Stephen Lawhead - Taliesin

“Undoubtedly,” Taliesin replied, sliding down from his mount. “The world is made up of events both great and tragic. Some are observed and remembered, but others… others take place away from the eyes of the world and remain forever unknown. But tell me, what is it that you imagine happened here?” He stepped toward her.

Charis put her ear close to the stone and closed her eyes. “Shh,” she whispered. “Listen.”

Taliesin heard the sounds of the active wood around them, the buzzing of insects, the trilling of birds, the ruffling of leaves in the breeze. He gazed at the woman before him, thrilled by the sight of her. She was fair as a sun-bright summer day, with eyes as deep and clear and ever-changing as the sea; slim and regal, her every movement was endowed with grace. She wore a simple white garment with a green and gold girdle at her waist, but they were the raiment of a goddess. He had never seen a woman more beautiful or more beguiling. Merely to see her was to gaze upon a mystery. He felt that he would gladly give his life to simply go on looking at her as he stood looking at her now, knowing he would never discover the mystery.

“What do you hear?” Taliesin asked.

Her eyes opened and she said candidly, “There was a woman…” Pacing around the quoit she continued, “… who came to this place from a realm beyond the sea. Her life was hard, for the land was harsh, and she could not help remembering all that she had left behind. She longed to return to her home across the sea, but it had been destroyed by a great tumult of fire and she could not return. She grew lonely, and to ease her loneliness she rode her horse among the hills, searching for something-she knew not what.

“One day she met a man; she heard him singing here in this wood. He sang to her and captured her heart as easily as a fowler catching a bird in a silken snare. She struggled to free herself but could not. She was captured too well.

“She might have been happy with the man; she might have given all she possessed to remain with him… But it could not be.”

“Why is this?”

“They were of different races,” explained Charis sadly, and Taliesin heard in her voice the resignation of one abandoned to her fate. “Also, the woman was of a noble house whose dynasty extended back to the very gods themselves.”

“And the man? Was he not of a noble house as well?”

“He was…” she answered, stepping away from him again. She moved slowly around the quoit, feeling the cool surface of the upright stones with her hands, as if tracing symbols carved there long ago and now obliterated by wind and time.

“But?”

“But his people were coarse and uncivilized-as their land was coarse and uncivilized. They were a warrior race, given to violence and passion. They were everything that the woman’s race was not, and so there were things he would never understand about her.

“And while it is true that the woman’s heart was captive to the man, it was also true that they could never be…” She paused.

“Happy?” he prodded.

“Together. This knowledge caused the woman great distress, and greater sadness. It made her exile more bitter.”

“What of the quoit?” asked Taliesin.

“The man left,” said Charis simply. “In time he went back to his own realm far away, taking the woman’s heart with him. She could not live without her heart and so began to die. Each day she died a little more, and eventually the day came when she did not awake. Her people mourned, and they carried her body to this place where she had met the man. They buried her here and raised this cenotaph of stone over her tomb.”

Taliesin began moving slowly around the quoit. “Indeed, that is a tragic tale,” he said after a while. “Certainly if the man had loved the woman more he might have found a way to save her. He might have taken the woman with him, or they might have gone away together to a new place…”

“Perhaps,” said Charis, “but both had responsibilities-responsibilities which bound them forever to their people and to their places. Their worlds were too far apart.”

“Ahh,” sighed Taliesin, and sliding to the ground he leaned his back against the stone and closed his eyes.

Charis watched him curiously.

Presently his eyes blinked open and he said, “Being dead and buried, the woman could never know what became of the man.”

“I suppose he found another to take her place. One of his own, no doubt,” replied Charis.

Taliesin shook his head gravely. “Not at all. He lived on miserably for a time, half-maddened in his anguish and torment. But he came to himself one day and returned to the woman. When he arrived, he heard that she was dead; so he went to her tomb and there he took his knife and laid open his breast. He took out his heart and buried it with the woman, and then he lay himself down…” Taliesin fell silent.

“What happened to him?”

“Nothing,” replied Taliesin sorrowfully. “He waits there still.”

Charis saw the glint of a smile in his eyes and the sly twitch of his lips, and she began to laugh. The doleful mood created by the unhappy story was shattered by soft laughter.

“It is no good trying to cheer him,” Taliesin warned. “His heart lies with his lady, and he feels neither pain nor pleasure evermore.”

Charis knelt beside Taliesin. He offered his hand and she took it in her own. He drew her hand to him and raised it to his lips. She watched as he kissed her hand. She closed her eyes and in a moment felt his lips on hers.

It was a gentle kiss: exquisite and chaste. But there was passion in it, an eager ardor that awoke a sleeping hunger in her.

Taliesin did not speak, but she could hear his breathing. He was close to her. She could feel the heat of his body on her skin.

“Neither pain nor pleasure evermore,” she whispered and lay her head against his chest. Enfolding her into his arms, he very softly began to sing.

The shadows of the wood had deepened when they stirred. Sunlight slanted through the trees in radiant bands, and the clouds were gray and ruddy-edged. The horses had wandered a short way among the trees and stood with their heads drooping.

Taliesin raised a hand to her cheek. “Charis, my soul,” he murmured softly, “if I have captured your heart, it is at the cost of my own.”

Charis made to rise, but he caught her hand and held her. “No,” she said, “I… I cannot bear it…”

She pulled away, rose, walked a few paces, stopped and looked back at him, her eyes growing hard as the stone of the quoit. “It can never be!” she said, her voice a quick knife-thrust into the silence of the wood.

Taliesin stood slowly. “I love you, Charis.”

“Love is not enough!”

“It is more than enough,” he soothed.

She turned on him. “More than enough? It does not stop the hurt, the sadness, the dying! It does not bring back what is lost!”

“No,” agreed Taliesin. “All life is rooted in pain. There can be no escape, but love makes the hurt bearable.”

“I do not want to bear it and go on bearing it. I want to lay it down, to be free of it at last. I want to forget. Will love make me forget?”

“Love, Charis…” Taliesin moved to her; he put his hands on her shoulders and felt the tension there. “Love never forgets,” he said gently. “It never stops hoping or Believing or enduring. Though pain and death rage against it, love remains forever steadfast.”

“Brave words, Taliesin,” replied Charis, her voice ringing hollow in the wood, “but only words after all. I do not believe that such love exists.”

“Then Believe in me, Charis, and let me show you this love.”

As she turned from him, he saw in her face the years of aching loneliness and something more: a pain which bit deep, a wound raw and open in her soul. Here was the source of her anger and also her pride.