Note: This is a companion piece to my fic"The Measure of Our Hearts," based on the characters of Adaon and Arianllyn from The Black Cauldron. You could call what follows a missing scene from the second part of that fic,"Arianllyn," in which Arianllyn remembers meeting Adaon when both were teenagers. "The Measure of Our Hearts" briefly describes the couple's first meeting: below is a more leisurely account of the second.
I have no idea, by the way, whether I will write any more vignettes of this duo. In any event, here's this one. As usual, the universe is Lloyd Alexander's, and it is my pleasure and privilege to play there.
In the Garden
A year had passed by the time Adaon and Arianllyn saw each other next. As before, Arianwen journeyed with her daughter to Caer Dathyl to share rare books with Taliesin, and the Chief Bard, smiling, told the girl she could find his son, as she had last time, in the gardens. Treading once again the peaceful, flower-lined paths, Arianllyn saw Adaon, by now fifteen and even taller than the year before, kneeling with a basket by his side in a lush space filled with fragrant herbs. As it had been a while since their last meeting, they greeted each other shyly. Yet their reserve evaporated as they discovered that, as on the previous occasion, they had something in common. Adaon, who was weeding as well as gathering herbs for cooking and medicines, knew vast amounts of herbal lore, a subject on which Arianllyn was also expert. Like Adaon, she was in charge of the home herb patch. They talked about problems they'd had growing particularly delicate plants, swapping tips on how to use their favorites as well.
After a while, having exhausted their store of mutual advice, they subsided into quiet absorption. By now Arianllyn was helping Adaon with the gardening, and they worked happily, kneeling on the grass, the golden haze of a summer afternoon shimmering around them. Despite being so close to the frenetic life of the castle, they were enclosed by a well of silence, broken only by the occasional hum of a bee.
Brushing a damp strand of hair from her forehead, Arianllyn finally spoke. "I didn't ask last time—do you have any brothers or sisters?"
A shadow of some emotion crossed Adaon's face and he gazed studiously at the plant he was pruning. Fearing she'd misstepped, Arianllyn spoke quickly. "I'm sorry if that wasn't the right question to ask."
Adaon smiled—a bit sadly, Arianllyn thought. "No, there's nothing wrong with asking. I don't have any brothers or sisters—it's just my father and me."
On her part, Arianllyn smiled sadly too. "That sounds familiar—it's just my mother and me rattling around our drafty old house." She took a breath, then asked,"Do you remember your mother? I don't remember my father—he died when I was two, and it's always bothered me I can't recall anything about him."
"I am sorry to hear that," Adaon said softly. He sat back on his heels and mopped his brow with the back of a sun-browned hand. "You make me realize how fortunate I am. I do have memories of my mother. She died when I was four, giving birth to my baby sister, who died too."
"How horrible," Arianllyn whispered.
He glanced at her long enough to nod an acknowledgement of her words, then looked back at the herbs. His gaze seemed to turn inward, as if he were staring at a spot she couldn't herself see. "One of my most vivid memories of her is when she was carrying the baby and put my hands on her big belly. It was out to here"—he held his hands at some distance from his body, smiling—"I could feel the baby kicking." The smile died from his lips and he became quite busy with one of the plants.
"Adaon," Arianllyn broke in. "You don't have to talk about this if you don't want to. Forgive me for bringing it up."
"No," Adaon replied, shaking his head, and looking up quickly from the herbs. "I don't mind. It's not like we've forgotten her, Father and I—he talks about her all the time, in fact. It's just that mostly he talks about her as she was when she was alive, about what books she read or what songs she liked. She was a bard too, you know," he added, a gleam of pride in his grey eyes. "But I try not to talk about her death to Father. I guess I don't want to bring back painful memories for him. Maybe not for myself, either. But"—he took a deep breath—"I think I want to talk about it now. At least it would help me remember what she meant to me." He took another breath. "I know, even if I can't recall much, that I was very close to her. She used to hold me in her arms and sing to me. She had a beautiful voice," he mused. "And her clothes smelled of lavender, and some other herb—strange, I think I know all about herbs and I can't tell you which one. It was lovely, though."
By now Arianllyn was sitting, cross-legged, on the ground, her serious gaze fixed on the young man's face. Adaon glanced at her, and then, looking down again at the plants, began to speak.
"I remember her death. Indeed, I think my ability to remember things that weren't just a flash or part of a scene began that day. My mother went into labor late in the morning. An old woman who sometimes took care of me brought me to her rooms to wait for everything to be over. I was very excited about the new baby, and after some hours—it seemed like forever—was unable to stay still long enough to play. By this time the afternoon was waning, and in addition to being excited I missed my parents. While the old woman—her name was Banwen—was fixing me something to eat, I slipped out of the room and ran down the hall towards my parents' chambers. I was almost there when I heard a sound I had never heard before, and which I had trouble identifying. I finally realized it was my father weeping—great racking sobs." Arianllyn looked at him, appalled.
"At that point Banwen caught up with me"—Adaon continued—"and I could see the horror on her face when she heard my father's sobs. She snatched me up and without a word ran with me back to her rooms. Once we got there, she held me in her arms and rocked me. I was frightened in a way I'd never been before, as if the ground were shifting under my feet. I cried at first, but even after I stopped I just held on to her tightly. It seemed ages before my father came. I was more frightened when I saw him. You've met my father—you know how serene and cheerful he is, how controlled. That day, he was white and shaken, tears still in his eyes. He silently held out his arms to me, and I leaped into them sobbing for my mother. He couldn't say anything—he just wept with me."
Adaon paused. Arianllyn was afraid to look at him, fearing to intrude on the remembered, little-boy grief that seemed to bear him far from the peaceful garden. Despite the warm sun she felt a chill running over her own body. It was not only the sadness of the tale that made her feel thus, though her heart ached for the brilliant young woman whose life had been so cruelly cut short. But it was also fear that sent icy currents through her veins. For all the learning she shared with Adaon's mother, she was, by virtue of her sex, equally vulnerable to the perils of childbirth. In such an exigency of the body her intellect would not protect her any more than it had this long-dead female bard. How did any woman in Prydain, she wondered, keep from dying of sheer terror before going into labor? She emerged from her brown study to find Adaon regarding her intently, a worried crease between his eyebrows. She felt a flare of compunction—after all, she had hoped to give sympathy rather than require it. She opened her mouth to speak, but Adaon, as if sensing her self-reproachful thoughts, cut in.
"I don't mean to distress you with these gloomy memories. There is little more to tell, anyway—I don't remember much else. I cried for my mother for some time after her death, and my father and Banwen, who by that point took care of me more frequently, comforted me as best they could. I think that, for a long while, tending me was the only thing that helped my father get by. He used to read to me at night, putting me to bed and playing the harp until I drifted off." He smiled, less gravely now.
"Your father sounds like a wonderful man," Arianllyn said.
"As wonderful as your mother, I should think," Adaon countered. "I am sure she took as good care of you when you were growing up as my father did of me."
"Yes, she did," Arianllyn admitted. They smiled at each other, the cloud cast by Adaon's story starting to lift. It was, after all, a summer's day, and they were young and indubitably alive. Arianllyn thought for a moment, then looked up mischievously at Adaon. "You know . . . " she said, and stopped.
"What?" Adaon queried.
"Well . . . " said Arianllyn. "I don't know how you feel about this, but what if our wonderful parents . . . well, what if they fell in love?"
The moment the words left her lips she wasn't sure how Adaon would respond to them. Perhaps he would get huffy at the thought of his mother's place being usurped by someone else. She was reassured, however, when he grinned broadly. "That would be marvelous!" he said. "They do have shared interests, after all—all these talks about books . . .Maybe it's only a matter of time . . . " he trailed off, reddening slightly.
"A matter of time before what?" Arianllyn pressed. He grinned self-consciously, then pressed ahead..
"A matter of time," he clarified, "before—well, before we are all one family."
"Brother and sister, you mean?" Arianllyn said, trying to sound casual.
"Well—something like that," he admitted, now a brighter red. They began to laugh, in great part to relieve the awkwardness that made Arianllyn blush too.
"Ah, here they are," said a familiar voice, affectionate and amused. Taliesin—who had spoken—stood with Arianwen a few paces away. Adaon and Arianllyn turned redder than ever. The same thought shot through both their brains—how could they not have noticed their parents' approach? And then—how much had their parents heard, anyway? Had they learned of their children's hopes that they become a couple? The teenagers guiltily caught each other's eye and glanced away to keep from giggling. Taliesin and Arianwen smiled tolerantly. When Adaon and Arianllyn dared look at them, they noticed a faint twitching at the corners of their parents' lips, as if each were also trying not to laugh.
"Do you think they heard us?" Arianllyn whispered to Adaon as the young people followed the grown-ups back to the castle.
"I don't know," Adaon admitted. "But, if they did, we may have alerted them to the possibilities!" They smiled conspiratorially at each other, aware that for their next meeting they would have a ready-made topic of conversation as they searched for signs of parental romance and even—who knows?—did their best to speed it along.