King of the May

by Myers, Karen

  He’d watched him stand off Madog, and invite Cernunnos to destroy all the ways in Dyffryn Camarch, and he’d paid a terrible price for it. Maelgwn’s stomach still churned when he remembered the horror of that healing. He didn’t understand how George could tolerate being bound to a god that treated him so coldly. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have a choice. He has to live with it.

  Maelgwn shook his head. He didn’t think he could do that. If it were forced on him, he couldn’t treat it the way his foster-father did. I’m brave, he thought, I can face danger, but how can you defend yourself from something on the inside?

  I think too much, he thought. George just does things. I can’t tell if he thinks about them first or not, and I suppose what difference does it make? It’s what he is, he’s not going to change.

  He needs a guard, someone to keep him out of trouble or defend him from surprises. They all discount me, he thought, too small to treat seriously. That doesn’t matter, it’s an advantage. My father was late to come to his growth, and I will be, too. That gives me a few more years to be underestimated. They think I’m young, but they’re wrong, all of them. I haven’t felt young the way they mean since the night my family died, not like a child—careless of my actions, sure of my place.

  I’m very lucky to have found this new home, but I can’t become a child again and finish childhood—that’s lost to me. The sooner I can be of use to my foster-father, the better. He doesn’t have to know, it’ll be good practice for following someone by stealth.

  I’ll bet Angharad would like that, he reflected. He wouldn’t tell her, but he was sure she’d notice—she noticed everything. He’d thought a lot about her since their vigil at George’s bedside when they met. She was nothing like his real mother had been, and he didn’t understand her, but she inspired bottomless confidence and no small amount of awe. Anything to please her was worth doing. Maybe he’d talk to her about it.

  George looked around the huntsman’s office after dinner and marveled at the crowd. He’d kept his custom of reviewing the next morning’s hunt fixture the night before while he was learning the hunt country around Greenway Court, and with the new staff that was more necessary than ever. By now the others were used to meeting him this way and they’d brought Gwion and Dyfnallt along. More chairs had been needed. George noted that Ives had solved the problem tidily by bringing in two smaller ones for Benitoe and himself. Even Maelgwn was there, perched quietly in a corner, watching.

  “I was pleased with the hound walking this morning,” George said, as he glanced around at everyone. “I thought that went about as well as could be expected. I know it’ll take some time for our new men to learn all the names, but that can’t be helped. I advise you two to let your partners grill you on the names of the hounds while you’re out with them, hunting. It’ll be a good incentive for Brynach and Benitoe to be absolutely sure themselves.”

  Brynach had been wrong a couple of times recently and flushed at the reference.

  “For now let’s keep the initial pairings—Dyfnallt with Brynach, and Gwion with Benitoe. We’ll switch around later and, once you’ve both settled in,” nodding at the new men, “we’ll start slipping you in as huntsman, too.”

  They looked more pleased at that.

  “This is a team, not a competition, and it will take awhile for us to become comfortable with each other. We have different levels of experience and different skills. I’d like to hear opinions, in this office, without restraint. Once we’re out in public in front of the field, I’ll expect no arguments, but here I encourage you to speak freely.” Gwion smiled at that.

  “We’ll be hunting at Twin Oaks tomorrow. It’s to the north up the main road, past Eurig’s largest cattle herd to a wooded spot on the slope of the Blue Ridge. The path in is marked by two prominent oak trees on either side. Rhian, you’ve been there—is that right?”

  “Yes, huntsman,” she said. “It’s a tricky spot. You’ve got the whole side of the ridge and there are riding trails, but even in winter it’s pretty thick in there. Usually we start at the bottom and hunt our way up.”

  She gestured with her hands, trying to paint a picture of the layout. “North just beyond the twin oaks there’s a stream that crosses the road and joins the river. It comes out of a ravine too deep to ride along, but eventually the ground rises around it and you can see into it from above. If the quarry gets into there, good luck getting it out.”

  “And I assume deer can go up over the ridge, too?” George said.

  “Yes, but it’s not as common as in some spots. The woods are more bare as the ground rises, and I think the deer dislike the lack of shelter. They’re more inclined to run north or south.”

  George asked the new men. “Have you heard about the ridge line here?” They both shook their heads.

  “There’s a barrier along the top of the ridge. The deer can cross it, but most of the hounds and all of us must stay away. You’ll feel it as you get close.”

  Gwion joked, “And what causes that, now?” He looked around the room. “This is a tale to gull the new boys, isn’t it?”

  “It’s a long story, but I tell you that it’s so and you would be well advised to believe me,” George said. He wasn’t going to go into the details about its causes, from the rock-wights’ ways within the mountain, or his own immunity. That would reveal too much about the knowledge they’d gotten from the rock-wights.

  There was silence for a moment as Gwion digested that.

  “Ives, any recommended changes on the hound list for tomorrow?”

  Ives gave him the back the piece of paper. “No, they’re all sound.”

  “Rhian, any comments on why these particular hounds?” He passed the list to her.

  She looked down at it for a moment. “The bitches we’re breeding and the others in heat are absent, of course.”

  George saw Gwion’s suggestive wink at Rhian, and Brynach’s bristle in response, neither of which she noticed. He quelled Brynach with a hard look, but he sympathized with his outrage at the vulgarity.

  Dyfnallt commented, “So you hunt mixed packs here? I’ve had better luck keeping a dog pack and a bitch pack separate and hunting them in alternation. Different hunting styles, and they get more time to recover between hunts.”

  “That’s not uncommon where I’m from either,” George agreed. “But once a year I must hunt a mixed pack.” They all nodded at the reference to the great hunt on Nos Galan Gaeaf. “I find it helpful to have them used to each other’s hunting styles year round. Of course I have to accommodate the breeding season, but otherwise we hunt mixed, as Iolo did before me. Our country is not as hard on the feet as your rocky fells, Dyfnallt, and they become accustomed to hunting three times a week.”

  “Any other questions?” George looked around the room. “Alright, get some sleep tonight. Dawn comes early.”

  He started to rise then stopped. “Oh, I almost forgot. I’d like to invite you all to dinner at the huntsman’s house tomorrow evening. We’ll enjoy some roast venison from yesterday’s hunt, and a nice turkey Maelgwn got for us today.”

  He smiled—that had caught his foster-son by surprise and the boy couldn’t help straightening with pride, though he kept his face sober when Benitoe congratulated him.

  “Did you find it?” Benitoe asked.

  “Yes, sir, and the turkeys were nearby,” Maelgwn replied.

  Benitoe nodded. “I look forward to tasting the rewards of both our hunts.”

  George wasn’t sure what they were referring to—a hunting spot around here somewhere perhaps—but he appreciated Benitoe’s treatment of Maelgwn as an equal, and the boy’s assumption of adult dignity.

  He watched Gwion and Dyfnallt leaving the room with some reservations. They were fine this morning, but how would they behave when they were subordinate to their young partners in public tomorrow?

  CHAPTER 5

  “Look to the horses,” George yelled to Maelgwn as he leapt down, checking that his hunting sword a
nd knife were secure in their sheathes. Rhian had already dismounted and draped her horse’s reins around a low branch.

  He could hear the stag scrambling down the steep bank some forty or fifty feet below him but he was hidden from view by the bushes clinging to the side of the ravine. Flashes of white betrayed the hounds that pursued him in full cry, the echo of their voices changing as they sank further into the deep cleft.

  Before he started after them, he spared a look around. On both sides, the whippers-in had tied off their mounts as best they could and were already on the way down. Good work, he thought. Behind him he could hear the first members of the field as they arrived but he dismissed them from consideration. They were certainly not going to be coming down the sides of this ravine. They’d have to find a place to watch from above somewhere.

  The baying consolidated in one location and rose in volume, amplified by the enclosed space. As George slid from one bush handhold to the next in the cold mud, the mist obscuring his vision, he tried to see what was happening, but the cacophony confused him. Around it, all he could hear was water.

  Finally he got low enough to see the stream itself, and paused to take stock before coming the rest of the way down. Above him, to his left, the little river came over a lip of harder rock and dropped in a small waterfall, maybe twenty-five feet high, the spring-fed flow active even in winter, though not at its full volume. Snow was still visible in the pockets of ground shaded from the sun, but mostly the banks were rock, running with fine droplets in imitation of the waterfall itself, and mud churned by the passage of the deer and the hounds.

  The white-tail buck, still in antler, was at bay at the base of the waterfall, up to his hocks in the cold water. The hounds swarmed on either side along the banks and sounded off with excitement—here, here, here. Cythraul swam in the water in front of the buck, eager to bring him down but cautious of his hooves and antlers.

  Dyfnallt and Brynach were closer to the falls, on his left, Brynach’s coat providing a splash of green in the winter drabness. “How do you want to do this?” Dyfnallt called.

  George glanced right. Gwion’s red coat glowed bright in the gloom. He waved Gwion and Benitoe over to the other side and turned back to answer Dyfnallt. “I’ll come up the middle and from the right while you distract him. Try to keep the hounds out of harm’s way.”

  He splashed into the stream some thirty feet below the deer and picked his way over the moss-covered rocks. Behind him Rhian whooped and toppled as she lost her balance and got a cold dunking. He heard her swearing behind him, but it didn’t sound like she was hurt. No time to stop, and the water wasn’t deep enough to be dangerous.

  He came up to the right of the deer who was focused on Cythraul and the other hounds. The only way to get into proper position would be to back into the waterfall himself, to get behind the stag’s shoulder. He didn’t feel the cold water in the moment, as he faced forward, looking out from under his tricorn through the thin veil of water past the antlers at the baying, snapping hounds. It seemed as though this primordial scene could last forever.

  Time to end it, something said inside, and he drew his short hunting sword and plunged it into the heart of the deer. The buck staggered and collapsed, and Rhian drew the hounds off onto the far bank where there was a little more room out of the water.

  Brynach and Dyfnallt waded forward to help him drag the deer toward the near bank, while Gwion and Benitoe rounded up the hound stragglers and sent them to Rhian to hold in place.

  The six of them were in their own enclosed world, deep in the ravine, and nothing could be heard but the hounds and the water. George wondered what had become of the field and looked up at the top where the scramble had begun. A bit downstream, where there was a view from above, he saw faces all around, on both sides, men and women watching the scene. Gwyn raised a hand in salute, with a smile. George removed his tricorn and rhetorically dumped the water off of it as he bowed flamboyantly in return, catching Brynach’s grin at the byplay.

  “Well then, huntsman,” Dyfnallt said. “What now?” He seemed satisfied with the success of the hunt and undaunted by the obvious next steps.

  “We can hardly make a fire here,” George said. “We’re going to have to haul this deer out to dry land.”

  “Rhian,” he called, across the stream. “Does this level out below? Can we get out that way?”

  “Yes, but it’s a couple of hundred yards of rough walking.”

  “Alright. Take the hounds and we’ll follow with the buck.” George made a circle in the air with his hand for Gwyn, and waved him downstream. The field would have to find its own way and bring their horses along with them.

  Dyfnallt pointed at a young tree. “This sapling will do for a pole. What type of tree is this? I don’t recognize it.”

  “That’s a pawpaw,” George said.

  Brynach shook his head, “That’s not what we call it.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Don’t you carry an ax these days?” He thought Brynach had followed Benitoe’s example and added a hatchet to his belt gear.

  Brynach nodded, and made short work of cutting down the small tree and trimming its branches off. George pulled some light rope from around his waist, glad he’d learned his lesson on an earlier hunt not to leave all of his gear tied to the saddle for occasions such as this. Between the three of them, they managed to tie the buck’s feet together and slip the nine-foot pole between them so it would hang suspended.

  George thought they could carry the intact carcass some distance this way, until they reached ground dry enough to gut it and roast the hounds’ portion. He picked up the front end to test the weight, and Dyfnallt hoisted the back end to his shoulder. Brynach protested, but George said, “Don’t worry, you’ll get your chance. We’ll trade off.”

  Rhian was already downstream out of sight with Benitoe, Gwion, and the hounds. George glanced up—the field was gone. “You ready?” he asked Dyfnallt.

  “Haul away, huntsman,” came the reply. “Great sport, but I must admit I’m glad your deer is smaller than ours, just about now.”

  Maelgwn dismounted and clutched the reins of his foster-father’s horse and his own pony. He peered over the edge trying to see the end of the hunt below. How was he going to take charge of six horses plus his own?

  Hadyn came up from behind him and took in the other five horses left behind by the hunt staff, roughly tied off on the bushes and trees. “Here, Thomas,” he called, “we need to pass these horses out and bring them along. They’ll never climb out of that here.”

  He put a couple of his men in the field to the task, and Thomas Kethin did the same for his. “Thank you, sir,” Maelgwn said to him. “It was too many for me to handle.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t mean for you to take them all yourself but just to see the task done, and so it is.” Hadyn replied. “Let’s work downstream a bit so we can get a better view.”

  They followed a path along the top of the ravine until they found a good spot about fifty yards further along. Most of the field had gathered there to watch, though there were a few on the other side, too, that had somehow gotten off the primary path and crossed upstream before the deer took the plunge.

  Maelgwn studied the men around him while he kept one eye on the drama at the waterfall. How tall and formal they are, mounted, he thought, with me on the ground, but when they dismount they relax and joke around. And I’m part of it, he thought. Hadyn had just treated him like another man with responsibilities and tasks, even though I’m still such a junior student of weapons under him. And Thomas Kethin did the same. He could learn a lot from them about the handling of men, he realized. They treated them differently under different circumstances. It makes me want to live up to the respect they just gave me, and that’s part of how it works, isn’t it?

  Rhian with the hounds was furthest downstream below and closest to him. Gwion certainly looked splendid in his red coat, glistening as the water drops caught the sunlight. His eye appreciated the spec
tacle, the glamour of it, but his head told him to be cautious of these new men. How did Brynach keep his demeanor so steady with the two of them, neither giving way because of his youth nor causing offense by throwing his weight around?

  He normally thought of Brynach as strong and confident, but it was different when the new folk were around for a comparison. He realized the visitors must see them all as inexperienced. It would be hard for them to work together, and he was impressed at how well Brynach had managed it so far. He would do well, he thought, to follow Brynach’s example of steering a difficult course. He admired Benitoe’s professionalism in the same spot, but it was easier to put himself into Brynach’s shoes.

  His foster-father’s behavior was more of a mystery to him. Why does he throw himself into the welcome so heartily, he wondered, as if there were no threat at all. How can he do that, and why should he? It made no sense to him.

  He looked around for Angharad as the field began to withdraw and make its way along the top of the ravine to meet up with the hunt staff and hounds further down. She lingered, watching from above, as George began to organize the carrying of the carcass at streamside. She felt the pressure of his gaze and turned, smiling at him when she saw him watching. “Shall I hold Mosby for you while you get back on?” she said.

  He thanked her, mindful of his responsibilities to deliver his foster-father’s horse to him. After he settled onto Brenin Du, he took the reins back from her and courteously waited for her to remount her own horse. Then he escorted her after the rest of the field.

  The wooded ravine began to widen out to more open terrain as George worked his way down. They’d rotated the bearers a couple of times, and George was now the free man in the lead. He could see they were still within the full-spate river banks, but winter low-water had exposed a shallow gravel shingle that extended from the shore on the right. It was large enough to hold the field which had taken advantage of a trail to come down to the water.