Taliesin: Book One of the Pendragon Cycle

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  Taliesin raised his head. "If it pleases you, Lord, give me a sign that I may know you."

  "You ask me for a sign, Shining Brow, and I will give it to you. Know me by this!" Taliesin felt the heat of the being's presence over him and lay quivering with dread and excitement, light blazing all around him, piercing his closed eyelids. There was a touch on the crown of his head, gentle, almost no touch at all; but it was as if a firebrand had taken off the top of his skull, exposing the dark, soft tissues of his brain to the burning brightness of the light.

  And his mind was filled with images, a dazzling whirling cycle of scenes: armies marching, shepherds gathering flocks, dark prison cells and noisome sickrooms, bustling cities with roaring marketplaces, quiet villages on lonely hillsides, shining rivers, deep forests, cool mountain heights, hot desert plains, icy cold frontiers, the courts of kings and pallets of beggars, barren flats and fields ripe with grain, merchants engaged in commerce, lovers embracing, mothers bathing children, people talking and fighting and working and building…and much, much more. Men and women of different ages and epochs, different races, different created orders, different worlds, struggling, living, being born and dying.

  Taliesin saw all these things, but he saw them through the eyes of the Shining Lord who stood over him, and he had planted within him a tiny seed of understanding, and he realized who it was that he had vowed to follow: "My Lord! My God!" he cried out as the dizzying images spun on and on.

  When Hafgan found him in the grove a few hours later, he thought Taliesin was dead. The young man lay on the ground, his limbs still, unmoving. He approached and saw that Taliesin was deeply asleep and could not be awakened. The druid covered him with his cloak and hunkered down to wait.

  When Taliesin finally awoke, he could not speak.

  * * *

  Many days later they came to Ynys Witrin. Elphin settled his people below the Tor and went ahead with Cuall, Hafgan, and Taliesin to determine how they might present themselves to the Fisher King. As they stood looking at the Tor, which was surrounded by lakes and boggy marshland, they met two men in simple garb descending the narrow, winding track from the palace.

  Upon seeing the men, Taliesin's tongue was loosed and he began to shout for joy. "Behold! The servants of my Lord draw near!" he cried. "I must go and greet them." And he ran to them and fell down before them.

  The two men looked at one another in astonishment. "Stand on your feet," one of the men told him, "for we are men of humble birth. My name is Dafyd, and this is my friend Collen." He looked at Taliesin's clothing, saw the golden torc around his neck, and knew he had addressed a Briton lord. "Who are you?"

  "Chief bard am I to King Elphin of Gwynedd," Taliesin

  replied, his face shining.

  "What is your name?" asked Dafyd. "Do we know you?" Elphin and the others arrived, and as they gathered around Taliesin began to exclaim:'

  "I was with my Lord

  in the heavens

  When Lucifer fell

  into the depths of Hell;

  I carried a banner

  before Alexander in Egypt;

  I call the stars by name

  from the North to the South;

  I was head architect

  of Nimrod's tower;

  I was in Babylon

  in the Tetragrammaton;

  I was patriarch

  to Elijah and Enoch;

  I was atop the cross

  of the merciful Son of God;

  I was three times

  in the prison of Arianrhod;

  I was in the Ark

  with Noah and Alpha;

  I witnessed the destruction

  of Sodom and Gomorrah;

  I upheld Moses

  through the sea;

  I was in the court of Dôn

  before the birth of Gwydion;

  And I was with my Lord

  in the manger of oxen and asses.

  "I was moved through the entire universe

  by the hand of the Most High;

  I received my awen

  from Ceridwen's Caldron;

  People call me poet and bard;

  henceforth I shall be known as Prophet!

  Taliesin I am,

  and my name shall remain until doomsday."

  Never had any of them heard such a speech as this. Dafyd raised his hands to Taliesin and said, "How is it that you know the Lord and revere him?"

  Taliesin answered, "I have seen him! The Lord has revealed himself to me so that I may worship him and proclaim his name to my people."

  Elphin and Hafgan could understand little of what Taliesin was saying, but they knew they had indeed seen something extraordinary.

  Elphin then told Dafyd about the defeat at Caer Dyvi and the wandering of his people. He ended by saying, "We have come here to meet this Fisher King and to see whether he can help us."

  "Then I will gladly take you to him and allow you to prove his generosity for yourselves. I know he will want to see you, for he has recently become a follower of the Christ himself."

  So Elphin and his people were conducted to Avallach's palace where they were received courteously. And it was there that Taliesin first saw Avallach's golden-haired daughter, Charis.

  FIVE

  "IS SOMETHING WRONG?" ASKED LlLE. SHE HAD COME UPON Charis as she sat in the orchard among the pink-blossomed apple trees. "I have been watching, and you have not entered the hall or courtyard since the strangers came."

  Charis shrugged nonchalantly. "I have no wish to interfere in my father's affairs."

  "Avallach's affairs? He speaks of inviting the aliens to settle on our lands, of joining the destiny of our races, of adapting to their ways, of abandoning all to follow this new god, the Christ—and you say these are affairs for the king alone?"

  Lile sniffed and tossed her head. "Does none of this worry you?"

  "Should it?" Charis answered absently.

  "Talking to you is like talking to a cloud. What is wrong?"

  "Nothing is wrong. I just want to be alone with my thoughts."

  "I saw the way you looked at him," said Lile. "It is true he is less repulsive than any of the others, but I cannot believe you would waste a moment's thought on him."

  Charis stirred and turned to Lile. "Who?" she asked, genuinely puzzled.

  "Why, the singer! You have not heard a word I said."

  "The singer," said Charis, turning away again.

  "We do not know these people. They call themselves kings—where is their kingdom? They come seeking audience with Avallach, but where are their gifts? They expect us to take them seriously and yet they dress in the most bizarre manner; they sleep on the floor and eat with their fingers."

  "Their lands were overrun, I think," offered Charis.

  "So they say. Avallach is altogether too gullible. Let that bright-eyed weasel Dafyd whisper a word in his ear and he gives away half his holdings!"

  "Did you hear him?" asked Charis unexpectedly.

  "Dafyd?"

  "The singer," said Charis with exasperation. "So simple, so pure…"

  "With that out-of-tune lyre?"

  "So beautiful."

  "And that gibberish speech of theirs. Call it a song? It sounded like a wounded beast yowling to be put out of its misery." Lile tossed her head contemptuously. "Perhaps you have been sitting in the sun too long."

  The day was bright and hot; the sun poured itself out upon the land and the heat haze shimmered on the horizon. Lile rose and took a nearby bough in her hand, examining the exquisite flowers, each of which would in its season bear a fine, golden apple. She noticed one shriveled bloom and, frowning, plucked it and threw it aside. "Are you certain there is nothing wrong?"

  "I feel like riding."

  "You should lie down. The sun is too hot for you."

  "I do not feel like lying down. I feel like riding." With that, Charis rose and hurried from the orchard, leaving Lile staring after her, shaking her head and muttering.

 
Charis spent the afternoon riding among the hills, visiting the secret places she had neglected since the pilgrim priests arrived. She wound her way through greenwood tracks and hill trails, beside noisy brooks and silent meres. And as she rode, she thought about the unexpected turn her life had taken.

  With the coming of all these strangers—first Dafyd and Collen, and now the Cymry—she felt as if a plan or a design had been set in motion and was now working itself out. She was part of it, although she could not see how. But she sensed the strings of the thing tightening around her like the silken threads of a tatter's web being looped and knotted into place.

  The pattern, however, was not complete enough to be discerned.

  Still, she felt certain that her life of restless melancholy was at an end. Something new was happening. There was a ferment around her, perhaps within her as well, in the very atmosphere itself—there to be tasted with every breath. Certainly it was a fact that she had never been so encircled by gods and men—not even as a dancer in the bullring. She could hardly turn around for stepping on one or the other of them.

  It was not at all a disagreeable feeling. Rather, there was a security about it that appealed to her. Irrationally, perhaps, for she had long ago learned that nothing in life was secure.

  She jogged along, letting these thoughts circle idly around in her head—like birds wheeling above the trees without alighting. She came to green-shaded glade in the wood. In the center of the glade lay a pool fed by a clear-water stream. Charis reined up and allowed the horse to amble to the mossy bank where she sat in the saddle and gazed across the cloud-mirrored surface of the pool.

  The water was fringed around with cattails and long, plumed reeds. She had visited the pond once or twice before, as it was not far from the palace, and remembered thinking it a good place to bathe. Looking at the pool now, the notion occurred to her once again and she climbed from the saddle, tethered her mount, and walked to the edge of the pool where she slipped off her boots, loosed her hair from its thong, and waded in.

  A skylark winging high above sent down a song that fell upon the glade like a rain of liquid gold. The sun shone bright and the clouds drifted over the surface of the pool, as Charis, drifting with them now, stepped into deeper water. When the water had risen to her waist, she bent her knees and lay back, feeling the cold wetness seep into all the dry places.

  She swam, enjoying the slow, calm swirling motions of her hair and clothing in the water and the sparkling diamond drops that glittered on her skin and scattered from her fingers when she raised her hands and plunged them in again. She closed her eyes and floated, letting the water steal away all thought, all care. Giving in to the dreaminess of the day, she began to sing softly to herself the melody she had heard the night before in her father's hall.

  * * *

  Taliesin had seen the gray horse canter from the courtyard. He watched the animal and its golden-haired rider wind down the pathway from the Tor and over the causeway across the marsh. He watched and then he followed; he had no conscious plan in mind, no desire to apprehend her, no thought at all but to keep the woman in sight. He was intrigued by her, enchanted. So regal and aloof, beautiful and distant and alluring, she was like one of the denizens of the Otherworld, a being whose look or touch might heal or slay according to purpose or whim.

  He rode behind and was careful not to be seen, for he did not wish to intrude. She rode well, he noticed, handling her mount masterfully; but it soon became apparent that if she had a destination in mind, she was not in a hurry to reach it. She seemed instead to wander, and yet her wanderings were not aimless or random.

  The princess was, Taliesin decided at length, neither bound for a predetermined destination nor trotting aimlessly; she was visiting places she knew well—so well that she had no need to search for pathways or trails—describing a circuit she had ridden countless times before.

  Charis might have been familiar with the haunts she chose, but Taliesin was not and he soon lost her. She had ridden up a hill and entered a small stand of beech trees at its crown. Taliesin had followed and in due course arrived at the grove to discover that Charis had disappeared.

  He searched the hillside, trying to raise her trail again, but could not. At last he gave up and started back to the palace, retracing his meandering way. The Tor was within sight when he heard it: someone singing. The music was floating on the air, drifting to him on unseen currents, beckoning him to turn aside.

  Following the sound, he left the trail and entered a little wood nearby. Just inside the wood he came upon a stream and went along beside it, deeper into the wood, where the lilting sound was louder. He stopped and dismounted, his heart quickening. There was no mistaking it now; the song was one of his own melodies, and the singer was female.

  But as soon as he stepped from his horse the song stopped.

  He walked silently along the quick-running stream through the trees and came to a sunny glade. There was a small pool in the center of the glade and the melody seemingly emanated from this pool, for the air still vibrated with the strains of the song. He crept close and settled behind a sturdy elm to watch.

  The afternoon sunlight was full upon the pool, tinting the water pale gold. Presently he saw a ripple in the center of the pool and then a splash…and another. Then an arm rose slowly, dripping water that sparkled like gemstones as it spilled back into the pool. The arm disappeared again and the surface of the tiny lake stilled.

  He waited, the sound of his heart beating loud in his ears.

  Then she was rising from the center of the pool, head back to keep her hair out of her eyes, the Fisher King's daughter, shimmering in the sunlight, water running off her in golden rivulets, her garments dazzling bright, scattering light around her in broken fragments like shards of glass.

  His breath caught in his throat. He recognized her now: the mysterious lady of the Otherwold who slept beneath the waters of the lake, her hands clasped tightly to the hilt of a sword. And now she had awakened.

  She stood for a moment, motionless, gazing toward him, and he thought he was discovered; but she bent her head to one side, gathered her long, wet tresses and began squeezing the water from them. Once more her voice filled the glade with Taliesin's melody. It was all he could do to keep from joining in, for every nerve and fiber in his being was already singing with her.

  I knew I would find you, he thought, exulting in the knowledge that she was here and alive, flesh and bone like he was— not a vision or spirit, not a Sidhe that lived only in the Otherworld.

  He stood and stepped from his hiding place.

  Charis did not see him at first. She continued pressing the water from her hair and then began wading toward the bank. She took a few steps and stopped. Her hands fell to her side. She raised her eyes to the elm that grew beside the pool, knowing what she would see.

  He was there, just as she knew he would be: tall and slim, golden torc glinting in the sun, his long flaxen hair bound tight at the nape of his neck, dark eyes gazing at her, drinking in the sight of her.

  Was he really there, or had she merely conjured his likeness with her song?

  For a moment neither moved or spoke. The dripping of the water from her garments filled the silence just as before her song had filled the glade. Then the singer moved toward her, stepping down into the water.

  "Lady of the Lake," he said softly, extending his hand toward her. "I greet you."

  Charis accepted his hand and they waded back to the mossy bank together.

  "You are the Fisher King's daughter," he said as he helped her from the pool.

  "I am," she replied. "And you are the singer." She viewed him calmly, much more calmly than she felt, and asked, "Do you have a name?"

  "Taliesin," he replied.

  "Taliesin…" She said the name as if it was the answer to a question that had plagued her for years and then turned away, moving toward her horse.

  "It means Shining Brow in the language of my people," Taliesin explained, fall
ing into step beside her. "Do you have a name? Or do men simply utter the fairest word they know?"

  "Charis," she replied a bit warily.

  He smiled. "A name which must mean 'beautiful' in your race's tongue."

  She made no answer but unpegged her horse and coiled the braided tether line in her hands. Taliesin stooped and cupped his hands to lift her into the saddle. She raised her foot and saw that it was bare. Both of them stared at the foot—still wet from her swim, with bits of leaf and mud clinging to it—and Taliesin began to laugh, his voice ringing clear and full in the glade.

  It seemed to Charis as if an amphora had been upended and, instead of wine or olive oil, pure joyous laughter had been poured out to flow like quicksilver through the green glade. She laughed too and their voices soared through the trees like birds twinned in flight.

  Still laughing, Taliesin returned to the bank and retrieved the boots and hair thong. When he turned back, Charis was gone. He heard the jingle of a horse's tack and glanced toward the sound to see Charis disappearing into the wood. His first impulse was to leap to his own mount and catch her. But he stood looking on as she vanished through the trees and then went back to his horse, climbed into the saddle and made his way back to the Tor, clutching her belongings to his chest.

  * * *

  Avallach sat with his chin in his hand, frowning. Behind him Annubi, like a granite idol, loomed dark and threatening. Elphin and Cuall sat on a bench facing him, their expressions sad and fierce. Hafgan, wrapped in his blue robe, his rowan staff in his hand, stood by the chamber door, his head inclined, eyes half-closed in complete concentration.

  "Such dire events," said Avallach after a moment. "Your tale distresses me greatly."

  "It bears no pleasure in the telling," replied Elphin. "But it is the truth."

  "Every word," added Cuall bitterly. "My life, it is the truth!"

  "Do you think these Painted Men, these barbarians you speak of, will strike this far south?"

  "In time," Elphin replied, "it is possible. Although in Dyfed we heard that the emperor was withdrawing two legions from Gaul and sending troops back to the Wall."