The Oath

by A. M. Linden

  When she was little, Aleswina had always fallen asleep along with Gwendolwn and the baby bear, but now, determined not to let Caelym think that she was pretending to be asleep, she stayed sitting upright and pretending to be awake even though her mind was dozing off, and she actually paid no attention at all as Caelym and Annwr began talking about how to disguise themselves and where to go next. The last thing she heard before falling truly and completely asleep was Annwr saying, “So how are we to find them?” and Caelym answering, “I have a map.”

  Chapter 33

  The Map

  “And might you be willing to share this map or is it for your eyes only?”

  Although this was phrased as what for Annwr was a civil inquiry, Caelym understood it was not a question but a command, and he answered accordingly. “I have been but waiting for the right moment.”

  If he’d been standing, he would have bowed, but as it was, he contented himself with a dignified nod and turned to open the flaps of the battered backpack that was nestled as close to his side as Aleswina was to Annwr’s. The leather satchel he drew out was even more scraped and stained than the outer bag, but it had belonged to Olyrrwd, the shrine’s master physician, who had bequeathed it to Caelym with his final breath. It contained Caelym’s most precious possessions—his healing implements and amulets, the golden pendant that had been Feywn’s gift to him when she named him her consort, and the map showing the path he must follow to find his sons.

  He pulled out a roll of parchment wrapped in a layer of kid-skin, undid the ties, and spread it against his knees. Not so much as a drop of water had reached it and its inscriptions remained as distinct and clear as the day it was drawn by none other than—

  But Annwr could see for herself!

  He held it out before her and watched with no small satisfaction as her eyes opened wide and her mouth gaped.

  As Caelym guessed, Annwr recognized both the map’s meaning and its maker.

  Only the very highest of the priests of their order had access to ink and parchment. Of those who did, their oracle would have cast himself off the top of his tower before he would have written his prophecies down for someone to read later and compare them with what actually came to pass, and their physician’s scrawl of symbols and hatch marks were barely comprehensible even to his apprentice.

  The elaborately illustrated parchment that Caelym held out like a sacred offering could only be the work of their chief priest and master bard.

  With the embers in their firepit crackling and flickering like a smaller version of the hearth in the shrine’s great hall, Annwr could almost hear Herrwn strumming his gold-inlaid harp and singing his ancient sagas. Just for a moment, she felt a nearly unbearable longing to listen to him bringing those tales to life again. The lingering feelings of reverence she harbored for the shrine’s master bard, however, were dwarfed by her recollection that Herrwn, with his mind forever caught up in the past, could get lost going from his bedroom to the dining hall—and it was dismay rather than awe that flashed across her face when she realized that a map he’d drawn was all that Caelym had to find his lost children.

  “So . . .” She spoke carefully, using much the same tone of voice as she’d use to ask a child to tell her what a jumble of squiggles scratched in the mud was meant to be. “Tell me about this map and how it shows us the way to where your boys are.”

  After naming one after another of the main figures and symbols and explaining how each served as a warning to him of the dangers he was destined to encounter on his quest to find his beloved sons, Caelym pointed to a small sketch of a horse-drawn cart and a cluster of sheep near what Annwr had taken to a be patch of oversized mushrooms but was, it turned out, Herrwn’s depiction of the peasant huts of Benyon’s sheepherding kinsmen.

  “See, here is the village where Benyon’s kinsmen live, grazing their sheep in lush meadows and rowing their boats on a river abounding with shoals of fish and flocks of waterfowl.”

  “And do you know the name of this village or of Benyon’s kinsmen?”

  Caelym shrugged. “He said it is a village where they raise sheep and it is on the road between the mountains and the eastern sea.”

  “Which road?”

  “Is there more than one?”

  “There are . . .” Annwr bit down on her lip to stop herself from shouting at him, There are a dozen roads and a hundred villages and thousands of sheepherders in Atheldom, so tell me how this map is going show you where to find your sons!

  Caelym’s next words, “Benyon told us his kinsmen’s village was in Atheldom, and we are in Atheldom! We must be almost there!” came out sounding like a plea.

  Hearing the anguish in his voice, Annwr didn’t tell him how hopeless she knew his search to be; nor did she reveal her growing suspicion that the man he’d sent off with his two sons and a pouch of silver and gold coins to pay their keep might not want to be found. Instead, she reached out her hand. “Give me the map, and I will see what I can make of it.”

  As she pretended to study the map, Annwr was actually thinking that there was only one pass that a wagon could travel over the mountain ridge separating Derthwald from Atheldom. And she was fairly certain that from there the road went around the east side of the forest, crossed over the river, and reached to a small village before it branched off in different directions. While the travelers she’d listened to had grumbled about the swill that the village innkeeper served for ale, it had been clear that they all stopped at his inn to drink it.

  If she was right about that, then there was only one route Benyon and the boys could have taken into Atheldom, and Benyon, being a man with money in his pouch, would have stopped there too. While it went without saying that he would not have given either his own or the boys’ real names, there was at least a chance that the innkeeper would recall them and remember which way they’d gone—especially since, never having been outside Llwddawanden before, their dress or behavior likely would have seemed odd to a Saxon villager.

  As she rolled up the map and handed it back, she told Caelym what she’d been thinking, leaving out her qualms about Benyon’s loyalty. Caelym didn’t argue, but he had little to offer that helped. They’d taken every precaution to be sure no one would take notice of either Benyon or the boys—seeing to it that they were dressed in the most ordinary of outsiders’ clothing, cautioning the boys to speak only to Benyon and say nothing of their life in Llwddawanden. As to the risk of Benyon giving away his true identity through his speech or manners, Caelym said, “He has for years gone on missions for us in the outside world without ever being discovered.”

  Listening to Caelym’s account, a dark cloud of hopelessness settled over Annwr. What chance was there that anyone would remember a nondescript, middle-aged Celt passing through two years before?

  “So there is nothing special about Benyon that anyone would notice or remember?” she pressed only to have him shake his head.

  “As I have said, he is of ordinary height and appearance. His hair is brown. His eye is brown . . .”

  There was something amiss in Caelym’s usage, as if his struggles with English were affecting his Celt. Annwr’s correction was only half-conscious. “His eyes are brown.”

  “No, his eye is brown. He has only one—the other was lost accidentally when he stood too close behind as the shrine’s chief cook was pulling the skewer from a roasted lamb.”

  While Caelym went on describing how deftly Olyrrwd had removed the punctured and deflated eyeball, Annwr felt a glimmer of hope. A one-eyed man would be memorable, however ordinary he was in every other respect. After agreeing that Olyrrwd was a master of his art, she eased back to lying down and drifted off into an odd dream of walking along a forest path holding hands with Herrwn, who was wearing a monk’s robe and telling her the story of Gwendolwn and the honey tree.

  Chapter 34

  Changing Clothes

  Aleswina woke up to the sound of the birds twittering softly in the nearby bushes. Her ears and the
tip of her nose were cold but the rest of her was warm, snuggled close to Annwr with a thick blanket tucked tight around them. She lay still, not praying exactly, but wishing with all her heart that she could stay exactly like this forever.

  Too soon, she heard a rustle from across the hearth, and then the snapping of dry branches. A whiff of wood smoke and the crackle of burning twigs meant Caelym was up and rekindling the campfire. As his footsteps crunched off down the mossy stone path to the river, Annwr stirred and whispered, “Wake up, Dear Heart, it’s morning and there’s much to do.”

  And there was.

  By the time Caelym returned with fish for breakfast, Annwr was pulling things out of the packs, talking half to herself and half to Aleswina as she sorted them into piles—“Where is that wooden bowl? I know I packed it. There it is. Now, where is that other cross . . .”

  After a hurried meal, Annwr handed Caelym the robe, scapula, and cowl she’d gotten from the village seamstress in exchange for her last keg of elderberry wine. “Go make yourself into a monk!” she ordered, pointing to the bushes. Then she turned to Aleswina.

  Annwr didn’t need Caelym to tell her that traveling with a girl fitting Aleswina’s description would bring guards swarming faster than flies to a corpse. She had already thought of that, and of what to do about it.

  In the early days of her captivity, she had planned to escape dressed as a boy and had secretly sewn herself a shirt, tunic, and pair of pants modeled on what she’d seen the cook’s son wearing. On the off-chance that there was some truth to Caelym’s tale of climbing up and down mountains on his way from Llwddawanden, she’d packed them for the journey. Now they were laid out and ready along with the scissors from her sewing kit.

  “Go make yourself into a monk!” Not a bishop or some other high priest but only some low-ranking one—Caelym could tell that much from the crude, drab garments Annwr had given him. He grumbled over the affront as he followed the narrow deer path away from their campsite, down and around the pond, then up again along the edge of a trickling stream and into a fern grotto where a spring of crystal-clear water burbled out of a natural stone basin. Stepping into what was unmistakably a sacred place, his petty irritations fell away and he cleared his mind of everything except the task before him.

  Whatever Annwr might think, making himself a monk was no mere matter of stripping off his own clothes and putting on another man’s. Entering into the priesthood of a god who demanded that he be worshiped before all others, even temporarily, required gaining dispensation from the goddess to whom Caelym had already made this same promise—and to do so in a way that did not offend either deity. Carefully balancing his evocations to the goddess (and reminding her that it was her sons as well as his that he was doing this for) with his avowals of service to the god (being cautious to avoid any specific time commitment), he raised his arms out to each in turn, and, for good measure, scooped up water from the spring and cast it around in recognition of all the greater and lesser denizens, both known and unknown, of the ordinary and the spirit worlds. Only then did he exchange his clothes for the monk’s robes, hang the wooden cross around his neck, and start back towards camp.

  It was no surprise to Annwr that Caelym took as long as he did to change clothes.

  “He’s Rhedwyn all over again and will be half the morning preening himself!”

  “He will!” Aleswina agreed, not knowing who Rhedwyn was but sure Annwr was right anyway.

  They were sitting together on the bank overlooking the river, putting the final touches on their own disguises after taking turns cutting each other’s hair—Annwr’s to fit the part of a fully ordained nun and Aleswina’s to look like a boy instead of a girl. Annwr had dyed Aleswina’s remaining hair dark brown with a slurry of ashes and alder bark tea and had mixed a bit of the leftover tea with dirt that she rubbed over Aleswina’s face and neck before helping her change clothes. With Aleswina dressed in pants and Annwr wearing Aleswina’s habit, the two were ready to pass as an elderly nun and a youthful boy.

  “The river will be leaving the forest soon and coming to a bridge with a tollkeeper, and border guards too, like as not.” Refining her plans as she said them out loud, Annwr muttered, “So maybe the thing to do would be to wait until nightfall and slip past like we did through Fenwick.”

  Aleswina nodded vigorously in agreement and was ready to jump up and start gathering brush to cover over the boat, only Annwr went on, “No! We’d do better to stop before the bridge and cross openly in broad daylight. That way we’re just pilgrims traveling on foot from Derthwald, and no one will have any cause to wonder how we could appear at the tavern without being remembered crossing the bridge.”

  “What about our packs?” Aleswina asked, an anxious look on her face.

  “The monks that I’ve seen don’t carry anything except their staff and their begging bowls. So we’ll hide them in the woods and pick them up when we come back.”

  “After Caelym has found his little boys.”

  “Yes, Dear Heart, after Caelym has found his little boys.” Annwr tried to sound certain about what she knew to be a vanishingly small chance. But some chance or none, they had to try, and she shifted to muttering, “Now how much money will we need for the bridge toll and our fare at the tavern?”

  When she’d packed Aleswina’s cache of coins and jewels, it had seemed to Annwr like more than they’d ever need, but now she recalled the trader and merchants from Atheldom complaining about the high cost of the bridge and road tolls and innkeepers overcharging for their meals. Wishing she’d asked what they had to pay, she emptied the pouch on a cloth and set the jewelry aside. Making separate stacks of the three denominations, she counted out what they had. It came to seven gold coins, thirty-two silver ones, and forty-nine copper ones.

  Seeing Aleswina looking uncomprehendingly at the coins and realizing that she’d have to learn what money was worth, Annwr pointed to the gold coins. “Those are called scillingas and they are each worth the price of five cows.”

  Aleswina nodded, impressed.

  “These silver ones are sceattas. They are each worth a sheep.”

  “Just one sheep?” Aleswina asked.

  “Just one. And these copper ones are penings. They are each worth a chicken.”

  “What if you want to buy something else?”

  “That, Dear Heart, is what bargaining is for. If you want something you think is worth as much as three chickens, you offer the person who’s selling it two penings and expect that they will say you have to pay four. Then you say you don’t want it that much, and they will groan and say you drive a hard bargain and give it to you for three and you will both be happy.”

  She put the gold coins in a sock with the jewelry and put the sock into her pack, slipped the silver and copper back into the pouch and tied the pouch to her belt. “It’s what we have, so it will have to be enough.”

  “We have the gold and jewelry too.”

  “But those are dangerous to flash about and are best kept well hidden, especially from . . .”

  “From?” Aleswina asked when Annwr didn’t finish her sentence.

  “From anyone we meet.” Not wanting to worry Aleswina any more than necessary, Annwr kept her suspicions of Benyon to herself. “So, Dear Heart, we’ll hope the toll keeper gives us a reduced fare for being . . . pilgrims on our way to Rome.” Nodding to herself, she went on. “Once we’re across the bridge, we’ll go to the tavern and try to find out whether anyone there recalls Benyon and the two boys. Only we will need to have some story to explain why a monk on a pilgrimage would want to find a one-eyed sheepherder.”

  “Maybe . . .” Aleswina started and then fell silent again.

  Annwr pondered, then brightened. “Instead of a pilgrimage, I will say that our monk is on a mission for the bishop to find a one-eyed sheepherder whose name he does not know, but who may have passed this way two years ago in a horse cart with his two sons because . . . because—”

  “But that it’s a se
cret mission, and we can say no more!” Aleswina cried, looking pleased with herself for thinking of such a good excuse. She positively glowed when Annwr said, smiling, “That is the perfect answer, Dear Heart!”

  “Now our next worry”—Annwr’s smile turned into a frown—“is what Caelym will say.”

  “He can recite Psalm Twenty-three and Psalm Fifty-one—”

  “Phsst!” Annwr made the snorting sound she usually reserved for Christian dogma. “And then, like as not, he’ll go dancing around the room singing a hymn to the Goddess! No, we must not let Caelym say anything at all! I will tell everyone that he has taken a vow of silence, and that you are his serving boy who speaks for him—and if he opens his mouth, you must speak before he does!”

  “But—”

  “Don’t you worry about keeping Caelym quiet—I’ll take care of that. What you must remember is that you are now a boy and must act like one! Don’t say more than you have to and keep your voice low. If you don’t understand what’s being said, just assume that it is vulgar and laugh as loudly as you can. And if you think anyone doubts you, do something a man would do—spit on the floor or scratch between your legs!”

  “Spit on the floor or scratch between my legs,” Aleswina repeated in a low voice, looking at Annwr to be sure she’d gotten it right.

  “That’s very good, Dear Heart! So then, there will likely just be men in the front room, and you will need to stay there with Caelym and ask our questions while I slip off to the kitchen to learn what I can from the gossip there.” Seeing Aleswina’s eyes widen in alarm, she added, “You need not worry, Dear Heart, for, as I have said, there will only be men around you and as men talk far more than they listen, once you have them started it will just take a grunt to keep them going. Can you do this for me?”