Eiddon pulled his chin. “Vigilance could not hurt.”
“I tell you it is like the old days,” insisted Valens. “They are restoring the northern forts, and the southern shore is getting a line of watchtowers so that we cannot be taken by surprise again. The wars in Gaul are going well, and I would not be at all surprised to see troops returning soon. Mark my words, Eiddon Vawr, the legions will be back to full strength in a few years, and I will retire to my farm in the hills and grow fat on my own beef and cheese.”
“May it be as you say,” replied Eiddon, unconvinced.
“But tell me, who are these friends of yours? May Nodens take my eyes if I have ever seen a more beautiful woman.” He leaned forward, grinning. “With her along, I cannot see what you are worried about. Any Saecsen prince worth his salt would pay good gold for a beauty like that, eh?”
Eiddon stiffened.
“You take offense?” asked the tribune innocently.
“Out of friendship, I will not hold that remark against you. If you knew who it was that sheltered under your roof this night, you would never have said such a stupid thing.”
“Enlighten me then, O Soul of Wisdom and Honor. Who sleeps under my roof tonight?”
“Have you never heard of the bard Taliesin?”
“Should I have?”
“He is surely the greatest bard who has ever lived. And Charis is his wife, a princess from Llyonesse, I am told, although she will not speak of it herself. Her father is King Avallach of Ynys Witrin.”
The soldier’s eyes widened. “Indeed! Him I have heard of. How is it that you come to be traveling in such exalted company?”
“They have lived with us at Maridunum this past year and are returning home now.”
“I know nothing of poets and storytellers,” mused Valens, “but if a song and rhyme can capture creatures half so fair as that princess, I will get me a harp and strum it for all I am worth.”
Eiddon laughed. “And drive the cattle from the very hills with your braying!” He shook his head, “I tell you, I have never heard anyone sing as this man sings. With but a word he drove that vile priest from our midst and lifted the curse that had beset my father these many years.”
“How is Red Sword?”
“A changed man. To see him you would not recognize him-and it is Taliesin’s doing.”
“A wonder-worker, is he?”
“I will tell you a wonder,” said Eiddon seriously. “He shamed a hall full of kings to their faces and not one of them lifted a finger against him.”
“I am impressed,” said Valens. “Would he sing for me, do you think?”
“It is late, my friend and we have been traveling all day. I would not care to ask him.”
But even as Eiddon spoke, the first notes from the harp sounded from the next room. They rose and went in quietly to see Taliesin sitting on one side of the fire and Charis opposite him, nursing the baby. Salach, Eiddon’s younger brother, lay wrapped in his cloak at the singer’s feet, and Rhuna sat on the floor beside Charis. Valens’ slave, a young Thracian woman who kept the tribune’s house, was in the corner, her dark eyes sparkling in the firelight. Taliesin glanced at the men as they entered. The two drew up camp chairs of the kind officers used in the field, settling themselves near the hearth to listen.
Taliesin’s voice filled the room with its golden flow, like a rare honeyed nectar from a source rich and deep. In his hands the harp became a magical instrument-the loom of the gods weaving intricate beauty incomprehensible to mortal eyes but singing harmony to the ears. This night he sang about the land of his vision, the realm of peace and light, the Kingdom of Summer. His words called it forth in splendor, and the notes of his song made it live in the minds of his listeners.
Charis had heard him speak of his vision many times before, but now he sang about it and for the first time described the king who would dwell in this most holy realm: a king born to rule not for might or kinship, but for love of justice and the right; a king born to serve truth and honor, to lead his people in humility, and to uphold his land in the name of the Savior God.
It seemed to Charis as she listened that all Taliesin had ever thought or said about his imaginary realm Was coming together in his song, ideas coalescing into solid sounds, words taking shape with utterance, flesh gathering onto the bones of philosophy.
The Kingdom of Summer is born tonight, she thought, even as the babe in my arms took flesh and was born. The two are made each for the other; they are one.
She looked down at the babe suckling at her breast. “Do you hear, Merlin?” she whispered softly. “Your destiny calls to you across the years. Listen, my son. This is the night your father sang the world into a new shape. Hear and remember.”
They left early the next morning, turning south toward the great sea inlet along the River Usk. The harbor in the river mouth was crowded with cargo vessels and smaller fishing boats; Eiddon searched among the larger boats for one to ferry them across. “We must wait,” he said when he returned. “There is but one boat that can take us, and it is waiting for cargo to come from Caer Gwent. The steersman will come for us when they are ready to sail. I fear it will be late when we make our landing.”
“Then let us eat something while we wait,” suggested Taliesin, “and rest the horses.”
They dismounted and spread their cloaks on the mounded bank above the timber pier and settled to wait. Salach rode the short distance upriver to the settlement, returning a little while later with wine to add to the bread and cheese they had brought with them, and a fresh-roasted chicken wrapped in a scrap of cloth. “I smelled the chicken,” he explained, slicing it into pieces with his dagger, “and asked the widow to sell it. She was glad of the silver.”
“Well done, Salach!” said Taliesin. “A resourceful companion is welcome on a journey. Ride with me anytime, friend.”
The youth colored under this praise and turned his face, hiding his shy smile. They ate and waited. The sun rose higher in the sky, and low clouds came sliding in from the sea like gray fingers reaching across the land. Soon the sun was gone and a chill wind rippled the water at the shoreline. It was then the steersman appeared. “If you want to come with us, come now,” he called. “We are putting off at once.”
Gathering their things, they followed him along the pier to the ship riding low in the water. “Get you aboard,” called the ship’s owner, standing at the rail. “We are losing the weather!”
While the horses were secured to a line in the center of the deck, Charis found a place for herself and the child beneath a canvas canopy at the stern of the ship just below the steersman’s platform. She gathered her fur-lined cloak around her and held the baby close. Rhuna sat facing her, sheltering both Charis and the baby from the wind with her body. A few moments later the ship swayed away from the pier and nosed out into the current.
Not long after the ship reached open water, a freshening wind swept in, driving a low, murky fog before it. Soon the boat was bound in a heavy, wet mist that beaded up on their cloaks and hair, seeping slowly into the folds of their clothing. The ship’s owner, Bellowing oaths to a dozen different gods and cursing the steersman in the same breath, ran from one side of the deck to the other, peering helplessly into the soup-thick mess, vainly trying to see a few inches further into the gloom.
The crossing was damp but uneventful, and they were put to shore at a small wharf downriver from the settlement of Abonae on the Aquae Sulis road. This was far north of the place they had hoped to land, but the owner could not be persuaded to take them further south, claiming that low tide would make another landing impossible. No sooner had the travelers stepped onto the wharf man the ship was being poled back out again.
“Perhaps it is just as well,” said Eiddon as they remounted. “This way we have the road, and with a little luck we might reach Aquae Sulis before nightfall.”