Chapter 12
Chapter twelve
Ainfír
Adruid belongs on the road.
A druid belongs to the world.
They said one day he would grow up and go off, but the young druid could not bear to wait.
His hands were steady as he tied his bindle—filled with enough food to give him a start. Weeks he had spent planning, bargaining herbs to the Giver to laden his stock. No one had questioned him.
The wind jostling through the canopy made him shiver. Not of cold—he rarely was—but the voices it carried.
He tied the cloth satchel a little tighter.
Kneeling, he poured water over the firepit, and after gathering his sparse belongings, ducked his way out of the tent.
The camp slept. Midnight blinked through the tangled branches above, a million silver stars bobbing between.
Long had he imagined seeing the stars unhindered.
What would it be like to see them free? In the Arran Fáoth, the pines stood like embracing giants, and everywhere one looked was the endless green. It was all he had ever known.
And all he had come to fear.
Somewhere in the treetops, an owl cooed.
He gripped his staff and went quietly, making it to the edge of camp.
It had never crossed his mind that maybe he might regret leaving that place behind.
After all, that was the way of his kin. When a druid came of age, they were expected to begin their wandering—unless some ill or wound hindered them.
He, too, would have been sang away, come the year of his sixteenth birthday.
As he looked at the sprawl of tents in the waning hue of lantern light, he wondered if he should see it again.
Nothing might stop him save his aching ears, yet he felt this time was the last.
“To where do you roam so late at night?”
Startled, he glanced up, finding a woman watching him from under a knitted cowl. He had not heard her come up, though would recognize her voice even in the dark. She had nursed him long ago and given him his name. “Cerys” meant love.
He had never known hers.
She was called dáihe, which meant something like shepherd, but the children she herded weren’t encouraged to flock. Still, she knew them better than perhaps any other. Even long after they had left the breast.
“I want to go out and stand beneath the sky,” he said.
It was only half a lie.
“You are much too young yet, little one. You’ve still two years before your day shall come.” Her wrinkled face was honey-warm in the moonlight. “Gentle thing, I would have you stay till you are ready. Do not be in a hurry to grow up.”
But he was in a hurry. The forest wasn’t quiet anymore. He heard things in empty places. He saw things in the night.
Only one of those could he outrun.
As if she had heard his thought, she said, “Running from the song will not make it silent.”
“I am not running,” he said, “I am going; setting off upon my path. I wish not to go in ceremony, but now. Dear dáihe, won’t you listen?”
A tired expression captured her face, but in her eyes was understanding. “You have always been my little grey fleece. When the other bairns wept for their woes, you stayed a-hush and would have wasted away without careful watch.”
She smiled. It was tender, or so he supposed. But for years now he had grown far from comfort.
“I cannot stay here,” he whispered. “They frighten me.”
“Aye. And if you are frightened, it must be frightening.” Her earthy brown eyes cast out to the wood, twinkling with the gold of her lantern. “You know well he would not have wished you to live with ghosts.”
Yet, he did live with them. And they chased him endlessly. In the branches… in the boles. They called to him. He had to get away.
“I must go.”
Another nod. “Aye.”
“Ma bhuthír, dáihe,” he said with a bow. She let him go.
There was little druids felt in the way of attachment, but affection oft came in the shape of grace. To accept and to honor, to respect and live gently, that was the sound of their life.
In a way, he was afraid of the going, though he had set upon it with his whole heart. He feared the vast unfamiliar, but as his bare soles hit the path, he felt no regret. He decided he would travel west to the wychwood and make his way through the Everstretches, which he had never seen.
Thus, he embarked his first day alone beneath the sun with naught but his hope, and his staff, and his strong feet.
And the silence and the dreams followed him.
***
Three days passed with no word from the king.
After their confrontation at the kirk, the druid expected his sentence would be severe.
Indeed, the walls of that dark place seemed to close in.
Some days, he would watch the city from his tower up above.
Little people moving like tadpoles through a current of streets, unaware of his curious eyes following their mundane routines.
But the druid spent most of his time walking the castle—the places he could go, which were few and quiet. Rhyd-hal was far from unaware of his comings and goings, and ever confident in its abilities. It was a fortress built to keep people out—and to keep those within.
The hollow corridors were catacombs, pungent and stale. The closest he came to freedom was the cloister, where he could spend hours uninterrupted. He would leave his stockings and slippers on the staircase and crawl between the arches, letting his legs hang over the balustrade.
He observed the ravens that made homes there, and with time and bartering, they became good friends.
He would bring them shavings of wild apple and pie crust, and they would offer him gifts in return.
With one, in particular, he enjoyed a lovely courtship.
The druid had taken to calling him Ainfír, which meant nameless.
Ainfír was small compared to the others, and often slow to his supper.
The druid was keen to withhold at least one shaving in his pocket, just for him.
In the mornings, Ainfír would wait with presents of twigs and buttons.
“It’s very kindly of you,” the druid would say.
He would take them back to his room and keep them in the drawer beside his bed.
He did a great deal of idling, which is not to say his days before Rhyd-hal were busy, but a nomadic life was one of movement.
Now he felt lazy, to the point where he’d become ill with it.
He could not recall having ever been ill.
Aside from his dreams, his constitution was strong. Now here, of all places, it had failed.
By the fifth morning, no news had come still, and the druid awoke with a fever.
Halla fussed, bathing him down with cool cloths and wafting the room with meadowsweet.
He did not eat for two days and became thinner despite the maid’s best efforts to fatten him up.
In the evenings, she would prop the windows open, letting the brisk chill kiss his heated skin.
She would sit and rub his back with oil salves of mithwort.
He grew sleepy and relaxed as her gentle hands worked.
It reminded him of the days with his dáihe—the nursemaid who cared for him long ago. He could only suppose she cared, though he had never been hers. Nor had any of the others she had wetted. But she had held him gently and knew his heart. It made him wonder how it felt.
“Halla,” he whispered.
“Mm?”
“Have you no children of your own for whom to make soup and rub their backs?”
She laughed. “Aye, once, íridh. Once I had a wee bairn. Till ten winters he came to be, then took ill with the blood.”
His eyes lowered. “I am sorry.”
“Ah, the land—it call him back. But that was a long’n time ago.”
“Does it not still make you sad? Every day you come to me and smile. Even when you needn’t.”
There was a twinkle in her eye and a smile on her face.
“When my Tochan lay, barely a whisper on his lips, there came an earth shepherd from the wood. ’N he sat with my wee bab till his hours went dark.
Before he come, the bairn could only see ghosts, ’n I was scared he’d go’n alone.
But the shepherd take his hand, ’n he saw me there, one last time.
The auld singr let my bairn go to his grave in peace. Yer good people, íridh. I ken it be.”
“Did he give you that?” He nodded at the bone talisman around her neck.
“Aye, he did. ’N I kept it forty years!” She gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “What of ye, dear? Ye must miss your máta, away in the green.”
“Máta?” The word was foreign on his tongue. “I expect you mean the one who bore me.”
Halla frowned. “Is she not alive? Bless her name…”
How could he explain he knew not? That he could not recall her face, nor had ever spoken her name? “It is… not how things are done amongst my ilk.”
“Is it so?” Her brow crinkled. “Ye’ve not been raised by she?”
He shook his head.
“Do ye ken her?”
Another shake.
“Ye must have a nurse, or the like? Some family?”
“I was reared by many. I belonged to all—and no one.”
Twelve years upon the road, he had seen enough to know—families looked different to him.
He had been raised by the young; he had been raised by the old.
By men and women and the trees. The wind sang his lullabies, and the dirt marked his first steps.
Only lightly did hands ever hold him. But children of the west were hugged and kissed.
They were told stories, like he was told stories, but theirs had many happy endings.
Perhaps that was the difference between him and them. And not the fire that split their world.
Warmth did not make its home in his bones. Affection was strange. He did not know what it meant to be held and called beloved. And he did not think he ever could.
“Poor dear,” Halla said. “Ye be far from home.”
“A druid belongs on the road,” he whispered. “A druid belongs to the world.”
He was being forced to exchange one creed for another, and his body bent beneath his shame. He shivered uncontrollably. She pulled the sweat-damp shawl around his shoulders.
“Suppose it isnae right…” the old maid said, pity painting her face. “To take a thing like ye from its rightful place.”
“I—” But a coughing fit came over him, and specks of blood flecked the linen.
Halla gasped, clutching at him. “Tis a foulness got into you! Aye now, aye now, just breathe!”
His chest ached, each drag of breath painful and wet. She dabbed at his dampening brow.
“A sickness of the soul,” she muttered, blue eyes narrowed in thought. “Ye need the wind and good raw earth.”
She rose then, bustled to the door, and cracked it open to peer outside. Finding no prying ears, she returned to his side and whispered, “In a few days, there will be a feast for the big’n. It will be busiest then, ’n no one should see.”
“See?” The druid frowned.
She hushed him. “When everyone has gone for the party, I’ll come for ye.”
Slowly, he made sense of her words. “Halla… you mustn’t involve yourself in this matter.”
She stroked back his hair, and for a moment, he was certain she saw another face in his. “A great kindness was shown to me long ago. I ought repay it.”
He shook his head, grasping desperately at her hand, “Please listen, do not do anything foolish!”
The coughs shook him again.
“Oh! Look at yourself! It is foul ye be kept like barn stock! This is what’s come of it!”
“My freedom is not worth your life.”
“Is it nae what you wish? To return to yer work?”
“Of course, but I… I was free, and they found me so. Would they not find me again?”
“Then we will be more clever! Ye’ve got to try, íridh. Yer wastin’ away! I cannae bear to see ye so poorly!”
His knuckles ached where they curled against the shawl. “Do you think me pathetic?” he murmured.
She smiled. “I think ye stubborn, but two can play at that. Yer ilk are like stones in water—strong even as they’re carried downstream. But sometimes, aye, sometimes ye must fight. Let me help ye, íridh.”
He did not like the idea of running and thought her romantic notions of escape would shatter when put to the test. Yet… he allowed himself to imagine.
“Halla, are you… sure about this?” he asked.
“I’m sure what’s right,” she answered. “That’s enough for me.”
The druid averted his gaze, unable to look her in the eye.
What’s right…?
He had strayed from that path long ago.