When they rose for the day, however, Charis began to doubt. Perhaps it had been a meaningless dream after all. So she said nothing as they broke their fast with bread and wine; she did not speak of her secret when they took the merlin to a nearby hill to try its wing, nor later when they were together in the bath at the villa.

But that night, after he finished singing in the hall and they retired to their chamber, Taliesin took her by the shoulders and said, “You might as well tell me what you have been keeping from me all day, for I will not sleep until you do.”

“Why, husband,” she said, “do you suggest that I would ever keep anything from you?”

He drew her into his arms and kissed her, then answered, “The female heart is a world unto itself, incomprehensible to men. Yet I perceive that you have been of a mood today: pensive, contemplative, hesitant, expectant. And you have spent the better part of the day watching me as if you thought I might follow your merlin into the sky and never return.”

Charis pulled a frown. “So you feel trapped, my love. Have you grown weary of me already?”

“Could a man ever grow weary of paradise?” he asked lightly.

“Perhaps,” allowed Charis, “if paradise were not to his liking.”

“Lady, you speak in riddles. But there is a secret behind your words nevertheless. What is it, I wonder?”

“Am I so easily found out?” She turned and stepped from his embrace.

“Then there is a secret.”

“Perhaps.”

He stepped toward her again. “Tell me, my Lady of the Lake; share your secret.”

“It may be nothing,” she said.

“Then it will not be diminished for sharing it.” He flopped down on the bed.

“I think I am carrying a child,” Charis said and told him about her vision of the morning before.

And in the weeks that followed, her body confirmed what her vision had revealed.

Summer strengthened its hold on the land; the rain and sun did their work and the crops grew straight and tall in the fields. With each passing day Charis felt the presence of the life within her and felt the changes in her body as it began preparing itself for the birth of the child that would be. Gradually her breasts and stomach began to swell: she thought often of her mother and wished that Briseis were there to help her in the months to come.

If that was a sorrowful wish, it was her only unhappiness and it was slight-the rest of life took on deep satisfaction. In the house of Lord Pendaran, whose last wife had died five years before, she came to take the place of queen in the eyes of Pendaran’s retainers, all of whom held her in highest esteem, often quarreling among themselves for the opportunity of serving her.

By day she and Taliesin rode, often taking the merlin with them so that it became accustomed to its saddle perch; or they sat in the courtyard or on a hilltop and talked. By night she sat in the hall at Pendaran’s right hand, listening to Taliesin sing. These happy days were the best Charis had ever known and she savored each like a drop of rare and precious wine.

One morning, after several gray days of wet and wind, Charis said, “Please, Taliesin, let us ride today. We have spent the last days in the villa and I am restless.”

He appeared about to object but she said, “It will be the last time for many more months, I think.” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “The merlin is restless too. Now that his wing is stronger he longs to fly.”

“Very well,” Taliesin agreed, “let us give the day to it. We will take the merlin into the heath and begin training it to hunt.”

After breaking fast they rode through Maridunum and into the hills whose steep sides were covered with fern and bracken. They climbed to the crest of a hill and dismounted to gaze upon the shining silver slash of Mor Hafren in the hazy distance to the south, and, to the north, the dark humps of the Black Mountains.

“Beyond those mountains,” said Taliesin turning his eyes toward the pine-covered slopes away to the north, “is my homeland.”

“I have never heard you speak of your former home.”

“Nor have I heard you speak of yours.”

“The first time I heard you sing I knew that we were the same.”

“How so?”

“We are both exiles, you and I. We live in a world that is not our own.”

Taliesin’s smile was quick, but it was also sad. “The world is ours for the making,” he said lightly, but he turned back to the mountains and gazed for a long time without speaking.

When he did speak again, his voice sounded far away. “I have seen a land shining with goodness where each man protects his brother’s dignity as readily as his own, where war and want have ceased and all races live under the same law of love and honor.

“I have seen a land bright with truth, where a man’s word is his pledge and falsehood is banished, where children sleep safe in their mothers’ arms and never know fear or pain. I have seen a land where kings extend their hands in justice rather than reach for the sword, where mercy, kindness, and compassion flow like deep water over the land, and men revere virtue, revere truth, revere beauty, above comfort, pleasure, or selfish gain. A land where peace reigns in the hearts of men, where faith blazes like a beacon from every hill and love like a fire from every hearth, where the True God is worshiped and his ways acclaimed by all.

“I have seen this land, Charis,” he said, his hand striking his chest. “I have seen it and my heart yearns for it.”

His face glowed and Charis was gripped by the force of his vision-and frightened by it. Catching up his hand, she pressed it with her own. “A wonderful dream, my love,” she said. His hand was cold in hers.

“Not a dream only,” he said, shaking his head. “It is a true world.”

“But it is not our world.”

“No,” he admitted, and then added, “But it is our world as it was meant to be, and will be. It can happen, Charis. Do you see it? Do you understand?”

“I understand, Taliesin. You have told me about the Kingdom of Summer”

“The Kingdom of Summer is but a reflection of it!” he replied fiercely, then softened. “Ah, but Summer Realm is where we begin. When I am king, Charis, my rule will shine like the sun so that all men may see and know what the world was meant to be.”

Taliesin placed a palm against her stomach and smiled. “You must tell my son all I have told you. He will be king after me and he must be strong, for the darkness will grant him no quarter. He must be a man among men, a mighty king and wise. Above all he must love the truth and serve it.”

Charis pressed his hand more firmly against her stomach. “You must tell him. A boy-if it is a boy-must learn these things from his father.”

He smiled again and kissed her. “Yes,” he said softly.

The merlin screeched then and Taliesin loosed it from its perch to fly, circling higher and higher into the clean, cloud-dappled sky. They watched the hawk soar, listening to its keening cry as it felt the familiar wind beneath its wings, wild again and free.

When the bird’s flight took it further into the hills, they mounted their horses and followed it, coming at length to a rocky defile between two cliffs. Taliesin reined to a halt and called to Charis behind him: “Perhaps we should turn back.”

Charis raised her eyes to the hawk circling above. “We will lose him. Please, let us go a little further. His wing will tire soon and he will return.”

Taliesin agreed and started down the steep and narrow gorge, which was littered with loose stone rubble. When they reached the bottom and looked back, he shook his head. “Coming down is one matter-going up is another. We will have to find another way.”

They rode on into the valley as it widened out, following the merlin and catching him a little later as he stood shrieking atop the carcass of a freshly killed hare. They let him have his meal and returned him to his perch on Charis’ saddle, then turned the horses and started back to Maridunum, skirting the rocky hills and the treacherous path between them.