“Next year, perhaps; they may be ready for it,” Bleddyn allowed. “They are too young yet.”
“So I told them, but Bedwyr informed me they have already waited a year.” Bleddyn raised his eyebrows in surprise, so I explained quickly. “It is the truth. They wanted to go last year, but Arthur decided they would have a better chance if they put off asking until this year, when they were a little older. So they waited.”
“Remarkable,” mused Bleddyn. “Such patience and forethought is indeed rare in one so young. You are right, Myrddin, it should be rewarded. Very well, I will allow it. But you and Pelleas will have to look after them and keep them out of trouble. I have business with the northern lords.”
So it was that Pelleas and I became shepherd to two young boys on shaggy ponies at the Warriors’ Gathering.
Bleddyn’s warband, the largest among the northern clans, numbered over a hundred, but the five lords who owed Bleddyn fealty each boasted warbands almost as large. Thus, with several hundred warriors in attendance, the Celyddon Gathering was by no means an insignificant affair. In later years, the Gatherings would draw whole settlements, clans, and chief-doms to the spectacle. But at this time it was for noblemen and their warbands alone—and two young would-be warriors who had the king’s let to attend.
Within Celyddon forest itself there was no clearing large enough to hold a gathering of any good size. But north of Celyddon, where the forest gave way once more to high, windswept moors, there were many broad valleys well suited for such a venture.
One bright autumn day, soon after the harvest was completed and secured for the winter, Bleddyn mounted his warband, and we started for the hills. For two days we rode through the forest, hunting in Celyddon’s game-tracks along the way.
The warriors’ spirits were high; there was much good-natured jostling and jesting. The forest echoed with the sound of laughter and song. At night the men built great fires and clamored for a tale of valor; I summoned my harp from Pelleas and sang to the throng. Bedwyr and Arthur were foremost among them, of course, bright-eyed and eager to the last, lingering note.
Early on the fifth day we reached the forest’s end, and by dusk arrived at the gathering place: a wide valley formed at the meeting of two rivers. The sun had already dropped behind the high shoulder of the hill, but the sky was illumined with the soft, golden light peculiar to the northern country.
Suffused in this honeyed light, we crested a long ridge and paused to look down into the valley. Three or four warbands were already there, and the smoke from their cooking fires hung silver in the still evening air.
At the sight of the fires below, blazing like new-fallen stars, the boys halted. “I never imagined there would be so many,” Bedwyr gasped. “There must be ten thousand!”
“Not as many as that,” I assured him. “But it is more than have gathered in many years.”
“Why?” asked Arthur.
“Because the lords are increasing the warbands each year. We need more warriors to fight the Saecsens.”
“Then it is good Bedwyr and I have come,” he replied thoughtfully.
Bedwyr put the lash to his pony and rode ahead to join the first of the warriors making their way down to the valley. “Arthur!” Bedwyr shouted. “Come on! Hurry!”
The two boys slapped their horses to respectable speed and flew down the hillside, whooping like the bhean sidhe. “I hope we have not made a mistake,” Pelleas said, watching the two boys streaking away. When Pelleas and I finally caught them again, they were sitting by a fire listening to a harper sing the Battle of the Trees. Since there could be no stirring them until the song was over, we settled down beside them cross-legged on the ground to wait.
The harper belonged to the household of one of Bleddyn’s kinsmen, a man with a Roman name: Ectorius. This Ectorius held lands a little north and east of Celyddon on the sea, a difficult region to protect, since the Saecsens and their minions—Frisians, Angles, Jutes, and others—often sought landing there in one of the innumerable, nameless rock bays, coves, and inlets.
He was a big man with a fiery red beard and a head of frizzled, copper-colored hair which he wore bound at the nape of his neck. Though not tall, he stood on sturdy legs like oak stumps, and was reputed to have once crushed a cask by squeezing it in his thick-set arms. If his feats of strength were storied, his skill at arms was legendary. One swift stroke of his sword could part the purple from the head of a thistle, or as easily split a man in half.
Ectorius was as jovial as he was fearless. Never a man laughed but Ectorius laughed louder and longer. And no man enjoyed a good song more, nor beer, nor meat. If his taste was not particularly discriminating, at least it entertained the widest possible latitude of acceptance.
No harper, however mediocre, was ever turned from Ectorius’ hearth. As long as the wretch could warble a tale to its conclusion, his patron was in bliss. In consequence, his generosity to bards was well known and he rarely wanted for a night’s entertainment. The better bards vied for the opportunity of singing for him.
Thus, it was Ectorius’ fire which had drawn the boys. There they were made welcome, and were not unnecessarily reminded of their youth.
The harper knew his tale, and he sang with fervor, if in a peculiarly tuneless voice. Still, no one seemed to mind—least of all Arthur and Bedwyr, whose faces glowed with pleasure in the light of the fire.
When, at last, the tale was finished, a cheer went up. The harper accepted his acclaim, bowing modestly to his listeners. Ectorius elbowed his way forward and clapped the singer on the back, praising him loudly. “Well done! Well done, Tegfan. The Battle of the Trees…. Splendid!”
Then the lord’s eye lit on the boys, as we rose to return to our camp. “Och!” he called. “Hold, men! What have we here?”
“Lord Ectorius,” I said, “allow me to present King Bleddyn’s son Bedwyr, and his swordbrother, Arthur.”
Both Arthur and Bedwyr saluted the lord, touching the backs of their hands to their foreheads in the age-old sign of respect.
Beaming broadly, he placed a big hand on each boy’s shoulder and squeezed. “Stout lads. I give you good greeting! May you fare well while you are among us.”
Bedwyr and Arthur shared a secret glance, and Arthur spoke up boldly, “We are not to take part, Lord Ectorius.”
“We are not deemed old enough to try our skill,” Bedwyr explained, throwing a dark look at me—as if I were the cause of all his worldly problems.
“Well, is that so?” replied Ectorius, beaming even more broadly. “Then perhaps we must change that. Come to me tomorrow and I will see what can be done.”
The boys thanked him and then dashed away, willing to be abed now in order to awaken all the sooner next morning. Just before closing their eyes, both boys thanked me again for letting them attend the Gathering.
“I am glad we are here,” yawned Bedwyr happily. “This will be a Gathering to remember. You wait and see, Artos.”
“I am certain I shall never forget it,” Arthur assured him solemnly.
To be sure, I do not think he ever did.
3
IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED, I saw nothing of Bleddyn. He was about business of his own with the other lords of the Gathering, as I was about mine. Seeing that no one took any interest in Arthur—to the northern chieftains he was just another young boy—I left the boys in Pelleas’ care and rode alone into the hills. There, I sought out those whose eyes were keener than my own, and whose advice would be well worth the effort to obtain. Impossible for anyone else, it took me several days to raise so much as a trace of the Little Dark Ones.
Searching among the empty, windswept hills for the tracks I knew were there, I came upon a faint trail at dusk the second day. I made camp there so that I would not lose it again, and the next day followed the near-invisible trail along the ridge-tops to a Hill Folk settlement: the low humps of earth-covered dwellings, or raths, nestled in a secret fold of a secluded glen. But the settlement appeared deserte
d.
The day was far spent, so I made camp. Picketing my horse outside one of the dwellings, I went for water to the nearby stream at the bottom of the glen. I drank my fill, and then replenished my waterskin, and returned to camp—to discover my mount surrounded by seven diminutive men on shaggy ponies. I had neither heard nor seen them approach; they might have sprung from the heather banks around us. Bows and arrows in hand, they regarded me coldly, deep distrust in their dark eyes.
I raised my hands in greeting. “Sámhneach, breáthairi,” I called to them in their own tongue. “Peace, brothers.” I touched my fingers to the faded blue fhain-mark on my cheek. “Amsarahd Fhain,” I told them. “Hawk Fhain.”
They gazed at me and then at one another in amazement. Who was this tallfolk stranger who spoke their tongue and claimed to be a clan member? One of the men, no larger than a boy of twelve summers, slipped from his mount and advanced to meet me. “Vrandubh Fhain,” he said, touching his fhain-mark. “Raven Fhain.”
“Lugh-sun be good to you,” I responded. “I am Myrddin.”
His eyes went wide and he turned to his brothers. “Ken-ti-Gern!” he shouted. “Ken-ti-Gern has come!”
At this the men threw themselves from their ponies and out from the raths streamed women and children. In the space of three heartbeats, I was surrounded by Hill Folk, all of them reaching with eager hands, touching me, patting me.
The she-chief of the clan appeared, a young woman dressed in soft deerskin with raven feathers stuck in her tightly plaited black hair. “Greetings, Ken-ti-Gern,” she said, smiling with pleasure. Her teeth were fine and white against the hue of her tawny skin. “I, Rina, welcome you. Sit with us,” she invited. “Share our meat this night.”
“I will sit with you, Rina,” I told her. “I will share your meat.”
With much clamor and ceremony, I was conducted to the largest of the three dwellings. Inside, presiding over a peat fire, sat an old woman with long white hair and a face so wrinkled I wondered that she could see out from among the puckers. But she tilted her head and regarded me with a clear black eye as I knelt before her.
“Ken-ti-Gern has come to share meat,” Rina told the woman, who nodded silently—as if she knew I would one day appear at her hearth.
“Greetings, Gern-y-fhain. Lugh-sun be good to you,” I said, and reaching into the pouch at my belt, produced a small gold bracelet I had brought with me for such an occasion. “Take this, Gern-y-fhain. May it bring you good trade.”
The Wise Woman smiled regally, and accepted the gift with a slow bow of her head. Then, turning to Rina beside me, I produced a small bronze dagger with a stag-horn handle. Rina’s eyes lit with innocent delight at the sight of the knife. “Take this, Rina,” I said, placing the prize in her outstretched palm. “May it serve you well.”
Rina’s fingers closed over the dagger and she raised it before her sparkling eyes, clearly overwhelmed by her good fortune. In truth it was nothing—a bit of bronze and bone. A steel knife would have served her far better, but the Prytani fear iron and distrust steel; these rust, which suggests disease and decay to them.
Gern-y-fhain clapped her hands twice sharply, and one of the women brought a bowl filled with a pungent foaming liquid. The Wise Woman drank and then passed the bowl to me. I took the bowl between my hands and drank deeply, savoring the bittersweet bite of heather beer. The taste brought tears to my eyes as memory flooded through me; I remembered the last time I drank that fine heady brew: the night of my leave-taking from Hawk Fhain.
I drank as if partaking of my former life, gulping down the rich memory, and only reluctantly passed the bowl to Rina. When the ceremony of the welcome bowl had been properly observed, the clansmen who had been crowding at the entrance came tumbling into the rath. Children, small and brown, lithe as fawns, appeared in our midst. Young women, cradling tiny fuzzy-headed babies, crept in and settled behind the clan Wise Woman. By this, I understood I was being granted a glimpse of the fhain’s treasure—their eurn, their child-wealth—a high honor for a tallfolk stranger.
The men began preparing our meal, cutting strips of meat from the haunch of a small deer. The strips were wound on wooden skewers, and the skewers stuck in the earth around the peat fire to be turned idly from time to time. While the meat cooked, we began talking about the year.
Winter had been wet, but not too cold, they said. And spring likewise. Summer was dryer, and warmer, and the sheep had fattened nicely. Raven Fhain had expected the Gathering to take place, and knew how many were in attendance and whence the participants had come. The Hill Folk did not seem to mind the warriors’ presence. “They do not raid like the Seaxemen,” Rina explained.
“Those of the Long Knife steal our sheep and kill our children,” Gern-y-fhain added bitterly. “Soon our Parents will take us home.”
“Have you seen the Long Knife?” I asked.
The Wise Woman made a small motion of her head. “Not this season,” she said. “But they will return soon.”
One of the men spoke up. “We have seen Picti boats flying north and east over the sea. The Cran-Tara has gone out, and the Seaxemen will come.”
This was said without bitterness or rancor, but I could feel the weight of sorrow in the words. The Small Dark Ones could see their world changing, diminishing before their eyes. They believed, however, that their Parents—the Earth Goddess and her consort Lugh-sun—would summon them to their proper homeland: a paradise in the western sea. After all, they were the Firstborn of the Mother’s child-wealth, were they not? They had a special place in her great loving heart; and she had prepared a homeland for them far, far away from the bedeviled tallfolk. They yearned for that day, which, considering the ever-increasing predations they endured, could not be long in coming.
I listened to the recitation of their troubles, and wished I could aid them in some way. But the only thing that would help would be a long season of peace and stability in the land, and that was something I had no power to give.
Pelleas watched over Arthur and Bedwyr while I was gone. Rising early to begin the day, and resisting sleep to the last possible moment to prolong their participation, the two greedy cubs roamed the Gathering: young wolves out to devour as much of warrior life as they could clamp jaws to.
They watched the trials of skill and strength with great eagerness and enthusiasm—mostly in the company of Lord Ectorius, who welcomed them as lords and sword brothers. Their high-pitched yelps of pleasure could be heard above even Ectorius’ roar of acclaim whenever a skillful blow was struck or a fine maneuver accomplished. They never missed an opportunity to view the trials, and when there were none, they practiced on their own, imitating all they had seen.
The weather held good all the while, and as the Gathering drew to an end, I returned to camp and lingered near the boys—but out of their notice.
“What is it, master? Are you troubled?” Pelleas asked me once when he saw me alone. The boys were watching a trial of accuracy with the spear on the back of a galloping horse.
My eyes never left the scene before me. “No,” I replied, shaking my head slightly, “I am not troubled. I am wishing there was a way for them to remain together.” I gestured toward the two boys across the way.
“It would be well for them to remain together,” Pelleas agreed. “They are very fond of one another.”
“But it is not to be.”
“No?”
“No. When the Gathering is over Bedwyr will go to Ennion in Rheged, and we must return to Caer Tryfan.”
“Perhaps Arthur would rather go with Ectorius,” Pelleas suggested lightly. He had been thinking about this, I could tell.
“It could be arranged,” I mused. Bleddyn would have no objection, I thought, and judging from what I had seen of Ectorius, the boy Arthur would be welcome at his hearth.
“But that is not what kept you from camp these last days,” Pelleas said, turning patient eyes on me.
“You are right, Pelleas,” I told him. “The Picti and
Scoti have sent out the Cran-Tara—the summons to war. In the spring they will amass their forces in the camps and then turn south to raid.”
“Is it something you have seen?”
“It is something the First Children have seen.” I told him where I had been for the last few days: wandering among the hollow hills in search of the Little Dark People. “I was hoping to find some of them up here this summer, and I succeeded—rather, they allowed me to find them.”
“Hawk Fhain?”
“No, another: Raven Fhain. But they recognized my fhain-mark.” I touched the small blue spiral on my cheek—the reminder of my time with the Hill Folk—and could not help but smile. “They knew me, Pelleas; they remembered. Ken-ti-Gern—that is how I am known among them now. It means Wise Leader of the Tallfolk.”
“They told you about the Cran-Tara? It is certain?”
“Their gern, the fhain’s Wise Woman, told me, ‘We have seen the ships flying east to Ierneland, and west to Saecsland—flying like gulls, like smoke disappearing over the wide water. We have heard the blood oaths spoken on the wind. We have seen the sun rise black in the north.’ ” I paused. “Yes, it is certain.”
“But, master,” Pelleas said, “I do not understand why this should prevent the boys from remaining together.”
“What they must learn they will learn best alone,” I explained. “Together, they would only hinder one another. Their friendship is a high and holy thing and it must be carefully conserved. Britain will need its strength in the years to come.”
Pelleas accepted this. He was used to my reasons. “Would you have me tell them?”
“Thank you, Pelleas, but no. I will tell them.” I turned. “But that will keep until tomorrow, I think. Come, we are to go and speak to Bleddyn and his lords; they are waiting.”
Bleddyn received us in his tent, and offered us wine and barley cakes. After exchanging observations about the Gathering, Bleddyn introduced us to one of the lords with him, a nobleman named Hywel, who, after he had greeted us, said, “I bring a word which may be of value to you.”