Eithne allowed herself to be ushered into the tent. Behind her, the weird sisters giggled behind their hands.

Then the drymyn-priest closed the tent flap.

Two men, one in his late-twenties, the other a lad of her own age, rose from blankets laid out on the ground. Like the older drymyn, they wore white robes overlayed by a black tunic, and their heads were shaved save for a top-knot.

Inloth gestured to them. “These are my assistants, Finntonn—” The elder inclined his head. “—And Bécc.” The younger followed the example of the elder. “Lads, this is the Lady Eithne of Dolgallu.”

The elder’s eyebrows rose and his lips parted.

“Yes, Finnton.” Inloth coughed. “A noble-woman of Ivearda.”

Finnton bowed more deeply. “Yes, Your Reverence. My lady.”

Bécc seemed puzzled, then followed Finnton’s example.

“Bécc, bring us some more wine, there’s a good lad.” The younger man excused himself and left the tent. “Finntonn, fetch my crane bag.” Then Inloth gestured to a field cot of blankets suspended between wooden poles and covered with furs. “Please, my lady, have a seat.”

The tent was homely enough, though spartan. A small brass brazier of burning coals provided light and warmth, and smoke enough to sting Eithne’s eyes as it gathered under the hole at the peak of the tent. The ground was covered with muddied canvas. Leather packs and small crates were piled around the fringes. The strong, astringent scent of wood-sage prickled at her nostrils.

Eithne thanked the older priest again. “This is very kind of you.”

“Not at all,” replied Inloth. His assistant brought a satchel of leather and linen to him with great dignity. Inloth took it from Finntonn with the same care, opened the satchel, and drew out a green stone as he knelt on the floor before her. “I’ll start with your leg, if that’s alright?”

Eithne pulled back the hem from her injured calf.

Inloth considered the wound. “These punctures are deep…” He looked up at her. “Were you bitten by a dog, my lady?”

She shook her head. “Don’t ask. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

One brow crawled up his forehead. “Alright then…”

Eithne changed the subject. “You say you’re from Larriocht now?”

He replied absently as he drew herbs, oils, infusions and other concoctions from the satchel. “Aye, from Larriocht, my lady. I was companion and disciple to our last Great Oak, Máedóc.”

Eithne almost gagged. A reformer? Here?

Inloth prodded gently at the puntures made by the bat’s fangs. “Traveled with him to Naricia. Studied at Gialglion for a time.” He swabbed at the wound with a linen cloth soaked in oil. “Adopted the faith of Belenos.”

She eyed him closely. Reformationists like him had come to Dolgallu in the past. Father had no patience for them. We have our own ways, taught to us by Kârn himself, in the Old Land. He’d dismissed those missionaries from his village without a hearing. Nothing wrong with our ways. Never has been. No matter what the Belenosians say.

The younger lad, Bécc, returned with the wine. Eithne declined, but Inloth took a cup and Bécc poured a draught. “Oh, a bit more liberal, lad.” He rubbed at his back. “Good for these old bones, you know.”

The young priest complied, then excused himself as Inloth smiled up at her. “What has you wandering the camps in such a state, my lady?” Finntonn hovered behind his master.

She frowned. Certainly, if anyone would understand her disagreement with the priestesses, the reformationists would. “A dispute. With someone I trusted.” Yet distrust gnawed at her. What if Father is right about them? She shrugged it away. “I’m not sure we want the same things.”

Inloth took a healthful gulp of wine and nodded. “And what is it you want, my lady.”

Eithne leaned back on one arm. Indeed, there’s the rub. Frustration boiled up and spilled from her lips. “What I want is freedom.” She pinched her nose with the bloody fingers of her other hand. “Freedom to make my own choices. Freedom from this damned geas I’ve lived under all my life. Freedom to choose as I’d like, rather than as I’m told.”

Inloth wrapped the wounds on her calf with oiled linens. “Freedom is overrated. Without law, freedom is meaningless. One must tame the wild chaos of life and make it productive. One must submit to the rule of law.”

“But that’s not what I want. I don’t want to submit myself to anything. I want to be free.”

The Belenosian pulled the linens tight. “You’re a woman. You can’t be trusted with your own freedom.”

Eithne bridled. “What’s my ghee to do with anything?”

Inloth blushed at the vulgar word, but went on. “The world is a vast and wild place, my lady. Mankind can only ever be safe when it’s brought under the plow. Tamed. Subdued. Women are the embodiment of all that is wild and chaotic.” He knotted the linens. Pain flashed through Eithne’s leg. “Look at your own priestesses, the goddesses they serve. They don’t seek freedom, my lady. They promote chaos. Untamed fecundity. Wilderness a-riot with shameless and carefree breeding.” Finntonn handed him a linen rag, and he wiped fragrant oil from his hands. “It’s only through law that the world can be tamed. And it’s men who do the work of taming it. Plowing fields, cutting wood, digging stone. Women don’t do this work.”

Eithne harrumphed. “They do where I come from. In Dolgallu, everyone works or nobody eats. Everyone contributes.”

Inloth condescended to smile on her as he rose to his feet and handed the rag to Finntonn. “Do they? I know Dolgallu. I was there once. And I remember you, my lady. You were just a babe then, but I remember. A remote place surrounded by madness and wasteland. Timber palisades around the village, watchtowers and torches on the perimeter.” He held out the palm of his hand and laid the edge of the other one across it. “Go this far into the forest, this far up the slopes of the mountain, but no further. Madness will overtake you. Monsters will get you.” He snorted. “Superstitions, my lady.”

Eithne remembered the old tales. Don’t go out on Ydrys’s slopes. The ghost of the old astrologer will drive you mad, make you see things.

“Was anyone in Dolgallu truly free? Weren’t you all constrained by your Kârnian priests and priestesses? That’s how they work, you know. They control us by confining us, by letting wilderness separate us, by letting resources remain scarce. That is where they get their power from, scarcity, plague, famine. Belenos teaches that there is nothing about nature that cannot be improved to the benefit of men.”

Eithne’d heard as much from the weird sisters. “But that’s not—”

“What? True? Is it not? Stay in your place. Let the wild rule over you with its fear and its darkness. Consort with whom they tell you. Marry whom they tell you.” He clasped his hands behind his back, began to pace the tent. “That’s how they keep their power, by making you afraid of the wilderness. When in truth, there is nothing fearful in the wilderness that can’t be tamed by axe and flame and brought to the service of men.”

“But what freedom is there under Belenos then? You say I’m a woman, I can’t be trusted with my own freedom.”

“No, of course you can’t.” Inloth shook his head vigorously. “Women are like the fields of the Abred. Fertile, rich, productive. But if they are not properly managed, if they are not tamed?” He held up his hands and crooked his fingers. “Weeds creep in and choke the fields.” He put his hands back behind him and smiled down on her again. “It’s not the fault of the field that weeds sprout up, nor the fault of a woman if she can’t be productive in the right ways.”

Then he shook his head. “I’m sorry, my lady. Forgive me. I should have a look at that arm.”

Eithne shook her head. “No. Thank you for the kindness, but I should go. My people will be worried for me.”

Inloth shrugged. “Can’t I convince you to stay?”

But Eithne was already up, and the tent flap closing behind her.