King of the May
Page 23
Steeling herself, she suppressed her dismay. What would Ceridwen do, she thought. We may only have a few minutes. He was clearly a prisoner as she was, and she didn’t want his guards, or hers, to find them together. This might be their only chance to meet.
She reached out and took his face in her hands and forced him to look at her. His beard prickled against her palms, but he followed her lead willingly enough.
“Do you know who I am?” she said.
There was no reaction beyond a confused look.
“Do you know who you are?”
Ah, that provoked a reaction, at least. His brows wrinkled and he looked worried.
“Never mind,” she said. “Listen to me.”
He watched her carefully.
How much would he understand? “You’ve been drugged. These people are your enemies. Don’t drink anything they give you and be cautious of the food. Don’t let them know you’re doing this.”
He tilted his head, still puzzled, but she had his attention.
“I’m a friend, a kinswoman. I’m a prisoner, too.”
She couldn’t tell if any of this was getting through to him. It tore at her heart to see him like this. He was a pillar of strength in her mind, and here he was disarmed and at the mercy of his enemies.
A red squirrel distracted her. He scolded them both for disturbing his domain. George smiled at it, the first true expression she’d seen on his face. The beast-sense, she thought. Maybe that’s untouched.
“Listen to the animals, George. Listen to them very hard. In here.” She tapped her forehead. “You can trust them, the beasts don’t lie. Listen to what they tell you.”
He seemed to consider this. Maybe it would give him some pathway out of this, she thought.
“Where’s your room?” she said.
He twisted in place and gestured vaguely at the upper floors of the stone tower.
She was worried about his guards. This had to be some sort of accidental escape.
“I’m going to leave you now so they don’t find us together. Do you understand? They mustn’t know that we’ve met.”
He reached for her arm with a confused look, but there was no help for it. She gently plucked his hand off and stood up. She bent over and kissed his forehead, and left him there alone in the fading light, an ache in her heart. Cernunnos, watch over him, she thought.
All night long he had puzzled over the girl in the garden. He played her words to him over and over again.
The guard who found him and brought him back to his room had given him a blow for wandering off, but he hardly noticed. There was so much to think about, now.
She knew his name. George. It seemed to fit. She said the people here were enemies. She felt like a friend. Was she? She knew things, too, like the woman.
This morning he took his glass from the smiling woman’s hands and deliberately walked out onto the balcony to drink it. When she wasn’t looking, he carefully spilled most of it over the edge before returning to finish his breakfast with her.
After she left, he thought long and hard. How did I lose my memory? If the girl was telling the truth and they did it somehow, then they could do it again and he would forget all of this. The thought alarmed him.
He pulled a half-burnt twig out of the fire and walked out onto the balcony with it. Facing the wall of the building, where it would be invisible from inside the room, he wrote on the stone in charcoal.
George.
Don’t drink.
Lies.
Enemies.
Listen to animals.
He glanced over the words, and added one more thing—a sketch of an oak tree. He didn’t know why, but it felt right. He was pleased. He would see this every day and it would remind him. He looked down, but no one was in the garden.
He went back in and laid down on his bed. He closed his eyes. He’d heard mice in the walls last night. What would happen if he listened to them very hard?
Angharad put down her brush and set her palette aside when the guards admitted the old woman to her rooms.
“Have you brought me those new pigments then, granny?” she said, smiling until they closed the doors again.
More quietly, she said, ‘That glamour gets more detailed every time I see it, Ceridwen. Tell me the news.”
Ceridwen remained standing, in character, in case the guards suddenly opened the doors again. “There’s still no word on where they are, nor news of Gwythyr and Creiddylad. Gwyn thinks the most likely place remaining is Gwythyr’s domain in Gaul. Calubriga is far from any ways, and that might be a reason to choose it, if they had plans for George.”
“Any luck getting in there to see?”
“Not so far. I’ve passed the task on to Rhodri, since he’s at Llefelys’s court, and maybe he can come up with some legitimate reason to visit. He’s dying for something useful to do, in his own words.”
Angharad’s shoulders sagged.
Ceridwen said, “We’re not abandoning the search, but Gwyn’s got me busy with my own rounds, too, so we’re trying to combine the tasks. Has George’s status changed?”
She suppressed the sense of desolation that threatened to overwhelm her. She needed to focus on what she could do to help. “I can still feel him, very distant and to the southeast. He’s not himself. It’s not like his captivity by Madog, there’s no sense of pain, but it’s not right, either.”
Her hand crept into her pocket where she carried George’s pocket watch, and her thumb rubbed over the engraving of St. George and the dragon.
She sighed. “Lludd’s making a show of searching, as if he fools anyone by that. Then he comes in and tells me all about it. Despicable.”
Ceridwen said, “The problem is that people tend to wink at Rhian’s abduction, as if it were just the impatience of a suitor for his bride, and Gwyn’s huntsman just isn’t important to them. I thought there would be more outrage at the violation of guest rights, but that’s focused largely on you.” She glanced at the doors. “The more you’re seen in public with Lludd’s guards trailing you, the better.”
Angharad nodded. “What news from Annwn?”
“Nothing further since the attempt on the master-tokens a week ago. I hear that Eurig is using Maelgwn as a scout and has him trailing one suspicious character after another. Mostly he’s been set to follow the two huntsmen, who seem to be behaving themselves.”
Ceridwen smiled at Angharad. “You’ll like this bit from Eurig… Apparently Dyfnallt caught Maelgwn tracking him and invited him to do it openly. Said it would be good practice for them both.”
“I can just picture it,” Angharad said, with a half-smile. “What do they say about the abductions over there?”
“They’re distressed by it, as we are. Rhys, of course, is frantic, tied down in Edgewood and unable to help his sister.”
“Edern’s no better,” Angharad said. “I’ve advised Gwyn not to let him linger in Lludd’s presence. His temper is too uncertain.”
“The real problem is Seething Magma. Maelgwn told her, apparently. She wants to come and find George herself. A fair exchange, she put it. Gwyn appealed to her to be patient for a little while.”
Angharad pictured the sudden appearance of a rock-wight, asking Lludd uncomfortable questions. “An appealing thought, but much too risky. She’d be in too much danger herself.”
“And you?” Ceridwen asked. “How are you holding up?”
Angharad glanced around her room. No wall space remained without some sketch of George, both as himself and as the horned-man and the deer-headed manifestation of Cernunnos. The painting she was working on was her second on the subject, the first one prominently displayed on another easel. The new one showed Rhian in huntsman’s livery, standing by the horned-man’s side. Both looked out implacably at the viewer.
“Me? I encourage Lludd to visit me here, where I can show him my latest work.” She grinned, wolfishly. “He doesn’t seem to like the atmosphere.”
Gwyn brooded alone in his
rooms, reviewing his latest correspondence. Too many moving parts, he thought. Too much that could go wrong.
He had to keep the rock-wights out of it, for their own safety, but he was surprised how much of Seething Magma’s insistence had carried over into her written offer. It made him forget her alien nature and her great age. He hoped he’d convinced her that he had better knowledge of how to proceed than she did. She did win one point, though—Eurig would keep her informed.
Rhodri sent encouraging news from Llefelys. He would remain neutral, Rhodri believed, in any dispute with his brother. Better, he was not pleased with Gwythyr’s behavior, and if the captives were truly at Calubriga, maybe something could be made of that.
Ceridwen was making slow going of her colleagues. They were notoriously reluctant to commit to change, but she was pushing away at them.
George had done better, on his hunting tour. Gwyn was surprised there’d been no direct attack, but Emrys reported that even the hostile courts had been somewhat disarmed by the huntsman, holding their hand where they might well have violated guest right and justified it afterward. Emrys knew of one planned poisoning which was revealed and avoided, and another “hunting accident” which he thought was deliberate, but since it had missed and George evaded the trap, they kept silent about it.
That situation was improving, at least, but more of his potential allies wanted to meet the huntsman, and now Gwyn couldn’t produce him.
He still thought Rhian would be safe until Nos Galan Mai, but everything in him revolted at the thought of her held helpless and in fear. He told himself, they are both resourceful, and tried to believe his own reassurances.
Lludd had taunted him when he protested the abduction publicly. “Lost your foster-daughter and your great-grandson, both? Careless of you.”
He thought Gwyn was powerless. Gwyn grinned mirthlessly. Gwythyr may think he’s taken them to use as weapons against him, but he’s wrong. They’ll turn in his hands.
CHAPTER 21
One night, he dreamed of puppies. Newborn hound puppies. Great piles of them, twenty or thirty, with their eyes shut, mewling for their mothers’ milk.
He woke up and cast his mind out to listen again, in the night. It had been days since he’d last had his morning drink and it was easier to think, though his mind was as empty as ever of any history.
He’d frowned once at the woman, and she’d asked if he felt alright. Then he remembered the girl’s warning about not letting anyone know he was avoiding the drink. From then on he was careful to maintain the same smooth demeanor as before.
It was harder now because he found so much to interest him in his surroundings. Not her. All her conversation was about how sorry she was for him, how she wanted to help him get better. He could trust her, she said, but he wondered. The girl had made him suspicious, and there was no going back.
The woman had put her hands on him, at one point, but he was indifferent to caresses. He knew now, from listening to the animals, what it was she wanted, but it was like his lack of speech—there was nothing there for her.
In fact, there was nothing for her in any way. He knew she wanted something, but he had no idea what it was nor how to give it to her, so he didn’t worry about it.
It was the animals that provided all the new interest. They were simple to him, clear in their desires. He felt the joy of their coupling, of finding food and warmth. Their terror at a predator. For the birds, how they gloried in the air. For the rodents, the comfort of a snug burrow. The disputes over territory, the nursing of the young.
There was no confusion with the beasts. They didn’t care about his problems, they didn’t care about him at all. They lived their lives, and he began to pattern his judgment on their sense of normal.
As the days passed, he never found his door unlocked again. He left his balcony door open all the time and dressed warmly to accommodate the chill. Whenever the woman closed it, he opened it again after she left.
Several times birds had flown into his room and perched in the rafters, lingering for an hour or two. He thought they were sent by the girl, he could feel her presence in their minds.
He always knew when they were there, but he didn’t think the woman ever noticed. They were quiet and she didn’t look up. He wondered why the girl did that. Was she watching him through their eyes?
He’d discovered he could do that himself, if he tried.
Rhian found it very difficult to wait like this, the hardest thing she had ever done, dissimulating to Gwythyr each morning.
She set her mind on Brynach as she smiled shyly at her captor, and read all the books she could get from him to avoid thinking about her plight.
Every so often she sent a bird to George’s rooms or used a mouse in the rafters to keep an eye on him. She couldn’t hold them there very long—they needed the time for their own lives, to eat and sleep.
George saw the birds, she knew he did, and when there was no one else around it seemed to her that he was sharper now. She thought he was assuming his old confused demeanor deliberately whenever the woman came into his rooms, as if he understood he had to deceive her. This gave her hope that something of her warnings had penetrated.
But he showed no signs of a returning memory, and eventually they would tire of the lack of progress. She feared him being killed out of hand when that happened.
She had to get them both out before it got that far, but she had no idea how to do it. Her own pack was ready to go, and she replaced the food with fresher supplies every few days, but she wouldn’t abandon him as long as there was any chance to take him with her.
She didn’t know what to make of the woman who kept him company much of each day. She looked like Angharad, more or less, through the birds’ eyes, but Rhian was sure that was impossible. It had to be a glamour, and she assumed Creiddylad was behind it. Did George even remember Angharad at all? She shuddered at the foulness of the deception and vowed to step up her surveillance with the birds.
He liked to stand on the balcony and listen to all the animals he could reach, the squirrels and shrews and moles in the garden, and the animals that occasionally approached within range outside the walls. It was a keen pleasure to listen to the hunters, the polecats and foxes, as well as the hunted.
The birds were the best. He traveled with the little kestrels when he could, dizzied and thrilled by the stoop from on high on a sparrow or vole. He tried an owl one night, a great eagle-owl, gliding on silent feathers down on an unsuspecting rabbit.
So clean, their world. So easy to understand. Scents and appetites, so simple. They had abbreviated memories, too, like his.
He didn’t forget the mice in his chamber walls, whose acquaintance he had made first. They had gotten so used to his presence, both in person and in their minds, that they had lost their caution about hiding from him.
The woman had walked in yesterday morning while he was studying them. When he recognized her fear and disgust, he sent them behind the walls out of her reach. She didn’t seem to understand that he had made them vanish. Instead, she insisted that something be done to reduce the infestation, as she called it.
This morning one of the guards had introduced a cat into his room and he was enraptured. He shared his own breakfast with her, to the amusement of the woman.
All afternoon he sat cross-legged on the bed with the cat poured into his lap. He stroked the calico body while she purred with pleasure.
This was an interesting mind, he thought. It sought little creatures that moved in a certain twitchy way and dispatched them with precision and delight. He could see older hunts in her mind. The joy of the carnivore didn’t disturb him, it was her nature. The blood and pain was a byproduct, not her goal. He sank deep into her mind, enjoying her pleasure from his kneading hands in a cycle of mutual comfort.
The door opened and the woman came in, closing it behind her. She didn’t usually come at this hour, and he could see that she was angry. He didn’t like it when she was angry.
She hissed in frustration.
He avoided her eyes and returned to the cat’s mind.
“Don’t look at the damn cat,” she screamed. “Look at me!”
So he did.
He took the same deep perception he was using with the cat and applied it to her mind. Dark, red, chaos. Desires and needs, guilts and evasions. This wasn’t her real face, this wasn’t her real body. Everything she said was a lie.
The cat fled and he found himself standing next to the bed, shaking in shock and outrage. This was nothing like the clean predator he’d been petting. It was revolting.
She stepped back from him in fear, and he felt the echo of it in his mind. She feared vengeance. Why? He made himself look and saw she’d done this to him, blocked his memory. She’d done this deliberately, planned it out.
Without thought he advanced on her in a rage. She retreated to the door and through it, and he heard the lock engage, but she hadn’t gone far at all. She was still there in the corridor and he couldn’t escape that disgusting mind, the horrible flavor of it. He wanted it to go away. Right now.
He picked up his chair and beat it against the closed door until it shattered in his hands, and he felt her withdraw a few steps. More, he thought, more. She needs to be gone.
With a surge of strength he lifted the heavy bedstead and upended it against the door with a crash, and still she lingered. In frustration he tore through the room in a fury, smashing the furnishings until nothing was left and he stood in the center of the room, panting with exertion. Her continuing presence just outside maddened him.
A sparrow circled around his head and caught his attention. He tasted it—it came from the girl. He walked out onto the balcony still shaking and trying to catch his breath.
There she was, on the bench. She gestured at herself, at her eyes. “Look at me,” she was saying.