Caelym and Annwr were on their way to the toy stalls when they heard Lliem’s whistle. Pushing through the crowd, they caught sight of Aleswina and Arddwn climbing over the fence and dashing across the field. Charging after them, they caught up midway to the tree where Lliem was barely staying out of Wulfric’s reach.
Running faster than she’d ever run before, Aleswina reached Lliem first, scooped him up in her arms and fled with him clutched to her chest. Just steps behind her, Annwr paused long enough to wave her walking stick in Wulfric’s direction and shout at him before she rushed after them.
Caelym would have turned to cover their retreat, except he saw Arddwn kept going on, risking capture himself to retrieve Lliem’s toy horse.
It was too late to call him back.
Prepared to fight to the death to save his son, Caelym reached for his dagger, but accidentally grabbed the silver cross that Annwr insisted he wear as part of his monk’s disguise instead. Hearing Herrwn’s words that the wise “contend with speech, not daggers” as clearly as if his teacher were there at his side, Caelym raised the cross up and proclaimed snatches of an incantation he’d learned from Aleswina.
“Quid gloriaris in malitia qui potens es in iniquitate,” he cried out. “tota die iniustitiam cogitavit lingua tua sicut novacula acuta fecisti dolum. Dilexisti malitiam super benignitatem; iniquitatem magis quam loqui aequitatem. Dilexisti omnia verba praecipitationis in lingua dolosa. Propterea destruet te Deus in finem, evellet te et emigravit te de tabernaculo et radicem tuam de terra viventium. Quid gloriatur in malitia qui potens est iniquitate Tota die iniustitiam cogitavit lingua tua sicut novacula acuta fecisti dolum Dilexisti malitiam super benignitatem iniquitatem magis quam loqui aequitatem Dilexisti omnia verba praecipitationis linguam dolosam Propterea Deus destruet te in finem evellet te et emigrabit te de tabernaculo et radicem tuam de terra viventium,” infusing the words with sufficient force to make up for whatever feeble message they contained. Then—as he would recount in the stirring saga he would later compose about the event—his foe, presumably a high priest of the Christians’ god, knelt down in defeat.
Caelym whirled around, triumphant, and bounded across the field. He caught up with Annwr, Aleswina, Arddwn, and Lliem as they slipped through the milling crowd and ducked into the alleyway that Caelym had found earlier that day. From there they made their way back to Ealfrid’s Inn and went straight to their room. In complete agreement about staying out of sight and leaving first thing in the morning, Caelym and Annwr walked the boys to and from the inn’s latrine before tucking them into the innkeeper’s broad bed.
Working by candlelight, Annwr and Aleswina sorted out the packs while Caelym sat nearby with the Gothreg’s map spread next to Herrwn’s, looking from one to the other with a deeply perplexed expression.
When she was satisfied that everything was in order, Annwr set the five packs in a row, neatly arranged by size. She put Caelym’s bow and harp next to the largest one and Lliem’s stick horse next to the smallest and got into bed next to Aleswina, leaving Caelym still awake and puzzling over his maps.
At the other end of the inn’s hallway, Father Wulfric—deeply disturbed over his encounter with the boy in the woods—stayed up in intense prayer long after the friars sharing the room were asleep.
Bewildered over how what had begun as a simple act of Christian charity had ended with his being confronted by a tall, dark monk hurling the words of the fifty-second psalm at him, calling him a sinner who gloried in malice, devised injustice, and wrought deceit, and warning him that God would pluck him out and destroy him, the shaken priest repeated, “Ne proicias me a facie tua et spiritum sanctum tuum ne auferas a me ne proicias me a facie tua et spiritum sanctum tuum ne auferas a me. Redde mihi laetitiam Iesu tui et spiritu potenti confirma me redde mihi laetitiam salutaris tui et spiritu principali confirma me,” over and over until, drained and exhausted, he got off his aching knees and climbed into his cot to fall into a strange dream of running across a field after the vanished novice, Sister Aleswina, who was dressed as a bride and riding on a stick horse.