The Silver Hand Read online

  He stood seething; I could feel the heat of his anger flow across the distance between us. “Oh, what is the use?” he grumbled; he snatched the stone from my hands and heaved it away. “We do not even have tools enough to cut a willow branch, let alone build anything. If we did, we would not stay here; we would go back to Sci where we belong. It is hopeless, and I am sick of it.”

  We stood silent for a long time. The sun was warm on our backs, the wind light in the pines. Away on Druim Vran, I heard the squawk of a raven. He is wrong, I thought. This is where we belong. “It is not hopeless,” I said. Impossible, perhaps, but not hopeless.”

  “Bards,” Llew grunted. “We cannot stay here, Tegid. There is nothing for us here. If we cannot get to Sci, let us travel south to the Galanae. It may be that Cynan’s people will receive us.”

  When I did not answer, he said, “Did you hear me?”

  I stooped to the rock at my feet—I had felt the impact in the earth when he threw it. “I heard you,” I told him. “You are right.”

  “We should travel south?”

  “We should make a beginning. But not here.”

  “What is the difference?” he said sullenly.

  I turned toward the lake. In turning, my inner vision awoke and I saw the stronghold; I saw where it should be. “On the lake, yes,” I told him. “But not here. Out there.”

  “You are mad.”

  “Perhaps.” I began walking toward the lake.

  “In the water, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “Out in the lake?”

  “It is to be a crannog,” I explained.

  “A crannog.”

  “It is a dwelling constructed on a false island made of timber and stone, and which is—”

  “I know what it is,” interrupted Llew impatiently. “But if we cannot erect a simple mud hut on the meadow, how are we to build a fortress in the lake?”

  At his words, my inner vision shifted and I saw an image of the crannog as it would be. “Not a fortress only,” I replied. “A city.”

  Indeed, the stronghold I saw was as large as great Sycharth itself had been. It was an island of earth and timber in the center of the lake—and not a single island only, but a cluster of smaller islands linked together with bridges and causeways to form a great fortress, a caer built on water: round dwellings of wicker and daubed earth, stockades, granaries, storehouses, and, on an earthen mound in the center of the central isle, an enormous timber hall for the chieftain.

  I saw smoke rising from cookhouses, and from the hearthfire of the hall. I saw sheep and kine and pigs in the pens on the crannog, and also on the broad lea where fields of grain had been planted. Many dozens of boats, large and small, plied the water all around the island caer, and children swam and played, and women fished in the shallows.

  I saw it all; I saw more. And I related everything to Llew, just as it appeared to me.

  “This I want to see,” he remarked, and I sensed the bitterness abating, submerging once more. Llew took the rock he held cradled in the crook of his wounded arm, marched down to the lakeside and heaved it in. I heard the splash as it struck the water. “There!” he called back. “I have made a start. What shall we call this water city of yours?”

  “But you have already named it,” I said, walking down to join him. “Dinas Dwr—Water City—so let it be called.”

  Llew liked the name and threw another stone into the lake. “Dinas Dwr is begun,” he said. “Truly, I hope the Many-Gifted Dagda sends us a boat, or we will be forever building it this way.”

  “It will take more than a boat. It will take a host of builders and craftsmen. This will be no mean city, brother. It will be a refuge for many, and a beacon in the north for all Albion.”

  We sat for a time on the stony lakeshore, discussing how the crannog would be constructed. I described the means and manner of building, its advantages in times of trouble, its limitations. Llew listened to all, taking it in, and when I finished he rose. “We cannot perform this mighty work on roots and bark, small fish, and the occasional bird,” he declared. “Arms that lift heavy stones and timber need meat to sustain them.”

  “What do you propose?”

  “I propose finding some ash saplings and fashioning a few spears so that I can hunt,” he replied. “The forest abounds with game—all we have to do is catch it.”

  “Yes, but—” I began.

  He cut me off. “I know what you are thinking. But Scatha always insisted that a man who fought with one hand only was but half a warrior. On Ynys Sci we learned to use our weapons with either hand.”

  “I never doubted you.”

  “It may take some practice,” he allowed, “but I will revive the skill, never fear.”

  “How will you cut and shape the ash sapling?” I wondered.

  “Flint,” he answered. “There is flint on the ridgetop and on the slopes. We can use that to make scrapers and axes and spearheads— as many as we like.”

  Thus we spent the next day gathering and chipping flint to make the blades we would require. It was easier to work by feel than I imagined, and I soon became proficient in producing stone blades as sharp, if not as durable, as iron. We had no leather to bind the crude blades to the wood, but I used threads from the edges of our cloaks. I braided the threads in threes and then braided the three: three threes, a satisfactory number, and very strong.

  While I braided the rope, Llew searched for and selected a sturdy branch to make the haft of the ax. He found a short, thick length of forked oak, and I bound the finished ax head to the branch.

  Llew tied the tool on a piece of firewood. “This will work,” he announced, hefting the finished ax. “Now to find a good, straight sapling.”

  “You will find as many as you like along the eastern rim of the ridge,” I told him.

  “You have seen this?”

  “No, but that is where the tree grows.”

  He was gone for the rest of the day and returned just before nightfall with not one or two, but six fine, straight ash saplings. Four were green, but two were dry, having been uprooted on the slope. He had trimmed the branches and top, and was ready to begin shaping them with a flint scraper I had made for this purpose.

  One of these he made into a staff for me. It was longer than any I had used before, and thinner. But it was easier for a blind bard to wield, I decided. “I am sorry it is not a rowan staff,” Llew said. “But perhaps it will serve until a better one is found.”

  I ran my hands along the smooth, round wood. He had done fine work shaping and smoothing with his crude tools, and I commended him. “You have done well, Llew. It is an excellent staff. I want no other.”

  The next day, while Llew shaped the shaft, I finished work on the spearhead and made another braided thong to bind it. The day was spent by the time we had finished. “Tomorrow we will eat meat,” Llew declared, chewing a bit of mallow root. After a moment, he added, “If only we had a little salt.”

  “We are too far from the sea for that, but savory herbs abound in these woods. I will gather some while you are away.”

  “Have the fire ready. I will return with our supper,” he vowed.

  He made good his promise, but it was not a boar or deer which he brought back to roast—only a squirrel. Llew was very disappointed and said he would have used his time better catching fish.

  “The deer run too fast,” he muttered, as we waited for the squirrel to finish cooking. “They are gone before I can get a decent throw. Without a horse, I will never be able to run them down. And wild pigs are dangerous when the hunter goes on foot.” He pondered this for a while and then said, “If I want a deer or pig, I will have to climb a tree above a game run and wait.”

  “Better to find the trail they use to reach water,” I suggested. “Any game on this side of the ridge probably come to the lake to drink. Find the place, and you could await them there.”

  The next morning Llew hastened down to the lakeside and searched along the shore
to find the watering place. I took the staff Llew had made for me and, poking here and there, I foraged in the woods nearby and found a cache of nuts, which I wrapped in a pouch of leaves.

  Llew returned at midday to say that he had found the watering place and a suitable game trail leading from the wood. “There is a low place along the western shore; the wood is thick and the lake is shallow. From the tracks I have seen, there are deer and pigs to be had. And not more than a hundred paces up from the watering place there is a pine I can climb—it is old and big and the undergrowth is thin around it. The track passes beneath one of the larger limbs, and I may be able to get a good throw from there. Wish me luck, Tegid.”

  “I wish you nothing else,” I told him. “But are you going now?”

  “I think it best. I want to be in place well before nightfall to give my scent a chance to disperse.”

  “Go then, and take this with you,” I handed him the leaf—pouch of nuts. “Good hunting to you.”

  He took the pouch, and I waited through the remainder of the day. The moon would rise late—well after dark. I did not expect him to return until morning. Nevertheless, I tended the fire through the night so that he could find his way back to camp if he returned while it was still dark.

  As night drew on, I took up the harp and began to play. The sweet singing of the harp strings filled the sphere of night around me—like the glow of the campfire, could I have seen it. I sang softly, a melody of peace and repose, so as not to disturb the serenity of the wood and the night.

  The liquid crystalline notes of the harp trickled lightly into the air, the fire cracked softly, and I became aware of another’s presence with me. A subtle alteration in the air, a slight trembling of excitement on the skin—I was being watched.

  I sensed the visitor just outside the circle of the camp, watching. An animal? No, not an animal.

  I stopped singing but continued strumming the harp, listening beyond the harp sound to the faint night noise around me. I did not hear what I was listening for at first, but then . . . the hushed exhalation of a breath.

  I stopped strumming, put down the harp, and stood slowly. “Who is there?” I said gently.

  No answer—although I thought I detected the quivering of leaves, as if a branch held aside had been replaced.

  “Come out,” I said, this time with more force and authority. “You are welcome to share my fire.”

  Still no reply.

  “You need have no fear. I will not harm you. Come, join me. We will talk together.”

  Again there was no answer. But I heard, crisp and distinct, the snap of a twig and the rustling of leaves as the stranger departed. I waited a moment . . . silence. I was alone once more.

  I walked around the fire ring to the place where my shy visitor had been. I leaned on my staff and listened for a time, but there was nothing to be heard. Then, as I turned back to the fire, I felt something beneath my foot. I bent down and picked it up. The object was flat and brittle, with sharp spines or thorns attached to the woody stem.

  I turned it over in my fingers for a moment before it came to me what it was: a sprig of holly.

  14

  VISITORS

  Llew returned at dawn with a kill—a roe deer which he dropped by the fire and instantly forgot in his excitement to tell me what he had seen.

  “It was incredible!” he gasped. “You will never believe-—Tegid!” He had run all the way from the lake, dragging the small buck, and was out of breath from the climb to the camp.

  “I had to stay awake”—he gulped air—“or fall . . . out of the tree . . . I got cold up there.” He gasped and swallowed. “So I had to . . . shift around to keep from getting stiff . . . and I . . . I was . . .”

  “Calm yourself,” I told him. “I can wait.”

  He drew a deep breath, and another. “I dropped my spear,” he continued in a steadier voice. “It fell in the center of the trail. It was dark, but with the moon I could see it below me. I climbed down to get it.”

  He paused and drew another long breath. “I picked up the spear, and—Tegid, it seems strange to say, but I just knew something was there with me. I felt eyes on me—as if I was being watched. I thought it might be a stag. I climbed back into the tree as quickly and quietly as I could, and made ready to throw the spear if the deer came onto the trail.”

  Gulping again, he hurried on. “All this time I was cursing myself for not taking better care. I was certain I had lost the chance for a kill.

  “But just as I was getting into position again, I heard a sound on the trail. I looked down, and standing directly under the branch where I was sitting—” Llew’s voice trembled with excitement, “I saw it, Tegid! You will never believe! At first I did not know what it was. It was just this dark mass under the tree. But it had a face, and I could see its eyes! Tegid, the eyes glinted in the moonlight. It was looking right at me! It saw me! It was just—”

  “Yes—what?” I broke in. “What was looking at you, brother?”

  “It was—what is the word?—a tree being.”

  “A tree being?”

  “I do not know the word. What do you call it?”

  “I cannot tell you, until you tell me what you saw,” I replied. “Describe it.”

  “It was like a man—very tall and thin and covered in leaves and thorns. It had hair, I think, but there were twigs and leaves of all kinds sticking to it from head to toe. Its eyes—Tegid, its eyes were huge, and it was looking right at me. I know it saw me. It knew that I was there. I nearly fell out of the tree when I saw it. This thing just stood there, looking up at me. This thing—this—”

  “Cylenchar,” I told him.

  “Cylenchar?” Llew tried to puzzle out the meaning of the word. “Bashful bush . . . timid tree?”

  “Tree, or forest, yes,” I replied. “Though not bashful—concealed, or hidden. It is a very old word; it means the hidden one of the forest.”

  “But what is it?”

  I held out the holly sprig. Llew took it from my fingers. “He came here too,” I explained. “I think my harp summoned him.”

  “He—him?”

  “The Hidden One, the cylenchar.”

  “The Green Man,” Llew said, his voice low. “In my world we call it a Green Man, or Jack o’the Green. I saw one once—it was . . . ” He fell silent, remembering the incident.

  “What is it, brother? What do you remember?”

  “Simon and I saw one—we saw a Green Man, a cylenchar, on the road. Before coming here. We were in Scotland—in Caledon . . . beside a lake, like this one.” His voice dwindled away again.

  I placed more wood on the fire. “Sit,” I told him. “Rest yourself.”

  He did as I bade him. “A Green Man,” he whispered.

  I extended my hand toward the buck he had brought. I ran my fingers over the pelt and carcass; it would be toothsome and tender. “You made a good kill. We will eat well for a few days.”

  “But I did not kill it,” Llew said. “The cylenchar brought it. Just before dawn, I heard a sound in the bush, and I readied myself to throw. I saw”—he paused, swallowed—“saw a blur of green—branches, leaves, and twigs, bristling, moving—and then it was gone, and I saw the roebuck lying in the clearing under the tree. It was already dead. I climbed down. The buck was still warm; it was killed only moments before. I waited for a while, but nothing happened. So I picked up the deer and brought it here.”

  We sat for a time, listening to the crackling fire, wondering if the cylenchar was even now watching us. He had seen us from the beginning, I suspect, and watched us as we set about establishing our camp, making the spears. He had watched us and had brought a gift of food. It was his way of welcoming us.

  “The hidden ones are very old,” I said after a time. “When the dew of creation was still fresh on the earth, they dwelt in the land. At the coming of men to Albion, they retreated to the forests where they wait and watch.”

  “What do they watch?”

 
“They watch everything. They know all that passes among the leaves and shadows. They tend the trees and the animals that shelter within the circle of the trees. They are guardians of the forest.”

  “You said we have been welcomed. Why would it do that?”

  “I cannot say. But we will be watched, and I think we will be protected now.”

  “And fed.”

  “Yes, watched and fed. We will set aside a portion of the meat for the cylenchar—to show our respect and thanks. If the meat is accepted, we will know that our presence is honored here.”

  Llew hung the buck by the hind legs from the branch of a tree, cut its throat and left it to bleed; he gathered some willow branches and returned to begin skinning the deer. “You are tired,” I told him. “Go to sleep. I will do the rest.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I will wake you for supper,” I told him. It was only slightly more difficult than I thought it might be—owing more to lack of a proper iron blade than lack of eyesight. Using the flint blade and scraper, I carefully removed the pelt. I quartered the carcass and, as best I could, jointed the haunches. The portions I thought to save, I wrapped in the pelt; the offal I left for the birds and beasts. All this was carried out away from the camp, as I did not wish to foul the campsite with the leavings.

  When I had finished, I returned with the meat to the fire, built the flames high and hot, and affixed two haunch portions of meat onto the green willow spits Llew had prepared. I set the joints to cook slowly at the fire’s edge and waited for Llew to awaken.

  We ate at midday, gorging on the succulent venison. We ate until we could hold no more and then went down to the lake to drink and bathe. The water was cold, making the skin tingle as we swam and sported in the water. I missed having soap, and I did not like the wet cloth on my eyes. Llew saw me unwrapping the cloth and swam to me.

  “It is time to see how it is healing,” I said.

  “I agree,” he replied. “I will join you.” He began unwinding the cloth from his wrist-stump.