The murmuring in the hall increased. Pendaran turned and pointed to where Taliesin stood with Blaise near the hearth. “There,” he said, holding out his hand, “there is the source of my enchantment. Come here, Taliesin.”
Taliesin approached the high table and Pendaran put his hand on the singer’s shoulder. “This man you see before you is not a man like other men. His voice is enchantment itself, and any who listen fall under his spell. But I tell you this in all truth, my friends: you see before you a happier man than you have known before. My life has become pleasing to me again.”
Drusus leveled hard eyes upon the bard and said, “ ‘Anyone who can bring about such a change as we have seen in our king is chief among enchanters. But I ask you plainly, do you intend harm or good for our lord?” Other voices joined in, demanding loudly.
Taliesin raised his voice to fill the far corners of the hall. “Have you become so numb to goodness, so cold to joy that you no longer recognize it when you see it? Have your eyes become blind and your ears stopped to the gladness around you? Do you taste the wine and say, ‘My cup is filled with dust’; or, tasting it, say, ‘The sweet has become bitter and the bitter sweet’?
“Have you forgotten the births of your own sons and daughters so that you cannot remember the way your hearts beat for happiness? Have you never gathered kinsmen and friends to your hearth to raise your voices in song for the pleasure of singing? Do each of you now live in such misery that you must deny the sound of laughter? Are you grown so hard that the touch of a friend’s hand upon your shoulder is nothing more than the touch of wind upon stone?”
The hall was silent, each man staring at the bard whose face was bright with an Otherworldly fire even as his words burned in their ears. Each one there, high and low alike, shrank back in shame.
Charis, who, with Rhuna, at her side, had come to join the celebration, stood at the foot of the stairs holding the infant Merlin. Taliesin noticed her and held out his hand to her. As she came forward, he said, “Look! Here is my son, and a greater man will he be than any man now alive!” He strode to where she stood and Charis placed the child in his hands.
Taliesin lifted the babe high above his head and held him there. “Look upon him, lords of Dyfed; here is your king! The Dark Time is coming, friends, but I hold the light before you. Look well upon it and remember so that when the darkness draws close and you huddle frightened in your barren dens, you can tell your people, ‘Yes, this is a dark and evil time, but once I saw the light.’ “
The people stared at Taliesin in amazement. Never had they heard anyone speak like this. Charis too stared at her husband, for she saw in his eyes a fierce and terrible light that could not but consume whatever it touched. She reached out for the infant and Taliesin placed little Merlin in his mother’s arms once more. Then he and Charis walked from the hall.
Blaise saw this and knew that Hafgan’s word was proven true. Raising his hands he stepped forward, saying, “Hear and remember, lords of Dyfed! A king has been proclaimed in your presence. One day this king will return seeking his crown. Deny him to your peril!”
The buzz of excitement that followed this pronouncement was like that of a disturbed hive. Blaise turned to his fellow druids and said, “What did you see, brothers?”
One of them replied, “We saw the future king of Dyfed.”
But Blaise nodded his head and said, “Yes, and more. You saw the greatest among us bowing low before the Great Lord of Light. Henceforth, whoever dares take the kingship of men must do the same. Even now the sides are being drawn up, for the battle will soon be joined. Fortunate is the man who lives in this turbulent age.”
The druids contemplated this and one of them asked, “How is a man fortunate to live in darkness, brother?”
“Why do you wonder?” asked Blaise. “For only he who has lived in darkness truly knows and values the light.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
When the feast celebrating merlin’s birth was over, the lords and chiefs departed, taking the news of the infant king’s birth with them back to the remote hills and valleys of Dyfed. Blaise and the other druids lingered a day longer, making ready to return to the southlands where Hafgan waited for the news they would bring.
On the morning they were to leave, Charis came to Blaise and said, “Please, if it is no trouble to you, would you bear a message to my father, King Avallach, at Ynys Witrin?”
“It is the least thing I can do,” replied Blaise. “What would you have me tell him?”
“Tell my father that I have born him an heir. Tell him that I-that we-wish to come home and that we remain here awaiting a sign of his blessing.”
“Lady, I will tell him,” promised Blaise.
Taliesin joined them and they walked out into the courtyard where the others were waiting. “Farewell, Blaise, my brother,” Taliesin said, embracing him warmly. “Greet my father and mother for me. Tell them their grandson thrives and will soon be coming home.”
Charis considered her husband’s words. What did he know?
“You will see your father again,” Taliesin told Charis as the druids departed. “And you will know the pleasure of giving your child into the arms of the one who held you as a child.”
The weeks passed and spring seeped into the land. The soft rains came and the hills grew green again; plants quickened and put out shoots, branches budded, streams swelled and filled their banks to overflowing. Charis gave herself to the nurture of her child and to restoring her own health. She and Taliesin spent long hours together talking, and though she longed to ask him the meaning of what had taken place in Pendaran’s hall the night of the celebration, something prevented her-something about the words he had spoken and the way he had presented their child, like an offering, a sacrifice…
Through gray days of wind and rain, through days of blue skies and sunlight like thick pale butter, Charis waited for word from her father and grew restless waiting. But Taliesin seemed content to wait forever; he continued to sing for Lord Pendaran and in the town as well, so that many of the common folk heard him. And it was whispered about that the Lord of the Red Sword entertained a king and queen of the Fair Folk in his house, and these beings had promised great riches to all in Maridunum and beyond.
Spring hastened toward summer, and Charis ever and again turned her eyes to the road that ran down the hill from the villa, hoping to see a messenger from her father. One day as she was walking Merlin in the courtyard, Henwas came to her. “Lady,” he said, “a man has come looking for you.”
She turned quickly. “From my father?”
Henwas shrugged. “He did not say.”
She hurried from the courtyard to the hall where she met a man wrapped head to foot in a cloak. His back was to her as he stood just inside the door. “I am told you are looking for me,” she said. “You have found me.”
The man turned and her heart sank, for she thought she would know the man, but the messenger was a stranger. “You are called Charis?” he asked.
“I am.”
“I bring this for you.” He reached inside his cloak to a leather pouch and withdrew a black feather.
Staring at the feather, Charis said, “This is all? Nothing more?”
“Nothing else was given me,” replied the man, extending the feather to her.
“King Avallach gave this to you himself?” Charis took the feather.
“The king himself,” confirmed the messenger.
“Who are you?” asked Charis. “I do not know you.”
“There is no reason why you should know me,” said the man. “I come from the east, from Logres, but have traveled much of late. I was two nights at Ynys Witrin and when the king learned that I was traveling north he gave me the feather, saying ‘Give this to my daughter, Charis, who is in Mari-dunum.’ “ He shrugged casually. “I have had business at Caer Gwent and Caer Legionis or I would have come sooner.”