Chapter 54: The First Oration

There was something in Olyrrwd’s tone that was reminiscent of a time when his clashes with Ossiam were more than half in fun. The accusation that Ossiam had deliberately plotted against Caelym, however, was no boyish squabble.

“I suppose you will bring this to the High Council.” Herrwn spoke reluctantly, heartsick at the thought of presiding over that council meeting.

“What good would that do?” Olyrrwd’s tone changed from lighthearted to bitter. “Do you think Feywn will take my word over his?”

At first, Herrwn was taken aback that Olyrrwd would reduce the substance of the High Council meetings to a mere stage for their chief priestess’s pronouncements. On reflection, however—and recalling the preference Feywn had shown for Ossiam’s pronouncements over anything anyone else had to say ever since Rhedwyn died—he was forced to concede Olyrrwd’s point.

“So you will let the matter drop?”

“So I will come up with something else.”

“But you wouldn’t …” Herrwn hesitated, not sure how to phrase his next question but, remembering Olyrrwd’s previous threats against Ossiam’s life, more than a little concerned with the way the physician was surveying the line of potentially lethal potions he kept on the highest shelf on the far wall of the room.

Olyrrwd said nothing for a long moment. Then he sighed. “You’re right. I wouldn’t.”

Relieved, Herrwn lay back against his pillows and let his mind wander from picturing Caelym dressed in formal bardic robes and reciting his first independent oration to the night that he himself donned those same robes for the first time.

Herrwn had been rehearsing for months for what was to him a far more important rite of passage than the spirit quest he’d gone on before entering his formal discipleship the year before.

His fingers had shaken as he fastened the ties of his robe. Gripping his harp with sweaty hands, he’d walked what seemed to be leagues through the torch-lit hallways, his pulse pounding in his ears, his mouth and throat so dry he could barely swallow.

He reached the curtained entrance to the great hall and froze there, suddenly unable to recall a single word of the saga he was to recite. As he stood trembling, unable either to move forward or run away, his father stepped in front of him, laid a hand on his shoulder, and murmured, “All the sensations that you are feeling now are not just normal but necessary, for how else would you understand and convey the feelings of a hero setting out on a perilous quest?” Adding, “And I know that you, too, are a hero, and you will conquer your fears, and you will triumph!” he stepped aside, pulled the curtain open, and pointed through it. “Now go!”

Herrwn went.

Walking through the entrance to stand in the center of the floor—the chief priests and priestesses seated at the high table in front of him and the ordinary ones at their lower tables stretching around him on both sides—he understood truly for the first time how Pwendorwn must have felt facing the ranks of the giants and surrounded by an army of ogres.

Then, as his father had promised, his fear of forgetting his lines fell away and the power of the tale came over him. Instead of reciting from memory, he found himself describing what he was seeing before him—and sensed that his audience was not just listening to the story but was living it along with him.

When he’d finished, he heard the wave of applause and saw his uncles slapping his openly grinning father on the back, but what he remembered most clearly was his mother looking at him with love and pride and speaking loudly enough for her words to carry across the room, “That was wonderful!”

His mother’s praise had capped off the intoxicating sense of fulfillment he’d felt at that moment—a sensation he felt again each time he completed a successful oration, which he’d done almost every night for the past forty-five years.

But instead of being there to bolster and encourage Caelym on the night he gave his first independent oration in the shrine’s great chamber, Herrwn had sent his disciple—Caelendra’s son—off with nothing more than a querulous admonition to wash himself before putting on his robes.

Herrwn shook his head at the memory, reviving the headache which had almost faded entirely and causing a dribble of slime to ooze out from his soggy headdress and down the back of his neck.

As if reading his thoughts, Olyrrwd said, “It may not be the best oration ever, but he’s there to give it and not floating dead at the bottom of the Bottomless Falls.”

There was no arguing with that. Herrwn rested against his pillows and began composing his list of reassurances to help revive Caelym’s spirits when he got back, beginning with stories about great orators whose first performances had been dismal—condolences that, it later turned out, were unnecessary.

“She—she—praised me! She said I told the tale well! She looks forward to hearing me tell another!”

It was close to midnight when Caelym returned to the healing chamber. Barely able to contain himself, he danced around the room, repeating segments of his oration that had gained Feywn’s particular nod of approval.

In view of his own failure to support his disciple’s first independent oration, Herrwn was both touched and grateful that Feywn—who, in all honesty, had never seemed to view Herrwn’s nightly performances as more than a ritual she was required to sit through—had been so kind and encouraging about an underprepared beginner’s performance.

Olyrrwd, however, just grumbled, “I’m sure it was a top-notch tale and can see that you are terribly proud of yourself, but you do have other duties and—as you’ve seemed to have forgotten—it is almost midnight!”

The remark (and the gruff tone in which it was spoken) brought Caelym both literally and figuratively down to earth. He’d just capered along a bench and leaped into the air in a spinning pirouette. Landing on his toes, he dropped his heels down and brushed his hands off on his (actually Herrwn’s) robe, his expression and tone of voice suddenly solemn. “Forgive my excessive and undignified display, Master. As you say, it is almost midnight and so time to open the windows through which the fleeing spirits of brain fever and bewilderment will rush out at the sound of the ‘Be Gone’ chant.”

After hurrying to the window and then to the counter next to Herrwn’s bed, Caelym fished another slimy goat’s liver out of its crock, wrapped it in a linen band, and changed it for the older dressing around Herrwn’s head, chanting, “Be gone from this place of rest and healing! Be gone into the dark from whence you came! Be gone! Be gone! And trouble us no more!” in a reasonably grave voice with only the faintest undertone of elation.

Whether it was the restorative effects of the goat liver compress, the protection of the “Be Gone” chant, or just getting a good night’s sleep, Herrwn woke up the next morning feeling entirely fit and, after nodding obediently at the lengthy list of precautions Caelym recited to him, escaped from the healing chamber determined to re-establish himself as the master of his classroom—where Caelym was his disciple and not his physician.

While Caelym was practicing his part in that evening’s saga, Herrwn had time to think about the previous day’s events, and he came to the conclusion that even though Olyrrwd had decided against bringing his accusations before the High Council, it remained Herrwn’s duty as the head of their order to confront Ossiam and hear what defense he might give.