The Silver Hand (50 page)

“Llew! Come out of the water,” I called. Cynan struggled to his feet, shaking his head, staring.

“He is alive!” Goewyn ran to where we stood. She had a knife in her hand and loosed the bindings at my wrists. “Why does he not come out?”

“I cannot say,” I answered, my eyes still on Llew, who stood straight and tall, his silver hand upraised.

Cynan thrust out his hands toward Goewyn. With short, sharp cuts she freed him. He spun toward the lake, took two short steps and shouted: “Look! The water!”

My inward sight shifted to where he pointed. I saw Llew standing as before; he had not moved. But flowing in undulating ripples around him, spreading outward in a swiftly widening ring, I saw clean water. Indeed, between the shore and Llew it was already clear, and the ring of pure water was expanding with astonishing speed.

The vile, black taint was receding, vanishing, dissolving as encircling bands of clear water swept outward from around Llew, whose presence seemed to flare like a sun blazing in a murky firmament, burning away the fog and cloud wrack, banishing the blight by the brilliance of its light.

“There is healing in the water,” Goewyn whispered, clasping her hands fervently beneath her chin. Tears shone in her eyes.

With her words still hanging in the air, I rushed forward to join Llew.

“Tegid!” Cynan shouted and lunged to prevent me. The lake water splashed over me. My head went under and I felt the burning sensation in my eyes. I came up gasping, dashing water with both hands. Bright light flashed through my fingers; I removed my hands and blinked my eyes.

Everything appeared just as I had seen it before, with my inward eye—but clearer, sharper, keener than before. Inner vision and outward sight had become one: I could see! Dazzling, sparkling, luminous in its clarity, light brilliant and glorious streamed into my eyes; I closed them and the light was gone. It was true; I was healed!

Cynan dashed into the lake after me. With a wild whoop, he splashed to where Llew stood and wrapped him in a fierce embrace. Goewyn hastened to join them. She kissed Llew happily and clasped him to her.

I rose and ran to Llew and put my hands on him. “You are alive!” I said, touching him. “Meldron is dead and you are alive.”

“It is over!” cried Cynan. “Meldron is dead!”

Goewyn kissed him, and Cynan as well. Llew returned their embraces, but as one dazed. He stretched forth his silver hand and held it before us. I took it in my hands. The metal was cold to the touch, polished like a mirror and gleaming bright. The fingers were curved slightly and the palm open in a gesture of offering or supplication.

The smooth silver surface was covered with spirals, whorls, and knotwork—fine lines incised in the metal surface. And upon the palm was the Môr Cylch, the Circle Dance, the maze of life. I blinked my eyes, still unsure of them, and touched a fingertip to the emblem, tracing the superbly wrought pattern of slender circling lines. The design was exquisitely etched and the lines inlaid with gold. It was a creation of craft and cunning, fabulous in conception, unrivaled in execution—the work of a lord among smiths.

Touching the inscribed maze, I remembered the words of a promise:
I give you the virtue of your song.

And into my mind came the image of him who had spoken these words: Gofannon, lord of the grove, and Master of the Forge. I had given him a song, for which he had given me a gift in return, my inner sight. Llew had chopped wood for him, but had received no boon from the great lord that night. “I will give you the virtue of your song,” Gofannon had promised, and now he had fulfilled his promise to Llew. For the song I had sung that night was “Bladudd the Blemished Prince.” Oh! What a slow-witted lump I had been! Surely I had sung for the Sure Swift Hand himself.

“Hail, Silver Hand!” I said, touching the back of my hand to my forehead in salutation. “Your servant greets you!”

With a tremendous splash, the people of Dinas Dwr abandoned their fear and surged as one into the lake which was now absolutely pure and clean. They scooped the life-giving water into their hands and poured it down parched throats, drinking their fill. They laved the liquid over their sun-weary heads and were soothed; they washed themselves and were made clean again. Children splashed and frolicked like giddy lambs.

Compelled by thirst and overcome by the sight of so much fresh water, the foemen threw down their weapons and ran to join the glad celebration. Shield and war cap, sword and spear clattered to the stony shingle to be trodden in the rush to the water. The enemy warriors— those who were not warriors at all—could not abandon their weapons fast enough. Freed from Meldron's brutal reign, they knelt in the water and wept with gratitude at their release.

All thought of retribution vanished at their wholehearted thanksgiving; they had been made to suffer the most wicked persecutions; how could we punish them more? They were never our enemies.

Meanwhile, the Ravens and Calbha's war band had captured Meldron's battle chiefs and the warriors of his Wolf Pack, and assembled them on the strand. Fifty warriors stood grimly awaiting judgment.

Bran raised his spear and called to us. “Llew! Tegid! We need you.”

Calbha and Bran stood together, and the warriors ranged behind them on the shingle held the Wolf Pack at spear point. We joined them in the strand and, at our approach, Bran and Calbha parted to reveal their prisoner: Siawn Hy. His head was down as if he were contemplating his rope-bound hands.

As we drew near, Siawn raised his head and glared at us from under a baleful brow. A dark bruise swelled on his right temple.

“Fools!” he hissed. “You think you have won this day. Nothing has changed. You have won nothing!”

“Silence!” Bran warned him. “You may not speak so to the king.”

“It is over, Simon,” said Llew.

At the mention of his former name, Siawn drew breath and spat in Llew's face. Bran's hand, quick as a snake, flicked out and struck Siawn on the mouth. Blood trickled from Siawn's split lip. Bran appeared ready to strike again, but Llew prevented him with a shake of his head.

“It is over,” Llew said. “Meldron is dead.”

“Kill me too,” Siawn muttered sullenly. “I will never submit to you.”

“Where is Paladyr?” I asked, and received only a sneer of contempt by way of reply.

Calbha raised his sword and pointed at Siawn Hy, and then at the rest of the Wolf Pack. “What is to be done about these?” he asked, his tone cold and pitiless.

“Take them to the storehouses and make them secure,” Llew instructed. “We will deal with them later.” Alun Tringad and Garanaw took Siawn by the arms and led him away; the rest of the Wolf Pack followed under Calbha's guard.

Drustwn and Niall waded out to where Meldron's corpse floated. They raised the body from the water and rolled it into the boat like a sodden bag of grain. Then, towing the boat, they hauled the body away to be quickly buried and forgotten.

Scatha, watching all this, arms crossed over her breast, smiled icily. “I had hoped to see his head on my spear, but this will suffice.”

Llew nodded and started after the prisoners. He had not walked ten paces when Cynan snatched up a discarded sword, lofted it, and shouted, “Hail, Silver Hand! Hail!”

Bran leapt forward and retrieved a spear. “Hail, Silver Hand!” he cried, brandishing the spear. And suddenly the whole lake echoed with the sound, as the people of Dinas Dwr and Meldron's former war host ceased their sporting in the water and turned as one to acclaim Llew as he passed. “Silver Hand!” they cheered. “Hail! Silver Hand!”

The cry soared up and up as if to shake the shining sky with their jubilant thunder. And Llew, walking along the shore, stopped, turned to the gathering host, and raised his silver hand high.

We could not celebrate our victory while our dead lay unburied. How could we rejoice with tears in our eyes? How could we feast while the corpses of our kinsmen became food for scavenging birds?

When we had rested, eaten, and drunk our fill of the sweet, plentiful water, we turned once again to the battleground and the reclaiming of our dead—and there were many: almost half of those who had gone down to fight had not returned. Lord Calbha had suffered the greatest loss; the Cruin war band was decimated. The Galanae warriors also paid a fearful price: Cynfarch was shaken to the core. Llew and Scatha had lost fewer than the others, but even one man dead was too many for them and they were greatly distressed. Only the Raven Flight had emerged intact. Fittingly, Bran and the Ravens led the return to the battlefield to begin burying our dead.

Each of our fallen swordbrothers was accorded a hero's burial. As they had died together, we placed them together in one massive grave—shoulder to shoulder, with their spears in their hands and their shields before them. We then covered them with their cloaks and raised the turf house over them.

While this was being done, workmen hauled great slabs of stone from the ridge. When the mound had been raised, we constructed a worthy dolmen to mark the place.

It was late when we finished our task and turned to the enemy warriors. The sun had set, and there were stars shining in the darkening sky. “Let them wait,” Cynan suggested. “They were eager enough to gain this ground; let them enjoy the fruits of their labor.”

But Llew looked out on the massed corpses of the fallen enemy. “No, Cynan,” he said. “It is not right. Most of these were not Meldron's warriors—”

“They fought for him. They died for him. Let him take care of them now,” Cynan replied bitterly.

“Brother,” Llew soothed, “look around you. Look at them. They were farmers; they were untrained boys, plowmen, wood wrights, and sheepherders. They had no place in this fight. The Great Hound used them cruelly and cast them aside. We have suffered much, but they are no less the victims of his brutality. The least we can do is offer them respect in death.”

Cynan grudgingly accepted this. He rubbed his neck as he gazed out across the swiftly darkening plain. His blue eyes glimmered in the fading light. “What do you suggest?”

“Let us bury them as we have buried our own,” Llew said.

“That they do not deserve,” Cynan said flatly.

“Perhaps not,” allowed Llew. “Still, we will do it for them anyway.”

“Why?” wondered Cynan.

“Because we are alive and have a choice, and they do not!” Llew replied with passion. “We do it for them, and we do it for ourselves.”

Cynan scratched his head. “They will never know the difference.”

“But we will,” Llew told him.

“It is a good thing,” I put in quickly. “But the light is gone, and we are spent. Let us rest now and begin again in the morning.”

Llew would not hear it; he shook his head, and I added quickly, “Tomorrow we will erect a dolmen over their grave too. When we see it, we will remember what a terrible master fear can be, and how easily it can conquer a soul.”

Llew turned to regard the dusky battleground, himself little more than a dark shape against a twilight landscape. “Go then, both of you. Take your ease and sleep. But I shall not rest until every trace of Meldron's reign is gone.”

He moved off alone. Watching him, Cynan said, “Long he will be without sleep then. There is not a hearth or hill in all Albion that does not bear the taint of Meldron's reign.” He turned to me. “
Clanna na cù,
Tegid. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

“No,” I confessed, “I never have. But a new order is beginning. I think we will all learn new ways.” I put my hand to Cynan's shoulder. “Order torches to be brought, and food. We will work through the night.”

Through the night we labored—and through the long, hot day to follow. The people of Dinas Dwr and their former enemies worked side by side, willingly and ardently. And in the end, two mounds were raised on the plain—one at the foot of Druim Vran where our swordbrothers were buried, and the other beside the river where so many of Meldron's forces fell. It was a noble deed, and the people understood this even if they did not understand Llew's urgency in doing it. He had said he could not rest until it was finished, and I think he spoke from his heart. Indeed, there could be no new beginning until the old had been properly buried.

When the workmen and their teams at last finished putting the capstone on the dolmen, the sun was well down, casting a rich, honeyed light over the turf mound. The shadow of the dolmen stretched long across the green plain. I commanded Gwion to bring my harp, and I gathered the host to sing the “Lament for the Brave.”

Long it had been since any among us had heard the spirit-quickening music of the harp and voices lifted in song, and the people wept to hear it—tears of sorrow, yes, but also tears of healing. We sang and the tears flowed from our eyes and from our souls.

When the lament finished, they called for more. I strummed the harp and thought what I might sing, what gift I might give them. It felt good to have a harp nestled against my shoulder once more, and soon my fingers found their way, and I began to sing the song that I had been given. I sang and the words kindled the vision once more and it began to live in the world of men.

I sang the steep-sided glen in deep forest, the tall pines straining for the sky . . . I sang the antler throne on a grass-covered mound, adorned with an oxhide of snowy white . . . I sang the bright-burnished shield with a black raven perched on its rim, wings outspread, filling the glen with its severe song . . . I sang the beacon fire burning into the night sky, its signal answered from hilltop to hilltop . . . I sang the rider on his horse of pale yellow, galloping out of the gray mist, the horses' hooves striking sparks from the rocks . . . I sang the great war band bathing in the mountain lake, and the cold water blushing red from their wounds . . . I sang the woman dressed all in white, standing in a green bower with the light of the sun flaring her hair like golden fire . . . I sang the cairn, the hero's grave mound . . .