Chapter 73: A Place at the Table

The morning after Olyrrwd’s funeral, Herrwn got up and went to the Sacred Sunrise Ritual cushioned by the sense that his cousin was just off tending some patient and would be coming back around the corner at any moment. It was a self-deception he knew wouldn’t last, and it didn’t—it ended the moment that he arrived at breakfast and saw Olyrrwd’s chair had been taken away from the table and no bowl or cup had been set out for him.

If, as Herrwn had somehow expected, he and Ossiam had been drawn closer in their shared sorrow, that would have been at least some compensation for Olyrrwd’s death. But that didn’t happen. Instead, their exchanges at mealtimes or when they passed each other in the hall could have been conversations between any two polite strangers—largely amounting to Ossiam saying, “Yes, we must do that sometime,” whenever Herrwn suggested they play a game of Stones or take a walk together.

Through the fall and winter and into the spring, Herrwn spent his mornings rehearsing orations, conducting rituals, or presiding over council meetings and his afternoons shuffling the ritual implements on the classroom shelves or staring into the flames of the hearth—always answering, “No, thank you, but no,” when Benyon asked if he needed anything.

That was not true, but what he needed—a companion of his age and rank—was not something a servant could fetch for him.

On an overcast afternoon some three weeks after the spring equinox, Herrwn was rearranging the shelf where Olyrrwd had kept his medicinals. Having done this numerous times before, he knew that when Caelym came back to their quarters he would put the vessels and vials back the way Olyrrwd had always kept them—sorted by their contents rather than their size and shape—but he found it soothing to finger the things his cousin had handled so often, and Caelym never complained about finding them out of order or showed any impatience when he moved them into their proper positions.

If Olyrrwd were there, he would have barked at Herrwn to “stop meddling with my potions! Just pour yourself something, sit down, and drink it!”

Hearing his cousin’s gruff voice in his mind, Herrwn took down the flask of elderberry wine and two cups—his own and Olyrrwd’s—filled each halfway, and carried them over to the table by the hearth, as he’d gotten into the habit of doing at this time of day, when everyone was busy somewhere else and no one would see him sitting alone at the table with two cups set out, drinking first from one and then the other—talking aloud to his cousin’s empty place and listening to what he assumed Olyrrwd would say back to him.

Sitting down and taking a sip from his cup, he sighed. “Things did not go well at the High Council this morning.”

“Another prank by our meddlesome sprite?” Herrwn imagined Olyrrwd would ask, in the tolerant and amused tone he reserved for childish escapades and his patients’ unbelievable explanations of how they’d caused themselves embarrassing injuries.

Herrwn took a sip from Olyrrwd’s cup and sighed again. “No, worse than that—it was quite dreadful, really, and I do not know what, if anything, I can say to remedy the situation … not, of course, that I would be called upon for my advice.”

Realizing that he’d just allowed his buried resentment that Feywn had never—not once in the twenty years of her reign as their chief priestess—called on him for his counsel on anything to slip out, Herrwn drew a calming breath and a sip from his own cup before continuing, “Today’s High Council was, as you may know, the first since Arianna made her first trip to the Sacred Pools, so there was every reason to expect Feywn would make the pronouncement that her daughter was her chosen successor.” He took a sip from Olyrrwd’s cup. “Though perhaps she feels Arianna is not yet ready, as she comes to rituals late and unprepared, and shows no contrition at her mother’s stern looks of reproach—indeed, appears on the verge of …”

Herrwn fumbled for the right word before finally choosing “disrespect,” although “defiance” was actually closer to what he’d witnessed that morning.

Herrwn had, as usual, gone to the council chamber early to stand at his place, ready to greet the others as they entered.

As he watched Caelym, in his formal robes, conducting himself with the solemn dignity expected of the consort to the shrine’s chief priestess, Herrwn was struck by how much they were expecting of a boy barely past his twentieth birthday.

That was a thought he would ponder later, when he was sitting by himself in the shrine’s classroom—but then his mind moved on to noticing that Feywn, always exquisitely gowned, looked especially impressive that day, and he guessed it meant that this was the day she was going to name her daughter as her successor. The same idea must have occurred to Rhonnon, because she hesitated before taking her seat on Feywn’s right—seeming somehow reluctant to take that place even after she got Feywn’s nod to do so.

The next most likely announcement would be the naming of the priestess and priest who were to enact the parts of the Earth-Goddess and the Sun-God at the coming Summer Solstice Ceremony.

While Herrwn was nodding and greeting, half lost in his speculations, four of the five priestesses-in-training—Gwenydd, the twins, and Cyri—came in and took their seats at the far right end of the table, leaving only Arianna’s chair empty.

Rhonnon glanced at them as though she were expecting one of them to speak up and explain Arianna’s absence.

Ossiam shifted in his seat and drummed his fingers on the table.

Caelym slid his hand over to rest on top of Feywn’s in much the same gesture that Olyrrwd had used to calm Caelym whenever he suffered from boyish fidgeting.

Just as Herrwn thought he should say something, perhaps suggest that one of the women servants be sent to see whether Arianna was suddenly taken ill, the curtain to the room parted and Arianna stepped through.

Instead of a simple, unadorned gown like the other priestesses-in-training were wearing, Arianna was dressed in the resplendent silk robes reserved for the highest of priestesses to wear on the most important occasions, so it was obvious to Herrwn—and everyone else in the chamber—that she, too, expected this to be the day that she took her place at her mother’s right side.

But the chair next to her mother was taken, and the only place open was the chair at the far end of the table between the twins and Cyri.

It was a dreadful misunderstanding—one that would have been humiliating for anyone, and certainly must have been overwhelming to a sensitive girl at an age when even the slightest embarrassment was catastrophic.

For a moment Arianna stood still, looking at the chair where Rhonnon was seated, and then at her mother, her cheeks reddening as though she’d been slapped across the face.

Recalling the days he’d spent watching over the girls in the shrine’s garden and how quickly the smallest upsets had sent Arianna into a sobbing tantrum, Herrwn more than half expected that she would betray both her disappointment and her age by turning and running off in tears.

But she didn’t turn and run. She walked as proudly and deliberately toward the high table as if the chair next to her mother were pulled out and waiting for her.

If Caelendra had been in Feywn’s place, Herrwn was certain she would have found something to say to ameliorate the situation and soothe her daughter’s hurt feelings. Feywn, however, was not Caelendra, and her stinging question—“Why are you late?”—was clearly meant as a rebuke, since it was obvious to everyone that Arianna had been changing her clothes and fixing her hair.

Coming to a stop directly in front of her mother, Arianna met Feywn’s censorious stare with one that was all but openly insolent.

There was a long moment of silence.

The tension in the room felt to Herrwn like the pressure in the air just before a lightning strike. He held his breath, waiting to see which of the two would be the first to look away.

Arianna was.

Her gaze shifted to Caelym, who looked back at her and made the slightest of gestures—a shrug, his right shoulder rising a little higher than the left—before cocking his head to the side and adding his stern look to Feywn’s. At that, Arianna gave a slight, almost mischievous, toss of her head, turned as lightly as if she were beginning to dance, and walked around behind the table to take her place at the far end between the twins and Cyri.

Ossiam waited just long enough for Arianna to take her seat before standing up and giving a rigidly formulaic prophecy regarding the weather and the prospects for the fall harvest, and the meeting began.

“And I know you will see that as yet another proof that Ossiam has come to a better understanding of what harm a carelessly worded prophesy can do.” Herrwn, taking a sip from his cup of wine, managed to convince himself that Olyrrwd would have agreed to this as the one positive outcome of an otherwise painful meeting, rather than retort, “Ossie never made a carelessly worded prophesy in his life.”

“In any case,” he continued, “the rest of the council went without further upset, although the mood remained”—again Herrwn needed to search for the right word—“strained.” So strained, in fact, that when Feywn made the announcement that Gwenydd and Moelwyn are to enact the parts of the Earth-Goddess and the Sun-God at this year’s Summer Solstice Ceremony, no one—not even Gwenydd and Moelwyn—gave more than the stiffest nods of acknowledgment.”

“Perhaps”—Herrwn took a final sip from Olyrrwd’s cup—“you are thinking that I am making too much of an event that came and went in less time than it takes to tell about it, but it worries me.” Knowing what high regard Olyrrwd had for their chief midwife, he added, “And I think it worried Rhonnon too.”

It was at this precise moment that—with no more warning than a single knock—the classroom doors swung open and Benyon rushed in, crying out, “Master Herrwn, Master Herrwn!” Here he stopped abruptly, looked both ways as though to be sure there were no spies or eavesdroppers lurking nearby, and lowered his voice to a hushed whisper before announcing, “Priestess Rhonnon requires your attendance on a matter of utmost importance and says that you are to come at once!”

Alarmed, Herrwn sprang to his feet, took up his staff, and rushed in the direction of the women’s quarters.

Belodden was already holding the main door open when Herrwn arrived. Whispering for him to follow, she led the way through an arched passage to a set of double doors that, like the entrance to the priests’ classroom, was engraved with a pair of oak trees with intertwined branches. There was a disk representing the moon on the door to Herrwn’s left, and that was the door that Belodden cracked open, just wide enough to let him enter.