We sat at the high table, my mother and I, surrounded by lords and chieftains, and I began to understand what my people had lost in the Great Conspiracy when the barbarians overran the Wall and attacked settlements as far south as Eboracum, and along both coasts as well. Elphin and the Cymry prospered in the Summerlands, it is true, but were a people cut off from their past – a kind of living death to the Celt. As to that, what had my mother's race lost when Atlantis was destroyed?
After a long and lively meal, Blaise sang and received a gold armband from Maelwys for his song. Then a cry went up for Hafgan to sing. He accepted the harp with diffidence and took his place in the hollow square formed by the tables, strumming the harpstrings idly.
His gaze fell on me and he stopped strumming and beckoned me. I rose and went to him and he placed the harp in my hands and I thought he meant for me to accompany him. 'What will you sing, Chief Bard?' I asked.
'Anything you like, little brother. Whatever you choose will be welcomed in this place.'
Still I thought he meant me to play for him. I fingered a chord and thought. The Birds of Rhiannon? Lieu and Levelys? 'What about the Dream of Arianrhod?' I asked.
He nodded and raised his hand, stepping away to leave me in the centre of the square. Shocked and confused, I stared after him. He merely inclined his head and returned to his place at Maelwys' left hand. What he had done was unprecedented: the Archdruid, Chief Bard of the Island of the Mighty, had relinquished his harp to me, an untried boy.
I had no time to contemplate the implications of his deed – all eyes were on me, the hall hushed. I swallowed hard and marshalled my fleeing thoughts. I could not remember a word of the tale and the pearl-inlaid harp might just as well have been an oxhide shield in my fumbling hands.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, forced my fingers to move over the impossibly-wooden strings, and opened my mouth, fully expecting to disgrace myself and Hafgan before the assembled lords when the words failed to come.
To my great relief and surprise the words of the song came back to me in the same instant my tongue began to move. I sang, shakily at first, but with growing confidence as I saw the song reflected on the faces of my listeners.
The tale is a long one – I would have chosen differently had I known I would be the one to sing it – but when I finished, the gathering seemed to sit an equally long time in silence. I could hear the soft flaring of the torches and the crackle of flames in the great firepit, and I was aware of all those dark Demetae and Siluri eyes on me.
I turned to my mother and saw a strange, rapt look on her face, her eyes glistening in the light… tears?
Slowly, the hall came back to life, as if from a sleep of enchantment. I did not dare sing again and no one asked me. Maelwys got to his feet and approached me. In full hearing of all present he said, 'No bard has ever sung so well and truly in my hearing, save one only. Once that bard came to this house and after hearing him sing I offered him my tore of gold. He did not take it, but gave me something instead – the name I wear today.' He smiled, remembering. 'That bard was your father, Taliesin.'
He raised his hands to his neck and removed his tore. 'Now I offer the tore to you. Take it, if you will, for your song and for the memory of the one whose place you have taken this night.'
I did not know what to think. 'As my father did not accept your generous gift, it is not right that I should do so.'
'Then tell me what you will accept and I will give you that.' The lords of Dyfed watched me with interest.
I looked to my mother for help, thinking to see some expression or gesture to tell me what to do. But she only gazed at me with the same wonder as the others. 'Your kindness,' I began, 'to my people is worth more to me than lands or gold. As it is, I remain in your debt, Lord Maelwys.'
He smiled with great satisfaction, embraced me and returned to his place at the board. I gave the harp to Hafgan then and walked quickly from the hall, full to bursting with thoughts and emotions and straining to contain them and make sense of them.
Hafgan found me a little while later as I stood in the darkened courtyard, shivering, for the night was cold and I had forgotten my cloak. He gathered me under his robe and we stood together for a long time without speaking.
'What does it mean, Hafgan?' I said at last. 'Tell me, if you can.'
I thought he would not answer. Without turning his face from his contemplation of the star-strewn sky, Hafgan said, 'Once, when I was a young man, I stood in a circle of stones and saw a great and terrible sign in the heavens: a fall of stars like a mighty fire poured out from on high.
'Those stars were lighting your way to us, Myrddin Emrys.' He smiled at my reaction: Emrys is the divine epithet. 'Do not wonder that I call you Emrys, for from now on men will begin to recognize you.'
'You have done this, Hafgan,' I replied, my voice tight with accusation, for because of his words I felt the happiness of my childhood slipping away from me and tasted ashes in my mouth.
'No,' he said gently, 'I have done only what has been required of me, only what has been given me to do.'
I shivered, but not with cold now. 'I understand none of this,' I said miserably.
'Perhaps not, but soon you will. It is enough for now that you accept what I tell you.'
'What will happen, Hafgan? Do you know?'
'Only in part. But do not worry. All will become clear to you in time. Wisdom will be given when wisdom is required, courage when courage is required. All things are given in their season.' He lapsed into silence again and I studied the heavens with him, hoping to see something that would answer the storm in my soul. I saw only the cold-orbed stars swinging through their distant courses, and I heard the night wind singing around the tiled eaves of the villa and felt the emptiness of one cut off and alone.
Then we went inside and I slept in the bed where 1 was born.
Nothing more was said about what had taken place in Maelwys' hall – at least, not in my presence. I have no doubi others talked of it, if they talked of nothing else. It was a mercy to me not to have to answer for it.
We left Maridunum three days later. Maelwys would have accompanied us, but affairs of court prevented him. He, like some others, had once again adopted the custom of the kings of old: ringing his lands with hillforts and moving through his realm with his retinue, holding court in one hillfort after another in circuit.
He bade us farewell and would hear nothing from us but our promise to visit Maridunum on our return. Thus, we set out once more, riding north, following the old Roman track through the rising, heathered hills.
We saw eagles and red deer, wild pigs and foxes in abundance, a few wolves in the high places, and once a black bear. Several of the warband had brought hunting hounds and these were given the chase so that we did not lack for fresh meat at night. The days were getting warmer; but though the sun shone bright and there was little rain, the high country remained cool. A crackling fire kept away the night chill and a day in the saddle assured a sound sleep.
How can I describe coming into Caer Dyvi? It was not my home – certainly, I had never set eyes on those rugged hills and tree-lined valleys. But the sense of homecoming was so strong in me that I sang for joy and rode fit to break my neck up the seacliff track to the ruined settlement.
We approached from the south on the sea side. Blaise had described the place to me in detail on the way, and I had heard my grandfather talk about it so often that I felt I knew the place as well as anyone born there. That was part of it; the other part may have been Hafgan's pleasure at seeing his home, though for him, as for Blaise, this was tempered with sadness.
I could feel nothing sorrowful about the place. High on the promontory overlooking the estuary and the sea to the west, and surrounded by dense woods to the east and high, rocky hills to the north, it seemed too peaceful a haven – like Ynys Avallach in its own way – to hold any sorrow, despite the unhappy events that had taken place there. Indeed, the jawless skull I saw half-buried in the
long grass testified to the grim desperation of Caer Dyvi's final hours. Our warrior escort was subdued, respecting the spirits of the fallen and, after a brief inspection, returned to the horses.
The caer was uninhabited, of course, but the ribbed remains of Elphin's great hall and sections of the timber palisade above the ditch were still standing, along with the walls and foundations of some of the stone granaries. I was surprised at how small it seemed; I suppose I was used to Caer Cam and Ynys Avallach. But that it would have been a secure and comfortable settlement, I had no doubt.
Charis strolled among the grass-grown ruins, musing deeply on her private thoughts. I did not have the heart to intrude, even to ask what she was thinking. I knew that it had to do with my father. No doubt she was remembering something he had told her of his youth there, picturing him in it, feeling his presence.
Hafgan, too, wished to be alone, which was plain enough to see. So I tramped around after Blaise, inspecting this place and that, listening as he rediscovered his former home. He told me stories I had never heard before, little things concerning incidents that had happened at one place or another in the caer.
'Why did no one ever return?' I asked. The country appeared perfectly peaceful and secure.
Blaise sighed and shook his head. 'Ah, there was not a man among us who did not yearn to come back – no one more than Lord Elphin.'
'Then why not?'
'That is not easy to explain.' He paused. 'You have to understand that this whole region was overrun by the enemy. Not Caer Dyvi alone – the Wall, the garrisons at Caer Seiont, Luguvalium, Eboracum, everything. Never did men fight better or with more courage, but there were too many. It was death to stay.
'The land was not secure again for nearly two years, and by the time it was safe to return… well, we had begun life anew in the south. If fleeing the lands of our fathers was difficult, and it was, returning would be nigh impossible.' He gazed around the caer fondly. 'No, let the ashes rest. Someone will raise these walls one day, but not us.'
We were silent a few moments and Blaise sighed again, then turned to me. 'Would you like to see where Hafgan taught your father?' he asked, and started off before I could answer.
We walked from the caer into the wood along an old track now overgrown with burdock and nettle, and emerged in a small clearing which had been Taliesin's wooded bower. There was an oak stump in the centre of the clearing. 'Hafgan would sit here with his staff across his lap,' Blaise said, sitting down on the stump and placing his own oak staff across his lap. 'Taliesin would sit at his feet.' He offered me the place at his feet and I sat down before him.
Blaise nodded slowly, with a frown of remembrance and mouth pulled down. 'Many and many a time I came to find them so. Ah,' he sighed, 'that seems so long ago now.' 'Was this where my father had his first vision?' 'It was, and I well remember the day. Cormach was Chief Druid then, and he had come to Caer Dyvi. He knew himself to be dying and told us so – I admit I was taken aback by his bald pronouncement, but Cormach was a blunt man. He said he was dying and wanted to see the boy Taliesin one last time before he joined the Ancient Ones.' Blaise smiled quickly, and ran his hand through his long dark hair. 'He sent me off to boil cabbage for his supper.'
There was a long pause and I sat with my arms around my knees listening to the same woodland sounds my father would have heard: the chirruping of woodfinches, thrushes, jays; the little furtive rustlings in the winter-dry underbrush and light shifting of the leaves; the tick and creak of swaying branches.
'I was tending the pot when they returned,' Blaise said when he continued. Taliesin was unusually quiet and his movements erratic; his speech was odd, as well – as if he were creating the sound of the words anew as he spoke them. I remember feeling the same way the first time I tasted the Seeds of Wisdom. But in this, as in all else, Taliesin excelled.
'Hafgan told me that he feared Taliesin dead, so still did the boy lie when he found him. Cormach blamed himself for pressing the youngster too hard… ' He broke off abruptly and regarded me strangely.
'Too hard to do what?' I asked, already knowing the answer he would make.
'To walk the paths of the Otherworld.'
'To see the future, you mean.'
Again that fierce appraisal, and the slow nod of admission. They thought he might see something they could not see.'
'He was looking for me.'
Blaise did not look away this time. 'He was, Myrddin Bach. We all were.'
The silence of the wood crept in once more and we sat watching one another. Blaise sought guidance for what he was about to do, and I was content not to press him, but to trust his judgement. How long we sat there I do not know, but after a time he put his hand to the pouch at his belt and brought out three fire-browned hazelnuts. 'Here they are, Myrddin, if you want them.'
I regarded them and would have reached for them, but something restrained me – a cautious thought: wait, the time for visions is not yet. Thank you, Blaise,' I told him. 'I know you would not have offered them if you thought I was not ready. But this is not my way.'
He nodded and put the hazelnuts back in his pouch. 'Never from curiosity,' he said. 'No doubt you have chosen wisely, Hawk. I commend you.' He rose. 'Shall we go back to the caer now?'
We slept that night in the ruined caer and just before sunrise it rained, a soft pattering of falling drops, tears from a low, sorrow-laden sky. We saddled our horses and rode inland along the Dyvi river towards the druid grove at Garth Greggyn, where we meant to leave Hafgan for a few days to meet with his brother druids.
Along the way, we passed Gwyddno's salmon weir, or what was left of it, for the nets were long gone. Several of the poles remained, however; blackened nubs in the water. We paused to see the place where all our lives had, in a sense, begun.
No one spoke; it was almost as if we stood before a holy shrine. For here was the infant Taliesin fished from this very weir in a sealskin bag. The weir pool made a good ford and as we crossed the river I could not help thinking of that now-distant morning when an unsuspecting Elphin, desperate for salmon – and a change of fortune – pulled a baby from the water instead.
We crossed the Dyvi and continued on into the rough hills, and into an older, wilder land.
FOUR
At Garth Greggyn we camped for two days and on the third day the dniids came. I half-expected the gathering to simply appear – like Otherworld sojourners in elder times – even though I knew better. The warband waited in the glen below the sacred grove, and were happy to do so since, like most people, they regarded druids in number as a menace to be avoided.
That is a curious thing. Having a bard attached to his court was high prestige for a lord, and certainly every king who could find and keep one enjoyed enormous benefit. Also, the harper's art was respected above all others, including the warrior's and smith's; sorry indeed was the celebration with no druid to sing, and winters were interminable, intolerable, without a bard to tell the old tales.
Nevertheless, let three druids gather in a grove and men began to whisper behind their hands and make the sign against evil – as if the same bard that gave wings to then-joy in celebration, eased the harsh winter's passing, and gave authority to their kingmaking, somehow became a being to be feared when he joined with his brothers.
But, as I have said, men's hearts remember long after their minds have forgotten. And I do not wonder that men's hearts still quake to see the Brotherhood gathered in the grove, remembering as they do an older time when the golden scythe claimed a life in blood sacrifice to Cernunnos, Forest Lord, or the Mother Goddess. Fear remembers long, I tell you, if not always wisely.
After breaking fast on the third day Hafgan rose and stood looking at the hilltop grove, then turned to Charis saying, 'Lady, will you come with me now?'
I stared; another time Blaise might have questioned the Chief Druid's invitation, but this seemed to be a time for unprecedented events. He held his peace and the four of us began the long climb up the slop
e to the sacred grove.
The grove was a dense stand of ancient oak with a scattering of walnut, ash and holly. The oak and walnut were by far the oldest trees: they had been sturdy, deep-rooted youngsters before the Romans came, planted, some said, by Mathonwy, first bard in the Island of the Mighty.
Deep-shadowed and dark, with an air of imponderable mystery emanating from the thick-corded trunks and twisting limbs, and even the soil itself, the sacred druid grove seemed a world unto itself.
In the centre of the grove stood a small stone circle. The moment I set foot in the ring of stones I could feel ancient power, flowing like an invisible river around the hilltop, which was an eddy in the ever-streaming current. The feeling of being surrounded by swirling forces, of being picked up and carried off on the relentless waves of this unseen river nearly took my breath; I laboured to walk upright against it, my flesh tingling with every step.
The others did not feel it in the same way, or if they did gave no indication and said nothing about it. This, of course, was why the hill was chosen in the first place, but still I wondered that Hafgan and Blaise did not appear to notice the power flowing around and over them.
Hafgan took his place on the seat in the centre of the circle – nothing more than a slab of stone supported by two other, smaller slabs – there to wait until the others arrived. Blaise inscribed a series of marks on the ground and then stuck a suck upright over them. The sunshadow had not passed another mark on the ground before the first druids appeared. They greeted Hafgan and Blaise, and regarded my mother and me politely but coolly, while exchanging news with the two druids.
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