"Shh!" the druid hissed. "Listen!"
Taliesin fell instantly silent, turning his head this way and that to capture any stray, wind-carried sound. He heard nothing but the ordinary sounds of a woodland steeped in summer.
At last Hafgan relaxed. He looked at the boy. "What did you hear?"
Taliesin shook his head. "I heard the wren, a wood pigeon, bees, leaves rustling in the breeze-that is all."
Hafgan stooped to retrieve his staff and straightened, brushing gra.s.s and twigs from his gray mantle.
"Well," demanded Taliesin lightly, "what did you hear?"
"It must have been the bees."
"Tell me."
"I heard what you heard," replied the druid. He turned and began walking back toward the caer.
"Ah, Hafgan, tell me what you heard that I did not hear."
"I heard three crickets, a moorhen, the stream yonder, and something else."
"What else?" The boy brightened at once. "My father?" he asked hopefully.
Hafgan stopped and turned to his pupil. "No, it was not your father. It was something else-it may not have come to me from the world of men, now that I think about it. It was a groan-a long, low groan of deep enduring pain."
Taliesin stopped walking and closed his eyes once more, listening for what Hafgan had heard. The druid walked a few steps and turned back. "You will hear nothing now. The sound has gone. Perhaps I imagined it in the first place. Come, let us go back."
Taliesin joined his teacher and they walked to Caer Dyvi in silence. When they reached the village they were met by Blaise, who was sitting somewhat anxiously at the outer gates. When he saw his master, the young man ran to him.
"Did you hear, Hafgan?" He saw the answer to his question on his master"s face and asked, "What do you make of it?"
Hafgan turned to Taliesin and said, "Run along home now. Tell your mother we have returned."
Taliesin did not move.
"Get along with you," insisted Hafgan.
"If you send me away, I will only spy on you to hear what you say."
"As you wish, Taliesin," the druid relented. He turned back to Blaise and said, "It will bear study, but I think it may be beginning."
Blaise stared for a moment and then sputtered, "But-but how? Is it time? I thought-thought it would be-be..."
"That it would be some other time? Why? All things happen in their season."
"Yes, but-now?"
"Why not now?"
"What is beginning?" demanded Taliesin. "What is it? Is it about the Dark Time?" He had heard the druid speak of it before, though he knew little about it.
Hafgan glanced at the boy. "Yes," he said. "If I read the signs aright, the time is fast approaching when the world will undergo mighty travail. There will be storms and great rend-ings; the stony roots of the deep with be disturbed and old foundations shaken. Empires will fall, Taliesin, and empires will rise."
"To what end?"
Hafgan hid a smile of pride. Young as he was, the boy had the knack of piercing to the heart of the matter with a question. "Ah," he said, "that is what we all want to know. Get you home now; your mother will be wondering what became of you."
Taliesin turned reluctantly to go. "You must tell me when you figure it out."
"I will tell you, Taliesin." The boy walked off dragging his feet and then, overcome by a sudden fit of exuberance, leaped over a stump and raced away.
"Watch him, Blaise," said Hafgan. "His like will not soon come again. And yet, great as he will be"
"One greater is to come. I know. You tell me often enough."
The druid"s head jerked toward his filidh. "Do I tax you with my aimless nattering?"
Blaise grinned. "Never more than I can bear."
"Perhaps you would rather join Indeg at the Baddon Cora-he is getting on wonderfully, so I am told. Instructing the indolent sons of very wealthy men. You might do as well."
"I have my hands full with just the one indolent son and his cranky druid."
Hafgan placed a hand on the young man"s shoulder and they started through the caer. "You have chosen well, Blaise. Still, I know it must sometimes seem as if you are stuck all alone in the world"s furthest outpost watching and waiting as life hastens by in the distance."
"I do not mind."
"You could travel, as I have told you. You could go to Gaul, or Galiza, or Armorica. Anywhere. There is still time. I could spare you yet a while."
"I really do not mind, Hafgan," said Blaise. "I am content. I know that what we do here is important. I Believe that it is."
"And your faith will be rewarded tenfold, a hundredfold!" The druid stopped and turned slowly. "Look around you, Blaise!" he said, gray eyes gazing past his surroundings as through a window into another world. "We are in the center. This" He swung his staff in an arc before his face. "This is the center. The world does not know it yet, perhaps never will. But it is here. It is here here that the future will be decided. Whatever happens in the age to come will owe to us for its beginnings. And we, Blaise, we are history"s midwives. Think of it!" that the future will be decided. Whatever happens in the age to come will owe to us for its beginnings. And we, Blaise, we are history"s midwives. Think of it!"
He wheeled suddenly toward Blaise, his face radiant with the power of his vision. "Important? Yes! Many times more important than anyone now alive can guess, more important even than you or I imagine. Though we be forgotten, our silent shadows will stretch across all future ages."
"You speak of shadows, Hafgan."
"In the Age of Light, all that has gone before will seem as shadow."
Taliesin squirmed on a rock overlooking both the track along the sea cliffs and the trail from the woods leading to the caer-either one of which his father might choose. Four other boys bore noisy vigil with him, clambering among the rocks, seeing who could throw stones the furthest. The day had been calm and bright, but clouds were sliding in from the west, low and dark, full of tomorrow"s rain.
Watching the clouds, and thinking about what Hafgan had said earlier, Taliesin felt himself drifting, his mind sailing free like a bird loosed from its cage. He let himself go and it was like flying. He rose up on tiptoes. The air shimmered as with noonday heat. He still saw the boys playing around him, heard their careless talk, but their forms had become vaguely blurred and their voices echoed to him as if from far away. A murmuring roar filled his ears, like that of the ocean breaking on the beach after a storm.
He turned his eyes toward the west and the clouds gliding in. The water gleamed like oiled sunlight, and further out, just at the horizon, he saw an island. It glistened and shone like a faceted stone or polished gla.s.s, and was nearly as transparent: an isle of gla.s.s.
The beams of light glancing off its central peak struck his eyes, pierced them like spears and pa.s.sed through him. The fire of their pa.s.sing burned his bones. He felt brittle, as if he would shatter.
The roar increased. He could make it out now. It was a chorus of voices. They cried out as one: Lost! All is lost! The G.o.ds are fallen from on high, and we die. We die! All is lost... lost... lost...
The voices trailed away. Taliesin looked and the Isle of Gla.s.s faded, its outline dim and vanishing like a vapor on the wind. Then it was gone and he was standing at the edge of the cliff, trembling, the sound of his friends" voices booming in his ears, his head throbbing.
"Taliesin!" shouted one of the bigger boys. "What is wrong? Taliesin! Quick, one of you run and fetch his mother!"
Taliesin shook his head and stared at the others gathered around him. "No... no-it was nothing."
"You looked like you were in a fit," said another boy. "You said you saw it. What did you see?"
Taliesin glanced out at the sea again; the horizon was clean and empty. "I thought I saw something that was not there." The other boys craned their necks to study the sea, and it came to him that they would not understand, perhaps would never understand. "It is gone now. It was nothing."
"Maybe a boat," offered one of the smaller boys, gazing fearfully out at the huge expanse of ocean.
"A boat," replied Taliesin. "Yes, maybe it was only a boat."
The boys fidgeted uneasily. "I"m hungry," said one. "I think I"ll go in now."
"Me too," seconded another.
"I have to feed the pigs," remembered a third.
"Not me," replied Turl, the older one. "You go on. I"m waitin" for my father. Right, Taliesin? Me and Taliesin will wait all night if we have to."
The others left, jumping over the rocks and down to the little dell, on the other side of which rose the hump of hill on which the caer was built. The two boys sat down on the rock and watched the sun slide nearer the western sea.
"I am going to Talybont soon," said Turl presently. "My uncle lives there; he is going to learn me my arms. I shall stay in his house until I be old enough to ride the Wall with my Da." He stared at Taliesin sitting silently beside him. "What about you?"
Taliesin shrugged. "I will stay here, I think." He had never heard anyone suggest otherwise, at least not in his presence. "Anyway, I have to stay with Hafgan."
"He"s a gelding!" hooted Turl. "All druids are, says my cousin, and he is old enough to ride the Wall next year."
"Your cousin is a fool," muttered Taliesin darkly.
"What do you do with him all day?" wondered Turl, letting the slight to his cousin go unheeded.
"We talk. He teaches me things."
"What sort of things?"
"All sorts of things."
"Druid things?"
Taliesin was not sure what his friend meant by that. "Maybe," he allowed. "Birds and plants and trees, medicine, how to read stars, things like that. Useful things."
"Teach me something," taunted Turl.
"Well," Taliesin replied slowly, looking about, "you see that bird down there?" He pointed to a white seabird skimming the waves Below them. "That one is called a blackcap."
"Anybody knows that!" laughed Turl.
"It only eats insects," continued Taliesin. "It scoops them off the water." The bird"s head swung down and its beak sliced a v-shaped ripple in the tidepool Below. "Like that- did you see?"
Turl smiled broadly. "Coo! I never knew that."
"Hafgan knows more than that-he knows everything."
"Could I come and learn with you?"
"What about your uncle?"
Turl offered no reply; so they sat together, flaking the yellow lichen from the rock, until Taliesin jumped to his feet. "What is it?" asked Turl.
"Come on!" cried Taliesin, already running over the rocks toward the woodland trail on the far side of the dell. "They are coming!"
"I don"t see anyone!"
"They are coming!"
Turl hurried after Taliesin and soon caught up with him. "Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"How do you know?"
"I know," replied Taliesin as they ran along.
They ran across the gra.s.sy hollow of the dell and up the knoll on the other side. Taliesin reached the knoll first and stared at the place where the bare dirt track crested the hill beyond. "I don"t see them," said Turl.
"Wait." Taliesin shaded his eyes with a hand and squinted hard at the road as if he would make them appear by force of will. Then they heard it-a light jingling sound, followed by the deeper drumming of horses" hooves.
A moment later they saw a p.r.i.c.kly forest of gleaming lance-heads sprout from the crown of the hill. The forest grew and men appeared beneath the shining arc of their weapons, and then the horses were sweeping down the near side of the hill and the boys were racing down to meet them, yelling, arms outspread as if they would fly straight into their fathers" arms. "Da! Da!" they cried.
The leader of the warband turned toward them and nudged the man riding next to him. He raised his hand and the column cantered to a stop as the boys came running toward them. Taliesin stared; his father wore the short red cloak of a centurion and the stiff leather breastplate. At his side was the broad-bladed gladius. He looked every inch a Roman commander-except for the fact that his cloak was fastened at his shoulder by a great silver wolf"s-head brooch with ruby eyes and his trousers were bright blue. "We have been watching for you all day! I knew you would come before sunset," said Taliesin.
Elphin took one look at Taliesin"s face and declared, "Was there ever a better welcome home?"
"No, lord," replied Cuall, "never was." He beamed down at his own son and gave the lad a sharp salute.
"Climb up here, Taliesin; we shall ride in together." Elphin put down his hand and pulled the boy up into the saddle with him. "Forward!" he called, and the troop moved on.
By the time they reached the outer gates, the whole village had turned out to meet them. Wives, mothers, fathers, children-all waving, calling glad greeting to their sons and husbands and fathers. Elphin led the band to the center of the caer and dismounted them. They stood at attention beside their horses for a moment and then Elphin shouted, "Dismissed!"
The men let out a whoop and the caer erupted in noisy welcome. Elphin surveyed the scene, grinning, happy to be home at last, happy to have delivered his band safely yet another year.
"Were you born in that saddle?"
Ehonwyn, her red-gold hair brushed and glowing in the late afternoon light, stood with a hand on the horse"s bridle. She wore a new orange gown with a woven girdle of blue and green stripes; her arms were bare, displaying gold armlets inset with a serpentine of emeralds, and at her throat a slim tore of twisted gold.
"Look, Taliesin, a G.o.ddess has addressed us," said Elphin, drinking in the sight of her.