CHAPTER 16
The HealingThe winter had almost run its course, and though the frosts were still sometimes hard, light was coming earlier and staying later, and the first bulbs were beginning to press through the rich earth, when Bladud, venturing further afield and trying a new route for his pigs, discovered a strange phenomenon that reminded him both of the Oracle of Sul above the steaming crevice and the Cumaean Sibyl among the fumeroles. The land in this region was marshy, and that was why they had not come that way before. But this day the mists lifted early, the sun shone, and Bladud found himself driving his charges hard, almost without thinking. Later he wondered if it was not Alun who had led them to the place, for on that day the deer was more skittish than usual: he seemed to have
