PART III Initiation

While not precisely ordained, it was traditional that on the morning of a Druid boy’s sixth birthday, his mother—or a mother surrogate—would wake him up before dawn with a breakfast of hot milk and sweet cakes, after which she would give him a ceremonial bath, dress him in his new apprentice robes, and escort him to the priests’ quarters in time to cross the threshold of the classroom at sunrise.

Usually, the older disciples would have been there to welcome the new initiate. Rhedwyn, however, had chosen this day to take off for another cattle raid, Moelwyn was in the healing chambers brewing a potion that needed to be started at sunrise, and Labhruinn had somehow received word that Annwr was in labor and begged to be released from his duties, a dispensation Herrwn had given only after reminding his frantic pupil that he’d left his mortal identity behind him when he acted the part of the Sun-God in the Sacred Summer Solstice Ceremony, and it was that divine spirit that had engendered the child to whom the Priestess Annwr was giving birth.

It was just the three cousins, then, sitting together in their classroom as Herrwn’s thoughts drifted back to the morning of his own sixth birthday—the sound of his mother’s soft voice calling his name, the sweet taste of the honeyed cakes, the scent of the perfumed bath waters, the excitement of putting on robes that swished and swirled like his father’s, the warmth of his mother’s hand as she led him through curving corridors and up the steep stone stairway to stand in front of the great arched entrance with its towering double doors. Suddenly uncertain, he’d clung to her, afraid to let go, until she whispered in his ear, “They’re waiting for you,” and he’d stepped through the open doors to see his father, his uncles, and his soon-to-be classmates all smiling at him and had felt his fears fall away and be replaced with eagerness for his first lesson.

Ossiam and Olyrrwd were no doubt caught up in memories of their own as the first streaks of light began to brighten the horizon outside the window.