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He wore his livery, of course, and Rhian’s wardrobe had been replaced by Coronwen.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 the 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.
So, why hadn’t Gwyn formally taken a wife? He had a hard time picturing himself asking directly. Maybe Eurig could shed some light on it.
The thought of Eurig and the others back in Greenway Court brought on an intense feeling of homesickness. He wanted to be home and, more than that, he wanted Angharad back. The constant anxiety about her safety wore him down. Whatever the outcome of tomorrow’s contest, he was determined she would spend no more time in Lludd’s hands. Vain boast, he knew, until he could see the real situation, but he vowed it nonetheless. He fingered his beard, still growing until she was freed.
His letters from her had been cheerful, full of amusing detail about some of the members of the court and about the mural she was using to taunt Lludd, but he felt the familiar clench in his stomach at the latest one. She’s going to push him too far, he thought. The idea of someone laying hands on her, to imprison her, or worse… He had to stop, he could do nothing about it from here. Tomorrow. Tomorrow he would be back in Britain. Surely Lludd would bring her.
And never mind Lludd, what was she doing climbing around on scaffolding when she was five months pregnant? He’d sent alarmed replies about that which she clearly ignored. What was Gwyn thinking, letting that happen? And Edern?
He wished he knew what was happening with Maelgwn and Rhodri and all the others. Were any of them hurt in the kennel fire, trying to save the hounds?
And what were the hunt staff doing, without the pack? He still shied away from the thought of the hounds. Cernunnos felt the void of their absence directly, and so did he, through him. It hadn’t bothered him before when he was out of range, since he had no reason to think them in danger. Now the knowledge that they were gone made all the difference.
He paused to wipe at his eyes, in the privacy of his room. He was still easily overcome by the loss.
Were they rebuilding the kennels, he wondered. The records would be gone, he realized—almost two thousand years’ worth of hunt logs and breeding. The oliphant, too, the ivory horn. Could the great hunt happen without the oliphant, even if the hounds had been spared?
He felt the weight of the disaster, and then he slowly straightened up like Atlas and braced himself to bear it. He would salvage what he could. They would rebuild. Maybe there were drafts from the hounds in other packs that continued the bloodline with enough outsider blood left to hunt in the great hunt. Combined with the new whelps Cernunnos would grant if Gwyn won… maybe it could be done.
He would not go down without a fight.
It all depended on Gwyn. Gwyn had to win. If he lost… well, it didn’t bear thinking about. At least he would be there, where the contest was. Could he seize Angharad somehow and escape through some way? He’d worry about the rest once she was safe.
Angharad had completed the grand figure of Cernunnos as mounted huntsman the day before. The man’s body was recognizably broader than most fae, a clear portrait of her human husband, despite the god’s head that he bore. Mounted on his heavy smoky gray Mosby, he drew all eyes, the focal point of the scene. It had been comforting to paint him, almost as if she could conjure him into existence in front of her in the flesh, each brush-stroke a summoning gesture.
She ached for him about the hounds, how it must tear at him. These hounds here were the only tribute she could offer, on his behalf, and she had done her best to commemorate them as individuals, the ones she knew well from hunting behind them.
Yesterday and today she had worked on the small figure of the pursued quarry, his size in perspective insignificant compared to the huntsman in the foreground. The scaffolding above her was no longer needed and she’d had her workmen remove it. The painting would require additional layers to be truly completed, but she was making a point and it had a deadline. After tomorrow things might be very different for all of them.
By the afternoon she had finished her work, for now anyway, and directed the removal of the remaining scaffolding and the cleaning up of the work area.
She surveyed the mural from a variety of vantage points, most importantly from Lludd’s throne and his dining seat, and nodded to herself in satisfaction.
Throughout all of her work on the mural Bedo had stayed by her side, helping where he could, and painting wherever she directed, despite his protestations of ignorance. She’s given him one hound to himself to fill in, in the background, and was pleased with the results. She’d made plans with Bleddyn to get him away from Lludd and she wanted him to remember, later in his career, that a part of this mural on Lludd’s wall was his own.
More to the point than his initial painting skills, she was content that he understood the methods she used for upsizing and transferring her sketch to this mural. That was an important skill to learn and there were never many opportunities to do so.
“All done, my lady?” he asked her now.
“You understand,” she said, “that more layers of the tempera will give greater depth and finish to all of the figures, but that will take time we don’t have. It must be completed for tonight, and so it will have to do.”
He nodded. “It is a wonderful thing, this,” he said, as he surveyed the larger-than-life scene. “I would not wish to be thought the quarry.”
Angharad smiled, wolfishly. “Poets are sometimes feared, and rightly, for the power of their satires. No one wishes to be the subject of such a flyting. But never forget that it’s not only poets who should be feared. And respected. At the heart of it is the embedding of an insult into the imagination of the people so that it cannot be removed. Any artist can reach the imagination.”
She looked at the empty throne and wished for an instant that she could sink so low as to spit at it. Then she contemplated her mural. This was better. Once seen, it would not be forgotten, whitewash it how he may.
She turned to the remaining craftsmen, her colleagues from the town who were directing their apprentices to pack up their supplies as they prepared to depart. It was a shame they wouldn’t be welcome at this evening’s meal, to see Lludd’s reaction.
“Don’t forget to send the bill to the king,” she told them.
They grinned at her, knowing as well as she did that they might never be paid for their time, but she’d made sure the materials, at least, were paid for from the king’s purse. They thanked her for allowing them to participate, waving off her concerns about compensation.
“It was a pleasure working with you, my lady,” said the last as he left, “and I hope we have the chance to meet your lord husband someday, him and the great lord Cernunnos.”
She and Bedo watched them go, leaving them alone in the great hall in the afternoon light, except for her constant pair of guards standing off to the side out of the way.
“Well,” she said, dusting off her hands. “I think that was a good bit of work, don’t you?” She swept past her guards with Bedo and headed back to her rooms, to prepare for the evening meal. She glanced back as she reached the doors, pleased with the way the mural gleamed in the westering light.
Angharad entered the great hall for the meal dressed demurely in her best clothing, her pregnancy subtle but apparent. She was formally escorted on either side by Gwyn and Edern, her guards trailing behind.
Without visible reaction, she watched the court gathered where they could see the mural clearly, now that it was no longer blocked by the scaffolding. They clustered in front of it and pointed out the details to each other. She overheard more than one sardonic remark about the fleeing quarry.
She smiled to herself. The more who saw it, especially if it amused them, the wider the story would spread.
In the king’s absence, no one had yet taken his seat, and so Angharad found herself and her escorts in the center of a casual circulation of courtiers who, without committing themselves verbally, nodded at her in respect and spoke of other things.
The noise of conversation dropped as Lludd entered abruptly. Each person he passed bowed or curtsied, but his eyes were fixed on the mural. His courtiers made way for him as he approached the mural and stood at a convenient distance from it, and stared.
He’s masking his feelings well today, she thought. Clearly he’s emboldened by the nearness of tomorrow’s resolution. And why not, he thinks he holds all the advantage, she realized—the hounds, George’s exile, the Travelers’ Way. He can afford to be magnanimous.
As if listening to her thoughts, Lludd turned to Angharad where she stood with Gwyn and Edern several yards away, and said to her, over the hush of his courtiers, “We’re pleased to see that you have finished making a mess of our hall.”
Angharad curtsied. “I am sorry to have inconvenienced you, my lord king. I’ll put the finishing touches on it later, but I wanted you to have something to celebrate for the great night tomorrow.”
Lludd returned her taunt. “Truly, we will celebrate.”
Confident, he stepped closer and the court listened.
“It must be lonely for you, my lady,” he said. “Have you heard from your consort lately?”
She held her face in a pleasant, unchanging expression. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction.
“My daughter,” he continued, “tells me he was most attentive while in her company.”
There were audible intakes of breath in the crowd at the insult.
Angharad didn’t believe it for a moment, and tried to compose a suitable reply. As he waited, she was startled to feel the baby within her kick, for the first time.
She put her hand to her belly, delighted at the quickening. A faint sound of a little bell rang in her ears. What was that? Oh, of course, the little bell that Seething Magma had given her when she told her she was pregnant, back in Edgewood. She smiled fondly at the memory.
Gwyn prodded her, discretely. What? Oh, Lludd had said something.
Angharad replied, her hand still laid protectively over her stomach, “I’m sorry, my lord king, I was distracted. What were you saying?”
That was disingenuous, she remembered the insult. But she did enjoy seeing the dull red flush that spread across his features.
