Chapter 27: War Games

Leaving Olyrrwd grumbling about how Ossiam always found a way to claim credit for whatever happened, Herrwn went to find Caelym and pull him back to their day’s lesson.

Instead of being where Herrwn expected—in the middle of the throng gathered around Feywn, Rhedwyn, and Arianna—Caelym was standing off in the shadow of a nearby post, his shoulders bunched up, his arms crossed, and his eyes narrowed and fixed on the ground. While he obeyed Herrwn’s call to come along back to the classroom, he scuffed his sandals along the way and once there would only mumble, “I don’t know,” or “I don’t remember,” to any question put to him until Herrwn finally asked, “What is it that troubles you so greatly?”

“She’s not a jewel!” Caelym shouted. “She’s just a stupid baby! Why does she get to ride on Rhedwyn’s horse with him? It’s not fair!” Leaping up, he ran through the curtains that separated the apprentices’ sleeping chamber from the classroom, threw himself down on his bed, and buried his face in the covers.

While Herrwn had never been so melodramatic about it, he remembered having fits of pique at the same age. Standing outside the chamber’s curtain, he was pondering how much of the complexity that lay behind the shrine’s rejoicing at Arianna’s return he should attempt to explain once Caelym emerged from his sulk when there was a knock—somehow as diffident and earnest as Benyon himself—and the priests’ chief servant entered to announce that they were being summoned to the great hall for the celebration welcoming Arianna back to the shrine.

“I will be there as soon as I have changed into my good robes.” Herrwn kept his voice down and paused to peep through the curtain. Seeing that Caelym had his pillow pulled over his head, he felt it safe to continue, “Young Master Caelym, however, is, regrettably, indisposed, and I think we will not disturb him.”

“I shall run with all haste to fetch Master Olyrrwd from the healing chamber!” Looking close to panic, Benyon hesitated long enough to ask, “What shall I tell him ails young Master Caelym?”

“That will not be necessary. It is not a serious ailment, and I will speak to Master Olyrrwd myself, but perhaps you will be so kind as to go to get my harp for me.”

While the last thing Herrwn wanted was to have Olyrrwd come dashing in, alarmed at Benyon’s overwrought report of Caelym’s “ailment,” it occurred to him that having the always attentive and sympathetic physician doting on him might be just the antidote to Caelym’s injured feelings. After donning his robes, he picked up his staff, took up the harp Benyon had rushed to fetch for him, and set off for the healing chamber himself, buoyed by the knowledge that giving Olyrrwd an excuse to avoid sitting through a prolonged ceremonial event in close proximity to Ossiam was an excellent thing for all concerned.

On his way to the healing chambers to find Olyrrwd, Herrwn remembered Labhruinn’s tenacious inquiry about the legend of the most beautiful jewel and his astute turn of the age-old question from “How does someone find it?” to “How does anyone know that it isn’t found?”

Despite Labhruinn’s occasional flashes of insight, Herrwn had never before considered the possibility that his reluctantly acquired apprentice had any true gift of intelligence. Now, he surprised himself by thinking that if Labhruinn were ever to succeed in memorizing the seven great sagas, he might someday deserve a seat on the High Council.

After finding Olyrrwd and sending him to coddle Caelym back into his usual high spirits, Herrwn continued to mull over Labhruinn’s feat that morning—how he had phrased his declaration that Arianna was “the most beautiful jewel” in words so close to Ossiam’s early prophecy that no one, least of all the oracle himself, could challenge his claim, and how, as he stepped out from the throng of onlookers, holding up his staff, he had looked so much like a full-fledged priest.

    When had Labhruinn shed his childhood pudginess to become so tall and brawny? When had the stumbling awkwardness of his youth turned into the self-assured movements of a powerfully built man? And when—Herrwn realized with some embarrassment that he should have at least noticed this before now—had Labhruinn learned to manage his burgeoning strength so that he could tune his own harp to the right tension without snapping its strings?

Recalling that it had been weeks—no, months, in fact, many months—since he’d had to replace Labhruinn’s instrument with the spare harp he kept in the classroom cupboard, Herrwn realized there had been another significant change to which he’d paid little attention.

Over the last winter, as Olyrrwd’s knees had grown more swollen and painful, Labhruinn had begun taking over bringing Caelym on his excursions into the woods. And even before that there had been a subtle shift in his relationship with the younger boy, a transformation from being a boisterous confederate to something else—something less like a friend and more like a father. Herrwn searched for the right word or phrase, and finally found a metaphor that captured his thoughts—that if a spell were cast that turned the two of them into a boat, Caelym would be the sails, catching the winds to go soaring and swirling across the waves, and Labhruinn would be the ballast and the rudder, keeping them upright and on a safe course.

It was a change that could not have come at a better time for, just as Labhruinn was emerging from the challenging years between childhood and maturity, Caelym was caught in the throes of youthful upheaval—pouting and complaining that he had to stay inside and recite all afternoon only to argue in the next breath that he should be allowed to perform real rituals like everyone else.

Pleased with his newfound metaphor, Herrwn expanded it, musing that with Labhruinn’s help and Olyrrwd’s always steady hand, they would see Caelym safely through the heaves and down swells, whirlpools and rocky shoals of the next few years. Yes, he was sure of it, and sure that—once the exuberant celebration of Arianna’s return was over—life would settle back to normal.

For the next year, it did.

Rhedwyn’s raids outside the valley continued, as did the races and the war games, which were accompanied, in turn, by complaints to the Low Council from village delegates that those games were wreaking havoc on their fields.

Each time these protests were lodged, Herrwn would say that their points were just and valid, and that he would take them to the High Council—which he did, meticulously repeating the accounting of newly planted crops trampled, terrorized ewes that miscarried, and fishing streams that were ruined when Rhedwyn’s racing riders charged across vital spawning beds. The debate then followed its usual course. Even though the sympathies of the council as a whole leaned toward the villagers, Ossiam stood staunchly with Rhedwyn, and they all knew that Feywn would not accept any ruling that went against her consort. At the conclusion of each session, Olyrrwd would again caustically point out that it was the farmers and herders who fed them all, and until they could survive on Rhedwyn’s battle booty, they might choose to leave some crops and herds and fishing streams intact.

At each subsequent Low Council, Herrwn would deliver his now-routine speech, beginning, “So we have viewed this matter from all sides, and as it remains paramount that our valley be defended against our Saxon enemies …”

He knew that as he delivered this unwelcome message Llwdd, head of the village delegation, would roll his eyes and look away. Still, he was surprised and concerned when, at the conclusion of an otherwise subdued meeting, a voice he didn’t recognize muttered, “Be defended against who? I don’t see any Saxons trampling our crops!” from the back of the hall.

This outburst troubled Herrwn. Had Caelendra been alive, he would have gone to her, knowing she would listen to him and take his counsel that the villagers’ just complaints must have a just response. But Feywn was not Caelendra. From the day Ossiam had proclaimed her their chief priestess and Goddess incarnate, she had acted with absolute dominion, seeking counsel from no one other than her consort—and she’d never paid Herrwn any serious attention at all. While he’d long since come to terms with this, Herrwn still thought privately that Feywn would be well advised to consider age and wisdom over youth and good looks.

Reaching the classroom in a pensive state of mind, Herrwn saw Caelym standing at the window, holding the toy horse he hadn’t played with for years in one hand and idly sliding it back and forth along the ledge as he watched Rhedwyn and his men getting their mounts ready for a new expedition.

Turning to look up at Herrwn, Caelym asked, “Can bards ride horses?”

Herrwn had already lost one disciple to the lure of Rhedwyn’s cavalier adventures, and he was not about to lose another. He crossed the room and put a hand on Caelym’s shoulder. “Of course! Anyone can ride a horse, as that requires no special skill—only that you sit on it, take up its reins, and make it go!”

Herrwn had not ever ridden a horse but had seen it done and assumed there was no more to it than that. In any case, the actual demands of horsemanship were not the issue, and he saw no reason to belabor them as he moved on to make his point, declaiming, “But a bard! A bard can do far more than that—especially if he is a truly great bard, as I believe you will be someday. He can take his listeners with him, riding on dragons in the sky or swimming with selkies in the sea, going on more adventures in a single tale than any warrior can hope to have in a lifetime.”

Whether or not Caelym followed Herrwn’s line of reasoning was hard to say, as he just dropped his eyes, sighed, and went to sit in his place by Herrwn’s chair—still holding the toy horse in his right hand.