And at last I settled down again, still shaken to my soul, but feeling somehow lighter, clearer. The enemy had a true face now, in a way that even my forced sojourn at Oeth-Anoeth had not provided. Now I saw, as for the first time, how far Marguessan had travelled into the kingdom of the Dark; and how far she planned to pull the rest of Keltia in after her. Even her own children, seemingly, were expendable in her evil quest: Gwain she had given over to death; Galeron was become some kind of dark handmaiden; and Mordryth—well, since his combat with Gerrans at Oeth-Anoeth, we had had no word of the eldest of Lleyn. Though, I doubted not, we surely would…
But now was not the time to counter any of this. On the morrow I should go to Arthur, as swiftly as I might, and he would hear me and believe; things would be done. Just now, I would sleep; I had strained every fiber of my being in my struggle with Marguessan, had done violence and had had violence done me—and here I had thought earlier this day that I had used all my strength and resource to cope with the slaying of Gwain.
Ah Goddess. How wrong we souls can be.
* * *
Chapter Eleven
When morning broke, unseasonably warm and clammy, I ate a little, then attended to the two horses, placed Gwain’s body in the saddle as before and rode out without looking back.
I made no pretense now: I was lost, had not the faintest idea of my whereabouts nor yet where I was hopefully headed. After some thought, I decided to keep to the way north. There were few roads of any sort in this part of Tara, and sooner or later, this one I was on must lead me to a town; why else had it been made?
Comforted with this doubtful logic, I kept on steadily until the early dusk of autumn began to throw long shadows across the wide-mouthed valleys through which I was now passing. Still no settled lands, much less a town of any size. Then, coming through a small wood, following a strong bubbling stream of whose clear waters I intended later on to make good use, I drew rein sharply. Feldore nickered curiously, not alarmed, and Gwain’s bay mare joined him.
A pavilion stood by the banks of the stream where it ran through green-cut turf swards over white gravel. Willows overhung the brook and edged the clearing, and the rather grand tent—blood-red silk walls and white roof, with gold cording and silver-tipped lances for poles—had been pitched directly beneath one of the largest trees, which trailed its yellow feathery foliage onto the tent’s high domed roof.
I hailed the owner as courteously and carryingly as bards can do, but no reply came; indeed, no one seemed nearabouts, no horse even, or any trace of either. Dismounting, wary and watchful, I tethered my beasts (leaving Gwain’s body, for the moment, as it was), and then stepped up to peer into the pavilion’s dim interior.
Though there was no smallest sign of anyone’s presence, nor even a sign that anyone had ever been there at all, the tent was lavishly and luxuriously appointed. A rich feast of meats and bread and wine and sweets was spread out in silver dishes upon a board draped in oreadach; there was a wide bed in the corner laid with silk and linen, its pallet thick to the height of my hip with the down of wild geese, furs of wolf and fox and mink piled deep upon it. A gold harp stood in another corner, and my fingers, deprived of Frame of Harmony (I could scarce have taken my beloved harp on quest, though I had made a rough road-harp or two to pass the time as I went), itched at sight of it; there were books bound in red leather, and a fidchell game standing, its counters of rock crystal and mahogany obsidian poised on an ivory and ebony board. All about me spoke of rich comforts and simple pleasures well merited and freely offered, did I so choose to avail myself.
Then as I turned to glance behind me at a fancied sound from outside, I saw it and froze: A black hound, tall at the shoulder as a yearling foal, lay stretched across the threshold, nose on paws. It glanced briefly up at me when I cried out in my startlement—well, yelled, is more the word, for surely it had not been there when I entered, and you cannot blame me for being surprised—but it made no move either friendly or not, seeming to wait upon what I myself would do.
My immediate impulse—all thought of feast and couch had fled—was to try to make it past and get to the horses, but I dismissed that at once. That was a coursing deerhound lying there: However negligent it might look, it could well afford to give me a morning’s start and still run me down before the noonmeal. Only the great wolfhounds of Erinna, and Lord Arawn’s own hounds, could outpace this one…
And then it all came back to me, though doubtless you are before me. But in the sheer horror of yesterday’s assaults, the episode with Gwain and the nightmare of Marguessan to follow, I had clean forgot: Yet surely this was the giant hound that had accompanied Red Star Woman, the Bhan-reann-ruadh, when she came to me I do not even know how many nights since.
I looked at the hound again, but it lordlily ignored me. Now the Bhan-reann-ruadh had told me that I must steal this hound, and hunt her stag, the great white roebuck that had accompanied her. Presumably I would have the help of the hound in my pursuit, but I did not know that for fact, and the hound was plainly not about to show me a sign one way or the other. It was here; it was waiting for me to act; that was its part for now. The rest was up to me.
Now I must tell you, since we have nothing hid ‘twixt bard and hearer, I was far more taken by the thought of the luscious feast and even more luscious bed than by the idea of reiving away a certainly magical hound to hunt a just as assuredly magical stag. Kelts have a long if regrettable history of lifting and reiving—cattle and mates, usually, at least judging by our sagas and songs—so that theft in itself troubled me not so much as it might have; and besides, I would more or less be stealing under orders. Surely under geis… It was just that I had been through so much since beginning the quest for the Cup, and especially in the past few days, and a little earthly comfort is not a terrible thing, is it; nay, nor is one a mean ignoble person for desiring to come by some, however strangely…
I sighed, and drew myself up. I had forgotten or disobeyed instructions before now upon this search, and see what had come of it. True, I had earned everything I had gotten, and had gotten only that which I had been warned I would get; but it was grief and sin and sorrow all the same. Though rewards were seemingly offered here, it might be that I had not fairly won them just yet, and perhaps I was the only one who could so determine. Well, now I would obey: I would do as I had been bidden, just so, no more. I would reject the proffered hospitality (even though my battered body and starved spirit wailed at having to do so), and I would outrage all tenets of honest guestship and I would steal from my absent host. It seemed all throughother: But keeping to rules for more ordinary times had brought woe. Now I would conform agreeably to these rules of strangeness that the Bhan-reann-ruadh had set down for me, and trust on a better outcome.
I stepped forward, holding out my hand to the black hound and rubbing my fingertips together, making the hopeful encouraging noises that seem to be a universal signal to coax a reluctant beast. After a long considering moment, the great hound flexed its mighty forequarters in one slow prodigious stretch, then rose as slowly to all four feet and looked up at me alertly, the tail beginning to swing behind it. I looked to be sure: a bitch, and most extraordinarily tall and powerful for one of her sex, even dog deerhounds as a rule did not grow so large and strong.
I yelped aloud and looked down in amazement and dismay: The hound had given a sharp nip to the edge of my hand where it hung by my side. I said a swart word or two in protest, but the creature looked up at me again with gold glowing eyes, and I said no more. I had never seen such eyes in any beast; not even the recently late Cabal, clever and all but human as he had often seemed, had had eyes like these. They pierced through me, seeming to see even unto the end of my days; but it was only a hound! Or—
A thought had come into my head: I had been nipped directly I had made that impolite visual inquiry into the gender of this animal I had been all but commanded to steal, that I was already well convinced was rather more than mere beast. Could it be
that my thought, no less than my admittedly rude scrutiny, had offended the creature, so that the nip she had given me—not a very grave one, though it damned well hurt, and was just now even beginning to bead a few droplets of blood—was by way of being a rebuke? Could it be that—
But the hound had vanished out the pavilion door, and after a moment I thrust back the white silken doorflap and went after, closing it behind me. Though the thought did cross my mind just then: Precisely who was stealing whom here?
Who and whom became most immediately inconsequential as soon as I got outside: Gwain Pendreic’s body was no longer in the saddle of his bay charger.
I must say I was not very much surprised by this development; it seemed as if something like to this had been about due to happen, and here it had come, ah, dead on time. I looked for tracks, of course, but of course there were none but my own, you know how these things go… After some thought I gathered up the soft leather thongs and cords that had held Gwain fast upon his mount—noting as I did so that every single knot was still fastened, and, again, unsurprised that they should be so—and began to transfer some of my gear from Feldore’s saddle panniers to those of the bay, and took some more thought along-while as to what I must, or should, do next.
But all that was already determined: As I stood irresolute by Feldore’s stirrup, I suddenly felt a cold nose in my palm, and startled to recall the black deerhound bitch.
Yet there she was, looking up at me with those alarming golden eyes, pushing her nose into my hand—my bitten hand—just as a true dog would do. Temporarily mad, I went to one knee and began to scruffle her under the chin, just as a true dog would enjoy. She bore it with equanimity, even some reluctant enjoyment, for a few moments, then began to growl so softly that it was more a purr. I took the hint.
"Well enough! We are going." I vaulted into Feldore’s saddle, leaned over to catch the bay’s rein and followed the black hound back over the stream and back to the road.
The hound led me at a fair pace through country wilder than anything I had so far seen on quest. We skirted harsh blue mountain ranges at a distance; crossed stony plains where I was hard put to find water for us all, still less grass for the two horses; heading always eastward now. Once we encountered a herd of the blue-eyed bison, their eyes startling sky-color beneath their white shaggy matted forelocks, on their way south from their summer feeding range in the Litherlands. But the beasts, though cranky just now with the rut, merely moved placidly aside for us to thread our way through their midst.
At last we came to wooded lands again, and I stared about me with wonder. No one I knew or had heard tell of had ever been in this region before; if any had dwelled hereabouts, they were long gone. Not even stones remained to mark where their housen had stood, nor fence that had bounded their fields; and the woods, once cleared and battled back, had encroached again on that which they had held of old. Indeed, some of these woods had never felt an axe since Kelts first came to Tara: Oaks the thickness of a small cottage, beeches whose smooth silver trunks stood like pillars in the Hall of Heroes, apple trees as wide in branch-spread as any roof of thatch—all were here, and all somehow aware of me.
Still, I followed on after the black hound, as she trotted before me untiring, glancing back every now and again as if to be sure I still came after. I laughed shortly; as if I had any choice in the thing! But I must say it was pleasant to be led for a change. At least I knew I was being drawn to some purpose—to hunt the stag. And at that I grew again unsettled. Why would the Bhan-reann-ruadh insist upon an action so contrary to my spirit? Oh, I was no stranger to the chase, enjoyed a good winter morning’s coursing as well as the next Kelt: Though these days we hunted only when the local population of beasts of venery needed thinning, in the first days of Keltia we had hunted simply to eat, as we had on Earth. In all honesty, what I liked most about the hunt was simply the thrilling gallop across country on a good horse; the rest was not my cup of ale.
Which was why I wondered yet again, why me? Why had Red Star Woman insisted? So now I had stolen her hound—or it had stolen me, was more like—and was at present, apparently, in pursuit of her stag. What then?
I was all but pitched from the saddle as Feldore surged eagerly forward, and in the same instant saw why. Heard why, rather: Far ahead, the black hound had given tongue on quarry sighted, and Feldore, by no means reluctant in the chase, had responded. We were cantering now, and I redistributed myself ‘twixt pommel and cantle, checking over my shoulder to see that Gwain’s bay came along at speed. Not to fret: Horses are gregarious creatures, and will do what they must to stay in company with their friends. With that we flashed beneath the eaves of the wood.
In the cool dimness—it was a fir-wood, this one, green-roofed when all other woods lay bare—I peered ahead as far as I could see. The gloom was all but palpable, and so thick did the needles lie upon the forest floor that I could scarce hear the sound of our own passage. But the hound’s voice kept us on the track, and presently her note changed to that of a hound that has brought its quarry to bay.
Feldore thudded through into a small glade, and I hauled on the rein. Before me, the hound stood by a vast green-leafed bush, and whatever it had run down had gone to ground in this thorny thicket. I glanced round warily, then dismounted and tied both horses to the nearest tree. I had no weapons, of course, so dispatching the quarry was out of the question (and, before you ask, nay, I had not yet addressed the problem of how I was to deal with the magic stag when I caught it); but I approached with caution all the same.
‘This is the Wood of Tiaquin. Who breaks our peace within it?"
I whirled round at the sound of the voice, which had seemed to come from behind and below, somehow. At first I could see nothing then one of the tree boles shifted and moved and came toward me, and I saw that it was no tree piece but a corrigaun, one of the dwarrows, the naming faerie folk. Not so fair nor yet so tall as the Sidhe, the magic being before me was of a race seldom encountered in Keltia and even more seldom spoken of, far less understood. Some think the corrigauns are no folk at all, but merely aspects the Sidhe themselves put on when they wish to go unrecognized; others think not, that the corrigauns are like to the Sidhe but lesser, more apt to mischief or even malice, where the lordly Shining Folk are creatures of the Light and do not deign to mere tricksiness. But we had been taught, when I was back there in Druid school, that the corrigauns are not evil (and indeed this is borne out by history; no tale of harm to mortal Kelt by a corrigaun has ever been heard in all our centuries), merely not so evolved upon the Path of Being as their elder brothers, more of the earth than is the race of Gwyn.
I stopped where I stood, and the corrigaun and I studied one another for what seemed a long while. I know not how he perceived me; but I saw a sturdy, well-built creature, about half the height of a tall man, black-haired and black-bearded, broad of shoulder, his arms and legs massively muscled, gnarled and iron-tough as apple boughs. He was not uncomely to look upon, if by no means so fair as one of the Sidhe, and his eyes were both dark and bright together—and keen as the unsheathed sword he held in his right hand. And at sight of that sword I started, and wondered greatly, for the blade of it was not naked steel but soft golden flame.
Though the flame licked and flickered, the corrigaun did not seem to fear it, or even feel its heat. Yet where the swordpoint touched the damp earth tiny gray wisps of smoke were curling upwards… But he had addressed me, and deserved the courtesy of a reply.
I bowed slightly—I was, after all, a prince of the realm by my marriage, and though he might well be a prince himself among his folk, I was the visitor here, and so had precedence over him—and spoke in the bard-voice.
"Your pardon, my master. I am Taliesin Glyndour ap Gwyddno, ollave of the Bardic Colleges, Druid, mate to the Princess Morguenna Pendreic and fostern to Arthur the King. I mean no trespass, but was led here by my guide."
I nodded to indicate the black deerhound, who sat now on her haunches, tongue lol
ling, looking much pleased with herself. She tensed her slim frame a little, in that way that dogs will do when they know you are speaking of them, and gave the small eager whimper that goes with that movement, but otherwise did nothing.
The corrigaun glanced briefly at the hound, then back at me. He had raised the point of the flame-sword as I had spoken, and it was now levelled at my chest. I deemed it best not to move, and to answer all questions.
"Why have you come to the Wood?" the being asked.
I opened my mouth, about to repeat the only reason I had, the one I had already given: that the hound had led me, and further, that I had not the faintest idea whyfor and that he would in such case do better to ask the beast himself. Then I thought flashingly of Avallac’h, and the things he had told me, indeed, the geisa he had spoken. What in the Mother’s name had he said—oh aye, that the apple must be taken from the tree guarded by the snake-maned lion, and that of course had been quite awful enough, even if not meant for me, but then, but then he had said—I harrowed my brain, coming up with white fords and glass bridges from here to the Hither Hereafter, but—I had it!
Triumphantly: "I have been bidden seek the laughing flower, and take it from its guardian, who will be a corrigaun with a flaming sword. I take it that would be you?"
The dwarrow’s shoulders heaved mightily, and I tensed, thinking that he was readying himself to swing that fiery blade; but then I saw with what I think was relief that he was silently laughing.
"It might well be, lord prince Druid, Pen-bardd, princess’s mate and king’s fostern. But what use have you for such a blossom?"
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