by A. M. Linden
If Cyri was Feywn’s heir, it could only mean that Arianna was dead.
Being a midwife, Annwr’s first guess was that it must have been childbirth, and as the memories of her brash, demanding, and utterly fearless niece swept over her, Annwr thought—not for the first time—that if she had been the Goddess, she would have arranged things differently, seeing to it that starting babies was less compelling for men and that giving birth to them was less dangerous for women.
Annwr shifted her gaze from the empty chair to the open window. Most of the view was blocked by trees towering above the fence but here and there, in the gaps in the upper branches, she could just make out the purple and gray ridges of the distant mountains that hid the sacred valley of Llwddawanden—and wondered what Cyri was doing at that moment.
Of course, Feywn would have raised Cyri as her own, just as, if things had been reversed, Annwr would have raised Arianna. And, of course, with Arianna dead, Feywn would name Cyri— Feywn’s closest kin except for Annwr herself—to be her heir.
But their chief midwife, Rhonnon, was actually more closely related to the past chief priestesses than Feywn . . . and while Rhonnon had no children, she had a niece born to her sister . . . and that niece had a daughter . . . theirs was a strong line going almost directly back to Feywn’s revered predecessor, Caelendra.
While Feywn had never been openly challenged as chief priestess and living embodiment of the Mother Goddess, her selection had been unorthodox (and in fact unprecedented), and that departure from tradition had always been the shadow behind her otherwise unquestioned authority. Could it be, Annwr found herself wondering, that the reason her sister acted like such a tyrant was that she had some lingering doubts of her own?
Whether or not that was true, Feywn would certainly intend to head off any challenge to her power to name a successor from her own line, most likely by making Cyri her daughter by right of proclamation—a simple ritual so long as a child’s real mother was dead, as, according to Caelym, they’d believed she was until Ossiam had his belated vision. But no one, not even the Goddess herself, had the power to strip a living birth mother of her natural claims without her consent.
It all fell into place.
Feywn needed Annwr to forswear her birthright claim to Cyri, freeing her to be named Feywn’s daughter.
In her mind, Annwr’s answer rang out: “No! You can’t have her! She’s my child! Mine! I gave birth to her! I won’t give her up!”
Only, of course, she would. Who was she to say no to the will of the Goddess or to deny Cyri the greatest honor imaginable?
But did she have to go and stand at the high altar, her own heart torn out and bleeding, and declare that her child was not hers and never had been?
“NO!” She said it out loud this time and meant it, grimly glad now that she’d never actually told Caelym that she was his missing priestess. When he came back, fully recovered and twice as boastful, she would tell him that she was merely a silly old servant who’d taken advantage of his gullibility to enliven her otherwise drab and dreary existence, and that the real Annwr had died fifteen years ago. Then she’d hand him a basket of food and send him on his way.
Not happy, but relieved to have made up her mind, she looked at the room around her as if she were seeing it for the first time: the neat rows of cups and bowls on the shelves, the thick, warm quilt spread over the bed, the polished kettle simmering on the hearth.
It was peaceful and quiet.
Too quiet.
There was not a sound coming in through the window, not the clucking of geese in the yard or chirping of birds in the trees. Before she had time to worry about what that might mean, the geese sounded their shrill warning, her front door crashed open, and a dozen Saxon guards stormed in.
Half of them ransacked the room, ripping the covers off the bed, dragging boxes out from underneath and kicking them apart, tearing cupboard doors off their hinges, and pulling jars off the shelves and smashing them open—as if they expected to find a full-grown Druid hidden inside—while the other half stormed out into the garden, slashing their way through the spirited but hopelessly doomed defense offered by Solomon and the other geese.
With no chance to run or hide, Annwr dropped to her knees, closed her eyes, and clutched the silver crucifix while Betrys’s terrified squeals rang in her ears, sounding like Gwennefor and Caldora’s screams fifteen years before.
After the rampage was over, Annwr stayed on her knees, her head bowed as if in prayer, giving no hint that her silent invocations were not Christian appeals for mercy but pagan curses against them and all of their descendants forever after. Fortunately unable to read her thoughts, their leader, a tall, blond man with a vexed expression, muttered that they were wasting their time here and had better be going on to search the woods. Maybe he was expecting her to grovel and kiss his feet in gratitude, but she stayed where she was, certain that if she moved even a single muscle, she’d lose herself in her fury and attack him with her bare hands.
Instead, she kept her eyes cast down and began to plan what she’d need to pack for the trip back to Llwddawanden while she waited for the door to slam behind them and the tread of their boots to die off in the distance.
PART II
The Shrine of Wilfhilda
Aleswina led the way back down the path to the convent with Caelym keeping up as best he could. Reaching the alder grove at the end of the path, she whispered, “Follow me!” and darted across the clearing.
Bitterly regretting his oath to obey an enemy who was almost certainly taking him into a trap, Caelym left the safety of the trees to stagger across the open ground and flatten himself against the wall. He stood there, watching warily, as she opened a tiny doorway and crawled through it. Drawing in a deep breath, he silently invoked the seven sacred names of the Mother Goddess and followed after her.
He came out on the other side of the wall to find himself behind a small building in a garden that was so much like the one he’d just left he half expected Annwr to step out of the bushes and ask him why it had taken him so long to get there.
The girl stooped down and made a quick gesture with her right hand, touching the tips of her fingers first to her forehead, then to her midriff, then to her right shoulder, then her left. Then she lifted up a broad board from the base of the building’s back wall that turned out to be another hidden door.
“It is the Shrine of Wilfhilda, Blessed Saint of Herbs and Vegetables,” she whispered, as though this was an explanation for what she had just done or what Caelym was supposed to do next.
A sudden clanging of bells broke out from the tower overhead. Startled like a deer at the sound of a hunting horn, the girl thrust Annwr’s basket into the chamber.
“Get in!” Almost raising her voice, she pointed a trembling finger at the hole in the wall.
He obeyed, reluctantly, squeezing through the opening and into a small, sunken chamber. There was just enough time to look around and see that its dirt walls were braced with rough posts and cross pieces and that a shelf, cut into the back wall, held an orderly assortment of cups, plates, and utensils before she closed the door, shutting out the light.
Keeping his knife drawn, he listened at the doorway, until fever and fatigue won out over suspicion and fear. Then he wrestled out of his cloak, tunic, and shirt—hitting his head on the ceiling and his elbows against the walls. After stuffing the tunic and shirt into his leather bag for a pillow, he felt around in the dark for his dagger and tucked it under his bag. Finally, pulling his cloak around him for a blanket, he lay on his side, his knees drawn up almost to his chest, and drifted off into fevered dreams.
Chapter 9
The Potion
While Caelym fell asleep under the floorboards of the Shrine of Saint Wilfhilda, Aleswina stood rigidly upright at her place in the chapel. Slipping the beads of her rosary through her fingers, she stared at the stained-glass window beyond the altar, but instead of seeing the Holy Virgin kneeling beside the body of
her crucified son, she saw Anna sitting on the bed next to the Druid, her hand on his bare back, ready to die with him without hesitation or regret.
Aleswina had no memory of her life before the morning of her fourth birthday when she woke up from a nightmare to find herself cradled in Anna’s arms. From then until she left her palace nursery to enter the convent, she’d slept with Anna in bed with her. Each night, just before she fell asleep, she asked Anna to promise that they would always be together, and each night Anna answered, “I will stay with you tonight, and I will be here in morning, but someday my people will come to get me, and I will go home again.”
Now one of those people had come, and he was going to take Anna away with him. A black fog of dread came over Aleswina, shrouding everything around her in shadows except for the panels’ glowing scene. She was still staring at Mary and Jesus when the service ended so that Sister Idwolda had to nudge her to get her moving.
The rest of the day passed in odd fits and starts. One moment Aleswina was standing in the dark chapel with the sounds of the devotions around her, then she was in the garden weeding and setting out the new plants, then she was back in the chapel for the noon prayers, then she was putting her tools away behind the shrine, then she was in the common room with Sister Idwolda sitting next to her and telling rambling stories about a seemingly endless number of brothers and sisters—then, without remembering getting up or walking down the hall, Aleswina found herself alone, kneeling by her bed in her own small room.
When she began her religious instruction, Aleswina had gone straight from her first lesson to find Anna and tell her about praying to Jesus. Anna’s answer had been, “This god of yours is so all-knowing, why do you have to explain to him what you want? And what good does it do? If you tell a man to do something, he will just do the opposite to be contrary.”
So, with authority of the scriptures and of the Holy Church on one side and Anna’s skepticism on the other, Aleswina had adopted a compromise of rote recitation of her daily prayers while she actually thought about other things. Now she was thinking that somehow she had to keep Anna from leaving her.
“God helps those who help themselves” was one of the few Christian proverbs that Anna didn’t quarrel with, so Aleswina rocked back and forth on her knees, trying to think of some way she could help herself now.
Prayers to Jesus would not work because Anna did not believe in them, but Aleswina remembered that Caelym had sworn an oath promising to obey her every wish. So if she told him that she wished he’d go away and leave Anna with her, he would have to do it. For a moment her heart took wing, only to fall crashing down as she remembered Anna said that he didn’t mean it, and he was just showing off.
As bitter disappointment replaced hope, a cunning, wicked idea crept into Aleswina’s mind. She could go to the abbess and tell her there was a Druid under Saint Wilfhilda’s shrine and the abbess would send for the king’s soldiers and they would come and take him away. But almost as quickly as she thought it, she knew she couldn’t, because the abbess would want to know how she knew the Druid was there.
As hard as she tried, Aleswina could not think of any way to get rid of Caelym without getting into trouble herself.
Leaving her room at night without permission was risking more trouble than she’d ever been in before, so she waited, nervously biting her lower lip, until she was certain the rest of the convent was asleep before cracking the door open. She slipped out of her room and moved swiftly along the dark hallway, down the stairs, across the central courtyard, and into the convent garden. She took a candle from the shrine, went around to the back, eased up the door to the hidden chamber, and reached in to get Anna’s basket, being careful not to wake the sleeping Druid.
Sitting with her back against the side of the shrine and the basket on her lap, she looked at the small, fragile seedlings she’d planted that day, certain that they would wither and die without Anna there to help care for them.
Suddenly, she knew what to do. Anna had told her. A little poppy juice would ease the Druid’s pain and help him sleep. A lot of it would end his pain and make him sleep forever. She just needed to mix the stronger recipe for the potion, and then he would drink it and she and Anna would be safe from him. It would be easy and maybe even kind, for he would be spared the suffering from his illness, or from worse suffering if the soldiers ever found him. Then she could go to Anna and tell her that he had died of his wound, and together they would . . . What would they do then?
The unlikely picture of Anna and herself digging a grave in the convent garden that was big enough for the tall Druid took shape in Aleswina’s mind. Close behind came the thought of telling Anna a lie about how he’d died. She had never told Anna a lie before—what if she didn’t believe her?
Aleswina continued to sit motionless, now with her eyes closed. Without her being aware of it, tears started down her cheeks. When she opened her eyes again, having given up her last hope, she expected to feel inconsolable, but instead felt at peace. Taking a deep breath, she mixed the potion, measuring the poppy juice with exacting care to the amount Anna had specified for fever and aches and not the three-times higher dose that would do that fatal harm.
Carefully setting the cup and candle to one side, she climbed down into the chamber. Most of the space was filled by the man who slept there, his knees drawn up, his leather bag under his head, and his right hand under the bag. There wasn’t much spare room, but Aleswina managed to kneel next to Caelym, and she shook his shoulder to wake him up.
Chapter 10
A Druid’s Cure
The instant he felt the touch, Caelym jerked up, hitting his head against the low ceiling as he thrust his right hand out. For a moment, he saw an explosion of swirling stars. Then he opened his eyes to see that Annwr’s Saxon princess was backed up against the opposite wall of the chamber—staring blankly at him, apparently unable to understand what the tip of his dagger was doing a finger’s breadth from the base of her throat.
His already aching head throbbed as he struggled with his limited English to explain to the unbelievably stupid girl how greatly she had endangered herself without adding to the timid anxiety that seemed to be her usual state.
“Now, Little Sister.” He tried for a soothing but firm tone. “If you must be waking a hunted man—and I do not ever say that you must—then you must be doing it in a way that does not leave your throat cut.”
From the look on Aleswina’s face, which he would have thought could not get any paler in a living woman, he decided that he needed to be more reassuring.
“Here, I will show you.” He lay back on his side, his hand holding the knife tucked under the leather bag that served as his pillow. “Now do it again; only you need to say my name and put your hand on my arm to keep it down.”
When Aleswina did not either speak or put out her hand, Caelym sighed and shifted into an awkward half-kneeling position, one leg cramping under him as the other kept him more or less steady. “Like this,” he said, taking Aleswina’s right hand with his left and pressing it down on his own right wrist hard enough to stop its sudden jerk upwards.
Her lips moved without making any discernible sound.
“Káy·Lŭm,” he said, enunciating the syllables slowly and distinctly. “My name is ‘Káy·Lŭm,’ and you must say it just as you are taking hold of my arm so that I know you are my friend and not a foe.”
“Káy·Lŭm,” she croaked in a dry whisper.
“That is good!” He nodded. “Now watch! I am you and you are me!”
He pressed the knife into Aleswina’s trembling fingers and took his hand away, leaving hers suspended uncertainly in front of her. Then he trilled, “Caelym,” in a high, girlish voice—simultaneously catching her wrist in his right hand and pinning her hand and the knife to the ground and holding it there for a long moment before letting go.
She did nothing but gasp and pull her hand away—leaving his beautifully engraved knife lying in the dirt.
Bound by the code of good behavior required of a guest, he sighed and said, “Again.”
The second time, she actually lifted her hand on her own, kept a feeble grip on the knife’s handle, and made a token show of resistance.
“That is . . .” He searched his limited list of English praise words for one that would be both encouraging and believable, and settled on ’better’, and added with exaggerated hardiness, “Now we will do again with you being you and I being me.” Making a show of settling himself back down, he tucked his knife-wielding hand under his makeshift pillow and closed his eyes.
“Caelym,” she whispered, and grasped his wrist with a force that might, just possibly, have stopped a dying moth from flapping its wings.
Again he sighed and said, “Again.”
It was only after she actually managed to keep his hand pinned in place for a moment or two that he put the knife aside and said, “Well now, as I am awake and your throat is not cut, perhaps you will tell me what is it you have come to see me about?”
“I brought you your draught.” As she spoke, she picked up the half-filled cup and held it out to him. When he didn’t take it, she added, “The one for fever and aches and to help you sleep.”
“You have woken me up in the middle of the night to give me the draught to help me sleep?”
“And to put the healing salve on your wound, as Anna said I must.”
Not a very big person to start with, Aleswina seemed to shrink as Caelym glared at her.
“So, if Annwr tells you what to do, I have nothing to say about whether I want it done or not?” Despite his rebellious tone, Caelym took the cup. He tried a mouthful, only to spit it out and bark, “Then what is it you have mixed that tastes so much like something you would be feeding to Annwr’s pig?”