I liked him at once, and asked him about Caer Lial and the Pendragon. He answered me forthrightly and began to tell me about the ordering of the Pendragon’s house and all I should know to be part of it.
He also told me about the Great Emrys, although I had been hearing stories of him since I was old enough to hear anything. The more he talked, the faster beat my heart to think that soon I would be meeting this exalted person in the flesh. I was nearly overwhelmed by the thought. Me, Aneirin, serving the Chief Bard of the Island of the Mighty!
At midday we left the old track and turned due west into the hills. But a while later we dropped down into the vale of Nith and followed the river a little south to a sand-bounded peninsula. Here, on the foundation of an ancient hillfort was Arthur’s rotunda erected. As we approached, I could see the shapely form rising sharp against the sky. The hill on which it sat overlooked the sea, and at first I wondered at the wisdom of placing this secret edifice on a promontory where any passing ship could see it. But upon reaching the place I learned that although the expanse of sea was in full view of the hill, the rotunda itself remained below the crest of the mound and well out of sight of the casual observer.
We dismounted at the foot of the hill near some tents which had been set up for the laborers who worked on the shrine. These were empty now; there was no one else around. So, as Tegyr set about tethering the horses, I walked up to the shrine for a closer look.
The rotunda itself appeared strange to my eyes. Certainly, I had never seen a building like it: fully round, constructed on a series of circular stone foundations or tables of diminishing size, narrower at the entrance and then swelling gracefully out before curving inward as it rose to meet the sky. At first sight the thing appeared nothing more than an immense beehive of the kind often made of braided rope—but far more graceful and imposing. Indeed, the size and beauty of the rotunda and its situation on the sea inspired peace. The eye savored the rising curve of the dome, the sea played upon the ear, and the soul drank in the tranquillity of the holy place.
I gazed upon the sacred edifice and felt my spirit yearn to be part of all that this holy shrine symbolized: peace, beauty, honor, valor, courage…It was the Kingdom of Summer distilled into stone.
And such stone! The subtle blues and greys and whites were so worked to give light and color and shape to the whole in such a clever way that I did not wonder men passing by would not see it. The hues of sky and sea and cloud were its colors, and in certain lights and at certain times of day it would all but vanish.
If my first glimpse of the shrine awoke in me the desire to draw near and pray, my first glance at the Wise Emrys provoked the opposite effect. He came charging out from the interior of the rotunda, a mason’s hammer in his upraised hand. “Halt!” he called in a voice that would have cowed a charging bull. I stopped and he flew toward me.
He was tall, much taller than I expected, and much younger. He was reputed to be of the Fair Folk, yet I had imagined him a very old man: he had known Vortigern; he had known Saint Dafyd; he had met Macsen Wledig! He was ancient!
Yet the man bearing down upon me was no older in appearance than my own father. His hair was dark and full, with only a fleck of silver here and there. Though his brow was lined, his countenance was still unwrinkled, and there were no creases about his eyes. His eyes! They were clear and deep and the color of bright gold. I thought immediately of the soaring hawk and hunting wolf.
“I thought you were blind!” I blurted out the first thing that came into my head.
“I was, but no longer,” he replied. “Who are you and what do you want here?”
Tegyr, who had been tending the horses, came running to my aid. The Emrys turned on him. “Tegyr, it is you. Why do you come here like this?”
“Forgive me, Emrys, I should have signalled our arrival.” He glanced at the shrine soaring above us. “The work is going well, Emrys. It is beautiful.”
The Emrys turned and glanced over his shoulder. “It is nearly finished—at last,” he said. “Only a few small matters remain.” Then he turned back to me. “But you, boy—you have not answered me,” he said abruptly.
“My lord?”
“Your name—if you have one. What are you called?” He gazed so fiercely into my eyes that I felt his touch upon my soul and quite forgot who or what I was.
“An-…Aneirin,” I stammered uncertainly. My own name sounded strange and unnatural in my ears. “I am Aneirin ap Caw, Emrys.”
The Great Emrys tossed his head. “You are well named, boy. Aptly named.” To Tegyr he said, “Why is he here?”
“Cai has sent him, Emrys. He is to help you. If you do not wish him to stay, I will take him away.”
The Emrys regarded me narrowly. I could already feel myself in the saddle and heading back to Caer Lial. My heart sank to my feet. Most wretched of men, I felt myself rejected.
But the Emrys needed the help of two willing hands. I do not flatter myself that it was anything more than that. Yet, it was enough for me. “Since he is here, let him stay,” the Emrys said, and I was saved.
“Emrys,” said Tegyr, “I must return to Caer Lial at once. Is there anything you require? I will have it brought.”
“Only this: bring word when Gwenhwyvar has returned. I will have a message for her then.”
“It will be done, Lord Emrys.” Tegyr turned and hurried away. I saw that he took my horse with him.
I turned to find the Emrys already striding up the hill. I ran after him. “What would you have me do, lord?”
Without stopping or turning around, he called back, “Do you know how to make a broom?”
I had never made one, but I had seen it done often enough by the women at Trath Gwryd. “I think so,” I answered.
“Then make one!” the Emrys said, and continued on. I spent the rest of the day gathering the various twigs and sticks I would need, and then set about trying to build the thing. I did not presume to enter the rotunda, or even to go near it. I went about my task and kept to myself.
At dusk the Emrys emerged and called me to him. “Are you hungry, Aneirin ap Caw?” the Emrys asked when I had climbed the gentle slope to the top of the hill. He pointed to his feet, and I saw that a bundle lay before him upon the steps of the shrine. The Emrys sat down and unwrapped the rags made of dried and woven grass. Inside was new cheese and tough black bread, and a small joint of cold roast mutton. “This is brought to me by the people hereabouts.”
“There are people?” Well I might ask. I had seen no sign of any holding or habitation since leaving the king’s city. And except for the laborer’s tents, I saw no place where men might dwell.
“Hill Folk,” he replied, and touched the tip of a finger to the faded blue fhain mark tattooed on his cheek. “I once was one of them.”
The Emrys of Britain broke the bread in his hands and handed me half the loaf. “Come, take it, eat. You will not taste better.”
Hill Folk food! I had heard all about the bhean sidhe, of course—as who would not, growing up in the northern hills? But I had never seen one of these mysterious creatures, nor did I know anyone who had. They might as well be Otherworld beings, for all we knew of them. Many reasonable men doubted their existence altogether.
I stared at the dense, black loaf in my hand. It was bread, to be sure, but it smelled of fennel and other herbs I could not name. “Eat, boy!” the Emrys told me. “You cannot work if you do not eat—and I mean you to work.”
Lifting a corner of the loaf to my mouth, I bit off a chunk and chewed. The Emrys spoke truly; the bread was good. I had never tasted better and told him so.
The Emrys sat down on the step, but since he did not bid me to join him, I stood to eat my meal. I fell at once to gazing out onto the sea to the west, and southward to the pale green hills across the bay. The breeze off the sea was cool. Larksong showered down from the clear blue sky, and I tilted my head back, shading my eyes with my hands and squinting into the airy void. I could scarce see the larks, so h
igh did they fly.
“Fort of the Larks,” said the Emrys. “That is what this place was called. Long have the larks enjoyed the use of it. Now it belongs to Arthur.”
It was his voice that fascinated me. Infinitely expressive, it served him in any manner he wished. When he lashed, it could have raised welts on a stone. When he soothed, it could have shamed nightingales into silence. And when he commanded, mountains and valleys exchanged places.
After we finished our meal, he took me inside the rotunda, which was even more remarkable than its exterior. For rather than the cold, dark, cave-like appearance I expected, the interior was open, airy, and light. The domed roof remained open to the sky, providing ample light to pour down gently curving sides of dressed white stone.
The Great Emrys spread his arms and turned slowly, indicating the perfect circularity of the shrine. “This,” he said as he revolved, “this is the Omphalos of Britain.”
As I remained silent, he asked, “Have you never heard that word before?”
“No, Lord Emrys, I have not.”
“It is the sacred center. All things have a center. For the Kingdom of Summer, the center is here.”
I pondered this for a moment. “I thought—” I began. “…that is, I heard that Ynys Avallach held that prominence.”
“The Glass Isle? No…” He shook his head. “I know what men say of the Tor, but that belongs to another…”
Another what, he did not say. “Besides,” he continued briskly, “the Fisher King is not long there. There are too many people nearby—the south is becoming too crowded. I have prevailed upon Avallach and my mother to establish themselves in the north.”
I knew of the Fisher King, and Charis, the Lady of the Lake, next to Gwenhwyvar reputed to be the most beautiful woman in Britain. “They are coming here?”
“Not here, but near. There is an island where Arthur has granted them lands,” he told me.
I slept that night in one of the workers’ tents; the Emrys slept in the rotunda. In the morning I awoke, took my broom, and went up to him. He greeted me and bade me enter.
Hesitantly, I stepped up to the entrance and glanced around the inside of the shrine. In the center, beneath the all-seeing eye of the open dome, sat an immense stone chair, or throne, carved of a single slab of living rock and placed on its own raised table of stone. The curved inner walls were ledged with a series of ringed stones, hundreds of them, each one forming a small niche of its own. It seemed to me much like the bone houses of elder times with their skull nooks—crevices carved out of stone to hold the severed heads of venerated ancestors.
All appeared finished, the white stone gleaming. “What would you have me do, Lord Emrys?”
“Sweep,” he told me. The Emrys turned to a table, unwrapped a leather pouch that lay there, and withdrew tools: an iron hammer, a chisel, and a scribe for marking stone. He took up the hammer and turned once more to the nearest stone ledge and began inscribing letters on the smooth face.
“A name, Lord Emrys?”
“The names of those who have attained the Round Table will be recorded here,” he explained. “Those who have distinguished themselves in the service of the Summer Realm will have their names cut in the stone. When death finds them, that will be recorded too, and their bodies buried within the sacred precinct, so that their renown will not pass out of this worlds-realm.”
Understanding came to me at last. The tabled rotunda was to be a place of spiritual refuge, a haven of tranquillity dedicated to the Prince of Peace, a reliquary of great holiness and honor, where the names and arms of great men could be venerated, a memorial to deeds of courage and valor.
Thus, I entered my servitude. I swept, carried water, gathered firewood, tended the camp, and, when I was not otherwise occupied, washed the stone—time and again I washed it. When I finished, I swept the interior of the rotunda and washed it again. I scrubbed it till the stone gleamed.
Daily the food came. Sometimes in the morning when we rose I would go down to the stream below the hill and fetch it from the hollow bole of a willow. Other times we would emerge from the shrine, hungry from our work, to find the woven-grass bundle on the topmost step. Never did I see those who left it, nor could I guess whence they came.
Day by day, the names were chiseled into stone. Some of the names I recognized, most I did not. Sometimes the Emrys would tell me about the man whose name he etched. More often, we worked in silence. But it was never a lonely silence. I knew the Emrys’ thoughts were full, as were my own. Just being near him proved instructive and edifying. Still, I liked it best when he sang.
After a while, I little noted the passing of the days. My hands grew strong and tough. My life was a steady-beaten rhythm of work and rest. I desired nothing more. When one day I heard a call outside, I actually resented the interruption, although I had seen no other human being besides the Emrys since the day I arrived.
The Emrys laid aside down his square and scribe. “That is Tegyr with a message. Let us see what he brings us.”
It seemed an intrusion, but I reluctantly put down my broom and followed him out. Tegyr was there at the foot of the hill, and someone else with him: a warrior, I could tell by the size of him. One of Arthur’s captains, I guessed. He was dark, with deep-set eyes and a high, handsome brow. There were scars on his arms and hands, and on his left cheek.
The battlechief regarded me placidly before turning his attention to the hill and the shrine, now cool blue-white in the westering sun. “Hail, Myrddin Emrys!” he called as we approached. “What is this I am hearing about you? They say you have gone into your invisible fortress and will never more return.”
“Hail, Bedwyr!” cried the Emrys. “It is that much like you to believe the idle gossip you hear.”
The two embraced like kinsmen and, linking arms, began walking up the hill. Tegyr, smiling silently, followed and I came on behind.
“It is beautiful,” breathed Bedwyr. “Truly beautiful. Arthur will be honored. And the queen will establish a perpetual choir to sing your praises!”
“Has Gwenhwyvar returned?”
“Yes. Tegyr said you asked him to bring word when she arrived, so I thought to come with him. I wanted to see what you had accomplished since I was last here. Do you object?”
“Never. Besides, we are nearly finished as you can see. I will return with you to Caer Lial tomorrow.”
I listened to their talk and learned that the queen had been away in the south helping with the Fair Folk migration from Ynys Avallach to the chosen island in the north. Arthur meantime held council at Caer Melyn and Caer Lundein. He was not expected to return before Lugnasadh. This would give the queen time to make her last inspection of the monument, and to arrange the ceremony and celebration of its completion.
Bedwyr and Tegyr spent the night with us and all of the next day, while the Emrys finished his work. All three left the following day, but I stayed at the rotunda to sweep out the last of the dust and stone-chips, and to wash the floor and ledges. The Emrys was to return in two or three days with the queen.
As soon as the others left, I worked through the day without cease until finishing. It was dusk when I finally sat down to rest and eat. Though the sun had set long before, the sky at that time of year does not grow completely dark. Therefore did I enjoy a pleasant evening—sitting alone on my hill, monarch of all I surveyed, watching sea gulls dive and glide in the clear evening air.
I had not made my fire. There was light enough yet, and the night chill had not settled on the hill. I ate my sweet, dark bread and cold roast mutton, and then rose to find my water jar. I had left it inside the shrine, so went in to fetch it.
The interior of the rotunda was dark now, but I had little trouble finding the jar. I drank my fill and turned to go outside. As I turned, however, a figure appeared in the arched doorway—dark against the lighter sky beyond.
I froze, gripping the water jar tight in my hand lest I drop it.
The stranger stood full in th
e doorway, motionless, peering into the shrine. I do not believe he could see me in the darkness, but I imagined his eyes stripping away the shadow and revealing me. No, it was more than imagined, I think: I really felt something—the force of his presence perhaps, groping, searching, penetrating the obscurity, and finally brushing against me. That fleeting touch chilled me, and my heart lurched in my chest.
Blessed Jesu, Bright Protector, save me! I prayed—though I do not know why.
All at once, the figure turned and disappeared. I heard only the swish of a cloak and nothing more. I waited for a moment—but only that—and then crept slowly to the entrance. Peering cautiously outside, I looked left and right before emerging. I made a quick circuit around the shrine. The stranger had gone, I decided; there was no one on the hill or below it.
Where had he gone? I heard no horse, and it did not seem possible that anyone could arrive and depart so quickly. Perhaps I had simply imagined seeing someone.
Nevertheless, I slept inside the rotunda and without a fire that night lest I should attract any more intruders with my light. In the morning I found the bundle on the steps and suddenly felt very foolish.
My intruder was only one of the Hill Folk who brought the food each day. He had brought me this bundle and, not seeing anyone about, stopped to look inside the shrine. I had at long last chanced to see one of my providers, and I had behaved like a child. I was only glad no one else was there to witness my shame.
Two days later, the party from Caer Lial arrived to inspect the monument. In the excitement, I forgot all about my mysterious visitor.
3
Queen Gwenhwyvar appeared at once more fierce than I could ever have imagined, and more lovely. She was a dark-smoldering flame clothed in the finely-formed body of a woman; an ardent, passionate soul, alive to everything around her. Because of the stories I had heard, I expected a towering, majestic figure like those famed Roman matriarchs of old.