"Ah, yes, the druid who brought word told me about your father. You and your brother are welcome in my house."
They went to the cart and Avallach gazed long and sorrowfully upon the body. Lile returned with men bearing a litter, and as they made to carry the body inside, Dafyd and Collen arrived, running breathless into the courtyard, faces set and grim, their mantles flowing behind them in their hurry.
Dafyd approached the body and stood for a moment as if perplexed; men, withdrawing a vial from a fold in his mantle, he dipped a finger in the oil and drew the sign of the cross on Taliesin's cold forehead.
When they had finished, Lile took charge of the body; Dafyd rose and came to Avallach. "Your man found us on the road and told us what had happened. We came directly. Where is Charis?"
"She has been taken to her rooms. They have traveled far today."
"Yet, I will go in to her," replied Dafyd, "if only for a moment."
The priests went into the palace and found the women gathered in an upper room; Charis stood when she saw Dafyd enter and met him. The priest embraced her, took her hand, and led her back to the bed where they sat without speaking. After a time Lile came to say that the body had been laid in the hall. "Have you seen the…seen Taliesin?" Charis asked Dafyd.
"I brought oil and anointed him."
"What good will that do now, priest?" demanded Lile. Her voice was low but sharp.
Dafyd ignored the taunt. "How can I help you, Charis?"
"Leave her alone. You and your god have done enough for her already," Lile snarled.
"Please, Lile," Charis said softly, "I would speak with my friend. Go and find a basket for Merlin."
Lile withdrew, throwing a scalding look at Dafyd as she passed by. Rhuna, cradling the baby on her lap, sat in a chair beside the bed, her face drawn and pale, yet her eyes glinting bright in the falling light.
Charis, still holding the priest's hand, looked out the open window at the crimson stain of the sky. "There was no warning," sighed Charis heavily. "We were riding in thick mist. It was wet and dark. I heard a strange sound and looked back and Taliesin was struck. He made no sound, no cry, no word. He was…was just dead." She turned to Dafyd, shaking her head wearily. "I loved him so much and now he is gone."
Dafyd sat with her while twilight bled into the sky. There were no words he could say to heal the hurt or take away grief's dull, consuming ache.
At length Charis stood and walked to the window. "It hurts…and I hate it," she said. "What am I going to do?"
"I cannot tell you," he said softly, moving to the window to be near her. "Nor can I take the pain away, Charis."
She turned to him, her eyes fierce. "Do not speak to me of what cannot be," she said bitterly. "I know that well enough. Taliesin believed in your God—he called him the Great Light and the God of Love. Where is the love and light now, Dafyd? I need it sorely now!"
The priest only shook his head.
They stood together as dusk descended slowly, drawing night's veil across the sky and gathering gloom in the chamber as the shadows deepened and spread. Merlin stirred in Rhuna's lap and began to cry. The baby's voice cracked the silence with its full-blooded insistence.
"He is hungry," she said, motioning to Rhuna. "I will feed him now."
"And I will go down to the hall," the priest said. "Collen and I will stay in the palace tonight and wait with Taliesin's body. We will be close by if you need us."
* * *
The pale crescent moon rode high above a broken roof of low-lying clouds as the Cymry rode clattering into the palace forecourt sixty strong. Torches burned in the sconces beside the gates which, though guarded, had been left open for them. As he had earlier in the day, Avallach met travelers in the courtyard. Sorrow lined his features, and the pain in his side bent him nearly double as he made his way down the stone steps to receive his guests.
Elphin swung from the saddle, helped Rhonwyn down, and then turned to meet Avallach's embrace. "I am sorry," Avallach told him. "I am deeply sorry …"
"Where is he?" asked Rhonwyn.
"I have laid his body in the great hall. You will find him there and the priests with him."
"We will go to him at once," replied Elphin. His voice was raw.
The Cymry followed their lord into the palace and to the great hall where they found a board on trestles standing in the center of the huge room, torches on poles at each corner, and the two priests kneeling beside the bier. Dafyd and Collen stood as the Cymry came in and withdrew silently to a comer of the room.
Elphin gave out a great cry of anguish and rushed to the bier and threw himself across the body of his son. Rhonwyn advanced more slowly, tears streaming from her eyes. She took one of Taliesin's hands in hers and sank to her knees. The Cymry gathered around their king and queen and lifted their voices in the death lament, wailing loudly, abandoning themselves to their grief.
Hafgan entered behind the others and stood for a moment with his eyes closed, listening to the dirge of voices. Opening his eyes again, he approached the bier to stand above the lifeless form of the one he had loved like a son. "Farewell, Shining Brow," he whispered to himself. "Farewell, my Golden One."
Gathering his mantle into his fists, he pulled mightily and the garment ripped. "Ahhhgh!" he cried loudly, his voice rising above the others. "Behold, my people!" He extended his hands over Taliesin's body. "The son of our delight lies cold in death's strong grip! Weep and cry out loudly! Wail, Cymry! Let Lleu of the Long Hand hear our lament! Let the Good God know our grief! Our bard, our son, our Golden One has been struck down! Let all men bow their heads low and weep! Weep a river of tears to bear his soul away! Weep, my people, for his like will not be seen among us again… never again…"
The Cymry wept and cried out, their voices rising and falling like the wash of a sorrowful sea. When one voice faded, another would take up the cry so that the grief chant was spun like a thread from a spindle, blended, strong, and unbroken.
In her high room Charis awakened to the wailing and crept down to the hall. She saw Rhonwyn kneeling at her son's side, clasping his cold hand to her cheek, rocking back and forth in her misery. Charis felt the urge to go to her and join her. She moved a pace toward the bier, hesitated, and turned away uncertainly, unable to make herself take the steps.
In turning, she caught a glimpse of Hafgan from the corner of her eye. The druid had seen her and was holding out a hand to her. Charis stopped, confused. Hafgan, hand still extended, walked to her and stood before her. She stood hesitant, torn, looking at the grieving Cymry. When he did not withdraw the hand, she lifted her hand to his and he led her to the bier.
Charis felt a burning sensation in her throat and chest and the bitter taste of bile in her mouth. Hafgan pulled her into the circle surrounding the bier and the Cymry made way for her.
Rhonwyn glanced up as Charis came to stand over her. Charis saw Rhonwyn's tear-streaked face and sank to her knees beside Taliesin's mother. Rhonwyn put her head against Charis' breast and wept, and Charis wept too, at last, feeling the stone-hard walls of her heart crumble and melt in the sudden surge of grief.
She clung to Rhonwyn, sharing the deep and nameless torment of mourning women. Charis gave herself to her tears and felt her sorrow flow from her wounded heart like a flood across the parched, barren landscape of her soul. She wept for the hardness of life, for the cruelty of death, for loss and pity, for empty, aching loneliness and heartbreaking care, for Briseis alone in her lost tomb and for herself—for all the times she had denied her tears, hardening herself and despising the hardness that would not let her feel the pain. She wept for the child who would never know the sound of his father's voice soaring in song or the sure touch of his strong hand. She wept for her dead brothers and for all Atlantis' fair children now sleeping beneath Oceanus' restless waves. And it seemed that she would weep forever.
The Cymry pressed around her, their voices mingling like the tears that streamed from their eyes, their faces beautiful in so
rrow. And Charis loved them all—loved them for the fervent intensity of their emotion, for the simple honesty of their souls. Generous in grief as in joy, selfless in the outpouring of their hearts, the Cymry, exalted in their lamentation by the prideless nobility of their spirits, gathered around Charis and their tears fell down upon her in a gentle, healing rain.
* * *
At dawn the death song ceased. The torches were extinguished and while the Cymry rolled themselves in their cloaks for a few hours sleep, Hafgan, Elphin, Rhonwyn, and Charis stood together beside the bier. "He must be buried today," said Hafgan, hoarse from mourning. "It is the third day since his death and his body must begin its journey back from where it came."
"Wherever that may be," added Elphin quietly. He gazed with red-rimmed eyes upon the one he had called his son. "I have thought about it many times."
Charis looked at him in shocked surprise. "Why do you speak this way?" She turned to Rhonwyn. "Was he not your son?"
"I raised him as my son," Rhonwyn told her. "Elphin found him in the weir—"
"Found him?" Charis shook her head slowly. "I do not understand. He told me everything and yet told me nothing of this."
"He would not have spoken of it," replied Hafgan.
"I was his wife!"
"Yes, yes," Hafgan soothed. "But it was the deepest mystery of his life and it troubled him. Taliesin knew he was not like other men: his gifts were greater, the demands of his skill higher, his knowledge more complete. In an older time we would have said that, like Gwion Bach, he had tasted of Ceridwen's caldron and become a god."
"Gwyddno had given me the take of the weir," Elphin offered, "and I rode out on the eve of Beltane to find my fortune." He smiled, remembering. "Not one salmon did I get that day, though Lleu himself knows never did a man need a fish more. It had snowed the day before and the salmon were late and there was neither fin nor scale to be seen.
"Though I knew I would get nothing, I looked in all the nets and from the last one fetched a sealskin bag—which I carried to the shore and opened. Inside was a child, a beautiful child."
Never had Charis heard such a tale. "A sealskin bag?"
"We thought him dead," replied Elphin with a nod to Rhonwyn, "but he lived and I soon had need of a wet nurse."
"Elphin found me in my mother's house in Diganhwy. My own babe was stillborn days before, and I was disgraced. Elphin took me to wife. I nursed Taliesin as my own, looked upon him as my own, raised him as my own, loved him as my own." She nodded to Elphin. "We both did. But he was not ours."
They told her many other things about Taliesin then, and when they had finished Charis turned to the body of her husband. "He was born of the sea," she said, gazing at the man she knew but now seemed not to know at all, "and he must return to the sea."
Hafgan raised his hands, palms outward, and proclaimed, "So it is said, so it must be done."
The funeral procession reached the Briw estuary at sunset. Led by Dafyd and Hafgan walking side by side, the small boat was lashed to poles and borne on the shoulders of the Cymry. Inside the boat lay Taliesin's body, having been washed and prepared for its final journey, his clothing changed and hair combed and bound. Charis, Avallach, Elphin and Rhonwyn, Rhuna and Merlin rode behind, with Maelwys and Salach and the rest of the Cymry following. The scattered gray clouds were gilt-edged in the red-gold light and larksong filled the sky.
Upon reaching the river mouth the boat was lowered into shallow water, and one by one Taliesin's belongings and grave gifts were placed in the boat around him: across his chest Rhonwyn lay the sealskin bag in which he had been found; at his feet Elphin placed Taliesin's saddle, in memory of the boy who had longed to ride the Wall with his father; Hafgan took the bard's staff of oak and placed it under his left hand; Dafyd brought out a carven wooden cross which he and Collen placed under Taliesin's right hand; Maelwys and Salach put the prince's silver torc around his neck; Avallach spread Taliesin's cloak over him and then covered it with a blanket of fine fur; producing a new-made spear with a head of bright iron and a shaft of ash, Cuall stepped to the boat and lashed the spear to the bow.
Lastly, Charis placed Taliesin's harp beside him so that the wind might play upon its strings. She bent to kiss him farewell, and then die boat was turned toward Mor Hafren. Four Cymry on each side pushed the vessel further out into the estuary where it could be taken by the outgoing tide. Charis called for Rhuna, who brought Merlin and placed him in his mother's arms.
Standing in the water, bright with the blood-red fire of the setting sun, Charis held the child Merlin before her so he could see the boat ride the current out of the river mouth and into die deep channel beyond. The boat turned around once, found the seatide's pull, and was drawn out into deeper water. The tideflow pulled die boat along the hillside cliffs and mudflats toward the western sea where it would be carried along by the waves to its unknown destination.
Dafyd walked to a rocky rise and stood with his hands raised in benediction and prayed aloud while the Cymry, some in the water and some standing on the hillside, sang a song of parting, in this way sending their kinsman and friend to his rest.
* * *
Thus, in the time between times, with the water bright like a glowing ember and Celtic song falling like melodic rain from a fireshot sky, Taliesin set off on his last journey.
We watched, the prayer and song continuing until the boat was lost on the horizon and it became too dark to see. Then we remounted the horses and started back, the new moon lighting our way. I paused on a high hilltop above the water to look over the great silver sweep of Mor Hafren, all flecked and glimmering in the moonlight like a jewel-encrusted blade.
Farewell, Taliesin! Farewell, my soul.
When I turned my horse to the track, the Cymry began to sing again. And I heard Taliesin's voice among them just the way it would have sounded, high and fine and strong. I sang too and my heart felt lighter.
That night, impossibly bright and clear, the night air soft as silk, the tall grasses ringing with cricket song and the trees soughing in the breeze, the stars wheeling through wide heaven and the moon swinging along its course, I rode, cradling my baby to my breast, aware—as I was aware of all else—of an enormous calming peace that enfolded and surrounded me, a love deep and undisturbed…and ever present.
It was there in the humble gift of jade from an unknown friend; it was there in the arena with me the day the Sun Bull should have taken my life; and this love was there in the merlin, at once a parable and gentle reproof for my lack of trust.
This peace has always been with me had I but known it.
I knew it then, and my heart quickened within me. Love was truly awakened on that moonbright night as we returned to Ynys Witrin on wings of song.
* * *
It was several days later that I realized Morgian and Annubi were missing. I did not remember seeing them at all since my return, and when I asked my father he nodded and said, "Yes, it is strange. But they left in the night—one day before you came home."
"The night Taliesin was killed," I said, and a chill touched my bones.
"So it must have been. It is very strange. They said nothing; there was no word of farewell."
"Father," I said, my voice shaking, "did you send the feather? The raven's feather?"
"A raven's feather? Why?"
"The man who brought it—the traveler—said it was from you. He gave me a black feather as your message to me. I thought it odd, but Taliesin said it was your way of telling me that you wished me home."
Avallach shook his head gravely. "I sent word by one of our own the very day your message came. There was no traveler, Charis. And no feather."
So Morgian is gone and Annubi with her. I wonder at the hate that conceived such a plan, and I wonder at the power behind it. And I wonder if the arrow that took Taliesin was meant for me.
Oh, Morgian, what have you done? Was your life such misery and love so elusive that you turned against both?
Hear
me, Morgian: I have walked the path you have chosen. I have known the darkness and despair of living death, and I have known the joy of rebirth into light. I will not join you on that path, Morgian; I will not go down that way again.
Dafyd's shrine is finished and he teaches there now. I go to listen and to pray. I always feel that Taliesin is nearer to me there than anywhere else.
And it is often that I remember him telling me, "I will never leave you, Charis," and I know he never will. He is with me now and forever, and as long as I live I will love him and he will live in my love. What is more, I am certain we will be together again one day.
Until that time, I am content: I have a son to raise—a son who many, including Hafgan and Blaise, believe will be greater than his father.
As to that, I know nothing. Rumors flourish like weeds when a great man dies. I do not deny Taliesin's rarity among men—and many's the night that I wonder who and what he was. But this I know as I know my own reflection: in him God found fuel for the spark he puts in all men. Taliesin was a man fully awake and alive; he burned with the vision of a world he meant to create.
That vision must not die.
I, Charis, Princess of Lost Atlantis, Lady of the Lake, will keep the vision alive.
E-Book Extra
Stephen R. Lawhead on…
The writing process
Book-writing is a three-ring circus (complete with clowns and animals). At any given time there is 1: The Book Just Written, which is being edited, typeset, proofed, published, and needs to be promoted. While this is going on I am trying to write 2: The Book of the Moment: the one I'm working on pretty much nine-to-five, five days a week. It takes about ten months of writing and two months of re-writing from first word to last. Meanwhile, I'm beginning to think ahead to 3: The Next Book. I work up a proposal for the new project several months before finishing the current one so that by the time I'm ready to begin writing, the idea is set and the publisher is on board.
The actual writing, then, takes about a year—but it takes roughly three years from concept to printed copies.
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