Chapter 37: A Toast to the Dead

Exhausted in body and spirit, Herrwn slept until late afternoon, missing the sunrise ritual for the second time in his adult life. Caelym was still asleep in the cot next to him. The curtain into the main room was open, and as he sat up Herrwn could see that Olyrrwd was sitting at the table—a wine jug at his elbow, one cup next to it and another in his hand. Pushing back his covers, he got up, walked barefoot across the cold stone floor, and took the chair Olyrrwd had pulled out for him. “Will the funeral be tomorrow?” he asked as he sat down.

Instead of answering, Olyrrwd gave him the cup from the table. It was full to nearly brimming with what smelled like the potion Olyrrwd had given Caelym “to ward off nightmares.” As he held the cup in both hands, Herrwn noticed that its dark surface was trembling. Reluctantly, and only because he knew there was no choice, he asked, “What now?”

“The priestesses were preparing Rhedwyn for his burial, and three of them went to gather King’s Heal—”

“But why?” Had he been Olyrrwd, Herrwn would almost certainly have made the caustic retort that even if Rhedwyn were a king, it was too late for any herbal remedy to help him now. Being himself, he just shook his head in bewilderment.

“Not why, where!”

“I don’t understand.”

“King’s Heal!” Olyrrwd spoke the plant’s name as if he were spitting out something bitter. “I told you! I took Caelym out to show him the only place that wretched herb grows!”

It wasn’t the moment to point out that Olyrrwd had not named the herb or said where it grew, so Herrwn just murmured, “I still don’t understand, where does it grow?”

“On the north bank of the River Nevwrn, just above the first of the seven cataracts.”

As limited as his experience outside of Llwddawanden was, Herrwn knew that the Nevwrn ran through the valley below the ridge where Rhedwyn had been buried, the valley where smoke had still been rising from the Saxons’ bonfires.

“Surely they didn’t go there … They must have known how dangerous—”

“They didn’t know or they were too dazed with grief to care. When they didn’t return by midmorning, servants were sent out to search for them.” Olyrrwd took a swallow from his cup. “They found the tracks where they’d been overtaken and tried to escape by jumping into the river …” He lifted the cup halfway to his lips and lowered it again. “They found their bodies below the rapids. They’ll be buried with Rhedwyn tomorrow, but we are going to drink to each of the three of them now.”

Feeling not so much sad as numb, Herrwn asked, “To whom are we drinking first?”

“To Gwennefor.”

“To Gwennefor,” Herrwn repeated, picturing the quiet, gentle girl, seeing her dark, doe-like eyes and shy, sweet smile before him as he drained his cup.

Holding it out and watching Olyrrwd refill it, he asked, “To whom are we drinking next?”

“To Caldora.”

Caldora, spritely and quick, always a winner in the summer swimming races. If she could not survive the raging rapids, who could? As Herrwn drank the second full cup of Olyrrwd’s potent brew, the classroom started to spin around him, and so it was only to be expected that his hand would shake when he held out the cup for a third time.

Waiting for Olyrrwd to finish filling it and hand it back, Herrwn thought the room had gone entirely dark—then realized that he had just closed his eyes. Forcing them to open and meeting Olyrrwd’s gaze, he heard himself ask, “To whom are we drinking now?”

“Annwr.”

After Herrwn finished drinking, Olyrrwd took the cup out of his hand and told him to go back to bed. As the effects of three cups of the poppy juice–laced brew took hold, he could hear someone crying. At the time, he thought it must be Olyrrwd, but he woke up the next day to find that his own pillow was wet.

In years to come, Herrwn would remember the first half of the daylong funeral rites as if he’d been viewing it from a distance. He saw himself getting out of bed and attending to his morning necessities before donning the ceremonial gown Benyon held out to him, then moving on to have breakfast with Olyrrwd and Caelym and, along with them, leaving the priests’ quarters to join in the procession to the Sacred Grove, where he watched himself deliver a well-chosen elegy in an unwavering voice.

For the most part, it all remained quite clear in his memory—the other odes and elegies, the careening laments of the lower ranks of priestesses, the three gilded litters set on stands before the altar—Rhedwyn’s centermost, with Gwennefor and Caldora’s to either side, each of their bodies swathed in embroidered silk and blanketed with fragrant herbs and summer flowers.

What Herrwn couldn’t remember was when he’d found out that Annwr’s body wasn’t there. It was, of course, Olyrrwd who told him, and he must have taken him aside so Caelym wouldn’t hear. What he did recall was asking, “Why not?”

“They didn’t find her.”

“Then there is a chance that she—”

“There is no chance.”

“But how can you be sure?”

“Because they found the tracks where all three were together at the river’s edge, and they found her shawl caught on a snag just beyond where they found Gwennefor.”

Olyrrwd had seemed to think Herrwn wanted to cling to the hope that Annwr was still alive, but that wasn’t so. As terrible as it was to know that she was dead, it would have been worse to think she might be alive in the hands of Saxons.

When the last of the public rituals were done, Olyrrwd told Moelwyn to take Caelym to the healing chamber, give him his next dose of calming potion, and put him to bed, adding, “Keep him there and don’t take your eyes off him!”

When his assistant mumbled something in reply, Olyrrwd snapped, “No! Not even when he’s pissing in his chamber pot!” so loudly that several of the nearby priestesses turned to stare.

Turning a brilliant red from the base of his neck to the top of his prematurely balding scalp, Moelwyn took Caelym by the hand and led him off as the strongest of the shrine’s servants moved into place to lift up the three litters and begin the trek up the steep cliffside path to the priestly burial chambers.