The Romance of Eowain

Chapter Eighteen Scene Forty-Eight

        Eowain put his hands to his head, squeezed at his firmly shut eyes. Where am I now? He wondered what had happened to his swim in the river.

He blinked open his eyes. Candlelight warmed the air. He lay in a narrow cell upon one of two reed mat beds. At the foot of each bed was a wooden chest. In his hand, he clutched a rawhide leather pouch.

Medyr sat on one of the chests, puffing at his clay pipe. He smiled at Eowain. "Well? Aren't you coming, Your Grace?"

Eowain squinted at his old mentor. "Coming where?"

"We have an appointment at the hot-house springs."

Eowain rubbed his head. His hair was damp. "Who is we?"

"Your bridal party, Your Grace."

"Is there going to be a wedding?"

"Yes, Your Grace. Yours, Your Grace."

He rubbed at his forehead. "Oh. That thing?"

Medyr smiled again at him. "Yes, Your Grace. That thing."

"We're still doing that?"

Medyr nodded. "Yes, Your Grace." He sniffed. "We're still doing that."

Eowain rubbed at his face with both hands. "She's said as much?"

"Well, not in my hearing, Your Grace, but I assure you—."

Eowain squeezed his sound, meaty left fist around the pouch in his hand. "Don't assure me. Go find her. I'll hear it from her own lips, or we'll have none of it."

The grave face of his minister looked disquieted. "Aye, Your Grace." Medyr retreated.

Eowain closed his eyes again.

Had it all been a dream? He felt no pain in his leg, no burning in his cheek. What did they do to me?

Lorcán arrived to report. He sat close and told Eowain of how he and the men of Droma had finally broken the bandits with their cavalry charge, how they'd found their king slumped over the body of Tnúthgal and borne him up out of the forest.

Then he whispered to Eowain of the nine priestesses that had met them at the top of the pass to the Vale and taken Eowain away into the hill under the circle of standing stones. "That's where you are now, Brother, in the temple complex beneath the sacred hill. They've given over one of the chambers of the priestesses to you."

"What happened? Was I—?" Eowain felt well, better than he'd felt in many a year in fact. But he knew the injuries and wounds he'd suffered had been grave. "Was I dead?"

Lorcán shook his head. "Not quite. That's what the High-Priestess said, though you could have fooled us when we hauled you out of the forest. You were barely breathing, your face was purple. You had a terrible black swelling in your arm, here." Gently, he touched Eowain's left bicep.

There was no mark there from Cael's envenomed blade. Not even a scar. "Then how...? How did they restore me?"

Lorcán shuddered. "I don't know, Brother." His voice was ghastly. "I wish I knew." He clenched his maimed half-hand. "But— I'm sorry, I just don't know."

"What time is it? What day?"

"Evening approaches. It will be Cétshamain Day when the sun sets."

There was a knock on the door, a novitiate priestess with soup and fresh bread for him. Eowain sat up and spooned it hungrily to his lips.

Lorcán rested his hand on his brother's arm as he ate. "But tell me, what happened down there?"

It was easily done, and soon Eowain had told all of it: the swarm of vermin, the burning crock of vitriol, the death of the scout, Corvac. The courage of the merchant, the acolyte, and the Foreigner mercenary. Even the strange matter of the sorcerer rising as from the dead with a hole in his chest where his heart should have been.