Taliesin

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Maridunum lay in the heart of a land of broad hills and fertile valleys laced through with meandering rivers and fresh-running streams. Dyfed was, Charis found, very like Ynys Witrin, although not as wild, for the region had been settled and worked for many generations. Most of the landholders spoke a homey Latin, as well as Briton, and considered themselves Roman in matters of culture and civility.

The fields around Maridunum grew wheat, barley, and rye, and supported good herds of livestock which, supplemented by the harvest of the nearby sea, kept the larders of lord and liegeman alike well-stocked.

Pendaran Gleddyvrudd soon proved himself an amiable and generous host, most anxious to please his guests-all the more since he felt badly that he had disgraced himself and brought dishonor to his name by his rudeness and arrogance. “I am a hard man,” he told Taliesin and Charis a day or so after their first meeting, “living in hard times. I have forgotten much that I formerly held close to my heart. Please forgive a stupid and foolish man.”

“The man is neither stupid or foolish who sees himself ailing and seeks a remedy,” Taliesin told him.

“I do more. May health and wealth desert me if I show myself empty-handed to a stranger under my roof henceforth.” He gazed at Taliesin and shook his head sadly. “To think I delighted in being deceived by that meal bag of a priest, Calpurnius. I was indeed bewitted or I would have recognized you, Taliesin. But hearing you sing…” Pendaran’s voice trailed off.

Then the Demetae king shook himself and said, “Even so, I have thrown that rancorous flamen onto his god’s generosity.”

“You did not kill him” protested Charis sharply. “Worse!” chuckled Pendaran. “Oh, much worse-I sent him away. Now he will have to live by his wits, and a sorry living it will be!” His smile faded and again the king shook his head slowly. “I do not see how I could have been so blind. But,” he said, squaring himself, “I will make amends; I will repay tenfold what I have withheld through meanness and neglect.”

From that day Pendaran of the Red Sword made good his word, and his house became a more pleasant place. So pleasant, in fact, that Charis felt slightly guilty for not missing Ynys Witrin and her people more. But the truth was that through Taliesin she had begun to see a world unknown to her before, a world filled with astonishing beauty in even its most unpromising corners, a world greater, finer, and more noble than she had known and peopled by men and creatures marvelous to behold.

It was partly because of her growing love for Taliesin that she saw the world this way and partly because just being near him she was able to see it through his eyes. Charis knew she had never been truly alive before coming to Maridunum with Taliesin; all her past seemed slight and unreal-wisps of dreams, imperfect images half-remembered-almost as if it had happened to another Charis, a Charis who had lived in a gray, barren shadowland.

Every moment of the day she longed to be with Taliesin, and that longing was fulfilled. They rode beneath blue summer skies, they swam in the lakes and visited the settlements and old Roman towns nearby, they sang and laughed and made love. The days passed one by one, each a perfect pearl on a thread of braided gold.

Within three weeks of their arrival at Maridunum, Charis had a vision that she was carrying a child. The sky was still dark when it came upon her, although the birds in the trees outside their window had assembled and began chirping in anticipation of the dawn. She had, in her sleep, heard a small cry, such as a baby might make. She awoke to see a woman holding a newborn child and standing beside the bed. At first she thought one of the serving women had entered by mistake, but as she opened her mouth to speak the woman raised her head and she saw it was herself holding the child, and that the babe was her own. The vision faded then and she lay beside Taliesin in bed, luxuriating in her knowledge. There is life inside me, she thought, dizzy with the mystery of it.

When they rose for the day, however, Charis began to doubt. Perhaps it had been a meaningless dream after all. So she said nothing as they broke their fast with bread and wine; she did not speak of her secret when they took the merlin to a nearby hill to try its wing, nor later when they were together in the bath at the villa.

But that night, after he finished singing in the hall and they retired to their chamber, Taliesin took her by the shoulders and said, “You might as well tell me what you have been keeping from me all day, for I will not sleep until you do.”

“Why, husband,” she said, “do you suggest that I would ever keep anything from you?”

He drew her into his arms and kissed her, then answered, “The female heart is a world unto itself, incomprehensible to men. Yet I perceive that you have been of a mood today: pensive, contemplative, hesitant, expectant. And you have spent the better part of the day watching me as if you thought I might follow your merlin into the sky and never return.”

Charis pulled a frown. “So you feel trapped, my love. Have you grown weary of me already?”

“Could a man ever grow weary of paradise?” he asked lightly.

“Perhaps,” allowed Charis, “if paradise were not to his liking.”

“Lady, you speak in riddles. But there is a secret behind your words nevertheless. What is it, I wonder?”

“Am I so easily found out?” She turned and stepped from his embrace.

“Then there is a secret.”

“Perhaps.”

He stepped toward her again. “Tell me, my Lady of the Lake; share your secret.”

“It may be nothing,” she said.

“Then it will not be diminished for sharing it.” He flopped down on the bed.

“I think I am carrying a child,” Charis said and told him about her vision of the morning before.

And in the weeks that followed, her body confirmed what her vision had revealed.

Summer strengthened its hold on the land; the rain and sun did their work and the crops grew straight and tall in the fields. With each passing day Charis felt the presence of the life within her and felt the changes in her body as it began preparing itself for the birth of the child that would be. Gradually her breasts and stomach began to swell: she thought often of her mother and wished that Briseis were there to help her in the months to come.

If that was a sorrowful wish, it was her only unhappiness and it was slight-the rest of life took on deep satisfaction. In the house of Lord Pendaran, whose last wife had died five years before, she came to take the place of queen in the eyes of Pendaran’s retainers, all of whom held her in highest esteem, often quarreling among themselves for the opportunity of serving her.

By day she and Taliesin rode, often taking the merlin with them so that it became accustomed to its saddle perch; or they sat in the courtyard or on a hilltop and talked. By night she sat in the hall at Pendaran’s right hand, listening to Taliesin sing. These happy days were the best Charis had ever known and she savored each like a drop of rare and precious wine.

One morning, after several gray days of wet and wind, Charis said, “Please, Taliesin, let us ride today. We have spent the last days in the villa and I am restless.”

He appeared about to object but she said, “It will be the last time for many more months, I think.” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “The merlin is restless too. Now that his wing is stronger he longs to fly.”

“Very well,” Taliesin agreed, “let us give the day to it. We will take the merlin into the heath and begin training it to hunt.”

After breaking fast they rode through Maridunum and into the hills whose steep sides were covered with fern and bracken. They climbed to the crest of a hill and dismounted to gaze upon the shining silver slash of Mor Hafren in the hazy distance to the south, and, to the north, the dark humps of the Black Mountains.

“Beyond those mountains,” said Taliesin turning his eyes toward the pine-covered slopes away to the north, “is my homeland.”

“I have never heard you speak of your former home.”

“Nor have I heard you speak of yours.”

“The first time I heard you sing I knew that we were the same.”

“How so?”

“We are both exiles, you and I. We live in a world that is not our own.”

Taliesin’s smile was quick, but it was also sad. “The world is ours for the making,” he said lightly, but he turned back to the mountains and gazed for a long time without speaking.

When he did speak again, his voice sounded far away. “I have seen a land shining with goodness where each man protects his brother’s dignity as readily as his own, where war and want have ceased and all races live under the same law of love and honor.

“I have seen a land bright with truth, where a man’s word is his pledge and falsehood is banished, where children sleep safe in their mothers’ arms and never know fear or pain. I have seen a land where kings extend their hands in justice rather than reach for the sword, where mercy, kindness, and compassion flow like deep water over the land, and men revere virtue, revere truth, revere beauty, above comfort, pleasure, or selfish gain. A land where peace reigns in the hearts of men, where faith blazes like a beacon from every hill and love like a fire from every hearth, where the True God is worshiped and his ways acclaimed by all.

“I have seen this land, Charis,” he said, his hand striking his chest. “I have seen it and my heart yearns for it.”

His face glowed and Charis was gripped by the force of his vision-and frightened by it. Catching up his hand, she pressed it with her own. “A wonderful dream, my love,” she said. His hand was cold in hers.

“Not a dream only,” he said, shaking his head. “It is a true world.”

“But it is not our world.”

“No,” he admitted, and then added, “But it is our world as it was meant to be, and will be. It can happen, Charis. Do you see it? Do you understand?”

“I understand, Taliesin. You have told me about the Kingdom of Summer”

“The Kingdom of Summer is but a reflection of it!” he replied fiercely, then softened. “Ah, but Summer Realm is where we begin. When I am king, Charis, my rule will shine like the sun so that all men may see and know what the world was meant to be.”

Taliesin placed a palm against her stomach and smiled. “You must tell my son all I have told you. He will be king after me and he must be strong, for the darkness will grant him no quarter. He must be a man among men, a mighty king and wise. Above all he must love the truth and serve it.”

Charis pressed his hand more firmly against her stomach. “You must tell him. A boy-if it is a boy-must learn these things from his father.”

He smiled again and kissed her. “Yes,” he said softly.

The merlin screeched then and Taliesin loosed it from its perch to fly, circling higher and higher into the clean, cloud-dappled sky. They watched the hawk soar, listening to its keening cry as it felt the familiar wind beneath its wings, wild again and free.

When the bird’s flight took it further into the hills, they mounted their horses and followed it, coming at length to a rocky defile between two cliffs. Taliesin reined to a halt and called to Charis behind him: “Perhaps we should turn back.”

Charis raised her eyes to the hawk circling above. “We will lose him. Please, let us go a little further. His wing will tire soon and he will return.”

Taliesin agreed and started down the steep and narrow gorge, which was littered with loose stone rubble. When they reached the bottom and looked back, he shook his head. “Coming down is one matter-going up is another. We will have to find another way.”

They rode on into the valley as it widened out, following the merlin and catching him a little later as he stood shrieking atop the carcass of a freshly killed hare. They let him have his meal and returned him to his perch on Charis’ saddle, then turned the horses and started back to Maridunum, skirting the rocky hills and the treacherous path between them.

Taliesin rode a little ahead, singing a hymn to the day, choosing an easier route back to the villa. Coming upon a stream, he stopped and called back to Charis, “We will let the horses drink here. And we can” He took one look at her and leaped from the saddle. “Charis!”

She turned her head slowly and looked at him strangely, her eyes dull, her face drained of all color. “I feel tired, Taliesin,” she murmured, her speech thick and slurred. “My mouth is dry.”

“Let me help you down,” said Taliesin, his face grim. “We will rest a moment.” Draping her arm over his shoulder, he eased her from the saddle.

He did not see the blood at first. But as he turned to lead her to a rock by the stream where she could sit down, the sticky wet patch on the saddle caught his eye. “Charis, you are bleeding!”

She stared at the saddle and then down at the deep scarlet stain spreading into her clothing. She raised her eyes in bewilderment, smiled weakly and said, “I think we… should… go back.”

Taliesin helped her back onto her mount and, riding beside her with one arm around her waist for support, they made their way slowly and carefully to the villa. By the time they arrived, Charis was barely conscious. Her head lolled forward and her flesh, pale as death, was cold to the touch. She fell limply from the saddle into Taliesin’s arms when they stopped, and Taliesin carried her inside, shouting for help as he came into the hall.

Henwas, the gray-haired steward, came hurrying to him. “What is it, Master? What has happened?” He saw the blood leaking from beneath Taliesin’s hand and said, “I will bring Heilyn.”

Charis moaned as Taliesin lay her gently on their bed. He knelt beside her, frantically trying to remember a remedy he might offer, and considered using his druidic power to try to heal her. In those desperate seconds he considered many things, but what he did in the end was simply to pray for her, letting his words stream out to the Living God who delighted in and answered men’s prayers. He had no doubt that his prayers would be heard. The prayer was still on his lips when the door opened and Heilyn, the plump mistress of Lord Pen-daran’s kitchens, came bustling in, her round face red with exertion. “Now, now,” she said, much as if Taliesin had been a misbehaving boy, “what is wrong with the girl?”

“We were riding,” he explained, “and she began to bleed.”

“Lay you back,” said Heilyn, placing a warm palm on Charis’ forehead. Charis shivered on the bed, eyes closed, breath shallow; yet the woman spoke to her as if she were awake and fully conscious. “There, there… Let Heilyn have a look at you.” The woman, who had served as midwife at the birth of each of Pendaran’s sons and nearly every other child born in Maridunum in the last twenty years, bent over Charis, calling to Taliesin as she did so. “Fetch Rhuna and tell her to bring clean rags and water. Go you now and do as I say.”

Taliesin did not move. “You can do nothing standing there like a heap of stone,” Heilyn told him. “Bring Rhuna here.”

He found the girl and brought her to the room and then stood looking on helplessly until Heilyn drove him out, saying, “Leave you and haunt another place, or make yourself useful and tell Henwas to have a brazier prepared and ready to bring in here when I have finished.”

Taliesin did as he was told and then returned to wait outside. After a while the door opened and Rhuna poked her head out, saying, “Master, your wife asks for you.”

Taliesin went in then and crouched beside the bed. “She is over the worst,” Heilyn said, “but sleep you elsewhere tonight if you will, for the issue of blood does steal a woman’s strength.” Heilyn pushed Rhuna out of the room, then paused at the door and added, “I will see to her in the morning.”

She left then and Taliesin took one of Charis’ hands in his. Her eyes fluttered open. “Taliesin?” Her voice was a whisper. “I am afraid.”

“Shh, rest now. I will watch over you.” She closed her eyes once more and sank into sleep. Taliesin sat with her through the night, but she stirred only once.

As dawn came to the sky, Charis awoke and called out. Taliesin, dozing in a chair beside the bed, wakened and leaned over her. “All is well, my soul; I am here.”

She peered into the thin blue shadows of the room beyond him as if to reassure her that everything remain unchanged. “Taliesin, I have had the most distressing dream,” she said weakly.

“Rest,” he told her. “We can talk later.”

“The dream… I saw a great beast with eyes like midnight coming for me… But then a man came… A man with a sword, Taliesin, a fine, bright sword… and a smile on his face… A brave smile… But I was afraid for him…”

“Yes,” he soothed, “all is well.”

“… he smiled and said to me, ‘Know me by this, Lady of the Lake,’ and he held up the sword… Then he went down to slay the beast and… a terrible struggle commenced… He did not come back… I fear he was killed.”

“An unhappy dream,” said Taliesin softly. “But rest now and We will talk later.” He placed a hand on her head and she went back to sleep.