Disclaimer: Would that these were my characters, but they're not. They inspire me, though.
The Power of Joy
". . . with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things."
--William Wordsworth, "Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey"
Ch. 1: Leaving Home
Salt spray stinging his face, sea wind lifting his black hair, the young man at the ship's rail scanned the horizon as if to fix its boundaries with his gray eyes. But the late-winter, late-afternoon sky had no limits. Pearl-white, the edge of the clouds moved ever before him, at once beginning and end and, paradoxically, neither.
On another day, in another place, the same young man stood at the blacksmith's forge, mopping his sweat-stained, soot-stained brow with the back of a muscular arm. Then, seizing his hammer, he struck rhythmically at the molten iron on the anvil, willing its red-gold mass into shape.
He smiled ruefully as his finger slipped on the spinning potter's wheel. The vessel rising from the wet clay collapsed in on itself, and he seized it, kneaded it into a ball, and threw it back while pressing the treadle again with his foot.
He walked in a line spanning the field with the other men from the village, his hand reaching into the pouch slung from his shoulder to throw seeds on fresh-tilled spring soil. Some weeks later, he knelt in the same place, gently touching a sprout that had burst from the warm earth.
Taliesin missed his son.
He could not begrudge his only child the chance to do what he had long wished—travel the length of Prydain, not as a bard but as a student of various trades. As he explained to his father whenever Taliesin asked him to present himself for initiation to the Council of Bards, Adaon could not imagine becoming a poet if he did not first know how even the humblest inhabitants of Prydain lived. Wishing to extend his encyclopedic knowledge outside books, Adaon yearned moreover to become an artist in any way he could. Thus, he planned—with his usual daunting ambition—to learn weaving, smithing, and pottery, as well as the skills of farmer and fisherman. His zest for learning warmed his father's heart, and reminded him moreover of Adaon's mother, the female bard Cerys, who had insisted on becoming a wandering bard even if, to do so safely, she had to dress as a man. Yes, Adaon was similarly stubborn in his way, Taliesin thought fondly. While remaining the most dutiful of sons, the boy had inherited his mother's desire to explore uncharted territory. The Chief Bard of Prydain and a formidable scholar himself, Taliesin had never thought to pursue the kind of knowledge which his son sought to acquire, and he could only admire the originality and devotion of this unusual quest.
And yet it had been difficult for Taliesin to speed Adaon on his way. Sitting on this spring day in his favorite haunt, the book-lined Hall of Lore in the castle of Caer Dathyl, the Chief Bard realized that it had been almost two years since he had seen his son. He could neither wonder nor complain at the length of Adaon's absence; travel on foot—his son couldn't easily take a horse to some of the places he was going—was slow in Prydain. And what Adaon wished to accomplish could scarcely be crammed into a shorter span. Because it was so hard for news or letters to traverse the countryside, Taliesin had not even heard much from Adaon during those two years. True, around half a year after his son had left, a travelling peddler had delivered a wonderfully detailed letter, crammed in the smallest possible writing on several pieces of parchment, describing all that Adaon had done up to that point—sailing past the isle of Mona to the Northern Sea, and, at the time of writing, setting out nets in a fishing village. "I have been eating a lot of fish," he informed his father. It was hard to tell whether Adaon thought this a good or a bad thing. Taliesin longed to question his son further.
Taliesin sighed. There he was, back to confronting his own loneliness. Adaon had been away for short periods before this trip, at one point even fighting the dread Huntsmen of Annuvin with Prince Gwydion while his father hoped, paralyzed with fear, for his son's safe return. These relatively brief absences aside, though, Adaon had been Taliesin's sole companion after Cerys's death in childbirth when the boy was four. Cerys's newborn daughter had died with her, and father and son had bonded more closely over their shared, shattering loss. Before Cerys had miraculously entered his life—after many years during which Taliesin had been both wifeless and childless—he had grown used to being on his own, if somewhat wistful about his lack of family. Once Adaon left on his travels, however, Taliesin realized how accustomed he had become to fatherhood. He kept looking over his shoulder for his son, to call him in to dinner or instruct him in runes or harp-playing.
Around half a year before, however, he had at least received further word of Adaon's activities. A member of the Council of Bards made the lengthy voyage to the southeast of Prydain to visit family in the Free Commots, the area not governed by cantrev lords. When he returned, he gladdened Taliesin's heart by telling him excitedly about finding Adaon in a nearby village.
"My, but that young man gets around," the bard, Gwynallt, happily told the Chief Bard. "He doesn't stay in one place for long, though I gather everyone wants him to. At the time I saw him—in excellent health, you should know—he'd already served as apprentice to both a smith and a weaver. He told me he was working at the moment with a master potter. He's also gained quite a reputation as a healer, not that he told me much about it, too modest I suppose, but several villagers did. Seems he's done a great deal of good with his knowledge of healing herbs."
"They didn't know who he really was," Gwynallt continued, "until I got there. Hope you don't mind—Adaon seemed worried you'd be offended—but he generally doesn't tell folks whose son he is. Guess he's afraid they'll think him too high and mighty to live with the likes of them. Oh, from what they told me, they'd figured out he was gently born—well-spoken, and he plays the harp so beautifully—but they had no idea they'd been working alongside the son of the Chief Bard of Prydain. I hope he didn't mind they found out because of me, but actually they seemed even more taken with him than before."
"I tried," the bard went on, a trace of fond exasperation entering his voice, "to persuade him to come back with me, as he'd been away so long. He said he needed to stay a bit longer, then he'd work his way back to Caer Dathyl. A lovely lad, Taliesin—a man now, really—but he does have a stubborn streak, doesn't he? He wasn't at all rude about it, but he wouldn't be budged from his plans. And that included waiting to take his bardic exams. Oh, I know you've brought it up with him, but I thought it might come easier from me—not being his father, and all—so I tried to get him to agree to present himself for initiation upon his return. He just smiled that slow smile of his and told me ever so politely he's chosen to wait. Whatever for, Taliesin? He's a prodigy, just like his father and mother."
"I don't know exactly what he's waiting for," said Taliesin, smiling. "And I'm not sure he does either. But if he thinks he has to wait, I respect the decision. I doubt he's just doing what the young like to do, assuming he knows better than us older sorts. No, he has extraordinarily high standards, and he has not yet found a way of living up to them."
Gwynallt shook his head. "Well, you know him best. Certainly no one could hope for a finer son. I'm greedy, that's all—want him in our ranks, the sooner the better."
Now, gazing through the casement at the bright spring sky, Taliesin considered his son's complex personality. There were many who, like Gwynallt, thought Adaon almost too good to be true, a model of the wise, brave, cultured young warrior—and handsome to boot—that was the ideal of manhood in his culture. Taliesin knew better. His son was a human being like any other, with vulnerabilities as well as virtues. As far as his father was concerned, though, Adaon's humanity made him more, rather than less, admirable. True, Adaon was gifted with above-average intelligence, courage, and gentleness. But it was the dedication with which he cultivated these inherent talents that made him extraordinary. And, again, complicated.
Adaon was like his parents in many ways. Even-tempered, musical, and creative, he took keen pleasure in the glories most people overlooked—the beauties of nature, the delights of love and friendship. He had a fierce hunger for knowledge and the patience and devotion to seek it wherever it could be found. And Adaon shared his parents' sense of humor, though he was more serious, finally, than either of them. Like Taliesin, Cerys had been much given to wry teasing. Adaon knew how to laugh—he was no prig—but there was a gravity in his smile, not the gravity of someone lacking a sense of fun, but an intensity of joy that held him concentrated and utterly absorbed. Yes, joy—that was the word Taliesin associated most with his son, although the quality of the joy had changed over time.
In his first years Adaon had been a merry little boy, laughing frequently and delightedly. How he had loved Cerys! Taliesin had always had a strong bond with Adaon, but the relationship of mother and son was special, and Taliesin often smiled to see them giggling as they played together. Unlike many mothers of her rank, Cerys did not farm out to a nurse the mundane chores of child-rearing. A kindly, comfortable old woman named Banwen helped take care of Adaon when his mother was particularly busy with her scholarly work, but Cerys insisted on doing much of what needed to be done for her son, even the more unglamorous tasks. In a way unusual for fathers of his rank, Taliesin helped out as best he could. And so, blessedly, both he and Adaon had memories of Cerys in the role of mother that they would otherwise have lacked. When Cerys had died, Adaon had understandably been much affected. He was no longer the merry toddler, but a more serious child, one made aware all too early of the fragility of happiness. Fortunately, he did not become truly insecure—his father's watchful care prevented that—but a new depth to Adaon's natural joyfulness made him seem older than his years. And he developed, too, a protectiveness toward his father that mirrored his father's toward him. It was as if each of the remaining, bereaved members of the family always sought to anticipate the other's needs.
Of course—notwithstanding his unusual maturity—Adaon had gone through the normal stages of childhood. He'd had his share of toddler tantrums, wilful "won't"s, mischievousness, and minor but still exasperating naughtiness. (Taliesin winced as he remembered the time three-year-old Adaon had happily shredded sheets of parchment on which his father had written his latest poems.) But, as he grew, the boy sometimes seemed to wish to please his father too much, although Taliesin saw in his son's anxious perfectionism—the same perfectionism that made him even now delay his bardic exams—the legacy of the two ambitious intellectuals who had given him life.
Adaon's personality revealed its fullest—and as far as his father was concerned, most lovable—complexity when his unusually strong desire to do what he thought right battled with his equally strong desire to please Taliesin. Taliesin remembered one such day.
Adaon had been almost eleven years old. His father, who had sent him on the errand of delivering a book to a bard who lived on the other side of the castle, was growing anxious at his ordinarily reliable son's slow return. Taliesin was just about to leave his study to search for the boy when another bard, Enlli, appeared at the door holding Adaon's hand.
Enlli, one of Cerys's biggest supporters, had been devastated when she died. A kindly, round-faced man whose flyaway gray hair grew increasingly wispy with age, Enlli considered himself Adaon's honorary uncle. On this day, the bard's normally cheerful face looked concerned, and he seemed to wish to speak but was holding himself back, as if to allow Adaon to explain first. Taliesin had little time to notice all this, however, because when he saw Adaon he leaped from his seat in alarm. The boy was definitely the worse for wear. His clothes torn and dirty, he sported a black eye and a rapidly swelling injured lip that had bled freely all over his jacket.
"Adaon!" Taliesin cried. "What happened?"
Adaon did not immediately answer. He looked at the floor, tracing a circle with his toe. When he looked up his expression blended embarrassment and an odd defiance. Enlli remained silent.
Finally Adaon said, "I was in a fight."
No surprises there, Taliesin thought. "With whom?" he asked.
"Garth," Adaon replied. Garth, a boy of Adaon's age, was the son of a high-up noble at King Math's court. He was not a bad lad, but he had a tendency to lord it over others because of his father's rank. Taliesin feared that if he were not cured of his arrogance he could become a terrible bully.
At this point Enlli, unable to restrain himself any longer, spoke up. "He wasn't fighting with one boy, Taliesin," he pointed out, "four of them were leaping on him at once. It's lucky I fished him out of the fray when I did."
Taliesin looked inquiringly at Adaon, who reddened slightly. "How," Taliesin asked gently, "did you get in a fight with four boys?"
"I started it," said Adaon with that strange blend of shame and defiance. He looked at his father. "I know you've told me not to get into fights, and especially not to start them. You can punish me if you want," he offered, in a tone that implied his father would be mistaken to do so but was entitled to his own opinion.
Taliesin kept himself from smiling. "It would seem," he pointed out, "that you've been punished quite enough already." And more harshly than I would ever do, he thought. Taliesin never raised a hand against his son, but then again the most effective punishment for Adaon was not to allow him to read before going to bed. Indeed, in the past year or so, simply a frown from the father he adored seemed to do the trick.
Enlli, again, could not restrain himself. "I didn't see the beginning of the fight," he said, "but I figured out what happened. Those four had been mocking Annest."
Annest, the sweet and affectionate six-year-old daughter of a gardener at Caer Dathyl, was what the world called an idiot. Taliesin preferred to reserve that term for those who did not use the wits they had been given. In contrast to such genuine idiots, Annest possessed the matchless gift of a kindly heart. People were generally quite fond of her, with her sunny curls and laughing, slanting eyes, but she was undeniably more vulnerable than other children to bullying.
"Her mother must have lost sight of her," Enlli explained. "She found Annest just as I was breaking up the fight. The child was crying bitterly. From what she said I gathered the four boys, led by Garth, had been jeering at her."
Adaon forgot to be reticent. "They called her stupid and ugly," he said angrily. "And they did something even worse." He looked down again at his feet, embarrassed.
"What was it?" Taliesin asked.
Adaon looked up, his gray eyes troubled. "They were pulling up her skirt," he said. "At least, Garth was. I trounced him," he said with some satisfaction.
Taliesin sighed. He would have to have a word with Garth's father, not a task to which he looked forward. Right now, though, he addressed his son. "As you know," he said, with as much sternness as he could muster, "I do not approve of fighting, and usually there are ways of avoiding it. I can understand your wanting to help Annest, but did you ask Garth to stop before you started fighting?" All right, he said to himself, it probably wouldn't have done much good, but one always had to try.
"No-o-o," Adaon admitted, scuffing the floor again with a toe. "Or, at least, I didn't ask him first. I told him to stop while I was jumping on him," he explained.
Taliesin could not help himself. He laughed. Enlli chuckled too. Adaon looked affronted.
"I'm sorry," Taliesin said, putting a halt to his mirth. "It's just that—well, I doubt someone can listen to you very well while you're jumping on him." He sighed again. "Fighting is not the best way of resolving things. But it is also important to stop bullying, and what those boys were doing to Annest was very wrong. I think," he concluded, "your mother would have been proud of you for protecting that child. I imagine," he added ruefully, "she'd have tried to trounce all four of those boys at once too."
Adaon now seemed confused. "You mean what I did wasn't wrong? But I broke your rules. Even though I'd do it again if I saw something like that," he concluded, looking thoroughly bewildered at his own lack of logic.
How to explain this, Taliesin thought. "Try to work things out without fighting," he finally told his son. Especially when it's four against one, he added privately. "But prevent cruelty whenever you can. If you think about it," he smiled, "it doesn't really teach people not to be cruel if you hit them, does it?"
That last point seemed to make an impression on Adaon. As Taliesin picked up a weighty volume and prepared to start his day's reading, he remembered that, in his teenage years, his son had not been nearly so ready to use his fists as most boys. And, although he learned the requisite swordmanship and other battle skills as he grew up, like his father Adaon would always rather read a good book.
The next morning, Taliesin rode out to the peaceful spot, some distance from Caer Dathyl, where Cerys and her baby were buried. Tethering his horse to a tree, he knelt by her burial mound and rested his forehead against one of its white boulders. He had brought some early spring flowers which he scattered gently over the stones.
He visited her regularly, even though he did not need to be near her earthly remains to feel close to her. Once, newly bereaved and racked with guilt over his unwitting role in Cerys's death, he had felt, with absolute certainty, her comforting spirit in the room beside him. He had never again had so vivid a sense of her presence, but then he no longer needed to. Reminded of the truth of her dying words—"I will always be with you"—he had been content to be aware of her in less spectacular, but still immensely consoling, ways. Sometimes, indeed, it seemed as if her hand were hovering over his shoulder while he read. So, during their marriage, had each often come up behind the other absorbed in study and offered a quick embrace. Feeling the flutter of her presence that morning, he traveled to this beautiful spot from which he could see the white towers of Caer Dathyl sparkling in the far distance.
"You would be so proud of him, Cerys," he murmured, speaking of their son. He smiled. "What am I saying? You are proud of him, doubtless."
He laid his hand on the white stone in farewell and, untethering his horse, mounted again and rode back to the castle. As he went, he thought back to the scene he had remembered the day before, in which Adaon had gone charging to Annest's aid. He could see the pattern in his son's life, in another episode, some years later, in which Adaon, under Prince Gwydion's command, had fought the Huntsmen of Annuvin and a cantrev lord seduced by Arawn's promises of power. It had been Adaon's first major battle, and his reactions had been similar to the bewildering mixed feelings he had had after fighting on Annest's behalf. In both episodes, the desire to right the outrage perpetrated on the vulnerable had mingled confusingly with uncertainty about the best means of combatting evil.
At the time he rode with Lord Gwydion Adaon had not been a complete novice in battle. He had already sallied forth on several occasions with forces that sought to control the depredations of outlaws in the northern hill countries. Fortunately, the warriors from Caer Dathyl had achieved their ends without much harm on either side, and at the time he prepared to fight the Huntsmen Adaon still had a certain starry-eyed idealism about the glories of warfare, an idealism reinforced by the countless battle lays he had read. Taliesin, well aware of the dangers of fighting Huntsmen—who had the nasty habit of becoming stronger as a group when one of their number was killed—was sick with anxiety following his son's departure. When, after an agonizingly long absence, Adaon returned safely with Gwydion and most of the warriors from Caer Dathyl, Taliesin had been weak-kneed with relief. Still, he had noted that Adaon, no longer flushed with enthusiasm, was markedly subdued. In the days that followed his return, his father tried gently to pierce his son's reserve, but his attempts met with a taciturnity that verged, most unusually for Adaon, on rudeness. Wisely, Taliesin did not press the matter but waited patiently, if anxiously. Finally, around a week after Adaon's return, Prince Gwydion appeared at the door of Taliesin's study.
Given that hereditary monarchy did not guarantee wise or just rulers, Taliesin was infinitely grateful he owed allegiance to the House of Don. Both King Math and his nephew Gwydion were the kind of royalty to whom one gladly paid homage. Since the Sons of Don had arrived in Prydain years ago from the Summer Country, they had taken upon themselves the task not only of providing a shield for their subjects against the Death-Lord but seeking tirelessly to bring about a lasting peace. These strenuous, and often seemingly futile, efforts had taken their toll on the members of the royal house. As aged King Math grew increasingly frailer, Gwydion, his war leader, bore the brunt of the ever-increasing responsibility to reign in the greed and violence both of Arawn and of the cantrev lords he drew to his side. Whenever, in fact, Taliesin saw Gwydion he felt a strange type of heartache.
It was not that Gwydion was bowed by the weight of his worries. His upright bearing, coupled with his lean figure and shaggy gray head, always reminded Taliesin of a bold and sagacious wolf. But the man was surrounded by an aura not so much of loneliness as of something even more poignant: an invincible, impenetrable aloneness. Perhaps there was loneliness—Taliesin remembered the wistful look in Gwydion's eye when he attended the Chief Bard's wedding—but the overpowering impression one received from the Prince of Don was that, though he scorned no one's help, in an emotional sense he was a man apart. Unlike King Math, whose wife had died long ago, Gwydion had never wed, a surprising choice for an heir to the throne of a king who himself had no children. If there were passions in Gwydion's past or present, they were, like the Prince's inner life itself, veiled by an inviolable privacy. But Taliesin always sensed that the true life-partner of the Prince of Don was his quest to defeat Arawn, and that all else took second place to this overwhelming and perhaps impossible goal.
When Gwydion, looking the lone wolf as usual, appeared at Taliesin's door, the Chief Bard bowed deeply and gestured him to a seat. Settling himself at the table where Taliesin sat, the prince smiled wearily but warmly nonetheless.
"I thought, my friend," he told Taliesin, "you might like to know how your son bore himself under my command." He smiled again. "He is a remarkable young man, as you doubtless know, though you have not judged him, as I have, in battle. He is a bold and skillful swordsman, though that was not what made him most valuable to me. It is his courage," he said simply, "that sets him apart."
"When we rode against the Huntsmen and the cantrev men," Gwydion went on, "your son was at the forefront of the attack. Without being rash—as the young so often are—he nevertheless went without hesitation where others might think twice of going. I myself was concerned when I saw him charge right into a brace of Huntsmen." He paused, seeing Taliesin blanch. "I am sorry to harrow you," the Prince continued gently, "but for several moments I feared we would lose him. Nonetheless, he fought free of the Huntsmen and somehow managed to drive them back. Perhaps," he smiled, "even they were startled to see your son galloping toward them with a great cry of battle. He fought," Gwydion continued, "with all the ardor of an avenging spirit. I have the distinct impression that he prizes peace more highly than war. It is, however, this very sentiment that drove him so vehemently against the Huntsmen. You see," he said gravely, "the day before we met them in battle we passed a village the Huntsmen had despoiled."
"They had done their worst, " Gwydion went on, a terrible light entering his green eyes, "and you know what that means for Huntsmen. They had, of course, not spared the aged, or the women and children. They had violated the women before slaying them, and had even thus outraged some of the children." He looked steadily at Taliesin. "Your son was the first to offer to bury the dead, who had been aboveground nearly a week. He gave a dignified burial to all he could, even as those of his comrades who could be persuaded to assist gagged from the stench. I saw his face," he concluded softly, "while he was burying one of the children. It is a wondrous thing to have a so great a heart, even if in this world it is destined often to be wounded."
"I would not," Gwydion said, rising, "be surprised if he has not yet spoken of any of this. Give him time. I feel sure he will come to you."
Indeed, the very next day Adaon stood in the doorway of Taliesin's study. When his father urged him to enter, the young man took a seat near his father and looked him straight in the eye.
"Forgive me," Adaon said, "for being so surly the last few days."
"You need not ask my forgiveness," Taliesin said gently. "I spoke yesterday with Lord Gwydion. He told me what you saw on your way to battle."
Adaon shook his head. "It was horrible, Father," he murmured. "More horrible than I could have imagined. The battle was dreadful too. It wasn't glorious at all."
"It never is, my son," Taliesin said softly.
"I guess I didn't really know that, even though I'd fought before," Adaon continued. "Some of the men fighting for their cantrev lord were so young, Father. It wasn't as if they had chosen to serve Arawn—that was the choice of the lord to whom they'd sworn allegiance. They looked so confused. Thank goodness I did not slay any, though," he smiled ruefully, "several tried to slay me. Not to mention the Huntsmen." He noticed Taliesin's sudden pallor and fell silent. When he spoke again, he looked closely at his father, as if hoping, but not sure, he would understand.
"I really need to go away now," he said. "You know I'd been planning to even before I went with Lord Gwydion. I've spoken to him as well about my plans, because I wasn't sure if he'd need me again anytime soon. He's not sure either, but he wants me to do first what I have to." He spread his hands before him on the table, gazing at them as if seeing them for the first time. "I have to find another way of using these hands, Father," he said finally. "I have to create with them, rather than destroy—at least, as much as I can, with Arawn reaching for our throats. But I need to find, and do, the work of peace."
Taliesin opened his mouth, then shut it again. Adaon regarded him searchingly. Then he smiled, a broad and brilliant smile that lit his hitherto somber gray eyes.
"Father," he said, laughter lurking in his words, "you're giving me The Look again."
"The Look?" Taliesin queried innocently, although he, too, was beginning to smile.
"Yes," Adaon replied. "The Look. The one you get when you're about to urge me to take my bardic exams."
Taliesin smile turned rueful. "In my defense, I did not go on to say what I started out to."
"No," Adaon laughed, "You didn't." He sighed, serious again. "You do understand, Father, don't you, why I have to learn other things first?"
"I think I do," Taliesin replied. "In any event, I, like Lord Gwydion, want you to listen to what your heart tells you." He stopped, remembering what Gwydion had said about Adaon's heart. "Do as you think best, with my blessing."
And so Adaon had left. As he arrived back at Caer Dathyl after his visit to Cerys's grave, Taliesin thought that perhaps soon his son would stand, as his father did now, before these white gates. "When shall we have him back, Cerys?" he wondered. "I hope it will be shortly."