Taran Wanderer

Chapter 16 Taran Wanderer

FEVER CAME, SWEEPING over him, a blazing forest through which he staggered endlessly; tossing on the straw pallet, he knew neither day nor night. Often there were dream faces half-glimpsed, half-recognized, of Eilonwy, of his companions, of all whom he had loved; yet they slipped away from him, shifting and changing like wind-driven clouds, or were swallowed by nightmares that made him cry out in terror. Later, he seemed to see Fflewddur, but the bard had turned gaunt, hollow-eyed, his yellow hair matted on his forehead, his mouth pinched and his long nose thin as a blade. His garments hung ragged and stained. Kaw perched on his shoulder and croaked, "Taran, Taran!"

"Yes, well, indeed it's about time you're waking up," said Fflewddur, grinning at him. Beside the bard, Gurgi squatted on a wooden stool and peered at him anxiously.

Taran rubbed his eyes, unsure whether he was asleep or awake. This time the faces did not vanish. He blinked. The sheepskin had been taken from the window and sunlight streamed over him.

"Gurgi? Kaw?" Taran murmured. "Fflewddur? What's happened to you? You look like half of yourself."

"You're hardly one to talk about appearances, old friend." The bard chuckled. "If you could see yourself, I'm sure you'd agree you look worse than I do."

Still baffled, Taran turned to Gurgi who had leaped up joyously and clapped his hands.

"Kindly master is well again!" Gurgi shouted. "He is well, without groanings and moanings, without shiverings and quiverings! And it is faithful, clever Gurgi who tends him!"

"That's true," agreed Fflewddur. "For the past two weeks he's fussed over you like a mother hen, and he couldn't have given you more care if you'd been one of his pet lambs!

"I rode straight as an arrow from Caer Dallben," the bard continued. "Ah― well― the truth of it is, I got lost for a time; then it began snowing. Llyan plowed through drifts up to her ears, and even she finally had to stop. For a while we sheltered in a cave― Great Belin, I thought I'd never see the light of day again." Fflewddur gestured at his tattered clothing: "It was the sort of journey that tends to make one rather unkempt. Not to mention three-fourths starved. Kaw was the one who happened to find us, and he guided us along the clearer trails.

"As for Dallben," Fflewddur went on, "he was upset, considerably more than he wanted to show. Though all he said was 'Taran is not the herdsman's son, but whether or not he stays is a matter entirely of his own choosing.'

"And so I came back as fast as I could," the bard concluded. "Alas, I didn't reach you sooner." He shook his head. "Gurgi told me what happened."

"Craddoc longed for a son," Taran answered slowly, "as I longed for parentage. I wonder if I would not have been happier had I believed him. Though at the end, I think I did. Gurgi and I could have climbed to safety. For the sake of Craddoc, I sounded Eilonwy's horn. Had I done it sooner, perhaps he might have lived. He was a man of courage and good heart, a proud man. Now he is dead. I saved the signal to use in a worthy cause, and when I found one it was wasted."

"Wasted?" answered Fflewddur. "I think not. Since you did your best and didn't begrudge using it, I shouldn't call it wasted at all."

"There is more that you do not know," Taran said. He looked squarely at the bard. "My best? At first I thought to leave Craddoc on the ledge."

"Well, now," replied the bard, "each man has his moment of fear. If we all behaved as we often wished to there'd be sorry doings in Prydain. Count the deed, not the thought."

"In this I count my thought as much," Taran said in a cold voice. "It was not fear that held me back. Will you know the truth? I was ashamed to be base-born, so ashamed it sickened me. I would have left Craddoc to his death. Yes, left him to die!" he burst out. "Because I believed it would have set me free of him. I was ashamed to be the son of a herdsman. But no longer. Now my shame is for myself." He turned his face away and said no more.

THE COMPANIONS WINTERED in the cottage, and little by little Taran's strength came back. At the first thaw, when the valley sparkled with melting snow and the streams burst from their ice-bound courses, Taran stood silently in the dooryard and looked at the pale green summits, pondering what had long been in his heart.

"We'll soon be ready," said Fflewddur, who ,had come from seeing to Llyan and the steeds. "The passes should be dear. The Lake of Llunet can't be too far, and with Kaw to help us, we should reach it in no time."

"I've thought carefully on this," Taran replied. "All winter I've tried to decide what I should do, and never have I found an answer. But one thing is clear, and my mind is made up. I will not seek the Mirror."

"What's that you say?"cried Fflewddur. "Do I hear you aright? Give up your search? Now, of all times? After all you've gone through? Taran, my boy, you've regained your health, but not your wits!"

Taran shook his head. "I give it up. My quest has brought only grief to all of you. And for me, it's led me not to honor but to shame. Taran? Taran makes me sick at heart. I longed to be of noble birth, longed for it so much I believed it was true. A proud birthright was all that counted for me. Those who had none― even when I admired them, as I admired Aeddan, as I learned to admire Craddoc― I deemed them lesser because of it. Without knowing them, I judged them less than what they were. Now I see them as true men. Noble? They are far nobler than I.

"I am not proud of myself," Taran went on. "I may never be again. If I do find pride, I'll not find it in what I was or what I am, but what I may become. Not in my birth, but in myself."

"All things considered, then," replied the bard, "the best thing would be to pack our gear and start for Caer Dallben."

Taran shook his head. "I cannot face Dallben or Coll. One day, perhaps. Not now. I must make my own way, earn my own keep. Somehow, the robin must scratch for his own worms." He stopped suddenly and looked, wondering, at the bard. "Orddu― those were her words. I heard them only with my ears. Until now, I did not understand with my heart."

"Scratching for worms is unappetizing, to say the best of it," Fflewddur answered. "But it's true, everyone should have a skill. Take myself, for example. King though I am, as a bard you'll find none better―" A harp string snapped, and for a moment it appeared that several others might give way.

"Yes, well, aside from all that," Fflewddur said hastily, , "if you don't mean to go home, then I suggest the Free Commots. The craftsmen there might welcome a willing apprentice."

Taran thought for some moments, then nodded. "So shall I do. Now will I scorn no man's welcome."

The bard's face fell. "I― I fear I can't go with you, old friend. There's my own realm waiting. True enough, I'm happier wandering as a bard than sitting as a king. But already I've been too long away."

"Then our ways must part again," Taran replied. "Will there ever be an end to saying farewell?"

"But Gurgi does not say farewell to kindly master," cried Gurgi, as Fflewddur went to gather up his gear. "No, no, humble Gurgi toils at his side!"

Taran bowed his head and turned away. "If the day comes when I deserve your faithfulness that will be prize enough for me."

"No, no!" protested Gurgi. "Not prizings! Gurgi only gives what is in his heart to give! He stays and asks nothing more. Once you comforted friendless Gurgi. Now let him comfort sorrowful master!"

Taran felt the creature's hand on his shoulder. "Dallben spoke truth, old friend," he murmured. "Staunchness and good sense? All that and more. But your comfort stands me in better stead than all the cleverness in Prydain."

NEXT MORNING TARAN and Fflewddur took leave of one another for the second time. Despite the bard's protest that a Fflam could always find his way; Taran insisted on Kaw's going along as a guide. Once this task was done, Taran urged the crow to return to Caer Dallben or, if it pleased him better, to fly freely as he chose. "I'll not bind you to my journey," Taran said to Kaw, "for even I don't know where it may end."

"Then how do we fare?" cried Gurgi. "Faithful Gurgi follows, oh, yes! But where does kindly master begin?"

The valley seemed suddenly empty as Taran stood, unanswering, looking at the silent cottage and the small mound of stones marking Craddoc's resting place. "Times there were," Taran said, almost to himself, "when I believed I was building my own prison with my own hands. Now I wonder if I shall ever labor as well and gain as much."

He turned to the waiting Gurgi. "Where?" He knelt, plucked a handful of dry grass from the turf, and cast it into the air. The freshening wind bore the blades eastward, toward the Free Commots.

"There," Taran said. "As the wind blows, so do we follow it."

SINCE NEITHER TARAN nor Gurgi wished to leave the sheep behind, the wayfarers departed from the valley with the small flock bleating after them. Taran intended offering the animals to the first farmstead with good grazing land, yet several days passed and he saw no inhabited place. The two companions had started in a southeasterly direction, but Taran soon gave Melynlas free rein and, though aware the stallion was bearing more east than south, he paid little heed until they drew near the banks of a wide, rapid-flowing river.

Here, the pasture stretched broad and fair. Ahead he glimpsed an empty sheepfold; he noticed no flock, but the gate of the enclosure stood open as though awaiting the animals' return at any moment. The low-roofed cottage and sheds were neat and well-kept. A pair of shaggy goats browsed near the dooryard. Taran blinked in surprise, for set about the cottage were all manner of woven baskets, some large, some small, some rising on stilts, and others seemingly dropped at random. Several trees by the river held wooden platforms, and along the riverbank itself Taran caught sight of what appeared to be a weir of carefully woven branches. Wooden stakes secured a number of nets and fishing lines drifting in the current.

Puzzling over this farmhold, surely the strangest he had seen, Taran drew closer, dismounted, and as he did so a tall figure ambled from the shed and made his way toward the companions. Taran glimpsed the farm wife peering from the cottage window. At the same time, as if out of nowhere, half-a-dozen children of different ages burst into sight and began running and skipping toward the flock, laughing gaily and shouting to one another: "They're here! They're here!" Seeing Gurgi, they turned their attention from the sheep to cluster around him, clapping their hands in delight and calling out such merry-hearted greetings that the astonished creature could only laugh and clap his own hands in return.

The man who stood before Taran was thin as a stick with lank hair tumbling over his brow and blue eyes bright as a bird's. Indeed, his narrow shoulders and spindly legs made him look like a crane or stork. His jacket was too short in the arms, too long in the body, and his garments seemed pieced together with patches of all sizes, shapes, and colors.

"I am Llonio Son of Llonwen," he said, with a friendly grin and a wave of his hand. "A good greeting to you, whoever you may be."

Taran bowed courteously. "My name― my name is Taran."

"No more than that?" said Llonio. "As a name, my friend, it's cropped a little short." He laughed good-naturedly. "Shall I call you Taran Son of Nobody? Taran of Nowhere? Since you're alive and breathing, obviously you're the son of two parents. And you've surely ridden here from somewhere else."

"Call me, then, a wanderer," Taran replied.

"Taran Wanderer? So be it, if that suits you." Llonio's glance was curious, but he asked no further.

When Taran then spoke of seeking pasture for the sheep, Llonio nodded briskly.

"Why, here shall they stay, and my thanks to you," he exclaimed. "There's no grazing fresher and sweeter, and no sheepfold safer. We've seen to that and labored since the first thaw to make it so."

"But I fear they may crowd your own flock," Taran said, though he admired Llonio's pastureland and the stoutly built enclosure, and would have been, well content to leave the sheep with him.

"My flock?" Llonio answered, laughing. "I had none until this moment! Though we've been hoping and waiting and the children have been talking of little else. A lucky wind it was that brought you to us. Goewin, my wife, needs wool to clothe our young ones. Now we'll have fleece and to spare."

"Wait, wait," put in Taran, altogether baffled, "do you mean you cleared a pasture and built a sheepfold without having any sheep at all? I don't understand. That was work in vain―"

"Was it now?" asked Llonio, winking shrewdly. "If I hadn't, would you be offering me a fine flock in the first place; and in the second, would I have the place to keep them? Is that not so?"

"But you couldn't have known," Taran began.

"Ah, ah," Llonio chuckled, "why, look you, I knew that with any kind of luck a flock of sheep was bound to come along one day. Everything else does! Now honor us by stopping here a while. Our fare can't match our thanks, but we'll feast you as best we can.

Before Taran could answer, Llonio bent down to one of the little girls who was staring round-eyed at Gurgi. "Now then, Gwenlliant, run see if the brown hen's chosen to lay us an egg today." He turned to Taran. "The brown hen's a moody creature," he said. "But when she has a mind to, she puts down a handsome egg." He then set the rest of the children running off on different tasks, while Taran and Gurgi watched astonished at the hustle and bustle in this most peculiar household. Llonio led the two into the cottage where Goewin gave them a warm welcome and bade them sit by the hearth. In no time Gwenlliant was back holding an egg in out-stretched hands.

"An egg!" cried Llonio, taking it from her, raising it aloft, and peering as if he had never seen one before. "An egg it is! The finest the brown hen's given us! Look at the size! The shape! Smooth as glass and not a crack on it. We'll feast well on this, my friends."

At first Taran saw nothing extraordinary in the egg which Llonio praised so highly; but, caught up by the man's good spirits, Taran to his own surprise found himself looking at the egg as though he, too, had never seen one. In Llonio's hands the shell seemed to sparkle so brightly, to curve so gracefully and beautifully that even Gurgi marveled at it, and Taran watched almost with regret as Goewin cracked such a precious egg into a large earthen bowl. Nevertheless, if Llonio intended sharing it among his numerous family, Taran told himself, the fare would indeed be meager.

Yet, as Goewin stirred the contents of the bowl, the children crowded one after the other into the cottage, all bearing something that made Llonio call out cheerily at each discovery.

"Savory herbs!" he cried. "That's splendid! Chop them up well. And here― what's this, a handful of flour? Better and better! We'll need that pot of milk the goat's given us, too. A bit of cheese? Just the thing!" Then he clapped his hands delightedly as the last and smallest child held up a fragment of honeycomb. "What luck! The bees have left us honey from their winter store."

Goewin, meanwhile, was busy popping all these finds into the bowl and, before Taran's eyes, the contents soon filled it nearly to the brim. Even then, his surprise did not end. Goewin deftly poured the mixture onto a sheet of metal which, Taran was quite certain, was nothing else but a warrior's shield hammered flat, and held it over the glowing embers. Within moments; the scent of cooking filled the cottage, Gurgi's mouth watered, and in no time the farm wife drew a dappled golden cake nearly as big as a cartwheel from the fireplace.

Llonio quickly sliced it into pieces and to Taran's amazement there was not only enough for all but some left over. He ate his fill of the most delicious egg he ever tasted― if egg it could now be called― and not even Gurgi could eat more.

"Now then," said Llonio, when they had finished, "I'll see to my nets. Come along, if you like."