The instant he felt the touch, Caelym jerked up, hitting his head against the low ceiling as he thrust his right hand out. For a moment, he saw an explosion of swirling stars. Then he opened his eyes to see that Annwr’s Saxon princess was backed up against the opposite wall of the chamber—staring blankly at him, apparently unable to understand what the tip of his dagger was doing a finger’s breadth from the base of her throat.
His already aching head throbbed as he struggled with his limited English to explain to the unbelievably stupid girl how greatly she had endangered herself without adding to the timid anxiety that seemed to be her usual state.
“Now, Little Sister.” He tried for a soothing but firm tone. “If you must be waking a hunted man—and I do not ever say that you must—then you must be doing it in a way that does not leave your throat cut.”
From the look on Aleswina’s face, which he would have thought could not get any paler in a living woman, he decided that he needed to be more reassuring.
“Here, I will show you.” He lay back on his side, his hand holding the knife tucked under the leather bag that served as his pillow. “Now do it again; only you need to say my name and put your hand on my arm to keep it down.”
When Aleswina did not either speak or put out her hand, Caelym sighed and shifted into an awkward half-kneeling position, one leg cramping under him as the other kept him more or less steady. “Like this,” he said, taking Aleswina’s right hand with his left and pressing it down on his own right wrist hard enough to stop its sudden jerk upwards.
Her lips moved without making any discernible sound.
“Káy·Lŭm,” he said, enunciating the syllables slowly and distinctly. “My name is ‘Káy·Lŭm,’ and you must say it just as you are taking hold of my arm so that I know you are my friend and not a foe.”
“Káy·Lŭm,” she croaked in a dry whisper.
“That is good!” He nodded. “Now watch! I am you and you are me!”
He pressed the knife into Aleswina’s trembling fingers and took his hand away, leaving hers suspended uncertainly in front of her. Then he trilled, “Caelym,” in a high, girlish voice—simultaneously catching her wrist in his right hand and pinning her hand and the knife to the ground and holding it there for a long moment before letting go.
She did nothing but gasp and pull her hand away—leaving his beautifully engraved knife lying in the dirt.
Bound by the code of good behavior required of a guest, he sighed and said, “Again.”
The second time, she actually lifted her hand on her own, kept a feeble grip on the knife’s handle, and made a token show of resistance.
“That is . . .” He searched his limited list of English praise words for one that would be both encouraging and believable, and settled on ’better’, and added with exaggerated hardiness, “Now we will do again with you being you and I being me.” Making a show of settling himself back down, he tucked his knife-wielding hand under his makeshift pillow and closed his eyes.
“Caelym,” she whispered, and grasped his wrist with a force that might, just possibly, have stopped a dying moth from flapping its wings.
Again he sighed and said, “Again.”
It was only after she actually managed to keep his hand pinned in place for a moment or two that he put the knife aside and said, “Well now, as I am awake and your throat is not cut, perhaps you will tell me what is it you have come to see me about?”
“I brought you your draught.” As she spoke, she picked up the half-filled cup and held it out to him. When he didn’t take it, she added, “The one for fever and aches and to help you sleep.”
“You have woken me up in the middle of the night to give me the draught to help me sleep?”
“And to put the healing salve on your wound, as Anna said I must.”
Not a very big person to start with, Aleswina seemed to shrink as Caelym glared at her.
“So, if Annwr tells you what to do, I have nothing to say about whether I want it done or not?” Despite his rebellious tone, Caelym took the cup. He tried a mouthful, only to spit it out and bark, “Then what is it you have mixed that tastes so much like something you would be feeding to Annwr’s pig?”
Aleswina’s lips moved, reciting Annwr’s recipe word for word. When his expression did not change, she whispered louder, “Anna is a midwife, and she knows what needs to be in potions and draughts.”
“There is no doubt that Annwr is an excellent midwife,” he snapped back. “And if I were a maid having my monthly cramps, then this would be just the thing for it!”
Aleswina’s pallid cheeks went blotchy red. She drew back as he reached around her to toss the contents of the cup into the bushes outside of the chamber’s entryway. He pulled Annwr’s basket inside, looked briefly through the contents, stopping to smell or taste the powders and elixirs, and then poured a hefty portion of the poppy juice—easily three times what Aleswina had measured—into his cup, filled the cup with wine, and stirred it with his knife, muttering in his own language.
After he’d drained the cup and taken a few deep breaths, Caelym smiled at Aleswina—showing off his perfectly straight, white teeth—and said, “That, then, is a Druid’s cure!”
After lying back down, his head resting on his bag and his hand holding his knife underneath it, he went on in a conciliatory tone of voice, “So now you may put the salve on my wound as you have been instructed by Annwr, high priestess of Llwddawanden, most excellent of midwives, and sister to She who is the living embodiment of the Great Mother Goddess Herself.”
The pot of salve was one of the things Caelym had taken out of the basket and tossed aside in his search for the poppy juice. Aleswina picked it up and pried off the lid. Biting down on her lower lip, she dabbed her fingers into the soft mound of comfrey, egg white, and goose grease. She glanced at Caelym’s bare back and looked quickly away. In the nineteen years of her life, she had never been so close to a man except in the confessional where a wooden wall and heavy iron grill separated her from the elderly priest, safely covered in layers of surplices, chasubles, and vestments.
She shut her eyes and reached out to put the salve on his wound as Anna had told her she must, only to feel him flinch and hear him give a muffled groan. She tried again with her eyes open. It was not so bad—actually, it was thrilling to be doing the work of a healer just like Anna did.
By the time she left to sneak back to her room, Aleswina and Caelym were both at peace—Aleswina feeling unaccustomed bravery at having chosen martyrdom over murder, and Caelym content that he had earned the special merit gained by showing kindness to those who are born dim-witted.
