Rhian’s heart went out to George as he cried out and turned his back on them all. The violence against the cherry tree surprised her, and her hackles rose when he transformed into the horned man, shaking in fury. Several people in the crowd backed their horses away at the apparent threat in his posture and on his face.
He stood for a moment before speaking and she noted, with interest, how the deer pelt partway down his back covered the upper part of the scars, but not the rest.
“Greetings, my lord king,” the horned man said, in his deep, uncanny voice.
“You are always welcome here, great lord Cernunnos,” Llefelys replied. It seemed to Rhian that he spoke very carefully into the face of this rage.
“We owe you thanks for Morien, and apologies for the disruption of your hunt.” He glanced at the huntsman and nodded to him, then he released control of the hounds.
Llefelys waved it off. “Is there anything we can do for you?”
“We are newly come from a most unwise captivity at the hands of your vassal and his guest.”
That brought a few gasps from the crowd.
Llefelys’s queen spoke in his ear. Rhian struggled to remember her name. Of course, she thought, Coronwen, Tegwen’s daughter.
Llefelys said, “Will you come and dine with us, so that we can hear the full tale? I think your… companions would be glad of a rest.”
It takes nerve to invite a god to a meal, Rhian thought.
He paused, and everyone waited for the answer.
The shaking stopped. “It’s true,” he said, with his deep voice. “There is no great hurry. I have started on the task myself.” A wolfish smile of satisfaction bloomed on his face.
Rhian remembered the carpet of rodents pouring into Gwythyr’s castle and shuddered.
The horned man tilted his head as if listening. “My huntsman thinks we may not be… properly attired.”
Nervous laughter swept the crowd. Did Cernunnos, visibly furious just moments ago, actually make a joke?
Coronwen removed her long green cloak from behind her saddle and handed it to a servant. Rhodri came forward to take it and helped the horned man put it on. It left his arms bare, but with a lead from one of the hound handlers as a belt, it served its purpose as a sort of tunic.
The horned man withdrew and George was himself again. He clasped Rhodri’s arms and said, “Angharad? Maelgwn? Gwyn?”
“They’re all alive and well. I’ll fill you in as we go along.”
George stumbled along on bruised feet after Rhodri and let himself be seated in one of the supply wagons that was waiting at the nearest woods-road. Rhian joined him at the back of the wagon, saddle sore after three days. He slumped at the pleasure of sitting down instead of running. Then he remembered Angharad’s pendant, her arrow, and groped for it. He found it and clutched it firmly. All those weeks in captivity, not knowing it was there.
Morien and Rhodri rode alongside as they worked their way out of the forest. There were many roads for this hunting land, crossing like green highways cutting through the spring verdure.
With his heightened beast sense, George heard all the animals, and even the people, around them. They were surrounded by horses and their riders, and the woods held hundreds of creatures within range.
Is this what it’s like for Cernunnos all the time, he wondered. The two of us have been crushed together, I think. His beast-sense on me, and maybe a bit of my humor on him, to judge by the joke about the clothing.
He had trouble shutting out the animals. They came pouring in. He needed a way to ratchet down the sensitivity, but then they came on him too quickly, and he panicked. Too much input.
Rhian looked at George in the wagon next to her. His bare feet were grass-stained and bruised and he had an open sword cut on his right arm. He was bearded. He stank of musk and sweat, a very male smell, she thought. She tried to ignore it.
Their wagon was surrounded by others, and by servants on horses, as well as Rhodri and Morien. George suddenly rose to his feet, trembling, and vaulted the side of the wagon, stumbling as he landed. He ran to an oak tree just beyond the margin of the road and stood there with his back against the wide bole, shaking.
The wagon halted and Rhodri and Morien spun their horses to intercept him, but slowed as they realized he wasn’t trying to run away but to defend himself against something. Rhodri patted the air with his hand in a calming gesture, and George nodded distractedly, his eyes wild. Morien and Rhodri dismounted and handed their horses to the wagon driver to hold, and Rhian climbed out to join them. They cautiously approached George and waited.
One of the passing hunt stewards called out to Morien, “Need any help, my lord?”
Morien shook his head. “Please pass word to our lord king that we may be delayed.”
The steward waved in acknowledgment.
As each wagon or group of riders passed by, George surveyed it, his eyes roaming to each horse and person until it passed. Finally, as the last one went on by, he slumped over, took a couple of steps forward and collapsed cross-legged on the ground in relief.
Morien waited patiently.
“George?” Rhodri said.
George shook his head.
“What’s the matter, huntsman?” Morien asked. “Can you tell us?”
“Leakage,” George finally said. “There are three, no, I guess it’s four forms here, and two minds. The barriers are… damaged. The smells now, everything… And the animals, all of them…”
He started to point in all directions. “Fox, there, and weasel. An owl sleeping up there, mice absolutely everywhere.”
He calmed down and began to recover. He looked up at Rhodri and said, quietly, “Oh, and the two men over there,” gesturing covertly, “who haven’t budged since we stopped.”
“Spies?” Rhodri said, indignantly. Morien made no comment.
“Or guards. I’d put a watch on me, wouldn’t you?” He made a wry expression.
He looked up at Morien in apology from his seat on the ground. “I could call upon the horned man sometimes for this sort of awareness, but now it’s being forced upon me and I can’t stop it. I had to let them all go by just to reduce the number of… beasts pouring in.”
Rhian thought he meant people as well as horses.
His voice rose. “And we’re both of us in a rage and frustrated of our object. I know it will take time and planning and we will have to wait but that doesn’t keep us from wanting to KILL. THEM. NOW.” He bent over and pounded the ground with both fists in time to the words, and Rhian jumped.
He straightened up as the deer-headed man and panted. He shook his head.
After a few breaths, Morien ventured, “My lord Cernunnos?”
The horned man manifested.
“Is there any way we can help with this?” Morien asked, quietly.
The deep voice responded. “I am disturbed and my huntsman is distressed. He’s not built for this much… mingling. Can you assist him?”
Morien sat nimbly down in front of the horned man, facing him, cross-legged, his hands on his thighs.
“Huntsman,” he said, “look at me.”
George returned to his natural form.
Rhian watched, fascinated, as Morien began to sway almost imperceptibly a inch or two to either side, rhythmically.
George’s head began to follow the movement.
Morien said, “Look at me. I’ll help you.”
George tapped lightly into the surface of Morien’s mind, barely registering the slight rhythmic swaying that entranced them both.
“Show me,” Morien said.
George showed him the interior of a small hut with stone walls that were crumbling. The roof was gone, and the wind howled, sending rain and leaves in from all directions. He shivered.
Morien said, “Build a new strong chamber and put a solid roof on it. Start with the floor.”
George envisioned flagstones replacing the leaf-strewn dirt. The walls went up in cut stone. He could hear the clink as each block was fitted into place. A roof sprouted, and he knew it overhung the walls deeply on all four sides. The ceiling was low, cozy. There was a strong smell of stone dust in the air.
Wait, he thought at Morien. I want windows. And a door. And the ceiling needs to be higher, for the antlers.
“Not a private refuge?” Morien said. “Are you sure?”
Yes, he thought. Casements I can open, a door I can use. I need walls, not a cave. I may want to go visiting sometime, invite the neighbors in.
An image of antlers filtered in dreamily. The ceiling rose in his structure.
“Windows and doors it is, then,” Morien said. “See them, there. Shutters?”
Curtains will do, he thought. The illusion of privacy. I’m used to it by now.
“Now, furnish it,” Morien said. “Your family, your friends, your life.”
He thought of Angharad and a warm fireplace and chimney popped into the room. Each person he added brought an echo to the furnishings.
At last, he sat in an imaginary armchair and probed the structure. The curtains were open. There was a storm raging outside, and he would eventually don the appropriate clothing and venture out into it, but here, inside, it was quiet, and all his.
He sat there with his eyes closed, swaying, and rested.
After a bit, he heard Morien stand.
He opened his eyes and yawned. Rhodri gave him a hand up.
“How do you feel?”
“Tired. But it’s quieter now, better. Thank you,” he nodded to Morien.
On the way back in the wagon, George laid down and gathered Coronwen’s cloak around him. He startled Rhian by laying his head in her lap, and sleeping.
She said to Rhodri uncertainly, as he rode by her side. “The deer did this, when we stopped for the night. He laid down next to me and kept me warm. I never saw him sleep, though.”
“Well, he’s sleeping now,” Rhodri said, amused at her discomfiture.
The feeling it aroused confused her. It felt more maternal than anything else, and he was the wrong age for that. She melted to see that he was holding Angharad’s pendant in his sleep.
“Talk to me, Rhodri,” she said, seeking a distraction. “What happened when we were taken?”
“Oh, you should have seen the storm that was raised! I can’t wait to tell them all that you’re back.”
