Taliesin did as he was told and then returned to wait outside. After a while the door opened and Rhuna poked her head out, saying, “Master, your wife asks for you.”
Taliesin went in then and crouched beside the bed. “She is over the worst,” Heilyn said, “but sleep you elsewhere tonight if you will, for the issue of blood does steal a woman’s strength.” Heilyn pushed Rhuna out of the room, then paused at the door and added, “I will see to her in the morning.”
She left then and Taliesin took one of Charis’ hands in his. Her eyes fluttered open. “Taliesin?” Her voice was a whisper. “I am afraid.”
“Shh, rest now. I will watch over you.” She closed her eyes once more and sank into sleep. Taliesin sat with her through the night, but she stirred only once.
As dawn came to the sky, Charis awoke and called out. Taliesin, dozing in a chair beside the bed, wakened and leaned over her. “All is well, my soul; I am here.”
She peered into the thin blue shadows of the room beyond him as if to reassure her that everything remain unchanged. “Taliesin, I have had the most distressing dream,” she said weakly.
“Rest,” he told her. “We can talk later.”
“The dream… I saw a great beast with eyes like midnight coming for me… But then a man came… A man with a sword, Taliesin, a fine, bright sword… and a smile on his face… A brave smile… But I was afraid for him…”
“Yes,” he soothed, “all is well.”
“… he smiled and said to me, ‘Know me by this, Lady of the Lake,’ and he held up the sword… Then he went down to slay the beast and… a terrible struggle commenced… He did not come back… I fear he was killed.”
“An unhappy dream,” said Taliesin softly. “But rest now and We will talk later.” He placed a hand on her head and she went back to sleep.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“I have seen this before,” said heilyn gravely, “and it is never good. The child will die and take you with it unless you do as I say. Even then nothing is certain.”
Charis gripped Taliesin’s hand hard, but her jaw was set and her glance strong. “Is there no hope at all?”
“Little enough, child. But what hope there is lies with you.”
“With me? Why, you have but to tell me and I will do all in my power to see my child born alive.”
“There is no hope for the child,” Heilyn declared flatly. “What we do, we do to save its mother.”
“But if I am to be saved, may rot the child live as well?”
The midwife shook her head slowly. “I have never known it. And often enough the husband digs two graves in the end.”
“Tell us what may be done,” said Taliesin.
“Stay you in that bed until the birth pains come on you.” She paused and shrugged. “That is all.”
“Is there no remedy?” asked Charis, thinking that four months was a very long time to lie abed.
“Rest is the remedy,” replied Heilyn tartly. “Rest-and it is no certain cure. The bleeding has stopped and that is good, but I have no doubt it will begin again if you stir from this room.’”
“Very well, I will do as you say. But even so I will not give up hope for my child.”
“Yours is the life we must look after now.” She made a slight bow of her head and turned to leave the room. “I will send food and you must eat it. That is the best way to regain your strength.”
When she had gone Charis said, “I will do as she says, but I will not give up hope.”
“And I will sit with you every day. We will pray and we will talk and sing and the time will take wings.”
“I will endure my confinement,” said Charis firmly. “I have endured more difficult trials for less worthy ends.”
And so it began: Charis became a prisoner in the room above the hall, and word spread through the villa and throughout the surrounding countryside that the bard’s beauty was with child and confined in Lord Pendaran’s high chamber. It was whispered that she would die birthing a dead and deformed baby-such was the punishment for turning away from the old gods to follow the god of the Christians.
Taliesin knew what was whispered about them in Mari-dunum and the hills beyond, but he never told Charis. He remained steadfast in his vow to stay by her side and would have spent every minute of the day in the chair by her bed if Charis had not finally chased him from it.
“I cannot bear you sitting there looking at me all day!” she told him some time later. “This is hard enough without feeling that I am keeping two people captive. Go ride with Eiddon! Go hunting! Go anywhere you like, but go away!”
Taliesin accepted this without argument and rose to leave. “And another thing,” she said, “you have not sung in the hall since I took to my bed. I want you to begin singing again-it will do us both more good than sitting here.”
“ ‘What will you do with yourself, my soul?”
“I have my thoughts to keep me company,” Charis answered. “And I have been thinking of writing some things to keep if I…to keep for later.”
“Yes,” Taliesin agreed. “I will send Henwas to see if there is writing material hereabouts so that you can begin at once.”
A few days later the steward burst into Charis’ chamber with a thick roll of parchment under one arm and a pot of ink in his hand. “Lady,” he ducked his head as he came in, “forgive my intrusion. I have just this moment come from the market. Look what I have brought you!”
Charis took the parchment and unrolled a length in her hands. “Oh, Henwas, it is very fine. Where did you find it?”
“I sent to Caer Legionis thinking that the tribune there might have some in his stores. I was not wrong and as he owes my lord much for past service, he was happy to let me have it.”
“But it is so costly! I cannot accept it, Henwas.” She made to hand it back.
“It is yours, lady.” He placed the pot of ink on the table which had been set up beside the bed.
“What will your lord say?”
“Lord Pendaran,” Henwas sniffed, “defers to me in all matters concerning his house. He would want you to have it anyway. In fact, he is no doubt castigating himself at this moment for not anticipating this simple need.”
Charis laughed. “Thank you, Henwas. I am certain Lord Pendaran need never castigate himself as long as you look after his affairs.”
“It is ever my pleasure to serve you, lady.”
When Taliesin joined her later, she showed him the parchment and told him what she intended. “It is a story worth telling,” he said. “Will you tell me as you go?”
“No,” she said. “I have not the bard’s art. But tell me your life so that I can write it in my book as well.”
Taliesin distrusted the idea of writing that which had previously only been spoken; nevertheless, Charis prevailed and he began telling her of his life, including much he had been told by Rhonwyn and Hafgan. She set to work the next day with a pen Taliesin made for her, finding release from the bone-aching boredom of her captivity in committing words to the prepared skin.
So began a routine that was to continue through the long months of Charis’ confinement: upon rising she would break fast and write through the entire morning; Heilyn would bring her dinner and she and Taliesin ate and talked-sometimes about his life, sometimes about his vision of the Kingdom of Summer-describing the intimate details of his thoughts to her so that she began to know him almost as well as she knew herself. Charis rested through the warm afternoon, sometimes allowing her bed to be moved into the sun, with the merlin on its perch nearby. Supper found her once more inside, and when the rushlights and candles were kindled for the night the doors would be opened so Taliesin’s voice could come to her from the hall Below as he sang. Taliesin joined her for their night’s rest when he had finished in the hall and they would end the day as they had begun it-asleep in each other’s arms.