Chapter 88: Cwmmarwn

It was dark and cold when Herrwn woke up the next morning. His first thought was to wonder why Nimrrwn hadn’t stoked the classroom hearth. His second was to recall that Nimrrwn was gone and that it was Fonddell, the young kitchen servant, who should have started the fire, opened the curtain to let the heat and light from the hearth into the bedchamber, and laid out his and Caelym’s best robes for the most important sunrise ritual of the year—the one held on the dawn of the day after the winter solstice.

The winter solstice! Their shrine betrayed! Enemies massing to attack! Sitting up, Herrwn groped for his staff just as the curtains parted and Caelym came through, dressed in a heavy cloak and carrying a candle.

Of the questions flooding his mind, Herrwn chose what he assumed was the least painful to answer.

“Where is Fonddell?”

“He’s gone. They are all gone.”

“They?”

“The servants and the villagers.”

“All of them?”

“All except for Darbin and his sister.”

“Then …” Herrwn stopped short of groaning, “What are we going to do?” Instead, he said firmly, “We need to call a council to decide what must be done.”

“Rhonnon thought you would say so and sent me to get you.”

Instead of his ceremonial robe, Herrwn donned the heavy woolen one that Caelym handed him. Then he pulled on his fur-lined winter boots, took his cloak from its hook, and hurried after his disciple—out through the unlit hallway, across the courtyard, and up the dark stairs to the High Council chamber.

By the flickering light from a trio of candles, he could see the others were seated in their regular order. Except for Feywn, who was pale but as imperious as ever, they all looked to be in varying stages of shock.

Following a grim opening omen (and a morose reminder that he’d warned them to beware of demons in their midst), Ossiam passed the speaker’s chalice to Rhonnon.

“The servants left in the night,” she began, and went on to deliver one piece of bad news after another in a dire litany that made the oracle’s words seem cheerful. “They took most of the shrine’s food and all the spare blankets. The village is deserted.”

“And the guards did nothing?” Ossiam shrieked, his voice as shrill as that of his female inner spirit.

Madheran rose from a side bench to protest, “There were only two of them at the upper gate—” but stopped midsentence and dropped back to his seat, his head bowed in shame.

“The two guards assigned to the upper gate are gone as well, and since there is no sign of a struggle, we must assume they fled along with the servants and the villagers.” Rhonnon sighed. “Except for the smith’s compound, which was left untouched, everything that could be carried, hauled in carts, or herded is gone.”

“And the smith just stood by and watched them leave without coming to warn us?” Ossiam’s voice had, at least, lowered from a screech to a sneer.

“Darb—” Gwenydd was on her feet, glaring at Ossiam, but she got no further before Aolfe put a hand on her shoulder and pressed her back into sitting.

Rhonnon gave Ossiam a quelling glance. “Darbin, as I don’t need to remind you, is the consort to the Priestess Gwenydd, and he—as is his duty—was in their bedchamber in the hall reserved for priestesses with consorts and children. He and his sister have gathered the goods from their cottage and sheds and brought them to add to what the servants left behind.”

Ossiam crossed his arms and hissed something unintelligible.

Rhonnon continued in a steady voice, “From what I can tell, we have enough food to last us two weeks, possibly three.” She sat down without saying what they all knew—that between the threat of attack looming on one side and the certainty of starvation on the other, they were doomed.

Glancing up and down the table, Herrwn saw some people exchanging looks with their neighbors, some gazing down at their hands, and some staring at the small fire flickering in the hearth. Only Caelym directed his gaze toward Feywn.

While Herrwn and the others were wearing their heaviest cloaks over their winter robes, the chief priestess was still dressed in the silk robes she’d worn to the solstice rites, yet she showed no sign of being cold except for a bluish tinge around her lips. She looked, Herrwn thought, as if she were already reigning in the next world—so aloof that no one, except for Caelym, expected her to speak, and certainly no one, not even Caelym, understood what she meant when she said, “It is time.”

When she didn’t go on, Rhonnon said, “Time?”

“The time our oracle has seen coming—”

Glancing at his cousin, Herrwn was almost certain Ossiam was as confused as the rest of them, though he lowered his eyebrows and nodded sagely when he caught Herrwn looking at him.

Herrwn’s attention returned to their chief priestess as she said in a soft but compelling voice, “The time that we leave this place and return to the world. We will do so now, while our enemies are still sharpening their swords. And when they swarm through our gates they will find nothing but empty walls, the shed skin of a sacred serpent, while we and all of those who have remained faithful to us will have returned to our rightful place—to Cwmmarwn.”

“Cwmmarwn!” As Feywn spoke the name of their original shrine in the sacred valley of Cwddwaellwn, the air in the chamber seemed to grow warmer and to become faintly scented with the smell of spring flowers. That could of course have been the enchantment of her voice stirring the long-buried call of their ancient home or merely their sheer desperation, but they all listened, nodding, as she decreed that they would pack what they could carry and begin their journey home.

When Feywn fell silent again, Ossiam rose to repeat a variant of his prophesy of the Goddess’s return to greatness, and they began to make their plans.

Herrwn, who’d had little to contribute until this point, stood up to say that the legendary accounts were quite clear that the valley of Cwddwaellwn was located high in the northern mountains—in some versions above and in other versions below a series of sheer black cliffs—but less so about the exact route between Llwddawanden and Cwddwaellwn, other than that it ran for part of the way along the route traders from the western seaports took to bring their wares across those mountains and on to the central and eastern kingdoms.

“I know those cliffs!” Caelym sprang to his feet, excited. “I stood above them with my wolf pack looking down into the valley—a sad and dreary place, half swamp and the rest barren slopes, save for a scattering of shabby huts. That could not be Cwddwaellwn, but above the cliffs, following my wolf brothers and sisters along a path through the high meadows in our search for prey, I saw what must have been that ancient sanctuary, long abandoned but protected from Christian desecration by the spirits of the mountain and the will of the Goddess.”

“And I know that valley, the one below the cliffs!” It was Madheran’s turn to jump up. “It is called ‘Codswallow.’ I’ve been there more than once, riding at Rhedwyn’s side and seeking men with the courage to join us. That is where Gofannon is from.” Here he broke off to face Ossiam and stated stoutly, “Gofannon—who kept watch with me at the lower gate last night, and who is as loyal to the Goddess as the sea is deep and the sky is high.”

Herrwn was impressed by this poetic outburst from his once disciple and would have said so, but Rhonnon spoke first.

“So we know where we are going and, I hope, how to get there, but we still have enemies to contend with and dangerous lands to cross, so who has thoughts of what we must do next?”

From there the ideas formed and fell into place.

Caelym would go separately to get Arddwn and Lliem. The rest of them would travel in small groups, each taking a different route and each including at least one priest and one priestess capable of restarting their ritual practices.

Rhonnon was reluctant to agree to their splitting up, arguing that while there was certainly a risk in traveling as a large and noticeable group, only Madheran, Gofannon, and Caelym actually knew the way to the village below the cliffs and only Caelym knew the way from there.

Once again, Madheran made Herrwn proud by offering the needed solution to what seemed an insolvable problem. Standing before them with the confidence of a fully trained priest, he said that Gofannon had been back to visit his family more than once, “and on returning the last time, he told me there is an inn, marked by the sign of a sleeping dragon, whose keeper is thought by Gofannon’s kinsmen to be a secret worshipper of the Goddess.” After concluding, “We can meet there and Caelym can show us the way to Cwddwaellwn,” he turned to Herrwn and asked, “And you, Master, can you not draw maps from the old tales and what Gofannon can add?”

“I can!” Herrwn answered with more certainty than he actually felt.

Perhaps sensing that this was not a time for uncertainty, Rhonnon nodded. “That is settled then. Madheran will send Gofannon to Herrwn, and Herrwn will make maps—one for Caelym to find the village where Arddwn and Lliem were being fostered and one for each of the other groups.”

“We will need sacks or bags for packs,” she went on, turning to Gwenydd. “There are twenty-four of us, counting Darbin, his sister, and your two little ones. Is there any chance that there are more to be had from Darbin’s sheds, since the servants took what we had here?”

Gwenydd shook her head. “Some, I’m sure, but not enough for all of us.”

Hearing this, Herrwn surprised himself, and no doubt the rest of the priests and priestesses, by having a practical contribution to make. Taking hold of the speaker’s chalice, which had been left forgotten in the rapid exchange of words, he explained about the provisions Olyrrwd had gathered for Caelym’s quest that remained stored in what had been the sleeping chamber of their young priests-in-training, concluding, “As Fonddell, the servant doing Nimrrwn’s chores, would not have known they were there, I am quite sure we have ample packs and other useful items for the journey ahead.”

“Very good, then we will need to …”

Rhonnon’s tone was more grateful than her brisk words implied, but with so much to be done, and given the threat of the approaching enemy, she resumed giving directions, some of which were straightforward, others unexpected, but none unreasonable in view of the desperate circumstances. Ending with the words, “We have no time for regular meals—you will each need to come to the kitchen as soon as you are able,” she looked at Herrwn, who took his cue to lift his staff, declare the council ended, and urge them all to make haste.