Taliesin

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Work on Elphin’s timber hall proceeded at a brisk pace. Within a week of the warband’s return, the tranquillity of the hilltop caer was a memory. Every morning at dawn when the gates were opened, scores of men with shining axes trooped out to the forest and soon the first of the logs were being dragged back up the incline behind a team of horses- an activity which continued until dusk. With a hundred pairs of hands to cut, dress, and drag the logs from the nearby forest, to manhandle them into place, to wedge, peg, and fit them together one on another, joining them to the huge timber uprights with rawhide thongs, the stout walls grew higher with each passing day.

For the necessary ironwork Elphin wooed and won a smith, giving him cattle and a patch of land on the river for his forge. From early morning and on into the night the clang of the smith’s hammer could be heard ringing through the woods along the river, answered by the chunk, chunk, chink of the woodcutters’ axes. Those not directly involved with the building of the hall were put to work enlarging the caer itself: digging a new outer ditch and refilling a portion of the old ditch so that the outer walls could be expanded.

Over all this industry, surrounding it, permeating it like a seasoning vapor, wafted the aroma of roasting meat and baking bread as the women turned spit and tended oven in an effort to feed the hungry builders. Meal bags full of apples, mounds of meat, mountains of bread, and whole wheels of cheese disappeared as soon as they were laid on the board, washed down by frothy rivers of beer and mead.

Liberally sown through the bustle and fuss, sprinkled like glittering dew or bright nuggets of gemstone, was the laughter of children. The enormity of the task, the grandness of the enterprise fascinated the younger inhabitants of Caer Dyvi, who encouraged it with squeals of delight at the wonders practiced before them. Their tireless good cheer lightened the load for their elders, and the picture of a workman standing over a child, hand lightly over the small hand beneath his own, guiding the tool, was a scene often observed throughout the caer. Though the work was hard, the high spirits and good humor of all concerned made it seem sometimes as if the walls were raised by laughter alone, as by childish enchantment.

Taliesin was no less caught up in the spell than the rest. He was everywhere, dodging roof beams as they swung through the air, riding the logs as they came up the incline, dipping his fingers into the caldron for a bit of meat, snatching an apple from a bag or filching a piece of cheese, creeping to the doorway of the dark hut on the river to hear the wheeze and whoosh of the Bellows and see the red fireglow on the black, glistening brow of the smith-descendant of Gofannon, god of the fiery forge-running along the log trail with the other boys to bring water and beer to thirsty woodcutters…

The days were good, and despite the long hours of labor it was a glad time for the people of Caer Dyvi. Elphin was a leader and a helper to his men-as often as not stripped to the waist, as they were, hair bound in a thick braid, hammer in hand astride a log newly raised to the wall, dripping sweat in the sun. This was how Hafgan found him one afternoon several weeks after Cormach’s visit.

“Hail, Hafgan, Henog of Gwynedd!” Elphin called down to him. The autumn sun was hot and bright, the sky deep autumn blue. He paused in his work to survey the scene, pride lighting his eyes as he drew an arm across his forehead. “What do you think, bard? Will the weather hold till we get a roof on?”

“The weather will hold, lord,” replied the druid, casting a critical eye to the sky.

“Then, by Lieu, we will have a hall before Samhain.”

“I think you will.” Hafgan stood, gazing up at Elphin, shading his eyes with his hand.

“Something else, Hafgan?” asked the king.

“A word, Lord Elphin.”

Elphin nodded and put down his hammer. He climbed down the birch ladder and came to where Hafgan was standing. “What is it, Hafgan?”

“Cormach has died. I must go bury him.”

Elphin nodded amiably. “I see. Yes, go.”

“I wish Taliesin to come with me.”

Elphin pulled on his mustache. “Is it necessary?”

Hafgan shrugged. “It would be instructive.”

“Would you be away long?”

“Two days, maybe three.”

“I suppose,” Elphin mused, “there is no harm in it.” Hafgan said nothing but merely stood silently by, allowing the king to make up his own mind. “Well, he can go if you like,” Elphin said and made to turn away. “I will tell his mother.”

“Thank you, lord,” replied Hafgan with a curious little bow.

Elphin saw the bow and turned back. “Thank you, Hafgan.”

“Lord?”

“You show me respect.”

“Have I ever shown you disrespect, lord?”

“You of all people know me for what I am-yet you have never Belittled me. For that, I thank you. Further, I know you could take Taliesin whenever you chose to, yet you come to me and ask. For that I thank you too.”

“Lord Elphin, it is because I know you for what you are that I have never Belittled you. And as to this other-how could I ever take something that was not mine to take?” He touched the back of his hand to his forehead. “Do not fear the time of testing, for you have mastered your strengths and your weaknesses. You will live long, my king, and will be forever remembered for the goodness of your heart and the wisdom of your reign.”

“Flattery?” Elphin smiled uneasily.

“Truth,” replied the draid.

Hafgan, Taliesin, and Blaise departed the next day. Ordinarily Taliesin would have welcomed the journey, but as it meant he would miss out on the work of the hall, he was less than happy about leaving. He did not voice any misgiving to Hafgan, and although the druid noticed the slump of the lad’s shoulders and his dragging heels and knew what the problem was, he said nothing. Disappointment, however slight, was a reality of life to be dealt with, and Taliesin was learning.

“What is the color of summer?” asked Blaise after a while. They were following a well-used forest track, heading north and west to Dolgellau where they would join the other druids gathering to bear Cormach’s body to the cromlech on the hill Below Garth Greggyn. The three strode along the wooded track, Hafgan with his new rowan staif, Blaise with his staif of elm, and Taliesin with his willow staff, impatiently whipping the supple wand at branches along the path.

“Huh?” Taliesin swiveled around.

“The color of summer,” repeated Blaise. “What is it?”

The boy thought for a moment. “It is-hmmm… gold!” he declared triumphantly.

“You mean green, do you not, Taliesin? I think autumn should be gold.”

“No,” replied Taliesin. “Autumn is gray.”

“Gray?” Blaise shook his head in bewilderment. “The things you say, Taliesin. What do you think, Hafgan?”

The druid did not answer. “What color is spring, Taliesin?”

“White.”

“And winter? What color?”

“Winter is black.”

Blaise laughed. “Summer is the only season of color in your world, Taliesin. Do you realize that?”

“Of course,” he answered without hesitation, swinging the willow wand easily. “That is why I am going to be King of the Summer and my realm will be known as the Kingdom of Summer. While I am king there will be no winter, no autumn, and no spring.”

“Only summer?” said Blaise suddenly serious. He had caught the wistful note in the boy’s voice and had stopped laughing.

“Only summer. There will be no darkness and no dying, and the land will flow with all good things.” Taliesin became quiet then and said no more. The three walked on in silence, listening to the woodland sounds.

They reached the settlement by midday. Dolgellau lay in a shallow, wooded valley beside a fresh cold-water stream. It had no gates, no walls, or earthwork defenses, but relied on seclusion and the strength of its neighbors for safety. The people welcomed them cordially, for Cormach had served them long and well as bard, counselor, prophet, and physician. The fain chief saw Hafgan’s staff and hastened to meet him. “We made a bier for him,” he said. “Bard told us to hew it out of new hawthorn.”

Hafgan nodded.

“It is what he wanted. We have done all he asked and I regret that we could not do more.”

“I am certain you have done well,” Hafgan told him. “We will take him now. You and your people may accompany us if you wish.”

“Will you require horses?”

“No, we will carry him.”

“Let it be as you wish.” They moved through the village under the lively scrutiny of the clansmen. Blaise leaned close to Hafgan and whispered, “Why are they looking at us like that?”

“It is Taliesin they are looking at,” Hafgan answered. Taliesin, however, appeared perfectly oblivious to the attention he was getting and walked with his head erect, eyes straight ahead.

Yes, thought Hafgan, he is the King of Summer and his reign will know neither cold nor darkness. But summer is short in the Island of the Mighty, Taliesin, and winter will not be held back forever. All things yield in their season. Still, let the light shine, lad; while it burns, let it dazzle the greedy night like starfall.

They arrived at a small thatched hut at the far end of the settlement. Three of the Brotherhood sat on the ground outside the hut, each in his blue robe; the empty bier lay nearby, covered with boughs of fir and yew. When they saw Hafgan they all stood.

Hafgan greeted them by name. “Kellan, Ynawc, Selyv, is all in order here?”

Selyv answered, “All is in order. The body has been prepared, and I have sent the others to the grove to await us there.”

“Good,” said Hafgae. He stooped and pushed his way through the deerskin hanging at the door of the hut. A moment later he held back the hide flap and beckoned Blaise and Taliesin to enter.

Taliesin followed Blaise and found himself in a single-room dwelling which had no windows but only a round smoke hole in the roof to let in light and let out the smoke from the hearth in the center of the room. Stretched out on his bed of rushes lay the body of Cormach, his hands folded over his chest. Two tallow candles-one at the Chief Druid’s head, another at his feet-cast a thin yellow glow against the limed mud wall.

Taliesin looked at the body and was struck by the fact that it no longer looked like Cormach. There was no doubt that it had been the Chief Druid-the features and shape were the same-but it was clear that Cormach himself had utterly vanished. The spirit that had animated the body was gone, and its absence made the husk on the ground seem terribly frail and inconsequential, a residue, a mere afterthought of the person that had been.

“He is gone,” whispered Taliesin. He had not viewed many dead bodies and lowered his voice in the corpse’s presence as he would in a sickroom. “Cormach is gone.”

“Yes,” agreed Hafgan. “He is well on his journey now.”

He touched Blaise on the arm and stepped to the corpse’s head; Blaise took his place at the feet.

Hafgan spoke a few words in the secret tongue of the Brotherhood and placed his hands on either side of Cormach’s head. Blaise repeated the words and put his hands around the cold, stiff feet. They said the words once more, in unison, and lifted the body. If there was any exertion to their movements, Taliesin did not detect it, for it seemed as if the corpse floated freely under the lightest of touches.

The druids stood and turned the body so that it would go through the door. “Taliesin, hold aside the deerskin,” instructed Hafgan, “and do not forget his staff.”

The boy came to himself with a start, darted to the doorway, and pulled back the deerskin hanging. Hafgan and Blaise stepped through, bearing Cormach’s body between them. The other druids held the bier ready, and with the gentlest of efforts the body of the Chief Druid was placed upon it.

Taliesin ducked back inside the hut, found Cormach’s staff where the body had been, retrieved it, and joined Blaise and the other druids, who had begun covering the body with fir boughs. When the body was covered-except for the head, which Hafgan still held between his hands-the druids, one at each corner of the bier, raised the green-mounded platform. It rose from the ground as lightly as wool drifting on the wind.

“Take the staff, Taliesin,” Hafgan told him. “Raise it before the hut.”

Holding the staff in both hands, Taliesin raised it as high as he could. Hafgan spoke a phrase in the secret tongue, paused, and repeated it twice again. In a few moments wisps of smoke began ascending from the smoke hole in the roof and out from under the deerskin in the doorway. Taliesin held the staff between his hands and watched bright orange flames creep up the outside of the wattle hut. The fire drew the fain who observed with silent curiosity as flames engulfed the hut and the thatch roof collapsed inward.

The druids turned the bier then and, began walking back through Dolgellau, Taliesin going before them with Cormach’s staff in his hands. They crossed the stream at the ford and then took the path leading from the woods and into the hills. A good many of the clansmen followed them, making a fair-sized procession.

They walked without hurry, but the distance shrank so that they reached Garth Greggyn in almost no time at all. It seemed to Taliesin that they merely walked out of the forest, over a hill and were there, in the valley of the spring Below the sacred grove. The druids ascended the hill to the grove where the rest of the Brotherhood had gathered. The clansmen followed but timidly and at a distance.

The bier was carried into the center of the grove and placed on two upright stones. The druids closed around, each with a branch or bough from a tree. Hafgan raised his hands shoulder high, palms out, and began speaking in the secret tongue. Then, lowering his hands, he said, “Brothers, our Chief has begun his journey to the Otherworld. What will you send with him?”

The first druid stepped forth, raised his branch and said, “I bring alder, Foremost in Lineage, for assurance.” With that he placed his branch against the bough-covered bier and stepped back.

“I bring dogwood,” said the next, “Powerful Companion, for compassion.”

“I bring birch, Lofty Dreamer, for high-mindedness,” said the next, placing his branch against the bier.

“I bring hazel, Seed of Wisdom,” said another, “for understanding.”

“I bring elm, Great Giver, for generosity.” And another placed his branch against the bier.

“I bring chestnut, Proud Prince, for regal bearing.”

“I bring ash, Stout-Hearted, for honesty.”

“I bring rowan, Mountain Lord, for fairness in judgment,” said another.

“I bring thorny plum, Invincible Warrior, for keenness of discernment.”

“I bring apple, Gift of Gwydyon, for reverence.”

“I bring oak, Mighty Monarch, for benevolence.”

Around the circle they went, each druid naming his gift and then placing it against the bier. Taliesin watched, entranced, listening to the words, wishing he had a gift. He glanced around the grove and saw a rose thicket with a few late-blooming flowers persisting among its barbed canes. Laying down the staff, he went to the thicket and took hold of a cane near the root where the barbs were not so close, pulled and pulled again. There was a snap down in the earth and the cane came up.

He carried it to the bier where the last brother was bestowing his gift. Hafgan drew a breath and opened his mouth, but before he could speak Taliesin stepped forward with his cane and said, “I bring rose, Enchanter of the Wood, for honor.” And he placed his cane with the other boughs, which now formed a leafy enclosure around the bier.

Hafgan smiled and said, “Brothers, let us release the body of our friend from its duty.”

Each druid bent, took hold of the bough he had oifered, raised it in one hand, and with the other took hold of the bier, and together they carried the body out through the grove to the cromlech which stood on a mounded hill Below the grove.

The cromlech was a small circle of standing stones surrounding a dolmen, which consisted of three upright stones topped by a flat stone slab. Cormach’s hawthorn bier was set on the slab and the boughs were placed all around, once again forming a dense enclosure over the body. Hafgan raised his hands, uttered something in the secret tongue, and then said, “Farewell, friend of our brother, you are free to go your way.” He knelt and put his palms against the dirt. “Great Mother, we give you back your son. Treat him not unkindly, for he has served his master well.”

So saying, he rose, turned his back and left the dolmen, passing through the ring of stones. The other druids followed, each passing between different stones in the circle and moving off in their various directions into the hills and woods beyond.

Later the three sat near a fire in the wood, darkness like thick wool wrapped close around them. They ate some of the food which had been given to them by the people of Dolgellau and talked. When they had finished eating, Blaise yawned and rolled himself in his cloak and went to sleep. Taliesin was far from sleepy; brain brimming with images, he stared into the dancing flames and pondered all he had seen that day. Hafgan watched him for a long while, waiting for the questions he knew were swimming in that golden head.

Finally Taliesin raised his face from the softly crackling flames and asked, “What will happen to the body now?”

Hafgan picked up an apple from the small pile on the ground beside him and passed it to the boy. He selected one for himself and bit into it, chewed thoughtfully and said, “What do you think will happen?”

“The flesh will corrupt, leaving the bones behind.”

“Precisely.” He took another bite. “Why ask the question when you already know the answer?”

“I mean,” said Taliesin, gnawing his apple, “what will happen when the flesh has dissolved?”

“The bones will be gathered and taken to a vault in the earth where they will be laid to rest with the bones of our brothers who have gone before.”

“But the birds and animals will disturb the body.”

Hafgan shook his head lightly. “No, lad, they will not come within the sacred ring. And anyway, flesh is flesh; if it feeds a fellow traveler on his way, it has performed one purpose for which it was made.”

Taliesin accepted this, took another bite of his apple and tossed the core into the fire. “The bier floated, Hafgan, when you spoke in the secret tongue-was it an enchantment?”

Again the druid shook his head. “I merely called on the Ancient Ones to bear witness to our brother’s deeds and grant him safe passage along the way. The body was light”-his palm floated upward as he spoke”because there was no longer anything to bind it to the earth or weigh it down.”

The boy contemplated the fire, eyes sparkling. “Will we see him again?”

“Not in this world. In the Otherworld perhaps. A soul lives forever-before birth and after death it is alive. This world is only a brief sojourn, Taliesin, and it is doubtful if men remember it when we pass on-just as we forget the life before this one.”

“I will remember,” declared Taliesin.

“Perhaps,” said Hafgan evenly, gray eyes keen in the firelight as he watched Taliesin. In the shimmering light the boy’s face seemed to take on a different aspect. It was no longer the face of a child but a timeless face, neither old nor young, the face of a youthful god, an immortal beyond the reach of age or time.

Hugging his knees, Taliesin began rocking back and forth. He stared into the flames and said, “I was in many shapes before I was born: I was sunlight on a leaf; I was star’s beam; I was a lantern of light on a shepherd’s pole.

“I was a sound on the wind; I was a word; I was a book of words.

“I was a bridge across seven rivers. I was a path in the sea. I was a coracle on the water, a leather boat that plowed bright waves.

“I was a bubble in beer, a fleck of foam in my father’s cup.

“I was a string in a bard’s harp for nine nines of years; I was a melody on a maiden’s lips.

“I was a spark in fire, a flame in a bonfire at Beltane… a flame… a flame…”

The voice dwindled, becoming a young boy’s voice once more. Taliesin hunched his shoulders and shivered all over, though the night was not cold. “Never mind, Taliesin,” said Hafgan softly. “Do not strain after it; let it go. The awen comes or it does not. You cannot force it.”

Taliesin closed his eyes and lowered his head to his knees. “I almost remembered,” he said, his voice a whimper.

Hafgan put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and lay him down beside the fire. “Sleep, Taliesin. The world will wait for you yet a little longer.”