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One moment, one moment, Taliesin called. He threw his harp, bag and shoes on board, hitched his
skirts still higher and waded into the water. Balig reached out, clasped the bard s hand and hauled him
unceremoniously over the gunwale. Taliesin sprawled on the deck, found his shoes, bag and harp, then
wrung water from the skirts of his robe. You don t mind if I come, Lord? he asked me, the silver fillet
askew on his black hair.
Why should I?
Not that I intend to accompany you. I just wish passage to Dumnonia. He straightened the silver
fillet, then frowned at my grinning spearmen. Do those men know how to row?
Course they don t, Balig answered for me. They re spearmen, no use for anything useful. Do it
together, you bastards! Ready? Push forward! Oars down! Pull! He shook his head in mock despair.
Might as well teach pigs to dance.
It was about nine miles to the open sea from Isca, nine miles that we covered swiftly because our boat
was carried by the ebbing tide and the river s swirling current. The Usk slid between glistening mudbanks
that climbed to fallow fields, bare woods and wide marshes. Wicker fish traps stood on the banks where
herons and gulls pecked at the flapping salmon stranded by the falling tide. Redshanks called plaintively
while snipe climbed and swooped above their nests. We hardly needed the oars, for together the tide and
current were carrying us fast, and once we reached the widening water where the river spilled into the
Severn, Balig and his crewman hoisted a ragged brown sail that caught the west wind and made the boat
surge forward. Ship those oars now, he ordered my men, then he grasped the big steering oar and
stood happily as the small ship dipped her blunt prow into the first big waves. The sea will be lively
today, Lord, he called cheerfully. Scoop that water out! he shouted to my spearmen. The wet stuff
belongs outside a boat, not in it. Balig grinned at my incipient misery. Three hours, Lord, that s all, and
we ll have you ashore.
You dislike boats? Taliesin asked me.
I hate them.
A prayer to Manawydan should avert sickness, he said calmly. He had hauled a pile of nets beside
my chest and now sat on them. He was plainly untroubled by the boat s violent motion, indeed he
seemed to enjoy it. I slept last night in the amphitheatre, he told me. I like to do that, he went on when
he saw I was too miserable to respond. The banked seats serve like a dream tower.
I glanced at him, my sickness somehow lessened by those last two words for they reminded me of
Merlin who had once possessed a dream tower on the summit of Ynys Wydryn s Tor. Merlin s dream
tower had been a hollow wooden structure that he claimed magnified the messages of the Gods, and I
could understand how Isca s Roman amphitheatre with its high banked seats set about its raked sand
arena might serve the same purpose. Were you seeing the future? I managed to ask him.
Some of it, he admitted, but I also met Merlin in my dream last night.
The mention of that name drove away the last qualms in my belly. You spoke with Merlin? I asked.
He spoke to me, Taliesin corrected me, but he could not hear me.
What did he say?
More than I can tell you, Lord, and nothing you wish to hear.
What? I demanded.
He grabbed at the stern post as the boat pitched off a steep wave. Water sprayed back from the
bows and spattered on the bundles that held our armour. Taliesin made sure his harp was well protected
under his robe, then touched the silver fillet that circled his tonsured head to make certain it was still in
place. I think, Lord, that you travel into danger, he said calmly.
Is that Merlin s message, I asked, touching the iron of Hywel-bane s hilt, or one of your visions?
Only a vision, he confessed, and as I once told you, Lord, it is better to see the present clearly than
to try and discern a shape in the visions of the future. He paused, evidently considering his next words
carefully. You have not, I think, heard definite news of Mordred s death?
No.
If my vision was right, he said, then your King is not sick at all, but has recovered. I could be
wrong, indeed I pray I am wrong, but have you had any omens?
About Mordred s death? I asked.
About your own future, Lord, he said.
I thought for a second. There had been the small augury of the salmon-fisher s net, but that I ascribed
to my own superstitious fears rather than to the Gods. More worryingly, the small blue-green agate in the
ring that Aelle had given to Ceinwyn had fallen out, and one of my old cloaks had been stolen, and
though both events could have been construed as bad omens, they could equally well be mere mishaps. It
was hard to tell, and neither loss seemed portentous enough to mention to Taliesin. Nothing has worried
me lately, I told him instead.
Good, he said, rocking to the boat s motion. His long black hair flapped in the wind that was
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