Taran felt the creature's hand on his shoulder. "Dallben spoke truth, old friend," he murmured. "Staunchness and good sense? All that and more. But your comfort stands me in better stead than all the cleverness in Prydain."
NEXT MORNING TARAN and Fflewddur took leave of one another for the second time. Despite the bard's protest that a Fflam could always find his way; Taran insisted on Kaw's going along as a guide. Once this task was done, Taran urged the crow to return to Caer Dallben or, if it pleased him better, to fly freely as he chose. "I'll not bind you to my journey," Taran said to Kaw, "for even I don't know where it may end."
"Then how do we fare?" cried Gurgi. "Faithful Gurgi follows, oh, yes! But where does kindly master begin?"
The valley seemed suddenly empty as Taran stood, unanswering, looking at the silent cottage and the small mound of stones marking Craddoc's resting place. "Times there were," Taran said, almost to himself, "when I believed I was building my own prison with my own hands. Now I wonder if I shall ever labor as well and gain as much."
He turned to the waiting Gurgi. "Where?" He knelt, plucked a handful of dry grass from the turf, and cast it into the air. The freshening wind bore the blades eastward, toward the Free Commots.
"There," Taran said. "As the wind blows, so do we follow it."
SINCE NEITHER TARAN nor Gurgi wished to leave the sheep behind, the wayfarers departed from the valley with the small flock bleating after them. Taran intended offering the animals to the first farmstead with good grazing land, yet several days passed and he saw no inhabited place. The two companions had started in a southeasterly direction, but Taran soon gave Melynlas free rein and, though aware the stallion was bearing more east than south, he paid little heed until they drew near the banks of a wide, rapid-flowing river.
Here, the pasture stretched broad and fair. Ahead he glimpsed an empty sheepfold; he noticed no flock, but the gate of the enclosure stood open as though awaiting the animals' return at any moment. The low-roofed cottage and sheds were neat and well-kept. A pair of shaggy goats browsed near the dooryard. Taran blinked in surprise, for set about the cottage were all manner of woven baskets, some large, some small, some rising on stilts, and others seemingly dropped at random. Several trees by the river held wooden platforms, and along the riverbank itself Taran caught sight of what appeared to be a weir of carefully woven branches. Wooden stakes secured a number of nets and fishing lines drifting in the current.
Puzzling over this farmhold, surely the strangest he had seen, Taran drew closer, dismounted, and as he did so a tall figure ambled from the shed and made his way toward the companions. Taran glimpsed the farm wife peering from the cottage window. At the same time, as if out of nowhere, half-a-dozen children of different ages burst into sight and began running and skipping toward the flock, laughing gaily and shouting to one another: "They're here! They're here!" Seeing Gurgi, they turned their attention from the sheep to cluster around him, clapping their hands in delight and calling out such merry-hearted greetings that the astonished creature could only laugh and clap his own hands in return.
The man who stood before Taran was thin as a stick with lank hair tumbling over his brow and blue eyes bright as a bird's. Indeed, his narrow shoulders and spindly legs made him look like a crane or stork. His jacket was too short in the arms, too long in the body, and his garments seemed pieced together with patches of all sizes, shapes, and colors.
"I am Llonio Son of Llonwen," he said, with a friendly grin and a wave of his hand. "A good greeting to you, whoever you may be."
Taran bowed courteously. "My name― my name is Taran."
"No more than that?" said Llonio. "As a name, my friend, it's cropped a little short." He laughed good-naturedly. "Shall I call you Taran Son of Nobody? Taran of Nowhere? Since you're alive and breathing, obviously you're the son of two parents. And you've surely ridden here from somewhere else."
"Call me, then, a wanderer," Taran replied.
"Taran Wanderer? So be it, if that suits you." Llonio's glance was curious, but he asked no further.
When Taran then spoke of seeking pasture for the sheep, Llonio nodded briskly.
"Why, here shall they stay, and my thanks to you," he exclaimed. "There's no grazing fresher and sweeter, and no sheepfold safer. We've seen to that and labored since the first thaw to make it so."
"But I fear they may crowd your own flock," Taran said, though he admired Llonio's pastureland and the stoutly built enclosure, and would have been, well content to leave the sheep with him.
"My flock?" Llonio answered, laughing. "I had none until this moment! Though we've been hoping and waiting and the children have been talking of little else. A lucky wind it was that brought you to us. Goewin, my wife, needs wool to clothe our young ones. Now we'll have fleece and to spare."
"Wait, wait," put in Taran, altogether baffled, "do you mean you cleared a pasture and built a sheepfold without having any sheep at all? I don't understand. That was work in vain―"
"Was it now?" asked Llonio, winking shrewdly. "If I hadn't, would you be offering me a fine flock in the first place; and in the second, would I have the place to keep them? Is that not so?"
"But you couldn't have known," Taran began.
"Ah, ah," Llonio chuckled, "why, look you, I knew that with any kind of luck a flock of sheep was bound to come along one day. Everything else does! Now honor us by stopping here a while. Our fare can't match our thanks, but we'll feast you as best we can.
Before Taran could answer, Llonio bent down to one of the little girls who was staring round-eyed at Gurgi. "Now then, Gwenlliant, run see if the brown hen's chosen to lay us an egg today." He turned to Taran. "The brown hen's a moody creature," he said. "But when she has a mind to, she puts down a handsome egg." He then set the rest of the children running off on different tasks, while Taran and Gurgi watched astonished at the hustle and bustle in this most peculiar household. Llonio led the two into the cottage where Goewin gave them a warm welcome and bade them sit by the hearth. In no time Gwenlliant was back holding an egg in out-stretched hands.
"An egg!" cried Llonio, taking it from her, raising it aloft, and peering as if he had never seen one before. "An egg it is! The finest the brown hen's given us! Look at the size! The shape! Smooth as glass and not a crack on it. We'll feast well on this, my friends."
At first Taran saw nothing extraordinary in the egg which Llonio praised so highly; but, caught up by the man's good spirits, Taran to his own surprise found himself looking at the egg as though he, too, had never seen one. In Llonio's hands the shell seemed to sparkle so brightly, to curve so gracefully and beautifully that even Gurgi marveled at it, and Taran watched almost with regret as Goewin cracked such a precious egg into a large earthen bowl. Nevertheless, if Llonio intended sharing it among his numerous family, Taran told himself, the fare would indeed be meager.
Yet, as Goewin stirred the contents of the bowl, the children crowded one after the other into the cottage, all bearing something that made Llonio call out cheerily at each discovery.
"Savory herbs!" he cried. "That's splendid! Chop them up well. And here― what's this, a handful of flour? Better and better! We'll need that pot of milk the goat's given us, too. A bit of cheese? Just the thing!" Then he clapped his hands delightedly as the last and smallest child held up a fragment of honeycomb. "What luck! The bees have left us honey from their winter store."
Goewin, meanwhile, was busy popping all these finds into the bowl and, before Taran's eyes, the contents soon filled it nearly to the brim. Even then, his surprise did not end. Goewin deftly poured the mixture onto a sheet of metal which, Taran was quite certain, was nothing else but a warrior's shield hammered flat, and held it over the glowing embers. Within moments; the scent of cooking filled the cottage, Gurgi's mouth watered, and in no time the farm wife drew a dappled golden cake nearly as big as a cartwheel from the fireplace.