Chapter 71: Ealendwr

Arddwn was an unusual name for a Druid. It generally denoted membership in the warrior caste and was best known as the name of the heroic though ultimately tragic king who rallied his besieged forces to victory in the third saga of the epic war between the Goddess and the Northern Giants.

Something about Feywn’s decision to give her firstborn son a warlord’s name troubled Herrwn. Why exactly wasn’t clear to him, except that it somehow stirred up the memory of her standing before them at Rhedwyn’s funeral—still wearing the gown stained with his blood—raising her staff and swearing eternal vengeance in a chilling voice.

While Herrwn wasn’t able to keep his vague uneasiness from settling into some remote part of his mind, he successfully kept it buried for the next four months, only to have it spring up again with the chief priestess’s unexpected announcement at the close of the first High Council following the spring equinox.

After leaving the meeting, Herrwn and Olyrrwd returned to the classroom and spoke quietly together.

“You don’t think …” Herrwn stopped, not sure how to put his worry into words.

“That she has decided to personally give birth to the army she means to send against the forever-loathed king of Derthwald?” Olyrrwd finished for him. While he did digress to make the more or less predictable witticism that “since Ossiam seems to be predicting that Feywn’s next baby will be a boy, she’d best have a girl’s name picked out,” he didn’t dismiss Herrwn’s worry out of hand.

From the stunned expressions Herrwn had seen up and down the council table, it had been clear that none of the other priests and priestesses had taken the oracle’s invocation at the opening of the council, with its lush prose laden with metaphors alluding to fertility and birth—and even with its inclusion of references to stags and stallions—as anything other than routine and that they, like Herrwn, had been caught off guard when Ossiam sat down and Feywn stood up, lifted her staff, and proclaimed the coming of her third child.

Sitting on Feywn’s left, Caelym had beamed and blinked his eyes—no doubt struggling against the temptation to leap up from his place and turn cartwheels around the room.

On Feywn’s right, Rhonnon seemed as surprised as the rest of them. This in itself was odd, and while it passed quickly, her fleeting frown made it clear that she had either not been consulted or her advice had not been taken.

Feeling Olyrrwd’s elbow jabbing into his ribs—and taking the hint—Herrwn had risen to his feet, lifted the chalice of sacred wine, and begun a carefully phrased homage in praise of the many gifts of the Great Mother Goddess and her unquestioned wisdom in deeming when they should be bestowed.

Despite Rhonnon’s misgivings, Feywn showed no ill effects despite having embarked upon her third pregnancy so soon after the second. Radiantly beautiful to begin with, she glowed with vitality as the months passed and her belly grew rounder. All indicators—Rhonnon’s prediction, Ossiam’s prognostications, and what Olyrrwd reported of the wagers being laid in the village—pointed to Feywn being due to deliver in midwinter, within a week on either side of the solstice.

As the time drew closer, the atmosphere in the shrine grew increasingly tense. The solstice came and went. A week passed, then half of another.

Rising for the Sacred Sunrise Ritual, Herrwn made his way to the central courtyard. Caelym, a bare half step behind him, stopped in his tracks at the sight of Lunedd standing in Feywn’s place. Without so much as a word to excuse himself, he whirled around and dashed off toward the women’s quarters.

Lunedd seemed momentarily flustered but then waved her hand, signaling for everyone to fall into line behind her, climbed the stairs to the upper courtyard, conducted a thin-sounding chorus welcoming the return of the sun, and led them back down the stairs—pausing at the bottom to say that those who wished could accompany her to await the news from the birthing chamber.

They all did.

Olyrrwd joined the procession as they reached the entrance to the women’s quarters.

Herrwn was expecting to find Caelym pacing in anxious circles around the chamber’s courtyard. Seeing the space was empty, he glanced at Olyrrwd, who muttered, “It’s either a good sign … or a bad one.”

Just then, Aolfe cracked open the door and gestured for the two of them and Ossiam to come in.

“Not a good one, then,” Olyrrwd whispered.

At first, it was hard to see what was wrong. Feywn was sitting up, holding her newborn infant in her arms. The baby seemed only asleep. Swaddled in silk, she was as beautiful as Arianna had been, though in a different way, with a paler complexion and wisps of dark hair instead of red. Caelym was sitting on the bed next to Feywn, crooning, “Ealendwr, Ealendwr,” as he stroked the infant’s cheek. It was the catch in his voice that explained the atmosphere in the birthing chamber—that and the tears slipping down his cheeks.

Rhonnon had been standing by the side of the bed with her hand on Caelym’s shoulder. Now she whispered something to him, stepped away from the bed, and began to issue instructions—that Ossiam and his assistants start the preparations for the funeral rites in the Sacred Grove (“No animal sacrifices, just flowers and incense”), that Herrwn compose an elegy (“Her name is Ealendwr, and she lived long enough to hear it spoken and to look into her mother’s face”), and that Olyrrwd see to Caelym (“He’ll need someone to look after him, and I’ve got other things to do”).

Rhonnon’s voice was firm and steady as she assigned their tasks. It was still steady, but softer, when she stepped back to the bed and murmured, “I will go and tell Arianna and the other girls and see that they are prepared to come in and say their farewells as soon as you are both ready.”

Herrwn wasn’t at all sure what Caelym would have said given the chance to speak for himself, but Feywn answered, “We are ready now.”

Nodding, Rhonnon backed away, turned, and went out to the courtyard.

Ossiam left by the door to the inner hallway, and Olyrrwd limped over to the bed and put a hand on Caelym’s shoulder where Rhonnon’s had been. That left Herrwn standing alone in the middle of the floor. As the shrine’s chief priest, he should have said something more eloquent than “I am … so very sorry,” but he couldn’t think of any words sufficient to express how sorry he was, and, recalling the time he’d cradled Lillywen’s cooling body in his arms, he knew how meaningless words were at that moment. He stood where he was, feeling their grief as if it were his own, until, remembering Rhonnon’s directive, he cleared his throat and said, “I will go now and compose a song to sing for her.”

“A beautiful song?” Caelym looked up, his eyes wide and childlike.

“A beautiful song.”

Caelym looked back down at his dead daughter’s face and whispered, “Herrwn, the greatest of our bards, will sing you a beautiful song.”