Disclaimer: Lloyd Alexander is the genius that wrote The Chronicles of Prydain.

One of No Station in Life

The enchanter clutched his cloak tighter about himself and the Book of Three and adjusted his grip on his oaken staff. The chill wind of late autumn blew his long, white hair and beard back into his face. Dallben sighed. He was weary. So very weary.

The power of Arawn, dread death Lord of Annuvin, was ever growing, and even the mighty Sons of Don were hard-pressed to defend against it. Queen Achren had been cast out by her consort, and now dwelt in Spiral Castle, casting still another dark shadow on the land of Prydain.

Gwydion, son of Math, son of Mathonwy, Prince of Don and heir to the High King of Prydain, was in his thirtieth year. Power had he, and great deeds beyond number, but no wife. No little child. And the High King Math grew older every day. What would become of Prydain, when the pair of them were gone? Dallben well knew. The cantrev lords, hungry as wolves, would tear as beasts at the land. The shield against Annuvin would crumple, and the land would be consumed in death and darkness. Unless…unless…

The Book of Three foretold of one that might hold the land together, that might shield against evil and one day rule all Prydain after the Sons of Don at last passed from the land. One who would slay a serpent, who would gain and lose a flaming sword, one who would choose a kingdom of sorrow over a kingdom of happiness, and one of no station in life. The prophecies were dark to Dallben. The Book of Three was a tricky thing, all shadows and maybes and ifs. The promised high king might arise next week, or in fifty years' time. He might never arise, even, if the conditions for his rule never came about.

But Prydain needed him badly, and so Dallben had gone abroad, nigh three years ago, searching out one of no station. He had not found any to meet that description. He had met many of high station. Kings and cantrev lords abounded in Prydain. He had met bards and landowners and farmers. He had met many of low station. Widows and down-on-their luck merchants and outlaws and beggars. But never had Dallben come across one of no station.

At last, wearied with his efforts and with the follies of men, he had turned his feet again towards his own little cottage, towards Caer Dallben. He was a week's journey from it still, and the winter was coming on fast.

Dallben impatiently shook his head to get his white hair out of his eyes and trudged southward still. There would be no rest in these parts for him. A cantrev lord had died recently, died without naming an heir. He had many sons, and the wretches had not hesitated to turn sword and soldiers against their brothers. Farms had been burned, and entire villages put to the sword. The ground hereabouts, so Dallben had heard from a bard farther eastward, was stained crimson with blood, and the skies were black with carrion crows.

Just as these grim thoughts occurred to Dallben, and he began to look around for a likely tree to sleep under for the night, the wind shifted. Dallben's stomach heaved, and he brought his hand up to cover his nose. He emerged from a stand of trees and looked on without surprise.

The vast field he beheld now was covered with corpses. A tattered standard fluttered in the lonely wind. Dallben could not make out the device. It hardly mattered now, he thought, grimly and sadly. Columns of smoke arose from off to the north. Dallben knew a village must be close, and knew just as surely that it lay silent, scorched, and empty. Not three feet from the hem of Dallben's cloak lay a man impaled by a spear. His face was frozen in an expression of fear, pain, and hatred. He had been dead perhaps two days, Dallben thought, and already a column of ants was climbing up his cloak to feast on his dead flesh. A raven perched on the golden helm of a man near to the standard and, crying out raucously, it bent its sharp beak to pluck out one of the cantrev princes' eyes. Dallben felt no pity for the dead man. He was one of the authors of this massacre.

On the far edge of the field, Dallben saw yet other corpses. Not warriors, as the ones nearer him, but others. Farmers, villagers, clad not in armor but in roughly-woven homespun wool. Dallben bowed his head sadly, seeing even women and children staring empty-eyed at the sky, pierced through by swords and spears and arrows. The raven cried out again, but then another noise broke the deathly silence of the battleground.

Dallben raised his head. His brow furrowed. But there it was again, rising weakly from the trees on the other side of the bloody battleground. Something yet lived in this place of death. Dallben skirted around the corpses, just as happy to move upwind of the bodies that were already beginning to rot. He followed the sound, just past some of the slain women and children and a little ways into the trees. It was coming from under a low bush. Dallben knelt.

An infant yet lived. Its eyes were shut and wrinkled and it was crying as loudly as it could. Dallben frowned. It was not as loud as it should have been crying. How long had the child lain here alone? The infant's cheeks were pale and dirt-stained. The little fuzz of black hair that covered its head had more than a few leaves from the bush in it. And a smell arose from his woolen wrappings that made it abundantly clear this was no miracle, fairy child.

Dallben gingerly picked up the child. He had not much experience with infants, living alone as he did with only his sorcerous tomes. But of course he could not leave the babe under the bush. He placed the child down again and removed the cloths surrounding it. The first thing to do was obviously to clean up the mess it had made, and then to see if he couldn't find it something to eat. Did it even eat yet? Was it old enough to have been weaned?

Awkwardly, Dallben cleaned up the child's mess as best he could. The infant was a boy-child, and a strong one, for all that he had likely lain abandoned for two days at least. Dallben discarded the infant's soiled cloth and tore up his wrappings to make a new one. It was a rough, rude job he made of it, he thought ruefully when he'd done. Perhaps he'd find a farmwife that could do a better. For sure he could not care for this child.

Dallben wrapped up the infant again and stood, bearing him in his arms. He looked down at the child curiously. The infant had ceased his wailing, but his grey eyes still shimmered with unshed tears as he regarded Dallben, and his little lip quivered. He whimpered. "Well," Dallben said. "And what am I to do with you, my boy? Who are your parents? Where are you from?" He brushed his hand over the child's head, trying to extract some of the leaves from his little thatch of black hair.

Dallben looked back at the battlefield. "Did your mother hide you here before the battle began, child? Wise she was, for I fear she, and your father too lie slain." Dallben sighed, and fumbled for his water skin. He held it to the infant's lips, and the liquid dribbled into the boy's mouth. He hoped the child had been weaned, that he would drink the water and hold it down, too. He did not know if that was so, but the boy swallowed the water greedily enough, until Dallben judged that tiny as he was, and hungry as he was, it was best if he had no more at present, lest it disagree with him.

The boy whined in protest as Dallben withdrew the skin and waved his little fists. Dallben frowned at him. "Silence, child," he told the infant sternly. "You'll have more soon enough. Greater sorrows will befall you than having to wait a bit for your supper. Indeed, greater sorrows have befallen you already, though I daresay you scarcely know that. No matter. You will come to know well enough in time, I fear."

Dallben walked southwards again, more slowly this time, carrying his tiny burden. He really must seek out someone to take the child, he thought. A nice farmwife. A lonely cantrev lord- perhaps in the valley someplace, with serving women aplenty to take charge of an orphaned infant. But which would be better? Who had this infant been? Prince had lain side by side with peasant on the battlefield on which his nameless mother had been slain. He might be a princeling, or a bastard, a farmer, or a craftsman. Why, this child could be anything. Anybody.

Dallben blinked, and looked down with fresh eyes at the boy-child. Here indeed was one of no station, he thought. Funny, that he should find such a one, having given up. Sad, too. Could this be the one the Book of Three foretold? Could this child grow up to be High King of all Prydain? Silent tears were streaming from the little boy's grey eyes, and he shifted restlessly in Dallben's arms. Something in Dallben softened towards the child, and he drew him up to his breast and patted his back.

"There, there, my boy," he said. "Just a little further now. Then we'll make a fire and see if you can't eat something after all."

Dallben walked with the boy perhaps another five miles before he stopped underneath a tall, sturdy oak. Collecting some dried wood from the forest around, Dallben lit a fire with his magic staff. He ate some bread from his pack, and then looked doubtfully at an apple. Then, taking up some water, and a rock, he mashed the apple by means of his magic into a strange sort of paste that he hoped the child could digest easily enough, and fed the infant with his fingers. It was a messy business, especially when the infant burped up five minutes afterward. But Dallben washed his hands in a nearby stream, and then sat across from the fire watching the child.

The little boy-child had dried his eyes, smacked his lips, and had at last gone to sleep. Dallben turned his staff slowly in his hands. An infant of no station in life. An orphan. A foundling. Dallben frowned. He had been just such a one- he knew not how many years ago. After The Book of Three had come into his hands it had all gone muddled for a time. Had it not been for the kindness of Orddu, Orwen, and Orgoch, if kindness it could be called…

Dallben shifted. Truth be told, future High King or not, he felt an odd kinship with the child. He didn't altogether want to give him up, however much easier it might be for him. And if this boy truly might grow into the High King of Prydain and shield all the land from evil, was it not Dallben's responsibility to see that he grew well?

Dallben chuckled. Had it come to this, then? Had he, Dallben, the crotchety old enchanter, decided to raise this infant, this boy, alone and unaided? It would be uncomfortable, to be sure. Dallben was no woman, no nurturer. He was an old man. Great enchanter he might be. Wise he was considered by bards and kings all across Prydain. But of children? Of children he knew next to nothing.

"Well, and what of it?" Dallben asked himself. "The day I've nothing left to learn, I might as well lay down and die."

He regarded the sleeping babe, and nodded. "So be it then. My boy, may the gods be with you. You will need all their aid, I fear." He frowned. "I can hardly go on calling you boy, though, can I?" He thought for a moment. "Taran," he said then. "Your name shall be Taran. Taran of Caer Dallben. It is a strong name, ready for the making. Bear it well, my boy. Make of it something magnificent."

A/N: So I love the Chronicles of Prydain. I LOVE them. I love Taran. He definitely makes the list of fictional characters I've had a crush on at one point or another. But Taran also frustrates me. He's always so hard on himself. Granted, that's a very large part of why I love him. But I wanted to give the other characters in the series a chance to give him the praise he never gives himself. I mean, Dallben and Coll obviously loved him. Gwydion saw something in him. Fflewddur Fflam was a king in his own land, and a warrior of note. Even as flighty as he was, why did he essentially give up leadership of the group the moment he met Taran the boy Assistant Pig-Keeper? What makes a leader, and what makes people follow him?

I tried to answer those questions with this story. Because I've already written the entirety of this one, updates are every Wednesday.

Leave a review to tell me what you think.

God Bless,

LMSharp