Chapter 12: Bandruid
There was no room for slipping away. No matter how hard they tried to edge out of the crowd, the five visitors had become an organic part of a slow, bizarre festival.
They had moved along with the throng closer to the centre of the fort, where a massive bonfire had been lit and people continued to flock, bringing their offerings.
“I think I know what is happening,” Aeolus whispered into Remi’s ear, positioned strategically on her right shoulder, trying to be helpful with all of his accumulated knowledge. “We are probably on the eve of the vernal equinox.”
Mistral, who possessed sharp hearing and pricked ears, caught the mouse’s conclusion and instantly jumped in to contradict him:
“Get away! I don't believe you! Yesterday—no, the day before yesterday—during the winter solstice, I dashed into that cave running like mad after that scatterbrained Sirocco, and today it’s already the spring equinox? How on earth did you deduce that?”
“Look over there, far away on the crag!” Aeolus replied calmly.
“Of course, now you’re showing off just because you’re up high, while I’m stuck down here like a stray tomcat with his muzzle in the mud... I can’t see a single thing through this crowd, clever whiskers!”
自由... [Restul textului rămâne neschimbat și curat]
“Shh, stop bickering!” Anemo intervened. “We must play our parts to the end. There is a fire on the crag, just as big as this one. I think Aeolus is right; I’ve read about Alban Eilir too... that’s what they called the spring equinox. Have you forgotten that yesterday we were all astonished that it felt like spring? It means the Light of the Earth.”
“Perfectly credible!” Remi added in a low voice. “I’ve read about it as well, and there’s a distinct scent of aromatic herbs in the air. They want to cleanse the fort of the sickly winter air. The fact that we are here probably gives them an extra glimmer of hope... Am I right, Aeolus?”
“You are absolutely right, Remi,” Aeolus agreed, twitching his slender whiskers and fixing his gaze upon the dark silhouettes looming on the crag. “This smoke isn’t just for atmosphere. The Celts believe that burnt thyme and plantain have the power to banish the winter spirits that bring chest sickness—those malevolent entities the druids call bricht. And if they look at us as a sign of hope... well, we had better not disappoint them.”
“Hope or not, this stench of smouldering herbs is completely overpowering my nose,” Mistral snorted, shaking a mud-splattered paw. “And honestly, if it’s supposed to be spring, why is this ground downright frozen?”
“Because it is only the beginning, Mistral,” Anemo reminded him, gesturing for everyone to move forward towards the fire through the corridor that had formed in the crowd.
Sirocco had fallen fast asleep inside the sling carrier, and in the meantime, he had shifted back into a kitten... his thread-like whiskers doubled by the smudges of chocolate around his mouth.
“The little one is sleeping without a care in the world,” Remi whispered, squeezing Anemo’s hand. “Perhaps we’ll be lucky and he won't wake up until we are back home.”
“But how do we slip away?” Anemo asked between his teeth, visibly anxious.
“Leave it to me! I am The Morrigan, after all.”
The crowd grew denser as they approached the central hearth of the fort. The heat of the immense bonfire, fed with heavy logs of sacred oak and birch, struck their faces, casting great sparks towards the sky. The atmosphere was thick with a collective murmur, a monotonous incantation droned by the elders who tended the flames.
Young girls, their hair flowing loose and garlands of willow twigs resting on their heads, trod barefoot through the damp mud, placing duck eggs at the base of the fire, crudely dyed yellow with wild onion skins. Others sprinkled the ground with spring water brought at dawn in clay vessels, while hunched old men in deerskin aprons threw the last handfuls of rye and oats saved from the granaries into the flames.
“What are those girls doing?” Mistral asked, bewildered. “And those hunched old men are wasting the grains...”
“They want to buy the earth’s goodwill, Mistral!” Anemo murmured.
“Look over there!” Remi whispered, indicating with her chin past the screen of flames and the waves of smoke that seemed to dance in the gentle tug of the wind.
The Archdruid in his long, white robes—the very man they had seen just a day prior—was now accompanied by a female druid, a Bandruid.
Her robes were likewise long and white, cinched at the waist by a wide leather belt from which dangled amulets of wolf teeth and polished pieces of amber. Her hair, exceptionally long, was of an unusual shade—a metallic grey that one would only expect to see in modern-day salons. Upon her ageless face, a look of grim determination was mingled with deep concern.
The Bandruid placed her staff of white birch first upon one of her shoulders, which were as broad as those of any male warrior, then upon the damp earth, barely brushing the tips of the grass. With a piercing voice that seemed to echo from everywhere at once without being shouted, she began her mystical incantation:
“I am the wave that crashes,
I am the wind that reaps,
Ancient forest and sapling
Alike.
For who knows the wisdom of the oak
And the cruelty of the bramble better than I?
I.”
The Bandruid’s voice seemed to rise and fall in waves, accompanied by the rattling of the amulets hanging from the leather belt around her waist, and the rhythmic thumping of the Archdruid’s massive oak staff against the ground. A sudden shiver seemed to freeze the blaze of the fire and ripple through every soul in the crowd—even through the five visitors, who were remembering less and less of why they were there. Yet the voice pressed on, growing sharper:
“I bring the spring and the tooth of the world beyond,
A raw sacrifice to the earth,
A bloodbath to the Iron.
I.
Who knows the wisdom of the hazel
And the premonition of the willow better than I?
I.
I am the rain that comes,
And the light that pierces the thickets.
I.
For who knows the power of the rowan
Better than I?
I.”
“I’m freezing, Anemo! If we don’t get out of here quickly, they’ll realise we aren't gods,” Remi shouted into Anemo’s ear.
Fortunately, the sacred distance between them—the “gods from the cave”—and the crowd remained unbroken, and Sirocco slumbered on inside the green carrier pouch that Anemo held tightly against his chest.
The moment the Bandruid’s incantation ceased, leaving a profound silence in its wake, a light drizzle began to fall. Driven as if by a sudden spring, Remi cleared her throat. She raised a hand above her head, stuck two fingers into her mouth, and let out a long, resonant whistle that drew every single eye upon her.
“Ma belle, it sounds as if you’ve swallowed Noel’s whistle. What on earth was that for?” Mistral asked, stepping onto Anemo’s boots to escape the wet ground.
But Remi cleared her throat once more and began, speaking as though she truly were The Morrigan herself:
“People of Cruachan!
To safely pass the calamity to come,
I, mother of war,
And of the earth of this place
And the world beyond,
The Phantom Queen,
Weaver of thoughts,
Bringer of mists and rains...
A prayer of my race,
The Tuatha Dé Danann,
And a prayer of the earth,
In the depths of Oweynagat,
A prayer,
A sacrifice of self,
With my retinue
I shall make!”
“Now is the moment! Let’s move, ma belle, Anemo...” Mistral urged.
Mistral darted ahead of Remi, proudly lifting his chat noir head beneath the heavy raindrops. And as if performing a sacred ceremony, the five visitors set off in the direction of the cave under the watchful gaze of the crowd, whose faces seemed visibly eased of a heavy burden.
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