The Silver Hand

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  As we listened to their desperate pleas, it became abundantly clear to me how Meldron had fared so well in his dealings with the kings of Llogres. Those weaker than himself he attacked; the stronger kings he wooed and won with lavish gifts and overgenerous alliances and trade agreements. All this, to the hurt of the people.

  Even the Llwyddi, Meldron’s clansmen—and my own!—did not escape the torment of their cruel lord. The Llwyddi fared no better than the cattle they herded in the wooded hills. With my inward eye, I saw my own blood kin, and I no longer knew them!

  “Tell us our crime,” demanded one of the men, a kinsman who had served Meldryn Mawr faithfully and had endured the horror of Nudd and the privations of Findargad. “Tell us what we have done to deserve this. Our cattle are treated better than we are—and if anyone dare touch them he must answer to Meldron.”

  A sunken-cheeked woman with a naked, sickly babe clinging to her breast stretched a hand toward us. “Please, lord, help us. We are dying here.”

  Cynan turned to Llew. “Well, will you give the order, brother, or will I?”

  “I will do it,” Llew replied, “and gladly.”

  Llew turned to the Ravens. “Drustwn, Emyr, Alun,” he called, “bring the cattle here. They will be slaughtered for meat. Garanaw and Niall, bring wood and prepare a fire.” Then he told the people, “Today you will feast until you can hold no more.”

  But the people were horrified. “No!” they shrieked. “If Meldron finds out, he will kill us!”

  “Meldron will not find out,” Cynan assured them. “He is gone and will not soon return. And when he does you can tell him that Llew and Cynan killed the cattle to spite him.”

  The cattle were gathered in from the hills; the fire was kindled. Three cows were slaughtered, and the rest of the herd was driven to the surrounding settlements. At each place, cattle were killed to feed the people. Though they welcomed the meat, they still feared Meldron’s wrath, and that cast a shadow of gloom over the feasting.

  “We should not linger here any longer,” Bran warned. “We have done all we can for them.”

  “Yet I would do more,” Llew said. He turned to me. “Can we take them with us, do you think?”

  “If they will come. But I do not think they will leave their hovels.”

  Cynan disputed this, saying, “Not leave? If you were slave to Meldron would you stay even a moment longer if someone offered you freedom?”

  “Offer then,” I replied.

  This Cynan and Llew did; they made the offer of freedom to any and all who would take it. None would join us, however; all preferred to stay in their huts, wretched though they were—and they were loathly indeed. And though we argued long, we could not persuade them that we would not turn against them as Meldron had done. We could not make them see that it was life we offered, not the living death they knew.

  Their refusal to leave their slavery saddened me more than anything I had seen. My soul cried out in grief, sharp-pointed as an enemy’s blade. I could have wept for their stupidity. But Meldron had so cowed and confused them that they could no longer think or feel like human beings. They did not understand that we offered a return to freedom and dignity. How could they understand? These words had ceased to have any meaning for them.

  We made the offer of freedom at the next small holding. Again we were rebuffed. Without so much as a word, the chief led us to the top of the hill behind the settlement where there stood a small cairn. We wondered at his manner, leading us there, but our approach sent a flurry of crows squawking into the air and we saw that the cairn was not stones heaped high, but a mound of skulls. Many had sun-dried flesh still clinging to them, and hanks of matted hair. The birds had been doing their work, however, and clean bone gleamed white and hard in the sun.

  I was spared the sight, but I did not need to see it to feel the outrage of the act. Llew described it to me well enough, and then turned to the chief, “What happened here?” Llew asked gently.

  “Meldron judged the harvest too small. He accused us of keeping some back,” the man explained. “When he could not find the grain he said we had hidden, he began murdering the people. He left us this, so we would not forget.”

  “Man,” said Cynan, “will you not come with us now?”

  “And give Meldron another excuse to kill?” the man replied. “If he caught us, none would be left alive this time.”

  “You will be safe with us,” Bran told him.

  The man scoffed grimly. “There is no man safe as long as Meldron lives.”

  “This sickens my heart,” Cynan declared. “Let us go from here.”

  Llew agreed reluctantly. “We can do nothing more for them, and to stay any longer will increase the danger to ourselves.”

  We left the Llwyddi settlement behind and camped in the woods a short distance away from Caer Modornn. As soon as it was daylight, we skirted the stronghold and made for the estuary where our ships waited. We joined our war band where we had left them, and set out for the ships. Though the sun shone on us each day, it did not warm us or lighten our spirits; Prydain had become bleak and cheerless as a fen. The knowledge of Meldron’s wickedness soured our souls, so that even in bright daylight the trail seemed dark and brooding.

  We raised sail the moment we boarded, and left Prydain on the outflowing tide. Sadly, we had achieved but little of what we had set out to do. Gwenllian, Govan, Boru, and all the young of Scatha’s school were dead. The song-bearing stones were still beyond our reach. Nevertheless, we had saved Scatha and Goewyn. And, truly, we had dealt Meldron a blow which he would not soon forget.

  That might have been reason enough to rejoice. Yet it was not jubilation, but sorrow which accompanied our return to Caledon. Our hearts were heavy laden with the dead weight of misery we had witnessed in Meldron’s realm. Every man among us lamented the distress of that tormented land, and every man, each in his own way, vowed to avenge it.

  25

  DINAS DWR

  In Caledon, in the far-hidden north, the secret realm grew. An acorn sprouting, sinking its taproot deep, its slender wand of a trunk shooting up, shyly at first, branches forming, new leaves spreading in glossy clusters . . . a mountain oak. That was Dinas Dwr, an oak of the mountains; young and green, but growing strong. In far-hidden Caledon, in Dinas Dwr, we were becoming a people.

  The toil was staggering: land cleared for crops; cattle bred for stock and raised for herds; dwellings built to house our growing population; ore dug from the hills for copper and iron for smiths to craft; children taught and warriors trained; craftsmen found to adorn our lives with beauty; chieftains raised up to lead.

  We opened the land, adding hide to hide; we planted rye and barley and filled the storehouses—built more storehouses and filled those. Our cattle grew sleek and fat on the plentiful grass of the meadows; the herds increased. Among the hills we dug the ore-bearing rock; we smelted copper and iron, and even gold, for the craftsmen and smiths. The city on the water grew as our builders continually enlarged the crannogs in the lake. Chieftains arose, leaders who prized loyalty and justice; we gave them authority and were rewarded with fealty.

  Ever and always, the storm of strife rumbled beyond the protection of our high ridge wall. And trickling down from Druim Vran, like a dismal freshet, there flowed an unending stream of exiles. Each battle season brought more refugees seeking safe haven from the blood tempest raging in the land. Thus we heard the tidings of the wider world, and those tidings were not good.

  I knew that Meldron must have been scouring the land for some word of us. Indeed, sometimes, with suddenly fired inner vision, I glimpsed, as through storm-gathered clouds, the angry face of the Great Hound himself. I saw his hateful eyes scanning far horizons, saw the bulge of his jaw as he set his teeth, and I knew that somewhere blood would flow and fire waste.

  One day we would stand against him in battle. Whether that day was near or still far off, I could not say. But I began to feel that while we stayed in our hidden glen behind t
he high bulwark of Druim Vran, we were safe. Perhaps some power protected us there and kept us from Meldron’s ever-searching eyes. Perhaps the Swift Sure Hand covered us with the Llengel, Mathonwy’s cloak of concealment. Who can know? And though I continually searched through each revolution of the year’s wheel, I saw no clearer sign.

  Through this time, I served as Chief of Song to our many-tribed clan. I sang often, but always on the hallowed days. This was no hardship, but I grew uneasy as the seasons passed. For it seemed to me that, as the last of my kind, my position was perilous. If some accident befell me, or if we were attacked and I were cut down in battle, Albion’s great and wonderful tales would be lost, the vast knowledge of our worlds-realm would vanish. I came to view myself as a rush-light in a drafty corner: an unchancy gust, a breath of errant wind, and the very spirit of our race would be snuffed out and lost evermore.

  I did not like to think how much had already been lost with the destruction of the Learned Brotherhood. I was a bard—Chief Bard of the Island of the Mighty. If the decline which I feared could be halted and turned again to ascent, it was my duty to try.

  It was in Gyd, when the warmth of the Sweet Season caressed the land, that I determined to establish a school of bards. I brooded long over this, and then took my plan to Llew. I met him one morning as he stood watching gifted Garanaw instruct a willing handful of boys in spear handling.

  “He is a marvel,” Llew said of Garanaw. “If only you could see him, Tegid. Do you know what the boys are calling him now?” he asked. “Garanaw Braichir—Garanaw Long Arm. His spear skill reminds me of Boru.”

  Scatha had begun her warriors’ school anew the year before. She and Bran had chosen the most fit and able of the young boys to join the school, and she and the Ravens had begun instructing them.

  “We will need warriors,” Llew said. Although he spoke the words absently, I saw in my mind’s eye the image of a smoke-clouded battleground. In the darkness and smoke it seemed to me that a battle was raging which I could not see. Whether this image was that of a present event, or one yet to come, I had no way of knowing.

  “Yes, we will always need warriors,” I answered, shaking off the image. “But we need bards too. Perhaps even more than we need warriors.”

  “That is true.” Though I could not see him, I sensed that he had turned to observe me; I felt his eyes on me. “Well, brother bard, speak it out. What is on your mind, Tegid?”

  “Scatha and Bran are training young hands to swing our swords,” I told him. “I must begin training young tongues to sing our songs. We need chieftains of battle, yes. But we need champions of song as well!”

  “Calm yourself, brother,” soothed Llew. “A school for bards—is that what you want? Just say so.”

  “I am saying it. And I intend to start at once. I have waited too long already.”

  “That is fine. Great.”

  We turned, then, and began walking toward the lake. There were more huts along the shore now; several craftsmen—a stone carver, a bronze smith, and a woodworker—had established their huts among the first of the dwellings we had built on the shore.

  “Dinas Dwr,” Llew said, savoring the words. “It is happening, Tegid.

  Warriors, bards, craftsmen, farmers—” Llew said, as we passed among the dwellings. “It is happening. Dinas Dwr is a realm unto itself.”

  “All it lacks is a king,” I pointed out. Llew made no reply.

  We walked a little farther, and I heard the splash of oars as a boat from the crannog drew near to the shore. I felt Llew’s attention shift as the craft touched the shingle. I heard the scrape of the wooden hull on the small stones, and my inner vision kindled with the image of the boat’s occupant: a woman dressed in a simple loose mantle of pale yellow, the color of sweet butter. Sunlight lit her hair, tinting it with the sun’s own hue. Around her neck she wore a necklace of tiny gold discs, each disc bearing a fine blue stone.

  “Greetings, Goewyn,” I called, before she or Llew had spoken. I saw her smile readily as her eyes flicked to Llew’s face and back to me.

  “Hello, Goewyn,” Llew said, and I noted the flatness of his greeting.

  “I do not think you are blind at all, Tegid Tathal,” she told me brightly as she came to stand before me. “I think you do but feign blindness.”

  “How so?” I asked. “Why would I employ such an absurd ruse?”

  “But it is not absurd at all,” she insisted. “If a man thought to be blind could see in truth, he would see more than anyone else—for he would see how men truly regard him. Thinking him blind, men would not disguise their actions. He would see them as they are and know them for what they are. In the end, the blind man would be the wisest man of all.”

  “Shrewd indeed,” I allowed. “But, alas, it is not so with me. Of that you may be assured.”

  “But I am not assured,” she replied pleasantly. “Greetings, Llew. I thought to find you on the practice field with Garanaw.”

  “We have been watching him,” Llew said. “But Garanaw needs no help from anyone—least of all a one-handed warrior.”

  His words were curt and his tone dismissive. Goewyn bade us farewell and went her way. I turned at once to Llew. “Why are you trying to drive her away?”

  “What? Drive her away? I am not trying to drive her away.”

  “She loves you.”

  Llew laughed, but it was not a pleasant sound. “You have been standing in the sun too long. I like Goewyn; she is a joy to behold and to be with.”

  “Then why do you discourage her so?”

  “Meddling bard, what are you talking about?” He said this amiably enough, but a sudden tightness in his voice betrayed him.

  “Do you think she cares that one of your arms is a whit longer than the other? It is you she loves, not your right hand.”

  “You are talking nonsense.”

  “Or is it that she was abused by Meldron’s wolves?”

  “Who told you that?” he snapped.

  “She did—last winter. She was a long time healing from the injuries she received at Meldron’s hands. You rescued her, you saw her condition—she assumed you knew. She came to me and asked me if that was why you spurned her.”

  “Stop it, Tegid. You are embarrassing yourself.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes—you are.”

  I could feel the heat of his anger as he turned and stalked away, bristling. His denial had been as flat as it was forceful—proving that all I said was true. And the truth went deep into a wounded place within him.

  I continued on my slow way around the lake. On the wooded slopes of the ridge I knew I would find a birch grove among the pines, which could serve as the first of many teaching places. As I walked, tapping the uneven ground before me with my staff, I ordered the ranks of the Learned Brotherhood in my mind, beginning with the lowest: the Mabinogi.

  Those I chose would become Cawganog and Cupanog, and I would begin to train their minds to the Hero Feat of memory which is the bard’s art. Perhaps I would discover one in whom the awen already glowed like an ember—that would be best. Anyone who could master the mental skills would become a Filidh, then a Brehon, then a Gwyddon, and, in time, Derwydd. From among the Derwyddi would be chosen the Penderwyddi, the Chief Bards, one for each of the three ancient realms of Albion. And one day, from among the Chief Bards of Prydain and Llogres and Caledon there would arise a Phantarch—the Chief of Chiefs, who, in his hidden chamber, sang the Song of Albion which upheld this worlds-realm.

  The thought caused me to wonder: would there ever be a Phantarch again? Would the Song of Albion be sung again in Domhain Dorcha? Would the life-quickening Song shine again as a light within the Deep Dark?

  I paused beside the lake. The sun warmed my face and neck; the breeze from the water lifted my hair; bird cry sounded clean and clear in my ears. In this protected place we were safe. Yet that safety could not long endure if the words of the Banfáith’s prophecy were to hold true. And her prophecy had proven tr
ue through all things. So be it!

  It was cool among the slim white birches. I stood motionless, the young branches lightly shifting over my head. The new leaves fluttered like feathers and, in my mind’s eye, I saw the dappled light playing among the slender trunks and shifting over the thick, green grass of the copse. Here, I thought, is where we will begin. Here, in this grove, I will once more establish the bardship of Albion.

  It was a mighty work stretching before me, a path with a far destination. Tomorrow I would begin; I would search out the young ones who would embark with me on the journey—through the oghams of trees, birds, and beasts; through lore of wood and water, of earth and air and stars; through all types of tales: those of the Anruth and Nuath and Eman, the Dindsenchas and Cetals, Great Orations; through the Bretha Nemed, the Laws of Privilege and Sovereignty; through the Four Arts of Poetry, the Bardic Laws, and the Taran Tafod, the Secret Tongue; through all the sacred rites of our people. Perhaps I would find one in whom the Imbas Forosnai, the Light of Foresight, burned brightly—perhaps another Ollathir.

  I lingered in the grove and performed a saining rite: I cut three slender branches from three birches and plaited them end-to-end into a leafy hoop. I took the hoop and rolled it in a sunwise circle around the perimeter of the grove—three times around the grove, and then I placed the hoop in the center of the grove. I brought out my pouch which contained the Nawglan, and I poured a portion of the Sacred Nine into the center of the birch hoop; I poured the Nawglan in the triple-rayed shape of the Gogyrven, the Three Rays of Truth. As I did this, I spoke the saining words:

  In the steep path of our common calling,