He sang a song about a king whose three sons had been turned into horses as the result of a curse laid on him by a rival king whose wife he had stolen. As the story spun out verse by verse, the listeners were drawn in and held spellbound by the magic of Taliesin’s tale of treachery and doom.
His fingers moved over the strings of the harp, weaving melodies within melodies, while his voice rang with music so piercingly beautiful that many gathered there could only stare in astonishment, Believing themselves in the presence of an Otherworld visitor. Charis watched hostility and pride melt before Taliesin’s peerless art.
When he finished, not a sound could be heard; no one in the hall said a word, and even the world outside the hall was hushed and silent. Lord Pendaran Gleddyvrudd sat in his painted chair, clutching his sword and staring wide-eyed as if at a vision that would disappear the moment he twitched a muscle.
Then, slowly, he raised himself up and walked to Taliesin. Without a word he moved a hand to his arm, removed one of his armbands-chased gold in the shape of a boar’s head with curved tusks of silver-and taking Taliesin by the arm he slipped the heavy ornament on. Then he took another one and put that one on the singer as well. Lastly he reached to his neck, removed his golden tore, and presented it to Taliesin.
Taliesin, his face bright with the fever of his gift, took the tore in his hands, held it up, and then replaced it around the king’s neck. “I am your servant, Lord Pendaran.”
Old Pendaran shook his head. “No, no,” he said, his voice cracking with awe, “you are the master of any man within sound of your voice. I stand ashamed and unworthy before you, but I am your servant and happy to be so as long as you wish to stay.”
The Demetae king then showed his true nobility by filling his own horn with wine and giving it to Taliesin. He held it before the singer and said in a loud voice, “Know by this that I esteem Taliesin above all men in this hall. He shall reside here as bard to me and you will receive and honor him as your master, for such he is.”
He took off one of his thick gold rings and placed it on Taliesin’s finger and embraced Taliesin as a father embraces a son. The lord’s chiefs came up next, and each pulled off armbands of silver or gold and placed mem on Taliesin’s arms. One young man, Pendaran’s oldest son, wrapped a gold chain around Taliesin’s neck and knelt before him.
Taliesin put his hand on the young man’s head and said, “Arise Maelwys-I recognize you.”
The young man stood slowly. “You flatter me, lord, but my name is not Maelwys-it is Eiddon Vawr Vrylic.”
“Eiddon the Generous it is today perhaps,” replied Taliesin, “but one day all men will call you Maelwys, Most Noble.”
The young man ducked his head and hurried away before anyone could notice the color rising to his cheeks. Then Pen-daran ordered the trestles to be brought and the board laid. A chair of honor was produced for Taliesin and one for Charis and they sat down to a bountiful meal.
Later, when they were alone in the chamber Pendaran had given them for their own-a small but finely furnished apartment above the hall-Charis told Taliesin of her fright when he had faced Calpurnius. “You took a terrible chance, my love,” she said. “He might have cut out your tongue.”
Taliesin only smiled at this and said, “How so? Is not our Living God greater than his mute thing of stone?”
Charis wondered at Taliesin’s faith in the Savior God and would have talked with him more, but Taliesin yawned and stretched himself out on the high bed. His eyes closed and soon he was asleep. Charis pulled a woolen covering over him and sat watching him sleep for a while before laying down beside him. “Rest well,” she said, brushing his temple with her lips, “and may our God grant us peace in this house.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Maridunum lay in the heart of a land of broad hills and fertile valleys laced through with meandering rivers and fresh-running streams. Dyfed was, Charis found, very like Ynys Witrin, although not as wild, for the region had been settled and worked for many generations. Most of the landholders spoke a homey Latin, as well as Briton, and considered themselves Roman in matters of culture and civility.
The fields around Maridunum grew wheat, barley, and rye, and supported good herds of livestock which, supplemented by the harvest of the nearby sea, kept the larders of lord and liegeman alike well-stocked.
Pendaran Gleddyvrudd soon proved himself an amiable and generous host, most anxious to please his guests-all the more since he felt badly that he had disgraced himself and brought dishonor to his name by his rudeness and arrogance. “I am a hard man,” he told Taliesin and Charis a day or so after their first meeting, “living in hard times. I have forgotten much that I formerly held close to my heart. Please forgive a stupid and foolish man.”
“The man is neither stupid or foolish who sees himself ailing and seeks a remedy,” Taliesin told him.
“I do more. May health and wealth desert me if I show myself empty-handed to a stranger under my roof henceforth.” He gazed at Taliesin and shook his head sadly. “To think I delighted in being deceived by that meal bag of a priest, Calpurnius. I was indeed bewitted or I would have recognized you, Taliesin. But hearing you sing…” Pendaran’s voice trailed off.
Then the Demetae king shook himself and said, “Even so, I have thrown that rancorous flamen onto his god’s generosity.”
“You did not kill him” protested Charis sharply. “Worse!” chuckled Pendaran. “Oh, much worse-I sent him away. Now he will have to live by his wits, and a sorry living it will be!” His smile faded and again the king shook his head slowly. “I do not see how I could have been so blind. But,” he said, squaring himself, “I will make amends; I will repay tenfold what I have withheld through meanness and neglect.”
From that day Pendaran of the Red Sword made good his word, and his house became a more pleasant place. So pleasant, in fact, that Charis felt slightly guilty for not missing Ynys Witrin and her people more. But the truth was that through Taliesin she had begun to see a world unknown to her before, a world filled with astonishing beauty in even its most unpromising corners, a world greater, finer, and more noble than she had known and peopled by men and creatures marvelous to behold.
It was partly because of her growing love for Taliesin that she saw the world this way and partly because just being near him she was able to see it through his eyes. Charis knew she had never been truly alive before coming to Maridunum with Taliesin; all her past seemed slight and unreal-wisps of dreams, imperfect images half-remembered-almost as if it had happened to another Charis, a Charis who had lived in a gray, barren shadowland.
Every moment of the day she longed to be with Taliesin, and that longing was fulfilled. They rode beneath blue summer skies, they swam in the lakes and visited the settlements and old Roman towns nearby, they sang and laughed and made love. The days passed one by one, each a perfect pearl on a thread of braided gold.
Within three weeks of their arrival at Maridunum, Charis had a vision that she was carrying a child. The sky was still dark when it came upon her, although the birds in the trees outside their window had assembled and began chirping in anticipation of the dawn. She had, in her sleep, heard a small cry, such as a baby might make. She awoke to see a woman holding a newborn child and standing beside the bed. At first she thought one of the serving women had entered by mistake, but as she opened her mouth to speak the woman raised her head and she saw it was herself holding the child, and that the babe was her own. The vision faded then and she lay beside Taliesin in bed, luxuriating in her knowledge. There is life inside me, she thought, dizzy with the mystery of it.