King of the May

by Myers, Karen

  “Have you looked at that creature?” she asked.

  “Imp? He’s just a little kitten. A disobedient one.” He said it with a hint of a smile.

  “No, I mean really looked.”

  He glanced at her, puzzled. Then he looked down at the kitten seriously, his eyes unfocused. “What on earth…”

  “You feel like that, too, sometimes,” she said.

  He stared at her.

  “Cernunnos, I mean. My beast-sense doesn’t really work for people, but sometimes when I look at you I can see something, someone else. Old, male, not-you.”

  He kept staring at her and it unnerved her.

  “I don’t look very often,” she said, defensively. “I don’t think he’d like it.”

  George shook it off. “You’re saying this kitten is an… an avatar of something?” He seemed to have trouble saying the words. “Like I am?”

  She nodded.

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Ask…”

  “Ceridwen,” he completed the sentence in unison with her, and smiled.

  “That’s what they told me for my first couple of weeks here in the otherworld, whenever I asked about gunpowder, or much of anything else. ‘Ask Ceridwen’ was the constant refrain.”

  Rhian smiled back. “Well, it’s good advice.”

  George straightened up. “Did you know? I’ve received letters from some of the huntsmen I visited a few weeks ago. Would you like to see them?”

  She nodded. He reached inside his coat and took out four letters which he handed over.

  She read them slowly. She didn’t know these people, but the sincerity of their sympathy was unmistakable. She sensed the dignity and hard work of their station, their unstated but palpable ties to their own hounds, and their sure knowledge of just how devastating this must be for George.

  She had to wipe her own face again before she handed them back to George.

  He patted her knee. “We’re not alone in this. Others understand.”

  She cried, “I don’t see how Lludd could do it.”

  George chose his words. “We have a saying in my world. ‘Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ Lludd is corrupted by power and we are reaping the result.”

  “Why can’t he just let my foster-father go?”

  “Fear. Vanity. He’s weaker than his brother, I think, and knows it, and it galls him. I think he’s weaker than Gwyn. His character is ruthless and brittle.”

  He glanced at her to see if she was following him.

  “But he has power at his disposal and that makes him dangerous. He’s on the far side of that slope where desperate men grasp at whatever they can to keep from falling.”

  She nodded.

  “He may be weak,” George said, “but he can still kill us all as he goes down.”

  He looked out into the orchard and fingered his growing beard. “I want my wife back, her baby well. I want peace and safety for my family. I want Gwyn’s domain to become the place of prosperity it should be.”

  She thought he spoke half to himself now, as though repeating something he’d been concentrating on. “What keeps Gwyn in charge of Annwn is the great hunt. That’s been taken from him with the hounds. Even if he wins at Nos Galan Mai and we receive two whelps from Cernunnos, they can’t grow quickly enough to hunt six months later.”

  “Madog and Creiddylad tried to stop the great hunt by killing the huntsman,” he continued, “but I stepped in. Lludd has been more ambitious—he killed the whole pack. There’s no quick fix for that. Those were Cernunnos’s own hounds.”

  “So,” he reasoned out loud, “does that mean Gwyn is no longer Prince of Annwn? I don’t know. Nos Galan Gaeaf is six months away and it hasn’t failed yet. But it will.”

  Rhian shuddered. “You think Cernunnos will remove Gwyn, like Lludd wants?”

  “He hasn’t shared anything with me since… He’s preoccupied.”

  For a moment, Rhian had a vivid sense of what the turmoil must be like inside George’s head.

  “What can we do?” she said.

  “Keep going, I suppose. What else can we do? I’ve got to get Angharad back. I want Gwyn to succeed but I don’t know how he can, now. I don’t know what’s going to happen, I have no idea how we can win. But there’s one thing I’m certain of—if we don’t try, then we will surely lose.”

  He looked down at her, seated next to him. “Sometimes that’s all there is, the knowledge that you have to keep fighting. That you have to trust others to do their part. Even when there’s no hope of success. You might as well try, you couldn’t live with yourself if you didn’t.”

  Rhian knew she would remember this. It’s how men stood and fought in battle, wasn’t it, when they knew they couldn’t win. It seemed so simple when George said it. You fought anyway, because not fighting was worse.

  He smiled at her unexpectedly. “Did I tell you? Angharad has attacked Lludd in her own special way. She’s painting a mural.”

  She could hear his pride in her beneath the humor.

  He told her the story, and she laughed out loud at the scenes he described from Gwyn’s letters.

  When they were done chuckling together, he rubbed his face and looked at her seriously.

  “Thank you, my dear.”

  She could feel her face coloring. She stood up and stammered, “I was w…worried about you.”

  “I know,” he said. “You’ve helped, more than you can possibly understand.”

  Rhian felt better herself. Like the kitten that insisted on being petted, she realized. It knew it was comforting to give comfort. As she walked thoughtfully off, she turned and saw George pick the kitten up and hold it up in front of his face, small in his two broad hands.

  “And just who are you?” he asked out loud, with mock menace.

  It yawned in his face.

  CHAPTER 31

  A few days later George accepted an invitation to dine privately with Llefelys and Coronwen, he and all of Gwyn’s party.

  Llefelys had participated in the first couple of sessions with Ceridwen, and George imagined that Morien had reported to him about the rest of them. He knew Rhian had formed a bond with Coronwen and they’d spoken together several times, but he felt like he had missed the opportunity to know Llefelys better, distracted by his work with Ceridwen and the disaster with the hounds. They’d spoken at meals and in passing, but not at length otherwise, and George was sorry for it.

  He wore his livery, of course, and Rhian’s wardrobe had been replaced by Coronwen. Rhian’s sober demeanor lately, since the loss of the pack, gave her a manner older than her years, and George mourned the passing of her carefree girlhood. Ceridwen joined them, and Morien, but otherwise they were alone with the royal couple.

  This was his first chance to see the king’s private rooms. The dining chamber was modest in size, suitable for a dozen or so guests, and the furnishings were rich but reserved—beautifully carved wood, heavy fabrics, and glowing paintings from a variety of hands. One in particular caught his eye, a royal portrait of Llefelys mounted on a dignified white horse, with Coronwen by his side on a blood bay. The two looked at each other with an expression of fidelity and partnership, and the castle as a symbol of what lay in their protection formed the backdrop.

  George studied it and felt a silent presence behind him. Llefelys watched him, expressionlessly.

  “Is that…” George said.

  “Yes, it is Angharad’s work,” the king confirmed. “You have an eye for it, I see.”

  “I love to see her paintings,” he said, simply.

  Their small group occupied one end of the table which gave a feel of intimacy and informality to the gathering. Coronwen sat at the king’s right hand, then George and Rhian, and Morien was at his left, with Ceridwen.

  Llefelys restricted himself to pleasantries during the main part of the meal, as well as formal condolences for the loss of Gwyn’s hounds. George took his lead from Ceridwen and kept t
he topics as light as possible.

  Finally, Llefelys had the servants remove the dishes and dismissed them. George felt the change in atmosphere as he turned to the real reason for this invitation.

  Llefelys said, “We have been pleased to host our nephew’s relatives and friends these last several days, and we rejoice that we have been able to assist them. So much would we do from mere family feeling and proper guest-right.”

  Ceridwen nodded.

  “Now it is time to discuss the consequences of these actions and to decide what should next be done. Nos Galan Mai is but one week away.”

  George waited.

  “I have received a message from my brother.”

  Ah, George thought. Now we come to it.

  “I would share with you much of its contents, because it affects you all.”

  George’s stomach clenched in anticipation.

  “My brother demands the return of Rhian, as the betrothed of Gwythyr.”

  Rhian couldn’t keep the dismay from her face.

  Llefelys continued, “He… orders me not to bring Gwyn’s huntsman to Nos Galan Mai. He reminds me that the huntsman’s wife stands surety for his good conduct in this matter.”

  George’s vision went red for a moment with rage at the threat to Angharad, and Cernunnos stirred restlessly. He clenched his fists and shook, then forced himself to be still.

  Llefelys looked at him politely and waited for him to recover. “We would be interested in hearing your thoughts on this.”

  Time to take on his ambassadorial role, George thought, once he had reined in his initial reaction.

  He said, carefully, “My lord king, I see this as a direct attack on Cernunnos’s standing and the intent of your father, Beli Mawr. If Gwyn wins the contest but his huntsman is prevented from being there to fetch the whelps from Cernunnos, then what is that but subversion of the contest itself?”

  Llefelys said to him, “You have no pack, huntsman.”

  George looked him straight in the face and said through gritted teeth. “I still have a job to do, and I will do it, whatever happens. I will find a way.”

  He looked at the pale Rhian beside him. “Rhian’s grandfather Edern and her foster-father Gwyn, your nephews and her guardians, abhor and forbid this alliance with Gwythyr, as Rhian does herself. Your brother has no right to compel it.”

  He couldn’t read Llefelys’s expression, though Coronwen’s was sympathetic. He tasked himself with patience to wait him out.

  After several long moments, Llefelys nodded.

  “I am not in sympathy with my brother on this.” He spoke in a tone of cold indignation that thickened as he went on. “How dare he try to tell me what to do. How dare he interfere with our father’s arrangements for Nos Galan Mai. How dare he threaten a guest under his roof as a blatant hostage for a guest under mine.”

  George could see a cold rage taking shape in his face.

  Ceridwen said, “These actions will rouse my colleagues to anger. They will not condone sacrilege.”

  Morien added, “Nor should we. Your brother is attempting to stand against Cernunnos and perhaps other gods, and no good will come of that.”

  Llefelys’s voice cut through their discussion. “Enough. You will all be going to Gwastadedd Mawr, openly and with me. We will settle these matters there.”

  “What about Angharad?” George said, his heart racing.

  Llefelys looked at him sternly. “He wouldn’t dare.”

  Do I have a choice, George thought, dismayed.

  Word of Llefelys’s response reached Gwyn in Ceridwen’s reports, and it pleased him. He considered Lludd to have erred badly in predicting how his brother would react to his peremptory demands. His judgment is failing him, he thought. That makes him weaker, but also more dangerous, less inclined to count the consequences.

  His father was becoming ever more ill-tempered as his inability to control Angharad continued to goad him.

  Gwyn lingered in the great hall on every excuse to watch Angharad’s work come to life. The painting had taken shape swiftly in the course of a week. By its nature, a mural was not as detailed as a smaller painting, and it lent itself to distribution among many hands, all the more so since working in tempera required speed.

  The bosky woods all around and in the background were nearly completed. It was a large part of the total area, but many of the apprentices had been tasked to it, with supervision from their masters.

  Angharad herself was painting the larger-than-life mounted figure of her huntsman husband as Cernunnos, capturing his twist in the saddle on the heavy smoky-gray horse as he turned to follow his hounds. The more senior members of her team worked on the hunt followers and the hounds, following the coloring of the pack correctly, white with red ticking and ear-tips. Angharad must have described that for them, he thought. The white of the boiling pack of hounds and the gray of the horse stood out splendidly against the dark green woods, as did Cernunnos’s pale antlers rising up and behind the huntsman’s shoulders. Gwyn detected his own likeness leading the hunters after the huntsman.

  The only part of the work that was still left in raw cartoon outline was the quarry being pursued, a man on foot looking back in terror over his shoulder, his face obscured. Gwyn thought Angharad must be reserving that part of the work for her own brush. As the figures around him came to life in color and weight, he was left ever more isolated and dim.

  The sight of Angharad, visibly pregnant, bringing a manifestation of her wronged husband to life more clearly day by day in this dramatic scene had seized the imagination of the court, and they monitored Lludd surreptitiously to judge his reaction. She’d played it well—Lludd could certainly imprison or even kill her, but she counted on the public stain that his honor would suffer to shield her.

  Gwyn thought she was in danger of pushing it too far. His father grew more brittle and unpredictable by the day. Timing was everything—there were four days left before Nos Galan Mai.

  It worried him that there was still no word from Greenway Court, with Lludd’s forces continuing to turn back people from the Travelers’ Way. That, too, was beginning to be felt as an imposition beyond the personal family dispute, since many of the lords at court maintained trade with Annwn. That stress was good, as leverage for the unseen struggle for alignments, but he couldn’t help fearing that there were problems at home that needed his attention. Why was the Family Way exit still inaccessible, for example? Wouldn’t they have cleared it by now? What was going on there, and why?

  He had to shake off these concerns—he had preparations of his own to make for the contest. This year’s would be the most important of the entire long dreary series. Everything depended on it.

  Late the next evening, Gwyn leaned from his window and surveyed the sky. Edern slept in another chamber in the suite but he hoped not to wake him.

  A thunderstorm rumbled in the distance and he anticipated it would pass directly overhead. It was the first of the season here at Camulodunum and he’d been waiting for one for weeks. There was no privacy for him, here under Lludd’s eye, and he badly needed an opportunity to try the powers of the thunderbolt embedded in his hand. This might well be his only chance to do so without raising notice.

  Every year he had prepared for Nos Galan Mai in the privacy of his own domain. These contests were ones of skill in battle magics, of precision, of strength of will. Gwythyr was older than he, and strong, but he was unimaginative. Gwyn knew himself to be skilled, but he wasn’t always successful, his attacks sometimes failing against Gwythyr’s greater power.

  He hoped that the thunderbolt would change their rough balance. It was a sign of his royal line, and it had skipped Lludd, an omission his father would find intolerable once he knew about it.

  He had kept his right hand with its visible mark gloved in thin black goatskin ever since his acceptance of the object from George in the presence of Beli Mawr. No one had questioned his choice of clothing, though he had told both Angharad and Edern about it
, trusting them to keep the secret.

  The biggest concern was how to use it. Ceridwen didn’t know very much, even with all her resources, and it may be that his ancestors had kept its capabilities deliberately secret. Beli Mawr wasn’t there to ask—he would have to experiment.

  The approaching storm split the night air with lightning strikes and thunder. He stood at his window for the hour it sheltered him from detection, and attempted strikes of his own with his ungloved hand, timing them to be masked by the natural noise around him. He found he could control and direct small lightning bolts, and the thunder that followed them was also disruptive, but there were limitations. Just as for natural lightning, the closer the distance, the more devastating the impact as the lightning and the thunderclap struck almost simultaneously. The dozen or so bolts he launched over the course of the hour exhausted him, and that was instructive, too. He was no Taranis to keep this up for hours at a time.

  As the storm moved past he put his glove back on. He had learned some things, but was it enough? He had to hope Taranis would guide him in the fight. He had to be seen to win, and to do so according to the rules. At least Gwythyr was an honorable opponent, by his own lights, if an unlikeable man.

  He wanted these contests to end. They were such a waste.

  The night before they traveled to Gwastadedd Mawr, George was relieved to escape to his room out of the chaos that engulfed much of the castle. Llefelys did not always attend the Nos Galan Mai contest, but this year he would bring a sizable party, and there was a flurry of packing everywhere.

  Rhian had paused in her own preparations to share a bit of humor with him earlier that day. She’d been spending time with Coronwen and she told George what they talked about—Brynach, of course, what it was like to be a queen, stories about Eurig and Tegwen. Today, Coronwen had introduced a new topic, namely, why hasn’t Gwyn taken a suitable consort in all this time?

  George was startled by the question, but it was perfectly logical. He didn’t count his great-grandmother, since surely Gwyn hadn’t been seeking a human consort to share his rule. He didn’t think it had been that sort of romance, though he respected Gwyn’s decision to stay to raise their daughter in the human world until her marriage.