een raised with stones, and over it was
spread a tattered and faded velvet pall. On this throne sat Aldyth the
Queen; and about the royal pair was still that mockery of a court which
the jealous pride of the Celt king retained amidst all the horrors of
carnage and famine. Most of the officers indeed (originally in number
twenty-four), whose duties attached them to the king and queen of the
Cymry, were already feeding the crow or the worm. But still, with gaunt
hawk on his wrist, the penhebogydd (grand falconer) stood at a distance;
still, with beard sweeping his breast, and rod in hand, leant against a
projecting shaft of the wall, the noiseless gosdegwr, whose duty it was
to command silence in the King's hall; and still the penbard bent over
his bruised harp, which once had thrilled, through the fair vaults of
Caerleon and Rhaldan, in high praise of God, and the King, and the Hero
Dead. In the pomp of gold dish and vessel [165] the board was spread on
the stones for the King and Queen; and on the dish was the last fragment
of black bread, and in the vessel full and clear, the water from the
spring that bubbled up everlastingly through the bones of the dead city.

Beyond this innermost space, round a basin of rock, through which the
stream overflowed as from an artificial conduit, lay the wounded and
exhausted, crawling, turn by turn, to the lips of the basin, and happy
that the thirst of fever saved them from the gnawing desire of food. A
wan and spectral figure glided listlessly to and fro amidst those
mangled, and parched, and dying groups. This personage, in happier
times, filled the office of physician to the court, and was placed
twelfth in rank amidst the chiefs of the household. And for cure of the
"three deadly wounds," the cloven skull, or the gaping viscera, or the
broken limb (all three classed alike), large should have been his fee
[166]. But feeless went he now from man to man, with his red ointment
and his muttered charm; and those over whom he shook his lean face and
matted locks, smiled ghastly at that sign that release and death were
near. Within the enclosures, either lay supine, or stalked restless, the
withered remains of the wild army. A sheep, and a horse, and a clog,
were yet left them all to share for the day's meal. And the fire of
flickering and crackling brushwood burned bright from a hollow amidst the
loose stones; but the animals were yet unslain, and the dog crept by the
fire, wink