Taliesin

CHAPTER FIVE

It rained in the morning when the firepits were being banked with charcoal. But by the time the meat began to sizzle the sky had cleared, and as twilight came on the celebration reached its height. Beer, foamy and dark, and sweet, golden mead flowed in gushing fountains from barrel and butt to horn and jar. Whole carcasses of beef, pork, and mutton roasted on massive iron spits, draping a silver pall of fragrant smoke over the glad roister. The caer rang end to end in song, strong Celtic voices soaring like birds in wild, joyous flight.

Elphin laughed and sang with the hearty ease of a king confident in his position and power. To all those gathered at the high table outside his house, he told stories extolling the bravery of his men; he lifted his horn to each and every one, recounting individual examples of their courage, lavishing honor upon his warband in words of unstinting praise. Rhon-wyn sat beside her husband and Taliesin hovered close by, basking in his father’s presence like a bright-eyed otter on a sun-warmed rock.

As the first stars glimmered in the sky, Cuall, sitting at his lord’s right hand, leaned close and whispered a few words to Elphin, who nodded and set his drinking horn aside. “It is time,” Elphin said, scanning the scene from his high table.

“Time for what?” asked Rhonwyn.

Elphin winked at her and climbed up onto his chair. Cuall began banging on the board with the haft of his knife. The sound was lost in the convivial roar, but soon the whole table had joined in and the rhythmic thump, thump, thump echoed through the caer. “Lord Elphin wishes to speak!” someone shouted. “The king will speak!”

“Let him speak!” someone called. “Quiet! Let the king speak!”

The clatter of voices swelled with excitement and the people gathered around the high table. Platters, bowls, and utensils were shoved aside and Elphin stepped onto the board. He stood with his arms out as if to embrace the whole clan. “My people!” he shouted. “Listen to your lord.”

In a moment it was quiet enough for him to continue. He began, “Every year for seven years we have ridden the Wall…”

“Yes, it is true,” replied the throng Below him.

“… And every year for six of those years we return here to feast at the end of it.”

“Lieu knows it is true!” answered the crowd.

“We feast to celebrate the warband’s safe return, and in a day or two the men disperse to their own homes in the hills and valleys of our lands and their hands return to staif and plow. But not this year,” cried Elphin. “Not ever again while I am king.”

The people murmured. “What is he saying? What does it mean?”

“Now and henceforth the warband stays here!” shouted Elphin as he looked out across his people’s wondering faces. “When we first rode out we were boys; we were farmers, we were herders, and the sons of farmers and herders. But in seven years we have become warriors!”

The people nodded their approval of his words.

“In ancient times our kings lived with their warbands in their timber halls. These ancient times are returning to our land, it seems; therefore, it is only fitting that warriors remain with their battlechief.”

“It is so, Lord Elphin,” the people of the caer replied.

“For this reason I shall cause to be raised, here on this very spot, a great hall! A great hall to rival those possessed by the battlelords of old.”

“A great hall!” gasped the crowd, delighted.

“Henceforth we live like our fathers of old, looking not to the east or west, nor to the south for our protection, trusting not to the Pax Romano., but looking to ourselves and trusting the iron in our own hands. Now and henceforth we protect our own!” With that he drew his sword and held the naked blade in both hands high above his head.

The people raised a noisy cheer, crying as one: “Long live the king! Long live Lord Elphin!”

Across the way Hafgan and Blaise stood swathed in their blue robes, contemplating the proceedings. “What do you think?” asked Blaise.

“It will do,” replied Hafgan.

“It will do, I dare say. But do to what end?”

“Well,” replied the druid as the revelry commenced once more, “it will keep them well occupied for the next year. I was wondering what would happen with the warband staying home. Elphin is right, they are warriors now-it is better to keep them occupied with a warrior’s life and duties.”

“And it will do to keep them underfoot here.”

“Do not begrudge them their home, Blaise. Elphin is to be praised. His work is teaching him well-he is becoming a canny king.”

“Is it enough?” wondered Blaise.

“It is enough for now,” answered Hafgan. “More will be given when more is required.” He looked upon Elphin with pride. “He is a good king and a good father for Taliesin. See how the boy’s eyes follow his every move? Yes, Blaise, it is enough.”

Hafgan’s presence did not go long unnoticed, and soon a shout went up for the bard to tell a story. The shout became a chant, “Fetch my harp, Blaise,” he said and began threading his way toward the high table.

“There you are, Hafgan,” said Elphin happily. “Come and sit with me.”

The druid bowed but remained standing at the foot of the table. “How may I serve you, lord?”

“It appears a tale is in order. I tell you, it is long enough since we have heard anything but snoring around the fire.”

“What tale does my lord wish to hear?”

“Something of high deeds and courage,” replied Elphin. “Something befitting a celebration such as this. You choose.”

Taliesin, lurking near his father’s side, scampered around. “Tell the story of the pigs!” he cried as he climbed into Elphin’s lap. “The Pigs of Pryderi!”

“Hush, Taliesin,” said Rhonwyn. “Hafgan will decide.”

Blaise returned with the harp, and Hafgan strummed it absently as if trying to decide which tale he would tell. The torchpoles were lit and the people drew close, settling themselves in knots and clusters on the ground.

When all was quiet, Hafgan lifted the harp to his shoulder and, with a wink to Taliesin, began to play. “Hear then, if you will, the tale of Math ap Mamonwy,” he said and waited until the crowd was settled again.

“In the days when the dew of creation was still fresh on the earth Math, son of Mathonwy, was king over all Gwynedd and Dyfed and Lloegr, as well as the Westerlands. Now Math could only live so long as his feet were held in the lap of a maiden-except when the turmoil of war prevented him. The maiden’s name was Goewin, daughter of Pebin, of Dol Pebin, and she was the fairest known in her time.

“Now in those days word came to Math of a creature new to the Island of the Mighty whose meat was sweet and better to eat than beef. And this is the way of it…”

Hafgan told of how Math sent his nephew Gwydyon to Pryderi, son of Pwyll, to bring back some of the pigs which had been sent as a gift to Pryderi by Arawn, lord of Annwn, so that they might raise herds of swine for themselves. Taliesin sat curled in his father’s lap, memorizing the cadence of Hafgan’s voice and hearing there the echoes of ancient deeds-deeds which had passed into legend so long ago that no one could remember them or even guess what they might have been, but lived now, if only for a glimmering moment, in the dim reflection of Hafgan’s words.

To be a bard, thought Taliesin, to know the secrets of all things under earth and sky, to have the power to order the very elements with nothing but the sounds of your voice- now that would be a life worth living! Someday, he vowed, I will be a bard and a king. Yes, a druid king!

He raised his eyes to the night-dark heavens and to the host of stars winking through the glare of the torchlight. And it seemed to him that he was eternal, that some part of him had always been alive and always would be, that he had been called to life for a purpose. The more he thought about this, the more certain he was that it was true.

As Hafgan’s words filled his ears he observed the rapt faces of his kinsmen, rose-red in the glow of the torches standing round and about, and he knew that although he was forever bound to them, his people, at the same time he was destined for something else, a life far different from any than those sitting within the circle of Hafgan’s magic words could conceive.

These thoughts filled him with a sudden, piercing ache, an arrow-struck emptiness, and the boy closed his eyes and pressed his face against his father’s chest. A moment later he felt Elphin’s strong fingers in his hair.

He opened his eyes to see his mother watching him, her eyes shining in the flickering light-they would shine without the torches, with love for him and for her husband. Taliesin smiled at her and she turned her attention back to Hafgan’s story.

The love was right and good, Taliesin knew, and Hafgan had told him often enough that love lay beneath the foundation-stone of the world. But there was something missing too. Something he had no name for that love could not encompass or supply; something that had to come from a source other than the human heart. That something, whatever it was, was the arrow that pricked him with such emptiness and longing.

These thoughts were only dimly recognized; they were what Hafgan called “wise feelings.” Taliesin had them frequently, and often, like now, without any regard for the attending atmosphere. Right now he should be happy and content, relishing the story of Math the Pig Stealer in its every detail. And he was-with that part of him which was the small boy.

But the other, older part of him was looking on the happy scene and crying out for the lack of something Taliesin was not even sure had a name.

Wise feelings, Hafgan had told him, have a reason all their own. You cannot fight them; you can only accept them and listen to what they tell you. So far Taliesin had never learned anything from them- except not to talk about them with anyone. Instead he kept them to himself, bearing the exquisite pain of their presence silently. True, Hafgan could sometimes tell when he was experiencing them, but even Hafgan could not help him.

He raised his eyes to the stars once more and saw their cold splendor. I am part of thai, he thought. I am part of what they are, part of all that is or ever was. I am Taliesin; I am a word in letters, a sound on the breath of the wind. I am a wave on the sea, and Great Mannawyddan is my father. I am a spear thrown down from heaven…

These words went spinning through the boy’s head and his spirit quivered as they touched him before winging away into the throbbing obscurity from which they were sprung, leaving their mark on him, a brand seared into his young soul as if with white iron.

I am Taliesin, he thought, singer at the dawn of the age.

The next day, as the remains of the feast were being cleared away, Cormach, Chief Druid of Gwynedd, arrived in Caer Dyvi, alone but for the dun-colored pony he rode. He did not speak to any who stood silently by and watched Mm pass, but went straightway to Hafgan ‘s hut and stopped there.

“Hafgan!” he called.

An instant later Blaise appeared, thrusting his head from behind the yellow oxhide that covered the door of the hut. “Corrnach!” The young man stepped slowly out. “What are – I mean, welcome, Master. How may I serve you?”

“Where is Hafgan? Take me to him.”

“Gladly. Will you walk? It is not far.”

“I will ride,” answered the old roan.

Blaise took the pony’s bridle and led the horse aad its rider back through the hill-fort the way they had come. Once outside the timber gates they turned from the track and headed into the forest, where they struck along a well- worn path among the trees to the clearing Hafgan often used for Talie-sin’s instruction.

As the two entered the clearing they saw the boy and his teacher in a customary pose: Taliesin sitting hunched at Hafgan’s feet, the oak staff across his lap while the druid sat on his stump, eyes closed, listening to his student’s recitation. The pose shifted as the Chief Druid slid from the pony’s back. Hafgan rose and Taliesin jumped to his feet. “Cormach is here!”

“Master, your presence is a joy and a welcome surprise,” said Hafgan. “I trust nothing is wrong in Dolgellau?”

“I came to see the boy, if that is what you mean,” replied Cormach. “I am dying. I wanted to see him once more before I join the Ancient Ones.”

“Dying?” wondered Blaise aloud.

Cormach turned on him. “Nothing wrong with your ears, Blaise. But your tongue could use a tightening.”

Hafgan stared at his master. “How long?” he asked softly.

“I will observe my last Lugnasadh,” he said, tilting his head toward the sky as if he might find the exact moment written there, “but I will not see Samhain again.”

Hafgan accepted this calmly. Blaise pushed forward and asked, “Can anything be done?”

“Oh, yes, something can always be done. Turn back the years, Blaise. Stop time in a jar. Wave your hazel wand and conjure me a young man’s body while you are about it-not that this one has served me ill. Well, what are you staring at? I have told you what to do. Get busy!”

Blaise flushed crimson. Taliesin wondered at the exchange. What was old Cormach so upset about? Surely Blaise’s remark had been spoken out of concern for his one-time master.

“If I have offended you” began Blaise.

Cormach made a face and waved the apology aside before it was finished. “Go and boil me a cabbage for my supper, lad,” he told the filidh. “And put some fish with it if you have any.”

Blaise brightened at once. “I will catch some!” he said, trotting from the clearing.

“Taliesin, come here,” said Hafgan, turning toward the boy. “Cormach wants to speak to you.”

The youngster approached cautiously. He had always stood in awe of Cormach, whose abrupt and sometimes caustic manner often made him appear fierce. Taliesin was not really afraid, merely wary, and anxious in case he should say the wrong thing in front of the Chief Druid.

Taliesin came to stand before the old man. “I am honored, Master,” he replied, pressing the back of his hand to his forehead in the sign of utmost honor and respect.

Cormacn examined him for a moment and smiled, his face creasing with wrinkles. The smile disappeared as suddenly as it had come. “Have you had a vision, lad?”

The question took Taliesin by surprise. “Y-yes,” he answered, before realizing that he had not yet mentioned it to Hafgan.

“Tell me about it.”

Taliesin hesitated, looking to Hafgan.

“Do not look at him, look at me!” instructed Cormach. He gave a half-turn of his head and said, “You may go back now. I wish to speak to the boy alone.”

Hafgan nodded and withdrew Cormach’s rowan staff from behind the saddle, handed it to his master, and left without a word.

Cormach limped to the stump and settled himself heavily upon it. “Come here, boy. Sit down. There, like that.” He gazed once more at the golden youth before him and h’s manner softened. “Excuse an old man, lad. If I seem harsh with them, it is only because I no longer have the time for formalities and empty ceremony. Besides, I have earned the right.”

Taliesin returned the Chief Druid’s gaze but did not speak. He always felt a strange mixture of excitement and dread in the old man’s presence, drawn and repelled at the same time. There was nothing physically threatening about Cormach- he was withered as an old branch and his face lined with wrinkles, the skin well tanned from a lifelong occupation standing over aromatic fires. For that was how Cormach prophesied-entering his awen by gazing into flames.

Perhaps that was it: there was something of the Otherworld about Camiach, as if he stood with one foot in the world of the living and one foot in the world beyond. Taliesin sensed that he saw more than other men. To have those eyes turned on him, a mere boy, excited and frightened him a little.

“Tell me about the vision,” Cormach repeated.

Taliesin nodded. “I saw the Glass Isle, Master. It was far away in the western sea, shining like a polished stone, a beautiful gem…”

“Yes? What else?”

“It was beautiful but sad. They cried out… voices crying… Lost, they said, all is lost. So sad, Master. There was no hope for them.”

“And then?”

“Then the island vanished and I could not see it anymore.”

“How did it disappear? Think carefully now.”

Taliesin closed his eyes to help him remember. “It faded away. Yes, it faded, but it also seemed to slip beneath the waves as it vanished.”

“You are certain?”

“I am.” Taliesin nodded solemnly.

Cormach sighed and nodded. He raised his eyes to the patch of blue-white sky showing through the branches overhead. The glade was warm and the birdsong sleepy; the leaves on the branches whispered to one another in the gentle talk of trees.

“What does it mean? “asked Taliesin. “Is the Glass Isle really enchanted as men say?”

“Enchanted? No.” Cormach shook his head slowly. “Not enchanted… At least not like you mean. It is a real enough place. It is the Westerlands, the Summer Isles, or what is left of them. What does it mean? Yes, well, what does it mean?”

The Chief Druid wrapped his hands around his staff and leaned on it, resting his head on his forearm. “It means that the darkness is coming again, Taliesin, and we must be ready.”

“The Dark Time?”

“Hafgan has told you, I see.”

“But where does the darkness come from?”

“Yes, well, this is the way of it. When the Supreme Spirit made the world, he made the sun to shine and banished the darkness to the underworld where it resides, glowering from its cold cave upon the world of light and gnawing with envy at its own black heart. But from time to time the light weakens and the darkness breaks free to assail the world and ravish it, possess it. But it can never possess the world again, and what it cannot keep, it tries to destroy.

“For many thousands of years the Westermen have been the guardians of the light, and while they remained strong the darkness has been sealed in its cave. But now… they weaken somehow. I do not know why it happens.”

“Has it happened before?”

“Oh, yes, many times before. But each time is worse. The darkness becomes stronger, and it is more difficult to defeat and force back into the cave.

“Darkness engulfed the entire world for hundreds of years last time. Again it was when the Westermen weakened and the sea swallowed the greater part of the Summer Isles.”

Taliesin’s eyes were wide with the awful mystery of it. “What happened then?”

“Some of the Westermen came here, others went other places, but some, a remnant, lived on in the last of the Wes-terlands, the island whose reflection we see from time to time and call the Glass Isle.”

“Then I really saw it?”

“Oh, you saw it, lad. Not everyone can.”

“Have you ever seen it?”

“Twice.”

Frowning, Taliesin considered all that Cormach had told him. “If the Westerlands are lost,” he said at last, “it is up to us to hold back the darkness.”

Cormach’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you say that?”

“It must be us. We are the only ones that know; we are the only ones that can do anything.”

The Chief Druid pondered this and for a long moment sat gazing at the boy before him; fair-haired, with that high, shining brow; eyes like forest pools, now blue, now deep green; long, slender limbs and torso. He would be a tall man, taller than most. Cormach gazed at him and asked, “Who are you, Taliesin?”

The question was not unkindly put, but the boy started, his expression full of anguish. Cormach saw the youngster’s distress and thought, Hafgan is right. This Taliesin is different, and one forgets he is but a boy after all. Still, how much does he know? What powers does he possess?

“I am Taliesin ap Elphin,” he replied and then admitted, “But sometimes I think I will remember something else-thai I have only to think very hard and I will remember everything. But I never do.”

“Nor will you, lad. Not yet, at least.”

“Last night I remembered part of it-but it makes no sense to me this morning.”

“One day it will, Taliesin, if you keep watching and listening.”

“But tell me, Master, what can be done about the darkness? We must do something.”

“Each must do what he can, Taliesin. That is all that ever can be done by men. Yet, if all men did only that, it would be enough. Yes, and more than enough.”

Taliesin frowned again. “If? Do you, mean some will not resist?”

“No, lad, they will not. Some men, it is true, have no light in them and give themselves to the darkness when it comes. It makes our task that much more difficult.”

“Then we must be all the stronger,” replied Taliesin bravely.

The Chief Druid cupped the boy’s chin with his hand. “Look on me and remember, Taliesin. Remember me to the one who is to come.” Cormach dropped his hand and slumped back exhausted.

“I will remember, Master,” Taliesin promised. “I never will forget you.”

The old man smiled briefly, then leaned on the staff and raised himself with an effort. “Good. Now, let us see how Blaise is doing with that fish.”

They left the clearing together, Taliesin leading the dun pony. Hafgan was sitting on his stump outside the gates; he rose and came to them as they emerged from the wood.

Cormach sent Taliesin on ahead so he could speak to Hafgan alone. “I had another reason for coming. I wanted to tell you before word came from elsewhere.”

Hafgan nodded.

“The choice was easily made,” Corrnach continued. “It required no hazelnut or oak water. You will be Chief Druid.”

Hafgan stopped walking and turned to his master. “You honor me too highly.”

“I honor you not at all,” Cormach said. “It is your right. No one else could take my place.”

Hafgan’s mouth worked, but the words stuck in his throat. He turned his face toward the cliffs and the silver rirn of sea shimmering at the horizon.

“Do not be sorry about this,” Cormach told him. “I am old and tired. It is time for a younger man to be Chief of the Brotherhood. I am fortunate enough to choose my own successor and can die without qualm.”

“I will go back with you” Hafgan began.

“It is not necessary.”

“Please, allow me to serve you.”

The old druid shook his head gently. “Your place is here with the boy. Stay. You will see me again before Samhain.” He drew a breath deep into his lungs. “Ahh, the air off the sea makes a man hungry.”

Hafgan took his arm and they started through the caer. “We will eat and you can rest.”

“Rest?” said Cormach. “Soon I will have my rest. I would rather talk to you, Hafgan, if you would oblige an old man by listening.”