Chapter 74: The Women’s Council

Under ordinary circumstances, Herrwn would no more expect to be ushered into the priestesses’ private meeting room than to be given free access to their bedchambers.

Clearly, this was no ordinary circumstance.

Pausing to compose himself and straighten his robes, he drew a breath and stepped past Belodden into a round room roughly the same size as the shrine’s High Council chamber. Its stone floor was inlaid with strips of burnished copper, making three concentric rings and divided into four equal wedges by two lines that crossed in the center. There was a large table in the middle of the room and a small one set close to the arc of each wedge. Each tabletop was a thick disk of polished oak with a line of circular symbols inscribed around its rim, glyphs that were similar in size and identical in design to the pendants the priestesses wore to denote their field of endeavor—three interlaced waves for the midwives, three upright plants for the herbalists, and a crescent moon enclosing three stars for the keepers of the sacred calendar.

The table on the east side of the chamber had only wave symbols, the one on the south side only plants, and the one on the west side only crescents, while the large table in the center of the room and the small table on the north side by the chamber’s one window had all three repeated in an alternating pattern.

Herrwn knew, because Lothwen had told him, that the glyphs marked tables reserved for members of the separate vocations. The large table was for formal meetings, and the table by the window was where the priestesses sat if they wished to confer with those of different fields—the obvious exception being the chief priestess, who, it went without saying, could sit at any table she wished.

Rhonnon was sitting at the north table, staring out the window. The chair across from her was pulled back.

“May I?” Herrwn asked.

“Do!” she answered as she turned to face him. “Please,” she added as an afterthought.

No sooner had he settled himself than she said, “We have a problem—one that is extremely delicate.”

Now certain this clandestine meeting had to do with some further strife between Feywn and Arianna, Herrwn hastened to reassure her of his absolute discretion. “Whatever this problem is, know that you may speak to me about it freely and in the fullest confidence.”

“I knew I could count on you.” Rhonnon’s typically brisk response was marred by an uncharacteristic stutter as she said, “It … it is about Gwenydd.”

“Gwenydd?” he repeated, caught off guard. “Not Arianna?”

“You would have thought so, and so would I. Arianna almost certainly, sooner or later and probably sooner. The twins possibly, if only for the fun of creating confusion for all concerned. Possibly even Cyri, though not for another few years, I hope. Still, I would have understood if it had been any of them but Gwenydd.”

Now completely bewildered, Herrwn could make no sense of what Rhonnon was saying. Was Gwenydd, the most reliable of the young priestesses, also rebelling against Feywn’s divinely ordained authority?

As he was struggling to formulate that question, Rhonnon went on, “As you know, Gwenydd is seventeen. She made her first trip to the Sacred Pools three years ago and returned, as we all expected, ready to enter her advanced training in herbal lore with Aolfe, and since then, again as expected, has excelled in her studies.”

While Herrwn was no longer involved in the young priestesses’ daily life, he was well aware of Gwenydd’s progress and that she was, as always, the best behaved and most responsible of the five girls. The thought that it was Gwenydd, rather than Arianna, who was the subject of this extraordinary meeting left him unable to do more than nod.

Apparently that was all Rhonnon expected. She nodded back and went on, “So there seemed no question that she had earned the honor of being named to enact the Earth-Goddess at the coming Summer Solstice Ceremony, and no reason to even imagine …”

Rhonnon drew in a breath and blew it out again. Herrwn waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, he repeated her last words as a question.

“No reason to even imagine?”

“That she would come to Aolfe and me and say that she will not take part in the Summer Solstice Ceremony!”

“She will not? But why—or, that is, why not?”

“Because it seems she has already chosen a consort, and she views it as being … I don’t know what … disloyal, or unfaithful, or some such nonsense, but she is adamant that she ‘will not mate with another man or even the Sun-God himself.’”

Herrwn let out a sigh of relief. While it was unheard of—unthinkable, really—that a priestess named to be the Earth-Goddess would refuse that honor, the priest chosen to play the Sun-God could and often did change between the public announcement and the actual event as eager contenders vied for the part.

“Well, in that case, I will speak with Moelwyn. I am sure he will step aside so she may instead name …”

Herrwn left the line dangling as he waited for Rhonnon to name the priest who was Gwenydd’s own choice.

Instead of responding to his implied question, she abruptly changed the subject, asking, “Do you know who Darbin is?”

“Darbin”—it was not the name of anyone he knew personally, but still it was a name he knew … a name Olyrrwd had used not once but several times when he was collecting the provisions for Caelym’s spirit quest. “He is the village smith,” Herrwn answered. “Olyrrwd thought highly of him.”

“Indeed.” Rhonnon’s tone lacked any trace of warmth. “So, it seems, does Gwenydd.”

Shocked, Herrwn could only stammer, “But … but she is … but he is …”

Rhonnon filled in the missing words. “She is a priestess born to the highest ranks of our order, all but openly acknowledged to be our next chief herbalist, and he is, as you say, the village smith.”

“How could—”

“I don’t know, and frankly it doesn’t matter. What matters is what we are going to do about it!”

“You have spoken with her, explaining that such a thing is forbidden—”

“I have.”

“And?”

“She says she does not care, and that if we refuse our consent to this … union … she will leave the valley with him.”

“But that cannot be!”

“Indeed it cannot, both because Aolfe will not risk the loss of her best pupil and because we cannot afford the loss of the valley’s only smith. That is why I have called you.”

As shocked as he was, Herrwn couldn’t help but feel flattered that Rhonnon was calling for his counsel regarding an issue that might be considered exclusively a woman’s matter. Straightening his back, he declared, “I will give this quandary my deepest consideration.”

“I already have.”

Having been an advisor to two high priestesses and a consort to another, Herrwn recognized Rhonnon’s response to mean that he was not being asked for his counsel but for his compliance. He folded his fingers firmly around his staff and listened as she went on to remind him how many of their greatest priests and priestesses had been born to young priestesses in the prime of their childbearing years whose consorts were elder priests and sometimes exceptionally elder priests, men in their eighties and nineties.

That was of course true, and it was one of the things Herrwn had always understood to distinguish those in their order from ordinary men. While Rhonnon’s clarification was worded diplomatically, it left no doubt that what distinguished those extremely elder priests from ordinary men was their willingness to lend the distinction of their fatherhood to the children of their consorts, regardless of how those children might actually have been conceived.

As was expected of a man with his years of training in maintaining a neutral countenance in the face of unexpected disclosures, Herrwn did so, nodding gravely and only raising his eyebrows when Rhonnon concluded, “And you, I’m sure, will do the same!”

“I?”

“You!”

“You mean …”

“I do! Aolfe and I have talked it over at great length and decided it is the only way. Gwenydd will name you as the priest to play the part of the Sun-God and be her consort thereafter. You and she will be given a bedchamber at the far end of the hall reserved for priestesses with consorts and children. All that will be required is that you and she enter the room together. There is a back door that opens onto the courtyard, so she may continue whatever private arrangements she has already made and you may choose whether to sleep there or spend the night in your own quarters.”

“I see. And have you spoken with Gwenydd about this?” Herrwn answered cautiously, reluctant to agree to being a party to a charade, however well intended.

“I have.”

“And she is in agreement?”

“She is seventeen! She insists that she will take this smith as her consort openly and proudly, and that he and none other will be named the father of her children, but”—Rhonnon crossed her arms and looked Herrwn straight in the eye—“she likes you very much and will listen to you if she listens to anyone.”

“So what you wish me to do is—”

“Go to her, use your powers of persuasion, and convince her that this is best for all concerned.”

After a long moment of silence, Herrwn cleared his throat, tightened his grip on his staff, and said, “I will speak to her. It should, of course, be a confidential conversation, conducted somewhere private.”

“Aolfe told Gwenydd to remain in her room while we conferred over this. Belodden will take you there.” With that, Rhonnon returned to staring out the window, her back straight and her shoulders stiff.

Belodden was waiting for Herrwn when he opened the door. She turned to lead the way before he could tell her where they were to go.