“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-time 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 Otherworld who slept beneath the waters of the lake, her hands clasped tightly to the hilt of a sword. And now she had awakened.