Page 83 of The Dragon Ring
This was the first meal at Din Cadan that I actually enjoyed. Yes, I’d liked the food before, but underlying everything had been the nagging feeling of not belonging, of being a cuckoo in their nest. As Arthur and I took our places at the table on the dais, I realized with a start that the constant knot in my stomach had vanished at last. Even Tangwyn, sitting on one of the benches near the door and spending much of the evening staring at me, couldn’t make it return. Fresh from our lovemaking, the feel of Arthur’s hands and mouth on me still, I felt she was no threat at all.
Dish after dish was served, first to us, then to the crowded tables– tables seating men I now knew. Not all of them, but dotted amongst the faces of strangers were the familiar ones of the men who’d accompanied us to Viroconium. I didn’t know all their names, but their presence made me feel at home, as though I finally belonged here.
Then came the entertainment. The fat little man I remembered from before came tumbling in, head over heels, to land on his feet in front of the dais. His capering brought gales of laughter from his audience. Even I, with my twenty-first-century sense of humor and political correctness, found him quite funny.
A singer with a lyre followed. He sang a jolly song about three brothers in a brothel. Everyone joined in the chorus. It went on for a long time, each verse bawdier than the last. Several young men jumped up and accompanied it with increasingly explicit actions. The audience greeted its end with shouts of “Another verse!” but he retired from the floor to pick up a thirst-quenching flagon of ale.
Three jugglers came next, but we were nearing the end of the meal by then. I’d eaten well and drunk rather too many goblets of wine, and felt too sleepy and content to pay them much attention.
One of the warriors who’d ridden with us to Viroconium raised his voice above the general hubbub of eating and talking. “Gwalchmei!”
Immediately more voices joined in. “Gwalchmei!”
“A tune!”
“Gwalchmei!”
With a show of reluctance, Gwalchmei got to his feet halfway down one of the long tables, and climbed over the bench to stand in the aisle.
“I don’t have my flute,” he protested, as several of his neighbors gave him a shove toward the dais.
“Give us a song, then,” Theodoric boomed. “Sing us the song about the last giant.”
Gwalchmei squared his narrow shoulders.
He had a pure, sweet voice, unusually high for a man. Everyone in the hall fell silent under its spell.
Over rivers deep and mountains old,
With feet that roam and eyes that seek.
Through snowy pass and shadowed vale
Comes the last giant of them all, Gwawl. Mighty Gwawl.
At the end of each verse everyone in the Hall joined in with the final mournful refrain, their hushed voices echoing to the rafters.
He leaves behind the silent halls
Where ne’er a voice will sound again
With footsteps echoing in the gloom
He follows the road of ages past, Gwawl. Mighty Gwawl.
Long, have his people ruled the north
Long, have their wide halls rung with song
Long, have they watched the ice giants’ gate
But now they’re gone, leaving only one, Gwawl. Mighty Gwawl.
The valleys echo to his mournful cries,
And his voice ascends the towering peaks
To the arch of the sky where the eagles call
