Taliesin accepted the cup but did not raise it. Charis cried out again and Taliesin winced. “I can do nothing here,” he said, setting the cup down. “I must go somewhere quiet to pray.”
“The temple has been empty these many months,” Hen-was remarked. “Perhaps your god would not mind if you went there to meet him.”
Leaving the hall, Taliesin walked around the villa and up the little mound to the small temple. The square building stood dark in the falling twilight, its square bulk rising from the mound like a crown of stone. The sky was pale green and the air briskly cold. The gray cloud-bound day had given way to a clear, crisp night, aad overhead a curlew voiced its lonely cry as it darted among the treetops.
The inner temple was filled with dry leaves that rustled as Taliesin entered. There as an altar at one end of the cell; otherwise the building was empty. Taliesin went to the altar and after a moment pushed it over. It gave a hollow crash as it toppled against the wall and dust puffed up-the residue of unanswered prayers grown thick like the leafmold under foot.
Taliesin sat down on one of the altar stones, crossed his legs, and put his elbows on his knees, lowering his chin to his clasped hands. He could feel the lingering presence of other gods-their whispered voices brittle like the restless sigh of the dry leaves on the floor. “Father God,” he said aloud, “you who are greater than all the gods worshiped here before now, hallow this place with your presence and hear my prayer. I pray for the one you have given me, that she may be safely delivered of the child now mat the hour of her trial is come upon her. Give her strength and courage, Father, as you give all who turn to you in need.”
He remained in the temple, waiting on the god and watching through the open windows as the night drew its veil over the land. A scattering of early stars shone as hard icepoints in the sky when he finally emerged to stand for a moment on the threshold of the temple, his breath hanging in the air above him, glowing faintly in the light of the rising moon.
Away in the distance, on the crests of the hills, fires burned brightly, creating a necklace of sparkling flame around Mar-idunum. Taliesin gazed through the crystalline air at the fires and remembered what day it was: Imbolc, the first day of spring.
On those far hilltops people observed a rite far older than the circles of stone wherein burned their celebration fires.
King Winter, Lord of Death, was vanquished and driven from the land, forced by the Goddess Dagda to return to his underworld throne, leaving earth ready to receive the seed of new life once more.
He remembered all the times he had stood on freezing hilltops and watched the same fires that now burned into the chill darkness. There had been a time, not long past, when he would have kindled those flames himself. “Tempt me not,” he whispered, “I follow a living God now.” He watched for a moment longer and then hurried back to the villa.
In the time between times when the world hangs between darkness and light, the time when all forces are held in balance for that briefest of moments, the child was born.
In the end Charis gave a cry of pain and pushed, her stomach held in the sure hands of the midwife, veins showing purple on her forehead and neck, sweat soaking into the sodden bedclothes, a piece of thick leather between her teeth. “Harder!” urged Heilyn, “I can see it! Push, girl! Push it out-now!”
Charis pushed again and the babe came into the world.
Heilyn, her face grave, gathered the tiny blue body into a length of cloth and turned away. Through a haze of exhaustion and pain, Charis saw the movement and cried, “My child! Where is my child?”
“Shhh,” said Heilyn. “Rest you now. It is over.”
“My baby!”
“The babe is dead, lady,” whispered Rhuna. “Its caul did never burst and it smothered.”
“No!” Charis screamed, her voice echoing along the sleeping corridors of the villa. “Taliesin!”
Taliesin was immediately in the room. Charis, pale with exhaustion, struggled up, reaching her hand to his. “My baby! My child!”
“Where is the child?” he asked.
Rhuna nodded toward Heilyn, who turned with the bundle, lifting a comer of the cover as she did. Taliesin saw the tiny blue thing in its membranous sac and his heart dropped like a felled beast. He took the bundle from Heilyn and cradled it to him, falling to his knees. He placed the babe on the floor before him and, taking the caul in his hands, ripped it open, freeing the child. The body lay inert, unmoving, gray-blue in the semidarkness of the chamber. Charis gazed in horror at the tiny dead creature, her mouth moving in silent, uncomprehending grief. Surely the child that had moved in her Belly could not be so still and silent.
Taliesin spread his hands over the infant and closed his eyes. A sound came from his throat, a single wavering note. Those who heard it thought he was beginning the wail of grief. But the note rose and filled the room, vibrating with resonance as he gave it strength. Behind him the door opened and in came Pendaran, Henwas, and Eiddon; others of the household crowded in behind.
The single note now rose and fell in a simple, elemental melody as Taliesin, oblivious to all around him, began to sing. Fingertips lightly touching breast and forehead, Taliesin stooped over the stillborn babe, singing his own life into the child.
Those who stood looking on witnessed a strange thing, for it seemed that as Taliesin bent low a shadow swept over him- not an ordinary shadow, but a shadow wrought by the presence of light rather than the absence of it. This shining shadow paused, hovering over Taliesin and the child on the floor before him, and then fell, darting down toward the babe with the swift, certain stroke of a dagger, piercing through Taliesin’s outstretched hands.
The babe quivered, drew breath, and wailed.
As the infant raised its natal cry, the hideous blue-black color of death receded. Soon its flesh glowed pink and warm, and its tiny fists clenched and shook the air, mouth wide and round in loud complaint. Heilyn bent and scooped the child into her arms, wrapping a new blanket around it.
Taliesin sat back on his heels and raised his head slowly, as if emerging from a long, dulling sleep. Heilyn, having bound and cut the birth cord, turned and lay the babe gently on the bed beside Charis, who encircled it in her arms and held it to her breast.
Eiddon was the first of the onlookers to move from the trance-like posture that held them all. He ran to Taliesin, raised him to his feet, and led him to the bedside where the bard slumped down once more, smiling weakly and placing a hand on the infant’s head. Charis caught his other hand in hers and pressed it to her lips.
“He is a beautiful man-child,” said Heilyn. “As beautiful a babe as these eyes have seen.”
“Your son,” whispered Charis.
Then and for the next several hours the chamber became the busiest place in the villa. Everyone wanted to see the miracle child, and despite Heilyn’s threats and protests one after another of the curious crowded into the room to peer at the babe and set the walls and corridors humming as they retold the tale of its birth to one another.
Charis-weak, shaken, exhausted, half-mad-finally complained of the noise and Heilyn snapped into action, shooing them all instantly from the room and placing Henwas as a guard before the door with strict orders to flog anyone who so much as breathed a word in the direction of the chamber. Taliesin sat in the chair beside the bed, his head drooping on his chest. Charis, the babe at her breast, dozed, her fingers tenderly brushing the infant’s downy soft black hair.
She slept most of the next day, awakening only to feed the baby and to speak drowsily with Taliesin when he came in to see them. “What will we name our son?” he asked, settling himself in the chair.