Dafyd sat with her while twilight bled into the sky. There were no words he could say to heal the hurt or take away grief’s dull, consuming ache.
At length Charis stood and walked to the window. “It hurts… and I hate it,” she said. “What am I going to do?”
“I cannot tell you,” he said softly, moving to the window to be near her. “Nor can I take the pain away, Charis.”
She turned to him, her eyes fierce. “Do not speak to me of what cannot be,” she said bitterly. “I know that well enough. Taliesin Believed in your God-he called him the Great Light and the God of Love. Where is the love and light now, Dafyd? I need it sorely now!”
The priest only shook his head.
They stood together as dusk descended slowly, drawing night’s veil across the sky and gathering gloom in the chamber as the shadows deepened and spread. Merlin stirred in Rhuna’s lap and began to cry. The baby’s voice cracked the silence with its full-blooded insistence.
“He is hungry,” she said, motioning to Rhuna. “I will feed him now.”
“And I will go down to the hall,” the priest said. “Collen and I will stay in the palace tonight and wait with Taliesin’s body. We will be close by if you need us.”
The pale crescent moon rode high above a broken roof of low-lying clouds as the Cymry rode clattering into the palace forecourt sixty strong. Torches burned in the sconces beside the gates which, though guarded, had been left open for them. As he had earlier in the day, Avallach met travelers in the courtyard. Sorrow lined his features, and the pain in his side bent him nearly double as he made his way down the stone steps to receive his guests.
Elphin swung from the saddle, helped Rhonwyn down, and then turned to meet Avallach’s embrace. “I am sorry,” Avallach told him. “I am deeply sorry…”
“Where is he?” asked Rhonwyn.
“I have laid his body in the great hall. You will find him there and the priests with him.”
“We w.ill go to him at once,” replied Elphin. His voice was raw.
The Cymry followed their lord into the palace and to the great hall where they found a board on trestles standing in the center of the huge room, torches on poles at each comer, and the two priests kneeling beside the bier. Dafyd and Collen stood as the Cymry came in and withdrew silently to a corner of the room.
Elphin gave out a great cry of anguish and rushed to the bier and threw himself across the body of his son. Rhonwyn advanced more slowly, tears streaming from her eyes. She took one of Taliesin’s hands in hers and sank to her knees. The Cymry gathered around their king and queen and lifted their voices in the death lament, wailing loudly, abandoning themselves to their grief.
Hafgan entered behind the others and stood for a moment with his eyes closed, listening to the dirge of voices. Opening his eyes again, he approached the bier to stand above the lifeless form of the one he had loved like a son. “Farewell, Shining Brow,” he whispered to himself. “Farewell, my Golden One.”
Gathering his mantle into his fists, he pulled mightily and the garment ripped. “Ahhhgh!” he cried loudly, his voice rising above the others. “Behold, my people!” He extended his hands over Taliesin’s body. “The son of our delight lies cold in death’s strong grip! Weep and cry out loudly! Wail, Cymry! Let Lieu of the Long Hand hear our lament! Let the Good God know our grief! Our bard, our son, our Golden One has been struck down! Let all men bow their heads low and weep! Weep a river of tears to bear his soul away! Weep, my people, for his like will not be seen among us again… never again…”
The Cymry wept and cried out, their voices rising and falling like the wash of a sorrowful sea. When one voice faded, another would take up the cry so that the grief chant was spun like a thread from a spindle, blended, strong, and unbroken.
In her high room Charis awakened to the wailing and crept down to the hall. She saw Rhonwyn kneeling at her son’s side, clasping his cold hand to her cheek, rocking back and forth in her misery. Charis felt the urge to go to her and join her. She moved a pace toward the bier, hesitated, and turned away uncertainly, unable to make herself take the steps.
In turning, she caught a glimpse of Hafgan from the corner of her eye. The druid had seen her and was holding out a hand to her. Charis stopped, confused. Hafgan, hand still extended, walked to her and stood before her. She stood hesitant, torn, looking at the grieving Cymry. When he did not withdraw the hand, she lifted her hand to his and he led her to the bier.
Charis felt a burning sensation in her throat and chest and the bitter taste of bile in her mouth. Hafgan pulled her into the circle surrounding the bier and the Cymry made way for her.
Rhonwyn glanced up as Charis came to stand over her. Charis saw Rhonwyn’s tear-streaked face and sank to her knees beside Taliesin’s mother. Rhonwyn put her head against Charis’ breast and wept, and Charis wept too, at last, feeling the stone-hard walls of her heart crumble and melt in the sudden surge of grief.
She clung to Rhonwyn, sharing the deep and nameless torment of mourning women. Charis gave herself to her tears and felt her sorrow flow from her wounded heart like a flood across the parched, barren landscape of her soul. She wept for the hardness of life, for the cruelty of death, for loss and pity, for empty, aching loneliness and heartbreaking care, for Briseis alone in her lost tomb and for herself- for all the times she had denied her tears, hardening herself and despising the hardness that would not let her feel the pain. She wept for the child who would never know the sound of his father’s voice soaring in song or the sure touch of his strong hand. She wept for her dead brothers and for all Atlantis’ fair children now sleeping beneath Oceanus’ restless waves. And it seemed that she would weep forever.
The Cymry pressed around her, their voices mingling like the tears that streamed from their eyes, their faces beautiful in sorrow. And Charis loved them all – loved them for the fervent intensity of their emotion, for the simple honesty of their souls. Generous in grief as in joy, selfless in the outpouring of their hearts, the Cymry, exalted in their lamentation by the prideless nobility of their spirits, gathered around Charis and their tears fell down upon her in a gentle, healing rain.
At dawn the death song ceased. The torches were extinguished and while the Cymry rolled themselves in their cloaks for a few hours sleep, Hafgan, Elphin, Rhonwyn, and Charis stood together beside the bier. “He must be buried today,” said Hafgan, hoarse from mourning. “It is the third day since his death and his body must begin its journey back from where it came.”
“Wherever that may be,” added Elphin quietly. He gazed with red-rimmed eyes upon the one he had called his son. “I have thought about it many times.”
Charis looked at him in shocked surprise. “Why do you speak this way?” She turned to Rhonwyn. “Was he not your son?”
“I raised him as my son,” Rhonwyn told her. “Elphin found him in the weir”
“Found him?” Charis shook her head slowly. “I do not understand. He told me everything and yet told me nothing of this.”
“He would not have spoken of it,” replied Hafgan.
“I was his wife!”
“Yes, yes,” Hafgan soothed. “But it was the deepest mystery of his life and it troubled him. Taliesin knew he was not like other men: his gifts were greater, the demands of his skill higher, his knowledge more complete. In an older time we would have said that, like Gwion Bach, he had tasted of Ceridwen’s caldron and become a god.”
“Gwyddno had given me the take of the weir,” Elphin offered, “and I rode out on the eve of Beltane to find my fortune.” He smiled, remembering. “Not one salmon did I get that day, though Lieu himself knows never did a man need a fish more. It had snowed the day before and the salmon were late and there was neither fin nor scale to be seen.