Taliesin: Book One of the Pendragon Cycle

  Belyn's eyes fell on Charis. "And Charis, my little dove." He hugged her and tugged on a ribbon. "Not so little anymore, I see. Watch her, Avallach; she will be stealing hearts before this night is through."

  Charis thought this jovial banter odd, considering Belyn and Elaine had visited only days before they had left for Poseidonis. Before she could remark on it, however, their usher returned to lead them to their table, saying, "The High King will be making his entrance soon…Would you like to be seated?"

  "Yes, go on," said Belyn, "I am going to my table now. We will talk tomorrow."

  Avallach and his family wound their way through the tangle of guests to a raised table—one of nine which were set aside for the kings and their immediate families. Charis, sitting next to her mother, who occupied the place at the king's right hand, listened as her father named the others gathered in the hall.

  "There is Hugaderan of Hespera…He stares this way but pretends not to see me; I expect as much from him," said Avallach. "And over there sits stony Musaeus with his advisors; I have never once seen him smile." He shifted his gaze. "Oh, and Itazais of Azilia, looking bored and out of sorts—as if it were beneath him to appear in this company. Next to him, over there, Meirchion of Skatha; now there is a man who knows how to listen to reason."

  Avallach paused and swiveled around. "I do not see Nestor anywhere; surely he does not intend arriving after the High King has entered."

  "Perhaps he will not attend tonight," said Briseis.

  "Ah, Seithenin has just come in. I tell you, Briseis, I am liking that man more and more. Given time, he could become a second brother to me."

  A few moments later, the trumpeters blew a high, dazzling fanfare and the herald announced loudly, "King Ceremon, High King of the Nine Kingdoms, and his wife, Queen Danea."

  The room fell silent. The kings and their parties stood as the High King entered, the queen by his side. They were arrayed alike in fine alizarin silk, with gold embroidery at cuffs and hem. Ceremon wore a short gold cloak and gilded boots, and on his head a golden circlet with a sun disk over his brow. Danea wore gilded sandals and a simple circlet of gold; her auburn hair was pulled back and the braid bound with gold rings. Her sleeveless cloak trailed after, its gold-worked border sweeping the floor.

  They walked slowly through the hall to their places at the high table, greeting others as they passed. They came near to Avallach's table and Avallach bowed courteously. "Welcome, King Avallach," said Ceremon, inclining his head. "Queen Briseis, I am glad you chose to accompany your husband. We have not had the pleasure of your presence in the palace for some time. Welcome, all of you."

  The High King made to move on, when his gaze fell on Charis. He paused and turned to her. "And who is this? Avallach, I did not know you had a daughter." He reached out a slender hand and raised her chin. "What is your name, bright one?"

  "Charis, Sire," she answered.

  Ceremon smiled, his eyes bright and hard. "Charis…a beautiful name for a beautiful girl. Welcome, Charis. I hope you find time to see our great city."

  Charis bowed, and when she looked up again the High King was gone. She saw him walking slowly away, erect, slender, cloak shimmering in the light, and thought that she had never seen anyone so regal, so commanding. "He is a very god," she whispered to her mother.

  Briseis glanced at her daughter but did not reply. Charis became embarrassed then and blushed crimson. The banquet proceeded—served by hundreds of servants bearing platters of food and drink, circulating continuously throughout the hall—but Charis did not taste a bite. She stared at the High King and his wife and imagined herself in the queen's place, looking as serene and majestic as the High Queen herself.

  There was entertainment after the meal: a swarming army of musicians performed traditional songs while a chorus sang. Charis was certain she had entered a dream. The resplendent hall, the dignified guests, the formal music welling up and up, and the imperial presence of the High King—all combined to give the banquet a dreamlike quality. So much so that Charis was surprised and distinctly disappointed when it came time to leave.

  It seemed as if the evening had taken wings and fled in an instant. Dazzled and entranced by her experience, Charis all but floated back to her room. In a daze she readied herself for bed and slipped beneath the crisp linens and drifted off to sleep, the High King's voice still falling in her ears: "Charis…a beautiful name for a beautiful girl…"

  TEN

  ELPHIN'S WEDDING FEAST CONTINUED THE NEXT DAY, AND the next. On the fourth day the casks and skins began going dry, and by evening the food was running low as well. Many of the guests took their leave then; those who lived further distance stayed one more night but left early the next morning, so that by midday all the visiting guests had departed and the feast was over.

  The following morning Elphin rose, dressed quickly, and strode from the house. He called the men whose labor his father had promised him and led them to the place he had chosen for his house. He paced off the dimensions of the structure, gave orders, and the men began digging—halfheartedly, for they disapproved of Elphin's choice of plot for his house and begrudged the whole project, thinking it unnecessary and, most likely, unlucky.

  Toward evening, when they had finished, they called Elphin to inspect the work. He took one look at what they had done and said, "This is not what I told you. It must be bigger!"

  The next morning they went back to work and at midday called him again. When he saw the size of the hole, he frowned and shook his head. "It is still not big enough. Since you will not listen to me, I will show you. Look here—" He took a wooden stake and drove it into the ground, and then another, enlarging the square to a huge rectangle. "This is how I want it."

  The men grumbled to themselves but went back to work. "What does he need with such a big house?" they muttered when he had gone. "There is only one lord in this caer, and it is not Elphin."

  "Perhaps he hopes to make himself lord by building a big house," remarked one disgruntled worker.

  "Ha! It'll take more than a big house to make him lord," replied his companion.

  By evening they had nearly completed the excavation for the house. Elphin surveyed their efforts and approved. "Now, then, the firepit will be here," he said, pointing to a spot in the center of the hole.

  "Dig it yourself," growled one of the workmen. "You want such a big house." The man threw his shovel at Elphin's feet.

  "Very well," replied Elphin, dropping into the hole. He retrieved the shovel and walked to the place he had indicated. There he scratched out the dimensions of the fireplace and dug the first shovelful, pushing the wooden blade into the dirt with his foot.

  But the shovel hit on something hard and stopped. "An old root," someone said with a snicker. "Better make the firepit somewhere else."

  "That is no root," said Elphin, scraping away the dirt. "It is a stone." The stone had an edge to it, and Elphin scraped around it to discover that it was a large, square piece of flat slate. When he had cleared the dirt away, he pried up the edge of the black stone and saw a scrap of coarse-woven cloth.

  "What is this?" he said, stooping. The filthy rag fell apart as his hand closed on it, but under the rotten tatters he saw a glimmer of yellow. The others watched curiously as Elphin dropped to his knees and began scraping at the dirt with his hands.

  "Look at him," they laughed. "He thinks he is a dog."

  Elphin ignored them and took up the shovel again, thrust it into the soil, and withdrew it. And there, dangling from the end of the wooden blade, was a golden torc.

  The workmen ceased laughing. Elphin took the torc and held it in his hands, brushing away the clinging soil. It was as thick as three braided chains, and on the ends were the carved heads of animals: a bull on the right, and a bear on the left. "See what I have found!" he cried. "A golden torc, a king's torc!"

  Elphin raised his voice in a shout, and soon almost everyone in the village—including Gwyddno and Hafgan—had gathered around the
excavation. "See what I have found," said Elphin in a loud voice, holding the torc high in the air for all to see. "A torc of gold—buried right where I have set my hearth."

  There were murmurs of amazement through the throng. "Let me see it, if you will," said Hafgan, elbowing his way forward.

  Elphin placed the torc in the druid's hand and stood with his arms crossed over his chest. Hafgan studied it carefully, turning it this way and that. He took the edge of his robe and rubbed the torc until it shone with a bright luster. "Did all of you see this take place?" he asked.

  "We saw it," the workmen admitted reluctantly.

  "Does anyone doubt?"'

  They shook their heads. "Elphin found it as he said," one of the men replied, and explained how they had refused to dig the firepit and challenged Elphin to dig for himself. "He took up the shovel and struck the stone; the torc was under it."

  Gwyddno clapped his hands. "This is a fortuitous sign!"

  "Indeed," Hafgan replied. "Most fortuitous. There is little doubt that this torc once adorned the neck of a king. It was found in Elphin's home, beneath an ancient hearthstone."

  "What does it mean?" asked one of the workmen.

  Hafgan hefted the torc in his hand. "The meaning is clear: where is the king's hearth?"

  "Why, in the king's house," the man answered.

  "And who lives in the king's house?"

  "The king himself," answered Gwyddno grinning broadly.

  "It is so," said Hafgan. He held out the ornament to Elphin saying, "Do you claim the torc, Elphin ap Gwyddno?"

  "I do claim it," replied Elphin.

  "Then wear it," said Hafgan. At this the people murmured in surprise, for by this the druid indicated Elphin's worthiness to succeed his father.

  Elphin took the torc and carefully spread the ends, raised it to his neck and slipped it on, then pushed the two ends together. The cool weight of the torc felt good on his shoulders.

  "Here is the third treasure that Elphin has found," said Hafgan, speaking to all gathered there. "He has found a son of virtue, a noble wife, and now the torc of a king. Who among you will call him unlucky?"

  No one stirred; who could speak against such evidence?

  "From this day, let no one disparage the name of Elphin, for to do so will bring dishonor—not upon Elphin, but on the speaker. You have all seen that Elphin's luck has changed and his fortune is now as great as his previous misfortune." He raised his staff over them. "Here is the evidence that all I have foretold is coming to pass. Hear and remember."

  They all dispersed, and Elphin climbed from the hole to show Rhonwyn his incredible find. Rhonwyn, unlike the others, expressed no surprise but merely raised her hand to finger the torc and said, "When I first saw you, I saw a torc of gold about your neck. Now here it is. This is but the first of my husband's many glorious achievements."

  That same night Elphin lay in bed, Rhonwyn beside him with the infant at her breast. It was late and the hearthfire burned low, and although it had been a busy day he tossed this way and that, unable to sleep. After a few minutes of his thrashing, Rhonwyn said, "What is the matter, Elphin? Are you troubled?"

  "No," he said, "yet sleep eludes me. I cannot rest."

  "It might help to walk a little."

  "Perhaps you are right." He rose quietly, pulled a calfskin around his shoulders, and stepped outside to a night alive with stars. He stood contemplating the skybowl for some moments, the crisp air making his breath a silver mist in the starlight.

  "This is a night for enchantment," he thought. "On such a night as this, great deeds are done for good or ill."

  The thought was still in his mind when he heard a sound—a shrill keen in the night like a nightbird's call. And though he listened for the sound to come again, all he heard were the nightsounds of the caer. Curious, he walked down through the center of the caer, passing the great oak and the dark houses of his kinsmen, moving toward the palisade. At the gate he climbed the inner rampart and looked out over the palisade to the cattle pens beyond. It was dark and quiet beyond the enormous timber circle of the fortress. As he turned to retrace his steps back down the rampart, he caught a glimmer out of the corner of his eye—like the gleam of starlight on a naked blade.

  He looked again and it was gone. But now he was alert. Standing there, staring into the darkness, he made out dark shapes moving in the main pen. He felt a tingle in his flesh and without thinking threw off the calfskin and raced back through the caer to his father's house. He dashed inside and shouted, "Gwyddno! Get up! Our cattle are being stolen!"

  Snatching a burning brand from the firepit, he ran back outside to the gate, lifted the crosspiece from its pegs, and threw the massive gate open. Then he flew down the track to the cattle pens with the firebrand in his hand. Behind him came the alarm sounded on Gwyddno's hunting horn, and then the clanging of the iron bar hanging from the oak.

  Elphin reached the pen and was met by the swords of four raiders. A blood-freezing shriek tore from his throat and he threw himself at the raiders, swinging his firebrand in a flaming arc around him. The thieves fell back in confusion and he saw the fear on their faces in the wild light of the torch, so pressed was his attack, shoving the burning branch at them time and time again.

  Other raiders sped to the fray. He swung to meet them, raising his voice in a fierce battle scream, flailing with the firebrand. He struck one man who went down with a grunt, and the others scattered. Elphin chased them, shrieking and swinging and lunging. The flaming brand ripped and flared in the night, making him seem like an incendiary being.

  His clansmen from the caer reached the pen and saw a strange sight: Elphin, unarmed except for his firebrand, chasing ten raiders armed with swords and spears, fleeing before him as if before a battlelord in a hurtling chariot.

  They ran to his aid, hot battle cries piercing the cool night air. One of the raiders slipped behind Elphin and aimed his spear. "Look out!" cried Gwyddno.

  Elphin heard the shout and spun as the spear sliced the air beside him. He put out a hand and his fist closed on the clumsily-thrown shaft, plucking it out of the air. He whipped around to face the raiders who, backed against the low stone wall, had turned to attack him once more. They yelled and ran forward, bunched together in a mass. Elphin hefted the spear and with a mighty heave let it fly.

  The spear flew true, passing through the foremost raider's flimsy leather shield and his body and into the one pressing close behind him as well. The two, pinioned by the same spear, fell as one.

  Seeing this remarkable feat, the remaining thieves halted, turned and fled, scrambling over the walls and disappearing into the night. The caer dwellers gave chase but did not catch them, and soon returned to the scene of the fight.

  There they found Elphin, naked and shaking, standing over the bodies of the men he had slain, the smoldering firebrand still in his hand. Gwyddno approached him and said, "Never have I seen a man behave in battle the way you did."

  "Who were they?" asked Elphin.

  Cuall, one of the first to reach the fight, stooped over the dead men and pushed a torch into their faces. He straightened and said, "I have never seen such men. Their dress is as strange as their faces."

  "Irish?" asked Gwyddno.

  Cuall shook his head. "I do not think so."

  "Who they are does not matter," said one of the men. "Our cattle are safe."

  "There should have been an alarm," offered Gwyddno. "Where are our herdsmen?"

  "Dead." They all turned to the speaker, who gestured to a far wall. "If not for Elphin, we would never have discovered the theft until morning and then the thieves would have been away clean."

  The men looked at Elphin wonderingly. "How did you learn of the raid?" asked his father.

  "I do not know," he answered, shaking his head as if were as great a mystery to himself as to the others. "I could not sleep and came outside. I heard something and saw the glimmer of a sword in the cattle pen. When I looked there were men here. I ran to the l
ord's house, wakened him, and took a firebrand from his hearth. I came down here…"

  Cuall retrieved one of the raider's weapons. "These swords are blackened with pitch and mud—as are the faces of the wretches before us," he said, turning the blade over for all to see. "How could you see it shine?"

  Elphin only shook his head. "That I cannot say. I only know I saw it and came running."

  "But why did you not wait for us, son?" asked Gwyddno. "It was foolhardy to go against them alone."

  "Foolhardy perhaps," replied one of the men, "but I saw Elphin's face in the firelight. Why, it burned as bright as the torch in his hand!"

  "Brighter," said another. "He had the battle frenzy on him and the warrior's glow—as the heroes of old."

  "Did you see?" said a third. "He snatched the spear out of the air and threw it back!"

  "Two with one throw!" shouted another.

  The men began shouting victory cries, and Cuall leapt upon the dead raiders with a sword and hewed the heads from their shoulders. He handed the dripping trophies to Elphin, saying, "With nothing but a torch you routed the enemy. Hail Elphin, son of Gwyddno Garanhir, champion of the fight!"

  "Hail Elphin!" the others cried. And Elphin was borne back to the caer on the shoulders of men who chanted victory songs in his honor for hours into the night.

  ELEVEN

  "HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANYTHING SO…" CHARIS searched for just the right word,"…so magnificent?"

  Guistan peered at her and sniffed, "Of course, the High King lives well. Why not? It is his right." The boy tossed another grape into his mouth. "He is a god, after all."

  "Not a real god."

  "He is too," insisted Guistan. He put a grape under his thumb and squashed it. "Ask Annubi. When a king becomes High King, he also becomes a god. Would you have a god live in a pigsty?"

  "I said the palace is magnificent," she insisted. "I think the High King is magnificent, too; I do not care whether he is a god or not."

  "Huh!" snorted Guistan, getting to his feet. He squashed another grape and then picked up the pulpy mass and threw it at Charis.