Chapter 69: The Sprite’s Last Prank

It had, at first, been surprisingly difficult for Caelym to readjust to living in the shrine. He didn’t let Benyon cut the mats out of his hair until Herrwn admonished him sternly that he was “no longer living among wolves and was not ever again to growl at their servant!” and while he’d been persuaded to come indoors at night instead of sleeping underneath the bench in the classroom courtyard by the end of the first week, he’d still insisted on walking around his bed three times before he would lie down.

But after soaking off the leather shirt and pants that had stuck to him like a second skin, he emerged from the dressing chamber dressed in a full-fledged priest’s formal robes, ready and eager to resume his work with Olyrrwd and his orations with Herrwn, and to take his place in the highest of their ritual practices.

Already tall when he left, Caelym had been even taller when he returned—eye level with Herrwn, which meant he towered over Olyrrwd—and even draped in the loose robes of their order, it was obvious that the lanky thinness of his limbs was now hardened and sinewy. When Herrwn commented on this to Olyrrwd, the physician’s response was, “He left a boy and returned a man, and so …”

When Olyrrwd didn’t finish, Herrwn prompted, “And so?”

“And so how old was Rhedwyn when Caelendra chose him to be her Sun-God?”

They both knew the answer was seventeen.

Speaking as if Herrwn had actually said the number out loud, Olyrrwd followed up with an equally self-evident question. “And how old will Caelym be on his next birthday?”

This time Herrwn—seeing where Olyrrwd was taking this line of reasoning—said,

“Seventeen, but that was different!”

“How?”

“Because …”

In spite of himself, the first objection that jumped to Herrwn’s mind was that, as Rhedwyn had been Feywn’s consort, Caelym was essentially her stepson, or would be if it had been Rhedwyn himself rather than the embodiment of the Sun-God who’d done Caelym’s actual fathering. There was something that made the idea of Caelym assuming that same role with Feywn disconcerting. As Herrwn tried to picture the two seated next to each other at the high table, what he saw instead was the image of the chief priestess swearing by Rhedwyn’s death wounds that she would be faithful to him until the end of time.

“Because?” Olyrrwd’s question broke into Herrwn’s ruminations.

“Because she swore an oath at the sacred altar that she would never love—”

“Another man,” Olyrrwd finished for him.

And of course he was right. Caelym acting as the Sun-God would not count as his being “another man.”

With that exchange as a forewarning, Herrwn was fully prepared when Feywn made the pronouncement Olyrrwd had predicted at the next High Council meeting. The surprise came when she added, “And he will be my consort.”

When he and Olyrrwd spoke about it later (well out of Caelym’s hearing), Olyrrwd admitted to being caught off guard by Feywn’s pronouncement. Then he shrugged and muttered, “Well, I guess she doesn’t plan to love him.”

The ceremonial consecration of Caelym’s union with Feywn took place on his seventeenth birthday and the first anniversary of the day he’d embarked on his seemingly impossible spirit quest.

Instead of going to breakfast after the Sacred Sunrise Ritual, the priests and priestesses, all carrying sprays of spring flowers, walked in a solemn line across the shrine’s central courtyard and up the steep curving stairs of the shrine’s highest tower to witness this most sacred of sacred rites.

Feywn, wearing the same silken gown she’d worn on the day of her union with Rhedwyn, led the procession, followed by Caelym, dressed in robes sewn especially for the occasion and positively reeking with fragrant anointments. Next in line were the shrine’s three high priestesses, Rhonnon, Lunedd, and Aolfe. As the shrine’s chief priest, Herrwn came next, followed by Ossiam and Olyrrwd.

Neither Herrwn nor Olyrrwd had gotten much rest the night before because Caelym—who’d effortlessly memorized epics a thousand lines in length—had lain awake, repeating over and over the brief and straightforward vow he was expected to say the next day, panic-stricken that he might misspeak a single word. Olyrrwd had eventually grown exasperated and left, grumbling that he was going to the healing chambers to get some sleep. Herrwn, however, understood completely, having experienced the same anxiety the night before the celebration of his union with Lothwen.

Caught up in his memories of following Lothwen up these same stairs, Herrwn walked into Aolfe, stepping on the back of her sandals, when she stopped at the chamber’s entryway. Behind him, the priests and priestesses piled up, peering over each other’s shoulders at the center of the room, where a goat wearing a wreath around his horns and draped with an embroidered cape—both fashioned in unmistakable mockery of Caelym’s attire—was eating mash out of a bucket crudely painted to resemble a sacred chalice.

After a communal gasp, no one voluntarily took another breath or made a sound.

Ossiam broke the silence, hissing, “Get it out of here!” to his assistants. The other priests and priestesses made way, pressing back against the walls, and Iddwran led the ram out while Ogdwen hastily cleaned up the droppings it had left behind.

Once the goat was gone and the floor was scrubbed, Feywn took her place in front of the altar. As close as he was to his disciple, Herrwn heard Caelym drawing a deep, calming breath before going to kneel at her feet and swearing to be worthy of the honor being bestowed upon him, without missing a single word and with only the faintest quiver that could easily be taken for heartfelt passion rather than a threatened outburst of nervous laughter.

The ceremony flowed smoothly from there. Feywn declared Caelym her consort as she placed a pendant around his neck, the two shared the ritual drink from the sacred chalice, they clasped hands, and Caelym rose to stand. With their hands still locked together, they led the way back down to the shrine’s great hall for the celebratory meal that waited there.

At the time, Herrwn assumed that the brazen prank was the work of the impudent sprite.

Recalling the incident nine months later, however, Herrwn wondered. There had been no pranks at all from Caelym’s homecoming until the day of his union with Feywn, and none since then. And would a mere sprite have dared to pull such a crude joke at the expense of the chief priestess and embodiment of the Great Mother Goddess? Or could it have been, as Ossiam had darkly suggested, a villainous attempt by some evil demon to defeat their Goddess’s plan to renew the life force of their shrine?

Herrwn hadn’t been aware that he’d spoken his thought aloud until Olyrrwd, just recovered from his paroxysm of coughing, answered, “Guess it didn’t work!” with a chortle that set off another coughing spasm.