The Druid's Disciple, Part One
A Short Story in Three Parts
While readers familiar with the second book of The Druid Chronicles will recognize several of the events described in this short story, The Druids’ Disciple is written from the titular character’s point of view, beginning on Caelym’s sixth birthday when he leaves the nursery where he’s been indulged by a doting servant to enter his formal training for the highest order of his cult’s priesthood.
It was early in the morning and still dark in the nursery, but its occupant, a skinny boy with curly black hair, was sitting up, galloping his stuffed toy horse up and down the mountain he’d made with a blanket over his knees. At the sound of footsteps, he dropped the toy, letting it tumble over the edge of the bed as he pulled the covers up to his chin and closed his eyes.
The iron latch clicked and the door creaked open. Caelym kept pretending to be asleep as Nonna tiptoed in, laid out his hot milk and porridge on his little table and went over to blow on the embers in the hearth so the room would be warm when he got up. He didn’t care about getting cold, but he didn’t want to spoil his birthday surprise so he stayed still, hardly breathing, until she said in her soft morning voice, “Oh Caelym, Most-Beloved, it is time to wake up. Your breakfast is ready.” When she added, “After you eat and have your bath and put on your new robes, it will be time—” he threw off his blanket, leaped out of bed, and shouted, “I want to go now!”
“After breakfast and your bath and we put on your new robes.” Nonna repeated, pulling a rag out of her sleeve and dabbing at her eyes. Not wanting her to cry on his birthday, he said, “You can ride my pony after I do.”
“What pony?” Nonna looked at him as if she didn’t understand, so he explained, “The pony I’m going to get today for my birthday—my gift!”
If he had been a girl, Caelym would have remained in the women’s quarters, growing up there in expectation of becoming their cult’s chief priestess as his mother had been prior to dying in the moments following his birth.
If he had been a girl, Caelym would have remained in the women’s quarters, growing up there in expectation of becoming their cult’s chief priestess as his mother had been prior to dying in the moments following his birth. Instead, it was always assumed that he would leave the nursery on his sixth birthday to begin the formal training that would lead to his entrance into the highest ranks of their priesthood. For male children born to the elite caste of Druids serving in the Shrine of the Great Mother Goddess in the sacred valley of Llwddawanden this was viewed as the greatest possible destiny, and was reverently referred to as their gift—resulting in Caelym’s misunderstanding that by ‘gift’ they’d meant something he really wanted.
“No! No! No! I’m not going! You can’t make me!” Gripping the bed post with one hand and clutching the two parts of Whinnie with the other, Caelym kicked with both feet to make Nonna let go of him, but she just kept saying, “Stop that! You are a big boy now and you have to learn to be a Druid!” even though he was shouting as loud as he could, “I don’t want to be a Druid! Druids are stupid! I hate Druids!”
Fighting with all his might, he wouldn’t let her give him a bath or change his clothes or put on his sandals, but she wouldn’t let go. One by one, she pried his fingers loose from the bed and picked him up—still in his nightshirt, still struggling and screaming—and carried him out of his nursery, past the door to the room where the priestesses had their secret meetings, out through the gardens where they grew their healing herbs, up a steep stone stairway, and along a curving corridor until they came to an enormous arched doorway with trees as big as real ones carved in the doors.
“Shhh—you must be quiet and be a good boy!” Nonna said in the nervous voice she used when the important priestesses came to the nursery to make sure that she was taking proper care of him.
“I won’t be qui—” He started to yell, but then the trees split apart as the doors swung open and out from between them came three men wearing long robes and carrying wooden staffs, two of them very tall and one very short. As the men surrounded him, Caelym panicked. Breaking free from Nonna, he started to run down the hall but the tallest one grabbed him by the back of his nightshirt. The next thing he knew he was dangling in the air, his legs flailing, and the Druid was shouting at him to be quiet.
No one—not even the most important priestesses—had ever shouted at Caelym.
Outrage overtook fear.
“You be quiet!” He shouted back and swung himself feet first at his captor.
The Druid gave a loud OOF and let go.
Caelym landed hard on his bottom with his feet still kicking so that he scooted backwards and, before anyone else could grab him. he skidded between their legs and would have escaped only he couldn’t see where he was going and instead of getting away he pushed himself into the Druids’ room, ending up with his back pressed against the farthest wall.
It was a huge room, bigger than Caelym’s nursery and its garden put together. Looking around, he saw an open window. If he got up and ran fast, he could jump out and get away but, by the time he thought of this plan, it was too late. The other two Druids had already come and had him cornered. The tall one started talking, telling him, “Do not weep,” when he wasn’t crying.
He stuck out his lip and gripped the two parts of Whinny harder.
The short Druid squatted down and said, “Your horse is hurt. What happened?” in a voice that was low and grumbly and sounded so much like the good dwarf in Nonna’s bedtime stories that Caelym answered, “Nonna said that I had to go and learn to be a Druid, and I couldn't ever come back! But Whinnie didn’t want to go! He was hiding under the bed, and I was getting him! Then Nonna said I had to stop playing and hurry! But I wasn't playing! Whinnie was stuck!” Stopping to take a breath, he turned an accusatory glare at Nonna—only to see her vanishing down the hallway, leaving him all alone.
The short Druid made an understanding uh-hum sound and asked, “What happened then?”
“, , ,Nonna said that I had to go and learn to be a Druid, and I couldn't ever come back! But Whinnie didn’t want to go! He was hiding under the bed, and I was getting him!”
“Then Nonna said to come or I couldn’t learn to be a Druid! But I told her I don’t want to be a Druid! But she said I had to, so come now! And then she said I was too old to play with Whinnie anymore, and I should leave him for the new baby! But Whinnie doesn’t like babies! And I told him he had to come and I pulled him and I pulled him and he came apart!”
Instead of pleading with Caelym not to get upset or promising to get him another toy (which he wouldn’t have wanted anyway because Whinnie wasn’t just a toy, he was Caelym’s best friend), the short Druid put out his hand with his palm up. “May I see?”
Caelym held the two parts of Whinnie tighter.
The short Druid kept his hand out and said, “I am a healer and it is my job to tend to those who are ill or injured, but if I am to help, I must first see what is wrong.”
Caelym looked at the short Druid. Then he looked at the pieces of Whinnie. Then he looked at the short Druid again.
“Promise you’ll give him back!”
“I promise.”
Biting down on his lip, Caelym held out the bigger piece of Whinnie—the part with his head and neck and front legs and most of his body—and then, slowly, one finger at a time, he opened his left fist and held out the rest.
The short Druid took the two parts of Whinnie, put them together, took them apart, and put them together again, all the while making more hums.
Caelym watched, ready to snatch Whinnie back.
Finally, the short Druid spoke in a serious and solemn sounding voice.
“I can heal him, but I will need you to be my assistant.” With that he handed both parts of Whinnie back to Caelym and walked across the room to a table with three chairs.
Caelym didn’t know what an assistant was, but it sounded important so he followed the short Druid, watching his every move as he took a bulging leather bag off a shelf and began to take things out of it—a sack stuffed with sheep’s wool and a scissors and some needles and a spool of thread. After he put all those things on the table, he pulled out one of the chairs for Caelym to sit on and he sat down on another one. Then he threaded one of the needles and held it up, looking at Caelym.
Caelym wiped his nose with the back part of Whinnie and whispered, “Will it hurt?”
“Perhaps, just a little, so you must hold him very still.”
Bracing his elbows on the table and telling Whinnie not to cry, Caelym held Whinnie’s parts together while the Druid stuffed the fluffy sheep’s wool into him and sewed him back together so that he could stand up even straighter and better than he did before.
Suddenly Caelym liked this Druid very much, so he said, “You can play with him,” adding, “But you have to give him back.”
The short Druid smiled, said “Thank you,” and then said, “My name is Olyrrwd, what’s yours? Caelym smiled back and said, “Caelym.”
Caelym had forgotten about the other two Druids, but suddenly the one who’d grabbed him and swung him in the air made a rude snorting noise and said he was going to go to his tower to propitiate the spirits and divine how best to make amends for Caelym’s transgressions. . .
Caelym had forgotten about the other two Druids, but suddenly the one who’d grabbed him and swung him in the air made a rude snorting noise and said he was going to go to his tower to propitiate the spirits and divine how best to make amends for Caelym’s transgressions, and went stamping out of the room, slamming the two big doors behind him.
While Caelym didn’t know what a transgression was, he was sure he didn’t have one, and he was going to say so, only Olyrrwd said “Never mind, he always talks like that,” and he handed Whinny to Caelym, led him over to the other tall Druid, and said, “Caelym, this is Herrwn, he is very wise and he tells good stories.”
Herrwn was very old and his knees creaked as he knelt down and asked, “Does Whinnie like stories?”
Whinnie did, but Caelym wasn’t sure he was going to say so. Instead of answering, he looked at Olyrrwd and pointed at the door and asked, “Who was that?”
Olyrrwd took a deep breath—the way Nonna did when she was going to say what she was supposed to say instead of what she really meant.
“That was Ossiam. “He tells us he can see the future.”
“Did he know I was going to kick him?”
“That is a very good question!”
Olyrrwd smiled a big smile at Caelym—who felt very proud that he’d asked it—but before he found out what the answer was, there were running steps outside and pounding on the doors, and a servant came in. Not waiting for the Druids to say that it was all right to speak, he cried, “There's been an accident at the archery practice and they need you,” and, without asking if Caelym wanted to come and be his assistant again, Olyrrwd scooped up the things from the table, shoved them into his bag, and ran out of the door—leaving him alone with Herrwn who said, “Would you, um, I mean, would Whinnie like me to tell him a story,” and Caelym had an idea. He would pretend to be sleepy and Herrwn would tell him a story and then he would pretend to fall asleep and Herrwn would put him to bed for a nap and go do something else and he would climb out the window and find one of the important priestesses and he would tell her that Druids didn’t know how to take care of him and she would take him back to his nursery and tell Nonna that he had to stay there until he was a hundred years old.
Looking up at Herrwn and making the sweet please-say-yes face that always worked when he wanted Nonna to give him another honey-cake or to let him keep playing after she told him it was time to stop, Caelym said in a pretend-sleepy voice, “Whinnie loves stories.”
. . . .pulling his knees up and resting his cheek against Whinnie, Caelym pretended he was falling asleep as Herrwn was telling him how, long ago, before the feud began between men and animals and we could all still talk to each other, there was a herd of wonderful wild horses that lived in a beautiful green valley. . . .
Instead of putting him to bed—and, too late, Caelym realized there wasn’t any bed in the whole room, just wooden tables and chairs carved with curly vines and dancing animals and shelves filled with peculiar looking things—Herrwn took him by the hand and went over to a big chair by the hearth and lifted him onto his lap. It was not soft and cozy like Nonna's lap but, pulling his knees up and resting his cheek against Whinnie, Caelym pretended he was falling asleep as Herrwn was telling how, long ago, before the feud began between men and animals and we could all still talk to each other, there was a herd of wonderful wild horses that lived in a beautiful green valley high in the mountains with their king, a wise stallion who could run faster than birds could fly and jump higher than a mountain and who could not be ridden by anyone who was not as wise as he was. . . .
The plan was working! Herrwn kept telling his story and didn’t notice when Caelym got off his lap and climbed up on the ledge of the window.
Instead of flowers and a little pool like in his nursery garden, there was a valley with a lake in the middle and forests around the lake and mountains above the forests. Just as he was getting ready to jump down to the ground, a herd of horses came running out of the forest and the fastest one of all was Whinnie who’d grown up to be a real horse (but he could tell it was Whinnie because of the stitches where Olyrrwd had sewed him together), so instead, Caelym jumped onto Whinnie’s back and they galloped off with all the other horses following after them, up the mountain to the edge of a cliff.
For a moment Caelym was afraid, but then Whinnie leaped into the air with all the other horses leaping after him and then Whinnie and the other horses turned into birds and so did Caelym and they were all flying together and racing each other around the clouds, while, very far off in the distance, he could hear Nonna calling his name and telling him he had to come down and be a Druid.
By the time Caelym woke up from his nap, Olyrrwd was back and needed his help catching tadpoles in the lake, and when they got back they had to put the tadpoles in a bowl and feed them bread crumbs and put the bowl in a sunny spot on the window ledge where they could watch them grow up into frogs. After that, Caelym got to put his toys, including Whinnie, up on the shelves with the important Druid things and by the time Olyrrwd tucked him into bed that night and Herrwn told him another story he’d forgotten all about running away.
The next day began what Caelym would always remember as the happiest time of his life. He woke up early to find Olyrrwd already dressed and waiting for him, and they went back to the lake to learn about skipping stones, and then they went into the forest where they turned over rocks to see what lived underneath them, and then they climbed trees to see baby birds in their nests—and that was just before breakfast. After breakfast they went to the healing chambers, and he helped Olyrrwd pound herbs and stir potions that would make sick people get well until it was time to eat again. Then he had his afternoon lesson with Herrwn, who gave him a little gilded harp all of his own, and taught him to sing real, important songs, not just the baby ones that Nonna had sung. Then, after supper, Herrwn told him another story about animals that could talk, and he fell asleep feeling warm and happy.
Caelym had always known that he had a mother, Caelendra, who’d been the shrine’s high priestess and Goddess until he was born, but then she had to go back to the other world because it was the new high priestess’s turn to be the Goddess—but no one had ever said anything about him having a father.
As he grew older, Caelym’s lessons got more and more interesting, and the tales Herrwn told him got more and more exciting—no longer just silly children’s stories, but thrilling tales of mortal heroes who battled sea monsters and giants to win the love of beautiful goddesses, and about how jealous rivals betrayed the heroes, tricking them into traps to be killed by demons or dragons or poisonous serpents and then the goddesses who loved the heroes would turn them into gods, and take them off to live into the next world. And that was how, one night, just as he was about to fall asleep, he realized that he had a father.
Caelym had always known that he had a mother, Caelendra, who’d been the shrine’s high priestess and Goddess until he was born, but then she had to go back to the other world because it was the new high priestess’s turn to be the Goddess—but no one had ever said anything about him having a father. As Herrwn finished his story, and was saying, “And so She lifted Her beloved Elderond up in Her arms and carried him into the sky in a golden chariot drawn by three silver-winged horses,” but before he could say, “And now the time for stories is done and the time for sleep is come,” Caelym asked, “How did my father die?”
Herrwn didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally, after clearing his throat, humming an odd sort of hum and clearing his throat again, he said, “If you are old enough to ask that question, then you are old enough to have an answer.” Then he paused again, cleared his throat for a third time, and said, “You know that you were born on the day of the spring equinox.”
Caelym nodded.
“And you know that the spring equinox comes nine months after the night of the summer solstice.”
Caelym nodded again.
“Ah, that is good. So now I will tell you that long ago, before there were men or women, the earth was very beautiful, just as it is now, but it was also very lonely, so, on the night of the summer solstice, the Earth-Goddess sang and danced with the Sun-God and nine months later, on the day of the spring equinox, she gave birth to the first of her mortal children, a boy and a girl who were our people's ancestors. And that is why, when it happens that a high priestess feels the urge. . .that is. . .when, in her infinite wisdom, she decides that there is a man who is worthy to start a child within her, then, according to our custom, she may celebrate the sacred summer solstice ritual as the Great Mother Goddess did all those many years ago."
Herrwn had been talking in the measured, solemn voice that he used when he was teaching his most serious lessons, but then, all in one breath, he said, “And so it was that on one summer solstice your mother did choose such a man who chanted the ancient chant, turning himself into a god for that one night, and, together, they sang the sacred songs and danced the sacred dance so that you could be born.”
“What happened to him after that?”
“He returned to being what he was before—a mortal like the rest of us.”
“Is he dead?”
“No, he lives and is both happy and proud to have been chosen to sing and dance with the Goddess, your mother.”
“Then who—” but before Caelym could finish his question, Herrwn said, “Who he is in this world does not matter for he was not himself when he was singing and dancing with the Goddess.
“Who is he now?”
“Now,” Herrwn said, standing up and leaning over to straighten Caelym’s blankets, “The time for stories is done and the time for sleep is come.”
After Herrwn finished tucking him in and went off to eat his night-time meal with all the other priests and priestesses, Caelym got out of bed and slipped through the curtain between the bedroom and the dressing chamber where there was a polished bronze mirror hanging on the wall above his head. He pulled a stool over and climbed up on it to look at himself.
The thin, dark-haired boy in the mirror reminded him of someone, not Herrwn or Olyrrwd, but someone he had seen somewhere.
The thin, dark-haired boy in the mirror reminded him of someone, not Herrwn or Olyrrwd, but someone he had seen somewhere. He was still wondering about it the next day when he went with Olyrrwd to tend to sick people who lived in huts outside of the shrine.
Sometimes Caelym went inside the houses with Olyrrwd to help him do his curing, other times he stayed outside—especially if the sick people had something catching. That day he was waiting outside when he heard a rumble like thunder. Puzzled because the day was clear and sunny, he stepped out into the path that went between the huts, looking up to see where the clouds were—only to be jerked back as Olyrrwd grabbed him from behind and pulled him out of the way just before he would've been trampled under the hooves of the horses that careened around the corner, scattering geese and knocking over fences as they galloped by.
“Rhedwyn, you fool, watch where you're going!” Olyrrwd shouted, waving his staff with one hand and clutching Caelym's arm with the other.
One of the riders stopped and looked back. He was dark-haired and thin, and when he called his apology, he smiled and shrugged his shoulders—just like Caelym did when he was caught doing something he shouldn’t. Then the man turned his horse around and rode off.
All the way back to the shrine Olyrrwd was muttering things under his breath like “conceited, arrogant idiot,” “a danger to himself and everyone around him,” and “thinks he’s a king” while Caelym was remembering how once, when he was still in the nursery, a woman servant he didn’t know dashed in gasping, “She’s coming! He’s with her!” and Nonna had told Caelym he had to be very quiet and never tell, and all three of them hid behind the door that was opened just a crack, and they’d peeped out to watch as Feywn, the chief priestess who had taken his mother’s place, went by with her consort.
At the time, Caelym had been too dazzled by Feywn’s sparkling jewelry and her almost transparent white robes to pay attention to anything else, but now he remembered Nonna and the other servant giggling and whispering about how handsome Rhedwyn was and how he was almost a king.
One of the riders stopped and looked back. He was dark-haired and thin, and when he called his apology, he smiled and shrugged his shoulders—just like Caelym did when he was caught doing something he shouldn’t.
As he walked along beside Olyrrwd, Caelym began to daydream that, instead of riding away, Rhedwyn leaped down from his horse, and came running back saying he was sorry he almost rode over him, or, even better, (and here Caelym went back to the beginning when he’d first heard the thunder of the horses) that, instead of Olyrrwd pulling him out of the way, he jumped out of the way by himself and put out his hands just in time to stop Olyrrwd from walking out onto the road and getting run over, and when Rhedwyn saw how he almost ran over them and how Caelym had not only jumped out of the way but saved Olyrrwd too, he rode back and said he was sorry and then he ordered one of his men to get off his horse, and he gave that horse—it would have been black like Rhedwyn’s was—to Caelym and then they both would have ridden up into the mountains leaving everyone else, even Olyrrwd, behind them.
After that, whenever Caelym was doing his poetry lessons for Herrwn, he liked to imagine Rhedwyn stopping at the door to listen just as he was reciting the hardest verses of the day’s saga without forgetting any words at all and, when he was having his herb lessons in the medicine garden, he imagined Rhedwyn coming in just as Olyrrwd was praising Caelym for remembering the names of nine new herbs and what they were used for, and sometimes at night he dreamed that Whinnie had once again turned into a real horse, and together they were riding up a mountain, trying to catch up with Rhedwyn who was looking back at them and calling his name.
. . .whenever Caelym was doing his poetry lessons for Herrwn, he liked to imagine Rhedwyn stopping at the door to listen just as he was reciting the hardest verses of the day’s saga without forgetting any words at all. . .
As time went on, Caelym’s daydreams grew into stories that he told himself over and over. His favorite was the one where he was in the healing chamber, stirring the caldron, adding powders and elixirs, and making a new cure, and, just as it was done, Rhedwyn would come in because he had a bad cough and a fever and Olyrrwd would say, “I have a new, powerful potion that is just what you need!” and Rhedwyn would drink it and be cured, and when he would start to thank Olyrrwd, Olyrrwd would say in a gruff, proud voice, “Don’t thank me, Caelym made it!” and Rhedwyn would say that after this he would always take Caelym with him when he went riding in case any of his men got sick or hurt.
The scenes Caelym saw in his mind were so vivid that they seemed on the verge of actually happening, and he took to insisting that Herrwn leave the door to the classroom open and to pleading with Olyrrwd to let him put new ingredients in the healing potions until, three years later, his daydreams came to an abrupt end.
Stonehenge, pictured above in the photograph by Nik, was built between 3,000 and 120 BCE, 2,000 years or more before the earliest accounts of Druids by Greek or Roman writers. The image of the awe-inspiring monument is used here because of its being a ritual site for some practitioners of modern Druidry and because the mystery of how massive standing stones could have been raised was a source of wonder and myth for the fictional Druids of Llwddawanden.
Author’s Note: While the books in The Druid Chronicles are available at all major book sellers, I encourage readers to patronize their local book store or, if unavailable there, to consider purchase through Bookshop.org.
loved it!