She glanced up. Kevin was motionless, only his fingers alive on the strings; then the sighing madness of the music shivered into silence, he raised his head, and his fingers swept the strings, plucking them gaily to a merry tune, one sung by the barley sowers in the fields, with a dancing rhythm, and words that were far from decorous. This time he sang. His voice was strong and clear, and Morgaine, under cover of the dancing music, sat up and began to watch his hands, pushing her veil aside and contriving to wipe away the betraying tears as she did so.

Then she noticed that for all their skill, there was something strangely amiss with his hands. They seemed somehow misshapen, and studying them, she noted that one or two of the fingers lacked a second joint, so that he played deftly with the stubs, and that the little finger was missing entirely from his left hand; and all along the hands, beautiful and supple as they seemed when he moved them, were odd discolorations. As he set down the harp, leaning to steady it, his sleeve fell away from his wrist, and she could see hideous white patches there, like the scars of burns or some ghastly mutilating wounds. Now that she looked on him closely, she could see that his face had a fine network of scars along chin and jawline. He saw her staring and raised his head, meeting her eyes again and holding them with a hard, angry stare. Morgaine looked away, flushing; after the music which had searched her very soul, she would not have wounded his feelings.

"Well," Kevin said abruptly, "My lady and I are always glad to sing to those who love her voice, but I do not suppose you called me here entirely to entertain you, madam; nor you, my lord Merlin."

"Not entirely," said Viviane in her rich, low voice, "but you have given us a delight I shall remember for many years."

"And I," Morgaine said. She felt as shy now before him as she had been bold before. Nevertheless she went forward, to look more closely at the great harp, and said, "I have never seen one made after this fashion."

"That I can well believe," Kevin said, "for I had it made after my own design. The harper who taught me my craft threw up his hands in horror as if I had blasphemed his Gods, and swore it would make an unholy clamor, fit only to frighten away enemies. Like the great war harps, twice as tall as a man, that were dragged on carts up the hills in Gaul, and left there in the wind to make ghostly noises, so that they say even the legions of Rome were frightened. Well, I played one of those war harps, and a grateful king gave me leave to have a harp made exactly as I chose-"

Taliesin broke in. "He speaks the truth," he said to Viviane, "though I did not believe it when I heard it first-what man and mortal could play one of those monsters?"

"I did it," Kevin said, "and so the king had my lady made for me. I have a smaller one to the same design, but not so fine."

"Indeed it is beautiful," Morgaine said. "What are the pegs? Are they seal bone?"

He shook his head. "They are carved, so I am told, from the teeth of a great beast that lives in the warm countries far to the south," he said. "I only know that the material is fine and smooth, yet hard and durable. It is more costly than gold, though less gaudy."

"You do not hold it as I have ever seen a harp played-"

"No," Kevin said with his twisted smile, "I have but small strength in my arms, and I had to experiment to find how I could best do so. I saw you look at my hands. When I was six years old, the house where I lived was burned over my head by the Saxons, and I was pulled out too late. No one thought I would live, but I surprised them all, and since I could neither walk nor fight, they set me in a corner and decided that with my broken hands"-he spread them out quite dispassionately before him-"perhaps I could learn to spin and weave among the women. But I showed small disposition for that, and so one day an old harper came by, and in return for a bowl of soup, set himself to amuse a cripple. When he showed me the strings, I tried to play. And I did make music, after a fashion, so he got his bread that winter and the next by schooling me to play and sing, and said he could put me in the way of earning a livelihood with my music. And so for ten years I did nothing but sit in the corner and play, until my legs at length grew strong enough that I could learn to walk again." He shrugged, and pulled a length of cloth from behind him, wrapping up the harp in it and sliding it into a leather case embroidered with signs. "And then I became harper to a village, and at length to a king. When the old king died, his son had no ear for music, and I thought it best to get well out of the kingdom before he began to look covetously at the gold on my harp. Then I came to the Druid isle, and there I studied bardcraft, and at last I was sent to Avalon-and here I find myself," he added, with a final shrug, "but still you have not told me why you bade me attend you, Lord Merlin, nor these ladies."

"Because," said the Merlin, "I am old, and the events we set in motion this night may not come into their full flower for another generation. And when that time comes, I shall be gone."

Viviane leaned forward and said, "Have you had warning, Father?"

"No, no, my dear. I would not waste the Sight on such a matter; we do not consult the Gods to tell if the next winter will bring snowfalls. And as you brought Morgaine here, so I brought Kevin the Bard, so that there may be one younger than myself to follow what may happen when I am gone. So hear my news: Uther Pendragon lies dying at Caerleon, and where the lion falls, there the kites will gather. And we have had word brought to us that there is a great army massing in the Kentish countries, where the treaty people have decided that now is the moment to rise and take the rest of Britain from us. They have sent for mercenaries from the mainland, north of Gaul, to join them in overthrowing our people and undoing what Uther has done. And this is the time for all our people to fight behind the banner we have worked so many years to raise. There is not much time-they must have their king and have him now. There is not another moon to waste, or they will be upon us. Lot wants the throne, but the Southmen will not follow him. There are others-Duke Marcus from Cornwall, Uriens in North Wales-but not one of them can gain the support outside his own lands, and we could well be like the donkey who starved to death between two bales of fodder, not knowing which to eat first ... . We must have the Pendragon's son, young though he is."

Kevin said, "I had never heard that the Pendragon had a son. Or has he recognized that son his wife bore to Cornwall, soon after they were married? Uther must have been in unseemly haste to marry, if he could not even wait until she bore her child before taking her to his bed-"

Viviane raised her hand. "The young prince is the son of Uther," she said, "none may doubt it, nor will doubt it when they see him."

"Is it so? Then Uther did well to hide him away," Kevin said, "for his son by another man's wife-"

Viviane gestured him to silence. "Igraine is my sister, and she is of the royal line of Avalon. This son of Uther and Igraine is the one whose coming was foretold, the king who was and will be. Already he has taken the antlers and been crowned over the Tribes-"

"What king in Britain, do you think, will accept some boy of seventeen to be High King?" Kevin asked skeptically. "He could be brave as the fabled Cuchulain and they would want a warrior of greater skill."

"As for that, he has been schooled to war, and to the work of a king's son," Taliesin said, "though he knows not that his blood is royal. But I think the full moon just past gave him a sense of his destiny. Uther was honored above any king before his time; this lad Arthur will set his state even higher. I have seen him on the throne. The question is not, will they accept him, but what can we do to set him about with all the majesty of the High King, so all the warring kings will join hands against the Saxon instead of against one another!"