Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [123]
She listened now, wondering in spite of herself who the musician was. Taliesin? Before he was the Merlin, she knew, he had been the greatest of bards, renowned throughout the length of Britain. She had heard him play often enough on the great feast days, and for the most solemn of rituals; but now his hands were old. Their skill was not diminished, but even at his best he had never made such sounds as these—this was a new harper, one she knew she had never heard before. And she knew, even before she saw it, that this was a larger harp than even Taliesin played, and the strange musician’s fingers spoke to the strings as if he had enchanted them.
Viviane had once told her some old tale from a far-off country, a tale of a bard whose strings had made the ring stones circle in their own dance and the trees drop their leaves in mourning, and when he went down into the country of the dead, the stern judges there relented and let his beloved dead go forth. Morgaine stood motionless outside the door as everything that was in her faded into the music. Suddenly she felt that all the weeping she had held back in the ten days past might come upon her again, that her rage might dissolve, if she let it, into tears which would wash it all away, leaving her weak as any girl. Abruptly she thrust the door back and entered without ceremony.
Taliesin the Merlin was there, but he was not playing; his hands were clasped attentively in his lap as he bent forward, listening. Viviane too, in her simple house robes, was seated, not in her accustomed seat, but further from the fire; she had given the seat of honor to the strange harper.
He was a young man, in the green robe of a bard; smooth-shaven in the Roman fashion, his curling hair darker than rusted iron. His eyes were deep-set under a forehead which seemed almost too big for him, and though Morgaine for some reason had expected them to be dark, they were instead an unexpected piercing blue. He frowned at the interruption, his hands stopping in the middle of a chord.
Viviane too looked displeased, but ignored the discourtesy. “Come here, Morgaine, and sit by me. I know you are fond of music, and I thought you would like to hear Kevin the Bard.”
“I was listening outside.”
The Merlin smiled. “Come and listen, then. He is new to Avalon, but I think perhaps he may have much to teach us.”
Morgaine went and sat on the little seat beside Viviane. The Lady of the Lake said, “My kinswoman Morgaine, sir; she too is of the royal line of Avalon. You see before you, Kevin, she who will be Lady here in years to come.”
Morgaine made a startled movement; never before had she known that this was what Viviane planned for her. But anger drowned out her rush of gratification. She thinks she can say a kind or flattering word and I will rush to lick her feet like a bitch puppy!
“May that day be far distant, Lady of Avalon, and may your wisdom long continue to guide us,” said Kevin smoothly. He spoke their language as if he had learned it well—she could just tell that it was not his own; a little hesitation and thought before the words, although the accent was almost flawless. Well, he had a musician’s ear, after all. He was, Morgaine surmised, about thirty, perhaps a little more. But she did not look too closely at him after that first quick surprise at the blueness of his eyes; her gaze was bent on the great harp at his knee.
As she had guessed, it was somewhat larger than even the harp Taliesin played at the great festivals. It was made of a dark-reddish, gleaming wood, completely unlike the pale willow wood from which the harps of Avalon were fashioned, and she wondered if it was this which had given it the silken brilliant