The High King

were already homeward bound when Kaw found us, and here shall we stay.'

'I'm glad of that,' replied Eilonwy. 'All anyone knew about you was that you were wandering every which where. Dallben told me you were seeking your parents. Then you met someone you thought was your father but wasn't. Or was it the other way round? I didn't altogether understand it.'

'There is little to understand,' Taran said. 'What I sought, I found. Though it was not what I had hoped.'

'No, it was not,' murmured Dallben, who had been watching Taran closely. 'You found more than you sought, and gained perhaps more than you know.'

'I still don't see why you wanted to leave Caer Dallben,' Eilonwy began.

Taran had no chance to reply, for now his hand was seized and shaken vigorously.

'Hullo, hullo!' cried a young man with pale blue eyes and straw-colored hair. His handsomely embroidered cloak looked as though it had been water-soaked, then wrong out to dry. His bootlacings, broken in several places, had been retied in large, straggling knots.

'Prince Rhun!' Taran had almost failed to recognize him. Rhun had grown taller and leaner, though his grin was as broad as it had ever been.

'King Rhun, actually,' the young man answered, 'since my father died last summer. That's one of the reasons why Princess Eilonwy is here now. My mother wanted to keep her with us on Mona to finish her education. And you know my mother! She'd never have left off with it, even though Dallben had sent word Eilonwy was to come home. And so,' he proudly added, 'I finally put my foot down. I ordered a ship fitted out, and off we sailed from Mona Haven. Amazing what a king can do when he sets his mind to it!

'We've brought someone else along, too,' Rhun continued, gesturing toward the fireside where Taran for the first time noticed a pudgy little man sitting with a cook-pot between his knees. The stranger licked his fingers and wrinkled a flabby nose at Taran. He made no attempt to rise, but only nodded curtly while the scraggly fringe of hair around his bulbous head stirred like weeds under water.

Taran stared, not believing what he saw. The little man drew himself up and sniffed with a mixture of haughtiness arid wounded feelings.

'One should have no trouble remembering a giant,' he said testily.

'Remember you?' replied Taran. 'How could I not! The cavern on Mona! Last time I saw you, though, you were? bigger, to say the least. But it is you, nevertheless. It is, indeed! Glew!'

'When I was a giant,' Glew said, 'few would have forgotten me so quickly. Unfortunate that things worked out as they did. Now, in the cavern?'

'You've started him off again,' Eilonwy whispered to Taran. 'He'll go on like that until you're fairly wilted, about the glorious days when he used to be a giant. He'll only stop talking to eat, and only stop eating to talk. I can understand his eating, since he lived on nothing but mushrooms for so long. But he must have been wretched as a giant, and you'd think he'd want to forget it.'

'I knew Dallben sent Kaw with a potion to shrink Glew back to size,' Taran answered. 'Of what happened to him since then, I've had no word.'

'That's what happened to him,' said Eilonwy. 'As soon as he got free of the cavern, he made his way to Rhun's castle. No one had the heart to turn him away, though he bored us all to tears with those endless, pointless tales of his. We took him with us when we sailed, thinking he'd be grateful to Dallben and want to thank him properly. Not a bit of it! We almost had to twist his ears to get him aboard. Now that he's here, I wish we'd left him where he was.'

'But three of our companions are missing,' Taran said, glancing around the cottage. 'Good old Doli, and Fflewddur Fflam. And I had hoped Prince Gwydion might have come to welcome Eilonwy.'

'Doli sends his best wishes,' said Coll, 'but we shall have to do without his company. Our dwarf friend is harder to root out of the Fair Folk realm than a stump out of a field. He'll not budge. As for Fflewddur Fflam, nothing can keep him and his harp from any merrymaking, whatever. He should have been here long since.'

'Prince Gwydion as well,' Dallben added. 'He and I have matters to discuss. Though you young people may doubt it, some of them are even weightier than the homecomings of a Princess and an Assistant Pig-Keeper.'

'Well, I shall put this on again when Fflewddur and Prince Gwydion arrive,' said Eil­onwy, taking the golden circlet from her brow, 'just so they can see how it looks. But I won't wear it a moment longer. It's rubbed a blister and it makes my head ache? like someone squeezing your neck, only higher up.'

'Ah, Princess,' Dallben said, with a furrowed smile, 'a crown is more discomfort than adornment. If you have learned that, you have already learned much.'

'Learning!' Eilonwy declared. 'I've been up to my ears in learning. It doesn't show, so it's hard to believe it's there. Wait, that's not quite true, either. Here, I've learned this.' From her cloak she drew a large square of folded cloth and almost shyly handed it to Taran. 'I embroidered it for you. It's not finished yet, but I wanted you to have it, even so. Though I admit it's not as handsome as the things you've made.'

Taran spread out the fabric. As broad as his outstretched arms, the somewhat straggle-threaded embroidery showed a white, blue-eyed pig against a field of green.

'It's meant to be Hen Wen,'' Eilonwy explained as Rhun and Gurgi pressed forward to study the handiwork more closely.

'At first, I tried to embroider you into it, too,' Eilonwy said to Taran. 'Because you're so fond of Hen and because? because I was thinking of you. But you came out looking like sticks with a bird's nest on top, not yourself at all. So I had to start over with Hen alone. You'll just have to make believe you're standing beside her, a little to the left. Otherwise; I'd never have got this much done, and I did work the summer on it.'

'If I was in your thoughts then,' Taran said, 'your work gladdens me all the more. No matter that Hen's eyes are really brown.'

Eilonwy looked at him in sudden dismay. 'You don't like it.'

'I do, in all truth,' Taran assured her. 'Brown or blue makes no difference. It will be use­ful?'

'Useful!' cried Eilonwy. 'Useful's not the point! It's a keepsake, not a horse blanket! Taran of Caer Dallben, you don't understand anything at all.'

'At least,' Taran replied, with a good-natured grin, 'I know the color of Hen Wen's eyes.'

Eilonwy tossed her red-gold hair and put her chin in the air. 'Humph!' she said. 'And very likely forgotten the color of mine.'

'Not so, Princess,' Taran answered quietly. 'Nor have I forgotten when you gave me this,' he added, taking up the battle horn. 'Its powers were greater than either of us knew. They are gone now, but I treasure it still because it came from your hands.

'You asked why I sought to know my parentage,' Taran went on. 'Because I hoped it would prove noble, and give me the right to ask what I dared not ask before. My hope was mistaken. Yet even without it?'

Taran hesitated, searching for the most fitting words. Before he could speak again, the cottage door burst open, and Taran cried out in alarm.

At the threshold stood Fflewddur Fflam. The bard's face was ashen, his ragged yellow hair dung to his forehead. On his shoulder he bore the limp body of a man.

Taran, with Rhun behind him, sprang to help. Gurgi and Eilonwy followed as they lowered the still figure to the ground. Glew, his pudgy cheeks quivering, stared speechless. At the first instant, Taran had nearly staggered at the shock. Now his hands worked quickly, almost of themselves, to unclasp the cloak and loosen the torn jacket. Before him, on the hard-packed earth, lay Gwydion Prince of Don.

Blood crusted the warrior's wolf-gray hair and stained his weathered face. His lips were drawn back, his teeth set in battle rage. Gwydion's cloak muffled one arm as though at the last he had sought to defend himself with this alone.

'Lord Gwydion is slain!' Eilonwy cried.

'He lives? though barely,' Taran said. 'Fetch medicines,' he ordered Gurgi. 'The healing herbs from my saddlebags?' He stopped short and turned to Dallben. 'Forgive me. It is not for me to command under my master's roof. But the herbs are of great power. Adaon Son of Taliesin gave them to me long ago. They are yours if you wish them.'

'I know their nature and have none that will serve better,' Dallben answered. 'Nor should you fear to command under any roof, since you have learned to command yourself. I trust your skill as I see you trust it. Do as you see fit.'

Coll was already hurrying from the scullery with water in a basin. Dallben, who had knelt at Gwydion's side,