“Irish, Cymry-what difference? These tribes are all alike,” Maildun retorted, “all blood-crazed barbarians. Truth be known, he attacked her himself!”
“Liar!” hissed Charis.
“He is a fool who cannot tell friend from foe,” Taliesin said coolly.
“Fool, am I?” Maildun started toward Taliesin, fists clenched, jaw outthrust.
“Stay, Maildun! You are put in your place. The bard has answered truthfully.” Avallach inclined his head toward Taliesin. “You shall be rewarded for saving my daughter’s life.”
“I claim no reward, lord. Neither will I accept any.” He made a stiff bow to Charis. “Having seen the lady safely home, I will leave now.” He turned and moved toward the curtained doorway.
“Wait outside but a little,” Avallach called after him. “I will go with you.”
“After all that has happened, do you still insist on carrying out this ill-advised plan of yours?” snarled Maildun when Taliesin had gone.
“All that has happened has served to harden my resolve,” Avallach replied.
“Are you so anxious to give your realm away?” said Belyn. “It is getting dark; it will be night soon. Wait until tomorrow at least. There will be time enough to do it then.”
“Having resolved to do a good thing,” Avallach answered, stepping toward the curtain, “I am loath to delay even a moment. No, I will go at once. What is more, I want you to accompany me.” Belyn and Maildun gaped in disBelief. “Yes, we will all go,” continued Avallach. “Whatever you think about the land, we have an insult to atone and gratitude to express.”
So the Fisher King and Taliesia, with Charis, Maildun, and Belyn, rode through the twilight to the place where Cuall had set up camp-by a stream on a small meadow in the lee of a nearby hill.
On their approach to camp, the riders were met at the stream by sentries. “Hail, Taliesin! You have returned at last.
Your father is waiting for you,” the sentry, one of Elphin’s remaining warriors, informed them.
A huge fire was burning brightly, orange flames flinging back the gathering gloom, and from crackling caldrons set in the coals around the outer edge came the smell of herbed broth and meat in bubbling stew. Crude shelters, hastily constructed out of branches and hides, ringed the fire. Elphin and Rhonwyn emerged from one of these as the riders dismounted.
“Lord Avallach,” said Elphin in surprise. “We did not think to see you again.”
“Lord Elphin, Lady Rhonwyn,” replied Avallach courteously, “it is not our intention to intrude where our presence is not wanted. But events have led us a different course since last we met. I wish to speak to you, if you will hear me out.”
Elphin turned to his wife. “Fetch us a horn of beer, if there is any left.” To his guests he said, “It is early yet. Have you eaten?”
“We came from the palace straightaway,” answered Tal-iesin. “We will eat together.”
“A meal would be a kindness,” Avallach said. He drew the crisp night air deep into his lungs. “Ahh! The ride has done me good, I think. A short time ago I was abed with my injury; now I feel as hale as ever.”
“Welcome then,” said Elphin, and he called for torches to be brought and placed around his ox-hide hut. Rhonwyn came with a horn of beer for the guests and one for the Cymry.
“My lords,” she said, “sit and discuss your affairs. I will bring food when it is ready.” She returned to the fire and the other women working there. The Cymry gathered nearby watched closely but unobtrusively; without seeming to take any notice at all, they nevertheless knew all of what took place and most of what was said.
As they settled in a circle, Hafgan and Cuall arrived. Elphin made places for them and passed his horn. “Join us,” he told them. “Lord Avallach has come to speak with us and I have sworn to hear him out.”
“It is for you to say, lord,” muttered Cuall, implying that king or no, Avallach owed his continued existence to Elphin’s manifold generosity, and that if it had been his decision things would have been different. Hafgan merely gathered his robe about him, accepted the horn, and drank.
“We expected you hours ago,” Elphin told Taliesin.
“When you did not follow us back to camp, I became concerned.”
Taliesin began to reply, but Avallach said quickly, “My daughter was attacked while riding this afternoon by Irish raiders-seven of them I Believe you said?” Charis confirmed this with a nod. “I do not know how this happened precisely, but your son came to her aid and saved her life.”
“Is this so, Taliesin?” wondered Elphin.
“It is. Three were killed and the rest fled on foot.”
“And are halfway home by now,” snorted Cuall.
“I am indeed grateful,” continued Avallach, “but that is not why I came.” He paused, aware of the suspicion of the dark eyes around him. “It is about the land.”
“You said events had left you of a different mind,” said Elphin. “Has this attack something to do with it?”
“In part. Taliesin asked for no reward and said he would accept none. Very well, that is his choice. And in truth I had already decided what to do before I learned of the attack.” Avallach lifted the horn and drank. The others looked on- the Cymry wary, the Atlanteans indignant. “That is good,” Avallach said, lowering the horn. “I have never tasted anything like that before.”
“We are not without civility-coarse though it may be,” growled Cuall.
Elphin gave his second-in-command a quick, impatient gesture and Cuall subsided into flinty silence. “If I had a cask it would be yours,” he told Avallach. “But the beer, like so much else, is gone.” He looked directly at Avallach and asked, “Why have you come?”
The Fisher King reached into his wide girdle and brought out Elphin’s knife. “I came to return your knife.”
“It was a gift to a friend.”
“And that is why I must return it now. My actions earlier today were not the actions of a friend. Please, take back your knife.”
Elphin stared at the knife but made no move to take it. “The gift was freely given and I do not regret it. A gift should be honored.”
Avallach placed the knife between them. Cuall reached out for it, but Taliesin grabbed his wrist. “Leave it!” he whispered.
“Why not accept the knife?” asked Avallach. “Is it not mine to give?”
“Do what you will; I have no claim to it.”
“But it was your knife,” insisted Avallach.
Elphin glanced at Hafgan, whose expression remained blank. “It is no longer mine,” he said warily. “My gift imposed no obligation.”
Avallach smiled, his face mysterious in the torchlight. “A gift should be honored-that is what you said. I accept your gift, and I ask you likewise to accept the gift which I now bestow.”
The statement took Taliesin by surprise. “As my father has said you are under no obligation”
“I understand that or I would never have come here tonight.” Taking up the knife once more, Avallach said, “Will you honor the gift I give?”
Elphin sought consensus in the expressions of his advisors, but their faces offered no help; none guessed what Avallach was planning. “A gift must be offered before it can be accepted. But I see no harm in accepting whatever token you wish to give.”
“Rightly said, King Elphin!” Avallach all but shouted in triumph. The Cymry exchanged worried, puzzled glances. Belyn and Maildun frowned.
“Well, what is this token?” Cuall asked, unable to contain himself any longer.
“No great distance from here there is a fortress on a hill-ruined and abandoned now, I am told. The land round about is desolate, the people long ago driven off by one tribe or another… The Roman tribe, I have heard it said. It is good land but useless without men to work it. I give it all to you- the fortress and the land with it.”
Cuall began- rising to his feet, but Taliesin put his hand on his arm and held him down. “What sport is this?” Elphin said, eyes narrowed, his frown tense.