King of the May

by Myers, Karen

  The door started to re-open and he ducked into an alcove so as not to be seen. A strange man stuck his head out and checked the corridor in both directions. “No one heard him,” he said to his confederates inside. A rough voice from within said, “He’s out. Help me bundle him up.”

  “Don’t forget the pockets,” said another, higher voice.

  What’s happened to George? And where was Rhian, why hadn’t she made any noise? There had to be several men in this ambush, and there was no way he could successfully fight them all.

  Should he yell for help? Would anyone hear him, behind the stone walls and thick doors? If he left to fetch help from the other end of the corridor, there would only be Gwyn and Edern, and there were more men than that here. He couldn’t count on Angharad’s guards. Besides, if I leave, they could get away, he thought.

  The best thing to do is follow them, he thought. They don’t sound like they’ve killed my foster-father, they sound like they’re planning to take him somewhere.

  Another man stepped out into the corridor and listened. “It’s clear, let’s go.”

  Maelgwn held his breath. Four men hauled his heavy foster-father in a roll of netting. He wasn’t moving. Another carried Rhian over his shoulder, and she didn’t move, either. Of the other two men, one led them all, sword drawn, and the last followed from the rear, listening carefully for pursuit. Their clothing was ordinary and unmarked by any badge of livery.

  Maelgwn followed stealthily behind them, and started to sweat. If I’m captured or killed, no one will ever know what happened. I mustn’t get caught.

  They carried their captives down the corridor away from Angharad’s apartments and beyond the next two turnings. In an alcove partway down the next section, the leader paused and pressed three points on the wall, then pushed open a hinged section and vanished within.

  Maelgwn sprinted the distance silently behind the last man and just managed to catch the swinging wall with a finger tip before it finished closing. He widened the opening, ducked inside, and shrank against the wall, just before the last man turned to check that it was closed. He swore and returned to push it shut again.

  He fought to control his breathing, but they made enough noise going down the dust-covered staircase built into the walls that they masked any small sounds he made following. They felt themselves more secure and hurried along, careless now about their chatter.

  Maelgwn crept after them, keeping as close as he dared and trying not to sneeze.

  At ground level, they paused, and the leader went out alone through another wall-door to check for witnesses. They put their captives down just inside the opening. Three men stayed with them while the other four slipped out.

  Maelgwn thought about attacking, but three was still too many, and George and Rhian couldn’t help. Even if he was lucky, how would he keep the other four from returning and taking them back?

  There was a noise of wheels and a creak of wood and jangling harness. Through the opened passage exit he could see two carriages. He waited long moments behind the shut door for them to load their captives and start off so that they wouldn’t see him exiting behind them.

  He had a moment of panic when he fumbled the opening, but he emerged in time to see the carriages in the distance, the only things moving this late at night. When he looked around, he realized the passage had taken them outside the castle’s walls, though still within the city. He grinned mirthlessly like a wolf. Let them try to shake him off now, outside, where there were lots of places to hide.

  He trailed them on foot, silently. The tight streets slowed them down, and it was no challenge at all to him, until they pulled up at the city gates. He took advantage of the dark shadows outside the reach of the torches held by the guards and crouched between the two carriages where they waited side by side.

  The guards checked the pass held by the leader and opened the gates. Maelgwn paced between them, bent low, until they were back in darkness. Then he let them pull ahead a few yards and settled into a smooth run, ready to keep it up for as long as the horses could. There were no mounted outriders to spot him.

  They had only traveled about two miles before the first carriage slowed and turned left into an open heath. The place was unremarkable, but tonight there were two more coaches waiting for them. One carried luggage and servants, but the other was a fancier affair, and two passengers walked about in the light of the torches, stretching their legs while waiting for the new arrivals.

  Maelgwn crept up between the bushes and got as close as he dared to watch.

  He recognized them both—Gwythyr and Creiddylad, shed of their finery from the ceremony and clad in traveling clothes.

  The leader of the abductors climbed down from the carriage and bowed to Gwythyr.

  “Were you successful?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “The huntsman, too?” Creiddylad asked.

  “We gave him a good knock on the head, and dumped the contents of his pockets like you said.”

  Not dead. Maelgwn’s relief washed through him, but he stiffened himself to pay attention.

  “If you’ve harmed him, you will pay,” Creiddylad snarled, and the man backed away. “I needed him unconscious, not dead.”

  She pulled a vial out of a pocket and said to Gwythyr, “Can’t have him waking up before we get there. The way might just vanish on us.”

  She crouched down over George on the floor of the carriage and opened his mouth. She poured in the contents of the vial and massaged his throat until he swallowed it. “That should hold him for a day or two.”

  Gwythyr said, “Is that enough?”

  She shrugged. “He has no magic except what Cernunnos provides. He’s defenseless.”

  Everyone returned to their vehicles, and Gwythyr and Creiddylad led off through a way Maelgwn didn’t detect until Gwythyr opened it. A hidden way, he thought. It closed again behind the last coach with the luggage and vanished.

  Maelgwn was left alone on the heath, only the tracks and the droppings of the horses showing what had occurred here tonight.

  How was he going to tell his foster-mother and the rest of them what had happened? His stomach knotted.

  Well, first things first. How was he going to get back into the city and the castle?

  CHAPTER 19

  Gwyn stretched before entering his suite. Angharad had gone to bed, but he and Edern had lingered another hour or more, turning over ideas and generally working through their shock and anger. He glanced over at his brother as he reached for the door handle and thought, guiltily, I should have anticipated this.

  He opened the door wide and let his eyes adjust to find the lamps, his lighter already in his hand. They’d be sleeping, inside, and he didn’t want to disturb them. The light from the corridor illuminated a thin wedge of overturned furniture and wrinkled carpet, and he halted, instantly alert again.

  “Bring a light from the hall, quickly,” he said to Edern.

  Without question, Edern spun to obey. With its help they found their own lamps and lit them. Gwyn took the borrowed light and pushed open all the bedroom doors.

  “They’re gone. There’s been a struggle.”

  Edern stood in the doorway to his granddaughter’s room. “There was a fight here, and a little blood.”

  “Here, too,” called Gwyn from the common room. He kicked the dropped sword. “I read it as an ambush in Rhian’s room, and probably of George out here, to judge by the size of the disturbance. They must have entered in the dark, as we were about to. The lamps weren’t in their usual place.”

  “The attackers moved them for the ambush,” Edern suggested.

  “Yes, that makes sense.”

  Gwyn came over to look at the blood in Rhian’s room and put a hand on Edern’s shoulder. “If they’d wanted them dead, they’d be here. I bet they tried to handle her gently and she surprised one of them.” He bent down and picked up a slender knife. “See, isn’t this one of hers?”

  Edern took it fr
om him. There was blood on the blade. “Angharad will know.”

  What about Maelgwn, Gwyn wondered. He spoke his thoughts out loud, “Maelgwn would have hung back. You know how he was with George. They might not have grabbed him.”

  “Then where is he?” Edern said, then answered himself. “Tracking them, of course. There would have been too many for him to fight.”

  “The passages,” Gwyn said. “Creiddylad knows them as well as we do. That’s probably how they got in.”

  He thought back to his boyhood. “Some of them go all the way outside to the city. If Maelgwn went after them, he’s going to have a hard time getting back.”

  He turned to Edern decisively. “I’ll finish going through this and bring the news to Angharad. You try and find Maelgwn before he’s caught returning. Be quiet about it.”

  Angharad woke up to find Gwyn standing in the doorway of her darkened bedroom. She’d only been asleep for an hour or so.

  “What is it, what’s happened?” she said.

  “Get up,” he said tersely, and vanished.

  She threw a robe on and hurried out, her stomach churning. Why Gwyn and not George?

  Gwyn was pacing restlessly in her main room. Someone had refreshed the fire and turned up the lamps.

  She stood there and waited expectantly, trying to catch his eyes and read his face.

  Gwyn finally spoke. “There’s been a fight. It looks like George and Rhian have been taken, out of my rooms. We think Maelgwn may be on their trail. Edern’s searching for him.”

  “Are they dead?” she heard herself ask, remotely.

  “Are they?” he replied. “There’s little blood. Can you tell about George?”

  She closed her eyes, trying to sense him through the arrow pendant he wore. Nothing responded, and she put a hand out blindly for support. Gwyn took it and steadied her. She reached harder and thought she caught an echo, but it was very distant and she couldn’t be sure.

  “If he’s alive he’s not nearby. I think I heard something, but it was so far away…”

  Her eye lit upon a small pile of objects on her work table. “What’s this?”

  Gwyn said, grimly, “We found this piled on George’s bed. He never got that far himself.”

  It was the contents of his pockets, she realized. All of them. His pocket watch, lighter, small knife, way tokens, everything. “They didn’t find my pendant,” she said. “It’s not here.”

  She looked up at Gwyn, puzzled. “Why would they do this?”

  “Maybe they were afraid he had some special item that would be a problem, a weapon.”

  “Or something to let him be found. They must know something, but nothing specific. So they stripped him of everything, just in case.”

  Gwyn nodded with her. “Yes, the stories are vague, but they’ve clearly heard them.”

  The door opened, and Edern brought Maelgwn in. “I found him outside the castle gates. He couldn’t work that passage door. Would you believe, he came over the city walls without being caught?”

  Maelgwn walked straight up to Angharad and sank on one knee. “When I saw them last, they were unconscious but unharmed. There were too many, I couldn’t do anything but watch.”

  She stretched her hand to him and lifted him up. She tried to respect his dignity, but broke down and hugged him instead. “I’m so relieved you’re not hurt.”

  In a moment she recomposed herself and stepped back. When the back of her legs hit a chair, she sat down abruptly. “Thank you for tracking them, foster-son. Please, tell us all what happened.”

  Maelgwn did his best to make his report clear and formal, but Angharad could hear the emotion in his voice—the guilt of having escaped capture, the reluctance to deliver bad news, his exhaustion.

  Gwyn summarized the situation. “A hidden way to somewhere unknown, and Gwythyr and Creiddylad working together.”

  “We knew that part,” Edern said, morosely.

  “Repeat that line from Creiddylad again, Maelgwn,” Gwyn said.

  “You mean, about George? She said ‘he has no magic, he’s defenseless.’”

  A chill went up Angharad’s spine. It was true. Cernunnos was the foundation of most of George’s magic, he had little of his own.

  “She’s strong, herself,” Angharad said. “Especially with growing things, herbs. Poisons.”

  Gwyn said, “I don’t know everything she can do. There was always more strength in her than discipline, and she’s been crafty about not revealing too much.” He hesitated. “I would fear being in her power.”

  “We should rouse the castle,” Edern said, desperately.

  Gwyn waved him to silence. “Pointless. Our father might not have connived at this, but he won’t be unhappy about it.”

  Angharad watched him sink into his political mode. “Let’s think about this from their point of view,” he said.

  “Gwythyr wants Annwn and Rhian is his latest claim. He got what he wanted from Lludd this evening, a betrothal, more or less. He won’t harm her while he needs her to legitimize his claim, so she’s probably safe until Nos Galan Mai.”

  He pursed his lips. “Rhian must have been the main target for Gwythyr, but George wasn’t taken by accident. Creiddylad was prepared for him. He must have been her goal.”

  “So, what can we do…” he thought out loud. “There will be a search, of course. That’s our first priority. But we must conduct it, Lludd will be useless.”

  He looked over at Maelgwn. “You must carry the news to Eurig, and to the rock-wights, I think. George’s capture may be aimed at them, and I am very uneasy about not having a way-finder there for them.”

  Edern shook his head, “It was aimed at you, brother. No huntsman, no hunt.”

  “Maybe,” Gwyn said, “but they have other arrows in their quiver for that. I think it’s about the ways.”

  “Let me stay and help search, my lord, please,” Maelgwn said. “I should have stopped them somehow.”

  “That isn’t always possible, kinsman, and I’m proud of you for mastering the impulse. It would be much harder to find them if we didn’t have the information you were so clever and brave as to obtain. You must leave the search to us, now.”

  He leaned forward. “Edern will start you on your way. Eurig can use your skills.”

  Edern walked up behind Maelgwn and put a hand on his shoulder. “Will you register a protest to Lludd?” he asked his brother.

  Gwyn considered. “He’ll consider Gwythyr within his rights and he cares nothing for George except as a taunt to me. On the other hand, if he’s complicit and he conspired at an abduction of guests, of kin, from under his own roof, that will outrage many of his lords… Maybe we should raise the hue and cry after all, loud and strong.”

  Angharad said, “What do they want with George?”

  “Creiddylad probably knows enough about how Madog died. Scilti may have told her. Maybe she has a plan to manage him. If she can control him, she can control the destruction of the ways, and that is a mighty weapon indeed.”

  “Where are they?” Angharad whispered.

  Gwyn said, “And are they still together?”

  Rhian swore she wouldn’t let them see how scared she was.

  She had woken in a strange bed in a strange room, lit by the afternoon sun, and her head was pounding. She sat up carefully and realized she was still in her ceremonial clothing, the lovely light green dress torn now and stained. Her hair was partly up and partly down her back.

  She felt for her knives. The main ones, strapped to her legs under her skirts, were gone. Her heart rose as she discovered they’d missed the little one pinned into the root of her braid. If they’d cleaned her up they would have found it. The one in the small of her back, tucked into place with the boning of her corset, had escaped their search, too. They must have thought two was enough, she thought. Even in her fear she smiled. I’ll have to tell Angharad when I see her.

  I caught one of them, didn’t I, she thought, pleased with herself but a
little sick as she remembered the feel of the blade penetrating flesh. They would have found the empty scabbard for that one. That’s probably the only reason they searched at all.

  She looked around the room, trying not to move her head quickly. It was pleasant enough but the window was too narrow to pass through. She stood up carefully and walked over to it. From a height of two stories she looked down into a ramble, a garden with pathways and benches, beginning to green up in the early spring. All around it were stone buildings like the one she was in, some with balconies at the windows and some without, like hers. There was no one in sight.

  This is the back of a castle somewhere, she thought.

  Her head ached as she explored the rest of her little suite. Clothing had been provided for her, and a basin of water. She stripped out of her fine dress and discarded it on a chair. I’ll never wear that again, she thought.

  Her first business was to keep them from taking the knives she had left. She hurried through her change of clothes, picking something as simple and youthful as she could find. Let them underestimate her and forget about her fangs, she thought. She did her hair in a simple childish braid and pinned the little knife back into place.

  Still no one came. She would rig a harness for her larger knife once she had needle and thread. Meanwhile she looked for a place to conceal it. Better assume they’ll search the place, she thought. She cast her eyes up, remembering Hadyn’s advice during training. “Always check above you. Most folk only look down.”

  There was a darkness above the top of the window frame. She moved a chair over quietly and stood on it to inspect it. The outer walls were thick, and the top of the frame had a small gap, mostly concealed by the window hangings. She shoved the other knife there and stepped down, hastening to move the chair away before someone came in. She scuffed out the marks on the floor with her slipper and checked the hiding place. Good, she couldn’t see it, and she didn’t think it would be visible to anyone else, either.

  A knock on the door interrupted her plans. Without waiting for a response, an armed man in a brown livery she didn’t recognize opened it. When he saw her standing there, he bowed and said, “I will tell my lord that you are ready to speak with him.”