Taran Wanderer

by Lloyd Alexander

  The herdsman was silent a while. Then he said, “Alone I sought to raise the child. But it was beyond my skill. A sturdy boy he was, yet in less than a year I saw him sicken. Only then did I understand his mother had spoken wisely, and I, like a proud fool, had not listened. At last I was willing to quit this valley.

  “Too late was my choice,” Craddoc said. “I knew the babe could not live out the journey. Nor could he live out another winter here. He was the lamb of my heart, already given to death.

  “But on a certain day,” Craddoc went on, “a wayfarer came by chance to my door. A man of deep knowledge he was and of many secret healing arts. In his hands alone the child could live. This he told me, and I knew he spoke the truth. He pitied the infant and offered to raise him for me. Grateful was I for his kindness as I put the child in his arms.

  “He went his way then, and my son with him. No more did I see or hear of either, as the years passed, and often did I fear both had surely perished in the hills. Yet, I still hoped, for the stranger vowed by every oath my son one day would return to me.”

  The herdsman looked closely at Taran. “The name of the wayfarer was Dallben.”

  In the fireplace a thorny branch split and crackled. Craddoc said no more, but his eyes never left Taran’s face. Fflewddur and Gurgi stared wordlessly. Slowly Taran rose to his feet. He felt himself trembling, for an instant feared his legs would give way under him, and he put a hand to the edge of the trestle table. He could neither think nor speak. He saw only Craddoc silently watching him, and this man he had met as a stranger now seemed a stranger all the more. Taran’s lips moved without sound, until at last the words came brokenly and he heard his voice as though it were another’s.

  “Do you say,” Taran whispered, “do you say then, you are father to me?”

  “The promise has been kept,” Craddoc answered quietly. “My son has come back.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The End of Summer

  It was near dawn. The fire in the hearth had long since burned out. Taran rose silently. He had slept only fitfully, his head crowded with so many thoughts he could not sort one from another: Fflewddur’s cry of astonishment, Gurgi’s joyful yelps, Craddoc’s embrace of welcome to a son he had scarcely seen, and Taran’s bewildered embrace to a father he had never known. There had been harp playing and singing. Fflewddur had never been in better voice or spirits, and the herdsman’s cottage had surely never rung with so much merriment; yet Taran and Craddoc had been more quiet than gay, as if striving to sense each other’s mind and heart. At last, all had slept.

  Taran stepped to the door. The sheep were silent in their fold. The mountain air was chill. Dew glistened, a net of cold silver on the sparse pasture, and the stones twinkled like stars fallen to earth. Taran shivered and drew his cloak about him. He stood a while in the doorway before he sensed he was not alone. Fflewddur moved to join him.

  “Couldn’t sleep, eh?” Fflewddur said cheerily. “Neither could I. Too excited. Didn’t close my eyes for three winks—ah, yes, well—perhaps a few more than that. Great Belin, but it’s been a day and a half! It’s not everyone who finds his long-lost father sitting out in the middle of nowhere. Taran, my friend, your search is ended; and ended well. We’re spared a journey to the Lake of Llunet—I don’t mind telling you I’m just as pleased. Now we must set our plans. I say we should ride north to the Fair Folk realm and get hold of good old Doli; then, on to my kingdom for some feasting and revelry. And I suppose you’ll want to sail to Mona and tell Eilonwy the good news. So be it! Now your quest is over, you’re free as a bird!”

  “Free as the caged eagle that Morda would have made me!” Taran cried. “This valley will destroy Craddoc if he stays alone even a little longer. His burden is too great. I honor him for trying to bear it. Indeed, I honor him for that, and nothing else. His deeds cost my mother her life, and nearly cost me mine. Can any son love such a father? Yet as long as Craddoc lives, I am bound to him by ties of blood—if truly his blood runs in my veins.”

  “If?” replied Fflewddur. He frowned and looked closely at Taran. “You say if, as though you doubted …”

  “Craddoc speaks truth when he says he is my father,” Taran answered. “It is I who do not believe him.”

  “How’s that again?” asked Fflewddur. “You know he’s your father and doubt it at the same time? Now you really baffle me.”

  “Fflewddur, can you not see?” Taran spoke slowly and painfully. “I don’t believe him, because I don’t want to believe him. In my heart, secretly, I had always dreamed, even as a child, that—that I might be of noble lineage.”

  Fflewddur nodded. “Yes, I take your meaning.” He sighed. “Alas, there’s no choosing one’s kinsmen.”

  “Now,” Taran said, “my dream is no more than a dream, and I must give it up.”

  “His tale rings true,” answered the bard. “But if there’s doubt in your heart, what shall you do? Ah, that rascal Kaw! If he were only here we could send him with word to Dallben. But I doubt he’ll find us in this dreary wasteland.”

  “Wasteland?” said the voice of Craddoc.

  The herdsman stood in the doorway. Taran quickly turned, ashamed of his own words and wondering how many of them Craddoc had overheard. But if the man had been there longer than a moment, he gave no sign of it. Instead, his weather-beaten face smiled as he hobbled to the companions. Gurgi followed behind him.

  “Wasteland you see it now,” Craddoc said, “but soon as fair as ever it was.” He set a hand proudly on Taran’s shoulder. “My son and I. We will make it so.”

  “I had thought,” Taran began slowly, “I had hoped you would return with us to Caer Dallben. Coll and Dallben will welcome you. The farm is rich, and can be richer still if you help us with your labor. Here, the land may be worn out past restoring.”

  “How then?” Craddoc answered, his features growing stern. “Leave my land? To be another’s servant? Now? When there is hope for us at last?” His eyes filled with pain as he looked at Taran. “My son,” he said quietly, “you do not say all that is in your heart. Nor have I said all that is in mine. My happiness blinded me to the truth. Your life has been too long apart from me. Caer Dallben is your home, more than this may ever be, this wasteland, this fallow ground—and the master of it a cripple.”

  The herdsman had not raised his voice, but the words echoed in Taran’s ears. Craddoc’s face had gone hard as stone and a terrible pride flamed in his eyes. “I cannot ask you to share this, nor beg duty from a son who is a stranger to me. We have met. We shall part, if that is your wish. Go your own path. I do not keep you from it.”

  Before Taran could answer, Craddoc turned and made his way to the sheepfold.

  “What must I do?” Taran cried in dismay to the bard.

  Fflewddur shook his head. “He’ll not leave here, that’s for certain. It’s easy enough to see where your stubborn streak comes from. No, he won’t budge. But if you’d set your mind at rest, then you yourself might go to Caer Dallben. Find out the truth from Dallben. He alone can tell you.”

  “Winter would be upon us before I could return,” Taran answered. He gazed at the harsh land and desolate cottage. “My—my father is at the end of his strength. The tasks are long. They must begin now, and be done before the first snowfall.”

  He said no more for a time. Fflewddur waited silently; Gurgi was quiet, his brow wrinkled with concern. Taran looked at the two and his heart ached. “Hear me well, my friends,” he said slowly. “Fflewddur, if you are willing, ride to Caer Dallben. Tell that my search is ended and how this has come about. As for me, my place must be here.”

  “Great Belin, you mean to stay in this wilderness?” Fflewddur cried. “Even though you doubt … ?”

  Taran nodded. “My doubts may be of my own making. One way or another, I pray you send word speedily to me. But Eilonwy must be told nothing of this, only that my quest is over, my father found.” His voice faltered. “Craddoc needs my help; his livelihood and his life
depend on it, and I will not withhold it from him. But to have Eilonwy know I am a herdsman’s son … No!” he burst out. “That would be more than I could bear. Bid her my farewell. She and I must never meet again. It were better the Princess forget the shepherd boy, better that all of you forget me.”

  He turned to Gurgi. “And you, best of good friends, ride with Fflewddur. If my place is here, yours must be in a happier one.”

  “Kindly master!” Gurgi shouted, flinging his arms desperately about Taran. “Gurgi stays! So he promised!”

  “Call me master no more!” Taran bitterly flung back. “No master am I, but a low-born churl. Do you long for wisdom? You will not find it here with me. Take your freedom. This valley is no beginning but an ending.”

  “No, no! Gurgi does not listen!” shouted Gurgi, clapping his hands over his ears. He threw himself flat on the ground and lay stiff as a poker. “He does not go from side of kindly master. No, no! Not with pullings and pushings! Not with naggings and draggings!”

  “So be it,” Taran said at last, seeing nothing else would sway the determined creature.

  When Craddoc returned, Taran told him only that he and his companion would stay, and that Fflewddur could no longer delay his own journey.

  When Llyan was ready to travel, Taran put his arms about the cat’s mighty shoulders and pressed his cheek into her deep fur as she mewed unhappily. Silently, he and Fflewddur clasped hands, and he watched while the bard, with many a backward glance, rode slowly from the valley.

  Leaving Melynlas and the pony tethered in the shed, Taran and Gurgi bore the saddlebags holding their few possessions into the tumbledown cottage. Taran stood a moment, looking at the crumbling walls of the narrow chamber, the dead fire and broken hearthstone. From the pasture Craddoc was calling to him.

  “And so,” Taran murmured, “and so have we come home.”

  In the weeks that followed, Taran believed he could have fared no worse had Morda done as he had threatened. Tall gray summits rose about him like the unyielding bars of a cage. Prisoner, he sought freedom from his memories in the harsh toil of the long days. There was much to be done, indeed there was all to be done: the land to clear, the cottage to repair, the sheep to tend. At first he had dreaded the dawns that brought him, weary as if he had not slept, from the straw pallet by the hearth to the seemingly endless labor awaiting him; but soon he rediscovered, as Coll had told him long ago, that he could force himself to plunge into it as into an icy stream, and find refreshment even in his exhaustion.

  With Gurgi and Craddoc, he strained and sweated to uproot boulders from the field and haul them to the cottage, where they would later serve to mend the walls. The spring where the sheep watered had dwindled to a slow trickle. Taran saw a way to unblock it, shore up the damp ground, and dig a channel which he lined with flat stones. As the sparkling stream rushed into its new course, Taran, forgetting all else, knelt and drank of it from his cupped hands. The cool draught filled him with wonder, as though never had he tasted water until now.

  One day the three set about burning away the overgrowth and thorns. Taran’s portion of the field took flame too slowly and he pressed his way to thrust his torch deeper amid the brambles. As he did, a sudden gust of wind turned the fire against him. Quickly he drew back, but the thorns caught at his jacket; he stumbled and fell, crying out as the flames rose in a scarlet wave.

  Gurgi, at some distance, heard the shout. Craddoc, seeing Taran’s plight, swung about on his crutch, and even before Gurgi could reach him, flung himself to Taran’s side. The herdsman dropped to the ground, and, shielding Taran with his body, seized him by the belt and dragged him clear. Where Taran had been trapped, the flaming thorns roared and crackled.

  The herdsman, gasping from the effort, climbed painfully to his feet.

  Though Taran was unscathed, the fire had seared Craddoc’s brow and hands. But the herdsman grinned, clapped Taran on the shoulder, saying with rough affection, “I’ve not found a son only to lose him,” and with no more ado went back to his work.

  “My thanks to you,” Taran called. But in his voice there was as much bitterness as gratitude, for the man who had saved his life was the same man who had broken it.

  Thus it was in the days that followed. When a sheep sickened, Craddoc cared for it with an unexpected tenderness that went to Taran’s heart. Yet Craddoc it was who had torn asunder Taran’s dream of noble birth and destroyed every hope he had cherished for Eilonwy. When danger threatened the flock, Craddoc turned fierce as a wolf, heedless of his own safety with a courage Taran could only admire. Yet this man held him prisoner, in fetters of blood right. Craddoc would touch no food until Taran and Gurgi had their fill, and often went hungry as a result, all the while insisting his appetite was dull. Yet the gift stuck in Taran’s throat, and he scorned the generosity he would have honored in any other man.

  “Are there two herdsmen in this valley?” Taran cried to himself. “One I can only love, and one I can only hate?”

  So passed the summer. To forget the anguish of his divided heart, Taran labored for the sake of the labor itself. Many tasks were still to be done, and the flock always to be tended. Until now Craddoc had been hard-pressed to keep the new lambs from straying and, as the sheep roved farther afield seeking better pasture, to gather all into the fold at evening. Gurgi pleaded to be given charge of them, and the flock seemed as pleased as he was. He gamboled happily with the lambs, clucked and fussed over the ewes, and even the ancient, bad-tempered ram turned gentle in his presence. As the days grew cooler Craddoc gave him a jacket of unshorn fleece, and as Gurgi moved among his charges Taran could hardly distinguish the shaggy creature bundled in his woolly garb from the rest of the flock. Often Taran came upon him sitting on a boulder, the sheep in an admiring circle around their guardian. They followed him everywhere and would even have trotted after him into the cottage. Marching at the head of the flock, Gurgi looked as proud as a war leader.

  “See with lookings!” Gurgi shouted. “See them heed Gurgi with bleatings! Is kindly master Assistant Pig-Keeper? Then bold, clever Gurgi now is Assistant Sheep-Keeper!”

  But Taran’s eyes still turned beyond the barrier of the hills. At the end of each day he scanned the passes for a sign of Fflewddur and the clouds for a glimpse of Kaw. The crow, he feared, had flown to the Lake of Llunet; not finding the companions there, Kaw might still be waiting or, impatient, be seeking them elsewhere. As for the bard, Taran sensed more than ever that Fflewddur would not return; and as the days shortened and autumn drew closer, he gave up his vigil and looked no longer at the sky.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Open Cage

  Throughout summer and fall the three had worked unstintingly to finish the cottage, their only refuge against the oncoming winter. Now, as the first snow whirled from the heavy sky to powder the crags with dry, white flakes, it was done. The walls of new stone rose firm and solid; the roof had been thatched anew and tightly chinked against wind and weather. Within, a fire cheerily blazed in the new hearth. The wooden benches had been mended; the door no longer sagged on broken hinges. Though Craddoc had given himself unsparingly to the toil, the cottage for the most part was Taran’s labor. The rusted tools, sharpened and refurbished, served him to make what other tools he needed. The planning as well as the doing had been his, and as he stood in the dooryard, the fine snow clinging like chaff to his uncropped hair, it was not without pride that he watched the smoke rising from the rebuilt chimney.

  Craddoc had come to stand beside him, and the herdsman put a hand fondly on Taran’s shoulder. For a time neither spoke, but at last Craddoc said, “For all the years I strove to keep what was mine, it is mine no longer.” His bearded face furrowed in a smile. “Ours,” he said.

  Taran nodded, but made no further answer.

  Since the winter tasks were short, the brief days seemed longer. Evenings by the fire, to while away the time, Craddoc told of his youth, of his settling in the valley. As the herdsman spoke of his hope
s and hardships, Taran’s admiration quickened, and for the first time he saw Craddoc as a man who had been not unlike himself.

  Thus, at Craddoc’s urging, Taran was willing to tell of his days at Caer Dallben and all that had befallen him. Craddoc’s face brightened with fatherly pride as he heard of these adventures. Yet, often Taran would stop in the midst of his recounting when memories of Eilonwy and all his life long past would surge suddenly and break upon him like a wave. Then would he break off abruptly, turn his face away, and stare at the fire. Those times Craddoc pressed him to speak no further.

  A bond of affection, born of their common toil, had grown among all three. Craddoc never failed to treat Gurgi with much kindness and gentleness, and the creature, more than ever pleased with his duties as shepherd, was well content. But once, at the beginning of winter, Craddoc spoke apart with Taran, saying, “Since the day you came to dwell here I have called you my son, yet never have you called me father.”

  Taran bit his lips. At one time, he had yearned to shout aloud his bitterness, to fling it angrily in the herdsman’s face. It still tormented him, but now he could not bring himself to wound the feelings of one he scorned as a father yet honored as a man.

  Seeing Taran’s distress, Craddoc nodded briefly. “Perhaps,” he said, “perhaps one day you shall.”

  Snow turned the gray summits glistening white, yet the tall peaks Taran once had seen as bars now shielded the valley from the brunt of the storms, and against the wolf-wind howling through the ice-bound passes the cottage stood fast. Late of an afternoon, when Craddoc and Gurgi had gone to see to the flock, the gale sharpened and Taran set about stretching a heavier sheepskin across the narrow window.

  He had only begun when the door was flung open as though ripped from its hinges. Shouting frantically, Gurgi burst into the cottage.

  “Help, oh help! Kindly master, come with hastenings!” Gurgi’s face was pale as ashes, his hands shook violently as he clutched at Taran’s arm. “Master, master, follow Gurgi! Quickly, oh, quickly!”