Chapter 33: But Everyone Is Going

Herrwn did indeed have some things to say to Caelym, and he began saying them once they’d reached the classroom and he’d shut the door behind them.

“So in return for being granted the privilege of joining in the Sacred Sunrise Ritual, you have abused my trust by telling Olyrrwd a falsehood—”

“It wasn’t a falsehood!” Caelym protested. “You said I could join you this morning!”

“I said you could join me for the sunrise ritual! You know well that you were then to go to your lessons with Olyrrwd! And you know equally well that you did not follow me openly to the Low Council but came secretly behind and out of my sight!”

“But Olyrrwd won’t let me do anything except stir stupid pots, and everyone else gets to go to the council!”

“Even if that were true, which it is not, and even if you acted with my knowledge and approval, which you did not, then it would still be incumbent upon you to return to the classroom afterwards!”

“But Rhedwyn said he needs all of the strong and courageous men of Llwddawanden, and I’m strong and I’m brave and—”

“And you are eleven years old!”

“Almost twelve!”

“And if you were twenty, which you are not, you would still be my pupil, and I have not and will not give you leave to ride off to any battle!”

“But everyone else is going—”

“Even if that were true, and it is not, everyone else is not in training for the highest level of the priesthood as you are!”

“You said you would hold no disciple against his will!”

With that defiant declaration, Caelym made for the door, but Herrwn was quicker and held it shut as he declared with equal vehemence, “Nor will I! So when you are of age and have completed the necessary training to be accepted as my disciple, then you may come to me and decline that honor! Until then, you are my pupil and I am your teacher, and now you will apologize for your disrespectful words and behavior!”

For a long, tense moment, the two stared, unblinking, at each other. Then Caelym dropped his eyes and muttered, “I am sorry for my disrespectful words and behavior, Master.”

“I am glad to hear it! And I now want your solemn promise—your word of honor—that you will not go out of this door without my permission!”

There was another long, tense moment before Caelym mumbled, almost inaudibly, “Yes, Master.”

“Let me hear you say it!”

“I promise.” Caelym drew in a long breath and let it out in an equally long sigh. “On my word of honor, I will not go out the door without your permission.”

Even in his most rebellious moments, Caelym had never broken his given word, so Herrwn took his hand away from the door and said in a quieter tone of voice, “And will we have any further argument about this?”

Glancing up and then dropping his eyes again, Caelym answered, “No, Master, we will not.”

“I am glad to hear that as well. So now it is time we return to our lesson. Perhaps you will remind me where we left the hero, Heddrwn, yesterday.”

No longer defiant, Caelym answered, “The too-trusting rightful king of Gwyddion was tricked by his devious half brother, Healyn, and was trapped in a deep pit and left there to be devoured by Talweddion, the voracious one-eyed giant.”

“Exactly right. So you may begin from where Heddrwn sings his lament at his brother’s betrayal.”

“Of course, Master. Shall I get my harp?”

Still on alert, Herrwn suspected a ploy. The closet where the harps and other musical instruments were stored was down the hall, and agreeing to Caelym’s innocent-sounding request would mean releasing him from his just-spoken promise, so instead Herrwn answered, “I will get it for you.” With the storage closet only a short way off, he was there and back in a matter of moments, expecting Caelym to be in his place.

He was not.

Looking around the empty classroom, Herrwn realized his mistake—insisting that Caelym promise not to go out the door but saying nothing about the window.

Reproaching himself far more harshly than he’d reprimanded Caelym, he turned on his heels and dashed back to the field.

Herrwn arrived just as Rhedwyn was calling his final farewell to Feywn and signaling his men to fall in line.

The track out of the field was just wide enough for horses to go single file, and men on foot to walk two abreast. Herrwn stationed himself at its starting point, where he could see everyone who passed.

Once the last of the marchers had gone by, he scanned the crowd as it thinned—the servants returning to their duties and old men, women, and children from the village wandering back to their homes.

Caelym was nowhere to be seen.

Herrwn’s heart lightened as he guessed that his truant pupil must have gone to Olyrrwd to plead his case and inveigle the permission he had not gotten from Herrwn. Hoping that Caelym was safely confined in the healing chamber, learning all there was to know about fresh bruises, Herrwn made his way there—only to meet Olyrrwd in the middle of the herb garden.

“It’s true, then? He got away?” Some servant, probably Benyon, must have taken word to Olyrrwd that Herrwn was searching for Caelym.

Seeking to reassure himself as well as Olyrrwd, Herrwn explained about watching as Rhedwyn left for the upper gate and being absolutely sure that Caelym couldn’t have slipped by.

“Did you check the lower gate to the tunnel?”

“He doesn’t know that way!”

“He knows. I showed him.”

Olyrrwd had more than once joked that worrying about Caelym was aging him before his time. Now, as he gave a disjointed explanation of wanting to “show him where to find that wretched herb,” his bright eyes dulled, his shoulders slumped, and his face, which had remained unwrinkled through all his years of caring for the ill and the dying, grew saggy and wizened.

“We must go there now and look for him.” Herrwn spoke as much to bring Olyrrwd back to life as out of any hope of heading Caelym off after so much time had passed.

It was too late.

There were some boy-sized sandal tracks here and there along the way to the lower gate and more leading into the underground passage that served as their secret shortcut to the outside world. The brush-covered screen that served as their “back door” was slightly ajar, but there was no sign of Caelym and no answer to their frantic calls.

Herrwn had not set foot outside the valley since his spirit quest thirty years earlier, and then he had just climbed the closest of the peaks above the upper end of the valley, where he’d spent a cold and uncomfortable night listening to shuffling noises in the bushes before finally falling asleep and dreaming that he was surrounded by bears.

Not sure if nightmares counted as fulfillment of a dream quest, he’d related his dream to his father, who’d been so proud that Herrwn had decided that, as unlikely as it seemed, perhaps his animal spirit guide was a bear after all. In the years since then, he’d never felt any need to test that assumption, but did so now, closing his eyes, raising his staff, and invoking his spirit guide to lead him to Caelym.

“Any luck?” Olyrrwd’s inquiry was glum and he just muttered, “Well, it was worth a try,” when Herrwn sadly shook his head. For some moments they stood there, Herrwn as crippled by his hopelessly poor sense of direction as Olyrrwd was by his swollen, painful joints.

Neither of them had to say aloud that their venturing out to search for Caelym would be futile. Instead, Herrwn whispered, “Can he find his way to the path that Rhedwyn is taking?”

“I hope not. Maybe he’ll just wander around a bit and come back with some face-saving excuse.” Olyrrwd did not sound hopeful, but with nothing else to do, the two men went back through the tunnel, leaving its outer door cracked open.

Back at the shrine, Feywn was leading the other priestesses in warlike chants that were unlike anything Herrwn had heard outside of the most primitive of the ancient sagas.

Ossiam was in the shrine’s latrine, waiting for the side effects of Olyrrwd’s restorative potion to pass.

Olyrrwd still had two patients to keep him occupied.

Herrwn was not so lucky. Try as he might to think of other things, he spent the rest of the day wandering in circles around the classroom or going over to the shelves, picking up artifacts from Caelym’s childhood—his stuffed horse, the empty bowl from his beloved pet hare, rocks and eggshells from his woodland collections—and putting them down again, until it was time for his evening’s oration.

After reciting the tale of Trystwn and the Golden Stallion, a story that was one of Caelym’s favorites, to the handful of priests and priestesses who came to the high table that night, Herrwn returned to his quarters to find Benyon taking away Caelym’s supper tray.

“Kindly leave it.”

Herrwn sent the servant off, wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, and settled into his chair for the night—alert for the slightest sound that might be an eleven-year-old boy sneaking in, trying not to wake anyone up.

Despite being certain he wouldn’t fall asleep, he did, drifting into a dream in which Caelym climbed in through the window, followed by a gigantic brown bear, and started pleading to keep it for a pet.

When his dream self said, “Certainly not! It is much too big and dangerous!” the bear began to growl and then spoke in a voice that was just like Olyrrwd’s, telling him to wake up—that Caelym was back.