Cuall began- rising to his feet, but Taliesin put his hand on his arm and held him down. “What sport is this?” Elphin said, eyes narrowed, his frown tense.
“Please,” soothed Avallach, “it is not my intention to insult you further, which is why I do not encumber my gift with any conditions.” He grinned happily. “Your acceptance imposes no obligation.”
“But such a gift,” remarked Hafgan. “One cannot accept a gift of this value without incurring obligation, directly or subtly.”
“Why not? What does the size of the gift matter? It is not a tenth of what I own-and even if it was half my kingdom I would feel no differently. I simply want you to have it.”
“Why?” asked Cuall, “So we will fight for you when the Northmen come screaming down from Pictland?”
Avallach confronted him bluntly. “That is as much insult to me as my unthinking offer was to you. Still, I do admit that an alliance between our two peoples would be advantageous, and I will seek it earnestly. But not through guile, and not through gifts.”
Elphin looked around him and caught Taliesin’s eye; Tal-iesin nodded silently. “It is not easy to put aside the clanways of a hundred generations, nor scarcely less difficult to lay down a king’s pride,” Elphin replied evenly. “Another time, another place, I would not accept your gift, for it would shame me. But a king without land is no king at all; so for the sake of my people I will accept your gift, Lord Avallach.”
Cuall shook his head in amazement. His mouth flapped once, twice, and then closed again speechless, Hafgan studied those around him through half-closed eyes and allowed himself a private smile. Avallach slapped his knees and shouted, “That was well done, Lord Elphin! Land or no, you are a king, and the equal of any I have met. I welcome you as neighbor and friend.”
The clansmen, who had been following this involved exchange in their own secret way, burst out in cheer for their unexpected good fortune and for the honor paid their king. Suddenly the camp was awash in laughter and celebration. A harp was produced and thrust into Taliesin’s hands. He jumped up and began to strum and sing, gathering other voices to his own until the whole camp rang in soaring, Celtic song.
Avallach roared with laughter, his dark head thrown back, white teeth flashing through his beard as his great shoulders shook with delight. Even Belyn and Maildun managed fishy grins as they watched the celebration commence.
During a lull in the singing, when the food was being served from the steaming caldrons, Taliesin found a moment to take his father aside. “Good fortune, eh, Taliesin? Less a surprise to you, I suspect, than to the rest of us.”
Taliesin shook his head. “Avallach’s gift was his alone. I had no part in it.”
“And nothing to do with the saving of his daughter?” Elphin asked, favoring Taliesin with a knowing look.
“She required little help from me. I arrived in time to scatter the sea-wolves, nothing more. They were only too happy to flee for their lives when I came upon them.”
“Remarkable,” said Elphin. He turned his head to view Charis across the fire where she stood with Rhonwyn and several other women, helping to fill bowls with food. “A woman with beauty and spirit-a treasure, Taliesin.” He looked at his son, noted the glimmer in the clear dark eyes, and grinned. “A worthy bride for a Cymry lord. Do you wish me to speak to her father?”
“Indeed,” replied Taliesin, his voice tight. “I have thought of nothing else since I saw her.”
“Then we waste time jawing on about it. I will speak to him now.”
“Now?”
“What better time? Let us further the alliance between our people with a marriage!”
With that Elphin strode off. Taliesin watched as his father made his way around the fire to Avallach, who stood talking to Cuall and Hafgan. He saw Elphin join the group, say a few words, and gesture in his direction. He saw Avallach’s head come up and turn toward him. He saw his father’s mouth moving, and he saw first surprise and then shock on the Fisher King’s face. The smile never left Avallach’s lips but passed directly into a grimace of anger.
He saw Avallach’s head swing around as words were spoken to his father and Elphin’s wide smile dwindle into a look of bewildered dismay. Then the Fisher King turned stiffly and disappeared into the darkness. A moment later a call for the king’s horses sounded. Maildun appeared beside Charis and took her by the arm. He saw Charis’ frantic look over her shoulder as she was pulled away.
Taliesin saw all this as he might have seen it in a dream-each detail sharp and clear and dreadful in its finality. Then his legs were moving and he was running around the circle of the fire. He caught Charis as she was being handed into the saddle. Her face in the firelight showed anxiety and confusion. “What happened?” she asked in a harsh whisper. “Avallach is angry.”
“We must talk,” said Taliesin urgently, stepping close when Maildun moved to his own mount.
“Charis!” Maildun shouted from his horse. “Come away.”
“We must talk, Charis!” insisted Taliesin.
“Meet me in the orchard,” she whispered, turning her horse in line with the others. “At sunrise.”
CHAPTER NINE
Taliesin rose just before dawn the next morning and rode to the Glass Isle to meet Charis. The night had been cool and the night vapors still lay on the marsh, rising from the narrow streams of open water to drift in undulating waves through the land, waiting for the warm rays of the morning sun to melt them with their touch.
Upon reaching the orchard, Taliesin dismounted and tied his horse to a branch, and then walked among the blossom-bound trees. The night’s dew on leaves and flowers glittered in the early light like little stars late to leave the sky. The long grass was wet, and water seeped down the smooth, charcoal-dark trunks of the apple trees and dripped from the branches in a slow, incessant rain to vanish in the soft green Below. The air, though cool, was already thick with the scent of the blossoms.
As Taliesin strolled the wide pathways of the grove, he gradually became aware of a sound winding through the trees, faint but clearly audible. On strands of liquid melody, a wordless song was weaving itself around branch and bole-as much a part of the grove as the pale pink blossoms themselves. He followed the sound, hoping to discover the singer, thinking that perhaps Charis had come after him and entered the orchard by another way.
The source of the sound proved elusive, however, and it was some time before he could locate it, searching first this way and then another, only to have it disappear and come at him from another way. Finally, stooping beneath a low branch, he saw a fresh-made beech bower erected in the center of the orchard and before it a maid with hair like morning light, dressed all in green and sitting on a three-legged stool beside a tripod. Suspended from the tripod was a cauldron over a small, smokeless fire. The caldron was round and made of a strange metal with a deep red luster, and its sides were etched with the figures of fantastic animals.
The maid sang softly to herself as she dispersed the rising steam with a fan made of blackbird wings. Every now and then she would reach into a bowl at her feet and bring out a leaf or two which she dropped lightly into the boiling pot. Taliesin watched her for a little while before she turned her head to regard him, coolly and without the least hint of surprise in her green eyes or in her honeyed voice when she said, “Greetings, friend! You are early to the grove this morning. What brings you here?”
Taliesin lifted the branch and stepped forward. “I have arranged to meet someone,” he replied.
“And so you have.” The maid smiled, but whether with satisfaction or at some privately amusing thought he could not tell. “Come close, singer,” she said, dropping another leaf into the pot. “Let us talk together.”
The maid bore an uncanny resemblance to Charis and was just as beautiful-although her beauty hinted at something cold and inhuman: the icy lacework of autumn frost on a summer rose perhaps, or the frozen elegance of a spring snowfall. “I had no wish to disturb you,” he sai
d.
“Yet, having done so, would you compound your trespass by refusing my invitation to sit a while?” She did not look at him when she spoke but at the caldron.
Taliesin noticed there was no place to sit save the ground and that was wet with dew. “I will stand, lady,” he said, adding, “Would it greatly add to my offense to ask your name?”
“You may ask,” the maid replied. She smiled again and this time Taliesin saw that she was laughing at him.
“I will not,” he told her. “I would rather you think me rude.”
“Oh? Can you tell what I think?” she asked, observing him from beneath her lashes. Taliesin noticed that the pulse quickened its beating at the base of her throat. “You must be a most profound fellow. For if you can discern my thoughts, my name will present no obstacle to you.”
“Indeed I can think of several things to call you,” replied Taliesin. “But which would suit you more, I wonder?”
She gave a flick with the fan and sent steam rolling into the air, and it suddenly seemed to Taliesin as if this maid had created the mists and fog with her boiling cauldron and blackbird fan. “Call me whatever you like,” she answered. “A name is only a sound on the air after all.”
“Ah, but sounds have meaning,” Taliesin said. “Names have meaning.”
“What meaning will you give me?” she asked almost shyly. As she spoke these words, something about the maid changed-a subtle shift in her manner, in the way she held herself under his scrutiny-and Taliesin felt as if he were addressing a diiferent person entirely. “Well? Have you no name for me?”
She did not wait for an answer but went on hurriedly, “You see? It is not so simple to discover meaning as you suggest. Better a sound on the air, I think, than a troublesome striving after dead purpose.”
“What an extraordinary creature you are,” laughed Taliesin. “You pose a question and answer it yourself. That is hardly fair.”
The lady colored at this, her cheeks burning crimson as if touched by a flame. She turned on him quickly, a fierce and feral light flashing in the green depths of her eyes. For an instant she was a wild, untamed thing ready to flee to the dark safety of a deep forest den. Taliesin felt the heat of anger and alarm lick out at him across the space between them. “Have I said something to upset you, lady? I meant no harm.”
The expression vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and the maid smiled demurely. “Sounds in the air,’” she said. “Where is the harm?”
She turned her attention to the pot, reached down, and took up a handful of leaves, dropping them one by one onto the surface of the boiling water. “My name is Morgian.”
Morgian…
He stared at the maid before him, her name resounding like an echo in his ears. Slippery darkness flowed around him like the steamy vapor from the caldron, and Taliesin’s spirit was seized and lifted like a coracle tossed on the ocean swell and thrown toward the rocks. He all but staggered with the effort of holding himself upright.
It was power he had touched, raw and unreasoning as the wind that drives the waves onto the shore. He had encountered it before-once long ago-in the face of Cernunnos, the Forest Lord. It had shaken him then too. And he had fled from it.
He was older now and had learned much about the power of the old gods. It was a natural power, elemental and earth-born, linked with the trees and hills and stones and stars and sun and moon. There was a good deal of darkness in it, but it was not totally given to evil. It was, therefore, not to be overly feared and fled but respected-in the same way that an adder must be respected when it rears its scaly head and bares its fangs.
Taliesin did not flee this time but stood his ground. He had never sought the earth power, though many druids did. Haf-gan had always said it was unnecessary, that such seeking was foolish and dangerous, that no one could hope to tame the power, nor discover the ways in which it was used of old, and that those who tried lived to regret it bitterly-if they lived at all.
Morgian was looking at him curiously. “Another lapse,” she sighed lightly. “It is polite to tell a maid that her name enchants, that its utterance is music on the lips.” She rose from her place beside the caldron and stepped toward him. “Am I that disagreeable to you?”
“Forgive me, lady,” Taliesin replied. “I seem destined to blunder.”
“I shall not forgive you, singer,” Morgian said, coming closer, a sly, seductive smile curling around her lips. “I shall have my satisfaction.”
Taliesin stepped backward. She reached out and laid a hand on his arm. “Where are you going, Taliesin? Stay with me, Lord of Summer.”
“Why do you call me that?” Taliesin’s voice grated like gravel under hoof. “Where did you hear that name?”
Morgian’s smile deepened. “Did not Avallach give you lands?”
“Yes,” replied Taliesin uncertainly, “last night.”
Morgian brought her face close to Taliesin’s. Her breath was sweet on the air and scented of apple blossom. “They are the Summerlands,” she replied with feigned innocence. “And you are the Summer Lord.” She raised a hand to his face and kissed him.
The touch of her skin on his was like the lick of a flame, or of ice; it burned with a cool sensation, frozen fire. Again Taliesin felt the tug of his spirit toward her. Some part of him wanted to stay with her, to make love to her as she invited him.
The rational part of him recoiled from the kiss, as from a backhanded blow. The sky dimmed and the earth rolled beneath his feet. He pulled away from her embrace and began to run, stumbled and fell on his hands and knees, hauled himself up and ran again.
“Come back, Taliesin,” Morgian called behind him in a strange singsong. He glanced back to see her beckoning to him, exultation glowing on her face. “You will come back… Taliesin, you will come to me…”
Charis arrived at the orchard to see Taliesin as he emerged from the grove. She tied her horse to the branch beside his and hurried to meet him. “What is wrong?” she asked, her smile of welcome fading. “Has something happened?”
He hugged her to him, and the warmth of her body soothed him. “There is nothing wrong,” he said. “Nothing happened.”
She pulled back and held him at arm’s length. “Are you certain? You looked so frightened just then. I thought”
“Shhh… It does not matter. Nothing happened.” Taliesin placed a finger against her lips. “You are here now. That is all I care about.”
“But I should not have come,” she said sternly, pushing herself from him. The next moment she softened and said, “Oh, Taliesin, it can never be. My father is very angry; he has set himself against us. He will not let us marry.”
“Why?” he asked softly, pressing near.
She held him away. “I have not often seen him so angered. He refused to speak of it to me last night.”
“But Avallach has given us lands,” he told her. “If our people are to live as neighbors, I do not see why we should not live as husband and wife.”
“It is not so simple as that and you know it, Taliesin.” She turned her back to him. “I have told you-we are not meant to be together.”
“Charis,” he said firmly, “look at me.”
Charis faced him again, her brow wrinkled in a frown. “You know that I want you, Charis-do you want me?”
“It does not matter what I want.”
“Why? Why should you deny yourself so? Are you not worthy to love and be loved?”
“Love?” Charis shook her head sadly. “Do not speak to me of love, Taliesin.”
“Then tell me the word that will win you, and I will speak it. I will speak the stars of heaven into a crown for your head; I will speak the flowers of the field into a cloak; I will speak the racing stream into a melody for your ears and the voices of a thousand larks to sing it; I will speak the softness of the night for your bed and the warmth of summer for your coverlet; I will speak the brightness of flame to light your way and the luster of gold to shine in your smile; I will speak Until
the hardness in you melts away and your heart is free once more.”
“Pretty words, singer. Perhaps you will put them in one of your songs.” The voice came from the trees behind them.
Charis whirled toward the sound. “Morgian!” She scanned the trees and pathways of the grove but saw no one. “Morgian, where are you? Come out, and be quick about it!”
There was a long silence and then the rustle of a blossomed branch and out stepped Morgian, smiling wickedly. “Are you jealous, sister? Oh, do not be angry. It was only a game; an idle curiosity, if you like. I meant nothing by it.”
“What are you doing here?” Charis demanded indignantly, the color rising to her face.
“I met her earlier,” explained Taliesin, trying to dispel the tension of the moment. “We talked for a little while I waited. I did not know she was your sister.”
“Did you not tell Taliesin about me?” wondered Morgian innocently. “Why not? Were you afraid I would steal him from you?”
“Leave us!” Hands on hips, Charis stood unassailable.
“You cannot send me away!” Morgian advanced menacingly. Her eyes glinted hard in the sunlight like chips of green granite; her voice was a coiled serpent. “I will not go.”
Taliesin moved between the two women. To Morgian he said, “You have your satisfaction. Go now, and let us part as friends.”
Morgian’s eyes flicked from Charis to Taliesin; her expression, her mood, her whole being softened instantly. “Friends, yes, and a good deal more,” she murmured.
“Morgian!” Charis hissed. “I am not afraid of you or your Mage’s tricks. Leave us! And never interfere again.”
“I am going,” replied Morgian lightly. “But do not think you have seen the last of me.”
CHAPTER TEN
Dafyd listened, a frown appearing now and again on his face. But when Taliesin finished telling him what had happened in the grove, the priest smiled reassuringly and said, “You are right to be concerned, Taliesin. But you are in no danger that I can see as long as you remain strong in the faith. The maid Morgian may have power-probably does; I have no doubt that what you say is true. But the power of our Savior is stronger still. God will not abandon those he has called, nor will he allow them to be taken from him by the Evil One.”
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