Chapter 90: The Shawls

As he was dutifully repeating In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen, along with the associated hand movements, Herrwn’s spirits were momentarily lifted—not by the actual rites but at the memory this brought back to him from his middle childhood.

Almost a year had passed since his father had returned from what was to be his last trip outside the valley, and the elder Herrwn’s outrage at his two brothers’ defection to Christianity had for the most part died down into composed resignation. Something someone said had reminded him of it, but instead of speaking out in anger, Herrwn’s father had shaken his head and said, “One can only suppose those Christian priests who spend so much of their time in prayers for forgiveness—not just for deeds but for thoughts—must be also spending a great deal of time thinking about those things that they are telling the rest of us not to do.”

Their abbreviated lesson in the Christian catechism went on until it was time for Gofannon to take his shift on guard at the lower gate. As Herrwn stood up to leave the table, he looked around for Cyri. Even coming in the midst of an anguished time when public celebration was not possible, his disciple’s elevation to the second-highest position in their order made him proud, and it was both his honor and his duty to tell her so.

Catching sight of her green-and-blue shawl fluttering out the chamber’s door, he hurried after her, distressed that she should be leaving the chamber with no blessings and barely even an acknowledgment of what should be the most important moment of her life, save conception and giving birth. With the chamber dimly lit, others milling around, and the floor cluttered with piles of things being packed, it cost Herrwn several “pardon me’s” and a scraped shin before he made it into the hallway to see her hurrying away.

“Wait,” he called. “Wait!”

A moment more and he would have called her name, but the girl he thought was Cyri stopped and turned, and Gwenydd cried out, “Oh, Herrwn, I’m so glad you’ve come.”

Given the opportunity, Herrwn would have explained his mistake and returned to the main chamber to find Cyri, but Gwenydd ran back, caught hold of his hands, and burst out, “I was just going to tell Darbin! He will be so honored that you are coming with us!”

Herrwn had put his assignment to Gwenydd’s group—indeed, to her family—out of his mind, burying the thought along with the sense of disregard for his position that it implied.

Not about to admit either that or how he’d actually wanted to talk to Cyri, he faltered, “I … I just wanted to ask if my being a part of your group for this journey met with your approval.”

“Does it meet with my approval? Why, of course it does!” Gwenydd clasped his hand and pulled him along, telling him in a confidential whisper how Darbin had never felt he’d been worthy of her and how Feywn’s naming Herrwn to be in their party would prove to him once and for all that he was as good as any priest.

Darbin met them at the door of their rooms holding a sleepy, tousle-haired boy. While the young smith, who was every bit as flattered as Gwenydd said he would be, stammered about proving himself worthy of the honor of Herrwn’s being the priest in their group, Gwenydd took their son, crooning that it was time for him to be in bed. As she was walking away, Herrwn saw why he’d taken her for Cyri. Although she was an herbalist, Gwenydd was wearing a midwife’s blue-and-green shawl.

Of course! Now he remembered! After rallying to recite her part in the Winter Solstice Ceremony, Cyri had stood shaking from shock and cold, and Gwenydd had taken off her shawl and wrapped it around her cousin’s trembling shoulders. Then, coming down from the tower, Gwenydd had stooped to pick up Cyri’s shawl where it lay crumpled at the bottom of the stairway. No doubt she had put that shawl on in place of her own, and with so much else to think about and do, the two had not changed back.

It was a small matter, and not one worth mentioning as he assured Darbin that he counted it an honor to accompany them. Clearly assuming that his responsibility for Herrwn’s welfare began at once, Darbin insisted on escorting him back to the main hall and—finding the hall already empty—through the dim passageways to his quarters.

Caelym was there, curled up in his bed the way he’d slept for months after his return from living in the wild. Tiptoeing through the dark, trying not to wake his exhausted disciple, Herrwn changed into his night robes, lay down, and pulled his blankets up against the cold.

After all the horror of the previous night, it was odd that Gwenydd’s wearing Cyri’s shawl was still weighing on his mind. Staring into the dark, he wondered about why until exhaustion—both physical and emotional—overcame his fretting and carried him off to sleep.

Herrwn dreamed of Annwr that night. She was standing at the parapet of a white stone fortress, her long blond hair and her silken green-and-yellow shawl blowing in the wind. Although he seemed to be at a distant vantage point, he could hear her beseeching him for help and see that her arms were shackled.

He woke up with the words “green and yellow” repeating unrelentingly in his mind.

Green and yellow! The shawl Annwr was wearing in his dream was green and yellow! The shawl the searchers had found floating in the river—and that they’d taken as proof that Annwr had drowned along with Gwennefor and Caldora—was a green-and-blue midwife’s shawl.

What if, in the chaotic aftermath of Rhedwyn’s death, Annwr and Gwennefor had inadvertently changed shawls, as their daughters had now done? What if Gwennefor had been wearing the green-and-blue one they’d found? What if Annwr was alive—had been alive all these years, crying out for help that never came?

The bedroom was still dark, but the curtain was pulled back. A small fire was crackling in the classroom hearth—lit, Herrwn guessed, by Caelym before he went off to finish his preparations for his departure. Sitting up and looking at the empty bed next to him where Olyrrwd used to sleep, Herrwn missed his cousin desperately. If only he were here so Herrwn could tell him about his dream and ask him what to do.

The one thing Olyrrwd would never suggest would be for Herrwn to go to Ossiam. Olyrrwd, however, wasn’t there, and Ossiam was an oracle, and oracles knew dreams and how to interpret them.

Herrwn swung his legs over the side of his bed. With some fumbling, he found his slippers, wrapped his cloak around his shoulders, took up his staff, and started off, pausing only long enough to light a taper on his way past the hearth.

With the candle in one hand and his staff in the other, he made his way through the dark hallways and up the steps to the oracle’s chamber, where acrid fumes were seeping from under the closed door.

Ossiam answered his knock and stepped back to let him in.

Despite the heat in the room, Ossiam’s hood was pulled up, shadowing his face and hiding his expression, as Herrwn recounted both his dream and his conviction that Annwr was alive.

“Does this dream mean I should go to Feywn and have her send our guards with Caelym to rescue Annwr on his way to get Arddwn and Lliem?” he paused for a moment. “Or should I go myself?”

As he spoke this second thought, Herrwn realized how foolish it sounded, and yet, suddenly, he burned to be the one to go and find Annwr and rescue her from her prison.

“In this dream, did you actually see the symbols on the shawl this woman whom you took to be Annwr wore?” Ossiam’s tone was sharp and demanding.

Although sure of what he’d dreamed, Herrwn had to admit that while he had seen the colors clearly, he had been too far away to see the symbols.

“And this woman you took to be Annwr—did she say anything to you that proved who she was, or did she merely ask for help as any impostor seeking your sympathy might?”

“No, nothing to prove who she was—but she was Annwr, I felt it in my heart!”

Feelings, however heartfelt, were a weak basis from which to assert any conviction, so Herrwn added, “And then there was the white stone fortress! What else could it have been than the stronghold of the Saxons who attacked us?”

“What indeed?” Ossiam raised his hands, palms together, and pressed the tips of his forefingers against his lips.

Feeling he’d scored his point, Herrwn went on, “So you see, it was Annwr I saw!”

“No! What I see is the purpose behind this false vision you have been sent!” Stroking his chin, Ossiam continued in a pensive tone, “The white stone fortress is undeniably the stronghold of the Saxon king whose name we revile and whose descendants we have cursed, but as for the rest, it is a deceit sent by demon forces to draw you into a trap or else”—and here his voice dropped so low he might only have been speaking to himself—“to turn our beloved Caelym’s journey to find his most precious little boys into a suicide mission.”

“But what if it is true?”

“It is not! It is an evil deception!” Ossiam’s voice returned to full strength as he reached out and gripped Herrwn’s shoulders. “You must swear to me that you will speak of it to no one!”

Herrwn hesitated. Somewhere in a distant part of his mind he could hear Olyrrwd saying, “Ossie’s just jealous because you had a better dream than he did!” But that was unkind and unjust, so when Ossiam softened his tone to ask, “You trust me, don’t you? You know I would give my life for hers if this dream were true?” Herrwn found himself nodding and heard himself agree to say nothing of this to anyone.

If he had known this was to be the last private conversation they would have with one another, Herrwn might have said something more to Ossiam—how deeply he cared for him and how much he regretted the distance that had grown between them—or at least he would have embraced his cousin before leaving him.