“No doubt,” observed Avallach.
The yardmaster nodded. “When questioned they pretended ignorance.”
“Of course.”
“I asked to search their persons and they became abusive. I called six of my carpenters and we held them until the palace guard could be summoned.” Having finished his story the man stepped back and another man took his place.
“This is the captain of my palace guard,” said Belyn by way of introduction.
“I am,” affirmed the burly man. “Eight of my best and I went down to the shipyard upon receiving the summons. We found the two spies just as the yardmaster has said. With much protesting, they were taken back to the palace and searched. Documents were found in their clothing which indicated a thorough spying foray. It is my opinion that they were attempting to assess the strength of Belyn’s ships and the facility of his yards.”
Avallach’s dark eyes hardened.
“There is more.” Belyn motioned to one of the other men, who opened a pouch at his belt and drew out a parchment packet and passed it to Avallach. “I Believe,” said the man, “you will want to see these for yourself.”’
Avallach took the packet and opened it, scanned it quickly, and passed it to Annubi. The seer glanced at the document and returned it. “It would appear Nestor is leaving no stone unturned,” Annubi said.
“Indeed! Counting ships and granaries-is he mad?”
“Assessing an enemy’s strength before striking a blow is wisdom itself,” replied Belyn’s captain dryly.
“He is insane!” snapped Avallach. “Breaking a peace that has lasted over two thousand years…”
Annubi lifted his hands, saying, “New forces are loosed upon the world: war is on the wind; beastmen migrate from land to land; order gives way to chaos. All the universe is in ferment.” He stopped abruptly and shrugged, adding, “Nestor is a creature of his time.”
“He is a creature that must be stopped.” Avallach pursed his lips. “To stop him we must have the support of others as well.”
“We think alike, brother,” observed Belyn. “I sail for Corania as soon as I am finished here.”
“No,” said Avallach. “I will take care of it. If it is true that Nestor’s spies are abroad, you must not be seen traveling from Kellios to Ys. I will talk to Seithenin myself.”
“Better still,” Belyn replied.
“Now then,” said Avallach, raising his voice to the others, “let us put this distasteful business behind us. There is a bull dance today-you are my guests.”
The men bowed and raised their hands in the sign of the sun. Avallach signaled for a steward, who appeared promptly. “These men are staying with us,” Avallach told him. “Prepare rooms for them and see to it that they have a change of clothes and anything else they require.”
The men followed the servant out. “Is Elaine with you?” asked Avallach as the others left the great hall.
“When she learned I was coming, she would not be left behind. She was asleep when we arrived. I left word that I would fetch her later.”
“Go and bring the lady. Do not leave her waiting even for a moment or I will be made to answer for your thoughtlessness.”
“It would not be the first time,” Belyn laughed. The laughter died on his lips and he stood listening to the echo in the great hall. “What an empty sound…”
“Go and bring Elaine,” Avallach told him. “We will fill the hall tonight and it will ring with laughter.”
When Belyn had gone, Avallach turned to Annubi who stood looking on. “What we have long dreaded has come to pass; we must prepare to fight Nestor in Council, and we must win. If we fail, it can only end in death.”
“Indeed! Death is the only certainty when kings fall out,” replied Annubi.
Charis’ curiosity was far from satisfied by what she had glimpsed in the Lia Fail. But since it was a stolen look she could not go to Annubi to inquire of him what the images meant. At any rate, she had not seen herself among the procession of travelers and considered that this confirmed her worst suspicions: when the time came to travel to the Great Council, she would be left behind.
This was not a situation she could endure, at least not sitting still. The youngest of Avallach’s five children, Charis had often been forced to the subtleties of diplomacy where one of her brothers might have relied on strength. What she needed now was an ally, someone who wielded the power she lacked and who would take her side. She chose her mother.
It was to the queen’s library that Charis went in search of her mother, whom she found standing at the balcony with a squarish object in her hands. The queen, turning as her daughter entered, smiled and held out a hand. “Come here, I want to show you something.”
“What is that?” she asked. “A brick?”
Briseis laughed and held the object out to Charis. “Not a brick,” she explained. “A book.”
Charis came close and gazed at the thing-the wrong shape for a book. It was flat and thick, not neatly rolled in a tight vellum scroll. It looked awkward and cumbersome.
“Are you certain?” asked Charis, glancing around the library with its innumerable scrolls tucked into the honeycombed nooks of its shelves. The huge room was polished wood and stone; light scattered from its many cool surfaces. There were large myrtlewood tables and tall-backed chairs with blue silk cushions placed around the room for convenience. At the far end hung a large tapestry depicting Mount Atlas, its crown lost in white plumes of cloud. She returned her gaze to the strange object her mother held in front of her. “It looks more like a brick to me.”
“A new kind of book. Here…” Her mother placed the volume in her hands. “Open it.”
“Open it?”
“Let rne show you.” Her mother bent and turned back the leather cover to reveal a dazzling picture of a green and gold Atlantis afloat in a sea of lapis lazuli. Sunlight touched the page and set the colors aflame.
“It is beautiful!” exclaimed Charis, running her fingers across the page. “Where did you get it?”
“Traders brought it from across Oceanus. It is said the great libraries of the East have begun making books like this. I directed the royal artisans to paint the picture, but the writing is in the Eastern script. There is only one other book like this in all nine kingdoms and it belongs to the High King.”
Briseis closed the book and looked fondly at her daughter, lifting a hand to stroke the girl’s hair.
“Is something wrong, Mother?”
“Nothing to concern you, dear one,” she said, but a shadow lingered in her eyes.
Charis looked carefully at her mother. She was long-limbed and slim, with flawless white skin and hair of honey-gold. Her clear eyes were the color of mountain pools and hinted at icy depths. Although she rarely wore the circlet, there was no mistaking her royal bearing; nobility, fine and pure as light itself, radiated from her presence. Charis considered her mother the most beautiful woman in all the world, and she was not alone in this opinion. “You came to find me,” said Briseis. “What did you want?”
“Someone has arrived,” Charis replied. “I saw the ships come in. They are from Uncle Belyn.”
“Belyn here? That is news.” She turned and looked out across the harbor and Charis noticed the shadow was back.
“Hmph,” Charis snorted. “That is as much as you will get from me. There was a secret meeting and Annubi mentioned something about the Great Council. However, I know I will not get to go.” She plopped down in a nearby chair. “Oh, Mother, sometimes I just want to leave this place- leave it forever!”
The queen turned sad eyes on her daughter. “Charis, my restless one-do not long for leaving. There will be enough of leaving in your life, I fear.”
“I have never been to a Great Council before. Could we go? Please?”
Briseis brightened. “Perhaps Elaine is here as well.”
Charis saw an advantage and pressed her demand. “Could we? I never get to go anywhere. Everyone else-Kian and Maildun a
nd Eoinn and”
“Shush, I have not said no. If Elaine and Belyn have come I must see to their arrangements.”
Charis raised her eyebrows hopefully. “Then yes?”
“It is your father’s decision.” Charis’ face wrinkled in sharp disappointment. “But,” her mother continued, “I think he may be persuaded.”
Charis jumped up. “Persuade him, Mother. You will, I know you will.”
“I will do my best. Now, let us go see if your aunt and uncle will accompany us to the arena.”
“Oh, I feel like a cow. I look like one, too. And I have never been so seasick in my life. Hello, Briseis. Hello, Charis. It is good to see you both. I cannot think why I insisted on coming, I have had nothing but misery since I stepped onto that wretched ship. But it is hot out here-or is it just me?”
“Hello, Aunt Elaine. Have you not had that baby yet?” Charis laughed and offered her hand as her aunt stepped from the carriage.
“Wretched girl. Would I be standing here panting like a pig if I had had the baby? Oh, and it is not to be born for weeks!” Elaine spread graceful hands over her swelling stomach. Despite her protestations she appeared in glowing good health and seemed thoroughly pleased with herself.
“Elaine, you are as beautiful as ever,” said Briseis, embracing her. “And it is hot standing here in the sun. Come inside, I have had a cool drink prepared.”
“Will you come to the bull dance with us?” asked Charis. They stepped into the shade of the portico and proceeded along the columned passage to the palace, palm fronds rustling as they passed.
“Would I miss it? There is nothing I love better. Who is dancing?”
“A team from Poseidonis, from the High Temple itself- the Crescents, I think. Guistan says that one of them does a double.”
“Enough, Charis,” her mother chided. “Elaine has come a long way and is tired. Give her a moment to rest before you have us all dashing out to the arena.” She turned to Elaine. “The baby is not to be born for several weeks, you say?”
“The stars, Briseis, the stars! The Magi tell me the stars must be properly aligned. ‘Highness,’ “ she said, adopting a solemn, sanctimonious tone, “ ‘he will be a king one day and therefore must have an auspicious birth sign.’ Idiot men.”
“You are certain the child will be male?”
“Quite certain. In my family at least, the Magi have not been wrong in five generations. There is no doubt it will be a boy.”
“Belyn must be pleased.”
“Ecstatic, and rightly so-considering I am doing all the work and he receives the glory.”
“Have you chosen a name?” wondered Charis.
“I have consulted the Magi, who have searched the Royal Registry and tell me that there was a man in my family named Peredur; he was a wise and just ruler of great renown at one time or another. I think I will name the baby Peredur.”
“A strange name,” remarked Charis, “but I like it.”
Briseis gave her daughter a harsh look, which Charis ignored. “Charis, go and find your brothers. Tell them to get ready. We will be leaving for the arena soon and I want to arrive before the crowds.” Charis frowned and opened her mouth to protest. “Go on. I wish to speak to Elaine alone for a moment.”
“I am going.”
“Sit with me at the ring,” Elaine called after her. “I will save a place right next to me.”
The two women watched her run off. Briseis sighed. “Sometimes I think I will never make a lady of her. She is so headstrong.”
“No more so than her father?”
Briseis smiled and shook her head. “No, no more than Avallach.”
CHAPTER TWO
Gwyddno Garanhir stood at the gate of his hilltop caer and looked out across Aberdyvi, the sea estuary of the River Dyvi, at the seabirds circling and chattering in the blue, windswept sky, diving for fish trapped on the mud flats by the receding sea. His eyes scanned the horizon for danger: the square, blood-red sails of Irish raiding ships.
There was a time, not long past, when the sight of sails on the horizon sent the clan into a frenzy. The alarm would sound and Gwyddno would take up his spear and bronze shield and lead the men down to the beach to await the attack. Sometimes it came; and sometimes, seeing the jeering, gyrating warband waiting for them in the shallows, the ships sailed by in search of easier pickings elsewhere.
But the horizon sparkled clean and clear; the village was safe for another day. Although it had been years since any sea raiders had dared attack, Gwyddno had not forgotten those bloody battles of his youth and his vigilance was as keen as ever.
Below on the tide-exposed strand a few of his kinsmen waded through the shin-deep rnuck searching out blue mussels and oysters-oysters with the rare tiny pearls which were saved and sold by the hornful to the equally rare trader venturing far west into the wild mountain fastness of the Cymry. He saw them, bent-backed, coarse-woven sacks trailing in the mire, laboring with their long-handled wooden forks… and a thought occurred to him.
Further up on this same river Gwyddno maintained a salmon weir which, in season, kept his table in fish and provided a good income out of the surplus. Perhaps, he thought, the weir could be made to provide more than salmon this year.
Lately Gwyddno had been feeling his age, and as king and lord of six cantrefs of Gwynedd he had begun giving thought to who might be his heir. He had had two wives, who between them managed to produce only one son, Elphin. “Would that my wives were as fruitful as my weir,” he often lamented to himself.
Elphin was widely regarded by the clan as the most unlucky youth who ever lived. Nothing he set his hand to flourished, and nothing he ever attempted came to good. Stories about his astonishing bad luck were told from one end of Gwynedd to the other-like the time he had set out one morning with five others on horseback to hunt wild pigs in the dells around Pencarreth.
The hunting party returned an hour after sunset with three horses missing, two men badly injured, one small pig between them, and all five blaming Elphin-though how he had caused the misfortune, no one was prepared to say precisely. But all agreed it was his fault. “It is no more than we deserve for going out with him,” they said. “From now on, either he stays back or we do.”
Once he traveled with his father and a few kinsmen to a nearby village for the burial of a revered clan chief. Being Lord Gwyddno’s son, Elphin was given the honor of leading the horse-drawn bier to the cromlech where the body would be laid to rest. The trail to the burial place passed through a beech copse and up a steep hill.
As the bier crested the hill, a screech went up and a flurry of wings resolved itself into a covey of terrified quail taking flight. Although Elphin held tight to the reins, the horses reared, the bier tilted, and the body slid off to roll down the hill in a most startling and undignified manner. Elphin barely managed to escape joining his host in the cromlech.
Another time Elphin was out on the estuary in a small boat, fishing the tideflow, when the anchor line gave way and the boat was swept out to sea. His kinsmen thought they had seen the last of him, but he returned the next day, tired and hungry but unharmed, having lost the boat-nets, catch, and all-on some rocks a fair distance up the coast.
Other catastrophes large and small visited Elphin with dependable regularity. It was as if the day of his birth had been cursed so that he lived under a dark star, although no one could recollect any such spell. And as Gwyddno was a just and respected lord, there was little reason why anyone would want to curse his issue.
Be that as it may, Elphin’s chances of succeeding his father as lord were exceedingly slim. No one would follow a man known to be unlucky; and for such a man to become king would betoken certain destruction for the clan. In fact, the clan had begun to discuss the problem among themselves and some of the older members were now seen making the sign against evil whenever Elphin’s back was turned. It was clear to Gwyddno that a solution would be needed soon.
Gwyddno, who dearly loved his son, wa
s determined to help him all he could. What was needed was a clear demonstration of a reversal of Elphin’s luck. This was where the salmon weir came in.
In a few days it would be Beltane, a most propitious time of year. A day when herds and fields would be blessed and the Earth Goddess importuned and appeased for a plentiful harvest in the fall. A day of strong magic. If a wealth of salmon were taken from the weir on this day it would be a portent of good fortune for the year to come. And if Elphin were the man to take the salmon, no one could call him unlucky.
As it was Gwyddno’s custom to give the take of the Dyvi weir to a clansman on this day each year, he decided that this year the man would be Elphin. In this way, the world would see whether his son’s fortunes would ever improve or if he would go to his grave as luckless as he had come from his mother’s womb.
Gwyddno fingered his tore and smiled to himself as he turned away from the workers on the estuary. It was a good solution. If Elphin succeeded in a good catch, his fortunes would change; if not, he was no worse off than before and the tribes could begin searching among Gwyddno’s younger cousins and nephews for an heir.
The king walked back among the clustered dwellings of the caer: sturdy log-and-thatch, most of them, but here and there one of the low, round houses of an earlier time still stood. Nearly three hundred kinsmen-members of two related fhains who could trace their descent back to a common ancestor-called Caer Dyvi home and sought refuge behind its encircling ditch and stout wooden palisade.
Gwyddno moved through the village, greeting his people, stopping now and then to exchange a word or hear a comment from one of them. He knew them all well, knew their hopes and fears, their dreams for themselves and their children, their hearts and minds. He was a good king, well-loved by those he ruled, including the lords of the outlying cantrefs who paid tribute to him as overlord.
Red pigs rooting for acorns squealed and scattered as he came to stand beside the council oak in the center of the caer. An iron bar hung by a leather strap from one of the lower branches. Taking up the iron hammer, Gwyddno struck the bar several times. In a moment clansmen began gathering to his summons.
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