“Lady, we can stay here no longer.” the hollow voice was Eiddon’s and his hand was under her elbow. “They may return at any moment.”

Charis looked up and saw the grim, ashen face of her friend. Nearby, the baby cried softly in Rhuna’s arms. The light was dim, the day fading rapidly toward twilight. The mist had dissolved into a mournful drizzle, making the rough-cobbled road wet where Taliesin lay. She glanced down at her hands and at the red stains there where she had gripped the arrow, and it seemed as if she had dwelt a lifetime in this place in the road.

“Charis,” said Eiddon softly, “will you come?”

She nodded silently and tried to stand, but her legs would not bear her weight. Instead, she fell forward across Taliesin’s body. She clung to him, pushing his wet hair from his face with her hands, then lay her cheek against his still chest.

“Sleep well, my love.” She kissed his cool lips and Eiddon helped her to her feet.

Salach knelt a few paces away, arms hanging limp at his side, silent tears streaming down his face and neck. Charis went to him and put her hand on his head. He raised hopeless eyes to her and cried. “Forgive me, my lady,” he wailed. “If I had been sooner with the warning… if I had only heard them… I might have… Oh, please, if I had heard them he would still be alive…” His head dropped and his heart broke anew.

“There is nothing you could do,” Charis told him. “There is nothing anyone could have done. There is no fault to forgive. How could you know?” She put a hand out to him. “Get up now, Salach, I need your strength. We all have a long way to go.”

The young man dragged his sleeve across his face and struggled to his feet. Charis put her arms around him and hugged him, then led him to where Taliesin lay. “You must help Eiddon put Taliesin on his horse. I will not leave him here.”

Salach hesitated, but Eiddon nodded and the two set about lifting Taliesin’s body into the saddle.

It had been dark a long time when they finally reached the tiny settlement at the ford of the Byd River. There were only a handful of round earth-and-timber houses surrounded by an earthen dike topped with a wooden palisade. The gate was closed, but there was a bonfire in the center of the cluster of houses.

Eiddon rode to the edge of the ditch and shouted at the group of figures standing near the fire. The people instantly darted from the fire, their silhouettes vanishing into the shadows. Eiddon called again, loudly and clearly in Briton so there would be no mistaking them for raiders. A few moments later a torch appeared over the gate.

“These gates are closed for the night. We open them to no one,” an unseen voice called.

“We have been attacked on the road. We need help,” Eiddon told the man.

There was a long silence. “We have silver to pay for lodging,” Eiddon added.

Almost at once the timber gates opened and a crude plank bridge was produced. The horses walked over the planking and into the protective circle of the palisade where the people of Byd ford gathered silently around the body slumped over the horse.

The old man of the settlement approached Eiddon warily. “Looks like your man is hurt,” he said cautiously, eyeing Eiddon’s gold shoulder brooch and the silver tore on his neck.

“He is my friend and he is dead,” replied Eiddon softly. “We are taking him home.”

The old man nodded and squinted at the travelers in the firelight. “You was attacked then.” The people murmured behind him. “You will be hungry, I expect.”

“Food would be welcome,” Eiddon replied. He turned to Charis and led her to a place by the bonfire, spread his cloak, and helped her sit down. Then he and Salach led Taliesin’s horse away into the darkness where, with utmost tenderness, they lifted Taliesin’s body from the saddle and lay it down. Salach spread his cloak over the body and left it for the night.

The travelers warmed themselves by the fire and ate a few mouthfuls of food which they did not taste and then stretched out to sleep. Without fuss or show, the old man posted a guard at the gate for the rest of the night saying, “You will sleep the better for a sharp eye.” One of the women of the hamlet approached Charis and said, “It is cold for the little ‘un, lady. Come inside the both of you, and your girl.”

Charis rose and went into a nearby hut; Rhuna followed with Merlin and they were given the only bed-a straw pallet spread with fleeces in a dry corner. Exhausted, Charis closed her eyes as soon as her head touched the pallet and was asleep.

The night was a blessed void and Charis awoke at first light. Merlin stirred beside her and cried for food. She suckled him and lay thinking about the long, lonely day ahead; then she thought of months and years to come. Where will I find the strength to go on? she wondered and decided that it was impossible to think that far ahead. She would instead think only of the present moment and not the one to come. In this way, moment by moment, she could do what had to be done.

When they had all risen and were making ready to leave, the old man of the hamlet came to Eiddon and said, “It is not meet to make a man ride to his grave.” He turned and gestured to two of the men standing nearby, who began pushing up a creaky two-wheeled cart. “Your friend will go with more ease in this. Take it.”

“If he knew the kindness you had done him,” said Eiddon, “he would reward you most generously.” The prince reached into the pouch at his Belt and withdrew a handful of silver coins which he pressed into the old man’s hand.

The old man tested the weight of the clutch of coins. “Is he a king then?”

“He is,” Eiddon said.

They hitched the cart to the packhorse and carefully laid Taliesin in the box. They left the settlement and crossed the river at the ford, found the road on the other side, and continued on toward Aquae Sulis, reaching the hectic streets of the city by midmorning. They broke fast and, hoping to reach Ynys Witrin by nightfall, moved on, turning southward at the crossroads, leaving the columned porticoes and towering tiled roofs of the noisy, brick-built town behind.

Almost at once Charis felt they had entered familiar lands again. She seemed to recognize each hill and valley, though she knew she could never have seen them before. This recognition comforted her, false though it was.

From time to time Charis turned in the saddle to look behind, expecting to see Taliesin there, a smile on his lips, eyes clear and bright, a hand raised in greeting.

But there was only the rude cart swaying along as its wheels turned slowly around and around.

The hours passed one after another as the sun made its slow way through the dull, cloud-draped sky. Charis remembered nothing about the rest of the journey, except the deepest, deadliest pain she had ever known and the darkest, emptiest silence that received her heart’s anguished cries. She moved as in a dream, achingly slow, burdened with the most enormous weight of mind-numbing grief.

By late afternoon they came to the Briw River and turned off the road, following the track which led to the Isle of Glass. As the sun spread into an orange-red glow on the horizon, Charis lifted her head and saw Avallach’s palace on its hollow hill floating above the reed-fringed lake.

The sight brought her no joy, no lightness of spirit or gladness of heart. Instead, she reflected ruefully on the reunion and welcome that should have been but now would never be.

Soon the horse’s hooves struck the causeway across the marshy wasteland to the island. The winding track led them to the palace. The gates stood open and waiting, for they had been seen coming a long way oif. As soon as the cart bearing Taliesin’s body rolled to a halt, Avallach appeared in the courtyard and Lile with him.