Chapter 46: Truce

While Olyrrwd made no further threats against Ossiam’s life, the truce between the physician and the oracle remained tenuous. Still, in spite of periodic flare-ups, it endured over the next four years, lasting almost to the end of Caelym’s second-level training.

The second stage of priestly studies was demanding for pupils and teachers alike. It was during those years that the initiate advanced from the basics of ordinary invocations and minor rites to mastering the chants, songs, and dances required for participation in the shrine’s high rituals, moved from mere memorization of the common versions of the great sagas to acquiring a working knowledge of the important alternate accounts, and was introduced to the intricacies of reasoned debate.

Just finding time to fit in all of the intense and time-consuming instruction when a usual day’s schedule now included the rites dictated by the seasonal and lunar calendars, along with attendance at the Sacred Sunrise Ritual, communal meals, and following orations would have been a challenge even if the chief oracle and chief physician had been on excellent terms and were able to amicably work out the conflicts that invariably arose when a rash of accidents required both tending to the victims and placating the spirits. As the current holders of those high offices could not speak to each other directly without their exchange degenerating into a volley of recriminations, it fell to Benyon to carry their missives back and forth.

Benyon, however, could not presume to alter any word of those messages on his own initiative, so Herrwn could expect to have the beleaguered servant come rushing to wherever he was, gasping out, “I have been ordered by Master Ossiam to say to Master Olyrrwd that Master Caelym is to come to the oracle’s tower at once, as there is a portentous cluster of ravens circling overhead.”

Knowing any peremptory demand from Ossiam would evoke an equally adamant refusal from Olyrrwd, Herrwn would sigh and say, “I believe what Master Ossiam meant to say was, ‘There is the fortuitous opportunity for a crucial lesson in the interpretation of the flights of sacred birds, and it would be of great benefit to young Master Caelym if he might be excused briefly from your always invaluable lessons in the honored arts of healing. To grant this dispensation would be a kindness on your part for which I would be eternally grateful’—and I think it would be a good thing for you to phrase it in that way when you speak to Master Olyrrwd.”

At that, Benyon would bow and back away, only to return shortly afterwards to say, “Master Olyrrwd told me to tell Master Ossiam that young Master Caelym is busy saving the life of a patient just now, and, as he has said before, a physician-in-training can’t abandon his duties every time a flock of birds flutters by, so Master Ossiam should find himself a toad to sacrifice while he’s waiting.”

“I believe you may omit the last part of this message, as Master Olyrrwd has made mention of it before,” Herrwn would say, stifling another sigh before going on, “and I think you would do well to rephrase the first part to something more like, ‘Master Olyrrwd sends his deepest regrets to Master Ossiam that Master Caelym must remain a little while longer to complete his care of a patient who is in the throes of the acute phase of his illness, but assures Master Ossiam that he will send young Master Caelym to his vital oracular studies at the earliest possible moment, lest this invaluable lesson in the high art of divination be lost to him,’” at which Benyon would go off muttering, “vital oracular studies” and “invaluable lesson in the high art of divination” under his breath.

Interceding in these exchanges became a ritual of its own, and Herrwn soon lost track of the actual disputes he had to mediate. It was, in his view, pointless to waste time bickering over whose lessons were more important but, he had concluded, likewise futile to try to convince his cousins that their time would be better spent working together to give the only pupil they had the preparation he would need for his final induction into their three callings and to be ready to assume the immense responsibilities that awaited him.

The belief that any boy, however promising, could succeed in achieving all that was required of him to enter into a triple discipleship encompassing all three of the priesthood’s highest callings was a leap of faith. Even Rhedwyn, whose passage through his first and second levels of training had been so stellar, had only been expected to become fully proficient in one field of wisdom. And despite his almost daily resolutions not to, it was impossible for Herrwn not to compare Caelym with the man who’d taken the part of the Sun-God on the night of his conception.

Like Rhedwyn, Caelym had been an exceptionally beautiful little boy and was to become an exceptionally handsome man. His transition from one to the other, however, was not as smooth and straightforward as Rhedwyn’s had been.

Destined to be as tall for a man as his mother had been for a woman, Caelym seemed to grow overnight, getting up in the morning looking as though a pair of giants had caught him by his arms and legs and used him for a game of tug-of-war—stretching him out into an ever longer, ever leaner version of himself. Meanwhile, his nose and ears appeared to be in competition to see which could most quickly outgrow the rest of his head, which by then had given up on any sense of proportion in its race to keep up and simply got longer, reminding Herrwn of the legendary sprite Bervin as he was being changed into a horse.

Lost along with his childhood’s physical perfection was the pure boy’s soprano that had made Caelym’s most childish whines almost unbearably sweet-sounding. Now his voice cracked and broke during his recitations, turning heroic passages into parodies. This, of course, could be attributed to the growing process, although Herrwn couldn’t help but notice it had gotten worse since Gwenydd, the oldest and most advanced of the young priestesses-in-training, had begun to attend the evening orations.

Recalling his own youth, Herrwn made allowances when Caelym slipped away from his lessons at times when the girls were most likely to be in the central courtyard or its nearby gardens, and it was on one of those occasions that Herrwn realized that Caelym’s disparate surges of growth were finally coalescing into a coherent whole.

It was an unusual day in that there were no monthly or seasonal rituals to be conducted, no one ill or injured in the healing chamber, and no augury happening in the oracle’s tower. Taking advantage of the momentary calm, Herrwn had not only told his hardworking pupil to take the afternoon off but had done so himself and was standing at the edge of the garden watching Caelym, now fifteen, playing a raucous game of tag with the younger girls while Gwenydd, now a self-consciously grown-up twelve-year-old, sat demurely on a bench, sorting herbs.

Arianna had just announced that they were going to play “The Hero and the Goddess Fight the Ogres,” and that she would be the Goddess and Caelym would be the hero and the others would be the ogres.

“We don’t want to be ogres! We want to be dragons!” As Rhonnon had predicted, the twins had quickly resumed speaking perfectly good Celt, although they retained the unusual habit of saying exactly the same thing at exactly the same time.

“No, I want you to be ogres!” Arianna turned to Cyri, obviously expecting her younger cousin to give in.

Cyri, however, seemed to weigh the matter seriously before saying, “You can be the Goddess. Cata and Tara can be the dragons, I will be the hero, and Caelym will be a horrible one-eyed ogre!”

At this, Caelym obligingly closed his right eye and gave a resounding roar, turning the play into a melee of exuberant mayhem that ended with all four girls jumping on Caelym and burying him in a shrieking, giggling pile. From under the heap a muffled but mature tenor voice called out, “That’s enough, I’m dead!” and as the girls, still laughing, rolled aside, it seemed to Herrwn for a single, very unsettling moment that he was seeing Rhedwyn get up and dust off his robes.