Barnaby the Wanderer

Chapter 11: Val the Bard, Warrior Princess of St. Martia

Twice have I seen the cup in dream, and once in waking life. If any true border separates the lands of Dream and Waking. The Gospel of Taliesin says true visions come as they wish, and care naught for eyes open, eyes closed.

The first dream came when I was seven. I awoke to find my chamber full of light. I supposed I'd overslept, would be whipped for missing practice upon the field.

But this was not dawn's glow. A shining thing waited at my window, like a friendly sun peering in. I rose, approached. Not frightened, but awed.

It was a cup. Brighter than the sun; and yet not burning the eye to gaze upon. One felt that here was the true purpose of sight; to see this cup, this light.

Ah, and it sang. Perhaps it held music the way lesser cups held wine, and it poured out song as a kindly fountain might give bright streams to a dry world. Then again, perhaps it was the light itself that sang, for the joy of shining upon the cup.

I sat on the floor before it, listening, gazing. The song never repeated, never faltered. I felt it was a living thing. It knew me, and was happy that I was happy just to sit and hear its song. At times I dared hum in my child's voice, trying to sing along. When I did so, it flashed golden as though laughing in delight.

I feel I sat there for lifetimes, for ages of the world. After infinite bliss, I awoke on the cold stone floor, curled before my window. It was difficult to recall where I was, who I was. My room, the house, even my parents seemed things of long years passed.

My father declared me ill, a statement St. Martia frowns to hear. If one be not strong enough to fight, be strong enough to die. I lay in bed a week, tossing and turning, looking for the cup at my window, in my dreams.

Four years passed before I saw the cup again. The day of my father's pyre after glorious deeds upon the border with Hefestia.

I woke hearing the cup's golden song. I leapt from bed, whirling about, not finding its gold glow. I went running barefoot through our great house, full of sleepers who did not hear the song.

The light of the cup shone out the library doorway, so bright one might think the books afire. I rushed in. The old servant-librarian sat at a desk, copying pages from dusty scrolls. He looked up at my entrance, but did not speak.

I ignored him. The cup awaited me in a far corner. Perched like a bird upon a shelf of dusty tomes from other lands less practical than Martia.

The cup looked different than I recalled. Larger now, more like to a bowl. And brighter, yet less clear. I gazed into it as if it were the sun rising through golden clouds. But the song was the same. I sat happily beneath the cup, shivering, crying with joy.

I sang with it whenever I felt I understood some fragment of the song. The old servant rose, came and stood behind me. I wondered if he intended to sing as well. Servants of St. Martia are to keep quiet, heads down, eyes down. But in this light, before this cup, such rules seemed dust.

"What do you see, child?" he asked.

"The cup," I said, frowning at 'child'. I did not worry he might take the cup away. One might as well worry that a sly thief should pocket the sun.

"What sort of cup?" he asked.

"A golden one," I sighed, wishing he would leave me be. "It sings."

"Ah," he said, and no more.

As before, I awoke alone, curled upon cold stone. I rose, hurrying through the library looking for the cup, calling like a lost child for its mother. Gone; but upon a table waited a book, large and old. Surely left by the old man.

Resigned that the glory had flown again, I peered at the book, unwilling to return to bed and all the life of a St. Martia warrior-child. But my heart beat faster with each page I turned.

For it was full of pictures that teased with bits of the cup's song. Behold knights in vigil, and minstrels singing before kings. Lover staring into one another's eyes with the intensity of the moon peering into a mirror. Magicians waving wands, and the sun dripping golden light. Ships in storm, and glimpses of towers, stars, angels, devils, lions, swords, hearts.

I turned a page, coming to a rider pursuing a golden cup. The picture gave me chills. It was the cup of my vision. The rider rode a prancing horse through a green summer day. The cup flew high before him, bright with golden rays casting no least shadow. Perhaps it guided, perhaps he pursued. Farther down the road waited a crossroad; a fountain of old stone.

I returned to bed, returned to life of duty and instruction. But from thenceforth came dreams. Not of the cup, but of ordinary things that hinted and teased of the cup. A tree in summer's shine, a candle flickering in the dark, else a wind carrying bits of music from across far hills... always some dream-trifle seemed a thing of infinite significance. And I would gasp 'it's the cup.' Then awaken bereft.

Before, music had played little part of my life in St. Martia. But after each dream of the cup, I awoke singing. And weeping, like a pathetic fool, like a lost child.

I haunted the library, convinced it held clues to the cup. The old librarian never spoke; he'd have been dismissed for so doing. But sly man, he left books and scrolls that served for marks of a trail.

One in particular led me far. It was 'The Gospel of Taliesin', patron saint of bards, who wandered the roads of the world singing of the mysteries of the Mansions of the Lord of Saints above, the secrets of the House of Lucif below, and all things twixt the two that moved the heart to joy or sorrow, neat or mixed together.

Inevitable, that I would determine to become a bard.