“But what a great and generous gift,” remarked Dafyd when he heard. “I am pleased, for it means that you will stay close by.” He glanced at Charis, who had grown silent during their talk. “Is that not good news, Charis?” he asked her.
She stirred at the sound of her name and said, “What? Oh… Yes, it is good news.”
“And as soon as we have established our holding,” Taliesin continued, “Charis and I will be married.”
Dafyd nodded approvingly. “Such a handsome match!”
Charis said nothing, and after a time Collen came with their clothes slung over his arms. She left them to dress.
“She has been lonely,” the priest said. “She has lost much in her life and may be fearful of losing more. It is not easy to love what can be lost. Sometimes I think it is the most difficult thing in the world.” Dafyd paused and said, “You know, Hafgan came to me a few days ago.”
Taliesin’s brows raised in surprise. “Did he? He said nothing to me about it.”
“He wanted to hear about the Lord. ‘Tell me about this god,’ he said. ‘This Jesu, the one called Christ.’ We talked for several hours and he told me the most remarkable thing: he said that the sign of the Christ’s birth was noted in the sky, and that the druids of old knew that a king like no other on earth had been born. Think of it! They knew.”
“I have never heard that story, although I have heard another often enough-concerning a starfall many years ago.”
“He did not mention it.”
“Hafgan and many others saw it. He said that it too betokened a wondrous birth, a royal birth: the king that will lead us through the Dark Time.”
“The Dark Time? You mean the attack that drove your people south?”
“That is only the beginning, and not even that.” Taliesin grew very grave. “But it is coming… Darkness deep as dead night will descend over the Island of the Mighty.”
“This king-you say he has been born?” asked the priest.
Taliesin shook his head. “Perhaps… No one knows. But his coming cannot be far off, for the darkness grows more powerful with each passing day. He will have to come soon if there is to be anything left worth saving.”
“I Believe it is true,” put in Collen excitedly. He had been following this exchange as closely as he could. “Some herders passing by this morning said that raiders have been seen hereabouts-where no Irish have been seen for many years.”
“Charis came upon them yesterday in the valley. If I had not been there, she might have suffered the worse for it…” He paused, remembering the sight of her besting trained warriors. “Ah, but you should have seen her. Even now I am not so sure she needed my help at all.”
“I can well imagine,” mused Dafyd, stroking his chin, “that she would be a most formidable opponent. There is a good deal of iron in that spine. I have often wondered where it comes from.”
“Will you be leaving soon?” asked Collen.
“Today,” said Taliesin. “I mean to visit here often though and invite you to do the same.”
“We will, we will,” promised Dafyd. “I have my new converts to look after. And more new converts to make. I think we will be seeing much of one another in time to come.”
Charis rejoined them, and she and Taliesin reluctantly took their leave. The priests waved them on their way and then went back to work on the shrine.
The two rode to the Tor and across the causeway, whereupon, reaching the winding pathway leading to the palace, Taliesin turned aside. Charis also pulled up, and they sat for a moment looking at one another. “You are leaving,” she said matter-of-factly.
“For a little while. But when I come back we will be together and will never be separated again.” He urged his mount closer a few steps and took her hand. “You will fill my thoughts every moment until I return.” He leaned forward and kissed her gently.
Charis stiffened, gripping the reins in her fist. “You say we are reborn,” she replied bitterly. “You say we will be married and that we will never be parted. You say you love me.”
“I do, Charis. With all that is in me, I do.”
“It is not enough!” she shouted, lashing the reins across her horse’s withers, kicking her heels into its flanks. “It is… not… enough…”
The gray bolted away up the winding path to the summit of the Tor.
Misery descended upon Charis’ heart with the cold, bleak, rain-filled days that settled over the land. She paced the corridors of the palace, fretful, anxious, hating herself for feeling the way she did, and then feeling worse for it.
Her torment had no center. Like a wind that assailed from all directions, it seemed to strike wherever she turned, at times unexpectedly. Why? she kept asking herself. Why? Why? Why?
Why does it have to be this way? Why does the thought of loving Taliesin fill me with such dread? Why am I so afraid?
She thought about Taliesin-but more as an abstract presence, a force to be faced, or an argument to be reconciled than as a flesh-and-bone human being who loved and desired her. He was a cipher that had no face, a symbol of something she could not reckon.
Why, she would ask herself, does the thought of him bring no happiness?
Time and again she asked the question, and time and again stumbled over the same awkward conclusion: “I do not love him.”
That must be it, she decided. As painful as it is, that must be the answer. I do not love him. Maybe I have never loved anyone…
No, I did; I loved my mother, she thought. But that was a long time ago and she has been dead many years. Perhaps when Briseis was killed all love inside me died too. Strange to just find out now. It has been so long since I have loved anyone or anything except myself-no, not even myself. What the High Queen told me that day long ago was true: I wished myself dead, which is why I danced the bulls.
Love…
Why should love be so important? Save for a few brief years as a child, I have lived my life without it. Why should this lack make any difference now? Why now?
And what had happened to that calm, agreeable feeling she had experienced only a few days ago-that sense of security and the rightness of things, the feeling of being part of a hidden plan meticulously working itself out… Where had that gone?
It was true, she reminded herself. Only a few days ago you were certain you were in love with Taliesin. Only a few days ago you felt as if life had recovered its purpose and meaning for you. Only a few days ago… And now?
Had things changed so much? Or had those feelings been but fleeting sensations, more dream than reality? There was certainly something very dreamlike about the last few days. It was as if she had slept and awakened from a pleasant dream to the soulless austerity of reality.
Was it a dream? Had she, out of loneliness and melancholy, imagined it?
Taliesin was real enough. Charis could still hear her name on his lips, could feel his touch on her skin, the warmth of his arms around her. That was real, but was it love?
If it was, it was not enough.
Her words at their parting came back to her, stinging her with their hopelessness. It was not enough! Not enough! Love had never been enough. It had not kept her mother from dying; it had not prevented the hideous war that had taken Eoinn and Guistan; it had not saved Atlantis from destruction. So far as she knew, love had never saved anyone from the agony of life, even for an instant.
And now here was the Christian priest Dafyd insisting that the ruling power of the world-indeed, of all worlds past, present, and yet to come-was love. This same feeble, inconstant emotion. Impotent and by its very nature vulnerable. More a thing to be despised than exalted, more to be pitied than embraced.
Who was this god that demanded love of his servants, called himself love, and insisted that he be worshiped in love? This god who made love the highest expression of his power and insisted that he alone stood above all other gods, that he alone had created the heavens and earth, that he alone was worthy of honor, reverence, and glory?