhat.

“Maybe not, but it would exthplain much.”

Charis laughed. “Sometimes I like to think that my brothers are foundlings and that I am the only true child of Aval-lach and Bris” Her voice faltered.

“Come,” suggested Liban, “we will go to my room and you can tell me all about the royal city. I have never been to Potheidonith.”

“It will take days to tell,” warned Charis, following Liban out.

“Well, you had all the fun; now it is time to mare.”

The girls struck off toward Liban’s room, crossing a huge vaulted vestibule.

“Charis!”

The harshness of the voice stopped them in midstep and turned them around. King Avallach stood with his hands on his hips, frowning down at them from a stairway. “Father?” Charis’ voice echoed in the vastness of the chamber.

“We are leaving at once. Go out into the forecourt and wait there for the carriages.”

Charis opened her mouth to reply, but Avallach turned and was gone. She stood looking after him.

“I will wait with you,” said Liban.

They waited together, neither one speaking very much, until it was time to leave. “Farewell, Charith,” called Liban as Charis climbed into the queen’s coach. This time her mother’s body was neatly wrapped in a scented linen shroud, prepared for burial. Again Annubi tried to intercede for her, but Avallach insisted she ride with her mother’s corpse alone.

An escort of Seithenin’s men rode with them all the way to Sarras, but the countryside remained peaceful and secure, and although they stopped to question farmers and merchants along the way, no one had seen a force of men such as Aval-lach described. Thus, news of Briseis’ death raced before them so that by the time they reached the Royal Way leading to Avallach’s palace, the road was lined with mourners, each waving a solitary olive branch.

Two days later Briseis’ body, dressed all in green and gold with a golden tiara on her brow, was carried in an open carriage beneath a canopy of green silk from the palace to the royal tomb.

The white marble tomb sat on top of a grassy hill and was reached by a long, switchback flight of stairs from the valley Below. The bier was drawn by a team of black horses and was led by three chariots, each pulled by a matched team of blacks with long black plumes affixed to their harnesses. Avallach, Kian, and Maildun each drove one of the chariots and Eoinn, Guistan, and Charis rode with them.

The route from the palace descended through the apple groves and passed through a wood before reaching the hillside stairway. Charis stood beside Maildun, grim and silent, while the chariot made its way down from the palace, through the streets of Kellios to the hilltop tomb. When the funeral procession reached the wooded valley, she turned to see the throng of mourners stretching back all the way along the road to Kellios.

Something about the scene made her stare. What was it that looked so familiar? she wondered. An instant later she was pierced by the certainty that she had seen it before: the chariots, the black-plumed horses, the people following the bier-it had all been revealed to her in the murky, swirling depths of the Lia Fail.

Charis’ mind squirmed and she swayed on her feet. Her hands gripped the chariot rail and she lurched against the side of the vehicle. Maildun took one look at her suddenly-pale features and said, “Turn around; you make yourself sick twisting around like that.”

She straightened and turned her eyes back to the road ahead and the white tomb shimmering on the hill in the night noonday sunlight. “Charis, what are you doing?” Maildun’s voice buzzed in her ears. She looked at him and his image wavered in her sight like that of the tomb shifting in the waves of heat off the hilltop. “Charis?”

I have seen this before, she thought and remembered that she had seen something else that day as well-a wild dark man dressed in pelts, with prophecy on his sunburned lips. I saw him; I saw Throm. I saw my mother’s funeral… I saw it all, and I did nothing to prevent it. I saw but did not see.

Briseis’ body was carried slowly up the long stairway to the tomb, where it was placed on a marble stand bedecked with green silk and garlands of flowers. The royal family stood to one side while the people of Saras filed past, weeping profusely in a great demonstration of grief and calling on Bel to carry the soul of their departed monarch in his blazing chariot into the underworld’s Shadow Realm.

At length the body was borne away to a great stone sarcophagus deep in the underground vaults of the tornb. Magi supervised her interment by torchlight, chanting the droning death songs to ease the soul’s passage into the Otherworld while they made the final important preparations, fitting the queen’s body for its everlasting journey. Charis’ endured the ceremony impassively, her lips pressed firmly together.

At last the massive stone lid was slowly lowered over the queen’s body and fitted into place, sliding down into the grooves with a grinding hollow thump. As the others turned to go, Charis crept from her place and stepped to the sarcophagus. She slipped the jade bracelet from her wrist and placed it atop the carven image on the lid. She followed the others from the tomb, stepping into the gathering dusk.

Cybel’s disk loomed above the eastern horizon, pale and swollen. The valley lay in deep blue shadow and the air breathed with night’s chill. Without looking back Charis started down the steps. “Rest well, Mother,” she murmured to herself. “I loved you.”