Taliesin

CHAPTER SEVEN

When the melancholy came upon her, Charis sought solace in the saddle. She rode. And the wind and sun or, just as likely, the mists and rain sweeping through the dells soothed her restlessness. Out among the solitary hills, her loneliness was lost in the greater loneliness of the wild country. She returned from her rides calmed, if not content, her restive spirit subdued for a time.

But this time it did not work. She rode, and just when she seemed on the point of forgetting herself and allowing the sun and hills to work their magic, she looked back over her shoulder to see if he might be riding behind her. And each time she did that, her heartbeat quickened in her breast and her breath caught in her throat.

She told herself that he would not be there, that she did not want to see him, but she looked just the same. And when she did not see him, a pang of disappointment flared up to poison any contentment she might have gained. For five days she rode the wild hills, returning every evening exhausted and unhappy.

At night the palace was quiet and empty-far quieter and more empty than any time she could remember before the coming of the Cymry. Even Belyn and Maildun and their retinues did not fill the emptiness or banish the silence as had the Cymry with their songs and stories.

She ate with the others in the hall, but the meals were sedate to the point of torpor-both the talk and entertainment being bland as thin broth warmed-over. Curiously, the Cymry with their fire and flurry-intrusive as it might have seemed at the time-had infected the very air of the palace with brash vitality. Although they stayed only a short time, their presence had somehow permeated the life of the Fisher King’s palace, making their absence now seem unnatural, as if a limb had been lopped from a thriving tree.

Charis often surveyed her surroundings. The palace which had always seemed elegant, if austere by Atlantean standards, now appeared bleak and ordinary: a drafty cattle pen on a marsh-bound peak. She could not imagine enduring another day in the place, let alone a lifetime. But she did endure and was miserable.

She returned from her riding early on the fifth day to see a black horse standing in the courtyard. She reined in beside the other and dismounted. “Is that the stranger’s beast?” she asked the stablehand who stood holding the animal’s bridle.

“It is, Princess Charis,” replied the stablehand as she handed him her reins.

She paused for a moment and stood looking at the palace entrance, as if trying to decide whether to go in. Presently she stirred, moving slowly up the steps. She stopped once more a few paces inside the entrance. Someone was advancing toward her across the vestibule. Perhaps she had not yet been seen. She spun and started back outside.

“Wait!” came the call behind her. Her scalp and fingertips tingled to the sound. She hesitated.

Taliesin stepped into the square of light created by the open doorway. Charis stood as if poised for flight, on her toes, hands extended, her expression caught between anticipation and surprise.

“Stay, Lady of the Lake,” he said softly. A blue cloak was slung over his shoulder, the folds held by a silver brooch in the shape of opposing stag heads, antlers intertwined, emerald eyes gleaming. Charis gazed at the brooch, so as to avoid the singer’s eyes.

“I thought to see you barefoot,” he said, indicating the sandals on her feet. “But I see you have not missed your boots.”

“A true prince would have returned them,” she said, her voice a scratchy whine in her ears. She winced at the sound.

“Allow me to redeem myself,” he replied lightly and stepped past her. He went outside to his horse and returned a moment later holding her abandoned boots. “I have kept them for you.”

She made no move to take them.

“They are yours, Princess Charis, are they not?”

The sound of her name on his lips was like lightning falling from a clear sky. She felt heat rising to her face. “They are,” she whispered, as if admitting a guilty secret.

“Put them on,” Taliesin said, kneeling down before her with the boots.

She lifted her foot, resting her hand lightly on his shoulder for balance, and felt his fingers untie the knot, deftly removing the sandal from her foot. The boot slipped easily on and she raised the other foot, gazing at the light dancing in Tal-iesin’s golden hair as he unwrapped the sandal. The warmth of his hand on her skin made her shiver. Her breath came in a gasp.

“I have been waiting for you,” he said, straightening. His clear eyes were the deep green of the forest.

Words formed and clotted on her tongue. She had forgotten how to speak. “I-I was riding,” she managed to force out.

“Ride with me now,” he said, his tone urgent, inviting. “Show me where you go. Take me there.”

Charis stared but no longer at his brooch; her eyes played over the contours of his face. Without a word she turned toward the door, walked to the courtyard, and mounted her horse, swinging easily into the saddle. Taliesin mounted and followed her down the serpentine track leading from the Tor, out over the raised causeway across the marsh.

Upon reaching solid ground at the end of the causeway, Charis urged her mount to speed and the gray lifted its hooves to race up the slope, sending a family of hares bounding to safety. She crested the rise and started down the other side, Taliesin behind her. Thus, they rode, flowing over the hills in a breathless chase under a bright, cloud-dappled sky. The soft green of new grass, tinted with myriads of tiny yellow sunblossoms, covered the earth.

Charis led him through the valley and along a swift-running stream. The valley narrowed and they came to a hawthorn thicket that stretched like a wall across the further end. Here Charis turned into the stream and passed through the thicket where it thinned to accommodate the river.

The birch wood beyond the hawthorn was dim and cool, noisy with the chitterings of a host of red squirrels, thrushes, and blackbirds. The earth was damp and soggy with leaf mold and overlaid by a carpet of woodruff and Bellflower; honeysuckle draped the nearer shrubs, infusing the air with its sweet intoxication. Four red deer raised their heads at the sound of the riders’ approach. They stared at the intruders for a moment and then, turning as one and leaping into the green shadows, vanished.

Charis and Taliesin rode slowly deeper into the wood, bending their way among the slender trunks, silent in one another’s company. Now and again Charis could feel Talie-sin’s eyes on her, but she would not look back on him, afraid to return his glance.

They came at last to a place where a huge black stone reared from the earth. At some time in the ancient past, two other stones had been leaned against it at angles and the tops of all three capped with a great stone slab. The quoit stood in the center of the wood, its square sides covered with gray and yellow lichen so that it appeared more vegetable than mineral, an enormous mushroom dominating the wood with its darkly brooding presence.

Charis brought her gray to a halt, stepping lightly from the saddle; she dropped the reins and walked to the quoit, putting her hands on the rough stone.

“I like to imagine that this is a cenotaph,” said Charis after a moment, “that in this place, a long time ago, some great event or something very tragic occurred.” Her eyes flicked to Taliesin, who sat leaning on the pommel of his saddle, watching her. “Do not tell me otherwise, even if you know.”

“Undoubtedly,” Taliesin replied, sliding down from his mount. “The world is made up of events both great and tragic. Some are observed and remembered, but others… others take place away from the eyes of the world and remain forever unknown. But tell me, what is it that you imagine happened here?” He stepped toward her.

Charis put her ear close to the stone and closed her eyes. “Shh,” she whispered. “Listen.”

Taliesin heard the sounds of the active wood around them, the buzzing of insects, the trilling of birds, the ruffling of leaves in the breeze. He gazed at the woman before him, thrilled by the sight of her. She was fair as a sun-bright summer day, with eyes as deep and clear and ever-changing as the sea; slim and regal, her every movement was endowed with grace. She wore a simple white garment with a green and gold girdle at her waist, but they were the raiment of a goddess. He had never seen a woman more beautiful or more beguiling. Merely to see her was to gaze upon a mystery. He felt that he would gladly give his life to simply go on looking at her as he stood looking at her now, knowing he would never discover the mystery.

“What do you hear?” Taliesin asked.

Her eyes opened and she said candidly, “There was a woman…” Pacing around the quoit she continued, “… who came to this place from a realm beyond the sea. Her life was hard, for the land was harsh, and she could not help remembering all that she had left behind. She longed to return to her home across the sea, but it had been destroyed by a great tumult of fire and she could not return. She grew lonely, and to ease her loneliness she rode her horse among the hills, searching for something-she knew not what.

“One day she met a man; she heard him singing here in this wood. He sang to her and captured her heart as easily as a fowler catching a bird in a silken snare. She struggled to free herself but could not. She was captured too well.

“She might have been happy with the man; she might have given all she possessed to remain with him… But it could not be.”

“Why is this?”

“They were of different races,” explained Charis sadly, and Taliesin heard in her voice the resignation of one abandoned to her fate. “Also, the woman was of a noble house whose dynasty extended back to the very gods themselves.”

“And the man? Was he not of a noble house as well?”

“He was…” she answered, stepping away from him again. She moved slowly around the quoit, feeling the cool surface of the upright stones with her hands, as if tracing symbols carved there long ago and now obliterated by wind and time.

“But?”

“But his people were coarse and uncivilized-as their land was coarse and uncivilized. They were a warrior race, given to violence and passion. They were everything that the woman’s race was not, and so there were things he would never understand about her.

“And while it is true that the woman’s heart was captive to the man, it was also true that they could never be…” She paused.

“Happy?” he prodded.

“Together. This knowledge caused the woman great distress, and greater sadness. It made her exile more bitter.”

“What of the quoit?” asked Taliesin.

“The man left,” said Charis simply. “In time he went back to his own realm far away, taking the woman’s heart with him. She could not live without her heart and so began to die. Each day she died a little more, and eventually the day came when she did not awake. Her people mourned, and they carried her body to this place where she had met the man. They buried her here and raised this cenotaph of stone over her tomb.”

Taliesin began moving slowly around the quoit. “Indeed, that is a tragic tale,” he said after a while. “Certainly if the man had loved the woman more he might have found a way to save her. He might have taken the woman with him, or they might have gone away together to a new place…”

“Perhaps,” said Charis, “but both had responsibilities-responsibilities which bound them forever to their people and to their places. Their worlds were too far apart.”

“Ahh,” sighed Taliesin, and sliding to the ground he leaned his back against the stone and closed his eyes.

Charis watched him curiously.

Presently his eyes blinked open and he said, “Being dead and buried, the woman could never know what became of the man.”

“I suppose he found another to take her place. One of his own, no doubt,” replied Charis.

Taliesin shook his head gravely. “Not at all. He lived on miserably for a time, half-maddened in his anguish and torment. But he came to himself one day and returned to the woman. When he arrived, he heard that she was dead; so he went to her tomb and there he took his knife and laid open his breast. He took out his heart and buried it with the woman, and then he lay himself down…” Taliesin fell silent.

“What happened to him?”

“Nothing,” replied Taliesin sorrowfully. “He waits there still.”

Charis saw the glint of a smile in his eyes and the sly twitch of his lips, and she began to laugh. The doleful mood created by the unhappy story was shattered by soft laughter.

“It is no good trying to cheer him,” Taliesin warned. “His heart lies with his lady, and he feels neither pain nor pleasure evermore.”

Charis knelt beside Taliesin. He offered his hand and she took it in her own. He drew her hand to him and raised it to his lips. She watched as he kissed her hand. She closed her eyes and in a moment felt his lips on hers.

It was a gentle kiss: exquisite and chaste. But there was passion in it, an eager ardor that awoke a sleeping hunger in her.

Taliesin did not speak, but she could hear his breathing. He was close to her. She could feel the heat of his body on her skin.

“Neither pain nor pleasure evermore,” she whispered and lay her head against his chest. Enfolding her into his arms, he very softly began to sing.

The shadows of the wood had deepened when they stirred. Sunlight slanted through the trees in radiant bands, and the clouds were gray and ruddy-edged. The horses had wandered a short way among the trees and stood with their heads drooping.

Taliesin raised a hand to her cheek. “Charis, my soul,” he murmured softly, “if I have captured your heart, it is at the cost of my own.”

Charis made to rise, but he caught her hand and held her. “No,” she said, “I… I cannot bear it…”

She pulled away, rose, walked a few paces, stopped and looked back at him, her eyes growing hard as the stone of the quoit. “It can never be!” she said, her voice a quick knife-thrust into the silence of the wood.

Taliesin stood slowly. “I love you, Charis.”

“Love is not enough!”

“It is more than enough,” he soothed.

She turned on him. “More than enough? It does not stop the hurt, the sadness, the dying! It does not bring back what is lost!”

“No,” agreed Taliesin. “All life is rooted in pain. There can be no escape, but love makes the hurt bearable.”

“I do not want to bear it and go on bearing it. I want to lay it down, to be free of it at last. I want to forget. Will love make me forget?”

“Love, Charis…” Taliesin moved to her; he put his hands on her shoulders and felt the tension there. “Love never forgets,” he said gently. “It never stops hoping or Believing or enduring. Though pain and death rage against it, love remains forever steadfast.”

“Brave words, Taliesin,” replied Charis, her voice ringing hollow in the wood, “but only words after all. I do not believe that such love exists.”

“Then Believe in me, Charis, and let me show you this love.”

As she turned from him, he saw in her face the years of aching loneliness and something more: a pain which bit deep, a wound raw and open in her soul. Here was the source of her anger and also her pride.

“I will show you,” he said tenderly.

For an instant she appeared to soften. She half-turned toward him, but the pain was too great. She stiffened and turned away, gathering the reins of her horse.

He did not try to stop her but merely watched as she rode through the trees. A few moments later he heard a splash as the gray entered the stream at the entrance to the wood. Then he swung into the saddle, turned his mount, and started back the way he had come.

He reached the hawthorn thicket and had no sooner entered the stream when there came a sharp, startled cry from the glen just ahead. Then he heard his name, “Taliesin!”

He pulled his horse to a stop and listened for more. Hearing nothing, he lashed the reins across the horse’s neck and galloped forward. The thorns slashed at his flesh and clothing, holding him back. Heedless, he drove through the thicket into the glen.

At first he did not see her-only a gray mass writhing on the ground. It was her horse, struggling to regain its feet as three men clung to its head and neck. Four more men were stooped over, tugging at something on the ground. A flash of white clothing… Charis!

Taliesin raced to the fight. As his horse pounded closer he saw Charis break free of her attackers and step away. The men had spears and all four advanced on her, weapons ready. Taliesin was still too far away; he would never reach her in time. Pounding to her aid he watched in horror as one of the men charged and thrust his wicked spear at Charis.

As the spear slashed forth, Charis disappeared… An instant later in the air above the head of the attacker she spun, arms wrapped around knees, head tucked, braid flying. Unbalanced, the man tumbled forward, sprawling in the grass.

Charis darted away behind the others, who stood by in flat-footed confusion. One of the men holding the horse released his grip and lunged toward her. His arms closed on empty air and he fell to the turf.

The raiders rushed at her, their iron speartips glinting in the shadowed glen. One of them raised his spear and with blinding quickness drew back and let fly. The spear flashed.

But Charis had vanished again, leaving the spearshaft quivering in the ground.

The raider darted after his spear, but there was Charis, rolling to seize the shaft and turn it as he came flying toward her. The raider stopped abruptly, straightened, and staggered back. He turned to his comrades, screaming, his hands clenched about the spearshaft protruding from his Belly.

As he fell, clawing at the spear, another leaped over his body and grabbed Charis from behind as she tried to dodge away. He held her by the arms and spun her toward the spearmen, the foremost of whom dashed forward, weapon leveled, to impale her.

The spear flashed, passing through the space where Charis had stood and burying itself deep in her captor’s chest as she tumbled up and over his head.

Taliesin was close enough now to see the fear on the faces of the attackers. Thinking only to make a quick kill and take the horse and whatever other valuables Charis possessed, they had not been prepared to take on a she-demon that could appear and disappear at will.

With two of their members mortally wounded the raiders reconsidered. One of them dropped his spear and backed away from Charis in hopes of escaping into the wood. Too late he heard the thunder of hooves behind him. Taliesin glimpsed the wretch’s face-eyes white-rimmed with fear, his mouth agape in terror-as he disappeared beneath the horse’s chuming legs.

The remaining raiders scattered, fleeing for their lives. Their shouts of terror could be heard in the valley long after they were gone.

Taliesin leaped from his horse and ran to Charis’ side. She was shaken. Her clothing was torn and grass-stained, and there were welts on her upper arms where the raider had grasped her; but she otherwise appeared unharmed. He raised his hands to embrace her, but the gesture stopped halfway.

“I am not hurt,” she told him, her eyes straying to the dead around her. “Who were they?”

“Irish sea-wolves. No doubt they came up Mor Hafren last night and have been looking for easy plunder.” Taliesin glanced at the bodies on the ground. “I think they have had enough of plunder and will return home now.”

“It happened so fast,” said Charis, her breathing rapid and unsteady. “How many were there?”

“Seven,” replied Taliesin. “There were seven and now there are four.” The woman before him suddenly appeared inexpressibly alien, Belonging to a world far, far removed from his own.

“If you had seen me in the bullring you would not look at me that way,” she said and offered a weak smile. “I danced the sacred bulls in the Temple of the Sun.” She shrugged. “There are some things one never forgets.”

“We should go back now. I think they have gone, but there may be more nearby.” He led her to her mount.

“Taliesin, were they the same-the same as those that attacked your lands?”

“No.” He shook his head slowly. “These were from the south of lerna, coastal raiders after quick spoils. They do not often come this far inland, however; most content themselves with taking cattle and gold, when they can find it, from settlements on the coasts.”

She mounted the gray with some stiffness and looked down at Taliesin. “You will be leaving soon.”

“Why do you say that?”

She raised her face and gazed into the dying sunlight in the west. “We are not meant to be together, Taliesin. My life ended out there-‘-“ She nodded toward the red-orange sunset.

“But here… here it begins again,” Taliesin replied.

“We are each given only one life, singer.” And with that Charis turned her horse and started back to the palace.