The Silver Hand Read online

  “Tegid, it cannot be!” He started walking again—quick, angry steps.

  I walked beside him. “I cannot allow Meldron to become king. He will not perpetuate his atrocity by my hand. Yet I must give the kingship to someone—and soon.”

  “Give it to someone else.”

  “There is no one else.”

  He whirled to face me. “You do not understand! Simon has to be stopped before he destroys everything. I have to see to it that he goes back where he belongs. Do you hear what I am telling you?”

  “I hear you, brother,” I replied softly. “But think about what I am saying. As king you could stop Siawn Hy and Meldron. You could undo all the wrong that Siawn has done by taking the throne.”

  He made to turn away, but I caught his shoulder and held him fast. “Hear me, Llew,” I said earnestly. “You say that Siawn has spread a deadly poison here. If that is true, then stop him. I am offering you the chance to do that.”

  3

  TÁN N’ RIGH

  Long in my grave and cold I will be,” I vowed, “before ever I give the kingship of my people to that hissing viper Meldron. If he were a snake, I would lop off his head and throw his writhing body into the firepit.”

  “But Meldron has made himself king.”

  “He is not the king! Only sovereignty can make a man king. And only a true bard can confer sovereignty,” I declared. “I alone hold the kingship of Prydain. And it is mine to give as I choose. That is the ancient and honorable way.”

  We sat alone on the hillside below ruined Sycharth, talking quietly. I thought it best to speak in secret, away from Meldron’s eyes and ears, and I knew no one would intrude so near to the devastated stronghold.

  Llew shook his head slowly, “I do not like it, Tegid. Do you expect Meldron just to step aside while you hand the crown to someone else? He would have killed us tonight if the people had not prevented him.”

  “And they will prevent him again. You saw how it was; they will not let Meldron harm you. They esteem you highly, Llew. They respect you. Given a choice between you and Meldron, they will follow you.”

  Llew was silent for a long time. Then he said, “Very well, Tegid. I will do it.” Before I could reply, he raised a finger and quickly added, “But only until my task here is accomplished. Then you will have to choose someone else to be your king.”

  “Agreed,” I said quickly.

  “I mean it, Tegid! I will be king only until I can find a way to get Simon back to the other side where he belongs. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.”

  He glared at me.

  “Only until Siawn Hy is subdued. I understand, brother. Truly.”

  The tension went out of him at last. “How do we go about this kingmaking then?”

  “There are many ways kingship may be conferred,” I told him. “I will use a way that Meldron does not know—an ancient way. I will use the Tán n’Righ.”

  “King by fire?” Llew wondered. “That sounds painful—is it?”

  “No,” I replied, “not if you do it right. But it is necessary that you listen carefully and do everything exactly as I tell you.”

  We talked far into the night, head-to-head, huddled in our cloaks, shivering, and watching the campfires below. Dawn was not far off when we finished.

  “Now what?” asked Llew, yawning.

  “We will rest now. And you will stay out of sight. Meldron must not find an excuse to challenge you. Also, he must not become suspicious, or he will interfere. I know where you can hide.”

  I told him where he could sleep in seclusion, and we rose and stood together. “Are you certain that it can be done in one day?” Llew asked.

  “One day is all I need. Leave everything to me. I will come for you, or send someone, when all is ready.”

  We parted then and went our separate ways. As I walked down the hillside to the camp, my thoughts were already racing fast and far, far ahead. Yes, there was much to be done, and it must all be done quickly. The ceremony would take place that night!

  I worked through the day—quietly, and without undue haste. I assembled stones from the four quarters—black from the north, white from the south, green from the west, and purple from the east. I drew water from a fresh-running spring. I gathered the nine sacred woods: willow from a moving stream; hazel from among the rocks; alder from the marshes; birch from the waterfall; yew from the open place; blackthorn from the hidden place; elm from the shady place; rowan from the hill; oak from the sun. To these, the Nawglan, the Sacred Nine, I added holly with its bright array of spears; elder with its potent purple berries; and apple with its sweet, smooth hardness.

  I burned these in a fire built of a flat stone. Then I carefully collected the ash and put it into a leather pouch which I tied to my belt. When I had made these preparations, I returned to camp and set about gathering wood for the Tán n’Righ, the King Fire. For this, I took live embers from each of the hearthfires which the people had burned the night before, and firewood from the stockpile of each camp.

  The only difficulty lay in obtaining the ember and branch from the prince’s fire. But the Goodly-Wise smiled on me, and Meldron— bored with the duties of the camp, which he considered beneath him—rode out to hunt at midday. I had only to wait until he and the warriors of his Wolf Pack were out of sight. I helped myself to what I needed, and he was none the wiser.

  At dusk I summoned Llew from hiding and hastened back to camp to await Meldron’s return from the hunt.

  In the time-between-times—the light of a new-risen moon on my left, the setting sun on my right—I kindled the King Fire within a circle of stones gathered from the four quarters. Then I summoned the people with the aurochs horn. The sound had not been heard among us since Meldryn Mawr led us to Findargad, and the clansmen were alarmed to hear it now. They gathered quickly, circling the fire ring. Then I called Llew from my tent.

  As Llew stepped forward to take his place, Prince Meldron thrust his way forward through the host, Siawn Hy at his side. “What is this, Tegid?” Meldron called. “More of your foolishness?”

  I did not acknowledge the insult, for I did not want to give them leave to speak.

  “Put off your boots,” I told Llew. When he had untied the laces and pulled the buskins from his feet, I said, “Spread your cloak on the ground behind you.”

  He did this and turned again to me. “Remove your siarc and belt and breecs,” I told him.

  Llew hesitated at this command, but obeyed. “Lay aside your clothing,” I told him, “and come before me.”

  In full view of the gathered clan, Llew reluctantly stripped off his clothes, placing them on the outspread cloak as he removed them. Then he stepped before me, and I bade him walk three times in a rightwise circle around me.

  “This is embarrassing,” he growled through clenched teeth as he passed the first time.

  “Keep walking.”

  “They are laughing at me!” he whispered as he completed the second circuit.

  “Let them laugh. They will squeal like stuck pigs soon enough.”

  He continued, walking slowly, and, completing his third circuit, came to stand before me once more. “Can we get on with it?”

  “It is of highest importance. You must be seen to possess no blemish,” I told him. “Stretch forth your right hand.”

  He put out his right hand. “Now the left,” I directed. And as he stretched forth his left hand, I stooped to the fire and caught up two burning branches which I had prepared. I pulled them out of the flames and stepped behind him. “Remember,” I whispered as I moved behind him. “Say nothing. And do not twitch a muscle.”

  Taking a branch in either hand, I began moving the flaming brands over his naked body. Beginning at the heels, I worked the torches up along his calves and thighs and over his buttocks and along his ribs, and then along his outstretched arms. Llew stood rigidly, looking neither right nor left, but staring straight ahead, his eyes fixed on the rising moon.

  I
worked the flames over his chest and stomach, down over his groin and genitals, legs and feet. The hair on his chest and legs singed where the flames touched his skin and filled the air with the stink of burning hair. His jaw bulged and he glared murderously at me, but he did not wince or cry out.

  “Llew!” I said loudly, rising to stand before him face-to-face. “You have displayed yourself before the people. I find no blemish on you.”

  At this, one of the Wolf Pack shouted, “How can you see through all the soot?” They all laughed again, even now thinking no ill— which only shows how ignorant they were.

  “As flames cleanse and purify,” I continued, carefully replacing the branches in the fire, “I proclaim you cleansed and purified of all corruption.” Taking up the pouch at my side, I poured the contents into my left hand and with the fingertips of my right hand, I marked Llew with the Nawglan, saining him with the Sacred Nine: on the sole of each foot, across the stomach over the heart, at the throat, upon the forehead, down the spine, and around each wrist.

  The Lywyddi watched, mystified. I stole a glance at the prince and saw that his haughty smirk had faded, and he now appeared mildly concerned by what he saw before him. Siawn Hy looked on with cool menace in his hooded eyes.

  When I finished, I stepped once more before him. “Lift your voice, Llew. Declare before the people: Who do you serve?”

  He replied as I had told him: “I serve the people!”

  “Whence comes your life?”

  “The life of the people is my life!”

  “Where will you reside?”

  “I reside in the will of the people!”

  “How will you rule?”

  “I will rule in the wisdom of the people!”

  “How will you obtain?”

  “I will obtain in the wealth of the people!”

  I raised my hands before his face, palms outward. “I have heard your declaration,” I called in a loud voice, so all could hear. “Let it be so confirmed!”

  So saying, I turned and retrieved the firebrands. Quickly, so that he would not have time to think about what was happening, I thrust a burning brand into each of Llew’s hands—flame end downward. The fire raced up the length of the branch, and instantly Llew’s hands were engulfed in flames. Yet he stood before them, grasping the firebrands as the fire licked at his flesh. He did not scream or cry out; he did not flinch or drop the torches.

  The people gasped. Prince Meldron and his scoffers gaped stupidly.

  “With flames of fire,” I then proclaimed, “your declaration is confirmed.”

  Llew raised the burning brands above his head and slowly turned round so that everyone could see that the fire consumed the branches but did not burn his flesh.

  With every eye on the marvel of the fist-clenched fire no one saw my hand reach under my cloak and withdraw the torc. The firebrands lifted high, Llew’s back to me, I stepped behind him and slipped the golden torc around his neck. And then I raised my hands over him and said, “By authority of the Tán n’Righ, I declare you king!”

  I turned to the people and lifted my voice in song:

  By authority of wind when it gusts sea gales, you are king.

  By authority of sun when it whelms dark night, you are king.

  By authority of rain, when it greens far hills, you are king.

  By authority of earth when it heaves high mountains, you are king.

  By authority of stone when it births bright iron, you are king.

  By authority of bull and eagle and salmon and all creatures that swim

  and fly and tread the hidden places of earth, sky, and sea,

  you are king.

  By authority of the Goodly-Wise, who with his swift sure hand establishes

  and upholds all things in this worlds-realm, you are king.

  The song ended; I raised my staff and proclaimed, “Behold! Llew, Sovereign of Prydain, King of the Llwyddi! Pay him heartfelt homage! Prepare to do him honor!”

  Some were already in the act of kneeling, when the prince’s voice stopped them. “No! No! He is not your king!”

  Before anyone could lift a hand to prevent him, Siawn Hy had a spear in Llew’s ribs, and he was shouting, “Meldron is king! Meldron is king!”

  Siawn pulled Llew’s arms down and knocked the firebrands from his hands. He gestured to the foremost of the Wolf Pack, who stepped into the circle, glancing nervously at the people gathered close about. I noticed they avoided my eyes.

  Meldron, raising the torc above his own head, declared himself king, saying, “Hear me now! I hold the torc of the Llwyddi kings! The kingship of my father is mine by right!”

  “There is no such right!” I countered. “Only a bard can bestow kingship. And I have given it to Llew!”

  “You have no power here!”

  “I am the chief bard of our people,” I replied, calmly, confidently. “I alone hold the sovereignty. I alone hold the power to confer kingship.”

  “You are nothing!” the prince roared, clenching the torc in his fist and shaking it in my face. “I hold my father’s torc. I am king!”

  “And I tell you that holding a torc will not make you a king, any more than standing in the forest will make you a tree!”

  Some laughed at this, and Meldron’s rage deepened at the laughter. I rushed on, recklessly. “Go ahead! Wear the golden torc, and command the gosgordd of warriors,” I challenged. “Array yourself in fine clothes, and lavish gifts of gold and silver on the yammering pack who clamor after you. Do all you will, Meldron! But remember this: Sovereignty does not reside in the torc, or in the throne, or even in the might of the sword.”

  I turned to the people. It was time for them to act, to put down Meldron once and for all. “Listen to me! Meldron is not the king. You have just seen a kingmaking: Llew is the chosen king. Resist Meldron! Defy him! He has no power here. He can do no—”

  Then, before I could say another word, Meldron screamed to his Wolf Pack, “Seize them! Seize them both!”

  4

  THE CAPTIVE PIT

  I am sorry, brother.”

  I might have been speaking to the mud at my feet. Llew sat with his knees drawn to his chest, his head resting on his arms. In the dim light of the pit, he was a shadow—a morose and miserable shadow.

  After seven nights and days in Meldron’s captive pit, I did not blame him. The fault was mine. I had underestimated Meldron and his readiness to overthrow the long-honored ways of our people. I had misjudged the support he enjoyed among his warrior band, the Wolf Pack, and their willingness to uphold him against their own kinsmen. Yes, and I had overestimated my own ability to exploit the respect the people felt towards Llew. They might have exalted Llew, but Meldron was known to them, and he was one of their own. Llew was the outsider, the stranger in our midst.

  Nevertheless, I had thought—no, I had believed in my blood and bones—that the people would not stand by and let Meldron challenge their last remaining bard. A king is a king, but a bard is the heart and soul of the people; he is their life in song, and the lamp which guides their steps along the paths of destiny. A bard is the essential spirit of the clan; he is the linking ring, the golden cord which unites the manifold ages of the clan, binding all that is past with all that is yet to come.

  But fear makes men blind and stupid. And these were troubled times. I should have known the people would not challenge Meldron to the shedding of blood. In the Day of Strife, even brave men would not risk their lives for the truth by which we have ever lived.

  “I am sorry, Llew.”

  “Stop saying that, Tegid,” he muttered. “I am sick of it.”

  “I did not mean this to happen.”

  He raised his face to the low black roof above his head. “It is my own fault for letting you talk me into it. I never should have listened to you.”

  “I am sorry, Llew—”

  “Stop it!” His head whipped toward me. “It—it is . . .” He struggled to rise above the lethargy of our predicament
but crumpled at the effort and slipped back into his misery. “What is the use? It does not matter.”

  He was silent for a long time, and I thought he would not speak again. But then he said, “I remember now, Tegid. I can remember everything—I could not remember it before.”

  “What do you remember?”

  “My own world,” he answered. “Until I went back, I had all but forgotten it even existed. I did not want to remember, you see? And I almost succeeded in forgetting altogether. But for Simon, I would never have considered going back, and I would have lost it.”

  I watched him in the darkness of the pit. He had never spoken to me about his own world, and it is not our way to inquire. Those of other worlds who sojourn among us—the Dyn Dythri, the strangers— are treated with respect. We accept them and include them; we teach them our ways and allow them the freedom to prove themselves and earn what honor they can.

  Once our race journeyed in their world, and we gave them gifts to ease the burdens of their lives. But no more. The rift between the worlds has grown ever wider, and the bridge is treacherous and dark. We still welcome the strangers among us, but we do not willingly journey to their world, nor do we encourage them as we once did.

  “It had changed,” Llew continued, speaking earnestly. “The world, my world, had changed. It was even worse than when I left—and I think only a day or two had passed on that side. No color, no life— everything fading away, decaying, disintegrating.”

  He seemed to be trying to work something out in his mind, to explain it to himself, perhaps; so I did not intrude on his thought but let him speak.

  “It is the Paradise War,” he continued. “What happens here, in this world, affects life over there. Profes—I mean, my friend Nettles told me; he explained it all to me. And I believed him. But I had no idea it could be so—that the change could be so devastating. It was as if the world was disappearing before my eyes.”