Chapter 29: A Missed Message

With barely enough time to change his robes and get to the great hall for his oration, Herrwn still had to placate Caelym, who’d recently begun to chafe at not being allowed to eat his meals at the high table. Having repeated, “On the day of your fifteenth birthday, you will be seated there, just as I and Olyrrwd and each of the rest of us were seated in our turn,” in answer to each of the boy’s admittedly clever and persuasive arguments, Herrwn took up his staff and started for the door just as Benyon rushed in with Caelym’s tray and six different reasons for being late.

“Of course, I understand and can see the delay was not any fault of yours.”

Herrwn hoped his mollifying words would end the flow of Benyon’s excuses, but the servant went on, “then Master Labhruinn stopped me on my way and—”

Speaking with an abruptness he’d later regret, Herrwn interrupted. “I am due at the high table, and young Master Caelym is anxious for his supper.”

“But Master Labhruinn told me to tell you—”

“I will see him at dinner and he may tell me himself!” The horn calling for dinner sounded, and Feywn had no tolerance for late arrivals. With a final, “Now I really must go!” Herrwn gestured for Benyon to let him pass and hurried out the door. When he reached the final corridor leading to the shrine’s main hall, he saw that the heavy curtains which served as the chamber’s doors were already closed. He slowed his pace—both to catch his breath and compose his apologies. A simple “I most humbly plead that you will show your eternal beneficence by forgiving my deplorable lateness which I shall lament for all of my days” was likely to be sufficient so long as Feywn was in a charitable mood. Drawing in a deep, calming breath, he started through the curtains only to stop, step back, and let them fall closed again as he blinked and shook his head.

The great hall, which should have been bathed with the light of the bright summer evening, was shuttered in. A host of shadowy figures were gathered around a godlike being dressed in resplendent robes and singing a song from the saga of the River-Goddess and the Fire-God so that for an eerie moment Herrwn thought he was actually seeing that tale come to life.

Once his initial surprise subsided, Herrwn realized the chamber, though unusually crowded, was otherwise unchanged and that the godlike being was Rhedwyn, showing off as usual.

Hoping no one had noticed his undoubtedly comical look of astonishment, Herrwn edged his way around the side of the chamber and slipped into his seat. He needn’t have worried, as no one paid the slightest attention to his arrival—least of all Feywn, whose gaze was fixed on Rhedwyn with such naked passion that Herrwn looked away, glancing around the chamber to see who all these people were.

Except for Olyrrwd—who, Herrwn knew, was in the healing chamber with his two injured patients—the chief priests and priestesses were in their places around the high table. While some of the spectral figures around the edges of the hall were the servants carrying flasks and trays of food, most were young men that Herrwn recognized as the new recruits Rhedwyn had gathered on his forays into the outside world. There were young women in the crowd as well, either wives who’d followed the men who followed Rhedwyn back to Llwddawanden or else girls from the village.

As he waited for Rhedwyn to finish his song, Herrwn looked around for Labhruinn. Normally picking out his oversized apprentice in a crowd would not have been difficult, but with the chamber filled as it was and with the shifting light of the torches turning people into shadows and shadows into people, he couldn’t make out whether Labhruinn was there or not.

“… no foe, not even death itself, will ever keep us apart!”

As Rhedwyn strummed the closing cadence of his song, Herrwn looked toward Feywn, prepared to deliver his apology as well as his night’s oration, but she did not so much as glance in his direction. Instead, she nodded for the hovering servants to begin carving the roast boar and turned to listen as first Rhedwyn and then one after another of his men rose to boast about repaying the Saxon’s attack in kind as if the deed were already done.

Once it was clear he was not to be called on for an oration that night, Herrwn exchanged a few pleasantries with Ossiam before excusing himself on the pretext of being tired.