For myself I was greatly sorry; I would be leaving in any case, now that my studies as Druid were done for the time being, and I would go to the bards with Elphin as had long since been decided. But in three years I had grown to love the LongValley, and I had learned much here. Even so, before I came to leave it I was fated to learn one thing more, and it more staggering than aught else I had learned, then or ever.
The night before our departure, Merlynn called me to his chambers—a summons not unusual with him, he often did so, though never for any reason graver than this summoning would prove. When I reached his rooms I saw that Arthur too was there—again no very uncommon thing, we had often been instructed together, or reprimanded together—and I assumed, as I saw Arthur had already done, that we had been called by our teacher for a last private farewell. We would be returning to Coldgates, but Merlynn was to stay on here awhile, for purposes of his own.
I should have been more surprised had Merlynn not wished to see us again before we left: This would be the first time that the three of us had been parted. We had been together since Arthur and I were six years old; and save for those years at Tair Rhamant with me, Merlynn had been with Arthur since before his birth. For our part, we were well pleased of the chance to bid him a loving farewell away from the rest of our classmates: Here at Bargodion he may have been among the most terrifying of our tutors, but to us he was forever Ailithir, and we loved him more than we loved our blood kin. Now he looked upon each of us as we came near, deep into our eyes and beyond, and for the first time since I had known him I found I could keep my gaze strong and steady looking into his. It was not defiance, but strength earned and strength learned, speaking without words to a strength greater and older by far. But I too was Druid now, and though I could not face Merlynn Llwyd as an equal, then or ever, I could face him as a Brother now always…
Merlynn saw this as he saw everything, and I felt the answering warmth of his emotion as he released me from his gaze and trained it in turn on Arthur. What he saw there must have pleased him as well, for he seemed to make a decision in that moment that he had not yet made when we entered the room; and, had he seen other in our faces than he had seen, would have decided very differently.
"I have a thing to say to you two that is not for the others to hear," he said abruptly. "Time is now that you must know who it is you shall face-Arthur and I exchanged a swift touch of mind on mind:
This was what we had waited to hear, had feared we should never know…
Merlynn looked from one to the other of us, spoke in a clear and terrible voice. "It is your dan to overthrow Edeyrn. I have Seen it long since, and as I have Seen so now do I say. The Marbh-draoi will be cast down by you two together, and by your comrades from this place, and by Companions you will have after—the Princess Gweniver shall be among them."
I felt Arthur's surprise and tiny flare of anger at that, though it did not shock me greatly to hear it, and it was almost at once forgotten in the blazing wonder of what came next.
Merlynn smiled; a strange, sad, tired, extraordinary smile. "You remember, Taliesin, you once wondered who it was that were my masters?"
"Indeed," I said. "I was surprised to learn even that you had any; and then you told me that those masters were the Pheryllt, and that you yourself were one of them."
"Aye so, and it was truth—if not perhaps all the truth. Though you did not then say, you wondered too, did you not, who was it that was chief among those same Pheryllt."
"I did so—" I began to answer, and then the answer answered me. "Edeyrn! It is Edeyrn was, or is, that chief!"
"And you claim you have no Sight to speak of!" For a moment Merlynn looked on me with fond indulgent pride, then he grew grave again. "Aye, it is Edeyrn, right enough… The Pheryllt have been since the days of the holy Brendan the highest of Druids, the teachers and trainers of those who would themselves be Druids, the keepers of the deepest knowledge. And of the Pheryllt the Ro-sai, the Great Teacher, is the highest and wisest of all. So Edeyrn was, before his error—''
"Error!" gasped Arthur. "Do you call it so?"
Merlynn nodded once. "I did then, and I do now; a greater and ghastlier error than most, for which in time he will answer, and his correction—which he shall judge upon himself, as does any soul before Kelu—shall be the match of that failing. For when any sorcerer, man or woman, turns entirely to the Darkness it is an evil day; when one of such excellence does so, how much worse for all… You will see now why our task to unseat him has been so long and bloody a battle; and also we had not the needed tools to our hand, not until now. But there is one thing more: Have you never wondered, either of you, how comes it that the Marbh-draoi has ruled Keltia for nigh on two hundred years, and yet has aged in bodily appearance perhaps two decades only, still seeming as a man of sevenscore years or nearabouts?"
"All Keltia has wondered," said Arthur. "It cannot be a fith-fath."
"It is no fith-fath. Listen while I tell you: Edeyrn is human, right enough, but half his blood is the blood of the Sidhe."
I heard Arthur's long catch of indrawn breath; for myself, as Merlynn spoke I think I had begun to guess a little what the truth might be—but I was still shocked to my bones to hear it said.
"Of the Sidhe!" said Arthur. "But how?"
"His father was Rhun, as he gives out; that part of it is true. A mortal Kelt, a worthy enough man; lord of a small duchas in Moymore on Tara, far from the Hollow Mountains whence she came: the Queen Seli, wife to Nudd that reigns as King from his throne in Dun Aengus beneath the Hill of Fare. She it is who is mother to Edeyrn."
The silence in the chamber was profound, and after a moment Merlynn continued.
"The Shining Folk are not so unlike to us after all, it seems; they too grow bored with duty, and quarrel with their mates, and run away from home, and do the wrong thing—Seli did all these, and when at last she repented of her wildness and returned to Dun Aengus where Nudd took her gladly back again, she brought with her another son—Rhun's son—a boy called Edeyrn. This then is how he can grow older and yet not grow old—because of his half-faerie blood. And that blood too has made him privy to magics even we of the Pheryllt know naught of—"
"Then if he is brother to the Sidhe, and has magics we may not master," cried Arthur, "how may it be that he can be brought down?"
"You shall bring him down," said Merlynn, his dark eyes alight now and burning into Arthur's; I was for the moment forgotten, and very glad I was to be so. "You shall be High King in the end; but first you shall learn war with the Fianna, and when the time comes for it you shall go to Loch Bel Draccon, to the Forest in the Sea, and there take the sword Llacharn from the hand of the Lady of the Loch. It will not be the sword to destroy the Marbh-draoi—that task is for another, greater Weapon—but it will serve to begin the work. It will serve."
And Arthur looked back at him unflinching and undoubting, and I saw the fire pass from Merlynn's eyes to his.
* * *
Chapter Seventeen
'Whether it was that Merlynn had set some sort of unperceived rann upon us to rein our tongues, or simply that we were too shy or too awed to speak of it even between ourselves, neither Arthur nor I, for long thereafter, uttered so much as a syllable of comment as to that fate of his Merlynn declared that night.
At least part of our awe and hesitance surely came from the fact that, to my best knowing, it was the first time that any in place to know had said as much to him it concerned most closely: that Arthur Penarvon would one day be Ard-righ of Keltia. Oh aye, it had been hinted at and muttered of and decreed in clouded pronouncements, to me and to others; but until that last night in Bargodion, none before had ever said it straight out to that future King himself.
But if we did not speak of it, then surely we thought of it: At least I know I did, and knowing Arthur I have no doubt but that he thought much upon it. It bore upon him more than anyone—though I daresay that by now he was growing used to grand destinies being surprisingly reveale
d—and he would be less than himself did he not think on it, and what it meant for him as well as for Keltia.
But, as I said, we said naught of it; and by the next morning we were on our way back to Coldgates, for the most part the same small band that had come thence three years since. For now would come that time for which Ygrawn and Gorlas and Merlynn had begun long since to prepare us: that time when Arthur and I must be apart.
We had known of course that such a time must come, but the knowing would not make it any the less painful at parting. He would go to the Fians with Scathach and Berain, and I to the bards with Elphin, and save by purest chance we would not see each other for some years. Then he should be a Fian, and I a true bard; and together we would return, later, to the sorcerers—to the Pheryllt—to study for the rank of master-Druid. Cold comfort: But we clung to that future as to a talisman or sacred relic; in the days that followed, very often it would be all we each of us had to hearten us.
For the moment, there was the reprieve of time at Coldgates: time in which I met for the first occasion since my childhood my sisters Shelia and Rainild, renowned warriors in the fight against Owein. Time too in which Arthur met for the first time ever his sister-cousins Marguessan and Morgan, now well-grown three-year-olds, merry and handsome and clever as otters.
We greeted again with joy Uthyr and Ygrawn, and received their royal blessings; the Princess Gweniver was not in the shieling, but still studying with the Ban-draoi preceptresses on Vannin. Such had her talent proved for sorcery that it had been decided, with Uthyr's consent, to keep her on for one more year after her initiation, so that she might take then the Domina year that was usually put off until later. When she did return to Coldgates, she would return as a high priestess of her order; a distinction of achievement that would not fall to Arthur and myself in our own order for some years yet. We were both a little pricked in our vanity, I think, but mostly we were relieved; any cause that kept Gweniver out of Arthur's path was cause for delight for both of us—and doubtless for Gweniver herself as well.
Any road, three months later—though it seemed a bare three weeks—we departed Coldgates on our separate paths, to learn of life beyond the shelterings of shieling and Druid-school, in the other Keltia, that secret Keltia that flourished in Edeyrn's despite.
Arthur was first to leave, gone one morning of late summer to a hidden Fian camp far to the south in the mountains of central Arvon, a bare fifty lai from the ruins of Daars, deep in the Grain Valley Range. And I myself went off only a day or two later, companioned by my much-loved Elphin, to a bardic hedge-school that had survived two centuries of the Marbh-draoi's seeking to destroy it.
Elphin himself had been trained there, though it did not stand now where it did then, or where it would next year. For only by sheer mobility had the bard-school lasted those two hundred years: Bargodion, safe hid in the sulphurous wastes of the LongValley, had been untroubled for six decades, and would most like have been as safe for sixty decades more. But Tinnavardan, House of Bards, had enjoyed no such permanence.
Its very name reflected its rootlessness: Usually such training schools are called after some natural feature of the land surrounding—Bargodion, named for the volcanic ridges of Glenfhada; or Scartanore, the ancient Ban-draoi mother-house on Erinna, long since closed by Edeyrn, that is called 'Thicket of Gold' for the stands of goldenbirches that grow upon its hill; and so on. The one constant Tinnavardan could claim was that still it survived and thrived, despite all Edeyrn's grim seeking; and despite its perpetual wanderings—it changed its hidden location on average every two years or so—still it managed to turn out trained bards to meet all the Counterinsurgency's needs.
For bards in these days were not only reciters of lore but keepers of records and teachers of the ancient ways of Keltia; and, aye, spies—and the secret schools must produce men and women who could do all with equal ease.
Bards too that would pass Edeyrn's scrutineers: And that was no small or easy matter. For one thing, one must appear less learned than was in fact the case; and must conceal one's loyalties to the Counterinsurgency above all, for another—many lives were the stake played for here. But only by passing such scrutiny could one be licensed to practice openly as a bard, and for most of us that was the desired end.
Coming and going freely throughout Keltia, as almost no others were permitted to do these days save Ravens and Edeyrn's own bent Druids—bards were the lifeline of the Counterinsurgency, passing information from world to world. But whether one aimed to take a place as house poet with a noble family, or to be a journeyman teacher of children, or an anruth—a wandering bard playing for hire in the halls of the mighty—one was required to withstand examination by the Raven commander of the district, and after that a testing by one of Edeyrn's pet Druids.
A fairly daunting prospect: But thanks to the training I had just completed at Bargodion, I had less fear of facing that Druid, whoever he might be, than by all rights I should have had; it would be a simple matter—or so I prided myself—to hoodwink some creature of Edeyrn's. After all, was I not a true Druid? And my inquisitor, chosen by random chance, whoever was available and at hand, was most surely not… And as to fooling a Raven, well, how hard could that be?
"I will tell you how hard," said Elphin severely, having heard me boast one time too often. "Do not ever again make the mistake of thinking Edeyrn's servants to be poor stupid spaniels, easily duped by any plausible lie. Many of them may well be, and perhaps even most are; that does not mean that in your labors for the Counterinsurgency you shall always be fortunate enough to encounter only the stupid ones. Edeyrn would not have so tight a grip on Keltia's throat without strong help: Very many of those who are loyal to him, whatever their personal motive, are cunning ambitious coggers, and cleverer folk than you have been caught ere now." He gave me a reinforcing stare. "I mean this, Taliesin: Never underestimate our enemy, or overestimate your own ability to outfox him."
Chastened, I muttered some sort of apology, and Elphin nodded acceptance. We had been travelling from Coldgates for many days now, moving mostly by night through the Mains of Gwynedd, those wide, unpeopled lands that lie west of the Sea of Glora. Though my companion had still not divulged to me the precise present location of Tinnavardan, I had guessed, from the general heading of our course, that it was sited just now in the great woods that cover most of the province of Sarre. Too close to Owein's westermost strongholds for my liking; but the Raven forces seemed to have no wish to clear out the forests—having learned through prior ventures the cost of such undertaking—and so the school was just now safe, or as safe as any other place on the planet.
It was also near to Arthur's new home—two hundred or so miles east—but my secret, cherished hopes of visiting my fostern were dashed early on.
"Out of the question," said Elphin when I put forth my first shy suggestion, hoping against hope, that I might do so; or even, failing that, that Arthur might some time come to Tinnavardan. Seeing the stricken look that must have been on my face, he relented a little—but only a little.
"It is truly not possible, Talyn, do you see," explained Elphin kindly. "He will be far too taken up with his Fian training to be stravaiging round the countryside on visits. Come to that, so will you be busy. This is no game-time for either of you: Arthur now is receiving the kind of training that his talents merit, and that training and those talents together may prove in time to be the saving of Keltia. Would you endanger that simply to see him?"
"He is not like others, I know that; who knows it better? I would not distract him from his labors." I was a little stung that Elphin should think me ignorant of my fostern's gifts and dan, though I spoke nothing more than that.
But Elphin smiled as if he knew all the truth. "I know well you know it; and does Arthur in the end come to be Keltia's savior, he will not become so without you by him."
At that my patience broke, and I snapped out the words in anger and annoyance.
"Say you so? I have been hea
ring this from Merlynn and Ygrawn and Scathach and, aye, yourself, and gods know who else—for years have I been hearing it, and no one can give me the smallest scrappet of base for it other than 'it has been Seen' or 'it is dan' or any of a halfscore other reasons just as air-drawn and foam-founded as those."
Elphin drew his fingers over his bearded chin. "You have true doubts, then, as to either—your dan or Arthur's?"
The tone, and the implied judging that lay behind it, shamed me, and after a moment I shook my head. "Nay—not doubts, just so, athro, but—"
"—but questionings, and wonderings, and the need for assurances that are not mere words alone." He did not seem troubled, nor did he speak to mock my doubts. "Well, Talyn, I cannot give you those, nor can anyone among us, not even Merlynn himself. But perhaps you may find Edeyrn a solider source for belief than any of us you rail against."
I stared at him, as he sat on the other side of the little quartz-fire on which we had cooked our meal, and which we now huddled near for warmth in the chill evening.
"Edeyrn!" I said at last. "How could he be—"
"Because if he believes, then must not you believe also? Consider: He murdered your father and destroyed Gwaelod, for many reasons but among them the hope to drown you along with the province; he sent Ravens—aye, Ravens, I said; Perran was not the only one by any means—to search you out all over Gwynedd. Once your survival was confirmed, he gave orders that Daars too should be destroyed, thinking to kill two whelps with the same spear, before they should be sufficiently grown to cause him trouble. And not you and Arthur only: Though he has long known of your hands in his downfall, he has Seen others' also—why think you that Leowyn, and Amris before him, died as they did?"
"King Leowyn's death was sheer mischance, Gweniver herself told me so," I stammered, my mind reeling. "Was it not, then? And Prince Amris—Merlynn said that he was slain while on some mission for the Counterinsurgency."
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