“Very well,” Taliesin agreed, “let us give the day to it. We will take the merlin into the heath and begin training it to hunt.”
After breaking fast they rode through Maridunum and into the hills whose steep sides were covered with fern and bracken. They climbed to the crest of a hill and dismounted to gaze upon the shining silver slash of Mor Hafren in the hazy distance to the south, and, to the north, the dark humps of the Black Mountains.
“Beyond those mountains,” said Taliesin turning his eyes toward the pine-covered slopes away to the north, “is my homeland.”
“I have never heard you speak of your former home.”
“Nor have I heard you speak of yours.”
“The first time I heard you sing I knew that we were the same.”
“How so?”
“We are both exiles, you and I. We live in a world that is not our own.”
Taliesin’s smile was quick, but it was also sad. “The world is ours for the making,” he said lightly, but he turned back to the mountains and gazed for a long time without speaking.
When he did speak again, his voice sounded far away. “I have seen a land shining with goodness where each man protects his brother’s dignity as readily as his own, where war and want have ceased and all races live under the same law of love and honor.
“I have seen a land bright with truth, where a man’s word is his pledge and falsehood is banished, where children sleep safe in their mothers’ arms and never know fear or pain. I have seen a land where kings extend their hands in justice rather than reach for the sword, where mercy, kindness, and compassion flow like deep water over the land, and men revere virtue, revere truth, revere beauty, above comfort, pleasure, or selfish gain. A land where peace reigns in the hearts of men, where faith blazes like a beacon from every hill and love like a fire from every hearth, where the True God is worshiped and his ways acclaimed by all.
“I have seen this land, Charis,” he said, his hand striking his chest. “I have seen it and my heart yearns for it.”
His face glowed and Charis was gripped by the force of his vision-and frightened by it. Catching up his hand, she pressed it with her own. “A wonderful dream, my love,” she said. His hand was cold in hers.
“Not a dream only,” he said, shaking his head. “It is a true world.”
“But it is not our world.”
“No,” he admitted, and then added, “But it is our world as it was meant to be, and will be. It can happen, Charis. Do you see it? Do you understand?”
“I understand, Taliesin. You have told me about the Kingdom of Summer”
“The Kingdom of Summer is but a reflection of it!” he replied fiercely, then softened. “Ah, but Summer Realm is where we begin. When I am king, Charis, my rule will shine like the sun so that all men may see and know what the world was meant to be.”
Taliesin placed a palm against her stomach and smiled. “You must tell my son all I have told you. He will be king after me and he must be strong, for the darkness will grant him no quarter. He must be a man among men, a mighty king and wise. Above all he must love the truth and serve it.”
Charis pressed his hand more firmly against her stomach. “You must tell him. A boy-if it is a boy-must learn these things from his father.”
He smiled again and kissed her. “Yes,” he said softly.
The merlin screeched then and Taliesin loosed it from its perch to fly, circling higher and higher into the clean, cloud-dappled sky. They watched the hawk soar, listening to its keening cry as it felt the familiar wind beneath its wings, wild again and free.
When the bird’s flight took it further into the hills, they mounted their horses and followed it, coming at length to a rocky defile between two cliffs. Taliesin reined to a halt and called to Charis behind him: “Perhaps we should turn back.”
Charis raised her eyes to the hawk circling above. “We will lose him. Please, let us go a little further. His wing will tire soon and he will return.”
Taliesin agreed and started down the steep and narrow gorge, which was littered with loose stone rubble. When they reached the bottom and looked back, he shook his head. “Coming down is one matter-going up is another. We will have to find another way.”
They rode on into the valley as it widened out, following the merlin and catching him a little later as he stood shrieking atop the carcass of a freshly killed hare. They let him have his meal and returned him to his perch on Charis’ saddle, then turned the horses and started back to Maridunum, skirting the rocky hills and the treacherous path between them.
Taliesin rode a little ahead, singing a hymn to the day, choosing an easier route back to the villa. Coming upon a stream, he stopped and called back to Charis, “We will let the horses drink here. And we can” He took one look at her and leaped from the saddle. “Charis!”
She turned her head slowly and looked at him strangely, her eyes dull, her face drained of all color. “I feel tired, Taliesin,” she murmured, her speech thick and slurred. “My mouth is dry.”
“Let me help you down,” said Taliesin, his face grim. “We will rest a moment.” Draping her arm over his shoulder, he eased her from the saddle.
He did not see the blood at first. But as he turned to lead her to a rock by the stream where she could sit down, the sticky wet patch on the saddle caught his eye. “Charis, you are bleeding!”
She stared at the saddle and then down at the deep scarlet stain spreading into her clothing. She raised her eyes in bewilderment, smiled weakly and said, “I think we… should… go back.”
Taliesin helped her back onto her mount and, riding beside her with one arm around her waist for support, they made their way slowly and carefully to the villa. By the time they arrived, Charis was barely conscious. Her head lolled forward and her flesh, pale as death, was cold to the touch. She fell limply from the saddle into Taliesin’s arms when they stopped, and Taliesin carried her inside, shouting for help as he came into the hall.
Henwas, the gray-haired steward, came hurrying to him. “What is it, Master? What has happened?” He saw the blood leaking from beneath Taliesin’s hand and said, “I will bring Heilyn.”
Charis moaned as Taliesin lay her gently on their bed. He knelt beside her, frantically trying to remember a remedy he might offer, and considered using his druidic power to try to heal her. In those desperate seconds he considered many things, but what he did in the end was simply to pray for her, letting his words stream out to the Living God who delighted in and answered men’s prayers. He had no doubt that his prayers would be heard. The prayer was still on his lips when the door opened and Heilyn, the plump mistress of Lord Pen-daran’s kitchens, came bustling in, her round face red with exertion. “Now, now,” she said, much as if Taliesin had been a misbehaving boy, “what is wrong with the girl?”
“We were riding,” he explained, “and she began to bleed.”
“Lay you back,” said Heilyn, placing a warm palm on Charis’ forehead. Charis shivered on the bed, eyes closed, breath shallow; yet the woman spoke to her as if she were awake and fully conscious. “There, there… Let Heilyn have a look at you.” The woman, who had served as midwife at the birth of each of Pendaran’s sons and nearly every other child born in Maridunum in the last twenty years, bent over Charis, calling to Taliesin as she did so. “Fetch Rhuna and tell her to bring clean rags and water. Go you now and do as I say.”
Taliesin did not move. “You can do nothing standing there like a heap of stone,” Heilyn told him. “Bring Rhuna here.”
He found the girl and brought her to the room and then stood looking on helplessly until Heilyn drove him out, saying, “Leave you and haunt another place, or make yourself useful and tell Henwas to have a brazier prepared and ready to bring in here when I have finished.”