George removed his hunt coat and vest in his bedroom and hung them up, taking out the red coat with its gold collar and the canary yellow vest he’d arrived in.
The hound walk this morning had been short and uneventful, the hounds still tired from the hunt on Saturday. Brynach’s ankle didn’t prevent him from riding in Rhys’s spot, now that Rhys was trying on his new responsibilities. We’re going to need some more recruits, George thought distantly.
As he came back downstairs, Alun faced him, distressed at his change of clothes.
“Don’t worry,” he said, patting him on the shoulder and walking out the door.
George halted at the top of the hill on Llamrei, and looked back down the slope toward the manor across the stream, the village hidden in the folds of land. This was where he’d first seen Gwyn’s hunt, where Iolo had been killed.
I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to meet him, he thought. He could’ve taught me so much. But then, if he hadn’t died, I probably wouldn’t be here.
He checked again to make sure he had his entering way pinpointed, and rode into the woods, just as a fresh breeze brought a hint of the chill of winter coming.
He knew where he was going and sought out paths that took him there directly. The clearing with the way on its margin was just as he remembered it, in his first moment of panic, but this time he knew how to find the way itself.
He dismounted and hung Llamrei’s reins on a bush. This way wasn’t transparent, like the one on the burning ground or the one Gwyn opened on the bridge. Not until he took a step in could he see what was on the other side. He hit the fallen trees immediately, all the way across, and backed up again into the clearing.
I’ll never be able to set Llamrei at that directly, he thought. She’d have to be already jumping to clear it, and she can’t see it.
He stuck his head back in and saw that the uprooted base of one of the trees created a gap beside the trunks, to the right.
Back in the clearing, he gave this some thought. Alright, if I can just expand the way in that direction, we can go around. Now how would I do that?
He set his mind to it, put metaphorical hands to the right hand margin, and tugged. The opening resisted, and then began to move slightly. He stopped. No, that’s not right, I want to leave the left edge in place. This time he added an imaginary foot anchoring the left hand margin, and pulled against it.
The opening refused to move for several long minutes, but George persisted. Finally, it seemed to stretch to the right, growing in size horizontally to do it, keeping its original height. When he had extended it sideways about six feet, he stopped, maintaining his hold.
The feeling of elasticity started to fade and, when it was completely gone, George released his hold. He moved over to the new right side of the way and looked in again. Perfect. He could pass through here with Llamrei.
He was pleased with himself. I wonder if this is how it’s supposed to be done? He hadn’t gotten that far in Ceridwen’s books.
Unhitching Llamrei from her bush, he remounted and walked her through, stilling her alarm at walking into apparent bushes. She was fine once she saw the ground properly on the other side.
He found the weather just the same, a fresh chilly breeze stirring the leaves. Something was different, however, something hard to pin down.
Ah. He could hear farm equipment, a faint sound of diesel engine. An air brake from a truck on the distant highway. The general almost subliminal sound of civilization.
George set his course for the back roads to his grandfather’s place.
George approached his grandfather’s house, riding over the back fields. Monday wasn’t a hunting day, and so far he hadn’t spotted any other riders on a weekday morning. Good, he wanted to be inconspicuous, it’s why he’d donned his old clothes. He didn’t see any cars from visitors in the driveway as he neared the house.
He heard the dogs barking inside and thought he recognized one deep voice.
He paused on the driveway, checking again to make sure he could still find the way. It was one of two he could sense, within range.
His grandfather stepped out to see who it was, tall and upright. Why, George thought in surprise, he looks just the same, white-haired and slender, but still vigorous. It seemed impossible, so much had changed in his own life in such a short time.
His grandfather’s face lit up to see him. He opened the door again to let the dogs out and called back into the house, “Georgia, he’s back.”
The dogs rushed out, all of his grandfather’s and both of his own. Llamrei danced in alarm, and he automatically calmed everyone, shushing the dogs. His grandfather looked surprised at the sudden quiet.
George dismounted, holding the reins, a bit shy now that he was here. His grandfather embraced him, then stepped back to look him over. He spotted the different clothes, except for the coat and vest. He saw the saber attached to the saddle and walked over to it, fingering the straps that held it. George had forgotten it was there, it was just part of his gear now.
Watching his grandfather, George fondled his dogs, deep-voiced coonhound Hugo with his paws planted on his chest, and Sergeant, sniffing him all over.
Gilbert walked around Llamrei and returned to his grandson.
“Fine mare,” he said. “Where’s Mosby?”
“Taking a rest. He had a hard hunt Saturday night.”
“Night?”
“It’s a long story,” George said. His grandmother was standing in the open doorway at the top of the porch stairs, watching them.
“I daresay.” Gilbert gave him a searching look. “Seems like you could use some rest, too. Come inside. We’ll put your horse up in the stable, and you can tell us all about it.”
George gave his grandmother a long hug at the top of the steps, and then they all went inside. She sat them at the kitchen table, and George looked around with fresh eyes, marveling.
He could clearly hear the buzz of the fluorescent lights and the hum of the refrigerator motor. Behind that was the sound of the house’s furnace kicking on and off to maintain the temperature. Floating over it all, like a high thin note, was the smell of the cleaners she used, the partially filled garbage can under the sink, the contents of the fridge when she opened it. He heard a car go by on the road and could almost feel his ears swivel to track it.
The lights, suspended from the high ceiling, seemed very bright.
His grandmother said, “Why are you limping, dear?” He shrugged it off, then searched her face looking for traces of Gwyn. They were there, in the slender shape, the dark hair, and the mouth—enough to convince him. Her hair had never turned gray, but she was getting frail and was clearly approaching the end of a normal human lifespan.
His grandfather watched him. “Let’s give the boy something to eat first, Georgia. It’s good just to have him home.”
They spoke of inconsequentials while they ate, easing back into normality. Gilbert filled him in on events at the hunt, and Georgia talked about the doings of their neighbors. George said little, but smiled in appreciation at their stories. He couldn’t keep up this reserve much longer, though, and dreaded starting.
He pushed his plate aside and cleared his throat. “Grandmother, how much do you know about your father?”
She stilled at the question. Why, she knows quite a lot, George realized.
“I knew he was somehow unnatural, he never aged. I was almost a teenager before I realized, you know how children are. I knew he had a way with animals that was uncanny. I could never ride like he did, or train my dogs as well. I don’t think he noticed. I did, though. No one handled horses and hounds like he did.”
Gilbert patted her hand as she spoke.
“He was away a lot, but many fathers traveled. He was distant, but then a lot of fathers were. It wasn’t until I was almost grown that I understood that his distance and his lack of change were part of him and had nothing to do with me.”
“Did you ever ask him about it?” George said.
“Only once, when I was fifteen. I worked up the nerve on a day when he seemed especially relaxed. I’ll never forget, he looked at me with the saddest expression, as if something were going to happen that he couldn’t save me from. It scared me. ‘Never mind what I’m like,’ he said, ‘just remember that I loved your mother, and you, too.’ That didn’t satisfy my curiosity, but I was afraid to ever ask again.”
Gilbert said, “He had a reputation for fair dealings, but he was away a lot and he unnerved his neighbors at Bellemore when he was here. There were few visitors to the house, unrelated to hunt business. I met your grandmother hunting, and after that, you couldn’t keep me away.”
They smiled fondly at each other.
“I was a regular visitor, the only one, I think. After we married, it was a great surprise to us when he vanished so soon, his life seemed so unchanging.”
Georgia said, “I never believed he just died. But there was nothing to look into, it was very neatly documented, and so we had to let it go and get on with our lives.”
“And then you sent those strange notes,” his grandfather said, “and we wondered again.”
George began his tale of being lost in the Bellemore woods and meeting the buck, his voice becoming less tentative and more matter-of-fact as he went along.
His grandmother had cleared the plates long since. Now she was at the stove making a fresh batch of tea for them.
George sat in silence, fondling the ears of his dogs. They hadn’t left his side since his return.
She said, slowly, “My father was never around for Halloween. I always spent the night with a friend. It was a neighborhood curiosity, especially when the next day was a hunting day. I guess now I know why.”
“So, why did it have to be you, at the wild hunt?” Gilbert asked.
So far, they hadn’t scoffed at his story. It fit well enough with their old memories of Gwyn, and they let him tell it without interruption. He’d taken them as far as the setting and the people, and something about the importance of the great hunt and the politics.
Now he would have to tell them more about what he was.
“Grandfather, how much do you know about my father?”
Very little, it turned out.
“Léonie, your mother, wanted to travel after college. It was the fashion and there was no reason not to indulge her. She was planning to work her way east across Europe, starting with Ireland.” He rubbed his chin. “She never got past Wales.”
“Did you know Gwyn met her a few times as a child, on her pony at Bellemore?”
“No, I never did. I guess she wasn’t supposed to be there and so she never told us.”
“She wouldn’t have known who he was,” George said. “Just some charming man on a horse who admired her determination with her pony.”
“Imagine him looking in like that,” Georgia said.
“It saddens them that their human children live such short lives, and that they can’t stay to see it.”
Gilbert coughed. “Anyway, when your mother got to Wales, she stopped calling. Instead, she started to write letters. Long, flowing letters, many pages each. We kept them, we kept all the papers, her writings, his things, everything.”
“I know. I want to go through it all, but I can’t do it right now, on this trip.”
He realized what he’d said the instant it slipped out. They’d thought he was back for good, and the dismay was clear on their faces.
He tried to prepare them. “You don’t understand. My father was like Gwyn, sort of, only more so.”
He leaned forward, leaning his elbows on the table and propping his chin on his hands. “You know the ‘Horned Man’ inn signs, with the antlers?”
They nodded.
“That’s a remnant of an old Celtic god, Cernunnos. I’m not sure how the connection works, but that’s where your in-laws come from.”
His grandfather leaned back in his chair. “I know this is real, I’ve seen the sword on your saddle. I knew Gwyn and I trust you, but this is… very difficult.”
“That’s almost exactly what I said.” George laughed quietly.
He stood up and led his grandmother back to the table. “Stop fussing at the stove for a moment.”
When they were both seated, he reached for the horned man, grateful that the kitchen was large but mindful of the lights in the ceiling.
His grandparents caught their breath, and Georgia reached for her husband’s hand. She raised her free hand to her cheek as her eyes widened.
He was afraid of scaring them worse, and so stood motionless, letting them take a good long look. Then he turned slowly all the way around for them.
“There’s more,” he said, in his deep, alien voice.
His grandfather swallowed. “Continue.”
He pulled up the form of Cernunnos. He was thankful that there was no sense of his personality to complicate things.
Gilbert stood up and walked over, reaching for the antlers, and George bent his knees to make that easier. His grandfather turned back and lifted his wife up, leading her over to George. “Come on, dear, it’s alright.”
She stroked his furry cheeks as he bowed his head to her, careful with the long antlers. “How handsome,” she murmured, scratching him between the ears.
He inhaled deeply, imprinting their scents, the smell of family. Then he backed away and pulled back both forms.
He let them sit down first before he joined them, wary of their reaction.
Gilbert abruptly stood up again and brought over a bottle of bourbon and three glasses. Georgia shook her head, but he poured some out for his grandson and himself. “Here you come back and I start drinking in the middle of the afternoon.”
The chuckle broke some of the tension, and George continued with his story.
“So you led the Wild Hunt Saturday night?” Gilbert asked.
“I know it sounds like a fairy tale when you say it that way, but it was deadly serious. People died, one of them innocent.”
“Someone you knew,” his grandmother said.
“She had a family and a betrothed, and she gave her life to save another girl.”
A sad silence held them for a moment.
“You’re planning to go back,” Gilbert said. “For how long?”
“For real, to make a life there. I fit that world. I may live as long as they do, and there are other things, not as easy to show you.” He looked at them apologetically. “And I have family there, too.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” his grandmother asked.
“Who can be sure? But at least I get to make a choice.”
His grandfather deflected the awkward emotions by turning businesslike. “So, how will this work?”
“I’ll be back for visits, and soon. I’ll need to arrange to move a few items. May I take my parents’ things for a while when I come back?”
Gilbert waved his hand. “Of course. What about your job, your home, your friends?”
“I’m going to need some help winding things down, but we can make a plan together. I’ll come back in a few days and we can swap notes about the best way to do it. I want to ask Gwyn how he arranged his affairs at Bellemore, too. Maybe I should set up something like that.”
“Alright,” his grandfather said briskly. “I’ll jot some ideas down. Can you arrange some regular communication so we have some way of reaching you?”
“I don’t see why not, but I’ll have to figure it out.”
They spent a few more moments sketching things out.
George stood. “I’ll take the dogs with me now—thanks for looking after them.”
He glanced around the kitchen.
“What is it, dear?” his grandmother asked.
“I’d like to bring someone a gift.”
“What sort of thing?”
“Oh, just a token, you know, like flowers.”
She smiled. “Has she ever tasted oranges?”
George laughed. “I don’t know—what a good idea. How did you know it was a woman?”
She brought him a net bag of oranges from the fridge. “You have the look of a courting man, I’ve seen it before.” She clung suddenly to his free hand. “Bring her to meet us someday.”
She stepped back, then, releasing him. “And tell my father that I miss him and wish him well. Invite him to come see an old lady sometime.”
Angharad walked out the kitchen door when she heard Cabal barking, Ermengarde eagerly trying to keep him company with her yips. She was surprised to see George trot into the work yard in his old red coat, and then she noticed the dogs at his heels, a tall lanky blue-tick hound and a medium-sized yellow dog with upright ears and a pointed muzzle.
He’s been home, she thought, dismayed. Has he come to say good-bye? She held her breath.
The dogs sniffed each other over carefully, wagging. George gave her a cheerful greeting as he dismounted. “I’ve brought some of the family to meet you.”
Relieved, she said, “This must be Hugo, I suppose,” looking at the handsome hound with his long ears.
“Yes, and the feist is Sergeant.” The yellow dog looked up at his name.
He reached up and removed the bag of oranges which he’d wrapped in his grandmother’s kitchen towel to keep clean. “These are from my grandparents. Do you know this fruit?”
He opened the bag for her, and she took one out, holding it in her hands and inhaling the fragrance. “I haven’t had one of these in a very long time. They don’t travel well.”
She turned back to the kitchen door, saying over her shoulder. “Come in and we’ll share them.”
He put Llamrei away in the stable and walked up the back steps bringing all the dogs along with him. They flopped in a pile near the woodstove and lost little time in drowsing off.
Angharad looked at them in amusement. “That didn’t take long.”
“They know friends when they see them,” George said. She glanced up at him and caught his eye.
She busied herself cutting up two of the oranges and they sat at the table, peeling them messily and devouring them with simple enjoyment.
They stood side by side together at the basin of the sink to wash the sticky juice off their faces and hands. George smiled at the pleasure of being clean again, his mouth tingling with the tart sweetness of the fruit.
Still smiling, he looked down at Angharad who was saying something he didn’t hear. He turned and bent his head, drawing in the scent of her hair. She stopped talking. He exhaled and did it again, and then he kissed her, strong and lingering, wrapping her in his arms, and breathing in her scent all the while, intoxicated, focused.
He felt her arms slip around him under his coat, holding him tight as she returned the kiss. He loosened one arm, freeing his hand to hold her head as he tilted it back to pull her closer against him. Finally he drew a shuddering breath and stopped, just holding her, softly upright in his embrace.
Angharad leaned back in his arms, her eyes shining. They looked at each other for a few moments, speechless.
He released her and groped his way, weak-kneed, to the kitchen table. She laughed shakily and joined him there, at her customary seat on the opposite side. They didn’t say anything, then Angharad reached out one hand across the table, and he grasped it loosely. They smiled at each other, content.
She let go of his hand and reached for the sketch book that was always somewhere within reach. “So, you’re staying then?” She turned to a fresh page and began idly drawing something.
He looked at her fondly. “How else will I ever get a picture of my oak tree? I found it, now I want to remember it.”
“I have other scenes in mind, too.” She sketched for a moment without speaking. “So, how do you feel about children?”
His eyes widened and his smile, at first tentative, bloomed across his whole face.
She smiled back. “I’m not getting any younger, after all.”
Gwyn walked into the stables late in the afternoon. Ever since this morning people had come to him to tell him about George riding out, wearing his old red coat. Idris asked Alun about it, but couldn’t get any definite answer from him.
It didn’t seem like him to just leave without a good-bye, Gwyn thought. He had to check for himself, and he found George’s big gray horse still in his stall. Surely he wouldn’t leave his horse behind, would he?
I shouldn’t be this concerned, he thought, as he walked back out into the yard. I have many descendants, and a whole year to make a plan for the great hunt, if I must. But this felt right, he was the right man.
Movement caught his eye, and there was George riding in through the curtain gate, followed by two strange dogs. He had a broad smile on his face, and when he caught sight of Gwyn, he shouted, “Yes!” across the intervening space, with great good cheer.
His delight was infectious, and Gwyn returned the smile, hiding both his uncertainty and his relief. While George dismounted and introduced him to his dogs, he thought about what this would mean. Will he someday be my rival for Annwn, blending the blood of Cernunnos with my own?
As he dismounted George thought, Gwyn seems happy to see me stay. Though I suppose everyone would look happy to me, at the moment. He couldn’t stop smiling.
He checked on Mosby and Afanc, and then dropped in on one of the grooms. “Can I change my icon? Is that possible?”
“No problem at all,” was the reply.
Alright, then. No more staring into the past, to Talbot, and Gwyn, and Cernunnos. Time to look forward, to found his own family. Let it start with me, whatever brought me to this point.
“Make it a big bare winter oak, please,” he said, “instead of the lion.” He sketched out what he meant on a scrap of wood.
George sat in the huntsman’s office alone in the evening.
The glow of all the good wishes at dinner and afterward at the hunt staff meeting was beginning to fade. I’m glad everyone seems so pleased at my decision. I hadn’t realized how much it mattered to some of them.
It warmed him, but he couldn’t tear his mind from the afternoon with Angharad in the kitchen. That shone so brightly it cast all the other smiling faces into shadow.
He looked down at his green sleeves. Alun couldn’t move fast enough when he got back, peeling that red coat off of him. I must’ve given him a scare, he thought.
Well. Better read up on where we’re hunting tomorrow in the old logs. He half rose out of his chair to walk to the shelves, then dropped back down again.
No, he thought, there’s something else I need to do first. He pulled the current hunt log to him and opened it onto a fresh page. He wrote the year with a flourish as well as he could and started to write.
Saturday, 31 Hydref / Sunday, 1 Tachwedd - Nos Galan Gaeaf
On this day…
