The priest Calpurnius planted himself before Taliesin. Those in the hall stopped what they were doing to watch this confrontation, and others crowded in to see what would happen. Charis, her hands pressed together, lips drawn tight against teeth, scanned the hall quickly for a clear exit if they should have to make a retreat. She saw that the doorways were now filled with men bearing swords and Loar lances. “Be careful, Taliesin,” she whispered. “Please be careful.”
He gave her a little smile and said, “These men suffer from lack of common courtesy. Worry not-though the cure is painful, it is rarely fatal.” With that he turned and met the priest before Lord Pendaran’s chair.
With a careless smirk the priest said, “Tell us, if you can, the qualities of the nine bodily humors.”
“You take unfair advantage, friend,” replied Taliesin. “Druid wisdom does not embrace such hollow falsehood.”
The pagan priest cackled. “A man deems false what he does not know. I see you are uninformed. But no matter-tell us the proper sacrifice to restore virility in the male and fecundity in the female, and to which god it is made.”
“There is but one true God, and a true bard makes no sacrifice for that which can be cured by simple herbs.”
“Herbs!” the pagan hooted; his sallow-faced companion giggled hysterically. “Oh, come now. You can do better than that. No doubt a true bard would find it easier to sing the malady away.”
“And perhaps,” replied Taliesin coolly, “you would do well to refrain from uttering nonsense in the presence of one at whose feet you should bow in all humility.”
Calpurnius grabbed his Belly and shook with laughter. “Call yourself a bard, call yourself whatever you like, you are a liar all the same.” He turned to his master. “Lord Pendaran,” he said, the forced mirth going out of his voice, “this man is a liar and that is bad enough. Worse, he is a blasphemer!” He pointed an accusing finger at Taliesin, who stood calmly unconcerned. “Send him away!”
Pendaran Gleddyvrudd gripped the sword in his lap and his eyes gleamed wickedly. “So you are discovered. You will be flogged and driven out.” He glanced at Charis and licked his lips. “But your lady will stay.”
“If a man can be flogged from your court for speaking the truth,” said Taliesin, “then I think you have listened long enough to this false priest.”
Calpurnius drew himself up and slammed the rod against the stones. “You dare insult me?” He motioned to one of the men behind Pendaran, who rose, drawing his dagger from a sheath at his side. “I will have your tongue, beggar!”
“Not before I have yours, son of lies.” So saying Taliesin looked the priest square in the eye and placed his finger against his lips and made a silly, childish noise: “Blewrm, blewrm, blewrm.” Many of those looking on laughed.
“Silence!” shouted Pendaran.
Calpurnius, his face livid, held out his hand. Pendaran’s man, grinning viciously at Taliesin, placed the dagger in the priest’s upraised palm. He took a step toward Taliesin and opened his mouth to command the bard to be seized. “Hleed ramo felsk!”
Those looking on exchanged puzzled glances. “Hleed ramo felsk!” shouted the pagan priest again. “Mlur, rekka no-rimst. Enob felsk! Enob felsk!”
Pendaran stared in wonder. The priest’s catamite giggled out loud and others laughed behind their hands. “What has happened?” said Lord Pendaran. “Your speech is changed.”
“Norl? Blet dhurmb, emas veamn oglo moop,” replied the priest, beginning to sweat. He looked at Taliesin and his eyes went wide. “Hleed, enob. Felsk enob.”
Those looking on roared with laughter. The priest dropped the dagger and clamped his hand to his mouth in terror. “You may have to learn to speak like a man again,” Taliesin told him. “But at least you still have a tongue to do it, which is more than you would have left me.”
Calpurnius gave a shriek and scurried away, dragging his boy with him. Pendaran watched them go and then faced Taliesin, eyeing him with new respect. “That fool of a priest may have forgotten what he was about, but I have not. Sing, beggar, if you value that tongue of yours.”
Taliesin strummed his harp again and every eye was on him. At first it seemed as if his voice would be swallowed in the cold emptiness of the hall. But Taliesin’s voice grew to fill the hall with living sound.
He sang a song about a king whose three sons had been turned into horses as the result of a curse laid on him by a rival king whose wife he had stolen. As the story spun out verse by verse, the listeners were drawn in and held spellbound by the magic of Taliesin’s tale of treachery and doom.
His fingers moved over the strings of the harp, weaving melodies within melodies, while his voice rang with music so piercingly beautiful that many gathered there could only stare in astonishment, Believing themselves in the presence of an Otherworld visitor. Charis watched hostility and pride melt before Taliesin’s peerless art.
When he finished, not a sound could be heard; no one in the hall said a word, and even the world outside the hall was hushed and silent. Lord Pendaran Gleddyvrudd sat in his painted chair, clutching his sword and staring wide-eyed as if at a vision that would disappear the moment he twitched a muscle.
Then, slowly, he raised himself up and walked to Taliesin. Without a word he moved a hand to his arm, removed one of his armbands-chased gold in the shape of a boar’s head with curved tusks of silver-and taking Taliesin by the arm he slipped the heavy ornament on. Then he took another one and put that one on the singer as well. Lastly he reached to his neck, removed his golden tore, and presented it to Taliesin.
Taliesin, his face bright with the fever of his gift, took the tore in his hands, held it up, and then replaced it around the king’s neck. “I am your servant, Lord Pendaran.”
Old Pendaran shook his head. “No, no,” he said, his voice cracking with awe, “you are the master of any man within sound of your voice. I stand ashamed and unworthy before you, but I am your servant and happy to be so as long as you wish to stay.”
The Demetae king then showed his true nobility by filling his own horn with wine and giving it to Taliesin. He held it before the singer and said in a loud voice, “Know by this that I esteem Taliesin above all men in this hall. He shall reside here as bard to me and you will receive and honor him as your master, for such he is.”
He took off one of his thick gold rings and placed it on Taliesin’s finger and embraced Taliesin as a father embraces a son. The lord’s chiefs came up next, and each pulled off armbands of silver or gold and placed mem on Taliesin’s arms. One young man, Pendaran’s oldest son, wrapped a gold chain around Taliesin’s neck and knelt before him.
Taliesin put his hand on the young man’s head and said, “Arise Maelwys-I recognize you.”
The young man stood slowly. “You flatter me, lord, but my name is not Maelwys-it is Eiddon Vawr Vrylic.”
“Eiddon the Generous it is today perhaps,” replied Taliesin, “but one day all men will call you Maelwys, Most Noble.”
The young man ducked his head and hurried away before anyone could notice the color rising to his cheeks. Then Pen-daran ordered the trestles to be brought and the board laid. A chair of honor was produced for Taliesin and one for Charis and they sat down to a bountiful meal.
Later, when they were alone in the chamber Pendaran had given them for their own-a small but finely furnished apartment above the hall-Charis told Taliesin of her fright when he had faced Calpurnius. “You took a terrible chance, my love,” she said. “He might have cut out your tongue.”