Taliesin

CHAPTER TWO

Taliesin stood in the center of the bower, hand clasped tightly behind his back, eyes closed, intoning his lesson with a scholar’s practiced gravity while a brown wood wren chittered on a branch above him. Hafgan sat on a stump, a rowan staff across his lap listening absently to his pupil’s recital as he scanned the blue patch of sky visible through the trees overhead.

“… of the fishes with shells,” said Taliesin, “there are three kinds: those with feet and legs to move, and those with neither feet nor legs that do not move but lie passive in the sand, and those that affix themselves to rocks and… and” His eyes peeped open. “And I forget what comes next.”

Hafgan drew his eyes from the sky and spared a stern scowl for the boy. “You forget what comes next because your mind is not on your recitation. You are somewhere else entirely, Taliesin, and not with the fish in the sea.”

Taliesin looked solemn for a moment but no longer. The joy of the day had welled up within him so that he could contain it no longer, and he burst into a grin. “Oh, Hafgan,” he said, running to the druid, “my father is coming home today! He has been away all summer. I cannot think about stupid fish.”

“I would give my serpent’s egg for an ovate but half as smart as any stupid fish.”

“You know what I mean.”

“How do I know if you do not say it, lad?” Hafgan reached out and tousled the boy’s golden hair. “But the opportune moment is passed; we prattle here to no purpose. Let us go back and you can wait for your father with the other boys.”

Taliesin clapped his hands. “But,” Hafgan cautioned, “on the way back you shall tell me about the uses of saxifrage root.”

“Saxifrage? Never heard of it.”

“Just for that you can tell me in rhyme,” replied Hafgan.

“Catch me first!” Taliesin called over his shoulder as he raced away.

“You think me too slow?” Hafgan leaped after the boy, caught him up, and lifted him high.

“Stop!” cried Taliesin, squirming helplessly. “I yield! I yield!”

But even before the words were out of his mouth, Hafgan had dropped him back onto his feet. “Shh!”

“What is”

“Shh!” the druid hissed. “Listen!”

Taliesin fell instantly silent, turning his head this way and that to capture any stray, wind-carried sound. He heard nothing but the ordinary sounds of a woodland steeped in summer.

At last Hafgan relaxed. He looked at the boy. “What did you hear?”

Taliesin shook his head. “I heard the wren, a wood pigeon, bees, leaves rustling in the breeze-that is all.”

Hafgan stooped to retrieve his staff and straightened, brushing grass and twigs from his gray mantle.

“Well,” demanded Taliesin lightly, “what did you hear?”

“It must have been the bees.”

“Tell me.”

“I heard what you heard,” replied the druid. He turned and began walking back toward the caer.

“Ah, Hafgan, tell me what you heard that I did not hear.”

“I heard three crickets, a moorhen, the stream yonder, and something else.”

“What else?” The boy brightened at once. “My father?” he asked hopefully.

Hafgan stopped and turned to his pupil. “No, it was not your father. It was something else-it may not have come to me from the world of men, now that I think about it. It was a groan-a long, low groan of deep enduring pain.”

Taliesin stopped walking and closed his eyes once more, listening for what Hafgan had heard. The druid walked a few steps and turned back. “You will hear nothing now. The sound has gone. Perhaps I imagined it in the first place. Come, let us go back.”

Taliesin joined his teacher and they walked to Caer Dyvi in silence. When they reached the village they were met by Blaise, who was sitting somewhat anxiously at the outer gates. When he saw his master, the young man ran to him.

“Did you hear, Hafgan?” He saw the answer to his question on his master’s face and asked, “What do you make of it?”

Hafgan turned to Taliesin and said, “Run along home now. Tell your mother we have returned.”

Taliesin did not move.

“Get along with you,” insisted Hafgan.

“If you send me away, I will only spy on you to hear what you say.”

“As you wish, Taliesin,” the druid relented. He turned back to Blaise and said, “It will bear study, but I think it may be beginning.”

Blaise stared for a moment and then sputtered, “But-but how? Is it time? I thought-thought it would be-be…”

“That it would be some other time? Why? All things happen in their season.”

“Yes, but-now?”

“Why not now?”

“What is beginning?” demanded Taliesin. “What is it? Is it about the Dark Time?” He had heard the druid speak of it before, though he knew little about it.

Hafgan glanced at the boy. “Yes,” he said. “If I read the signs aright, the time is fast approaching when the world will undergo mighty travail. There will be storms and great rend-ings; the stony roots of the deep with be disturbed and old foundations shaken. Empires will fall, Taliesin, and empires will rise.”

“To what end?”

Hafgan hid a smile of pride. Young as he was, the boy had the knack of piercing to the heart of the matter with a question. “Ah,” he said, “that is what we all want to know. Get you home now; your mother will be wondering what became of you.”

Taliesin turned reluctantly to go. “You must tell me when you figure it out.”

“I will tell you, Taliesin.” The boy walked off dragging his feet and then, overcome by a sudden fit of exuberance, leaped over a stump and raced away.

“Watch him, Blaise,” said Hafgan. “His like will not soon come again. And yet, great as he will be”

“One greater is to come. I know. You tell me often enough.”

The druid’s head jerked toward his filidh. “Do I tax you with my aimless nattering?”

Blaise grinned. “Never more than I can bear.”

“Perhaps you would rather join Indeg at the Baddon Cora-he is getting on wonderfully, so I am told. Instructing the indolent sons of very wealthy men. You might do as well.”

“I have my hands full with just the one indolent son and his cranky druid.”

Hafgan placed a hand on the young man’s shoulder and they started through the caer. “You have chosen well, Blaise. Still, I know it must sometimes seem as if you are stuck all alone in the world’s furthest outpost watching and waiting as life hastens by in the distance.”

“I do not mind.”

“You could travel, as I have told you. You could go to Gaul, or Galiza, or Armorica. Anywhere. There is still time. I could spare you yet a while.”

“I really do not mind, Hafgan,” said Blaise. “I am content. I know that what we do here is important. I Believe that it is.”

“And your faith will be rewarded tenfold, a hundredfold!” The druid stopped and turned slowly. “Look around you, Blaise!” he said, gray eyes gazing past his surroundings as through a window into another world. “We are in the center. This” He swung his staff in an arc before his face. “This is the center. The world does not know it yet, perhaps never will. But it is here. It is here that the future will be decided. Whatever happens in the age to come will owe to us for its beginnings. And we, Blaise, we are history’s midwives. Think of it!”

He wheeled suddenly toward Blaise, his face radiant with the power of his vision. “Important? Yes! Many times more important than anyone now alive can guess, more important even than you or I imagine. Though we be forgotten, our silent shadows will stretch across all future ages.”

“You speak of shadows, Hafgan.”

“In the Age of Light, all that has gone before will seem as shadow.”

Taliesin squirmed on a rock overlooking both the track along the sea cliffs and the trail from the woods leading to the caer-either one of which his father might choose. Four other boys bore noisy vigil with him, clambering among the rocks, seeing who could throw stones the furthest. The day had been calm and bright, but clouds were sliding in from the west, low and dark, full of tomorrow’s rain.

Watching the clouds, and thinking about what Hafgan had said earlier, Taliesin felt himself drifting, his mind sailing free like a bird loosed from its cage. He let himself go and it was like flying. He rose up on tiptoes. The air shimmered as with noonday heat. He still saw the boys playing around him, heard their careless talk, but their forms had become vaguely blurred and their voices echoed to him as if from far away. A murmuring roar filled his ears, like that of the ocean breaking on the beach after a storm.

He turned his eyes toward the west and the clouds gliding in. The water gleamed like oiled sunlight, and further out, just at the horizon, he saw an island. It glistened and shone like a faceted stone or polished glass, and was nearly as transparent: an isle of glass.

The beams of light glancing off its central peak struck his eyes, pierced them like spears and passed through him. The fire of their passing burned his bones. He felt brittle, as if he would shatter.

The roar increased. He could make it out now. It was a chorus of voices. They cried out as one:

Lost! All is lost! The gods are fallen from on high, and we die. We die! All is lost… lost… lost…

The voices trailed away. Taliesin looked and the Isle of Glass faded, its outline dim and vanishing like a vapor on the wind. Then it was gone and he was standing at the edge of the cliff, trembling, the sound of his friends’ voices booming in his ears, his head throbbing.

“Taliesin!” shouted one of the bigger boys. “What is wrong? Taliesin! Quick, one of you run and fetch his mother!”

Taliesin shook his head and stared at the others gathered around him. “No… no-it was nothing.”

“You looked like you were in a fit,” said another boy. “You said you saw it. What did you see?”

Taliesin glanced out at the sea again; the horizon was clean and empty. “I thought I saw something that was not there.” The other boys craned their necks to study the sea, and it came to him that they would not understand, perhaps would never understand. “It is gone now. It was nothing.”

“Maybe a boat,” offered one of the smaller boys, gazing fearfully out at the huge expanse of ocean.

“A boat,” replied Taliesin. “Yes, maybe it was only a boat.”

The boys fidgeted uneasily. “I’m hungry,” said one. “I think I’ll go in now.”

“Me too,” seconded another.

“I have to feed the pigs,” remembered a third.

“Not me,” replied Turl, the older one. “You go on. I’m waitin’ for my father. Right, Taliesin? Me and Taliesin will wait all night if we have to.”

The others left, jumping over the rocks and down to the little dell, on the other side of which rose the hump of hill on which the caer was built. The two boys sat down on the rock and watched the sun slide nearer the western sea.

“I am going to Talybont soon,” said Turl presently. “My uncle lives there; he is going to learn me my arms. I shall stay in his house until I be old enough to ride the Wall with my Da.” He stared at Taliesin sitting silently beside him. “What about you?”

Taliesin shrugged. “I will stay here, I think.” He had never heard anyone suggest otherwise, at least not in his presence. “Anyway, I have to stay with Hafgan.”

“He’s a gelding!” hooted Turl. “All druids are, says my cousin, and he is old enough to ride the Wall next year.”

“Your cousin is a fool,” muttered Taliesin darkly.

“What do you do with him all day?” wondered Turl, letting the slight to his cousin go unheeded.

“We talk. He teaches me things.”

“What sort of things?”

“All sorts of things.”

“Druid things?”

Taliesin was not sure what his friend meant by that. “Maybe,” he allowed. “Birds and plants and trees, medicine, how to read stars, things like that. Useful things.”

“Teach me something,” taunted Turl.

“Well,” Taliesin replied slowly, looking about, “you see that bird down there?” He pointed to a white seabird skimming the waves Below them. “That one is called a blackcap.”

“Anybody knows that!” laughed Turl.

“It only eats insects,” continued Taliesin. “It scoops them off the water.” The bird’s head swung down and its beak sliced a v-shaped ripple in the tidepool Below. “Like that- did you see?”

Turl smiled broadly. “Coo! I never knew that.”

“Hafgan knows more than that-he knows everything.”

“Could I come and learn with you?”

“What about your uncle?”

Turl offered no reply; so they sat together, flaking the yellow lichen from the rock, until Taliesin jumped to his feet. “What is it?” asked Turl.

“Come on!” cried Taliesin, already running over the rocks toward the woodland trail on the far side of the dell. “They are coming!”

“I don’t see anyone!”

“They are coming!”

Turl hurried after Taliesin and soon caught up with him. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“I know,” replied Taliesin as they ran along.

They ran across the grassy hollow of the dell and up the knoll on the other side. Taliesin reached the knoll first and stared at the place where the bare dirt track crested the hill beyond. “I don’t see them,” said Turl.

“Wait.” Taliesin shaded his eyes with a hand and squinted hard at the road as if he would make them appear by force of will. Then they heard it-a light jingling sound, followed by the deeper drumming of horses’ hooves.

A moment later they saw a prickly forest of gleaming lance-heads sprout from the crown of the hill. The forest grew and men appeared beneath the shining arc of their weapons, and then the horses were sweeping down the near side of the hill and the boys were racing down to meet them, yelling, arms outspread as if they would fly straight into their fathers’ arms. “Da! Da!” they cried.

The leader of the warband turned toward them and nudged the man riding next to him. He raised his hand and the column cantered to a stop as the boys came running toward them. Taliesin stared; his father wore the short red cloak of a centurion and the stiff leather breastplate. At his side was the broad-bladed gladius. He looked every inch a Roman commander-except for the fact that his cloak was fastened at his shoulder by a great silver wolf’s-head brooch with ruby eyes and his trousers were bright blue. “We have been watching for you all day! I knew you would come before sunset,” said Taliesin.

Elphin took one look at Taliesin’s face and declared, “Was there ever a better welcome home?”

“No, lord,” replied Cuall, “never was.” He beamed down at his own son and gave the lad a sharp salute.

“Climb up here, Taliesin; we shall ride in together.” Elphin put down his hand and pulled the boy up into the saddle with him. “Forward!” he called, and the troop moved on.

By the time they reached the outer gates, the whole village had turned out to meet them. Wives, mothers, fathers, children-all waving, calling glad greeting to their sons and husbands and fathers. Elphin led the band to the center of the caer and dismounted them. They stood at attention beside their horses for a moment and then Elphin shouted, “Dismissed!”

The men let out a whoop and the caer erupted in noisy welcome. Elphin surveyed the scene, grinning, happy to be home at last, happy to have delivered his band safely yet another year.

“Were you born in that saddle?”

Ehonwyn, her red-gold hair brushed and glowing in the late afternoon light, stood with a hand on the horse’s bridle. She wore a new orange gown with a woven girdle of blue and green stripes; her arms were bare, displaying gold armlets inset with a serpentine of emeralds, and at her throat a slim tore of twisted gold.

“Look, Taliesin, a goddess has addressed us,” said Elphin, drinking in the sight of her.

“Come down from there and I will show you whether I am a goddess or no.”

Elphin handed the reins to his son and slid from the saddle.

“Take care of Brechan, Taliesin. Give him an extra measure tonight.” He slapped the horse on the rump and the animal trotted away, a beaming boy on his broad back. Then his arms were around his wife and her lips were on his.

“I have missed you, husband,” she whispered between kisses.

“No more than I have missed you,” Elphin answered. “Oh, how I have missed you.”

“Come home with me. There is supper hot and ready for you.”

Elphin bent and nibbled her neck. “I would welcome a bite.”

“Stop, you. What will your men think?”

“Why, lady, they will think me the luckiest man alive!”

Rhonwyn hugged him again and took him by the hand and led him away. “You must be tired. Did you ride far today?”

“Far enough. I am more thirsty than tired.”

“There is a jar on the board. I have had the jug in the well all day.”

“You knew we would come today?”

“Taliesin did. He was certain of it. I tried to tell him not to count too much on it, that you might be late. But he would not hear it. He knew you would be home before sunset. He told everyone.”

They reached the door of the house, embraced again quickly, then stooped under the oxhide in the doorway. The fire crackled on the hearth where a joint roasted on a spit. A young girl, one of Rhonwyn’s cousins who had joined the household that spring following Eithne’s death, tended the spit, turning it slowly and basting the meat from time to time. She smiled when Elphin came in, then ducked her head shyly.

Gwyddno Garanhir, grayer and rounder of shoulder, stood before the fire, one foot on an andiron. “So you have returned! Aye, look at you-hard as the steel at your Belt.”

“Father!” Elphin and Gwyddno hugged each other. “It is good to see you.”

“You smell like a horse, my boy.”

“And you have been drinking all my beer!”

“Not a drop, sob.” Gwyddno winked. “I brought my own!”

“Sit down, Father, sit down. We will eat together.”

“No, no, I will go along. Your mother will have cooked something up for my supper.”

“I will not hear it.” Elphin turned and called to the girl. “Shelagh, run and fetch Medhir. We will all eat at my table tonight. I want my family together. Run, girl, get her. Whatever she has cooked, fetch it along as well.”

“I would have ordered a feast if I thought you wanted it,” said Gwyddno. “There should be a feast when the warband returns.”

“We will celebrate the warband’s return later. Tonight a man wants to be with his own.” Elphin pulled Rhonwyn to him and gave her a squeeze and a peck on the cheek. She handed him a silver-rimmed horn filled with beer and pushed him toward the table. He sipped while she took the red cloak from his shoulder and unbuckled the stiff leather breastplate.

Taliesin burst into the room just then and flew straight to his father. “Tell me everything you did!” he shouted. “Everything! I want to hear it all!”

Elphin laughed and scooped the boy up. “I will talk until your ears fall off then, shall I?”

“Not until after you have all eaten,” put in Rhonwyn.

“Your mother is right,” said Elphin. “Talking can wait-there is eating to be done.”

Shelagh returned with Medhir on her heels, both of them bearing platters of food: braised potatoes, spiced pork in heavy broth, and fresh-baked barley cakes. Medhir put her platter on the table and turned to her son, hugging him as he held Taliesin. “You are home and sound, Elphin. I am glad of that. It seems a year at least since I have seen you.”

“I am glad to be back in one piece, Mother. Is that spiced pork I smell?”

“You know it is. Sit down and let me fill your bowl.”

Elphin, Taliesin, and Gwyddno sat down together, Elphin at the head of the table, Taliesin beside him. The women hovered around them and when the men were well supplied, they filled their own bowls and sat down too.

“Ah, it is so good! On my life, a woman’s touch with a pot is sorely missed north of the Wall.” Elphin lifted his bowl and drained the last of the broth, then tore off a hunk of bread, put it in his bowl, dipped more meat out of the pot, and ladled broth over all. He smacked his lips and tucked in again.

They ate and drank and talked of the events of the village over the summer. When they had finished, the women cleared the dishes and refilled the jars. Taliesin, who had endured the idle chatter as long as he could, fairly writhed in agony and said, “Now will you tell us what happened? Did you fight the Picti? Did you kill any? Did the Romans ride with you?”

“Yes, yes,” said Elphin lightly. “I promised to tell all and I will. Let me get settled here.” He took a sip from his horn, wiped foam from his mustache. “Much better,” he said and began.

“Well now, we joined the legion at Caer Seiont, like we always do. This time, however, I was shocked to learn that the garrison is down to three hundred men-and most of them foot soldiers with no idea which end of a horse gets the oats. Avitus is gone, ordered to Gaul, and Maximus has been made tribune.

“Maximus-now there is a leader for you! He can do more with his three hundred than that sloven Ulpius can do with all two thousand of his!”

“The legion from Eboracum joined you then?” asked Gwyddno.

“They sent fifty. That was all the horses they could spare-so they said.”

“Three hundred.” Gwyddno shook his head in dismay. “A governor’s bodyguard, never a legion!”

“I spoke to Maximus about it. He says there is nothing to be done. He has even written to Imperator Constantius but expects no relief. It is the same elsewhere: Caer Legionis, Virulamium, Londinium… Luguvallium on the Wall itself is down to four hundred, and only seventy cavalry.”

“But why?” wondered Rhonwyn. “It makes no sense. The Picti take more every year and the Romans empty our garrisons.”

“The Picti are not as bad as the Saecsen from what I hear,” answered Elphin. “And it’s the Saecsen making all the trouble in Gaul. Maximus says that if we do not fight them there, we will have to fight them here.”

“Better there than here,” remarked Gwyddno.

“What about the fighting?” demanded Taliesin. “I want to hear about the fighting.”

“Yes, my bloodthirsty lad. I am getting to the fighting. Well, we assembled at Luguvallium and rode north. Like last year, I took only one centurion with me-Longinus, the Thra-cian; he was part of Augustus’ ala and rides like he is part horse himself. Anyway, our third day out we encountered a band of Picti, a hundred strong they were. Took them by surprise in a gorse dingle west of the Celyddon Forest. They did not have time to organize an attack and most of them ran. We surrounded the rest before they could even notch their accursed arrows and took their leaders almost without struggle.”

“And then what happened?”

“We let them go.”

“Let them go!” Taliesin spun on his father’s lap. “Why?”

“Because we wanted them to go back and tell their people that it was useless to fight against us, that they Belonged north of the Wall and would not be harmed as long as they stayed on that side.”

“Do you think they understood?” asked Rhonwyn.

“They understood that we did not kill them and easily could have. My guess is that they will return to their camps in disgrace and their own people will kill them.”

Medhir sucked in her breath. “Beasts they are.”

“For the Picti, death is nothing. They welcome it. When they die, their spirits are loosed to fly away like birds, which is what they want anyway, that freedom. Better to die than live even a moment in disgrace. When one of their chiefs falls in battle, his men turn their knives on themselves rather than return home without him.”

“The woman is right-they are animals,” muttered Gwyddno. “Nothing but thieving animals.”

“Oh, aye, they are natural thieves-easy as breathing to them,” agreed Elphin. “But they do not think of it as stealing. They keep no property or goods themselves and have no idea of owning anything. Whatever one has, Belongs to all- wives, children, horses, dogs-everything. They laugh at us for planting fields and growing grain.”

“They are quick enough to steal it though,” put in Medhir.

“Only because they cannot get it any other way.”

“Let them grow their own grain and raise their own cattle!” Medhir cried. “They can plant and harvest like we do.”

“They hold no land, Mother. Besides, planting would mean staying in one place and they could never bear that. They roam; they follow the wind. It means more than life to them.”

“Strange men they are then,” muttered Medhir.

“What of their women?” wondered Rhonwyn. “Are they as bad?”

“As bad or worse. A woman will take as many husbands as she pleases. They reckon no parentage; children Belong to the clan. And if she has no children to care for, she paints herself with woad and goes into battle with the men. You can hear their wild screams from one end of those lonely hills to the other.”

Elphin took another long draught of his beer and replaced the horn. “Still and all,” he continued, “we met only the one band all summer. There are a few Novantae villages on the coast up there and the people say they have been seeing the Picti on the hill tracks, traveling north, always north.”

“Maybe they have given up at last,” said Rhonwyn.

“Not likely,” remarked Gwyddno.

“I cannot say.” Elphin shook his head slowly. “My gut says no.” He brightened and announced. “Anyway, we will not ride next year. I told Maximus, and he agrees, the Picti seem to have withdrawn, so there is little point in running the hooves off our horses all summer. We will stay home and tend to our own affairs.”

“Wonderful!” cried Rhonwyn, jumping up and throwing her arms around Elphin’s neck. “To have you here… Oh, but what will I do with you underfoot a whole year?”

“We will think of something, lady wife.” He pulled her close and kissed her.

“Good to have you home, son,” said Gwyddno, rising slowly. “But I am for my bed. Come on, woman,” he told Medhir, “I am tired.” They shuffled out together.

Elphin contemplated the boy snuggled in his arms. “Here is another one for bed.”

Shelagh, who had been listening from her corner at the hearth, approached, and Elphin stood and handed her the sleeping Taliesin; he bent and kissed the golden head. “Sleep well, my son.”

Rhonwyn slipped her arm around Elphin’s waist. “Come, husband,” she whispered, “let us to bed as well.”