“Gwydion must have found you,” Myrrdin said quietly. “Where is Gwenhwyfar?”
“Arberth.” Her voice broke. She cleared her throat and went on. “I left her there with Rhoram.”
“I see.” She thought that he probably did. He always had. “And now you are going on to Caer Dathyl. Does Gwydion know you’re coming?”
“I doubt it. When he and I met we—ah, had words. Have you spoken to him? Is he at Caer Dathyl?”
“He is at Caer Dathyl. And no, I have not spoken to him. We never speak. It is safer that way.”
“I can’t believe you are alive! What happened? Why the secrecy?”
“That is for Gwydion to say.”
“Myrrdin, I have left my woods, left my daughter, left the man I love who begged me to stay—to come to Caer Dathyl and join Gwydion in doing what must be done. I can assure you that Gwydion ap Awst will tell me exactly what he is up to. He can tell me tomorrow or you can tell me tonight. Whichever you prefer. I prefer to know now.”
“You two didn’t hit it off, I take it.”
“No. And you weren’t surprised, I take it.”
“Certainly not. I expected it.” He thought for a moment then gestured for the boy to stand beside him. “This is Arthur. Arthur, this is Rhiannon ur Hefeydd, a woman of the House of Llyr. You have heard me speak of her.”
Arthur gave a credible bow, all things considered. He was too bashful to look directly at her, staring instead at his feet.
Arthur, she thought. Now who in the world—of course. “Arthur ap Uthyr. Uthyr’s son,” she said incredulously. “Alive. He never died either. Myrrdin, you left Y Ty Dewin to raise Uthyr’s son in secret. How did Gwydion ever get you to do that? No, never mind.” She was thinking out loud now, on the trail of a mystery. “And why hide him? Why pretend he was dead? Why unless he was in danger. In danger because he is more than the heir to Gwynedd. But he was tested. I heard that. Gwydion himself was there—” She stared at the boy, who lifted his eyes to hers and blushed. “Oh. Of course Gwydion was there. May I be one of the first to bend my knee to the future High King of Kymru?”
Myrrdin laughed heartily. “Oh, very good.”
“And you Arthur? You don’t seem very pleased,” she said curiously, for his young face had become grim and set at Myrrdin’s words.
“I’m not,” he mumbled.
“Why?”
He looked up at her. His dark eyes set and stubborn. “I don’t like being used. Uncle Gwydion does that to everyone who will let him. And I won’t let him.”
“Hmm. I said the same thing to Gwydion not very long ago.”
“And what did he say?” Arthur asked eagerly.
“That I was selfish. That it wasn’t his idea and if he had a choice he’d never lay eyes on me again.”
“And will he?” Myrrdin asked intently.
She turned to him, looking into his dark eyes. He knew. He knew she had almost made up her mind to run back to Arberth and give herself up to an even more profound prison than the one she had constructed for herself all these years. “I don’t know,” she said finally.
“Will you play Hefeydd’s harp for us?” Myrrdin asked gently.
“How did you know I had it?”
“Because you have changed, and changed a great deal or you wouldn’t be here. And how could you have done that and yet left his harp behind?”
Arthur brought her saddlebags over to her. Under Myrrdin’s gaze she retrieved the harp and unwrapped it. The smooth, satiny oak of the frame gleamed in the firelight.
“Play a song for me,” Myrrdin said. “Play Taliesin’s song of Cadair Idris.”
Rhiannon stared at him in surprise. “Why that song?”
“I have a fancy for it. Come, indulge an old man.”
Hesitantly, she played the sorrowful, opening chords. And then she sang,
The court of Lleu Lawrient lies
Stricken and silent beneath the sky.
The thorns and blighted thistles over
It all, and brambles now,
Where once was magnificence.
Harp and lordly feasts, all have passed away.
And the night birds now reign.
After she finished, the room was quiet. Arthur, his head bowed and his fists clenched, said nothing. Myrrdin stared into the fire. Rhiannon stilled the strings of the harp and sat silently, her eyes blinded by tears. At last, Myrrdin stirred and caught both their gazes with his suddenly stern and compelling eyes.
“Who asks what we want for ourselves? Does the Wheel of Life ask? Do the Shining Ones? Do the seasons wish to know if we are happy? I tell you that the night birds reign in Cadair Idris. I tell you that the court of the High King is no more. And I ask you, both of you, if this means anything to you. Anything at all.”