The Hidden World

Chapter 11

"You cannot be serious," objected Thomas, incredulous.

His father looked up from the book on his lap. "Indeed I am."

"A play? Here? Now?"

"It will be something of a challenge, I admit, without a proper stage or costumes—"

"That isn't what I meant!"

They were back in the great enclosure, huddling together on the ground in little groups. The pagan folk still watched them curiously, though not with the wariness they had shown before. It was as if Cordelia's tearful outburst had somehow broken the barrier between them.

They had seen nothing of Morgana for a day and a half. After the encounter with Tethra, the Druid Cathbad had offered to perform a tarbhfeis, a ceremony in which he would consume some of the flesh and blood of a newly slaughtered bull. This sacred rite would then cause him to have visions of the land's next ruler. That afternoon, the air had resounded with the tortured bellowings of the selected animal; this was followed by a long silence that seemed to Maeve to have an ominous quality to it. That silence persisted into the night and all through the following day. Whatever the Druid had learnt in his trance, Morgana seemed not to have liked it. She did not leave the tower or give any directions as to the fate of her prisoners.

The pagan villagers murmured among themselves. "They say she has gone down into the mound, to the fairy court that lies within it. She has gone there alone, to sit in its dark hall and draw upon the power that lingers there."

Then, yesterday evening, a man whom they had not seen before had come out of the tower and approached them. He was young, with wavy cinnamon-coloured hair and a short spade-shaped beard, and was clad in a yellow tunic and brown trousers, with a many-coloured cloak about his shoulders. He had stood watching the prisoners with great interest, until at last an irritated Thomas boldly asked him what he wanted.

"Oh, I am just wondering," he'd replied, "what sort of stories you folk tell among yourselves. I am Finian," he gave a little bow, "bard to the queen."

"A bard!" exclaimed Padraig, turning an affable smile upon him. "An heir to the mantle of Taliesin the bright-browed! You will know many legends, then."

The young man grinned at him. "Indeed, yes. I know more than two hundred sagas and romances by heart. I can tell you of the battle of the Sidhe and the Fomori at Magh Tuireadh, or of Fionn Mac Cumhail and his Fianna and all their adventures. Or recite the tale of Gwydion and Arianrhod. But Christian folk, they say, have no bards. Their monks write down our old tales and embellish them with curious Christian themes, and they have in their courts many minstrels who sing songs of love to the ladies. But they have no one who can tell a grand and moving tale."

"Now there I must correct you," said Padraig, raising an admonishing finger. "There is at least one with whom I am acquainted, a Christian gentleman called Shakespeare." 

Finian raised a cinnamon-coloured brow. "Shake-spear? With such a name he should have been a warrior."

'"What's in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.' So said the poet himself in one of his works. But such is his fame that many call him simply the Bard, as though there were no other in all the world."

"Say you so? And is this celebrated poet among your company, then?"

"He is, in a manner of speaking." Padraig held up the battered book of plays. "Here lie his words, preserved by generations of scribes—for my friend Shakespeare has been dead many a century, alas. But in his plays, he lives on."