Chapter 63: Olyrrwd’s Ruffled Feathers

Despite Olyrrwd’s skepticism, the rest of the spring and summer was free of pranks—something that Herrwn attributed to the combined efforts of Rhonnon and Ossiam.

Without the sprite’s troublesome pranks to distract him, Herrwn found himself increasingly anxious about Caelym, and while Olyrrwd remained adamant that there was nothing to worry about, Herrwn noticed that his cousin spent the time not otherwise occupied pacing back and forth along the shrine’s upper walkway or leaning against its wall and staring up at the ridgetop where any figure returning from the peaks beyond would first appear.

Joining Olyrrwd at the wall on an afternoon when the sky overhead was filled with geese winging their way southward, Herrwn ventured to suggest sending out a search party, only to have Olyrrwd bark so angrily at him that he dropped the subject and decided he would ask Ossiam to use his second sight to see where Caelym was now and when he would return.

Knowing how sensitive Olyrrwd was about any mention of Ossiam and Caelym in the same breath, however, Herrwn didn’t say aloud what he meant to do.

He waited until the next morning to climb the stairs to the oracle’s tower.

After listening in silence to Herrwn’s request, Ossiam stared into the steam from his boiling cauldron, the dense vapors rising up and veiling his expression. Finally, he said, “It is well that you’ve come to me today, for tonight is the last new moon before the autumn equinox, the day after which is the most auspicious time on which to conduct the divination you request, the name of which is not to be spoken to the uninitiated. Haste is of the essence! Leave me now, I must begin my preparations!”

Turning to his assistants, who were hovering in the shadows, Ossiam ordered Iddwran to tell the keeper of the shrine’s herds to bring the firstborn of that year’s goats to the shed for animals in waiting to be sacrificed, and Ogdwen to gather the ingredients for the sacred elixir and sharpen the ceremonial dagger.

The next morning’s Sacred Sunrise Ritual was sparsely attended. Of the high priests, only Herrwn was in his place. Olyrrwd had grunted his usual excuse and rolled over to go back to sleep as Herrwn was getting up and preparing to go, while Ossiam’s absence presumably meant he was absorbed in whatever arcane preparations were required for his coming divination. Gwenydd, Arianna, Cyri, and the twins were in the line between Feywn and Lunedd, but neither Rhonnon nor Aolfe was there. Herrwn wondered if he could inquire about their absence without seeming intrusive, but in the end the answer came without his asking.

Once Lunedd had the girls settled at their corner table, she came around on the men’s end of the table, dropped into Ossiam’s empty chair, and explained that both Rhonnon and Aolfe had been called to the village to attend to the weaver’s daughter, who was in the throes of a difficult labor.

As the keeper of the sacred calendar, Lunedd spent her nights tracking the movements of the moon and stars, and unless there was a meeting of the High Council to keep her up, she went to bed after breakfast and slept until the midday meal. Stifling a yawn, she said that with Rhonnon and Aolfe gone, she would be overseeing the girls that morning, “Unless …”

Herrwn, taking his cue, offered to watch the girls so she could get some sleep.

Lunedd smiled. “I hoped you could and have already told the girls and their nurse that you will meet them in the herb garden after breakfast.” Giving a grateful nod, she got up and went to her place while Olyrrwd, who’d managed to rouse himself in time for the morning meal and was in his usual place on Herrwn’s left, muttered, “Take you a bit for granted, don’t they!”

Neither of Ossiam’s assistant priests had been at the Sacred Sunrise Ritual, but Iddwran, the elder of the two, came into the main hall midway through the meal to announce that Ossiam was fasting in preparation for carrying out a difficult and highly complex augury and that at noon the following day he would sacrifice the firstborn of that year’s goats on the great altar in the Sacred Grove to divine where Caelym was and when he would return.

While Iddwran was speaking, Olyrrwd’s face turned progressively darker shades of red. He finished his bowl of oatmeal—chewing harder than the mush required—and then got up and left the table muttering.

Supposing he would have to soothe Olyrrwd’s ruffled feathers—and apologize for not telling him about the augury before its public proclamation—Herrwn put down his spoon and took his own leave, pausing on his way out to reassure Lunedd that he’d be at the herb garden as soon as he’d changed out of his ceremonial robes and that she could go to her well-deserved rest knowing that the girls would be alone in their servants’ care for at most only a few moments.

Olyrrwd’s feathers were more than ruffled.

Herrwn reached the classroom to find the physician stamping in circles around the hearth, ranting and raging, in a tirade that mixed curses with accusations that Ossiam was plotting against Caelym again.

When calling his cousin’s name had no effect, Herrwn raised his staff and brought it down, striking the floor with a firm thump. “Olyrrwd, stop! Ossiam is only conducting this augury because I asked him to!”

“You what?”

“I asked him to!”

Olyrrwd’s outrage changed to incredulity. “You asked him to kill and gut the best of this year’s male kids, the goatherd’s pick for the herd’s next stud and the only one out of the lot he kept uncastrated?”

“Yes … No … I can explain—”

“It isn’t me you need to be explaining to!” Olyrrwd snapped, and stamped out of the room.

As his cousin’s walking sticks clicked furiously down the hall, Herrwn sighed and put “Express my sincere regrets to goatherd” on his mental list of things to do, adding, “Ask Olyrrwd what the goatherd’s name is and where I am to find him.”

First, however, he had to keep his promise to take Lunedd’s shift with the young priestesses-in-training—which was just as well, since by noon Olyrrwd would most likely have calmed down and be ready to listen to reason. Glad of the reprieve, and a few hours of peace and tranquility, Herrwn changed from his ceremonial to his everyday robes and left for the garden.