“What was fair about it? He did not want to make the trade, that much was clear. If Gwydion hadn’t used his bardic influence, he wouldn’t have. So Pryderi went after him to demand justice.”
“But the pigs never came back,” Arawn protested. “I would have known if he had brought them back.”
Cricket stared into the king’s eyes. “I told you that he fought Gwydion in the Dyfi River. What I did not tell you is that when the river ran red, it was with the blood of Pryderi ap Pwyll.”
“He died? But he was a great warrior, a prince...”
“Every man encounters another that he cannot defeat. You recruited Pwyll to help you with yours, but Pryderi had been abandoned by his allies because they thought he had broken his word. And so he died alone, attempting to redeem his honor.”
“And I have cursed his posterity for how long?”
“Eight hundred years. And for most of that time, Dyfed has been the poorest cantref in Glencairck, and the most shunned.”
Arawn wiped his hand across his face. “So I suppose that avenging myself on this wretch Gwydion is out of the question.”
“I’m afraid so, sire.”
“Very well.” There was a swirl of color and a wrenching feeling in his gut, and Cricket found himself back on the mountain in Dyfed. The ravens had flown, but CuChulainn was still with him, looking about in canine confusion. Arawn seemed less solid somehow, and more gray, but his voice was as firm as ever. “Let’s see what I can do.”
He paced about in a circle muttering to himself with his eyes closed, walking right through rocks that happened to be in his way. He grunted in surprise and looked at the bard. “This is going to be a little harder than I thought.”
“What’s wrong?” Cricket asked.
“My curse evidently likes it here. It’s resisting my efforts to banish it.”
“But you created it. It has to obey you.”
“You obviously don’t have children.” Looking around, he said, “Take some cover. This is going to get a bit rough.”
Cricket dragged CuChulainn behind a cluster of boulders, keeping an eye on Arawn but ready to duck at any moment.
The king continued to pace, but he began to grow as well, becoming a giant towering above the mountain. With his inner eye, Cricket could see the darkness swell around him, but clouds were gathering in the real world as well, spitting lightning bolts that the gigantic king brushed aside like flies. Arawn began yelling in a strange language, fists raised, his face coloring in rage and the cords standing out on his neck.
Hail stones began to fall, at first the size of pebbles, but quickly growing into apple size chunks that exploded all around. Cricket and CuChulainn pressed back into a shallow declivity in the rocks, protecting their heads and eyes from the flying ice shards. Cricket could still see the struggle in his mind, as Arawn fought with a black scaled snake with ten heads.
The King of the Dead seemed to be getting the worst of it, stumbling backwards more and more often, and Cricket realized suddenly that his world was sapping the great man’s strength as much as the battle. Every time he managed to sever a head, a new one grew in its place in a cloud of foul smoke.
Cricket pulled Linnaia around and began to play, the notes rising faintly above the roaring wind. With the curse focused on Arawn, he was able to use his song to call on the long dormant defenses of the land itself. Another giant lifted himself out of the ground, a blonde man with a shining brow and a gleaming sword who fell on the snake with a war cry.
Arawn used the respite to rest for a moment, regaining his balance and his breath. When he rejoined the battle, the blonde giant made a lightning attack so that the gray king could shift towards the rear.
The multiple heads made it hard to divert the snake’s attention, but with a great backhanded stroke, Arawn severed three at once and followed through to slice through its scaly back. Both men jumped back as the huge body began writhing spasmodically, the eyes beginning to dim and fade.
The serpent dissolved into the ground, and the two men, normal sized once more, faced each other. When Arawn had regained his breath, he said, “I’m sorry, Pryderi.”
The blonde man shrugged and wiped his sword on the grass. “I would have explained, I suppose, but I died first.”
“If only I had been there...”
“‘If only’ is the biggest lie in the world,” Pryderi said. “It assumes that there is only one other outcome, and it assumes that you know exactly what it is. Gwydion was a powerful man, steeped in magics beyond that of a bard, and he may have defeated you as well if you had been there.”
“But I feel guilty for abandoning you.”
“At the time, it was a perfectly understandable response.” He held up his hand to forestall any further complaints. “Let me return to my rest, my liege. Our bard could use the relief as well; he still has quite a big job ahead of him.”
“Very well,” Arawn said. They bowed to each other, then embraced like brothers. “I’m glad I saw you again.”
Pryderi began to fade away. “Death is the end of the body, but not of life,” he said. “We will see each other again, I think.” A clean breeze scattered him into the returning sunshine.
Cricket finished playing, feeling the ache in his arms and back. Arawn came around the rocks and found him, lifting him easily to his feet, brushing him off while CuChulainn ran out to sniff the surrounding area.
“Thank you,” Cricket said. “But what did he mean, I still have a big job ahead of me?”
“I’m afraid I did too good of a job,” Arawn said with a grimace. “What you saw me destroy was only the source of the curse, but the evil it spawned is still present.”
“What do you mean? That everything I did up to this point was futile?”
“Not at all.” The pavilion appeared around them again, and Arawn sat down to a plate of roasted rabbit as though nothing had happened. “It’s like this: all the places you cleaned, or cleared, or whatever you want to call it, would have become corrupted again after a few years because my curse was still in effect.” He sliced a bite with a gray dagger and talked around the meat as he chewed. “Now that Pryderi and I have taken care of the original problem, the land still suffers, but you can clean it up just like you have been, and it will stay gone.”
“Why can’t you do it? It’s your responsibility, you caused it all in the first place.”
“I took care of my part,” Arawn said. “If you do nothing, the land will heal itself... in time.”
“Let me guess: eight hundred years.”
“Roughly.” Arawn pointed at the bard with his dagger. “What you have to decide is whether or not you will let things slide for that long, knowing that you can change things. My guess is that you’re better than that.”
Cricket’s anger left him in a rush. “I can’t let these people suffer,” he said. “If I can help, then I must.”
“And your strength comes from it.” Standing up, Arawn said, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have my own kingdom to take care of.”
“Thank you for your help, sire.”
“Thank you for your wisdom, bard.” The pavilion disappeared in a rush of color, and Cricket found himself on the mountain once more, where dusk was stealing over the land, bringing cooler temperatures and a fog rolling in from the sea. CuChulainn bounced around, eager to be moving, and Cricket shared his restlessness.
“It looks like you’ll have to hunt again, boy,” Cricket said as he put Linnaia in her case. Shouldering his pack, he realized that it bulged, and he opened it to discover a ham, several cheeses, and some bread. “Nevermind,” he said. “I guess we can relax tonight after all. Still, we need to get to the trees so that we can make a fire...”
CuChulainn bit the edge of his cloak and began pulling him down the slope. “Alright, I’m moving,” Cricket laughed. “You’ll have to pardon me if I’m a little tired, that’s all.”
The wolfhound tossed his head at the excuse and ran ahead, with the bard following at a more leisure
ly pace.
Cricket woke the next morning in a bower of oak, feeling refreshed. He broke camp while CuChulainn scampered about like a puppy, and then continued down the mountain, heading roughly towards the sea. Walking through the trees, he heard a woman singing. Her voice was untrained, but had a passion that appealed more than polish. Cricket stopped to listen.
“I have roamed the shores of distant seas,
“I have eaten the fruit of foreign trees,
“But forever my land calls back to me,
“Come home, my love, come home.”
She sat beside a stream, cooling her feet in the water. She looked up when she heard Cricket approaching, and gave him a freckled grin. “Essa,” he laughed. “I should have known it was you.”
“Mannath sent me to find you,” she said. “I’ve been following stories of a harper for days, and finally it struck me that a song might call you to me.”
“But it was a sad song,” he said. “I thought you were a happy person.”
“The words may be sad, but the tune is beautiful,” she replied. “And it accomplished its purpose, so I am still happy.”
Cricket sat on the opposite shore and took off his boots so that he could put his feet in the water, too. “That’s cold,” he said.
“When you’ve been walking all day, it feels good, especially if you have big ugly feet like mine. See?” She held them out of the water for a moment before dropping them back in with a splash.
“They look beautiful to me.” Cricket wiggled his toes across the bottom, stirring up a cloud of silt. “If Mannath sent you to find me, I guess that means that the bardic company has left.”
“They never stay long,” Essa said. “There is no gold, and no intrigue. Most bards avoid our cantref.”
“I will stay.”
She looked at him sideways. “They say that you have been cursed to stay here, which has caused quite a bit of speculation. And the last several weeks have generated even more.”
“The last several weeks? But I haven’t really seen anyone.”
“Shepherds go everywhere, and they see almost everything. Just because they never talked to you doesn’t make them mute.”
“What are they saying?”
“That the boy with the harp is blessing the land.”
Cricket snorted. “I don’t know if I would put it that way. I certainly am not a boy.”
Essa shook her head. “You are a strange one, whatever else.”
“That has been noted many times before.”
“I think I like you anyway.”
Cricket smiled wryly. “You would befriend a cursed man?”
“If your curse brought you here to heal our land, then I would be honored.”
Shaking the water from his feet, Cricket said, “It’s a long way to Arberth. We’d better get started.”
Mannath let out a sigh when they walked in the hall two days later. “It’s about time,” he said.
“I promised you I would return.”
“I was beginning to doubt. Thank you, Essa.”
“My lord,” she said with a bow, and left.
Mannath led him to his study, and with the door safely closed, Cricket asked, “How is Glencairck?”
“The most astonishing thing has happened: Ard Righanna Elhonna has taken a consort.”
Pouring out two goblets of wine, Cricket said, “As I understand it, that type of thing has happened before.”
“Yes, but I’ve never heard of the Pen Bardd being chosen for the honor.”
Cricket choked on his wine, waving Mannath off when the lord started to help him. “I’m fine,” he said. “This news is unexpected, though.”
“There’s something else: the ollave who was here told me that there was a renegade bard about by the name of Cricket.”
“I’m a renegade, am I?”
Mannath transfixed him with a stare. “It may amuse you, but if I weren’t lord of a suspicious, unfriendly, tight lipped people, that ollave might be taking your name back to the Pen Bardd right now. And I want to know why he would care.”
“I don’t know how much the Pen Bardd might care, but I know the queen would be interested, because it was she who laid the geis on me.”
“Why would the Ard Righanna curse a bard?”
“Because I was one of her bards teulu, and I resisted her efforts to seduce me.”
Mannath paled. “I must be a madman to allow you to stay in my cantref. Did she curse you to come here specifically? Is that why the ollave mentioned it?”
“The geis was to wander without rest until I served the prince of the dead. I think she was hoping that I would end up in Annwn itself, but she is a cautious woman, and perhaps she worries that I fulfilled the geis somehow. And I did, by finding the descendant of Pwyll.”
Mannath nodded. “I had forgotten about that part of my heritage. So will you leave now?”
“Why would I leave?”
Mannath stood and went to the window, looking out across his cantref. “Your geis is fulfilled, and then some. I have heard some of what you’ve been doing since you left, and even though I don’t entirely understand it, I know that you have been changing things for the good.” He turned, and Cricket could see the guarded hope in his eyes.
“A bard teulu may not leave his duties until dismissed.”
Mannath scowled impatiently. “Do you want to leave?”
Cricket considered the question seriously. He had no real home, and he didn’t want to endanger the few friends he had. Plus, He had found Dyfed to be more than he expected, and he felt the land call to him, waiting for him to finish what he started. And then Essa came into his mind. “No,” he said. “No, Dyfed needs a bard. And if the lowest cantref in Glencairck gets the least wanted bard, then I think that a match has been made, don’t you?”
Mannath drummed his fingers on his desk. “I could dismiss you anyway. I should, if the queen is your enemy.”
“And I would leave your caer, but not your cantref.”
“I could tell the next bard through here where you are.”
“When I know how to get out of the caer secretly? And you know as well as I that the only people who could find me in the wilds are your shepherds, and who do you think they would help?”
“So I’m stuck with you?”
“It would appear so.”
“Fine,” Mannath said, waving him away. “Go be a bard somewhere other than my study. That much I can do.” The words may have been sarcastic, but Cricket knew the relief that they hid.
“I do have one request, my lord.”
Wary again, Mannath said, “You may ask, but you know how limited I am.”
“What I want, no man but you can provide.” Taking a deep breath to still his suddenly trembling stomach, Cricket said, “I would like your permission to court Essa.”
“Why ask me? I would think that it would be more effective to ask her.”
“I have to have your permission,” Cricket explained. “It’s part of the Bardic code that I can’t woo a woman without the permission of the local leader. Which in this case is you.”
Mannath shook his head. “The last member of my family served by a bard was my great grandfather. You will have to forgive my ignorance.”
“It’s okay,” Cricket said. “I sometimes wonder if I’m the only person who truly follows the code anyway.”
“Very well, you have my permission. But I warn you, she’s a very independent woman.”
“That’s one of the things that makes her so attractive.”
Chapter 23: Home
Cricket watched the freckled redhead that night while he played. She acted a bit aloof from him, but he thought it might just be his imagination; after all, just because he had permission to court her didn’t mean that he had the faintest idea how to start. And he felt very daunted by the prospect.
The hours passed, and the people of the caer finally allowed that it was late enough to go to bed. Cricket sighed in relief and shook his c
ramping hands. If he had thought that having a company visit would ease their hunger for music, he was mistaken. He knew that the native Dyfedian preferred another native to anyone else, and he felt grateful that they were accepting him, but he vowed to practice more.
As he put Linnaia away, Essa came up to him. Cricket started to greet her, but the smoldering rage in her eyes made him hesitate.
“How dare you?” she demanded.
“What?”
“Ask Mannath if you could woo me.”
Cricket gulped. “You know about that?”
“He told me himself, and it’s a good thing, too. You might have never said anything.”
“Well...”
“Of all the arrogant, ignorant, bull headed...”
“Wait!” Cricket said, holding up his hands. “I concede! You’re absolutely right, on all counts!”
She stepped back a pace, confused. “Including the arrogance?”
“Yes, of course.” Cricket took a deep breath, wondering why he couldn’t figure these things out. “I should have talked to you first. But I was in Mannath’s study, telling him that I didn’t want to leave Dyfed, and when he asked me why, I saw your face. So I did what a true bard has to, and asked his permission to court you.”
“I’ll take that into consideration,” she said. “But I’m still mad at you. And that means I’m not going to make it easy on you.”
Cricket shrugged. “Truth be told, I didn’t expect it to be easy. In fact, I don’t have any idea what to expect.”
“Which is the way I prefer it,” Essa said with mischievous glint in her eye.
“Why do I have the feeling that I’m in trouble?”
“Because you’ve let the woman you’re interested in let her know that you’re interested. And that means that you’re already behind in the game. Do you want to give up?”
He looked her in the eye and said, “Never.”
“Then you might have a chance after all,” she said. And with a swish of her skirt she was gone.
That night, as CuChulainn curled up at his feet, Cricket stared into the darkness and said, “What have I done?” But the image of her red hair flashing in the sun, and all those freckles on her cheeks, would not leave his brain.
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