Stephen Lawhead - The Paradise War

«The knife pierced his heart,» Tegid intoned. «The king is dead.» To me, he said, «Gather some men. We will move the king to his chamber.»

Three warriors joined us and we carefully raised the body and bore it up between us. We carried the king to his chamber and laid him in his sleeping place. Tegid removed his cloak and spread it over the king; he then dismissed the warriors and commanded them to guard the door.

I looked at Tegid standing over the body, chin in hand, deep in thought. I hardly knew what to say or think. It seemed so unreal, so dreamlike. Yet there lay Meldryn Mawr… dead. And, as his champion, it was my duty to protect him.

«Tegid-I… I am sorry,» I stammered, coming to stand beside him.

«Did you know what was in Paladyr's heart?» he asked coldly.

«Well. . . no, I-«

«Could you have prevented it?»

«No. But I-«

«Then you have no cause to reproach yourself.» Though his voice was soft, his tone was adamant. «Neither do I reproach you.»

«But I was his champion!» I insisted. «I stood by while Paladyr killed him. I did nothing. I-I should have.., done something. I should have protected him.»

The bard stooped to smooth the cloak over the corpse. He straightened abruptly and took hold of my arm. «Hear me now, Llew,» he said quietly, but firmly. «The king's life belongs to his people. If one of his own determines to take that life by treachery, no force on earth can prevent it.»

Tegid spoke a hard, hard truth. I understood him, but it would be a long time before I could accept it.

«What are we to do now?»

The bard turned once more to the king. «The body must be prepared for burial. Once we have observed the death rites, a new king wilibe chosen.»

«Prince Meidron said-«

«Prince Meidron has overreached himself,» Tegid replied coldly. «Meldron must submit to the will of the bards.»

In Albion the Derwyddi chose the king, and the kingship did not routinely pass from father to son. Rather, any worthy member of the clan could become king if the bard chose him. They valued the kingship much more highly than to hand it down like a used garment. Instead, the king was chosen from among the best men in the clan.

«I see,» I told him. «But you are the only bard left among the Liwyddi-the only bard left in Albion, for all we know.»

«Then I alone will choose.» He offered a bleak smile, and added, «I hold the kingship now, brother. I bestow it where I will.»

The body of the Great King lay in Findargad for three days, as the days of feasting turned instead to mourning. During that time, Tegid prepared the body for its eventual burial and directed preparations for the journey home to Sycharth. The king would not be buried in the mountain fortress, but would be laid to rest in the Vale of Modornn, in the gravemound of the Liwyddi kings. The body was washed and clothed in his finest garments. His sword and spear were burnished bright; his shield was painted fresh, the circular bosses polished so that they shone like suns.

On the fourth day, the corpse was carried from the king's chamber and placed on a wagon piled high with furs. Then, when all who had survived Lord Nudd's onslaught had assembled in the yard, Tegid led the wagon out through the ~ates and we began the long journey home. Six warriors walked on either side of the funeral wagon carrying spears. Prince Meldron rode behind the wagon, dour and mournful, snd all the rest of the Llwyddi followed after.

Thus we left Findargad. At Tegid's behest, I walked at the head of the horse, opposite him. The first day we did not speak at all. Tegid, eyes fixed on the trail ahead, stumped along lost in thought, his brow creased in a reflective frown. I do not know what occupied him, and he did not say.

In the days that followed, however, he began to share the substance of his ruminations with me. Solemn and somber, his musings formed a bleak assessment of the future he saw stretching before us: the future described in the Banfбith's terrible prophecy.

«The Golden King in his kingdom will strike his foot against the Rock of Contention. The Worm of fiery breath will claim the throne of Prydain,» he said gloomily. We were standing beside a mountain stream, waiting for the retinue to cross so that we could continue. «Look at them,» he indicated the long lines of people splashing through the water, «they are lost and do not know it. There is no one to lead them. A people without a king are worse than sheep without a shepherd.»

«They have Prince Meldron,» I pointed out. The prince sat his horse in the center of the stream while the people crossed before him. It was as if he were indeed watching over his flock. Siawn, I noticed, stood nearby, leaning on his spear. In the last days he had never been out of the prince's sight, so I had not been able to speak to him alone.

Tegid cast me a sidelong glance, his mouth twisted in a bitter grimace. «Prince Meidron will never sit his father's throne.»

I asked him what he meant, but he gave me to know that it was not something he cared to voice aloud at the moment. And he warned me: «Speak of this to no one.»

I considered this to be the end of the matter, until a little while later, when we were on the trail once more. «The king will be buried properly.» The bard spoke so softly, I thought he was speaking to himself. «I may not be able to prevent what is to come, but at least I will see my king laid in his tomb in a rightwise manner. We are not sunk so low that the ancient rites are to be abandoned.»

«Tegid, tell me. What do you think is going to happen?»

He raised his head, gazing into the cloud-wrapped distance. «That you already know,» he replied.

«If I knew, I would not ask.» I was growing tired of his evasive manner.

«You know,» he repeated, and added, almost as a challenge, «Liew would know.»

Before I could wheedle any more out of him, we were halted by the return of the Wolf Pack. The warriors under Prince Meidron's command had ridden hard and travelled far by the look of them. Their clothing was dirty, and their horses were lathered and muddy. The prince saw them approaching, left his place behind the funeral wagon, and rode ahead to meet them.

«I wonder what they found,» I remarked, watching the prince and his warriors conferring a little way ahead of us in the trail.

«Why do you wonder?» Tegid asked tartly. «Are you blind?»

«I suppose I must be,» I snapped.

«Open your eyes! Must I describe what is before your very nose?»

«The Wolf Pack has returned,» I said in exasperation. «The prince is talking to them.»

«Is Paladyr with them?» Tegid asked snidely.

«No-no, he is not.»

«Well?»

«Well, they did not find him. Paladyr must have escaped.»

«Paladyr escaped.» Tegid rolled his eyes. «These men can track a boar through the depths of the darkest wood. They can run a deer until it drops from exhaustion. They can follow an eagle in flight and find its eyrie. How is it, then, that Paladyr has escaped?»

«They let him go? But why would they do that?»

«Why indeed?»

That was all I got out of him before the prince turned his horse and trotted back to his place behind the funeral wagon and the cortege continued on its long, difficult way. I sifted Tegid's insinuations carefully in my mind as we travelled, weighing each word before adding it to the others.

Clearly, he was preoccupied with the Banflith's prophecy, and he was determined to see it fulfilled through me. That was unsettling enough, but even more alarming was his intimation that Prince Meidron had caused his father's death. Because if Meldron was involved, Simon surely was as well. The two were rarely apart! It was unlikely the prince could plan something so treacherous, and so devastating, without Simon knowing about it. Perhaps Simon had participated.. . perhaps he had done more than that.