Disclaimer: I cannot thank Lloyd Alexander enough for creating these characters.
The line "Memory lives longer than what it remembers" is spoken by Taliesin in chapter 10 of The High King—p. 135 in my hardcover edition.
Out of the Ashes
He had not wielded a sword in battle these many years, and had hoped never to do so again. Still, given the ever-looming final confrontation with Arawn, it would have been foolish to get out of practice. And so, from time to time, he'd fish a blade from the bottom of a storage chest and remind himself how to use it. Despite his age, too, he had the constitution of a younger man. An indefatigible walker and rider, he'd made sure he didn't get soft from reading as much as he had to, being Chief Bard. On the whole, then, he was holding up fairly well on this long day of fighting. True, his wrist was sore from swinging a sword hour after hour, and he was sweating from exertion even in the wintry air, but all this was to be expected. He had probably been bothered by such things in the past but had conveniently forgotten them.
What Taliesin had not forgotten was the horror of war.
The battle swirled around him, waves of warriors crashing against each another in the confusion. Pryderi had brought hundreds of men to fight the Sons of Don and their allies, and as far as the eye could see were struggling bodies, spears, swords, horses. The clamor was deafening, and included the groans of the wounded and dying. In the background, the white stones of Caer Dathyl, stronghold of High King Math and his heir Prince Gwydion, gleamed serenely in the pale sun. Nothing less was at stake than control of the castle. Were Pryderi victorious, he would level Caer Dathyl in the name of his new master, Arawn, King of the Land of Death, to whose side he had defected after breaking his promise to send men to Gwydion's aid. The fall of the fortress built as a shield against Annuvin would be the gravest blow to the Sons of Don, and could well lead to the triumph of Arawn, who would then kill or enslave the inhabitants of Prydain.
Amid the battle fought over it the castle stood aloof as if it had its own secret inner life. Within its walls the aged High King awaited the outcome of the day's fighting. Astride his white steed Melyngar, Prince Gwydion led the Sons of Don and their forces on the field itself. He lacked, however, the might of his magic sword Dyrnwyn, the flaming weapon only he could draw, and whose theft by Arawn had precipitated this climactic conflict with Annuvin. Once in a while Taliesin thought he glimpsed Melyngar amid the fray, but it was hard to see from his post across the valley from Caer Dathyl.
From time to time he got a better view of one of the warrior-bards in his own company, Fflewddur Fflam, whose spiky yellow head stood out from the crowd, as did his astonishing mount, a horse-sized cat he had somehow acquired on his adventures. The tawny animal, tail bristling and claws sharp as a barrage of swords, must be frightening many of Pryderi's men half to death, especially since her rider was himself a force to be reckoned with. Taliesin found it reassuring to fight at Fflewddur's side. The bard-king (he had failed his examinations, but Taliesin still considered him an honorary bard) might have a runaway tongue that padded the truth. But he also had the best of hearts and the highest courage. In battle he was always at the thick of things and, miraculously, survived. Taliesin hoped his luck would hold. He hoped that all their luck would hold, although given the odds this seemed too good to be true.
Every so often, too, he caught sight of the windswept brown hair of Llawdden Son of Llawen. Llawdden—a handsome young bard with startlingly blue eyes—had been a rival in love of Taliesin's son Adaon, who had met his death some years ago in the quest to destroy the cauldron Arawn used to produce deathless warriors. Taliesin remembered how Llawdden had briefly, and unsuccessfully, courted Arianllyn, who became Adaon's betrothed instead. Taking his disappointment with good grace, Llawdden had gone on to marry Arddun, another young woman at the court. They now had a small daughter and a second child on the way. Taliesin could only imagine the anxiety with which Arddun awaited news of the battle with the Daughters of Don who, for safety's sake, had been sent from Caer Dathyl to the eastern strongholds.
By now it was late in the day, the wintry sun declining in the sky. Warrior after warrior hurled themselves against him. He was exhausted, yet spurred by an energy born of anger. For—though normally the gentlest of souls—he was angry today. Indeed, many of his antagonists were awed by the old man who, a terrible light in his gray eyes and his white hair streaming, fought with all the vigor of youth. Fool, fool, Taliesin thought as he engaged each in turn. You are fools to raise your hands against your own countrymen. Yet who was he really angry at? Once Adaon had told him about fighting the liege men of a lord who, like Pryderi, had sworn allegiance to Arawn. "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." Many of Pryderi's men were similarly young and bewildered.
For not the first time, Taliesin perceived the drawbacks of a system where a ruler's subjects were bound to serve him whatever the morality of his own choices. One should be able to refuse to take up arms against one's countrymen if one's leader turned traitor, or fought for no reason other than lust for power. And yet all around Taliesin were men speeding the progress of the Death Lord, whether they wanted or no, because they were bound by oath to serve their local ruler. Did none have the conscience to resist? Was that why Taliesin thought of them as fools? Or was it Pryderi, who had bound his men to share his own treachery, with whom Taliesin was angriest? Or was it the whole system of war and squabbling over land which depended on people's reluctance to listen to their inner sense of right?
Taliesin could not answer such abstract questions today. He did attempt to disarm, rather than to kill, his opponents, many of whom seemed scarcely fighting age. Admittedly, few seemed to have qualms about trying to kill him. Increasingly, he was heartsick. Only yesterday had they waited for Pryderi to arrive with reinforcements for the Sons of Don? Only yesterday had Caer Dathyl been his home—a home threatened by Arawn, turned into an armed camp, but still a place which he'd assumed, for a while at least, would keep a roof over his head? Had it truly been only yesterday he had sat in the cheerful Hall of Lore, the library piled to the rafters with books and housing beneath it the Hall of Bards, the archives only initated bards could enter? For years Taliesin had patiently tended, read, and augmented these collections, until they contained almost every poem and scholarly book ever written in Prydain. His throat tightened as he thought of the fate of these priceless stores were Pryderi victorious.
He remembered what his wife Cerys, herself a bard, had said to him many years before as they sat in the gardens behind the Hall of Lore. She had been pregnant at the time, not with their second child, to whom she had died giving birth, but with their firstborn, Adaon. Resting her hand protectively on her swelling stomach, she had worried about what would happen were Arawn to do what he now attempted, try to regain the control of Prydain he had once ceded to the Sons of Don. "Have you thought," she had asked Taliesin, "what it would be like to watch Caer Dathyl burn—everything, including the Hall of Lore, even the Hall of Bards?"
Taliesin hoped he was not about to find out.
The horror of the long, nightmarish day was finally overcoming him. He had lost so much already: his magnificent young wife; the newborn daughter who perished with her; his gentle, brilliant son, who could have become the greatest poet of his generation but had instead died in his early twenties. The loss of people was far worse than the loss of things—books, the spaces one inhabited. Still, on top of everything else, did he have to lose his home too?
Yet the fighting was becoming sporadic. There were fewer milling bodies in the valley, and the forces of Pryderi were falling back. Could the Sons of Don prevail? Might Taliesin reenter the home that yesterday he seemed certain to lose, along with his life and the lives of many others?
It had all happened so quickly the day before, the shift from hope to despair. So quickly that Taliesin was understandably wary of hoping again. Of course, he hadn't felt unalloyed hope even before Pryderi revealed his treachery. A tremor of unease passed through him as he looked down from the tower atop the Hall of Lore at the golden-haired king leading an endless stream of men toward Caer Dathyl. For a better view of this awesome sight Taliesin had led to the tower the group with whom he had just been speaking: Fflewddur Fflam, Taran of Caer Dallben, Princess Eilonwy of Llyr, kindly, scruffy Gurgi; and Coll Son of Collfrewr, who long ago had rescued the oracular pig Hen Wen from Annuvin. At the time, Taliesin said nothing about the odd sensation that coursed through him. He hoped it was just nerves, that fear of becoming too complacent that makes one distrust good outcomes and imagine bad ones instead. Still, Taliesin's intuitions hadn't often been wrong. Perhaps it was the magic powers he had never developed but which ran, latent, in his veins, perhaps it was his extraordinary wisdom, but he had a terrible suspicion that all was not as it seemed with Pryderi.
Or perhaps, he thought, as he took his seat shortly afterward to the left of Gwydion in the Great Hall along with the High King and the cantrev lords who had rallied to the Sons of Don, it was simply that he had never liked the son of Pwyll. He hadn't seen him all that often; Lord Gwydion knew him better from the battles they had fought together. Nonetheless, on the few occasions the golden-haired king had visited Caer Dathyl Taliesin found him only superficially charming. There was arrogance beneath the glittering surface, as well as immaturity, although Pryderi knew how to downplay both qualities. But from the instant the king strode into the Great Hall and folded his arms over his chest Taliesin knew his intuitions had been right. There was trouble ahead.
Still, it was with shock that he heard Pryderi insult the cantrev lords, scorning them as quarreling children who needed a firmer hand than they were getting from the Sons of Don. With sickening self-righteousness Pryderi made it sound as if he alone knew that Arawn's iron rule was best for Prydain. Before Pryderi had even demanded that Math and Gwydion surrender Caer Dathyl, Taliesin knew that the Prince of Don, too, sensed what was coming. At Pryderi's first arrogant words Gwydion shifted forward in his seat like a shaggy wolf smelling danger. Taliesin's heart ached for him. This was not the first friend in whom he had been disappointed.
For Pryderi was the second great traitor. There had been Morgant of Madoc, who had also turned against Gwydion some years ago, seizing Arawn's cauldron for himself and planning to use it to ensure his own domination of Prydain. At the time that Taliesin first heard of Morgant's treachery, and how he had been slain following the destruction of the cauldron, he had not had the mental energy to deal with the news. He had just learned of Adaon's death, a blow that swept all other thoughts from his mind. But now, seeing Pryderi strutting in the Great Hall, Taliesin compared Gwydion's two erstwhile friends. Taliesin had not cared much for Morgant either. Unlike Gwydion, who would much rather live at peace than not, the King of Madoc had loved war for the power it gave him. Had Gwydion misjudged Morgant and Pryderi, not seen their capacity for corruption?
Knowing Gwydion as he did, though—that is, knowing him as much as anyone could know that solitary, reserved soul—Taliesin guessed he had always been aware that the two kings could be seduced by power. But in both cases he had had no proof of impending treachery until too late. Morgant had, after all, saved Gwydion's life in battle more than once; Pryderi had fought bravely at the Prince of Don's side. Such were the perils of trust; it could lead to frightful hurt. The pain in Gwydion's voice as he told Pryderi that their only bond now could be the edge of a sword made Taliesin wince. Did those with the largest hearts always suffer most?
For himself, Taliesin had much ado to stifle his own anger at Pryderi, not just for his treachery but his stupidity. At least Morgant had not bothered to ally with Arawn; he wanted power all to himself. Pryderi, although he grandiloquently claimed the Lord of Annuvin would come to serve him, seemed to think he could manage this feat after swearing allegiance to Arawn. What an idiot, Taliesin thought. As he used the term he remembered an incident long ago in which ten-year-old Adaon had single-handedly taken on four boys for bullying a little girl who was what the world called an idiot. Taliesin had never thought of Annest or others like her that way. To be a true idiot one is not born slow-witted: rather, one squanders the brains one has been given. And Pryderi was doing just that. He had some nerve, too, walking into the Great Hall to announce his treachery to Gwydion. He knew the Sons of Don were too high-minded to slay him where he stood. Indeed, King Math forestalled a few cantrev lords who drew their swords by vowing death to anyone who so much as harmed a feather of the falcons Pryderi brought with him into the Great Hall.
Hearing the High King's edict an incongruous image entered Taliesin's mind. He was, after all, someone who saw the humor in almost everything. And so he pictured himself leaping on Pryderi just as Adaon had tackled the four bullies. Pryderi's men would probably finish him off if he did, but if not, what would Math do? Would he really order the head of the Chief Bard struck off for disobeying his command? Taliesin smiled as he imagined the High King's dilemma in a situation which, of course, never came to pass. As high-minded as anyone, Taliesin did not trounce Pryderi, much as he would have liked to. By the time the traitor king swept out of the room, though, such thoughts had given way in Taliesin's mind to horrified recognition of the probable fate of the inhabitants of Caer Dathyl:
They were all going to die.
And yet, here he was still alive on the battlefield the next afternoon, victory for the Sons of Don a real possibility as Pryderi's men fell back. In the respite from fighting Taliesin took stock of his injuries. Fortunately, none were serious. Before he had been able to fell one particularly vicious opponent, the man's sword had glanced along Taliesin's cheekbone, leaving a shallow cut that nonetheless hurt quite a bit. There had also been a strange incident in which Taliesin had felt a pain in his side. Looking down, he saw the shaft of an arrow sticking out of his jacket. Oddly, the arrow had not done serious damage; the prick he felt was a scratch from the tip just touching his skin. Too busy to figure out why he hadn't been skewered, he'd pulled the arrow out and tossed it aside. Nor could he puzzle now over his escape from death when it was finally possible to search the area for wounded who needed aid. Yet he could see few survivors, only stark forms on the ground. A terrible fear for his friends washed over him, and he glimpsed Fflewddur's yellow head some distance off with relief. But then he saw something that made him dismount and rush to a figure nearby.
Llawdden sprawled with his limbs at wild angles, his brilliant blue eyes blank and unseeing. Kneeling beside him, with as gentle a touch as he had once used to tuck his son into bed, Taliesin brushed shut the young man's lids and arranged the body more decorously. Laying one hand briefly on the cold forehead, he turned away, weeping.
His heart heavy, he had no stomach for revelling in a possible victory. When, in fact, he heard the sounds that heralded the conflict's final outcome, they did not surprise him.
A monotonous tramping filled the air, the pounding of hundreds of booted feet on the winter-hard earth. "The Cauldron-Born!" "The deathless warriors!" He heard agonized cries as Gwydion's men fell back. He saw the stark forms, their faces eternally rigid in the rictus of death, bearing an iron-tipped battering ram toward the castle.
It was over. Though its white walls still rose in the bloody glow of the dying sun, Caer Dathyl had fallen.
And whoever waited within was as good as dead. Taliesin wanted to look away. He did not want to see the ruler who had been his friend, whom he had loved and revered for many years, hewn down before his eyes. And yet he made himself look, though tears threatened to blind him. Amidst an eerie silence broken only by the sound of tramping feet, he and the horrified allies of the Sons of Don saw the battering ram penetrate the castle gates, saw the aged king totter out in a shroud-like cloak holding a sword. They saw the erect form disappear beneath the booted feet.
He could, finally, see no more. He looked away.
He scarcely looked back as he and the other survivors of Gwydion's forces were herded into the hills to the east of Caer Dathyl by Pryderi's men. Night was falling fast, the darkness lit only by the lurid glow of the burning castle. Numbed by the horror of Math's death, Taliesin did not at first feel the pain he'd expected at the destruction of his home and beloved libraries. It was only when they stopped, and he could clearly view the scene from the mountain height, that a sword seemed to pierce his heart.
Yes, Cerys, now I know what it feels like. Years ago I told you that if this happened we'd be too caught up in our own danger to mind as much as we would otherwise; but I was wrong. Watching the destruction of all I have helped build, of the treasures the Sons of Don have gathered for generations—it is every bit as horrible as you feared. It is unbearable.
Flames rose above what had been the Hall of Lore.
Taliesin covered his face with his hands.
He dozed only briefly through the long night. Wrapping themselves in their cloaks against the winter air, he and the others curled up as best they could on the rocky ground. Before he tried to sleep, Taliesin had helped as best he could with the injured, wishing he had his son's knowledge of healing herbs. He assisted a Commot man, an experienced healer, at an amputation—severing the crushed leg of a lad only in his teens. Without proper medicines, what would have been an agonizing procedure in any event became that much worse. While others pinioned the screaming boy, Taliesin held his hand and mopped his brow as the healer did his dreadful work. They made the young man as comfortable as they could afterwards. But he was greatly weakened by shock and loss of blood, and it was not clear whether he would live the night. If he did survive, he would have to cope with his terrible loss, and its effect on his ability to till the land in order to survive. Thinking of the pain and death that the past day had brought, Taliesin tried not to let hatred poison his heart. It was so easy to hate Arawn, to hate Pryderi, to hate everyone who served them. Taliesin did not want to give in to hatred.
Nor did he want to give in to despair. But that was becoming hard.
As first light brushed the sky he gave up trying to sleep and sat on a rock overlooking the remains of Caer Dathyl. During the night Pryderi's men had been busy. There were now only ruins jutting like broken teeth from the rubble. The Hall of Lore was a mass of ashes. Taliesin tried not to think of the books he loved vanishing in smoke, their parchment charring and crackling till not a wisp remained.
And yet not everything was gone. On that frenetic evening before the battle, as everyone strove to prepare for Pryderi's assault, Taliesin had saved several things from his own study, though he had felt torn about doing so. Even now, he wondered whether he had done right.
He had so wanted, of course, to save everything he could. He'd had wild thoughts of piling his favorite books onto the back of the horse he rode into battle, stuffing them into the saddlebags. Which would he save? But each saved meant another left behind. He quickly abandoned such schemes. If he could not save all, he could not save any. And he really couldn't load down his poor horse with weighty tomes, or even light ones for that matter.
But, yes, he had taken something. And he reasoned that this was not the same as saving guides to ancient runes or volumes of history or even the crumbling works of long-gone poets. No, the things he took were personal. Surely he had the right to do so, because was it fair for him to lose even these?
He'd brought away with him the small volume of Cerys's poems, as well as some in manuscript. He took the slim sheaf of Adaon's work. How much thicker would that packet have been had his son lived to develop his extraordinary talent. As it was, both he and Cerys had written innovative verse, lyrical utterances that celebrated not the deeds of warriors but the beauty of the world and the mysteries of the human heart. Taliesin could not leave these pages to burn, could not live out his remaining days unable to hear on the written page the voices of those he loved—all that remained of them above ground.
He had taken, too, a few of his own more personal verses, those inspired by his life with the family he had never thought to have, which he had gained only late in life, and which he had then lost. And yet not wholly lost. What had he told Fflewddur and his friends in the Hall of Lore? "Memory lives longer than what it remembers." To be with his wife and son he had only to recall the glorious record of days spent with them Did he, then, dare preserve these papers while allowing so much else to be destroyed? In the end, though, he tried not to worry too much about ethics when death waited at the door. And so he'd thrust book and parchments into his jacket.
His jacket . . . Something clicked into place.
Taliesin undid several buttons and reached his hand into his jacket, retrieving the papers. As he'd thought, a sharp object had pierced the thick wad right in the middle. Fortunately, despite the tear, not too many words had been lost. But what had slowed the arrow most was Cerys's book. Only the tip had penetrated the boards that wrapped it, just touching the skin near his heart.
His heart. The delicious irony pierced Taliesin's poet-soul. His heart still beat, thanks to protection provided by those dearest to his heart. Breathing thanks to the beloved shades of his wife and son, he threw back his head and laughed.
It was not the frantic laughter of one who would rather weep. It was pure, delighted mirth, the kind that Taliesin relished with all his wry and kindly soul. And so, as the night of despair ebbed, he briefly felt joy.
But amidst so much horror it is hard to be comforted for long. After the glow cast by his deliverance subsided, grief again threatened to overwhelm Taliesin. He walked to the place where the Commot men had been watching over the boy who lost his leg, and found the lad had died overnight. Returning to the rock overlooking the ruins of his home he sank onto it, the exhaustion and mental strain of the past few days flooding his being. He drew his cloak more tightly around him. This was not the coarse, unadorned warrior's cape he normally wore, but the green cloak with the intricate border that Adaon had made for him long ago on his travels. Taliesin had thought that, were he to fall in battle, he could have no better shroud. If he lived, he would at least preserve something his son had created in addition to his poems. Taliesin could not bring with him the graceful clay bowl Adaon had also made in the Commots, and which had rested on the table in Taliesin's chambers. At some point during the night, while all things of beauty in Caer Dathyl had been destroyed, that bowl too had been shattered. In his mind's eye he saw it breaking into jagged shards and fragments too small even to see.
He looked again toward the place that, for so long, had been his home. He remembered how he had taught his son at the lovely wood-grained table in the Hall of Lore, how he and his wife had read together there, how he and Cerys and Adaon had loved the peaceful gardens, with their patch of healing herbs, behind the libraries. Arianllyn, Adaon's betrothed, had brought the young man there to tell him of her love.
The garden was filled with ashes now. No graceful or growing thing was left there.
And, for not the first time in the past few days, Taliesin found himself unable to bear the pain of looking, of seeing what he had lost. Once again, he buried his face in his hands.
He did not know how long he had been sitting before he felt a hand on his shoulder. When he looked up the faint gray light illumined the tousled yellow head of Fflewddur Fflam. His face drawn with exhaustion, the bard-king gazed worriedly at Taliesin. At the same time Fflewddur seemed self-conscious, as if he feared to offend the Chief Bard. Recalling the reverence with which the younger man had dropped to his knee before him the other day, Taliesin thought it must be hard for him to comfort one he held in such awe. He smiled encouragingly at Fflewddur, who seemed relieved and who, after hesitating an instant, finally spoke.
"I don't know what to say—a first, I'm sure you'll admit." Fflewddur's lips curved wryly. "If I were to claim it was all going to come right, I'm sure every string of that old pot would snap." He glanced ruefully at the harp strapped to his back. Then, his face somber, he said, "I am sorry—about King Math, and Caer Dathyl. We've all received a dreadful blow, but it must be worse for you. I can't imagine it feels good to see your home go up in flames."
"No, my friend, " said Taliesin quietly. "No, it does not. But thank you for bringing me out of myself just now. I needed to be reminded of the friends I still have."
Someone else perched next to him and Fflewddur on the broad stone. Turning, Taliesin saw Princess Eilonwy. Relief flooded him she was still alive; he had feared her dead along with the other women left in the inner keep of Caer Dathyl. At least the princess of Llyr had escaped. Indeed, it seemed she had joined the fray: she wore the leggings and jacket of a warrior, her red-gold hair braided around her head. Like Fflewddur, she looked at him anxiously, and he realized that her eyes were as brilliantly blue as Llawdden's had been.
"Are you all right?" she asked, then answered her own question. "Though I can't imagine how you would be, after what's happened. I am sorry," she said softly, laying her hand on his arm. Then her gaze turned to the smoldering ruins of Caer Dathyl and she shuddered.
"It's horrible," she whispered. "I could have been in there, along with King Math, if I hadn't refused to wait around without fighting. I guess," she continued ruefully, "that, whatever the court ladies of Mona told me, being unladylike has its advantages."
Taliesin smiled. "My wife would have agreed." Seeing Eilonwy's questioning look, he explained. "After she passed her bardic examinations my wife dressed as a man so she could experience the life of a wandering bard. From what she told me after we wed, I gather she quite enjoyed herself."
"I'd heard of her doing that," murmured Fflewddur. "I wondered whether it was true."
"Oh, it was," Taliesin assured him. Turning to Eilonwy, he said, "Cerys was not about to let convention prevent her from developing her talents. She never regretted her choices."
Eilonwy regarded him searchingly. "Was she Adaon's mother?"
"Yes," answered Taliesin quietly, "yes, she was. Alas, she died many years ago."
Eilonwy's face clouded. "You have lost so much. I don't know what to say," she confessed.
He met her gaze, then said softly, "There is something you can say—or, rather, something you can tell me."
He saw at once she understood him.
"Now?" she whispered. "You want me to tell you now, after everything that's happened?" She glanced toward the still-smoking ruins.
"If not now, when?" replied Taliesin. "For all we know, there will not be another chance." He noticed that Fflewddur looked confused. Before he could explain, though, Eilonwy did.
"He would like us," she said slowly, "to tell us about Adaon, before he died. That is what you want, isn't it?" she asked Taliesin. He nodded.
Fflewddur looked both sad and worried. "The princess has a point," he told Taliesin, "this may not be the best time to remind you of another great sorrow. And," he queried, "are you really sure you want to know?"
"Yes," declared Taliesin firmly, "I am sure." He tried to explain. "Whatever knowledge I have of him bridges the gulf that death has opened between us. And," he went on firmly, "there is much I already know. You, my friend"—he turned to Fflewddur—"told Lord Gwydion much that he passed on to me, when he brought me the news. As did Taran of Caer Dallben, who, if I am not mistaken, was with Adaon when he died, along with you, Princess, and Gurgi."
"Yes," admitted Eilonwy, "yes, Taran was there, and I was too." She shivered at the memory. Gurgi, who for some time had been crouching irresolute near the rock on which they sat, now crept forward, his hairy face puckered with sorrow. Eilonwy gave him a reassuring smile and added to Taliesin, " I would suggest you speak to Taran," she said, "but I haven't seen him since we arrived here last night. And I think that he might have a hard time talking about Adaon. He still feels badly about what happened, that he was somehow responsible."
"Yes," came a voice close by. "Yes, I still do feel that."
Taran, as exhausted and disheveled as the rest of them, knelt swiftly in front of Taliesin, his eyes on the Chief Bard's.
"I heard you talking about Adaon's death, and how you'd like to know more about it. I am sorry for reminding you of it the other day by mentioning I was with him when he died. And," he went on, "I am sorry for a great deal more." Full-grown war leader though he was, his troubled face looked very young. "I'm not sure how much you know about what happened. If you did, maybe you could not bear to look at me. I sent your son to his death, He would not have died, if I hadn't insisted we press on to Morva. We could have gone back to Caer Cadarn . . . "
Taliesin interrupted him. "I know," he said gently, "about the Marshes, and Adaon's dream. I know my son let you decide whether to seek the cauldron or return to Caer Cadarn. He knew his destiny, and accepted it." Taliesin's voice shook slightly, but he held the young man's gaze. "It is hard for those of us who loved him to know he had to resign himself to leaving us. But he did, and by doing so was the one in control even when he seemed not to be. You must accept your part in destiny's plan, even as Adaon accepted his."
"But there is more," whispered Taran. "It wasn't just that I decided to go to Morva. Adaon gave his life for mine. The Huntsman was about to throw the dagger at me. Adaon shielded me, taking the blow himself." He shook his head. "If only I hadn't frozen when I saw the Huntsman raise the blade . . . "
Taliesin briefly laid his hand on Taran's forehead. "Enough," he said. "Be at peace. You surely know," he glanced down at the stark figures in the valley below, "what it is like, in battle, to wish to save a friend. Which of us could hope for a better end? And against Arawn, king of hatred, what weapons could be stronger than those of love and friendship?"
Seeing that Taran still looked troubled, Taliesin went on. "His end was destined long before that journey to Morva. My wife sensed it even as she carried him. Like you, Princess," he turned to Eilonwy, "she had the blood of enchantresses in her veins, and had a premonition, though she knew not its meaning at the time, of his death at the hands of the Huntsmen." Indeed, when Gwydion told him his son had died of a dagger in his breast, Taliesin had felt a sickening jolt. He suddenly remembered Cerys, on that long-ago day in the garden, going into a trance when he mentioned the Huntsmen and clutching the bosom of her dress. When she released her grip, her hand had instinctively cradled the child in her womb. This, then, was what her vision foretold: the death of the son she wished to protect.
"I remember," Taliesin told the others, "how my wife was greatly troubled by what she experienced, even without understanding what it portended. She worried, too, about Caer Dathyl falling in a final conflict with Arawn. But she also told me that the answer to Arawn would not be hatred but love. She was sure it would be the love of someone giving his life for a friend that would help defeat the might of Annuvin. And indeed," he said softly, gazing at Taran, "who knows what role you, who my son saved, shall yet play in this final struggle? But whatever comes, do not torment yourself with guilt."
"You remind me," Taran murmured, "that Adaon also spoke to me about the power of love. He told me that it was necessary to love as much as we could in this world, that the more we find to love'—he searched for the rest of the words—the more we add to the measure of our hearts'."
He looked at Taliesin, his face somber but no longer troubled. "Shall we tell you," he asked, "what you want to know—about your son's last days?" Taliesin nodded.
And so they told him. Mostly it was Taran who spoke, but the others joined in from time to time. By the time they had finished, the full light of dawn filled the sky.
Taliesin sat, as he had through the whole recital, his face partly shaded by one hand. When he looked up they saw tears in his eyes, but he smiled at them nonetheless.
"Thank you," he said, simply. "You have given me a great gift. It is not unmixed with sorrow, but it is cherished for all that."
They were silent a moment. Then Eilonwy spoke.
"That young woman he was going to wed—what was her name? Arianllyn?—what happened to her? Is she," the princess hesitated, "is she still alive?"
Taliesin smiled more broadly now. "Arianllyn is very much alive," he answered. "Fate dealt her a shattering blow. But it did not break her. She has learned how to live again, not merely to exist."
"Where is she now?" Eilonwy went on. "Does she live in one of the northern kingdoms?"
"She once did," Taliesin said, "but before she and Adaon became betrothed she and her mother moved to Caer Dathyl." He noticed their looks of concern. "Do not fear. She is in the eastern strongholds now, with the other ladies from Caer Dathyl. Not," he smiled, "that it was her desire to go thence with her mother. Were it her choice, Princess," he said, "she would have joined you in battle. But she has other responsibilities now, with the child."
Seeing their startled glances, he explained. "It is not her child by birth." He shook his head sadly. "That was not to be. She has not closed her heart to the possibility of love, but she has found it elsewhere than in marriage, at least for now. She adopted a child—a little girl—several years ago. It is for the child's sake she left Caer Dathyl for safety with her mother. I can imagine," he now looked amused, "that Arianwen is spoiling her adopted grandchild as much as Arianllyn will let her."
"Indeed," he said, "Arianllyn has taught me much about how to live even when one's heart seems broken beyond repair." The image of Adaon's now-shattered bowl flitted through his mind. "She is known as a master weaver, and passed her bardic examinations as well. After Adaon's death, she studied the ways of midwives and healers so she could minister to the sick and women with child. She took her skills to an impoverished village where Adaon had lived for a time, before that final quest, helping the inhabitants improve their crops. She told me she wanted work to do—as hard and challenging as possible."
"During her stay," Taliesin continued, "I believe her loom clothed the entire village, and she taught many of the children to read while serving as the town's midwife and healer. When a young widow without family died in childbirth, leaving a little girl, Arianllyn took the baby. She told me this one new life has given her renewed reason to live as well. When the villagers were no longer as needy, she left to find a place where others were, and was staying for a few months at Caer Dathyl when Arawn provoked this conflict. Surely," he added, "Arianllyn will now find even more healing work that needs doing. I am sure she is impatient to get started."
"After this bloodshed," murmured Eilonwy, "there will have to be so much healing." She did not add "if Arawn is defeated." Hearing Arianllyn's story seemed to have given her new resolve, and she sat up straighter on the rock. "That is the way we have to think, isn't it," she mused, "if we are to get through this? That if we survive we will be able to rebuild our lives, even if we have to do it from the ground up?"
They looked toward the ruined castle, bathed now in bright light.
"Will it ever rise again?" wondered Taran.
"Out of the ashes of our greatest sorrows," said Taliesin, "rise our dearest hopes."
Author's note:
"Taliesin came to stand before them and, taking up Fflewddur's harp, sang a lament for the slain. Amid the black pines the voice of the Chief Bard rose in deep sorrow, yet it was sorrow without despair; and while the notes of the harp were heavy laden with mourning they held, as well, the clear strains of life and hope."
The High King, chapter 12
In this story I have tried to fill two gaps concerning Taliesin in The High King. The first is simply to imagine how the fall of Caer Dathyl would have affected him. In the scene before Pryderi's arrival when we first meet Taliesin, and he speaks with the companions in the Hall of Lore, Alexander does a typically masterful job of conveying the Chief Bard's combination of "ancient wisdom" with "good humor." When we next hear Taliesin's voice, he is singing a lament for the slain following the catastrophic battle of Caer Dathyl. How do we bridge the gap between the two scenes? Significantly, Taliesin's lament is shot through with hope, which Alexander has elsewhere claimed is the "Ariadne's thread to guide us out of the labyrinth" of despair. Yet even the most unquenchably optimistic person could hardly experience the fall of Caer Dathyl as anything short of devastating. Taliesin would surely have found the death of King Math and the loss of his home traumatic, but let's also not forget those incinerated libraries. I certainly can't. As a scholar I cannot even begin to imagine the destruction of archives like those (remember, there are probably few multiple copies of books in Prydain). The closest parallel in our times would be if the British Library—probably the world's biggest rare-book depository—went up in flames. Believe me, if that happened, I'd howl, and I'm not even head librarian.
The second gap I attempt to fill is one which, I confess, has always bothered me, and concerns Taliesin's response—or more accurately, lack of response—to Taran's mentioning Adaon's death in the Hall of Lore scene. If you've read my fics, you know I am a major Adaon junkie. When I first read The High King at age eleven—after wandering Adaon-less through several books—I was overjoyed to meet my favorite character's father (who I have since come to see as far more than just next-best thing to his son). Still, I was troubled that when Taran says "I was with your son when he met his death," Taliesin doesn't ask for more information. Why not?
Now, even at eleven I knew the show was not about to stop for an extended Adaon nostalgia fest. Taliesin has just been talking about types of wisdom, and Taran mentions Adaon's death in order to illustrate his own lack of wisdom as a result of losing Adaon's enchanted brooch. Taliesin's role in the scene is not to be a grieving father but a mentor who reassures Taran that wisdom born of suffering is actually the most potent kind. And yet I was still always bothered by Taliesin's silence. We do not even know how much he knows about the circumstances of Adaon's death; wouldn't it make sense for him to ask Taran and the others at least a few questions about what happened?
So in my story I address this gap, because I refuse to believe that Taliesin wouldn't have wanted to hear about his son's death from those who were actually present. As I do so, though, I admit that I now see Taliesin's silence differently than I had for so many years. I have only come to this realization through writing these fics, and I bring it to your attention as an example of how the Prydain chronicles reward those who reread them as adults.
Let's put it this way. The chronicles are two narratives, one written and the other not. The written version, needless to say, is the one we have, the books targeting an audience of older children and teens. This version is a map to the second, unwritten one, in which we are invited to read between the lines on the printed page. There are depths, of course, in the written version—otherwise, why would we reread it at all?—but there's a lot purposefully left out, both because we're meant to focus on Taran, and because some subjects are too difficult for children to explore. But, if we're ready to go there, the map points the way.
With that in mind, let's go back to the Hall of Lore. Here is the dialogue between Taliesin and Taran in which Adaon's death is mentioned:
"Alas for my own wisdom,' said Taran. I was with your son when he met his death. He gave me a brooch of great power, and while I wore it there was much I understood and much that was hidden grew clear to me. The brooch is no longer mine, if indeed it ever truly was. What I knew then I remember only as a dream lingering beyond my power to grasp it.'
A shade of sorrow passed over Taliesin's face. There are those,' he said gently, 'who must first learn loss, despair, and grief. Of all paths to wisdom, this is the cruelest and longest. Are you one who must follow such a way? This even I cannot know. If you are, take heart nonetheless. Those who reach the end do more than gain wisdom. As rough wool becomes cloth, and crude clay a vessel, so do they change and fashion wisdom for others, and what they give back is greater than what they won.'"
Don't think I never noticed the "shade of sorrow" on Taliesin's face at Taran's words. In The Prydain Companion, Michael Tunnell attributes this sorrow to Taliesin's being "saddened by the thought of his son." I agree. Yet I've also always read Taliesin's sorrow as partly being pity for Taran. Between that, and my disappointment that Taliesin doesn't ask about Adaon, I'd heard the Chief Bard's words coming from some height of detached, sage-like wisdom. Only now do I see my error. For, even without mentioning Adaon, isn't Taliesin talking to Taran about his own experience? "There are those . . . who must first learn loss, despair, and grief."
I'd always wondered how Taliesin could be so cheerful after losing a son like Adaon. But, as one grows older, one discovers that one's own grief does not cause the globe to stop spinning. It's a cliché that life goes on, but it truly does, whether or not your heart is peppered with holes. There are ways of dealing with this fact. One is to give in to despair; the other is to go on hoping and loving even when those you loved and hoped for most are gone forever.
As I've tried to point out in this fic, Taliesin has lost so much. I've added to his grief by imagining the death of a newborn daughter. My imagination aside, though, we know that Taliesin has lost his son, and presumably his wife as well. (In a letter responding to my questions about Adaon, Lloyd Alexander confirmed that his mother would have been long dead by the time of The Black Cauldron.) Since Taliesin is quite old by the time of The High King and Adaon died quite young (again, Alexander said he would have been only in his early twenties), Taliesin gained his family late in life—and then lost them all. To survive such a shattering blow, one has to be the kind of person who can spin straw into gold—or, to recall Taliesin's words, someone who somehow weaves "loss, despair, and grief" into miraculously rich cloth.
Yes, maybe if Pryderi hadn't come knocking at the door Taliesin would have gone on to ask Taran about Adaon's death. But, after three decades, I finally figured out he is already beginning to reveal the effect of his son's death on him in his—truly heartfelt—advice to Taran. Amazing, isn't it? It's what I always tell my students: you can mine new treasures even after reading the same book a zillion times.
And now: I would like to thank everyone who has read, reviewed, and supported my first adult attempts at telling stories rather than just teaching them. After years of what seemed a solitary obsession, it's been wonderful discovering a community of Prydain-lovers. I say these valedictory words because as of this moment I'm not sure whether I will write any more Prydain fics. I know I've said this before. And, for all I know, I might be back next month with a new story. But since I first wrote "The Measure of Our Hearts" in August, I've always been able to see ahead to the next fic. Now I can't. (If you have any plot suggestions, of course, please do run them by me.) Whether I write more or not, I will be delighted to "beta read" other Prydain fics, as I believe the lingo is for proof-reading, responding, etc., before a fic is posted. May Prydain plot bunnies hop merrily along all our paths, breeding like rabbits . . . Okay, kill that metaphor. But let us continue to be inspired by Prydain!