“I hadn’t heard she was that tender,” Gwydion said shortly.
“Oh, but she was. That was the problem. When she gave her heart to Rhoram, and when he mangled it—as anyone but her expected him to do—she had no defenses.”
“I heard from Myrrdin she had quite a few defenses.”
Elidyr waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Surface only. Not even skin deep. A hard shell, certainly, but a thin one.”
“With you, perhaps.”
“Oh, yes, perhaps just with me. I loved her like a sister, you know.”
“Did you?” Gwydion had his own opinion about that, seeing the look in Elidyr’s eyes when he spoke of his cousin. “I understand she’d come here to try to see her father.”
“As much as she could that first year she was at Y Ty Dewin. She was only seven years old and would walk all the way here. She’d show up, usually in the middle of the night, and Wind-Speak to wake me up. I’d sneak out of the dorm and let her in. We’d raid the kitchen, then try to get Hefeydd to open his door and talk to her.”
“And did he?”
“Never. I used to beg her not to try. But she insisted. She always said that if he could just see her, he’d know what a good girl she was, and he’d love her. But after a while she realized it was useless and she stopped coming.”
Elidyr got up restlessly and went to look out the window. Without turning around he continued, “I can’t tell you what it was like to see her fight that losing battle. She’d show up exhausted, dirty, blisters on her feet. And when Hefeydd refused to see her, she would weep. I’d hold her until she stopped crying. If my Da were here, I’d take her to him. And he’d take her back to Y Ty Dewin in the morning. If Dudod wasn’t here, she’d sleep in his empty room. Anieron always knew that she was there—you know how he is—and he’d send her back in the morning with some other Bard who could be spared.”
“How often did she come here?”
“Every week,” Elidyr said tonelessly. “Every week for one entire year. I was so glad when she stopped coming. I missed her, but I was glad.”
“For her sake,” Gwydion said.
“Yes, for her sake,” Elidyr repeated.
“But not for yours.”
Still staring out the window, Elidyr said, almost dreamily, “I loved her, you see. But I never told her. Wouldn’t have mattered anyway, I suppose. She didn’t love me, probably never would have.
“But sometimes, I think that if I had told Rhiannon that I loved her, maybe she wouldn’t have fallen in love with Rhoram. And she wouldn’t have been hurt so badly; she wouldn’t have run away, she would have become Ardewin one day, instead of Elstar. Maybe I could have saved her, if I had tried.” Elidyr trailed off and there was silence.
Abruptly, Gwydion said, “It was her choice to run away, to play the coward.”
“Coward? Is that how you see her?”
“Don’t you?”
“You don’t understand anything.” Elidyr said flatly. “She was a brave little girl, and a brave woman. And she gave herself away to a careless man.”
“She ran away,” Gwydion insisted, just as flatly. “Ran and hid like a child when things didn’t go her way.”
“Oh, and you haven’t done that yourself in your own way?” Elidyr asked, his voice heavy with contempt.
Gwydion opened his mouth to say that of course he had never run from tragedy, to say that he had never been a coward. Yet his denials of cowardice died in his throat.
“Rest,” Elidyr said quietly, his brown eyes cool. “I’ll be back in an hour to take you to Anieron.” With that, Elidyr was gone, leaving Gwydion to the silence.
WHEN ELIDYR RETURNED an hour later, Gwydion coolly intimated that he was ready. Elidyr said nothing, merely motioning for Gwydion to follow him down the corridor. Elidyr knocked on Anieron’s door, waited a moment then opened it.
Anieron’s room where he received visitors was large. An oak table stood in the middle of the room with an ornate wooden chair behind it. Rows and rows of bookshelves jostled for place against the walls covered with large parchments containing the genealogical tables of the four royal houses of Kymru, as well as the House of Llyr.
A large, glass-fronted shelf held musical instruments—harps, pipes, and drums of all shapes and sizes. The floor was covered with a tapestry-like carpet woven to show blue nightingales, the symbolic animal of the Bards, in flight on a plain, white background.
A fireplace occupied most of the far wall where a fire burned cheerfully. Before the hearth two chairs stood, both cushioned in the white and blue of the Bards. A small table stood between the chairs, holding a silver decanter and blue-tinted goblets.