A torch touched the dry tinder and the fire sprang to life, flaring up in a ring around the condemned man. At first the bound figure was just a silhouette against the night sky, but as the fire spread around the stake he was illuminated in its glow, his dark hair shining as golden red as the flames. Even bruised and bloodied, he was handsome, tall, lean, and fit—his features so fine and noble that it was hard to believe the crowd surrounding him was screaming for his death instead of pleading for his life.
Looking through the flames, he could see the shifting shapes of the mob, men with spears, women with cudgels, and children waving sticks. They were cursing him, calling him a sorcerer. If he could have made himself heard, he would have told them that he was not a sorcerer, he was a physician who could have given them the gift of healing, a singer whose songs could have soothed their rage, a bard who could have told them a thousand stories about splendid heroes from days when the world was fresh and new. If they would just stop shouting and listen, he would tell them that he’d been the last of the disciples to sit at the feet of the three greatest Druid masters of their time. He would tell them that by killing him before he could pass on what he had learned they were destroying an ancient heritage of wisdom that could never be recovered, condemning themselves to suffering and ignorance.
Their taunts and jeers seemed to fade away, lost in his longing for a swallow of water to sooth his parched throat, a bite of food to ease his aching hunger, and, above all, to die unbound. It was the fire that granted his last wish—burning through the leather cords so that, for a moment, he was free.
Instead of leaving the fire to be torn apart by the frenzied mob, he raised his arms up towards the moon like a child reaching up to his mother. A sudden breeze fanned the fire and the flames soared, engulfing him and forcing his attackers to fall back as his body turned to a soft, feathery ash that was gathered up and carried off by the wind, swirling up and away into the star-filled sky.
The crowd’s angry curses quieted to grumbling complaints, and those changed to the hooting of owls and the croaking of frogs as Caelym woke up to find himself whole again, lying beside a decaying, moss-covered log at the edge of a clearing.
He’d fallen asleep in a thicket of alders, worn out from his desperate race to escape a real mob of raging Saxons. Choosing death by drowning over burning at the stake, he’d dived headlong into a river that carried him out of their reach and far out of his way. It had taken most of a day to make his way back along the river’s edge to the turn in the road where he’d been discovered. From there he’d limped on, continuing the quest he’d begun the day after learning that the long-lamented Priestess Annwr, sister to their chief priestess, was alive, that Ossiam, Grand Oracle and Master of Divination had seen her in a dream . . . Imprisoned in a high tower, her golden hair blowing in the wind and tears streaming down her cheeks, crying out for someone to save her from the bestial Saxon king who comes to ravish her night after night.
It was Feywn herself, in the privacy of her bedchamber, who told Caelym about Ossiam’s vision, and as she spoke the image of her weeping sister had seemed to hover in the air between them. Dropping to his knees, he’d sworn an oath on his life to rescue Annwr and kill the Saxon king, making with that his fifth impetuous vow since entering the room, which was—even for Caelym—a new record.
Taking his ceremonial dagger, along with a satchel of hastily gathered supplies and a map drawn for him by the shrine’s eldest priest, he spent the next two months following hints and rumors, guesses and omens, until finally reaching the stronghold of the Saxon war band that had carried Annwr off fifteen years before— only to learn that she had never been a mistress to the king but merely a nursemaid to the king’s daughter, that the king was long dead, and that his daughter had left the palace and gone to a convent, taking Annwr with her.
Now, against all odds, he’d found the convent. Getting up, he stepped over the log and pushed a low-hanging branch out of his way to gaze at the cluster of roofs above a high wooden stockade. From where he stood, he could have thrown a stone and bounced it off the side of the compound’s outer wall.
Before he’d fallen asleep, he’d circled the edge of clearing that surrounded the convent, searching for some way to get in. Now, looking up at the dark towers that loomed over the top of the wall, he could make out the shapes of windows and suddenly saw what he had missed before—that one of the windows was open. Still half dreaming, he thought he saw a beautiful, golden-haired woman there, reaching her arms out to him. He blinked, and the vision vanished.
The nearly full moon was sinking behind the convent, casting a shadow that crept towards him as he stared up at the window, debating what to do next. Even if he were able to scale the wall and climb in through the window, he still would have to find his way through a maze of unknown corridors and passageways, searching for a woman he hadn’t seen since he was eleven years old. One part of his mind made excuses; the other part replied, “You swore a sacred oath to save Annwr or die in the attempt.”
There was no answer to that, except that he was tired and hungry and had an arrow in his back. Swearing another oath— that he would return and either find Annwr or find out where she had gone—he stepped back over the log, picked up the damp, travel-stained leather pack that held the meager remnants of the provisions he’d taken with him on his ill-fated quest, and retreated into the forest
Not far from where he’d been standing, he came to the start of a narrow, overgrown path. With a brief invocation to any protective wood spirits that might be hovering nearby, he set off to look for something to eat and a place to hide, and to try again to pull the arrow out—hopefully without fainting this time.
Caelym was hurrying along, looking from one side of the trail to the other for early berries or edible shoots, when the path took a sharp turn and he collided with a small, gray-haired woman, knocking her over and scattering the contents of her basket—a loaf of bread, a wedge of cheese, and two long sausages—on the ground.
He staggered backwards, struggling to keep his balance. He had to act quickly—either strike the woman unconscious before she started to scream or snatch the loaf of bread and run for his life. Lightheaded from hunger and fatigue, he shifted from one foot to the other, debating what to do.
“Help me up!”
He knew enough English to understand the woman’s words, and he recovered his wits. Careful to keep his back turned away from her so she didn’t see the arrow and become suspicious, he helped her to her feet. Then he picked up the bread, cheese, and sausages for her and brushed off the dirt with the hem of his cloak.
As he repacked the wicker basket, he apologized, saying that he was most sorry he had disturbed her walk, that he meant no harm to her or any of her people, and that he was on his way to visit a woman named Annwr who was kin to kin of his, and who might now be residing within the nearby convent, only he wasn’t sure and didn’t wish to disturb the Christian priestesses or their guardians by knocking at their door before breakfast. Putting together a sentence of that length in English wasn’t easy, but he was pleased with it, especially with how he had dropped the hint about breakfast without actually begging for a handout.
The woman took the basket back and scowled at him.
Regretting that he hadn’t slipped a sausage under his cloak when he had the chance, he tried to think of another way to ask about Annwr without giving himself away.
“Come!” The woman snapped the command in Celt before turning on her heels and going back the way she’d come, leaving the scent of freshly baked bread wafting down the path behind her.
His mind argued caution, his stomach food. His stomach won.
Rushing to catch up, he would have run into her again when she stopped to open a gate in a fence at the end of the path except that she stepped out of the way, letting him charge past her and into a garden filled with winter savory and rosemary, meadowsweet and marsh thistle, tansy and sorrel.
Grumbling something about “clumsy oafs,” the woman closed the gate and elbowed past him, leaving the tangle of herbs and winding her way through freshly turned vegetable beds towards the back door of a small cottage.
Caelym started after her, only to fall back when a hissing, angry gray goose attacked him, leading a dozen more.
“Hurry up! My geese don’t like men!”
Neither her words nor her tone was hospitable, but neither were the geese. So, summoning the last of his failing strength, he dashed for the door she held open for him.