Dafyd listened, a frown appearing now and again on his face. But when Taliesin finished telling him what had happened in the grove, the priest smiled reassuringly and said, ‘You are right to be concerned, Taliesin. But you are in no danger that I can see, as long as you remain strong in the faith. The maid Morgian may have power – probably does; I have no doubt that what you say is true. But the power of our Saviour is stronger still. God will not abandon those he has called, nor will he allow them to be taken from him by the Evil One.’

Taliesin was encouraged by this. ‘Tell us, good brother, how is it that the Saviour knows his own?’

‘Why, by our faith in him. And all who believe proclaim his death and resurrection in baptism – the baptism of water with which our Lord himself was baptized by John. It is a simple rite, but most holy. In fact, I baptized King Avallach not long ago.’

‘Can you do it for us, too?’ asked Taliesin, reaching for Charis’ hand.

‘Certainly,’ remarked Dafyd, his kindly face breaking into a grin. ‘Shall we do it now? There will be no better time.’

‘I agree,’ said Taliesin. ‘Let us do it now.’

‘Collen,’ Dafyd called to the shrine, ‘put down your tools and come with us! We are going down to the lake to make Christians of our friends here.’

So together the four of them walked down to the lake, the priests singing a Latin hymn, Taliesin and Charis behind them, silent, their steps resolute and slow. When they reached the lake, Dafyd strode into the water, then turned and spread his hands to them, mantle and robe swirling around him. ‘Come to me, friends, the kingdom of God draws near.’

Charis and Taliesin stepped into the water and waded to where Dafyd stood, Collen singing all the while, his steady tenor resounding over the water. Dafyd placed them one on either side of him and turned them to face one another. ‘It is a beautiful thing for a human being to be born anew. I want you both to see it and remember it always.’

With that he spread his hands and lifted his face and began to pray, saying, ‘Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of water as a sign of your cleansing and reviving us: we thank you that through the still, deep waters of death you brought your Son, and raised him to new life as King of Heaven. Bless this water and your servants who are washed and cleansed from all sin and made one with our Lord, both in his death and new life. Remember them, heavenly Father, and give them peace and hope and life everlasting. Amen.’

Collen added his amen and Dafyd continued. ‘We who are born of earthly parents need to be born again. For in the sacred texts the good news of Jesu tells us that unless a man has been born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And so God, who is ever wise and faithful, gives us a way to be born again by water and his Spirit. This baptism enacts our second birth.’

Then, turning to Taliesin, he said, ‘Is it your wish to receive the sacrament of water?’

‘It is,’ answered Taliesin.

‘Then kneel down, Taliesin,’ said Dafyd. When the bard had knelt, he asked, ‘Do you believe that Jesu is the Christ, the only begotten Son of the Living God?’

‘I do believe it,’ Taliesin replied.

‘Do you repent of your sins?’

‘I repent of my sins.’

‘Do you renounce evil?’

‘I do renounce evil.’

‘Do you swear allegiance to Jesu as your Lord and King, and vow to love him and follow him and serve him all the days of your life?’

‘With all my heart I do swear it,’ said Taliesin.

Dafyd bent to scoop water into his hands. ‘Then in the name of your new King, Jesu the Christ, friend and Saviour of men, and in the names of the True God and his Spirit, I do baptize you.’ So saying, the priest raised his hands and poured water over Taliesin’s bowed head.

And then, placing one hand between Taliesin’s shoulder blades and the other on his head, he tilted Taliesin back into the water. ‘As Jesu died that men might live, so you die to your old life.’ He held the bard under the water for a moment and then raised him up again with the words: ‘Awake, Taliesin ap Elphin! Arise to new life as a child of the One True God.’

Taliesin rose up from the water with a shout, his face shining, his body trembling and shaking water all around. ‘I am reborn!’ he cried, pouncing on Dafyd and wrapping him in a great hug.

‘Hold, Taliesin! Stay! I have been baptized already!’ the priest spluttered. Collen launched into another hymn and sang with vigour.

Charis was baptized next and, when he had finished, Dafyd raised his hands over them and prayed, ‘Almighty God, in your never-ending love you have called us to know you, led us to trust you, and bound your life to ours. Surround these, your children, with your love and protect them from evil, even as you receive them into your care, so that they may walk in the way of the Lord and grow in grace and faith. Amen.’

Turning first to Taliesin and then to Charis, he made a motion in the air, saying, ‘I sign you with the cross, the sign of the Christ. Do not be ashamed to confess your faith, my friends. Live in the light, and fight valiantly against sin and the Devil all the days of your lives.’

They waded back to shore and as Taliesin came up out of the water he turned to Charis. ‘We are reborn together,’ he told her. ‘Now nothing can separate us.’

‘It was not a marriage,’ remarked a dripping Dafyd. ‘Ah, but I can perform that rite as well.’

‘And you shall,’ said Taliesin, ‘very soon.’

They strode from the lake and back to the shrine where Collen gave them robes to wrap themselves in while they waited for the sun to dry their clothes. They ate smoked fish and brown bread beside the fire and Taliesin told about King Avallach’s visit the night before and his gift of land.

‘But what a great and generous gift,’ remarked Dafyd when he heard. ‘I am pleased, for it means that you will stay close by.’ He glanced at Charis, who had grown silent during their talk. ‘Is that not good news, Charis?’ he asked her.

She stirred at the sound of her name and said, ‘What? Oh… yes it is good news.’

‘And as soon as we have established our holding,’ Taliesin continued, ‘Charis and I will be married.’

Dafyd nodded approvingly. ‘Such a handsome match!’

Charis said nothing, and after a time Collen came with their clothes slung over his arms. She left them to dress.

‘She has been lonely,’ the priest said. ‘She has lost much in her life and may be fearful of losing more. It is not easy to love what can be lost. Sometimes I think it is the most difficult thing in the world.’ Dafyd paused and said, ‘You know, Hafgan came to me a few days ago.’

Taliesin’s brows raised in surprise. ‘Did he? He said nothing to me about it.’

‘He wanted to hear about the Lord. “Tell me about this god,” he said. “This Jesu, the one called the Christ.” We talked for several hours and he told me the most remarkable thing: he said that the sign of the Christ’s birth was noted in the sky, and that the druids of old knew that a king like no other on earth had been born. Think of it! They knew.’

‘I have never heard that story, although I have heard another often enough – concerning a starfall many years ago.’

‘He did not mention it.’

‘Hafgan and many others saw it. He said that it, too, betokened a wondrous birth, a royal birth: the king who will lead us through the Dark Time.’

‘The Dark Time? You mean the attack that drove your people south?’

‘That is only the beginning, and not even that.’ Taliesin grew very grave. ‘But it is coming… darkness deep as dead night will descend over the Island of the Mighty.’

‘This king – you say he has been born?’ asked the priest.

Taliesin shook his head. ‘Perhaps; no one knows. But his coming cannot be far off, for the darkness grows more powerful with each passing day. He will have to come soon if there is to be anything left worth saving.’

‘I believe it is true,’ put in Collen excitedly. He had been following this exchange as closely as he could. ‘Some herders passing by this morning said that raiders have been seen hereabouts – where no Irish have been seen for many years.’

‘Charis came upon them yesterday in the valley. If I had not been there she might have suffered the worse for it…’ he paused, remembering the sight of her besting trained warriors. ‘Ah, but you should have seen her. Even now I am not so sure she needed my help at all.’

‘I can well imagine,’ mused Dafyd, stroking his chin, ‘that she would be a most formidable opponent. There is a good deal of iron in that spine. I have often wondered where it comes from.’

‘Will you be leaving soon?’ asked Collen.

‘Today,’ said Taliesin. ‘I mean to visit here often, though, and invite you to do the same.’

‘We will, we will,’ promised Dafyd. ‘I have my new converts to look after. And more new converts to make. I think we will be seeing much of one another in time to come.’

Charis rejoined them, and she and Taliesin reluctantly took their leave. The priests waved them on their way and then went back to work on the shrine.

The two rode to the Tor and across the causeway, whereupon, reaching the winding pathway leading to the palace, Taliesin turned aside. Charis also pulled up, and they sat for a moment looking at one another. ‘You are leaving,’ she said, matter-of-factly.

‘For a little while. But when I come back we will be together, and never be separated again.’ He urged his mount closer a few steps, and took her hand. ‘You will fill my thoughts every moment until I return.’ He leaned forward and kissed her gently.

Charis stiffened, gripping the reins in her fist. ‘You say we are reborn,’ she replied bitterly. ‘You say we will be married, and that we will never be parted. You say you love me.’

‘I do, Charis. With all that is in me, I do.’

‘It is not enough!’ she shouted, lashing the reins across her horse’s withers, kicking her heels into its flanks. ‘It… is… not… enough…’

The grey bolted away up the winding path to the summit of the Tor.

 

Misery descended upon Charis’ heart with the cold, bleak, rain-filled days that settled over the land. She paced the corridors of the palace, fretful, anxious, hating herself for feeling the way she did, and then feeling worse for it.

Her torment had no centre. Like a wind that assailed from all directions, it seemed to strike wherever she turned, and at times unexpected. Why? she kept asking herself. Why? Why? Why?

Why does it have to be this way? Why does the thought of loving Taliesin fill me with such dread? Why am I so afraid?

She thought about Taliesin – but more as an abstract presence, a force to be faced, or an argument to be reconciled, than as a flesh-and-bone human being who loved and desired her. He was a cypher that had no face, a symbol of something she could not reckon.

Why, she would ask herself, does the thought of him bring no happiness?

Time and again she asked the question, and time and again stumbled over the same awkward conclusion: I do not love him.

That must be it, she decided. As painful as it is, that must be the answer. I do not love him. Maybe I have never loved anyone…

No, I did. I loved my mother, she thought. But that was a long time ago and she has been dead many years. Perhaps when Briseis was killed all love inside me died, too. Strange to find out just now. It has been so long since I have loved anyone or anything, except myself – no, not even myself. What the High Queen told me that day, long ago, was true: I wished myself dead, which is why I danced the bulls.

Love…

Why should love be so important? Save for a few brief years as a child, I have lived my life without it. Why should this lack make any difference now? Why now?

And what had happened to that calm, agreeable feeling she had experienced only a few days ago – that sense of security and the rightness of things, the feeling of being part of a hidden plan meticulously working itself out… where had that gone?

It was true, she reminded herself. Only a few days ago you were certain you were in love with Taliesin. Only a few days ago you felt as if life had recovered its purpose and meaning for you. Only a few days ago… and now?

Had things changed so much? Or had those feelings been but fleeting sensations, more dream than reality? There was certainly something very dreamlike about the last few days. It was as if she had slept and awakened from a pleasant dream to the soulless austerity of reality.

Was it a dream? Had she, out of loneliness and melancholy, imagined it?

Taliesin was real enough. Charis could still hear her name on his lips, could feel his touch on her skin, the warmth of his arms around her. That was real, but was it love?

If it was, it was not enough.

Her words at their parting came back to her, stinging her with their hopelessness. It is not enough! Not enough! Love had never been enough. It had not kept her mother from dying; it had not prevented the hideous war that had taken Eoinn and Guistan; it had not saved Atlantis from destruction… As far as she knew, love had never saved anyone from the agony of life, even for an instant.

And now here was the Christian priest Dafyd insisting that the ruling power of the world – indeed, of all worlds past, present and yet to come – was love. This same feeble, inconstant emotion. Impotent and, by its very nature, vulnerable. More a thing to be despised than exalted, more to be pitied than embraced.

Who was this god who demanded love of his servants, called himself love, and insisted that he be worshipped in love? Who made love the highest expression of his power, and insisted that he alone stood above all other gods, that he alone had created the heavens and earth, that he alone was worthy of honour, reverence and glory?

A strange and perverse god, this God of Love, thought Charis. Not at all like any of the other gods I have known. So unlike Bel, whose dual aspects of constancy and change demanded nothing but simple reverence and ritual – and not even that if one was not inclined. If he did not greatly heed or help his people, at least he made no pretence of caring for them, either. He ignored all men equally, Mage and beggar alike.

But this Most High God insisted that he cared for his followers, and asked – no, demanded – that men acknowledge him as sole supreme guardian, authority, and judge over all. Yet, he could be as silent and cold and distant and fickle as Cybel ever was.

Even so, Charis had promised to follow him, had been baptized into the Christian faith. Why?

Was it because she was restless, and tired of her restlessness, tired of searching, tired of the lonely, empty feeling that there was no longer any significance to her life? Was that it?

Like a bird trapped in a cow byre, throwing herself against dumb, unfeeling walls, Charis struggled to understand the unhappy welter of her thoughts and emotions, only to be met time and again with silence and indifference. Her questions went unanswered.

Very well, she had been attracted to this new god through his son, Jesu, who had lived as a man among men, teaching the ways of love, and pointing the way to a kingdom of peace and joy without end. That, at least, was worth believing. But to what end?

Bel offered nothing so impossible, made no barren promises. Life and death were all the same to him. But not to this Jesu. If Charis understood Dafyd right, Jesu, who was himself truly God, sacrificed himself so that all might be reborn to live in his kingdom – a kingdom as remote and insubstantial to her as the love he promised to share with those who believed and followed him.

‘Only believe,’ Dafyd had told her. ‘He does not ask us to understand him, only to believe in him. As it is written: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will never die, but will have everlasting life.”’

Only believe! Only raise Atlantis from the depths – that would be easier, thought Charis in despair. How can I believe in a god who has no image, yet claims all of creation for his province; who demands total and unstinting devotion, yet will not speak; who calls himself Father, yet refused to spare his only true son.

Better to believe in Bel, or Lleu, or Oester, or the Mother Goddess, or any of the multitude of gods and goddesses that men have worshipped through the ages. Better to believe in nothing and no one at all… a conclusion that had all the comfort of the tomb.

‘God!’ she cried in despair, her voice lost in the wind and rain that beat down upon the Tor. ‘God!’