Chapter 51: The Witness

There was a dreamlike quality to the entire scene. The room was spinning, carrying his two cousins with it, and when Herrwn could finally hear what they were saying, their voices seemed to be echoing around him.

As he struggled to push himself up on his elbows and then to keep himself at least somewhat steady, the buzzing in his ears rose and fell, letting bits and pieces of his cousins’ exchange break through. The first thing he heard clearly was Olyrrwd shouting, “… comes to any harm, I will bring you before the High Council. I will tell them that you hated the boy for what his father did—winning first Caelendra and then Feywn—and so you drove him to suicide! And they will curse you and cast …”

The buzzing rose again, so the next thing he could make out with any certainty was the end of Ossiam’s rejoinder, “… has come to harm, it is by his own hand! Herrwn will be my witness! He will admit that he gave the command that I release the boy after his rite was completed!”

“But that was not what I meant!” Herrwn wasn’t sure whether he actually spoke his objection aloud or only thought it, but in either case Ossiam continued without the slightest pause, “He will swear that I have been here all morning! And as to the rest, it will be only your word against mine, and no one will believe you over me!”

“OssiamOssiamOssiam,” Olyrrwd spoke the oracle’s name three times before going on in a voice that came out like the hiss of a venomous serpent, “you must hope that they believe me, for if they do not, I will curse you myself! And beware, Ossiam, for it is in my power to curse you so that your bowels twist into knots and your body swells and festers with sores and the stench of your rotting skin drives all others away from you! If I curse you, you will spend all the remainder of your days and nights in the healing chamber alone—except for me! But I will be there with you every moment to make sure that you do not die quickly—and it will do no good for you to call out to the Goddess for mercy, for the Mother-Goddess sees all things and knows all things, and She does not need me to tell Her what you have done. Where has he gone? Use your foresight and use it now, or never eat from a plate that I pass you without wondering what’s in it!”

The two stared at each other without blinking as the room rotated another three turns. Then Ossiam’s lips moved again, and Herrwn heard something that sounded like, “I told you, I don’t know … but … but it’s possible he might have gone to the overlook above the Bottomless Falls … but not because I told him to! I never once told him …”

Herrwn’s vision, like his hearing, came and went. One moment he was watching Ossiam and Olyrrwd locked in verbal combat, the next he was seeing Olyrrwd grab Caelym’s battered toy horse from the shelf, and the next both Olyrrwd and Ossiam were gone.

Exhausted from the effort of keeping his head and shoulders raised, he eased back down flat and closed his eyes. He couldn’t tell how long he lay there on the cold stone floor, his head throbbing and his feet caught in the rungs of the overturned chair, but sometime, sooner or later, Benyon appeared—leaning over him and telling him not to move. Then he had a pillow under his head and a suffocating pile of blankets on top of him and could hear Benyon saying over and over again that Master Olyrrwd had said he must stay where he was, and not try to get up, and then he must have slipped off to sleep because suddenly he was sitting upright at a meeting of the High Council.

While there had been a dreamlike quality to the scene between Ossiam and Olyrrwd, Herrwn’s dream afterwards was starkly real.

He was in his place at the council table and knew by feel that he had a bandage wrapped around his head. That and other details of the council chamber and of the people in it were clear and precise, down to the smallest detail.

Feywn was in the chair next to him. On her right, where Rhonnon and Aolfe normally would have been, were her two predecessors, Caelendra and Eldrenedd. That should have been startling but seemed quite ordinary, as did the fact that his father, along with Olyrrwd’s father, Olyrrond, and Ossiam’s father, Ossaerwn, were seated to his left—all three of them dressed in the robes of judges at a solemn tribunal. In the center of the room, in place of the stone hearth, was a hole in the floor filled with fog—a hole that must have been deep, because Caelym was in it with only his head showing above the swirling mist.

Ossiam and Olyrrwd were standing on either side of the pit, Ossiam holding a handful of white stones and Olyrrwd holding a handful of black ones. Each made sweeping bows, first to Herrwn and then to one another.

Olyrrwd spoke first, saying gravely, “I must regretfully inform you that my dearest cousin, Ossiam, has vilely plotted against his own disciple out of jealousy and bile—driving him to suicidal despair and sending him to the edge of the cliff above the Bottomless Falls—so it was only right that he have his rank and his staff taken from him, and that he be sent to the kitchen to be the cook’s servant, chopping wood for the fire and carrying slops to the pigs.”

When he finished, he bowed again to Herrwn and the other priests and priestesses and then to Ossiam, who bowed back before speaking in his own defense.

“It grieves me deeply to say how wrong my beloved cousin Olyrrwd is—but no matter how much it may appear that I did those things of which I am wrongfully accused, I never did—or, if I did, it was only a jest to tease Olyrrwd, besides which it wouldn’t really have been me who did it but Sarahrana, my female spirit guide, who regrettably may have spoken through me. And so I say that for making this false accusation, it is Olyrrwd who should have his rank and staff taken from him and be sent to the kitchen to be the cook’s servant, while I should be forgiven and named to take the part of the Sun-God at the next Sacred Summer Solstice Ceremony.”

It was clear from the murmuring between Feywn, Eldrenedd, and Caelendra that the priestesses were fully persuaded by the thrust of Olyrrwd’s arguments.

On his left, the priests were divided—Olyrrwd’s father naturally siding with his son as Ossiam’s father sided with his, while Herrwn’s own father sought to resolve their differences by saying that Ossiam’s being so decisively defeated by Herrwn at Stones was surely punishment enough. This, however, led to a further argument between Herrwn’s father and Ossiam’s over whether Ossiam’s throwing the stones and the board off the table constituted an admission of defeat. Their dispute was becoming heated when Olyrrwd’s father intervened, saying that the question of who won the game depended on how many playing pieces or turns Herrwn was prepared to give in exchange for ransoming Caelym.

It was at that point that Caelym, who’d been entirely silent up until then, asked urgently, “How many, Master?”

Herrwn opened his eyes to see a hand in front of his face—one that was badly in need of washing. He would have said so except that he saw Caelym’s face behind the hand and knew there was no point in telling a figure in a dream to do anything.

Remembering the question his pupil had just asked him, Herrwn answered firmly, “As many as necessary! All of them!”

Without moving his hand, Caelym (and as the fuzziness in his head was replaced by a throbbing headache, Herrwn realized that he was awake and Caelym was actually there) turned to look at Olyrrwd, who was standing behind him.

“What do I say to that?”

“Ask again, making sure that he understands your question.”

Nodding, Caelym turned back and asked, “How many fingers am I showing you, Master?”

“Four.” At first, this seemed the obvious answer to an easy question, but while four was the correct count of the fingers Herrwn saw, he could also see that Caelym’s hand was not wide open but half-fisted. Focusing very carefully, he realized he was seeing two forefingers and two middle fingers, so he amended, “Two, that is. Two of each.”

He was not sure whether this was correct and apparently Caelym was not either, as he lowered his hand, looked at Olyrrwd, and asked, “Which means?”

Herrwn wondered about this as well.

“Seeing double means your patient is still in the early stage of his recovery, but his knowing he is seeing double is a good sign, considering the resounding thud I heard when his head hit the stone floor.”

This was not entirely reassuring, although Olyrrwd going on to say, “When he sees just one of each finger that you hold up, he will be ready to take a quarter measure of chicken broth, along with a half measure of tea brewed from willow bark and chamomile,” seemed hopeful—especially as Herrwn realized how parched his mouth was.

While Olyrrwd and Caelym were talking about broths and brews, Herrwn had time to take stock of his situation.

He was no longer lying on the floor in the classroom. He was on a bed in the healing chambers. Caelym was sitting on a stool by the edge of the bed, his face as dirty as his hand. Olyrrwd was at a nearby table, where he was wrapping something that looked like the liver of a sheep (and smelled exceedingly foul) in a linen sheath as he continued in a lecturing tone of voice, clearly meant for Caelym rather than for Herrwn, “And so, after applying the compress of goat’s liver preserved in equal parts ale and urine—which serves what two purposes?”

“Cushioning the swollen lump and fending off the spirits of brain fever and bewilderment!”

“Excellent! When and how should it be changed?”

“Precisely at midnight, while reciting the chant to repel those spirits, taking care that the windows are open so that they leave the chamber and do not remain inside, waiting for another victim!”

“Correct again! And what are the rest of your directions for his care?”

“That he should remain lying in bed until morning, at which time he may sit up and, so long as he does not grow pale or queasy, take a half measure of willow bark and chamomile root brewed as tea, along with a light breakfast of wheat bread softened with sheep’s milk, but nothing containing blood, fat, or inner organs for at least …”

Neither as confused nor as feeble as they apparently thought, and done listening to the two of them discuss his treatment as if his views on the matter had no bearing, Herrwn pushed himself up to sitting and announced that he had the second tale in the third saga of the Three Princes of Llanddissigllen to recite that night and needed to return to his quarters to change his robes.

“Oh please, Master, it is too soon for you to rise, and I must plead that you do not strain yourself.” Caelym held out both hands, as if he expected Herrwn to topple off the bed.

Olyrrwd did not speak to Herrwn but to Caelym. “What you say is correct, only you must say it remembering that you are a physician! He is not your master now, he is your patient, and you do not plead with patients! You tell them what they must do, reminding them, if need be, that it is you—and not they—who know the secrets of healing! Watch me and I will show you!”

Standing at his full height, Olyrrwd was just barely eye level with Herrwn sitting up in bed, but crossing his arms and affecting an unyielding and immovable posture, he declared, “You have suffered a serious injury to your head due to striking it on the stone floor and are fortunate not to have cracked it wide open. It is the considered opinion of my skilled disciple that you will remain in bed until he determines you are fit to stand, and that would be tomorrow at the earliest!” with such a blast of authority that Herrwn would have lain back down even if he hadn’t been so woozy that he had to.

Speaking up from his flattened position, he protested, “But my oration!”

“You have a disciple who will do the oration tonight in your stead!” Olyrrwd put a hand on Herrwn’s chest, pinning him in place, as he turned back to Caelym and said, “And speaking of that, I expect that you will want to go change into bardic robes and get a harp—so, with your permission, I will take over the care of your patient, carrying out your directions precisely.”

As Caelym swung around and started off, Herrwn could see he was wearing Olyrrwd’s cloak—which, with the differences in their height, came only halfway down his thighs. Below that, his bare legs and feet were even dirtier than his face and hand. Seeing this, Herrwn, despite Olyrrwd’s restraint, managed to half raise himself and call out, “Do not put on my robes without bathing first!”

The effort drained him so that, when Olyrrwd pressed him back down, he obeyed his cousin’s order to “go to sleep!”