The Minstrel Boy

by Sharon Stewart

  “I’m not far from Caerleon, where I started from,” said David despairingly. “But I’m nearly two thousand years back in time!”

  That evening they sat late around the fire in the hut. David was sunk in silence, his bowl of stew untouched before him. Emrys and Bear spoke together in low voices, glancing at him from time to time.

  At last he raised his head and looked at the two of them accusingly. “Why don’t you tell me I’m wrong, that it’s impossible?” he asked. “Then I’d only have to worry about being crazy!”

  Emrys leaned back in his chair. “Impossible? Who knows what’s possible?” he said. “Many wise folk believe that time isn’t a road we travel and leave behind us. They say past and present and future run side by side, with the thinnest of curtains between them. For certes, there are those who can see into the past and future.”

  “You, for example,” Bear put in unexpectedly.

  Emrys shrugged. “I have my . . . visions. But I can’t foretell the future, no matter what the fools of villagers believe. You know that well enough.”

  “This is the weirdest conversation I’ve ever heard,” said David. “You mean I’ve sort of slipped sideways into your time?”

  “Possibly,” agreed Emrys.

  “But we must be speaking some language I’ve never even heard of,” David protested.

  Now that he’d thought of it, he knew they were. He’d known all along, with the part of his mind that lived in music. It was a language with an up and down lilt to it that was almost like singing. He frowned, trying to hear exactly how the words they were speaking were different from English words. But the effort made his head swim, and he gave it up. “So, how come I understand what you’re saying?” he finished lamely.

  Emrys shrugged. “Who can tell?”

  Bear stood up and stretched, yawning hugely. “It’ll do no good to pother on about this all night,” he said. “Either you’re here or you’re not. And it looks to me as if you are.” He gave David a considering look. “I, for one, am glad. Emrys is always trying to knock some education into my thick head. But just think what’s locked up inside that noggin of yours!”

  “You’ll have to think of more than that,” said Emrys. “David must learn to live here, at least for now. He’ll share the hut with you and me. After all, where else can he stay? I’ll make a start at teaching him harping, but you must teach him the rest. In a few weeks, once he’s well enough, get Rufus to show him how to defend himself. Tell him I ask it as a favour.” He turned to David and added, “Though I can see from your frame you’re no warrior.”

  Warrior! “It . . . it isn’t the thing to be where I come from,” said David.

  “However, you may have the makings of a minstrel,” Emrys went on, “and it will be my business to instruct you in that.”

  David swallowed hard. “You mean I just settle down and try to get along here? Aren’t you going to do anything? Send me back to my own time?”

  “How do you propose I do that?” asked Emrys dryly.

  “Well . . . I don’t know,” floundered David. “Don’t you?”

  “Not in the least,” said Emrys.

  FIVE

  Soft spring stars hung so close above the forest that they seemed tangled in the topmost branches of the trees. David drew a deep breath of damp air as he and Emrys made their way toward the light and noise of the chieftain’s hall at the other end of the village.

  Five long, puzzling weeks had passed. David had quickly learned the rudiments of harping, and Emrys had taught him a number of songs. David had soon found out that Emrys was the toughest teacher he had ever had. He accepted absolutely no excuse for mistakes. And, though Emrys had never used his staff on David the way Bear claimed he did on him, there were moments that he looked as if he’d like to.

  Time after time, David had been on the point of rebelling. Only the fierceness of Emrys’ gaze, and David’s awareness of how much he owed to Emrys and Bear made him bite his tongue and struggle on.

  Aside from his harping, David had found himself lonely. Bear was away from the hut much of the time, either training with the other youths or hunting. Like Emrys, he also spent long hours in the chieftain’s hall. Left to himself, David wondered more and more about the two of them. Emrys didn’t seem to be Bear’s father. At least, Bear never called him father. But if that was so, where was Bear’s family? Sometimes it was on the tip of David’s tongue to ask, but despite Bear’s friendliness, there was something closed about him, as if he were hiding a great hurt. David shrank from pestering him with questions.

  At first, the pain in David’s head and leg discouraged him from exploring the village. Gradually, though, he began to feel better. Almost, he told himself, puzzled, as if his invisible wounds were healing.

  He began limping about a bit, hoping to find someone to talk to, but people glanced at him suspiciously, as if wondering what he was doing among them. So he’d ended by brooding alone in the hut for many hours each day, with only Beauty to keep him company.

  Then, a week before, Emrys had disappeared without a word of explanation. After a few days, tired of going over the same old lessons, David had asked Bear when Emrys would be back. Bear had just shrugged.

  “Who knows? Oft times he journeys between the tribes, on business known only to himself, or perhaps the High King. Other times he wanders in the woods with moss in his hair and bark in his beard. He only half likes being around people anyway. Sometimes I think he’d rather live in the woods with just the animals to hear his harping.” Bear had grinned. “Emrys Wyllt, people call him behind his back. Wild Emrys.” Then his expression changed. “But to me he’s always been true Emrys,” he had added soberly. “He took me in, orphan stray that I am, and I’m not forgetting that, harsh taskmaster though he sometimes is.”

  So Bear had no family of his own, David thought. That went a long way toward explaining the separateness that he wore about him like a cloak, though clearly he was well liked by all in the village.

  Despite Bear’s words, David was still startled when Emrys suddenly turned up that evening looking worn and travel-stained. He had scarcely taken time to wash and change his tunic before he picked up Beauty and slung it over his back.

  “Come. We’re summoned by Lord Rhodri,” he said to David.

  “Huh? What for?”

  “It’s time,” was all Emrys would say. The bard did not seem worried, but David was. He’d only seen the chieftain from a distance, but given his size and the length of his sword, he felt that was close enough.

  An owl hooted close by in the woods. David shivered.

  Emrys glanced at him. “Fate is a gift both bright and dark,” he said. “The wise accept it whole. Perhaps you are wrong to fear the owl so.”

  That’s a lot of help! thought David. If it weren’t for that blasted owl I wouldn’t be stuck here.

  They crossed the beaten earth of the exercise ground. At the doors of the hall, two tall warriors clashed their spears across the doorway.

  “Emrys, harper to Rhodri Mawr,” said the bard formally. “And the stranger. We are summoned.”

  The spears clashed back, and they stepped into the smoky hall. It was a rectangular building, by far the largest in the village. Huge fire pits blazed at each end, and over them cauldrons bubbled and roasting carcasses turned on spits. The air was rich with the savoury smell of meat. In cubicles along the sides of the hall, warriors and their followers sat on benches feasting and drinking.

  Rhodri and his council sat around a plank table on a dais at the far end of the hall. They were big men with fierce drooping moustaches, dressed richly in bright-patterned trews and tunics woven of coloured cloth with embroidered borders. Gold gleamed everywhere about them—on thick twisted torcs around their necks, on the massive brooches that pinned their cloaks, in bracelets and armbands on their sinewy arms, on the gemmed hilts of their swords and daggers. Gold and silver too were the goblets and the gaming board set out on the table. After the brown drabness of th
e village, it was dazzling.

  Rhodri looked down frowning as Emrys and David came up. Seen up close he was bigger, broader, and even more impressive than from a distance, though his fox-red hair was well threaded with silver. “It’s long since you’ve bothered to grace my hall, Emrys,” he growled. “A lord shouldn’t have to summon his harper.”

  “My regrets, Rhodri son of Pwyll,” Emrys replied courteously. “As you know, my calling often takes me to distant places. I must serve more needs than your own. And lately, I’ve had the care of this stranger.”

  “That’s another quarrel between us,” returned the chieftain, still frowning. “Who is he, and why is he living in the village after so many weeks? Why hasn’t he returned to his own people by now?”

  If only I could! thought David. Glancing around nervously he noticed Bear standing with some other young warriors. He looked grim, and David’s heart sank.

  “He cannot return home yet, my lord,” said Emrys. “Bear found him wandering and injured. He comes from . . . across the Western Sea.”

  “Western Sea? He’s not one of the cursed Scoti, is he?” asked Rhodri suspiciously. “I’d as soon shelter a viper under my cloak as aid one of them! They’re almost as bad as the Saxons, those plundering devils.”

  A low growl of agreement ran around the hall.

  “Nay, my lord. His home is farther west even than that. Perhaps almost as far as the Fortunate Isles.”

  Rhodri stroked his shaggy moustache. “Well, he’s not the first stray you’ve brought me,” he said at last. At these words, Bear stepped forward grinning and bowed deeply.

  Rhodri nodded to him. “Aye, lad, you’ve worked out well enough. But this one’s different. From the looks of him, he’ll never make a warrior. And we can’t afford to feed useless mouths.” Rhodri threw himself back in his chair, his eyes narrowed to slits of blue ice. “I see no reason to keep this scrawny youngster. Unless we make a drudge of him.”

  A drudge! David froze in horror. He’d noticed a few miserable creatures doing the dirtiest work of the village, and felt pity for them. Would that be his fate?

  “Nay, Rhodri Mawr!” cried Emrys in a ringing voice. “Would you enslave a nightingale? Set a lark to swilling the swine?”

  “What mean you, bard?” Rhodri was scowling again.

  “Only that you have here before you a harper of possible talent. He has studied with me only a little, but already . . . Nay, hear for yourself. I’ll stand by your judgement.”

  A long moment passed. Then, “See that you do,” said Rhodri grimly.

  Emrys unslung Beauty from his back and snapped his fingers. A servant scurried forward with a low stool, and placed it before him. Emrys held out the harp to David. “Give them Culhwych and Olwen,” he said in a low voice. “It always goes over well.” Then, noting David’s panicky expression, he added, “They’re a sentimental lot, though they don’t look it. Just follow my setting.”

  David took the harp, his heart beating wildly. He settled himself on the stool and began tuning Beauty, grateful for a few moments in which to regain his wits.

  At Rhodri’s command, warriors gathered slowly from the far corners of the hall.

  David looked down at the harp. Beauty, be with me now, he thought in panic, clutching its warm wood.

  Taking a deep breath, he struck a chord into the silence. For one dreadful moment he couldn’t remember what followed. Then, as if of their own will, his fingers sought out the melody, drilled into him by Emrys. Once through, and then he began to sing.

  When Culhwych fell first in love with Olwen fair . . .

  Little by little, the magic of the song took him. The hopeless love of the hero for Olwen the Fair. The terrible ordeals he had to overcome to win her wicked father’s consent to their marriage. The faith of her love for him through all.

  At first, he played as Emrys had taught him. Then, caught in web of his own spinning, he modulated the key and the song turned stranger and wilder. At last, with the final verse, he returned to the major key, with its sound of great gladness.

  And they were wed, and in rare happiness ran their days.

  He swept one last chord, then laid his hand on Beauty’s strings to still them. And came back to himself.

  There was silence in the hall, followed by the buzz of many voices. David got awkwardly to his feet.

  “Impertinent puppy! You took a dreadful chance. You couldn’t just play it the way I taught you, could you?” Emrys growled in his ear. Then, turning away and raising his voice he cried, “Rhodri Mawr, what say you now?”

  “I say . . .” Rhodri glared under his eyebrows around the table and then out across the hall, daring anyone else to speak. Then he smacked the flat of his hand on the table so hard that the goblets danced. “I say you spoke the truth, Emrys. The young pup has something of the minstrel about him. Though he plays strangely enough. I say he deserves his chance. Now, what say the rest of you?”

  A hum of approval went round the hall. One old warrior reeled up and slapped David on the back, offering him a draught of rank-smelling ale.

  His knees still trembling, David nearly collapsed.

  SIX

  Now,” said Emrys, “you start to work.”

  “Start! What do you call what I’ve been doing all these weeks?” David was indignant.

  Emrys snorted. Bear, who was tossing scraps to Cabal, laughed out loud.

  “Don’t let a little praise last night turn your head,” said Emrys. “You’ve made a beginning, no more. Your fingering is atrocious. You know no more than a ballad or two. What possible use do you think you’ll be to me or the clan?”

  “Use?”

  “Use. D’you think being a minstrel is no more than spinning some song you happen to think of?” Emrys wagged a forefinger under David’s nose. “That may be so in that strange future world you say you belong to. Here it’s different!”

  “Different how?”

  “A bard has a responsibility. How much I can teach you, I don’t know. You’re not one of us, for one thing. And you’re old, for another. True bards are trained from childhood up. But I’ve vouched for you to Rhodri Mawr, and I intend to see to it that you learn what you need to know to be useful to me. And to him.”

  Great! David thought. He’s just like my dad. Always wanting me to do stuff his way. “What am I, some kind of slave?” he mumbled.

  Emrys shrugged. “A slave to music? Yes, if that’s what it takes to train you.” He narrowed his eyes. “Of course, if you’d rather swill the swine . . .” he added.

  “Thanks, but no thanks!” said David.

  But it wasn’t long before he began to think that pigs might have their charms after all. David spent hour after hour on fingering, chords, harmony. Then, when his fingers cracked and bled, more hours studying ballads, songs, stories, chants, histories of clans and tribes, the genealogies of kings and chieftains. All of it had to be memorized. Word perfect.

  “Like being a walking data bank,” he grumbled. But he took care that Emrys didn’t hear.

  And his troubles had barely started.

  He’d got used to seeing Bear only at mealtimes, or when he sat mumbling to himself trying to master one of Emrys’s lessons. Then, one afternoon, Emrys released David early.

  “I’m going up-river and will be away for some time again. Go on with what we’ve been doing. I’ll expect improvement when you play it for me again,” he said curtly. “Don’t disappoint me.”

  David nodded, but the moment Emrys left the hut he threw himself down on the bed-box for a nap.

  A none-too-gentle prod in the ribs snapped his eyelids open. “Whaaa? Hey, watch it!” he protested, batting away the butt end of Bear’s spear.

  “Up,” said Bear briefly. “Let’s get on with it.”

  David didn’t budge. “On with what?” he snapped. “Emrys has been pounding away at me all day. My brain feels like mush.”

  Bear grinned mirthlessly. “Welcome to my world,” he said. “He teaches me to
o, don’t forget. But Emrys can’t teach you everything you need to know. You’ve got to learn weapons. Remember, Emrys said so.”

  “Oh, come on,” David groaned.

  “Up,” Bear repeated, prodding him again. “You’re fit enough now, that’s certain. I haven’t seen you limp in weeks.”

  Still protesting, David swung his feet to the floor. “What do I need to learn weapons for? I’m supposed to become a bard, aren’t I? Lord Rhodri himself said I’d never make a warrior.”

  “I suppose you want to stay alive, though,” Bear returned coolly. “D’you expect the rest of us to wet-nurse you? Cudgel and spear and dagger you’ll learn. Enough so you can take a wee walk in the woods without getting yourself killed.”

  Bear chose two cudgels from the rack near the door and picked up a breast-plate made of boiled leather like his own. “There’s a clearing in the woods we can use,” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “No use taking you to the practice ground—yet.”

  David followed him, muttering under his breath. Who did Bear think he was, anyway?

  When they reached the clearing, Bear unbuckled his sword and laid it aside. He hefted a cudgel in one hand. “Hold it so—hands well apart, nearer one end than the other,” he said. “Feet well apart, too. Knees bent just a bit. For balance, that is.” He tossed the cudgel to David.

  David staggered as he caught it. It was much heavier than it looked, and he could barely hold it level with both hands. There was nearly six feet of it, all solid wood. After a few minutes of feinting according to Bear’s instructions, David’s wrists ached and the muscles in his forearms burned.

  “Now, I’ll thrust at you this way. And you must try and block me. We’ll go slowly at first. This way. Now, that way. No, turn as you parry. Are your feet rooted to the ground? It’s a kind of dance, man. You have to get the feel of it.”

  On and on they went, Bear demonstrating the moves, then directing the sequences.

  “I’ll go for your legs now. Move, can’t you? Or I’ll have them out from under you!”