Taliesin only smiled at this and said, “How so? Is not our Living God greater than his mute thing of stone?”
Charis wondered at Taliesin’s faith in the Savior God and would have talked with him more, but Taliesin yawned and stretched himself out on the high bed. His eyes closed and soon he was asleep. Charis pulled a woolen covering over him and sat watching him sleep for a while before laying down beside him. “Rest well,” she said, brushing his temple with her lips, “and may our God grant us peace in this house.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Maridunum lay in the heart of a land of broad hills and fertile valleys laced through with meandering rivers and fresh-running streams. Dyfed was, Charis found, very like Ynys Witrin, although not as wild, for the region had been settled and worked for many generations. Most of the landholders spoke a homey Latin, as well as Briton, and considered themselves Roman in matters of culture and civility.
The fields around Maridunum grew wheat, barley, and rye, and supported good herds of livestock which, supplemented by the harvest of the nearby sea, kept the larders of lord and liegeman alike well-stocked.
Pendaran Gleddyvrudd soon proved himself an amiable and generous host, most anxious to please his guests-all the more since he felt badly that he had disgraced himself and brought dishonor to his name by his rudeness and arrogance. “I am a hard man,” he told Taliesin and Charis a day or so after their first meeting, “living in hard times. I have forgotten much that I formerly held close to my heart. Please forgive a stupid and foolish man.”
“The man is neither stupid or foolish who sees himself ailing and seeks a remedy,” Taliesin told him.
“I do more. May health and wealth desert me if I show myself empty-handed to a stranger under my roof henceforth.” He gazed at Taliesin and shook his head sadly. “To think I delighted in being deceived by that meal bag of a priest, Calpurnius. I was indeed bewitted or I would have recognized you, Taliesin. But hearing you sing…” Pendaran’s voice trailed off.
Then the Demetae king shook himself and said, “Even so, I have thrown that rancorous flamen onto his god’s generosity.”
“You did not kill him” protested Charis sharply. “Worse!” chuckled Pendaran. “Oh, much worse-I sent him away. Now he will have to live by his wits, and a sorry living it will be!” His smile faded and again the king shook his head slowly. “I do not see how I could have been so blind. But,” he said, squaring himself, “I will make amends; I will repay tenfold what I have withheld through meanness and neglect.”
From that day Pendaran of the Red Sword made good his word, and his house became a more pleasant place. So pleasant, in fact, that Charis felt slightly guilty for not missing Ynys Witrin and her people more. But the truth was that through Taliesin she had begun to see a world unknown to her before, a world filled with astonishing beauty in even its most unpromising corners, a world greater, finer, and more noble than she had known and peopled by men and creatures marvelous to behold.
It was partly because of her growing love for Taliesin that she saw the world this way and partly because just being near him she was able to see it through his eyes. Charis knew she had never been truly alive before coming to Maridunum with Taliesin; all her past seemed slight and unreal-wisps of dreams, imperfect images half-remembered-almost as if it had happened to another Charis, a Charis who had lived in a gray, barren shadowland.
Every moment of the day she longed to be with Taliesin, and that longing was fulfilled. They rode beneath blue summer skies, they swam in the lakes and visited the settlements and old Roman towns nearby, they sang and laughed and made love. The days passed one by one, each a perfect pearl on a thread of braided gold.
Within three weeks of their arrival at Maridunum, Charis had a vision that she was carrying a child. The sky was still dark when it came upon her, although the birds in the trees outside their window had assembled and began chirping in anticipation of the dawn. She had, in her sleep, heard a small cry, such as a baby might make. She awoke to see a woman holding a newborn child and standing beside the bed. At first she thought one of the serving women had entered by mistake, but as she opened her mouth to speak the woman raised her head and she saw it was herself holding the child, and that the babe was her own. The vision faded then and she lay beside Taliesin in bed, luxuriating in her knowledge. There is life inside me, she thought, dizzy with the mystery of it.
When they rose for the day, however, Charis began to doubt. Perhaps it had been a meaningless dream after all. So she said nothing as they broke their fast with bread and wine; she did not speak of her secret when they took the merlin to a nearby hill to try its wing, nor later when they were together in the bath at the villa.
But that night, after he finished singing in the hall and they retired to their chamber, Taliesin took her by the shoulders and said, “You might as well tell me what you have been keeping from me all day, for I will not sleep until you do.”
“Why, husband,” she said, “do you suggest that I would ever keep anything from you?”
He drew her into his arms and kissed her, then answered, “The female heart is a world unto itself, incomprehensible to men. Yet I perceive that you have been of a mood today: pensive, contemplative, hesitant, expectant. And you have spent the better part of the day watching me as if you thought I might follow your merlin into the sky and never return.”
Charis pulled a frown. “So you feel trapped, my love. Have you grown weary of me already?”
“Could a man ever grow weary of paradise?” he asked lightly.
“Perhaps,” allowed Charis, “if paradise were not to his liking.”
“Lady, you speak in riddles. But there is a secret behind your words nevertheless. What is it, I wonder?”
“Am I so easily found out?” She turned and stepped from his embrace.
“Then there is a secret.”
“Perhaps.”
He stepped toward her again. “Tell me, my Lady of the Lake; share your secret.”
“It may be nothing,” she said.
“Then it will not be diminished for sharing it.” He flopped down on the bed.
“I think I am carrying a child,” Charis said and told him about her vision of the morning before.
And in the weeks that followed, her body confirmed what her vision had revealed.
Summer strengthened its hold on the land; the rain and sun did their work and the crops grew straight and tall in the fields. With each passing day Charis felt the presence of the life within her and felt the changes in her body as it began preparing itself for the birth of the child that would be. Gradually her breasts and stomach began to swelclass="underline" she thought often of her mother and wished that Briseis were there to help her in the months to come.
If that was a sorrowful wish, it was her only unhappiness and it was slight-the rest of life took on deep satisfaction. In the house of Lord Pendaran, whose last wife had died five years before, she came to take the place of queen in the eyes of Pendaran’s retainers, all of whom held her in highest esteem, often quarreling among themselves for the opportunity of serving her.
By day she and Taliesin rode, often taking the merlin with them so that it became accustomed to its saddle perch; or they sat in the courtyard or on a hilltop and talked. By night she sat in the hall at Pendaran’s right hand, listening to Taliesin sing. These happy days were the best Charis had ever known and she savored each like a drop of rare and precious wine.
One morning, after several gray days of wet and wind, Charis said, “Please, Taliesin, let us ride today. We have spent the last days in the villa and I am restless.”
He appeared about to object but she said, “It will be the last time for many more months, I think.” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “The merlin is restless too. Now that his wing is stronger he longs to fly.”