Chapter 26: Rhedwyn Returns

“Herrwn! Oh, Herrwn! Wait!”

Herrwn had left the courtyard, distraught over the dangers of Rhedwyn’s quest and by the realization that Olyrrwd’s suspicions about Ossiam might be right, and was starting up the stairs to the priests’ quarters when he heard running steps and turned to see Ossiam coming around a bend in the hallway, his hood thrown back and his hair in disarray.

“I must speak to you!” his cousin called out between gasps for air.

Glancing over his shoulder at the sound of someone else’s footsteps—most likely Benyon coming to collect Caelym’s tray—Ossiam lowered his voice and said, “In private!”

With that he took a viselike grip on Herrwn’s elbow and pulled him down the side hall and into a small storage room. Once inside, he let go of Herrwn’s arm and turned away to light a candle, setting it back into its niche before he closed the door.

“What …” Herrwn stopped himself. What was the point in asking? Ossiam would never explain the meaning of any of his portends, much less admit that his ill-dreamed vision was to blame for Rhedwyn’s newest and most misguided adventure, so Herrwn just sighed. “What is it you wish to speak to me about?”

“My vision! I think it is to blame for Rhedwyn’s newest and most misguided adventure!”

Ossiam spoke in a broken voice, wringing his hands and making no attempt to wipe away the tears that streamed down his cheeks. “That cursed vision … how I wish I had never dreamed it … and oh, how I rue that I did not cut out my tongue before I ever spoke of it …”

Ossiam broke down, sobbing tears of regret and remorse that washed away Herrwn’s doubts and suspicions. He did his best to comfort his cousin, reminding him that Feywn had given Rhedwyn her own sacred pendant and they must hope that its protective powers would prevail.

“Yes, so we must hope.” Ossiam spoke in a hollow voice. Without another word, he pulled up his hood and walked away, shaking his head.

Hurrying back to the classroom, Herrwn met Olyrrwd leaving with Caelym and Moelwyn.

“Olyrrwd, you heard—” he started.

“I told you!” glancing at Caelym and Moelwyn, Olyrrwd broke off and muttered, “We’ll talk later.”

That night, when they spoke in private, Olyrrwd refused to believe that Ossiam’s lamentations were genuine—dismissing Herrwn’s description of how their cousin had berated himself and how tears of grief and regret had flowed down his cheeks with a caustic rejoinder, “And did you smell the onion?”

“That is most unjust of you!” Herrwn responded vehemently to Olyrrwd’s implied accusation that Ossiam had resorted to trickery to feign the anguish he’d displayed—certain the pungent scent he now recalled noticing in the confines of the small, cramped storage room had been nothing more than the usual odor of Ossiam’s lamentably strong breath. “Had you been there, you would know that such heart-rending feelings could not be contrived.”

“You watch,” Olyrrwd retorted, “if Rhedwyn comes back with a star plucked out of the heavens in the palm of his hand, Ossiam will sigh and shed some more tears and send him off to get a brighter one!”

Since neither Olyrrwd nor Herrwn could sway the other to his way of thinking, they left off arguing and went back to their separate responsibilities.

In the week that followed, a sense of expectancy and suspense settled over the shrine. Even though there was no reason to think Rhedwyn and his men would be returning any time soon, Feywn ordered that a watch be kept for them at the outer gate. She spent the time not otherwise committed to conducting rituals standing on the shrine’s upper walkway and looking at the valley’s west rim, her golden hair hanging loose and blowing in the changeable summer breezes. Her main servant and at least one of the other high priestesses stood watch with her, but the rest carried on with their usual duties, resigned to what they all expected would be a long and possibly futile wait for Rhedwyn’s return.

Already in a flighty and distractible stage of life, Caelym fell victim to the tension and restiveness around him, and it took Herrwn’s sternest looks and strictest admonitions to keep him even somewhat on task. On the afternoon of the eighth day after Rhedwyn and his men had ridden off, Herrwn was standing over his fidgeting pupil and correcting the errors in a poorly memorized ode when a cry came in the classroom’s open window.

“They’re back!”

Caelym was at the window before Herrwn gave him permission to go—leaning precariously far out and pointing at the distant line of horses descending slowly along the track that ran in a winding course down the valley’s western slope.

“Wait for me!”

But Caelym had dashed out the door and was gone. Following after him, Herrwn was about to cross the courtyard and ascend the stairs to the upper walkway when he met Olyrrwd, who called out, “Come on, I may need help!”

That Olyrrwd foresaw the need for help was not a good sign—especially if he was calling on Herrwn instead of Caelym, who’d been acting as a nearly full-fledged apprentice in the healing chambers for more than a year. Without asking any questions, Herrwn turned and hurried after Olyrrwd out the gate and into the field where the riders would dismount before entering the shrine.

Once there, he could see why Olyrrwd was worried. Instead of galloping full bore, their horns blaring and pennants flying, as they always did on their triumphant returns from hunting or raiding, the riders came down the hill at a painstakingly measured pace. By the time the horses plodded up the path into the clearing outside the shrine’s main gate, the walkway overhead was filled with priests and priestesses. Feywn seemed not to breathe at all as she stood waiting, her eyes fixed on the leader.

From where he stood, Herrwn could see that Rhedwyn’s cloak bulged over his right arm and shoulder as if it was covering a thickly padded injury.

That was clearly Olyrrwd’s thought. He was standing at Herrwn’s side, muttering under his breath, “Color is good, so no great blood loss; no sign of fever, so nothing’s festered, more likely a break or dislocation, though you’d expect …”

Rhedwyn, meanwhile, nudged his horse into the center of the open space below the wall where Feywn was standing.

There was a moment that seemed to stretch out as the suspense built. Then Rhedwyn spoke in a soft, subdued voice, one very much at odds with the triumphant pronouncement he was making.

“I have returned bringing the most beautiful jewel back to you, as I swore I would.”

As he spoke, Rhedwyn took hold of the edge of the cloak with his left hand and, in a sweeping gesture, flung it open to reveal a sleeping child—a little girl with red hair.

A strong and resounding voice rang out from the gathered crowd, crying, “It is Arianna, the daughter of the chief priestess Feywn! Who here does not recall the prophesy by the greatest of our oracles that she would outshine the stars themselves?” Stepping out of the throng, wearing a ceremonial robe and holding up his staff, Labhruinn cried out in a voice that might have been a master Druid’s, “Does anyone deny, then, that she is our most beautiful jewel and is returned to her divine mother in fulfillment of my brother’s oath?”

Ossiam, standing at Feywn’s right side, seemed momentarily frozen, but then he raised his staff in a salute as the rumbling of “no’s” spread through the throng.

Later, Herrwn and Olyrrwd would argue over whether Ossiam’s gesture proved he was sincere or whether it was “just another ploy,” but at the time there was a burst of cheers from the onlookers that woke Arianna, who blinked and looked around, her emerald-green eyes sparkling in the sunlight.