by Myers, Karen
“And I’ve heard the story of their sister Creiddylad. More of the same?”
“She was traded for a marriage alliance to bind Gwythyr to her father and she made it worse when she chose to embroil Gwyn in her dalliances in spite. Gwyn is still paying for that.”
“Yes, the annual struggle on May Eve. Can’t that be settled? I understand why the great hunt on Nos Galan Gaeaf may be an eternal ritual, set by a god, but why this?”
He stopped. He felt the unexpected stir of Cernunnos inside him.
“Beli Mawr imposed it upon Gwyn and Gwythyr. Only he can set it aside, and Gwyn will not request it.”
He must still feel the guilt, George thought. And perhaps he’s too proud to ask.
“What about Llefelys and the regions to the east?”
“Llefelys is content with Gaul and rules in the traditional way. He has a reputation for justice.” Ceridwen waved a hand. “I had much of the training of him.”
She pursed her lips. “His domain is famed for its rectitude, and he holds closely to the alliances beyond his borders. Those neighbors will not interfere with something they see as a family dispute, as long as it doesn’t spill over or threaten instability.”
“Hmm. And instability is developing,” George said. “Making new ways, killing ways—that’s destabilizing. Lludd aging creates tensions. And Gwyn’s interest in how the humans developed the new world, modernity in general, that’s more destabilizing yet.”
He stood up abruptly. “You know I want to help, especially since I’m part of the problem. I have to, for my family, for the rock-wights. Even for Gwyn. What does he intend to do?”
“He’ll tell you when he can,” she said, and he was forced to be content with that.
It was a couple of days later that Angharad felt the change in atmosphere in her workroom, a subtle movement of the afternoon light. She turned away from her painting, a study in greens of the hunt staff in their new livery in the kennels after George’s arrival, something she’d sketched three months ago. Her brush remained poised in her hand, ready to continue.
George stood in the doorway. He’d clearly been there a few moments, watching, reluctant to disturb her. He didn’t often come by her impromptu studio in the infirmary’s back storage room—he knew how she liked to sink obsessively into her work, though he’d started dropping in more often ever since the deadly package had made its appearance. She missed her spacious workrooms at her house in Greenhollow, but it had made more sense to relocate to the huntsman’s house while travel was uncertain in the winter. At least this room received decent light from two large windows.
“I didn’t expect to see you. Come on in.” She put the brush down and wiped her hands on a rag.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said. “I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things before I drop in on Hadyn’s drill, and you know how he doesn’t like his trainees to be late. You tend to get whacked more during the session until he thinks you’ve learned to be prompt.”
Angharad smiled at the image. “Can’t have that.” An idea struck her. She should ask to come by and sketch a session sometime. She’d like to do a series of drawings of men training at arms. She stopped herself before she became focused on composing the scene in her mind and returned her attention to her husband.
“Actually, you have something I want,” she said. She walked over to a shelf and took down a sketchbook and a pencil. “You’re still carrying that thunderbolt around, yes?”
He nodded.
“Well, dig it out. I wanted to do a study of it, and I can do that while we talk.”
George reached into his left breeches pocket and pulled the small bone object. It was tied with a fine chain around his belt and through a belt loop. He fumbled with it, unfastening the chain.
She cocked an eyebrow at the elaborate arrangement. “I can’t explain it,” he said, sheepishly. “I took Ceridwen’s ‘don’t lose it’ to heart. I still have no idea what it’s for.” She’d given it to him a few weeks ago, without explanation.
He handed the carving to her and she weighed it in her hand for a moment. “Can you see anything unusual about it?” he asked.
“Nothing besides its obvious age. But then I’m no expert on this sort of magic. I only have enough for my own small charms.” It was opaque to her but not quite… dead. The weight of its age gave it a indefinable feeling of potential. “It’s not ordinary, that’s all I can say for certain.”
“That pendant of yours is no small charm.” He reached under his shirt and drew it out. When he pulled it away from contact with his skin it became visible, a two-inch delicate wooden arrow, tinted green, suspended from a green silken cord. When he held the cord out far enough that the arrow could swing freely, it pointed directly to Angharad.
“It worked all the way from Edgewood,” he reminded her. “Must have been fifty miles. And Madog never knew I had it, they never found it on me. It was a comfort,” he said quietly.
She replied tartly, “If I were better at magic, there would have been less response in the other direction. That was both good and bad.” The secondhand feel of George’s torment had wrung her heart.
The open sympathy on George’s face shamed her. “Never mind,” she said. “I’d rather know than not know.”
She set the small carving on a piece of cloth and positioned it to catch the light well. She picked up the sketchbook and pencil and began to draw it.
George found a tall stool and partly perched on it, keeping one foot on the floor.
“How was the rock-wight visit today?” she asked, as she drew. He’d eventually get to the topic that brought him, she knew, but no harm venturing a guess to hurry things along.
He smiled. “They’re impatient to receive their delivery. The classroom’s almost done. I don’t know what else to call it.” He gestured in the air to show her the shapes. “They’ve hollowed out a relatively straight-sided shape right into the hillside, and then expanded it to a much larger space inside, bigger than the great hall, though not so high. The entrance is a sort of guard post, and then it opens into a big area with shelves and tables and chairs. All we had to do was close off the outer entrance with a small door for us, a huge door for them, and windows. They can change their body form well enough that even Gravel can flow through the big door and into the open space in back, and there’s room for several of them at once.”
“I didn’t realize it was going to be so large,” she said.
“Nor did I, but they reinforced the living stone somehow. Anyway, they’re confident it’s solid. And of course, that much space is wonderful. We don’t have to worry about the weather, the instruments should do well in a constant temperature, and there’s plenty of shelving for books. Ceridwen arrangrd lighting and she’s been holding literacy classes there all week.”
“What I wanted to ask,” he said, “was… the things I ordered for them should all be at Mariah Catlett’s before Friday. I was planning to pick everything up, park the wagon here, and then deliver on Sunday with appropriate ceremony and much unwrapping of presents.”
She nodded as she sketched.
“Would you care to come, Friday? I want to bring Maelgwn to meet my grandparents, and I know they’d love to see you, too.”
“Yes, I’d like that.” She looked up and smiled at him.
“Good. I’ll tell Maelgwn when I see him.” He remembered his concern. “It only recently occurred to me to ask about something. Do the fae get human illnesses, or vice versa? Are there immunities? I know there’s been some traffic back and forth but I would truly hate to introduce the equivalent of smallpox or something else.”
Angharad cocked her head. “Ceridwen could tell you more, but I don’t think you need to be concerned. We’ve had illnesses that spread rapidly before, but we call folks like Ceridwen ‘healers’ for a reason. I think it’s all safe enough. It’s not as if we’ve never met together, fae and human, all over the world.”
“Alright,” he said. “There was som
ething else… I wanted to talk to you about Maelgwn, get your opinion.”
“Hmm?” she said, as she turned the thunderbolt a different way to capture it from another angle.
“Rhodri had him there today. He asked Mag to make him a ‘student way’ to work with and I watched him for a while. He’s learning quickly, it seems to me, but is this what he wants to do when he gets older? What sorts of choices will he have?”
“He’ll come of age soon enough,” she said, “and make his own decisions about it.”
“That’s another thing. Why is that earlier for the boys than the girls, thirteen instead of fifteen?”
“It reflects some of the differences in their lives,” she said. “Thirteen is when many boys start their formal apprenticeships or their military training. The ones that are fostered may return home to begin learning the family estate or trade. It’s good to mark their change of status. Some of the girls apprentice, too, and they begin young, but fifteen is the youngest we allow for marriage. Few marry at that age, but it’s the obvious point at which to welcome them as adults.”
George shook his head. “What does Maelgwn want to become, can you tell me? He’s out all day in the woods, most days, as it is. And always by himself. This much solitude can’t be good for him.”
She didn’t agree. “It will serve him well if he becomes a ranger, like Thomas Kethin. Rhodri tells me he’s doing well with the ways, too, for his age, but those skills won’t mature until he’s fully-grown. There’s plenty of time yet.”
She looked at him. “He told me once his father was a late bloomer, but then it’s his mother who was the way-finder. He doesn’t have to decide now. All his options are open.”
“Yes, but how can I keep him safe when he’s all over the place like this? How can I protect him?”
She tilted her head as she sketched. “More like, how will he protect you?”
Ah. That startled him, she thought. He hadn’t noticed. She watched him re-evaluate his recent encounters with his foster-son. One of the surprising things about her husband, she reflected, was his willingness to reconsider something based on new information. Few men were that… flexible. She was still learning how he thought about things, how he planned. He was unpredictable to her, but she was getting better at it.
“He does it all the time when you’re both in the same place,” she said. “He settles somewhere in the background and keeps an eye on your surroundings, the people you talk to. Like a guard dog.”
“I hadn’t realized,” George said. “Well, that’s harmless enough.”
Angharad thought, Maelgwn’s almost of age and older than many lads, with the loss of his family and the two years on his own. He’s less trusting than George, and that makes him seem older, too.
She glanced at her husband. He doesn’t understand how he can inspire that fierce loyalty in someone, and so he dismisses it. But Maelgwn sees some of what I do, that George trusts too readily, that he’d rather avenge a blow than anticipate it. That could kill him some day—you can’t keep taking the first strike without consequences. Let it not be while Maelgwn or I can prevent it.
George stood up and walked about restlessly, pursing his lips.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Well, it’s Gwyn. And Ceridwen. They’re planning something but they won’t speak to me about it. They keep brushing me off and I don’t understand it.”
Angharad could hear the note of frustration in his voice. She hated to see him beating against the careful cage Gwyn was building around him. He could feel it, but his human upbringing made it difficult for him to muster the patience to deal with the realities of power here.
Gwyn would tell him whatever he thought he needed to know, when it was needed, according to Gwyn’s plan. Not according to George’s desire. And the sooner he tamed himself to that, the calmer he’d be.
“Look at all the things Gwyn’s trying to manage,” she said to him. “He has this young domain here in Annwn, the incorporation of Madog’s settlement at Dyffryn Camarch, and now the rock-wights whose potential disturbs everyone. He has to prepare for demands from his father.” She tried to soften the issue. “He can’t have much time to give you.”
He waved that aside impatiently. “I’m not trying to get his attention, I know his time is limited. I just want his confidence, so I can help relieve the burden.” He shook his head. “Listen to me, I sound like a little boy whining about his father, don’t I?”
He looked over at her. “He’s going to go for independence, isn’t he? Break away from Lludd?”
Privately she thought so, too. She cautioned George, “His father will never agree to it. If it’s true, it will mean war. It would take very great skill to avoid it.”
“What would Cernunnos do, if he tries to break away?” Suddenly he stopped pacing. “Oh! Of course. That’s why they’re not telling me much. He’s going to have to talk to Cernunnos eventually, isn’t he, through me I suppose. And he’ll want to control that conversation, if he can.”
She nodded with him. “That seems likely.”
He thumped his fist lightly on his thigh. “Why couldn’t he just damn well say so, then?” He subsided. “Well, at least that makes sense, though he might as well have been explicit about it.”
She put her sketchpad down and handed the thunderbolt back to her husband, her fingers lingering on the back of his hand with a smile.
“Better not be late for Hadyn,” she said.
CHAPTER 7
George looked over his group on Friday morning before they entered the Guests’ Way outside the main palisade gates of Greenway Court. He was glad Benitoe had asked to come along after the hound exercise in the morning. He’d volunteered to drive the empty wagon, so he could “tell his auntie all about it,” and that saved George from looking for some one else to drive. Neither he nor Angharad were comfortable handling the long reins so they rode instead, with Maelgwn on his black pony Brenin Du.
Just outside the entrance to the way, he plucked two way tokens out of his vest pocket and handed them over to his foster-son. “I don’t want you using these, now, without telling me first.”
Maelgwn recognized the symbol for the Guests’ Way on one of them and George hid his smile as he puzzled over what the other one was for.
“Go on, now,” he said. “Take us in.” Rhodri had said he was ready for this.
Maelgwn straightened in surprise and pride. He moved to the front of the tiny cavalcade and led them in.
“Stop before the transition,” George said. “It’s a good distance in for this passage. Then look for something else.”
The boy dutifully came to a halt after a few yards and used his growing way-finding senses. “Is that another way, in here?”
“Well done. That’s what the second token is for. This is the hidden branch of the Guests’ Way, and the primary local access to the human world.”
“Is that how you came here?”
“No, Cernunnos made a way of his own for that, and we call it the Huntsman’s Way now. I’ll get you a token for it and show it to you, soon. Feel for it when you’re on the other side, it’s not far away.”
He waved his hand in the dim light of the passage where they were stopped. “Alright, bring us through the second way.”
They emerged some distance behind Mariah Catlett’s house. When George was whipper-in for his grandfather’s Rowanton Hunt, he’d known Mariah Catlett as a middle-aged woman, always in the first field of riders, close behind the hounds. He’d known little about her, except that she was widowed with a grown son in the Marines.
Now he knew her as Gwyn’s human agent. For thirty years she’d been earning her living this way, first for Gwyn, and now for him, too. Her father had stumbled upon Gwyn’s secret life when Gwyn had lingered behind in the human world to raise his daughter after her human mother died. That daughter was George’s grandmother, Georgia.
George had his own desk in her house now. It had been so strange to be in front
of a computer again, several days ago, when he ordered the goods the rock-wights wanted, using accounts she’d set up for him.
He’d taken on the task of providing them with their first installment of geology textbooks, as agreed. Seething Magma had been fascinated with what he’d told her a month ago about plate tectonics and magnetism from the rotating iron core of the planet, and now all of them wanted to know more.
The elementals lived for tens of thousands of years, and their accumulated cultural knowledge was formidable, but they lacked the human penchant for science and were eager to make up that deficit as quickly as possible, especially for their core interests.
George had made himself a shopping list, but it kept growing as he thought about the problem. They needed not just books on the earth sciences, but also chemistry, paleontology, even dictionaries to translate both English terms and source words from Latin and Greek. And they had to start with high school texts and build up to more advanced material.
And then there were the musical instruments and related books that Cavern Wind had requested. That had kept him busy, too, thinking of what might be possible for rock-wights to use. He hoped he’d made good choices.
As they approached the house, Mariah came outside to welcome her guests, bringing George’s grandparents with her.
“Leave the wagon over by the garage,” she called. “All the packages are inside there. Come with me and we’ll put your horses in the stable while you visit.”
George dismounted to perform the introductions.
“This is Maelgwn, my foster-son,” he said. “Son, these are my grandparents, Gilbert and Georgia Talbot, and our hostess, Mariah Catlett.” Gilbert walked over to Maelgwn, who was still on his pony, and shook his hand. The two were of a height, Gilbert standing and Maelgwn mounted, and each stood or sat tall. George caught his grandmother smiling to see the comparison.
Benitoe stood by the wagon horse to greet them, and bowed. George thought the honors were about equal here. The humans had never seen a lutin, but then Benitoe had never seen elderly humans before, either. All had been warned, but George could see the reality was still a surprise on both sides.
