and consigning it to the flames with a little verse spoken in a child’s rhythmic singsong—and the simple chant reached the young man in his pain-fretted sleep.
Three for the Errant Goose both swift and wild.
Four for Pangur Ban the cat.
Five for the Martyrs undefiled—
Aye, five for the Martyrs undefiled.
She paused and cupped a hand above the fire for a moment, allowing the smoke to gather, then turned her palm, releasing a little white cloud. As the smoke floated up and dispersed, she continued her verse.
Six for the Virgins who watch and wait.
Seven for the Bards in halls of oak.
Eight for the patches on Padraig’s cloak.
Nine for the lepers at the gate.
Ten for the rays of Love’s pure light—
Aye, ten for the rays of Love’s pure light.
Though the young man did not wake, the softly droning words and the simple rhythm seemed to soothe him. His breathing slowed and deepened, and his stiff muscles eased.
Angharad heard the change in his breathing and smiled to herself. She went to test the heat of the potion in the cauldron; it was still hot but no longer bubbling. Picking up the big copper kettle, she carried it to where Bran lay, drew her three-legged stool near, and began gently pulling away the fleeces that covered him.
His flesh was dull and waxen, his wounds livid and angry. The right side of his face was roundly swollen, the skin discoloured. The teeth marks on his arm where the hound had fastened its jaws were puncture wounds, deep but clean—as was the slash between his shoulder blades. Painful as any of these wounds might have been, none were life-threatening. Rather, it was the ragged gash in the centre of his chest that worried her most. The iron blade had not pricked a lung, nor pierced the watery sac of the heart; but the lance head had driven cloth from his tunic and hair from the hound deep into the cut. These things, in her experience, could make even insignificant injuries fester and turn sour, bringing on fever, delirium, and finally death.
She sighed as she placed her fingertips on the bulbous swelling. The flesh was hot beneath her gentle fingertips, oozing watery blood and yellow pus. He had been wandering a few days before she had found him, and the wounds had already begun to go rancid. Therefore, she had taken great pains to prepare the proper infusion with which to wash the wound and had gathered the instruments to enlarge it so she could carefully dig out any scraps of foreign matter.
Angharad had expected him to come to her injured. She had foreseen the fight and knew the outcome, but the wounds he had suffered would tax her skill sorely. He was a strong one, his strength green and potent; even so, he would need all of it, and more besides, if he was to survive.
Bending to the cauldron, she took up a bit of clean cloth from a neat stack she had prepared; she folded the cloth and soaked it in the hot liquid and then gently, gently applied it to the gash in his chest. The heat caused him to moan in his sleep, but he did not wake. She let the cloth remain and, taking up another, soaked it and placed it on the side of his face.
When the second cloth had been carefully arranged, she returned to the first, removed it, placed it back in the cauldron, and began again.
So it went.
All through the night, the old woman remained hunched on her little stool, moving with slow purpose from one wound to the next, removing the cloth, dipping it, and replacing it.When the potion in the cauldron cooled, she returned it to the embers of her fire and brought it back to the boil. Heat was needed to draw out the poison of the wounds.
While she worked, she sang—an old song in the Elder Tongue, something she had learned from her own banfáith many, many years ago—the tale of Bran the Blesséd and his journey to Tir na’ Nog. It was a song about a champion who, after a long sojourn in the Otherworld, had returned to perform the Hero Feat for his people: a tale full of hope, longing, and triumph—fitting, she thought, for the man beneath her care.
As dawn seeped into the rainy sky to the east, Angharad finished. She set aside the cauldron and rose slowly, arching her back to ease the ache there. Then she knelt once more and,