The Fallen Stones

By G. R. Grove

"Taliesin sang it, so it must be true. In all the years I knew him, I never heard him lie—though there are ways and ways of dealing with the truth, and a bard must know them all. But he was using none of these on the night when he sang Talhaearn Tad Awen’s death song in Prince Cyndrwyn’s high-roofed wooden hall, with the cold wolf-wind of a bitter winter snuffling round the doors and windows, and frightening the flickering torch-flames which cast his long black shadow, now here, now there, across the smoke-stained walls: across the faces of all of us who listened, and across our lives as well." So begins this fourth book of Gwernin Storyteller's adventures, which will take him and Taliesin to Ireland in a time of conflict between Kings, Christian Saints, and Druids.

• Language: English
• Publisher: G. R. Grove
• Release date: Nov 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005120801

Book preview

Blood and fire, gold and steel and poetry, a river’s voice in the silence of the night, and the shining strings of a harp—all these and more I have known in my time. Steep mountains, dark forests, and the endless song of the rain; music and laughter and feasting in the fire-bright halls of kings; a dusty road, and a fast horse, and a good friend beside me; and the sweet taste of the mead of Dun Eidyn, with its bitter aftermath: a dragon’s hoard of memories I have gathered, bright-colored as a long summer’s day. Now they are all gone, the men and women I knew when I was young, gone like words on the wind, and I am left here in the twilight to tell you their tale. Sit, then, and listen if you will to the words of Gwernin Kyuarwyd, called Storyteller…

So I began these tales, many seasons ago, and with them the story of my youth: how I as a lad, wishing to become a bard, traveled as a storyteller throughout the land of the Cymry, and there met the great bard Taliesin himself, who had served King Arthur before ever I was born; how he sent me to study with his own old Master Talhaearn in the green hills of western Powys, and how I won a wife there; how I later traveled with my friend Neirin through much of northern Britain, enduring many hardships and gaining much knowledge along the way; and lastly how I first went to war, and fell for a time into the brutal hands of the Saxons, from whom I barely escaped with my life.

Come with me now to those same green hills of Powys, in the land which the Saxons call Wales. Six years have passed, six busy, purposeful years, during which time I had shunned adventure and built a settled life for myself. Yet however quiet we bide, however rooted we may feel ourselves to be, time brings its changes to us all; and though I did not know it then, my peaceful life was about to come to an end…

SPRING’S SOWING

The Druid’s Tale

Taliesin sang it, so it must be true. In all the years I knew him, I never heard him lie—though there are ways and ways of dealing with the truth, and a bard must know them all. But he was using none of these on the night when he sang Talhaearn Tad Awen’s death song in Prince Cyndrwyn’s high-roofed wooden hall, with the cold wolf-wind of a bitter winter snuffling round the doors and windows, and frightening the flickering torch-flames which cast his long black shadow, now here, now there, across the smoke-stained walls: across the faces of all of us who listened, and across our lives as well.

He had been making that song for nine days, turning and shaping it in the glowing word-forge of his mind, ever since the iron-gray evening when he appeared unexpectedly in our courtyard out of a storm of sleet and icy driven rain, and leaving his weary mare with the stable-boy who ran to take her, came at once to Talhaearn’s room in the Prince’s own house. Cyndrwyn had moved the old bard there at the beginning of the winter when his health began to fail, leaving his cold hut against the outer wall of the llys to be taken over by me and my young family, even as I had taken over his duties in hall. For nine years now I had been Talhaearn’s apprentice, learning by heart all his tales and songs, all his knowledge of the past and of the descent and deeds of kings. All the rules and forms of poetry I knew, all the bardic measures; I could make a praise-song or a lament, correct in every detail, or spin a tale to entertain little children or battle-hardened warriors. This last has always been my strongest talent, and so I am called Gwernin Kyuarwyd—Gwernin Storyteller in the common tongue. But although I was turned four-and-twenty, and well-seasoned in my profession, I was still not a Master Bard—only the bardd teulu, the bard of the household and of the war-band: for to be accounted a Master, a bard must have won a competition against other Masters, and this I had not yet achieved.

On the evening when Taliesin arrived, I was seated by Talhaearn’s bedside, playing on his harp a tune of his own making, while the tall old man lay listening, his bony hands clasped loosely on the striped woolen blanket which covered his chest under the silver thicket of his beard, and his pale eyes half-lidded beneath his thorny brows. When the door-curtain was thrust aside, I turned my head, expecting one of the kitchen-girls with the old bard’s evening gruel. Instead I saw, outlined against the torchlight behind him, a slight, dark figure with a kind of shining on him, and the very breath of winter for his cloak, and his eyes like sparks of burning fire within the black shadow of his hood. For an instant my breath caught in my throat, and my playing stopped in a confused jangle of strings. Then, as the heavy curtain swung closed behind the newcomer, the fire in the brazier behind me flared up, showing me a familiar human face. Good evening to you, Master! I said, my voice not quite steady. We did not look to see you yet; the messenger only went this afternoon.

Na, I met him on the road, said Taliesin with a flickering smile, pushing back the dripping folds of his leather rain cape, and holding out his lean hands to the brazier’s warmth. Cyndrwyn might have spared him a cold journey. Under the cape he wore the usual short woolen tunic and trews of a horseman, deep-dyed in rich russet-reds and greens, and his boots were liberally splashed with the mud of the winter roads. I saw that his dark hair and beard were streaked with more silver than I remembered from his last visit, but his blue eyes were as keen as ever, and twinkled now with amusement. You knew that I would come, did you not, Iron Brow? he added, using the literal meaning of the old man’s name.

"Sa, sa, I knew it well, Gwion, bach, said Talhaearn, turning his head with an effort on the pillow. His voice was weak but clear. Sit down with me now and tell me what is happening in this world which I am about to leave. I am beset with well-meaning fools like Gwernin, who will say nothing to the purpose, and only want me to rest. I will rest in my gravely grave: I will be there soon enough!"

I smiled despite myself and stood up, setting down the harp beside the bed. Take my seat, Master, I said to Taliesin. I will go and ask them to send you food and wine; you will be wanting it after your long ride. Is your boy with you?

Na, I left him in Pengwern, said Taliesin, hanging his heavy cape on a wall peg and coming to take my place. He is yet young; no need for him to brave this foul weather—and Talhaearn’s tongue!

The old man chuckled deep in his throat. "Sa, sa, I have my wits about me still, even if my arm has lost its strength." He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, dropping into the easy sleep of the very old. I looked at Taliesin, who nodded, and I went out. As the door-curtain swung closed behind me, I heard him strike the first bright notes from Talhaearn’s many-stringed harp.

I went first, as was my duty, to tell the Prince’s steward of his new guest, in case he had not heard, and to bespeak the food and wine I had promised Taliesin. Then I went to seek Rhiannedd, my wife. I knew that she would not be in our quarters, and I knew why. The memories lay too thick there; the pain was still too sharp. And her work, after all, was in her mother Gwawr’s hut near the back of the llys, where she helped to mix the salves and draughts which kept us healthy—most of us, most of the time.

This had been a hard winter following a poor harvest; the court still ate well enough, but I knew the country people suffered. Hunger brings illness; fever was about; and from fever not even the Prince’s household was safe. Cyndrwyn’s second son, a boy not much younger than ours, came down with it and only just survived. Others were not so lucky; we lost our three-year-old daughter, Gwenllian, two days before Midwinter. To lose a child is always a heavy blow; to lose one so bright and loving can be almost unbearable. When Talhaearn died I would grieve, but not in the same way, although he was dear to me as a father. Warriors die in battle, and we praise them; women die in childbirth, and we mourn. Death is the common fate of every man who walks upon this earth, and though the Gods may give us their blessings afterwards, only in the songs of the bards can our names live on. But for me, and especially for Rhiannedd, the herb-wife whose remedies had failed, that winter was darker even than winter is wont to be, and our hearts within us were cold and heavy as stone.

As I had expected, I found my girl in Gwawr’s smoky hut, adding dried herbs to a pot which bubbled and seethed on the brazier, while six-year-old Ieuan played some game of his own in a corner. As I closed the door on the bitter night outside, she looked up and smiled, and I thought—not for the first time—how beautiful she was, with the firelight gilding her thin cheeks like summer, and sparkling in her dark brown hair and her blue eyes. Gwernin, she said, I thought you were with Talhaearn. Is someone else watching him now?

"Tad! cried Ieuan, jumping up and running to me to be hugged. I swung him up in my arms, grinning, and held him against my chest. He squirmed like a puppy and wrapped his legs around me, his arms tight about my neck. Over his dark curly head, I said, Taliesin has arrived, and is with him."

Already? Rhiannedd was looking down again at her work, and I could not see her face clearly, but it struck me there was a note of constraint in her voice. Then Ieuan claimed my attention again, begging to be tickled. "Sa, sa, I said, in a moment, bachgen! Yes, he was on the road before the messenger reached him. But that has always been his way, to know and to act on that knowledge, before anyone else has a sniff of it. There, there, Ieuan bach, is that enough? Get down, then. Is your lesson ready?"

It should be, said Rhiannedd, stirring her pot once more and moving it to the brazier’s rim, away from the main heat of the fire. "He has been reciting it all afternoon, to me and to his grandmother, until I could say it for you myself. Are you ready, Ieuan? Say it for your tad, then. And she came to hug me in her turn. I kissed her, then looked down at my son. Sing, then, little one," I said, and smiled.

Ieuan frowned and drew himself up straight, in imitation of my hall-stance, then began to chant the verse in his high voice:

"Three red birds on one branch,

Hop and hop—see them dance!

Fly away—not by chance!

Two black birds in one tree

Where just now I saw three—

Fly away—and be free!

One white bird all alone

Sits and sings on a stone—

Fly away—and be gone!"

Finishing, he grinned. "I made it all by myself, Tad, without any help from Mam!"

We applauded. That was very good, I said.

"Can I do it for Taid-cu now? Can I?" He meant Talhaearn, whom he always called Grandfather. It seemed to please the old man, and in a way it was true.

Later, perhaps, I said. "Taid-cu has a visitor tonight."

Oh, take him now, Gwernin, said Rhiannedd lightly; but her eyes said, There may not be a ‘later’. I looked at her for a moment, and then nodded.

Come on, then, Ieuan, I said. Get your cloak, bardling, and we will go. There is just time enough before I have to be in the hall.

Running hand in hand through the sleet in the purple twilight—for the moon was at her waning, and not yet walking above the clouds—we came to the Prince’s house, close beside the feast hall where the folk of the llys were already gathering. Early though it was for meat, the chill darkness had kept all those who could stay there within doors that day. In the covered walkway we met a few people who smiled at us—serving women, for the most part, with their hands full of red-glazed bowls and pitchers, food and drink for the Prince’s wife and her children. Even before I pushed aside the curtain to Talhaearn’s small room, I heard his voice, speaking to Taliesin. Na, I have done what I can, he was saying. The rest is for you, Gwion: take him there if you will. Maybe he will find it, for I think the fate is on him.

Na, do not trouble yourself, Father of Awen, said Taliesin easily. I will do all that you could wish. Then turning to me as I entered, he added, Ah, Gwernin, you have come back already. And who is this with you? Your boy Ieuan? How he has grown!

I have grown two finger-breadths since summer, said Ieuan, looking up at Taliesin boldly. "I am a big boy now. Tad has been teaching me, and I have made a song. Taid-cu, may I sing it for you?"

"Sa, sa, bachgen, said Talhaearn. Come here to me. And he lifted one gnarled hand and took the child’s fingers in his old bent ones. A song, is it? What is the form?"

The three-line form, said Ieuan solemnly. And to me, "What did you call it, Tad? En—Eng—"

"Englyn milwr, I said. In three stanzas." Talhaearn smiled in his beard.

A good place to begin, he said. Sing it for me, child.

Ieuan took his stance again, and sang the lines in his high piping voice. I watched him proudly, and Taliesin watched us both with an odd expression on his face which might almost have been envy. When the song was over Talhaearn nodded, his pale age-clouded eyes fixed on the boy. That is a good beginning, he said. Let you practice and remember it. Do you mind all the songs I have taught you?

"Yes, Taid-cu, said Ieuan seriously. I remember them all, every one."

Good, good. Let you practice them, then, each day, and keep them fresh in your memory. Now kiss me, boy, and run back to your mother; I am tired.

Ieuan bent to plant a moist kiss on the old man’s wrinkled cheek, then paused. "Can I come back and see you tomorrow, Taid-cu?" he asked.

Maybe, maybe, if the Gods be kind, muttered Talhaearn, and closed his eyes with a sigh.

"Good night, Taid-cu," said Ieuan, and with a glance at me he went out. I heard the sound of his light feet on the stones of the covered way as he ran, then silence.

A good boy, said Taliesin softly. You have begun well with him. But his eyes were on Talhaearn, and he was frowning. The old man’s breathing was drifting again toward sleep. In the dim firelight from the brazier, it seemed to me that the shadows in the room were thicker, and out of the corners of my eyes I thought I saw movement there. I shrugged off the little fear which stroked the back of my neck with cold fingers, and went to put more wood on the fire. The flames leapt up, and the shadows retreated, but the fear did not go with them.

Na, said Taliesin as if I had questioned him. Not tonight, I think, but soon. Talhaearn’s eyelids quivered at the sound of his voice, and he smiled in his sleep, but did not wake. Who stays with him at night?

We take it by turns, Master, I said. Sometimes I myself, sometimes my wife or her mother, or one or two others of the household.

Then I will take the watch tonight, said Taliesin. I looked at him sharply, seeing in the set of his shoulders and the lines of his face the weariness which was already heavy upon him, but he was still frowning down at Talhaearn and did not notice my glance. First Bard of the Cymry though he was now, and rich and famous throughout the Island of Britain, he had himself been Talhaearn’s pupil in his youth; it was only right that he should share this deathwatch with me. So I merely said, Have they brought him his supper yet?

Na, but I think it does not matter greatly. Yet even as he spoke the door-curtain was put aside again, and a young serving-man came in with a tray. On it was a silver cup, a generous plate of roast meat and good wheaten bread, and a flagon of wine; also a covered bowl which I knew contained the barley-gruel for Talhaearn. Taliesin smiled. There, now, he said. Put it down here, lad, and I will help him eat when he awakens.

The shock-haired servant set his tray down carefully on a small table close by Talhaearn’s bed, and went on his way. Taliesin poured himself a cup of the rich red wine, the fruity aroma of it mingling in the room with the smells of wet wool and leather and wood-smoke, of illness and old age, and sat down again on the stool by the bed. I stood leaning my shoulders against the wall, watching him and putting off the moment when I must go to the hall. Master, I said after a while, are you sure?

Of what? asked Taliesin, looking up at me under his dark brows. He had been swirling the wine in his silver cup, not drinking yet, but warming it in his hands and savoring the rich scent of it. Of the hour when he will die? I do not know it: that is his spirit’s choice, not mine. But I think he has a day or two left, at least, and maybe more.

Na, I did not mean that, I said. They have lit a fire for you in the guesthouse, and made all ready. Will you not leave this watch to me for one night more?

Taliesin smiled. Thank them for me, lad, but it is better that I stay here. Talhaearn and I have yet some things to say to each other, and not much time left. Will you be telling a tale tonight in the hall?

I will, unless the Prince commands otherwise, I said.

Good. Taliesin nodded to himself. Do you remember the tale Talhaearn told us, seven years and more ago, on Ynys Môn? The tale of the Druids, and the Black Lake?

I do. How could I forget it? I shivered a little at the memory; it was a dark tale, not good to tell in this dark winter half of the year.

Has Talhaearn ever told it here?

Not, I said, in the nine years I have served him, he has not, though he taught it to me afterwards.

Then tell it tonight, said Taliesin. The Prince should hear that story, and it will come better from you.

Very well, I said slowly. But why?

Taliesin only smiled. Tell it, he said, for Talhaearn. And he lifted his cup and drank, as if he toasted someone invisible, and turned his eyes back to the bed again. And after a moment I shrugged, and went on my way to the hall. It was never any use to argue with Taliesin when he spoke in that voice; I had learned that lesson long ago, when I studied with him myself for a while, and I did not try.

Outside in the purple gloom, the sleet was still falling, hissing like a nest of vipers as it tried to put out the torches which lit the main courtyard of the llys, but inside Cyndrwyn’s hall the hearth-fires burned warm and bright, and the people of his court gathered at the long trestle tables to make such mirth as the late winter allowed. There were platters enough of stewed meat to fill our bellies, with barley-bread and flat griddle-baked oatcakes and the soft white cheeses made from the first of the ewe-milk which gives the Imbolc feast its other name; and on the Prince’s table, carefully kept and hoarded, a red-glazed bowl filled with the little russet apples from the down-valley orchards, withered but still honey-sweet. The women of the household came and went with pitchers of foaming ale to fill the cups of the young warriors who lounged on the benches at the top of the hall, and I sat in my place near the Prince, playing idly on my harp until the noise should die down and the company be ready for a tale.

Cyndrwyn mab Ermid, Prince of western Powys, was a tall, well-built man in his early prime, easy-going and good to look upon, but well able to control his domains. His mountainous land was rich in sheep and cattle, and grew good grain in some of its wider valleys, but traded as well with the flatter lands to the east held by his two cousins: Cynfor son of Cyndeyrn, who ruled in stone-built Deva of the Legions, and Taliesin’s patron Cynan Garwyn, fierce lord of Severn-girt Pengwern. That night the Prince was dressed as usual in a long scarlet robe of fine-combed wool which matched the fire-lit highlights in his chestnut hair and beard. His wrists were clasped with heavy silver bracelets, and silver was the cup from which he drank his golden mead. I knew him as a good friend to bards, and generous to his household; my place with him was comfortable and assured. And yet, and yet…something in me still longed for more, for the sort of adventures I had known in my youth, when I traveled throughout Britain with Taliesin and his prentice Neirin… Even as I was thinking so, Cyndrwyn looked up and met my eyes, and nodded. And I smiled, and set aside my harp, and stood up to tell my tale.

This, I said to the Prince and his war-band, "is a tale I first heard from my Master Talhaearn, seven years and more ago, when we visited Ynys Môn. He told it then in the llys of King Rhun mab Maelgwn Gwynedd, at a time when Gwynedd was threatened with ravaging and war by the Men of the North; now in a time of peace I tell it to you here. Not all of this tale is good hearing; yet it should be heard and remembered, and not only by the men of Ynys Môn, who carry it in their blood."

Let you tell it to us, then, said the Prince easily, and smiled, and drank from his cup of golden mead.

This is the tale of the Black Lake, I said, directing my words now to the rest of the hall as well, and the people there grew quiet and still to listen. "Many men’s lifetimes ago it happened, not long after the men of Rome first came to Britain. They were greedy for tribute, the Romans, and their armies were mighty beyond reckoning, great in their numbers, and in the skills of war. They conquered first the rich farmlands of the southeast, the lands which the Saxons hold today in their turn, and there they built their towns—the towns which now lie empty and in ruins. They conquered the hills and plains of middle Britain, as far north as her narrow waist where their stone-built Wall still runs; the Brigantes fell under their sway, and the southern lands of the Votadini, those people whom we now call Gododdin. Their armies marched into the south and west, into Dumnonia and the isles beyond; and they crossed the Severn and subdued the Silures, the forefathers of the men of Deuheubarth, and set them in chains to dig for gold at Dolaucothi. And at last they came to Gwynedd.

"The tribes of the Venedoti fought them fiercely, and retired at need into the mountains, into the great fortress of Eryri which has always been their refuge when they are hard-pressed. But the people who lived on the Island of Môn had no such retreat: they had never needed one. They were the Druids, and in their power they had always been secure—until the Romans came.

The Romans crossed the Menai strait, and wrought much destruction from one end of Môn to the other, burning and slaying until the streams ran red, and corpses covered the fields. Many a good man and woman they slew—yes, and children too—from end to end of that island, and where there had been songs, they left silence. But they did not come everywhere. Some of the Druids had withdrawn to Môn’s Colt—the little island at the big one’s flank—and raised there a magic mist to hide them from their enemies. And before their power could weaken, and the mist blow away, the Romans received a message of recall which took them from Môn’s shores in haste. For in the Iceni lands of the east, which the Saxons hold now, Boudicca had raised her revolt, and fallen on Roman London with fire and sword, even as the Romans fell on Môn. So the legions marched away to fight her, and made there a great slaughter, and afterwards they sowed fire and death throughout the land in revenge. But for a brief time Môn was safe—what remained of it.

I looked around the hall, which was silent except for the crackling of the hearth-fire, and the voice of the storm outside. Old men and young, women and girls and small children, all were listening intently to my tale. The torchlight flickered on their still faces, and sparkled in their wide eyes. Christian though most of them were, at least in name, they were always caught and held by stories from the very-long-ago, with their litany of strange names and their promise of magic. And I smiled, and spoke on.

"Among those who had taken refuge on the little island, some were Druids, and some were Seers, and some were Bards, while others were young men still studying these disciplines, as well as their women and children. Not knowing when the Romans would return, but only that they would return—for long ago they had driven out the Druids from Gaul—the chief men of the Orders made provision for the future. The women and children and the younger men they sent away into Ireland for safety, to one of the Druidic sanctuaries there, and these carried with them some of the island’s treasures—such of them as had escaped the Roman pillagers. The rest of the treasure, and all goodly things which could be salvaged from the ruins, was offered to the Gods at a reed-bordered lake which had long received such sacrifices, and there it rests to this day. There was no need of victims to accompany it, for by then all the island was one huge reeking pyre, and all its earth drunk with blood. Then the men who remained turned their backs on Môn, and went to join their cousins in Eryri, to take up the tasks which lay before them; and the chiefest of these would fall upon the Bards.

"Among the Druids was one who would have been a prince to his people, had the Gods not summoned him to a greater calling. Not a young man, he was then, and yet not old: for his beard was still dark, and his back was still straight, and his eyes saw clearly. His birth-name he had given up when he became a priest, and took instead the name Lovernos, which in today’s common tongue means Fox. Like his namesake he was clever, and more than clever, for he had the gifts of prophecy and of awen, and beyond his years he was wise. And it was he who took command of the survivors of Môn, and set them about their tasks.

"The Druids and Seers put aside their white robes, and dispersed into all the corners of Britain, wherever the Romans were not, that their wisdom and learning should not be wholly lost to their people: for they were become the Knowledge of the Land. The Bards set out on their travels as well, but more openly, wherever they went learning and preserving all the songs and tales of the tribes, and teaching them in turn to any who would learn them: for they were become the Memory of the Land. And Lovernos the Fox looked into the smoke, and into the fire, and he watched the flight of birds, and the turning of the stars in the night sky, and listened to the silence of the mountains. And in time he knew what his role was to be, and his alone. And his eyes wept, but his spirit rejoiced.

The Druid priests were not celibate like the Christians; they did not preach distain for the good things of this world. There was in the place where Lovernos was then staying a most beautiful maiden, young but not yet wed, the daughter of a Chieftain, and he of a line which had produced many bards. When Lovernos knew his fate, he went to her, and asked her to lie with him until she be with child. And she looked at him, and saw that he was comely, and of great renown; and also she knew that he was kind. So she agreed, and her father gave his consent as well. For a moon, and another moon, they lay together after the way of men and women; and before the third moon was full she knew that she had conceived. Then Lovernos kissed her, and told her she must go again to her father’s house, and told her why; and he held her while she wept. And the next day he went away with his last few companions, and she never saw him again; but in nine months’ time she bore him a son.

Again I paused and looked around my audience. Here and there a woman with a child on her lap or at her breast was holding him close, thinking of that fatherless infant. Rhiannedd was one of them, with Ieuan close beside her. Across the hall I met her eyes and smiled, and she smiled back at me. And I spoke on.

"Lovernos came down out of the mountains and traveled east, to a place of ancient magic. Often he and his friends moved by night to avoid the Romans, who were everywhere in the land. The marks of their burning and oppression were plain to see, and the earth groaned beneath them. And when Lovernos saw this he wept afresh, for he knew there would be worse to come, and all that he could do would not prevent it. But something, at least, he could save.

They came to the place they sought, and lay up there in secret, waiting until the season was right. They talked by day and by night, and made sacrifice in the sacred grove, and bathed in the holy springs. And at last, they went back down the long hills to the Black Lake which lies hidden at their feet, cupped in the hand of the Goddess. And there Lovernos gave away his second name, and submitted himself to the Triple Death, to become the Spirit of the Land, the King in the Ground: for always, I said, turning toward the Prince, kingship requires sacrifice. Whether he be Druid or Christian, the wise king knows that he who would lead must be a bridge: a bridge between his people and their God, and a bridge between his people and their land; and always he must be willing to lay down his life for them at need. When we forget this, the seas will truly rush in and drown us, the earth gape and swallow us, and the sky of stars fall upon us and crush us out of life forever.

There was a long silence. Then Cyndrwyn smiled, and raised his cup in a toast. To the brave men of the past, he said. Let their names not be forgotten. And then in a lower voice to me, when the toast had been drunk, That is a good story, Gwernin. But as a father, I have one question: what became of the child—the son of the Druid? Did he become a Druid in his turn? Or did he find some other fate?

I have wondered about that myself, Lord, I said, but the tale does not say. But I think…I think…he went to Ireland. Someday, perhaps, I will journey there myself and find the rest of his story.

That, said Cyndrwyn a little wistfully, would a quest indeed, and a journey well worth the making. But now the hour grows late, and I am for sleep. And he arose and left the hall. The servants removed the last platters for cleaning; those of the war-band who slept in the hall stacked the trestle tables and prepared their beds; and I and my girl went hand in hand to our cold room by the outer wall of the llys, leaving little Ieuan with his grandmother, and Taliesin to watch over Talhaearn. It was only later that night, when I lay waking in my blankets with Rhiannedd sleeping warm and content in my arms, that I thought again about the story I had just told, and the fate of the Druid’s son. To Ireland he had gone, I was sure of it; I had seen it once in a vision, in a dream. Someday, I thought, I might make that journey myself, if my Gods were kind. Someday… I yawned, and let sleep take me again, and never dreamed how soon my someday would arrive.

The Fairest Maid

We buried Talhaearn near the foot of a tall gray standing stone on the ridge above the llys, a place where he had loved to sit, perched high above the world like an eagle, with his face turned to the wind. A day of mixed rain and sun it was, the rain cold as winter tears, and the sunlight weak and pale as the early smile of spring. Even the Gods weep when so great a Bard dies: I have seen it more than once in my long life, and I