Chapter 17: The Spring Equinox

Caelym’s dramatic entrance into the shrine’s classroom took place on the day before the spring equinox. The next morning, when Herrwn was getting up to join the other priests and priestesses in the performance of the morning’s ritual welcoming the rising sun Olyrrwd stayed in bed, saying, “One of us has to be here when the lad wakes up,” instead of making his usual excuse that he’d been up half the night with patients who didn’t have the courtesy to be sick at some reasonable time of day and that the sun was going to come up whether he sang to it or not.

“Benyon is quite capable of giving Caelym his breakfast,” Herrwn said sternly, “and on the spring equinox it is imperative—”

“Imperative?” Olyrrwd opened one eye and looked skeptically at him.

“Well, perhaps not imperative but highly desirable that on the one day of the year when servants and villagers are in attendance that we, the three chief priests of the shrine, be seen together, demonstrating our unity and setting an example for them to follow!” As he tied on his sandals, Herrwn repeated the point he made to Olyrrwd every year only to have the same grumbly retort, “They don’t listen to me when I tell them to stay in bed and give their broken bones time to heal; why would they take notice of whether I sing along with Ossiam or not?”

Once Olyrrwd dug in his heels, there was no moving him, so Herrwn pulled on his best robe and hurried to join the priests and priestesses getting ready to start up the steep stone stairs to the shrine’s uppermost courtyard.

As his eyes adapted to the faint light from the stars and the slender crescent of a waning moon, Herrwn could see that all the priests were there except for Olyrrwd, Rhedwyn (most likely still out raiding), and Labhruinn (presumably hovering outside the birthing chamber). Feywn lifted her staff and started up the stairs. Once the last of the priestesses-in-training passed by and started up the stairs, Herrwn raised his own staff and led the priests in single file after them.

Reaching the upper courtyard, Feywn led the way to the very edge, where she stood facing east. The other priestesses moved into a semicircle behind her, their timing so precise that Herrwn had no need to take even a half step in place before he led the priests into their places. Behind him, Herrwn could feel the space filling with worshippers from the servants’ quarters and the village.

The last shuffling stopped, and all was quiet as they waited for the first rays of the sun to lighten the horizon above the valley’s far ridge.

That day, as every day since he’d first been permitted to join the ritual, it thrilled Herrwn to hear the crystal-clear voice of the chief priestess singing the opening line of the ancient chant—a circular repetition of the original words for welcome, joy, and gratitude—which grew more complex as one after another of the priestesses joined in. After the full round was sung by the last of the priestesses, Herrwn sang his first line, followed in turn by each of the other priests, and then, just as the horizon was fully brightened, the men and women behind them sang out in a resounding chorus.

The sunrise ritual, whether on the spring equinox or any other morning, ended in a reversal of how it began. The last voice to enter fell silent first, and the song faded one voice at a time until the chief priestess sang the haunting final line and there was again silence as they filed out of the courtyard and down the stairs.

The sunrise ritual on the spring equinox served as the opening for revelries that had begun as a celebration of the birth of the firstborn child of the Earth-Goddess and the Sun-God, as well as the twin births of Her first two mortal children, a boy and girl from whom they themselves were descended. Over time, the spring equinox celebration had taken on a broader connotation and now included festivities in honor of all children, both divine and human. Conducting the day’s public activities was delegated to the younger priests and priestesses, so Herrwn made his way back to his quarters in pleasant anticipation of an uninterrupted first day of instruction of the boy he hoped would someday take his place as the shrine’s chief bard.

Opening the classroom doors, he found that Olyrrwd and Caelym had just returned from another expedition to the lake. There were tadpoles swimming in a ceremonial bowl on the windowsill, a jumble of birds’ nests, pine cones, and pebbles was strewn across the table, and the sounds of scratching and scraping were coming from a wooden crate that had previously held Herrwn’s extra sandals.

Olyrrwd and Caelym were sitting close together. Their heads were bent over a mound of brownish matter that Caelym was poking with one of Olyrrwd’s surgical blades. Looking up, he announced with no small show of pride, “I know what owls eat! Mice and snakes and even other birds! They gobble them all up with their bones and everything! See?” He pointed to separate rows of tiny skulls, bones, and claws next to a scattering of mouse tails and went on, “Then instead of pooping like we do, they make the extra stuff into balls in their stomachs, and they spit them out!”

Hoping to avoid learning any more about owls’ private habits, Herrwn hastily asked, “And what else did you find on your adventure in the woods?”

“A robin’s nest and a wren’s nest and pine cones that I’m going to plant and grow into trees, and—” Caelym leaped off his chair, knelt down, and reached with both hands into the crate. “See what I caught? Olyrrwd says I can keep him if I take good care of him, and I’m going to give him goat’s milk so he’ll grow up big and strong like me!”

Recalling the variety of injured or orphaned creatures Olyrrwd had brought home from his boyhood explorations in the marsh along the lakeshore and the wilderness beyond the marsh, Herrwn braced himself. It could be anything, although at the mention of milk his hope for a toad or a snake or anything not needing to be fed at all hours of the night vanished.

Of the creatures that would need milk, all could be counted on to wreak havoc in his classroom. Some (weasels, foxes, and badgers) had been worse than others (and Herrwn had actually become fond of one of Olyrrwd’s several hedgehogs), but all could be expected to climb out of their crates and soil the floor and bite the servants who had to pick them up and put them back.

When Caelym finally managed to get hold of his scurrying quarry, he lifted it up and snuggled it against his chest, announcing, “I’m going to name him Hwppiddan, Hwppiddan the Hare.”

Herrwn let out a relieved breath. It was just a bunny—a cute, fluffy bunny with ridiculously long ears and a twitching little nose. After badgers and foxes and weasels, how much trouble could a little baby bunny be?

Watching Olyrrwd show Caelym how to feed the baby hare warmed sheep’s milk, Herrwn was deeply moved—both by the memory of his cousin as a boy nursing his new little kitten back to life and by the awareness that on the spring equinox, there could be no more sacred observance than watching Caelendra’s son cradling an infant bunny in his arms.

Labhruinn returned to the men’s quarters the next morning, gasping out, “It’s a girl … She’s fine … They’re both fine …”

Until that moment, Herrwn hadn’t been aware he’d been apprehensive, but now a flood of relief washed over him and he answered, “I am glad; I am most glad!” with what he hoped was not unseemly warmth.

“That baby can’t have Whinnie! Whinnie is going to stay here and learn to be a Druid horse!” Caelym looked up from the moss and twigs he was arranging for a nest in the crate that was to be Hwppiddan’s home because, as Olyrrwd had just explained, if Caelym held him all the time, Hwppiddan would never learn to hop. He eyed Labhruinn with suspicion, clearly ready to leap to his feet and grab his toy off the shelf if need be.

Whether Caelym’s implied challenge penetrated Labhruinn’s fog of bliss and fatigue or not, it at least drew his attention.

“You must be Caelym. You look just like Rhe—”

Before the confused and rambling Labhruinn could inadvertently suggest an earthly relationship between Caelym and the man who’d served as a vessel for the Sun-God six years earlier, Herrwn intervened, “This is Caelym, son of Caelendra, who was, as you know, conceived at the Sacred Summer Solstice Ceremony, just as was this new infant girl that the Priestess Annwr has borne! And Caelym, this is Labhruinn, who, like you, is learning to be a Druid priest.”

“Who’s Rhe?” Caelym cocked his head to the side, looking at Labhruinn.

“Er …” Labhruinn stammered.

“Not ‘who,’ ‘what.’” Olyrrwd nudged Labhruinn aside and reached out to take Caelym’s hand. “He means, ‘Are you ready to go for your first lesson in how to stir potions and help heal people?’”

Grateful for the timely diversion, Herrwn stepped aside to let Olyrrwd lead Caelym away, promising to faithfully give Hwppiddan his milk while they were gone.