Rising From the Ashes: The Chronicles of Caymin (26 page)

“I felt sorry for him.”

“I’m glad you are capable of feeling pity for someone who has made you angry in the past.” Enat leaned forward to poke at the fire. “I told you before that Gai is probably jealous of you.” Enat sat back and looked at her. “Don’t be jealous of him now.”

“I am sorry.”

“There’s no need to be sorry, Caymin. But always, always trust what you know of yourself.”

“Why are we out here in the cold?” Diarmit complained.

Despite her woolen tunic and Enat’s heavy cloak, Caymin shivered as she and the others wandered the forest with another list of plants and herbs they had to find.

“Neela said certain of these plants are most potent at this time of year when there is no growth,” Daina said. “All their power is stored in their stems and roots.”

“And Yule is coming soon,” Cíana said. “We need mistletoe for the Yule night.”

“What is Yule?” Caymin asked.

“The longest night of the year,” Gai said. “The winter solstice. We always had a roaring fire with giant logs in my father’s hall and spent the whole night listening to bards tell tales and sing songs.”

Cíana nodded. “We did as well. ’Tis the turning point of the year, when Lugh, the sun god, comes back and the days grow longer.”

“Our village is mostly Christian,” Diarmit said. “We’re supposed to celebrate the birth of the Christ at this time of year, not Lugh.”

“The monks near us try to stop us celebrating Yule,” said Daina. “But many still do in secret.”

“Do the ones who celebrate Yule try to stop the believers in the Christ?” Caymin asked, spying a stand of wild cherry bushes.

They gathered most of the cherries that remained, leaving some for the birds. They also asked permission to cut some of the branches.

“You don’t understand,” said Daina. “The Christians are becoming more powerful, and it’s dangerous in many places for people to admit they believe in the old gods and old ways.”

Caymin shook her head. “Why does it matter if others believe differently? Does it stop them from believing as they wish?”

Gai laughed. “You speak like a badger.”

Caymin grinned. “Sometimes I think badgers and animals have more sense.”

“Mistletoe!”

Cíana pointed to a hazel tree with large bunches of mistletoe hanging from the branches, filled with clusters of white, waxy berries. Caymin climbed up, cutting the clusters loose and letting them drop to the others below who gathered them into a bag.

They were all startled by the loud and unexpected arrival of Beanna as she settled on the branch above Caymin’s head.

“Where have you been?”
Caymin sat up.
“I have not seen you in ages.”

“Roaming,”
Beanna said vaguely.
“I must speak to you later. What are you doing?”

“Gathering things for the Yule.”

Beanna tilted her head.
“I have seen the two-legs celebrating on the longest night.”
She glanced down at the others who were chatting amongst themselves.
“Meet me tonight at the hollow tree when the moon rises. Bring Enat.”

Caymin shifted on her branch and reached into the pouch hanging from her belt. She retrieved a strip of dried venison and offered it. Beanna took it in her beak and flew off.

“What did she want?” Diarmit asked as Caymin climbed back down.

“She wondered what we were doing.”

They finished gathering the things on their list as the last of the weak winter daylight faded. They wandered back toward the village. Light snowflakes began to fall, floating first one way and then another on the cold breeze as if they would never settle to earth.

The apprentices brought their finds to the meetinghouse where Neela and Enat were making a thick salve.

“What’s this for?” Cíana stuck her finger in, rubbing some of the salve between her thumb and finger. “It smells good.”

“It heals skin damaged by cold and wind,” Enat said. “It can also heal burns and blisters.”

Daina glanced at Caymin. “Have you tried it?”

Caymin flushed. “I do not think anything can change my burns. They are too old.”

Enat pursed her lips. “I’m afraid nothing can heal them.” At Caymin’s downcast face, she added, “But it might help to soften the scars so that they don’t pull as much.”

She used a wooden paddle to push some of the thick salve into a small, squat jar and handed it to Caymin who raised it to her nose.

“It smells of spring.”

“I wish it were spring,” Diarmit grumbled, hunkering down near the fire crackling on the hearth. “I hate winter.”

They all rubbed some of the salve into their cold, chapped hands and cheeks.

“Winter is necessary,” Neela said. “Without the sleep of winter, the death of the plants and the pulling in to rest, nothing would bloom come spring and summer.”

The moon was not yet up as Enat and Caymin made their way through the forest. The snow that had started falling earlier in the day had stopped, leaving patches of ground untouched. They moved soundlessly and arrived at the hollow tree before Beanna.

“Why does Beanna need to speak with us?” Caymin asked as she crawled inside the tree and sat.

Enat followed her. “I asked Beanna to do something for me.”

Beanna entered the hollow at that moment, the flapping of her wings bringing swirls of snow in with her.

“Greetings, Beanna.”

“Greetings to you, Enat.”

The crow hopped up onto Enat’s knee and settled with a rustle of her feathers. Enat reached into her pouch and pulled out a handful of seeds and nuts. She and Caymin waited patiently while Beanna ate.

“My thanks. I have grown weary of the dried berries left on the bushes at this time of year, and finding worms takes more work in the frozen ground.”

“What news?”

Beanna cocked her head, looking at Caymin with her bright eye.
“Have you told her?”

“I have not.”

“Enat asked me to try and track Timmin.”
She turned her gaze to Enat.
“You were right.”

“Right about what?”
Caymin looked from Beanna to Enat and back.

Enat turned to Caymin.
“I feared that Timmin might seek another way to draw you from the forest, to force you to leave our protection and so open yourself to his power.”

“He is gone,”
Caymin said.
“How could he do this? Through what means could he get me to leave you?”

Enat didn’t answer immediately. She looked at Beanna.
“They are coming? You are sure?”

Beanna bobbed her head.

Enat turned back to Caymin.
“When Timmin first left the forest from the circle of stones, Neela told us that he headed north. I suspected he knew he was being watched and deliberately led us false. I asked Beanna to fly to the south and wait.”

“I did as she asked,”
Beanna said.
“It took him days to make his presence known, but he began searching, asking other four-legs and winged ones if they had seen you.”

Caymin shook her head.
“I do not understand.”

“Not many two-legs can speak without speaking, and Timmin counted on the animals we encountered remembering that we had passed through on our journey here.”
Enat laid a hand on her shoulder.
“He is searching for Broc and Cuán.”

“What?”
Caymin jumped up in alarm.

Beanna flapped her wings and Enat held up her hands.
“Be calm. Let me speak.”

Caymin sat back down, her heart racing.

“I feel responsible. When first you came here, I told the other elders more or less where I had found you living among the badgers.”
Enat folded her hands and stared down at them.
“He means to find them and use them, use your affection for them to force you to come to their rescue. Beanna was able to find them first.”

“Enat told me enough of her search for you to convince them to listen to what I had to say,”
said Beanna.
“Together with my stories of you, little one, I assured them they are in danger, and asked them to come to us, to make their home here.”

Caymin sat up straighter.
“They are coming here? The entire clan?”

“Not all,”
Beanna said with a click of her beak.
“Some of the older ones are too feeble to journey so far, and some are too young. But they have been warned and they are smart enough to pretend they know nothing of you if Timmin should find them. They will be safe.”

“But where are Broc and Cuán? When will they be here?”

Enat looked to Beanna.

“They are traveling only at night,”
Beanna said.
“And they are speaking with none so as to leave no trail for Timmin to follow. They should be here by the next dark moon.”

Caymin reached out and ran her finger down Beanna’s breast.
“Thank you, Beanna. Thank you for going so far to protect my clan.”
She looked at Enat.
“And thank you for thinking of them. I never believed Timmin capable of this.”

“I had my suspicions after the circle of stones,”
said Enat.
“But after the things we found in his cottage, I knew I was right to be afraid for them.”

Caymin’s jaw tightened.
“How could we have trusted him?”

“I knew him far longer than you and had no idea,”
Enat said.
“I don’t believe he was evil or attracted to dark magic in the beginning, but something has changed. He is not the man I knew. Some people are easy to read.”
She smiled.
“I always know what you are feeling if you feel it strongly enough. But some have learned to mask what they think or feel. It would seem Timmin was one of those.”

Caymin shivered in anticipation of seeing Broc and Cuán again, but her expression suddenly sobered.
“If he would do this, use them to get to me, he would do almost anything. The forest, all of you, you are not safe while Péist and I are here.”

“Do not worry about us, little one,”
Beanna said.

“Beanna is right,”
Enat said.
“We will work together to protect you, protect the badgers, protect the forest, come what may.”

She thanked Beanna again, and started to get to her feet when she froze at the sound of a branch snapping outside the hollow tree.

Enat ran out with Caymin on her heels and Beanna taking to the air to scan the area, but none of them saw anything. A quick search of the hard, frozen ground around the tree yielded nothing.

“Perhaps it was a four-leg,”
Caymin said dubiously.

“And perhaps I am a two-leg,”
said Beanna, landing on Caymin’s shoulder.

Caymin glanced at her.
“You are a two-leg.”

Beanna flapped her wing against Caymin’s head.
“For a human, you are funny, little one.”

CHAPTER 17

Reunited

C
aymin waited anxiously, watching the moon each night as it seemed it would never wane to the dark.