Chapter 23: Caelym’s Close Call

Olyrrwd never gave any sign that he was saddened or worried about the fate he’d foretold for himself, and, despite the frustrations that both he and Herrwn had with their disciples, life within their classroom settled into a predictable pattern.

Caelym’s mornings belonged to Olyrrwd while Herrwn, fortified with a goblet of mulled elderberry wine, labored through Labhruinn’s lessons until the midday meal, after which Herrwn gave Labhruinn the mutually face-saving admonition to continue his rehearsal in some location “in which you find inspiration,” which they both understood was tacit consent for him to spend the rest of the day in the herb garden with Annwr and her baby.

Herrwn’s mornings with Labhruinn were the test of his mettle as a teacher. His afternoons with Caelym were his reward. Gifted not merely with an astounding memory but with an inborn musical ability, the youngster learned to tune a harp in a single sitting and was playing melodies of his own invention by the end of the day. Dancing came as naturally to him as walking and singing as easily as breathing. But it was the infectious joy Caelym exuded at each new accomplishment that gave Herrwn his greatest sense of success, even as he found himself worn out by the end of the afternoon when Benyon brought Caelym’s supper tray.

Unless there were demands that kept him in the healing chamber, Olyrrwd would come in while Caelym was eating and afterwards the three of them would sit by the hearth and Herrwn would tell a story before the two men tucked Caelym into bed and left for the adult evening in the shrine’s great hall.

The first of those “before bed” stories were simple tales with comic heroes and cheerful endings, but as Caelym got older Herrwn moved on to the more complex legends of mortal heroes fighting battles to overcome apparently undefeatable enemies and win the love of some beautiful goddess only to be brought down by their pride or by the envy of others—then rallying again to achieve a final moral triumph before dying and departing for the spirit world.

One evening, not long after Caelym’s ninth birthday, Herrwn was concluding the tale of the noble and courageous though ill-fated Eddedrwn, seventh of the Great Mother Goddess’s mortal lovers. He’d just finished saying, “And so She lifted his body up in Her arms and carried him into the sky in a golden chariot drawn by three silver-winged horses,” when Caelym asked, “How did my father die?”

Caught off guard, Herrwn pursed his lips, thinking quickly.

Certainly Caelym would have been told from the first that he was the son of Caelendra, who had been the shrine’s high priestess and the living embodiment of the Great Mother Goddess, along with some gentle explanation that when he was born his mother had to go back to the other world and that she had left Feywn to take her place. But had anyone, either one of the priestesses or his nursemaid, actually explained the Sacred Summer Solstice Ceremony to him?

Apparently not.

So now, after having heard so many tales of goddesses giving birth to half divine children fathered by heroes who were subsequently killed by demons or dragons or poisonous serpents, it was only natural for Caelym to conclude he’d had such a mortal father himself and to wonder what had become of him.

Drawing in a deep breath and speaking in the solemn tone he used in his most serious lessons, Herrwn began, “If you are old enough to ask that question, then you are old enough to have an answer.”

Caelym looked up expectantly, his dark eyes wide and unblinking.

There was no turning back now. Herrwn drew another deep breath and went on, “You know that you were born on the day before the spring equinox.”

Caelym nodded.

“And you know that the spring equinox comes nine months after the night of the summer solstice.”

Caelym nodded again.

If Olyrrwd had been there, Herrwn had no doubt that he would have insisted on providing a graphic description of the specifics involved in conception, but left to his own resources, Herrwn fell back on the explanation of the Sacred Summer Solstice rites that his father had given him thirty years earlier.

“There was once a time before there were men or women or boys or girls—and in that time the earth was very beautiful, just as it is now, but it was also very lonely, so, on the night of a long-ago summer solstice, the Earth-Goddess sang and danced with the Sun-God, and nine months later, on the day of the next spring equinox, she gave birth to the first of her mortal children, a boy and a girl who were our people’s own ancestors.”

Recalling how profoundly private Caelendra had been about personal matters, Herrwn faltered. Then, gathering his courage, he plunged ahead.

“And that is why, if it happens that a high priestess feels the urge—that is, if, in her infinite wisdom, she decides that there is a man who is worthy to start a child within her, then, according to our custom, she may celebrate the Sacred Summer Solstice ritual as the Great Mother Goddess once did all those many years ago.”

After pausing momentarily to touch a hand cloth to his forehead, where he could feel drops of perspiration starting to form, he finished as quickly as he could.

“So I will tell you now that, on the night of one summer solstice, your mother did choose such a man who chanted the ancient chant, turning himself into a god for that one night, and together they sang the sacred songs and danced the sacred dance so that you could be born.”

Caelym’s gaze remained fixed on Herrwn’s face. “What happened to him after that?”

“He returned to being what he was before—a mortal like the rest of us.”

“Is he dead?”

“No, he lives and is both happy and proud to have been chosen to sing and dance with the Goddess, your mother.”

“Then who—”

Herrwn stood up, saying firmly, “Who he is in this world does not matter, for he was not himself when he was singing and dancing with the goddess.”

“Who is he now?”

“Now”—Herrwn took Caelym’s hand and pulled him gently toward his bedchamber—“the time for stories is done and the time for sleep is come.”

Caelym seemed quieter and more thoughtful than usual the next morning, but he perked up when Olyrrwd told him that they were going outside the shrine to take care of the sick people in the village that day.

Glad to see that Caelym wasn’t brooding, Herrwn waved them off and braced himself for the start of a new saga with Labhruinn—one that required accompaniment with a harp tuned to a dark and difficult mode.

Even for a capable learner, the sea voyage of the three sons of Llaeddrwn, King of Llanddissigllen, was a challenging saga, intertwining as it did the separate adventures of the three heroes, each of whom assumed multiple guises with distinct but similar-sounding names that had to be kept straight for the final resolution of the story to make sense. Simply getting Labhruinn through the opening ode without reducing him to tears of despair took all of Herrwn’s concentration, and he was caught off guard when the classroom door slammed open and Olyrrwd stormed in, thumping his staff with one hand and clutching Caelym’s wrist with the other.

“Labhruinn!” he barked. “Take Caelym to the kitchen and get him some hot milk and a bowl of soup!”

Ignoring Caelym’s protest that he wasn’t hungry, Olyrrwd glowered at Labhruinn so fiercely that if Herrwn hadn’t had his disciple directly in front of him for the entire morning, he would have believed him to be the cause of Olyrrwd’s wrath.

Rising up to do as he was told, Labhruinn acknowledged the boy’s protest by shrugging—his right shoulder lifted slightly higher than his left—in an appeasing gesture as he started for the door.

“Now!”

For a small man, Olyrrwd could produce a very loud roar. In this case, it sent both Labhruinn and Caelym running out of the room and down the hall without stopping to shut the doors behind them.

After stalking over to slam them shut, Olyrrwd turned back, paced over to the window, then stomped back and around the hearth, circling the room like an enraged bear, muttering, “Conceited, arrogant idiot … a danger to himself and everyone around him … ought to have his head banged against the wall to knock some sense into it …”

Herrwn had never seen Olyrrwd so angry—not even in his most heated disputes with Ossiam. Stepping directly into his cousin’s path, Herrwn put out his hands and gripped Olyrrwd’s shoulders. “Olyrrwd, calm yourself and tell me what has happened! Has Caelym done something wrong?”

“Not Caelym, Rhedwyn!”

“What did he do?”

Thrusting out his hand with his thumb and forefinger a hair’s breadth apart, Olyrrwd thundered, “Came that close to killing him! If I’d come out a moment later, he’d have been crushed to a bloody pulp! And Rhedwyn—Rhedwyn wouldn’t have stopped if I hadn’t called him! And even then he didn’t come back to see if the boy was safe, didn’t even care—”

“But I care, so sit down and tell me how this happened.”

Dropping his fist, Olyrrwd let himself be propelled over to the table where Herrwn pressed him down into a chair, before going to the cupboard and pouring him a cup of wine. Then the story came out.

Halfway through his rounds, Olyrrwd had gone into the smith’s cottage, leaving Caelym outside because the child he was going to see had what might be a contagious fever. Thankfully, the smith’s boy had been sitting up and looking well, so Olyrrwd left the potion Moelwyn had brewed, told them to add it to some chicken broth and keep the lad in bed another day, and went back out—only just in time to pull Caelym out of the road when Rhedwyn and “his band of idiots” came racing through the village, trampling over anything that got in their way.

“But you called to Rhedwyn and he stopped! Did he ask your forgiveness when he saw what he might have done?”

“Not him! The fat-headed fool just smiled that ‘I’m so charming’ smile of his and did that ‘you can’t be angry with me’ shrug of his shoulders and rode off, not giving a rat’s ass that he’d almost killed his own son!”

Had it been anyone but Olyrrwd, Herrwn would have made the customary correction, but knowing his cousin’s views on reproduction to be unshakably physical he just asked, “Was Caelym injured at all?”

“Not a scratch, except for the bruise where I grabbed his arm.”

“But, of course, it was frightening—”

“For me, yes! It took a year of my life I didn’t have to spare! But Caelym—that boy wouldn’t know fear if it stood up and stared him in the face. If I’d have let him, he would have jumped up on a horse and ridden off with Rhedwyn, as happy as a lark.”

His anger drained, Olyrrwd’s tone shifted to something between melancholy and bitterness as he added, “Or if Rhedwyn had asked him.”

In the silence that followed, Herrwn felt his heart filling with affection and admiration for his cousin. Another man loving a child as much as Olyrrwd loved Caelym would have been jealous of anyone else’s claim on the boy’s affections, but Olyrrwd was only saddened and resentful on Caelym’s behalf that Rhedwyn rarely, if ever, even glanced in the boy’s direction.

Hoping to ease Olyrrwd’s mind, Herrwn reminded him that this would not affect Caelym at all, as it was absolutely forbidden for anyone to name Rhedwyn as his father. Refusing to be placated, Olyrrwd snapped, “And do you think he’ll never look in a mirror?”