“Look to the horses,” George yelled to Maelgwn as he leapt down, checking that his hunting sword and knife were secure in their sheathes. Rhian had already dismounted and draped her horse’s reins around a low branch.
He could hear the stag scrambling down the steep bank some forty or fifty feet below him but he was hidden from view by the bushes clinging to the side of the ravine. Flashes of white betrayed the hounds that pursued him in full cry, the echo of their voices changing as they sank further into the deep cleft.
Before he started after them, he spared a look around. On both sides, the whippers-in had tied off their mounts as best they could and were already on the way down. Good work, he thought. Behind him he could hear the first members of the field as they arrived but he dismissed them from consideration. They were certainly not going to be coming down the sides of this ravine. They’d have to find a place to watch from above somewhere.
The baying consolidated in one location and rose in volume, amplified by the enclosed space. As George slid from one bush handhold to the next in the cold mud, the mist obscuring his vision, he tried to see what was happening, but the cacophony confused him. Around it, all he could hear was water.
Finally he got low enough to see the stream itself, and paused to take stock before coming the rest of the way down. Above him, to his left, the little river came over a lip of harder rock and dropped in a small waterfall, maybe twenty-five feet high, the spring-fed flow active even in winter, though not at its full volume. Snow was still visible in the pockets of ground shaded from the sun, but mostly the banks were rock, running with fine droplets in imitation of the waterfall itself, and mud churned by the passage of the deer and the hounds.
The white-tail buck, still in antler, was at bay at the base of the waterfall, up to his hocks in the cold water. The hounds swarmed on either side along the banks and sounded off with excitement—here, here, here. Cythraul swam in the water in front of the buck, eager to bring him down but cautious of his hooves and antlers.
Dyfnallt and Brynach were closer to the falls, on his left, Brynach’s coat providing a splash of green in the winter drabness. “How do you want to do this?” Dyfnallt called.
George glanced right. Gwion’s red coat glowed bright in the gloom. He waved Gwion and Benitoe over to the other side and turned back to answer Dyfnallt. “I’ll come up the middle and from the right while you distract him. Try to keep the hounds out of harm’s way.”
He splashed into the stream some thirty feet below the deer and picked his way over the moss-covered rocks. Behind him Rhian whooped and toppled as she lost her balance and got a cold dunking. He heard her swearing behind him, but it didn’t sound like she was hurt. No time to stop, and the water wasn’t deep enough to be dangerous.
He came up to the right of the deer who was focused on Cythraul and the other hounds. The only way to get into proper position would be to back into the waterfall himself, to get behind the stag’s shoulder. He didn’t feel the cold water in the moment, as he faced forward, looking out from under his tricorn through the thin veil of water past the antlers at the baying, snapping hounds. It seemed as though this primordial scene could last forever.
Time to end it, something said inside, and he drew his short hunting sword and plunged it into the heart of the deer. The buck staggered and collapsed, and Rhian drew the hounds off onto the far bank where there was a little more room out of the water.
Brynach and Dyfnallt waded forward to help him drag the deer toward the near bank, while Gwion and Benitoe rounded up the hound stragglers and sent them to Rhian to hold in place.
The six of them were in their own enclosed world, deep in the ravine, and nothing could be heard but the hounds and the water. George wondered what had become of the field and looked up at the top where the scramble had begun. A bit downstream, where there was a view from above, he saw faces all around, on both sides, men and women watching the scene. Gwyn raised a hand in salute, with a smile. George removed his tricorn and rhetorically dumped the water off of it as he bowed flamboyantly in return, catching Brynach’s grin at the byplay.
“Well then, huntsman,” Dyfnallt said. “What now?” He seemed satisfied with the success of the hunt and undaunted by the obvious next steps.
“We can hardly make a fire here,” George said. “We’re going to have to haul this deer out to dry land.”
“Rhian,” he called, across the stream. “Does this level out below? Can we get out that way?”
“Yes, but it’s a couple of hundred yards of rough walking.”
“Alright. Take the hounds and we’ll follow with the buck.” George made a circle in the air with his hand for Gwyn, and waved him downstream. The field would have to find its own way and bring their horses along with them.
Dyfnallt pointed at a young tree. “This sapling will do for a pole. What type of tree is this? I don’t recognize it.”
“That’s a pawpaw,” George said.
Brynach shook his head, “That’s not what we call it.”
“Doesn’t matter. Don’t you carry an ax these days?” He thought Brynach had followed Benitoe’s example and added a hatchet to his belt gear.
Brynach nodded, and made short work of cutting down the small tree and trimming its branches off. George pulled some light rope from around his waist, glad he’d learned his lesson on an earlier hunt not to leave all of his gear tied to the saddle for occasions such as this. Between the three of them, they managed to tie the buck’s feet together and slip the nine-foot pole between them so it would hang suspended.
George thought they could carry the intact carcass some distance this way, until they reached ground dry enough to gut it and roast the hounds’ portion. He picked up the front end to test the weight, and Dyfnallt hoisted the back end to his shoulder. Brynach protested, but George said, “Don’t worry, you’ll get your chance. We’ll trade off.”
Rhian was already downstream out of sight with Benitoe, Gwion, and the hounds. George glanced up—the field was gone. “You ready?” he asked Dyfnallt.
“Haul away, huntsman,” came the reply. “Great sport, but I must admit I’m glad your deer is smaller than ours, just about now.”
Maelgwn dismounted and clutched the reins of his foster-father’s horse and his own pony. He peered over the edge trying to see the end of the hunt below. How was he going to take charge of six horses plus his own?
Hadyn came up from behind him and took in the other five horses left behind by the hunt staff, roughly tied off on the bushes and trees. “Here, Thomas,” he called, “we need to pass these horses out and bring them along. They’ll never climb out of that here.”
He put a couple of his men in the field to the task, and Thomas Kethin did the same for his. “Thank you, sir,” Maelgwn said to him. “It was too many for me to handle.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean for you to take them all yourself but just to see the task done, and so it is.” Hadyn replied. “Let’s work downstream a bit so we can get a better view.”
They followed a path along the top of the ravine until they found a good spot about fifty yards further along. Most of the field had gathered there to watch, though there were a few on the other side, too, that had somehow gotten off the primary path and crossed upstream before the deer took the plunge.
Maelgwn studied the men around him while he kept one eye on the drama at the waterfall. How tall and formal they are, mounted, he thought, with me on the ground, but when they dismount they relax and joke around. And I’m part of it, he thought. Hadyn had just treated him like another man with responsibilities and tasks, even though I’m still such a junior student of weapons under him. And Thomas Kethin did the same. He could learn a lot from them about the handling of men, he realized. They treated them differently under different circumstances. It makes me want to live up to the respect they just gave me, and that’s part of how it works, isn’t it?
Rhian with the hounds was furthest downstream below and closest to him. Gwion certainly looked splendid in his red coat, glistening as the water drops caught the sunlight. His eye appreciated the spectacle, the glamour of it, but his head told him to be cautious of these new men. How did Brynach keep his demeanor so steady with the two of them, neither giving way because of his youth nor causing offense by throwing his weight around?
He normally thought of Brynach as strong and confident, but it was different when the new folk were around for a comparison. He realized the visitors must see them all as inexperienced. It would be hard for them to work together, and he was impressed at how well Brynach had managed it so far. He would do well, he thought, to follow Brynach’s example of steering a difficult course. He admired Benitoe’s professionalism in the same spot, but it was easier to put himself into Brynach’s shoes.
His foster-father’s behavior was more of a mystery to him. Why does he throw himself into the welcome so heartily, he wondered, as if there were no threat at all. How can he do that, and why should he? It made no sense to him.
He looked around for Angharad as the field began to withdraw and make its way along the top of the ravine to meet up with the hunt staff and hounds further down. She lingered, watching from above, as George began to organize the carrying of the carcass at streamside. She felt the pressure of his gaze and turned, smiling at him when she saw him watching. “Shall I hold Mosby for you while you get back on?” she said.
He thanked her, mindful of his responsibilities to deliver his foster-father’s horse to him. After he settled onto Brenin Du, he took the reins back from her and courteously waited for her to remount her own horse. Then he escorted her after the rest of the field.
The wooded ravine began to widen out to more open terrain as George worked his way down. They’d rotated the bearers a couple of times, and George was now the free man in the lead. He could see they were still within the full-spate river banks, but winter low-water had exposed a shallow gravel shingle that extended from the shore on the right. It was large enough to hold the field which had taken advantage of a trail to come down to the water.
Rhian had the hounds, and Benitoe had gotten a fire going while Gwion fetched dead wood, carried down by the stream and beached.
George hid a smile as he watched Maelgwn show Hadyn and Thomas Kethin and three other men where to tie up the hunt staff’s horses, before he dismounted and did the same with Mosby and his own. He gravely thanked them, and took their nods of acknowledgment.
He’s such a mixture, George thought, as though he’s trying to move straight to adulthood as fast as he can. Not so surprising, I guess, considering what he’s lived through, but I wish he could enjoy what’s left of his childhood more.
Maelgwn turned from his task, and George loudly thanked him for seeing to their horses. The rest of the hunt staff added a few words, and the boy straightened with pride without changing his serious expression.
Dyfnallt and Brynach laid the deer down and cut the ropes binding its legs. “Pay attention, gentlemen,” George said to Dyfnallt, beckoning Gwion in, too, “here’s how we do it over here. You’ll get to do this, next time. We’re going to have to pack it out on horseback.”
“I never missed my staff until I had to do without them,” Gwion joked. “Not even a wagon out here among the primitives.”
Rhian, meanwhile, was doing her best to keep a quelling eye on the impatiently waiting pack and to dry out in front of the fire at the same time, without being too obvious about it.
“You alright?” George asked her.
“Just a bit… damp, huntsman,” she said.
“I didn’t realize you knew those words, back there,” he teased, and she blushed.
George turned his attention to the deer and began work. He carved out the scent glands first, to keep them from spoiling the meat, then slit the carcass carefully down the front so that he could remove the gut sack and the primary organs, slitting it at the throat to detach one end. He cut the large intestine and its exit out and used a couple of sticks to carry it down to the unoccupied upstream end of the shingle. He bent over to wash off his hands and knife in the water while he was there.
“That’s the corbin’s gift,” he told Dyfnallt and Gwion when he returned. The first raven was already settling down, walking over to inspect the offering with a rolling walk and a cocked head.
“Well, it’s close to nature this is, I’ll give it that,” Dyfnallt said.
“Will you prepare a feast here?” Gwion looked around the bare strand skeptically.
“No, we’re not equipped for it. We’d need wagons and gear. We’ll bring back the flesh in its hide and cook the rest for the hounds’ reward on the spot.”
“Why do you go to the trouble of cooking it?” Dyfnallt asked.
“I like to reduce the possibility of parasites,” George said.
“Do your healers not treat the hounds, then?”
“They do, but we have a saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Brynach brought over a number of green sticks that he’d cut with his hatchet, and showed the men how to drape lengths of gut around them so they could be held over the fire for a quick sizzling roast. After a few minutes, they spread the results out in a loose line before the fire. George took the short conical silver horn out of his chest pocket and blew the mort, calling in the quivering hounds for their reward and praising them individually as they came.
The field broke off from its conversations to cheer the hounds as they snapped and disputed over the hot tasty morsels.
Dyfnallt, with a sturdier horse than Gwion, received the honor of carrying the carcass home. They lifted it up to the horse’s rump behind the saddle, and Brynach showed him how to tie it on so that the antlered head was twisted, with the antlers pointing away from the rider.
George left them to it, while Benitoe and Rhian did a rough clean-up of the hounds in the handy water. A bit less work for Ives and the kennel-men, if they could at least get the first layer of dirt off, and they could hardly get any wetter than they already were.
Most of the field had dismounted and were gossiping away, holding their horses by the reins. He spotted Gwyn standing talking with Edern and Rhodri, and he walked over to them, his boots squelching with each step from the soaking. At his approach, Rhodri called, “We couldn’t see the action for all the steam rising from the damp clothes.”
“I’d hate for you to feel left out in any way,” George said, with a gleam in his eye. “Perhaps you’d find an early morning dunking an acceptable reminder of when you were doing this work yourself?”
He stalked Rhodri, mock-threateningly, and the laughing man tried to evade him, but his dancing horse got in the way. As he turned to duck in the other direction, Maelgwn suddenly appeared in his path, casually cutting off his escape. Rhodri raised his hands in surprise and surrendered.
George spared him, merely raising his tricorn over his head to let it drip on him.
“Nice teamwork,” he said to Maelgwn, as they walked back to their own horses.
George surveyed the dinner table in the huntsman’s house with satisfaction that evening. He’d wanted to show his guests a complete new world meal, and Alun and Angharad had managed it perfectly.
On his left Rhian was joking about the cold stream with Brynach while Ives listened, and Gwion vied with Rhodri across from him to keep Angharad smiling at her end of the table. On his right, after Maelgwn, Dyfnallt asked Benitoe about the winter weather they should expect—how cold, how long.
The dogs, his and Angharad’s, lay drowsily by the fireplace, but their eyes covertly followed every bite, just in case something should fall.
“You saw this venison come in from Thursday’s hunt,” George said, as Alun set the steaming platter of sliced roasted meat in the center of the table and brought the conversations to a halt. “The shoulders, hide, and antlers are perquisites of the huntsman.”
Dyfnallt asked, “How is the rest divided?”
Ives said, “Neck and shanks to the hounds, and the head, too, usually.”
“We trade with the tanners and other craftsmen for finished materials from the hide and antlers for use in the kennels,” George said. “Much of the leather used throughout the kennels is deerskin, except for hard-wearing items like the book covers in the huntsman’s office and the horse tack. Cowhide’s more durable for that.”
Maelgwn’s turkey arrived on the next platter, with a crispy skin. Apple wedges spilled out of the interior. “I’d like to thank our foster-son for his contribution,” George said. “I haven’t had wild turkey for quite a while.” It was a good-sized bird, though nothing like the huge domestic turkeys George was used to.
“How did you kill it?” Rhian asked Maelgwn. “With your sling?”
He nodded, proudly. “First try.”
Alun brought in bowls of sliced and pan-fried potatoes, roasted turnips, and cabbage, then finally a platter of corn bread for soaking up the juices.
Gwion looked at the corn bread as if he’d never seen it before. “What’s this made from?” he asked, as he tasted it.
“Yellow maize,” Angharad said. “Mixed with flour, sweetened a little, and raised without yeast.”
George paused as he cut his meat. These foods that struck him as so typically new world that he hadn’t thought about them—they were domesticated plants, weren’t they. There were no humans here, no Indians. Corn cobs were the end result of thousands of years of selective breeding. Who did that?
“Angharad, where do you get corn and potatoes?” he said.
“We grow them ourselves.” She was puzzled by the question.
“No, I mean, where did they come from originally? Who domesticated them?”
“Oh. I have no idea,” she said. “We got our varieties from our human trade, initially. Like tobacco.”
“Do you use potatoes, where you’re from?” George asked Gwion and Dyfnallt.
“Potatoes, aye,” Dyfnallt said, “we grow them, and squashes and tomatoes. We get tobacco and sugar from trade with Gwyn’s people. Older folk talk about the time before, when these plants were unknown.”
“We import our sugar and sell it to you, so much cheaper than growing it ourselves,” Angharad said. “We get our baking soda that way, too. Very convenient.”
It occurred to George to wonder if there was an entire black market economy the human world knew nothing about, tens of thousands of customers for basic staples that spread their demand across the mid-Atlantic states. How did they keep it hidden from their human suppliers? What would happen if the population grew significantly? He needed to talk to his friends among the korrigans—they handled most of the long-distance trade, but they’d be noticeable in the human world, short in stature. They must use agents.
“Don’t you have human trade, yourselves?” George asked.
“We see an item in the markets, now and then, but it’s not part of our regular goods,” Gwion said. “Wouldn’t do to become dependent on it.”
George disagreed in principle but held his tongue. Trade was always stimulating, and turning your back on it did not lead to economic success. On the other hand, he suspected the situation here in the new world was not sustainable. Sooner or later so much demand would become noticeable. It must already be causing questions in data analysis for some companies, and no one was prepared for the human world to become suddenly aware of this one. It would probably precipitate a shutting down of the connections, and that could create a crisis of supply for an unprepared fae world.
Maybe some of this bulk agriculture should shift to the fae world instead. He’d have to talk to Ceridwen systematically about the food crops here. Had the fae plundered the human options fully, or should he start looking at seed catalogs on their behalf? More to warn Gwyn about, if he wasn’t already fully aware of the vulnerability.
The conversation wandered off into other topics but suddenly George’s brain caught up. Wait a minute, if they had to get new world crops from the humans because there were no paleo-Indians here to create them, what about all the large animals that went extinct after the last ice age? Maybe climate was the cause, but maybe humans were, through hunting, changes to the landscape with fire, and so forth. The jury was out on that discussion, among the scientists. Did the animals survive, here?
When the English settlers arrived, they found buffalo in this area, he remembered. “Are there buffalo here?” he asked Angharad.
Brynach replied before she could. “I’ve heard they’re hard to tame and impossible to fence in, compared with the cattle we brought, so we hunted them instead. Eurig has trophies you should see, sometime. He says the first trails we followed here were buffalo traces.”
“They’re still in the Valley,” Maelgwn said, “on the other side of the Blue Ridge. It’s quite a thrill to come up on one in the woods.”
In the woods? George expected to hear of giant herds on the grasslands, though perhaps the fae hadn’t gotten that far yet. But the wisent, the bison of eastern Europe—that lived in the forests, didn’t it?
“What about horses? Were there horses here, when the fae arrived?”
Maelgwn looked at him blankly. “Of course. Why wouldn’t there be?”
“What are they like?” George asked. “They were gone by the time my ancestors settled the new world.”
Benitoe said, “Well, you’ll find some at Iona’s. She took over my uncle Luhedoc’s herds and he was fond of them. Much of our stock for riding and driving come from old world breeds instead. But many of the country farmers use them. They’re short and stocky, hardy animals. They have strong profiles, not like the dainty lovelies that Gwion brought, and they run to striped duns and spotted hides. The manes stick up straight and short. You can usually tell a horse of mixed background by these features.”
George nodded, his brain working furiously. That’s what was bothering me when I looked around at the small animals and vegetation. It really isn’t the same, is it? What about elms and chestnuts? I haven’t been paying attention, there must be lots of chestnut in these woods, without the chestnut blight.
My god, he thought, I’ve been worried about what the fae were getting in crops from the human world, but I didn’t think of the threats. Human diseases—are the fae vulnerable? If you can keep out Dutch elm disease, what about smallpox? And do they have something of their own to which they are all immune, but humans aren’t?
Well, at least there was one solution to the question of what the fae could offer in trade in the human world, if it ever came to that. His world would be ecstatic at the possibility of recovering extinct animals from a new world that never lost them. The only wild horse species left was Przewalski’s horse. What if these were a different species? What else was still here?
“Huntsman?” Rhian said quietly, next to him.
“Sorry, I’ve just realized that the different histories of our worlds manifest in some striking dissimilarities.”
“We have some puzzles of our own,” Rhodri chimed in. “One of the famous challenges we’re taught as way-adepts in the new world is how to recognize the Starling Way. Somewhere here we believe there’s an as-yet-unidentified way from Britain. It’s the only place we seem to get starlings from, and quite a nuisance they are to contain. Many have sought it but no one’s found it yet.”
But those could as easily have come from an undiscovered human way in the new world, George thought. We introduced them from Britain ourselves. Maybe other undiscovered ways are potential disease vectors, just waiting to get started.
He was grateful when Alun’s appearance with a bread pudding for dessert turned the conversation to other topics.
This time the newcomers were startled by the maple syrup on the pudding. “Tree sap?” Dyfnallt said, in response to the explanation. “You’re joking.”
Ives explained the process in detail, from the collection of springtime sap into buckets to the boiling down that concentrated the syrup. In this case, the method originated from the human world, but it had become a local specialty in the northern areas of Gwyn’s domain.
After a few more minutes the plates were emptied and Angharad pushed back from the table. “If you’re quite done trying to shock the visitors with our primitive customs, dear, let’s move this party to the study and give everyone a chance to stretch their legs and work off their dinner.”
He rose, smiling. “As you wish. Come, let’s have another drink and get to know each other better.”
Only beer and cider had been offered at dinner. George was minded to try stronger measures to encourage the new men to lower their defenses and, besides, their only responsibilities for Sunday morning were hound walking. Why not let everyone blow off some steam tonight? He believed that in vino veritas was a universal truth.
He led them all into the study at the front of the house, where the fire had been lit and there were comfortable chairs. “How about some brandy, Alun?” he said. Maelgwn perched on the edge of a window seat at the front of the room while Alun passed drinks around. Rhian declined but took a sip from Brynach’s glass and wrinkled her nose. Angharad abstained, thinking of the child, George knew. Everyone else accepted with a will, even the lutins.
“Lovely paintings, my lady,” Gwion said. “These are yours?”
The two most prominently displayed were the recent oak tree she’d just completed and the one of George thwarting the archer who had attempted to ambush Gwyn a few months ago, when the Archer’s Way to Edgewood was opened.
Rhodri described the latter event for him while Dyfnallt wandered into the library in the next room, drink in hand. George joined him to show him around and his two dogs followed him, the blue-tick coonhound collapsing back on the floor with a sigh when they stopped.
“This was Iolo ap Huw’s library,” he said, “and I’ve added a few books of my own. I haven’t been here long enough to do more than just scratch the surface of it.”
Dyfnallt said, “It’s a fine assemblage. I’ve seen many of these works myself, in my lord Cuhelyn’s library, but there are only a few I have for my own.”
“I don’t think Gwyn has a separate collection, so it may be that these are both his and Iolo’s. I haven’t asked, they came with the house.”
“Aye, that would make more sense, then.” He took a sip. “So you’re new to this yourself, are you? The hunting, I mean.”
“Yes and no. I’ve foxhunted all my life and whipped-in for years to my grandfather and then to our professional huntsman. But chasing fox is rather different from deer, and the bloodlines of these hounds are altogether unique.”
“What is it that you and Rhian do? Have you got the beast-mastery, you two?”
“It runs in Gwyn’s line, I understand. We can bespeak them, but the point is to help them learn to do it right by themselves, not as puppets to our command.” He let stand the implication that his version of communication with the hounds came from his relationship to Gwyn. He was convinced it was something different, from Cernunnos and his father’s blood.
“I thought that was it, when I saw you greet the hounds in kennels yesterday. It must be a grand thing.”
“It is. I came to it when I arrived here,” George said. “I can’t imagine doing without it, now.”
Dyfnallt grunted.
“But, you know, everyone else here does it the traditional way. Iolo did, too. You and Gwion will be fine.
“I’m not worried about that,” Dyfnallt said.
“What, then?” George emptied his glass and waited for Dyfnallt’s hesitant reply.
“My lord Cuhelyn expects certain things of me, of course. I must be careful not to disappoint him.”
George heard the ambivalence in his voice, and the evasion. I could like this man, he thought, if I could trust him. But I’d be a fool to do so. “Let’s get a refill and see how the others are doing,” he said.
Gwion called to Dyfnallt as they re-entered the study. “Did you ever see the like?” He held out some turkey feathers that Maelgwn had stuck in a small vase. “The big ones came from that turkey.”
Maelgwn protested, “No, that was a hen. Those feathers are from a cock.”
“A handsome bird, then,” Gwion said, accepting the correction jovially.
George noticed his empty glass and gestured to Alun for a general refill. Brynach turned him down, and the lutins, but the four grown men were still game.
“So, what’s the most exciting quarry you’ve ever hunted?” George asked Gwion.
“Boar is always a strong contender for that honor,” he said. “So much more dangerous than any of the deer.”
George thought the medieval hunters might not agree. He remembered the old French saying, Pour le sanglier faut le mière, pour le cerf convient la bière—that is, for a boar you need a healer, for a deer bring a bier. They must have known what they were talking about. Didn’t one of William the Conqueror’s sons die that way?
Dyfnallt offered, “Bear, I think. Costly to the hounds, and too rare for them to learn caution.”
“You still have bear in Britain? The big ones?” George asked. He was thinking of European brown bear, cousins of the grizzly. Dyfnallt nodded.
George glanced at Rhodri. “No, not here,” Rhodri replied to the implied question. “And we don’t hunt black bear with hounds. Dire wolves, on the other hand…” He thought for a moment. “I’ll wager they’ve never hunted tapir.”
“What’s that?” Gwion said.
“We find them in the southern part of our domain. They’re shaped like a boar, but they’re not swine. I don’t really know what they are. I’m told we got tired of trying to winkle them out of water all the time, so we brought wild boar and switched back to them.”
Brynach spoke up. “My uncle Eurig has one from the old days, as a trophy. I’ve never seen one alive, though I hear they’re not uncommon. They have funny noses.”
George didn’t know if there were ice age tapir in North America at one time. “Prehensile, aren’t they?”
“What’s that?” Brynach said.
“You know,” Rhodri said, “Like an oliphant, grabs things with its nose.”
“Oh, with the tusks and all the hair. Yes, it’s like a small one of those.”
That doesn’t sound like an elephant, George thought. That sounds like a mammoth or maybe a mastodon. “Tell me about those,” he said, urgently. He held his glass out absently as Alun came by for another refill.
Rhodri looked at him in surprise. “Well, we don’t hunt them with hounds, of course. Much too big. In fact, we mostly leave them alone unless they become fond of our crops. Then we teach them a bit of respect. They live in the woods, but keep their distance from our settlements.” He surveyed the confusion on Gwion and Dyfnallt’s faces. “Haven’t you ever seen one?”
They shook their heads, and George joined them.
“I’ll have Ceridwen show you pictures. If we hear of one making a nuisance of itself while you’re here, maybe you can come along and watch the hunt.”
George sat stunned in his chair. Forest dwellers. Must be mastodons. He needed a book on extinct mammals, right away.
Angharad looked at him. “What’s the matter?”
He just shook his head. Too hard to explain, especially after a few drinks.
Gwion gestured a bit wildly with his glass, and Alun unobstrusively topped it up. “I want to know more about this ballad of yours, huntsman. Just what is your relationship with Cernunnos?”
Rhodri laughed. “That song made it all the way to the old world already? I’ve got to tell Cydifor, he’ll be so pleased.”
“I think it must be everywhere by now,” Gwion said.
“I was there when he made it,” Rhodri boasted. George frowned at him but he went on obliviously. “You should have seen our huntsman blush.”
Over his shoulder, George could see Rhian and Maelgwn grinning. He couldn’t think quickly enough how to turn the topic to something else.
Brynach said, “I’ve never heard it. What are you talking about?”
“When George came back from Dyffryn Camarch with Rhys and Maelgwn, Cydifor wrote a praise ballad of what had happened there and sang it for us all,” Rhodri said.
Gwion added, gleefully, “The korrigans are carrying it around wherever they go.” He paused, as the thought struck him. “We should try singing it together, see if our versions are different.”
Oh, no. George sat frozen, mesmerized by the approaching train wreck. Rhodri popped up out of his seat and hummed a few notes experimentally to set the range. Gwion rose carefully and joined him, while Dyfnallt seemed content to just watch. Or maybe he’d had enough to drink that standing wasn’t an appealing option, George thought.
Ives, Brynach, and Alun, to all of whom this was new, were riveted as Rhodri started them off, the two singers fumbling for the words and leaning on each other, laughing when they disagreed. George saw Angharad rolling her eyes at the performance and almost lost his composure himself.
Well, it may be a disaster to have all this information out there about the ways and what he did, he thought, but Gwion’s too hammered to follow up with pointed questions tonight. Good thing, since I’m in no shape to come up with clever answers myself.
He sat with a hand over his eyes while the singers warbled to a conclusion, and shook his head. Brynach looked at him as if to quiz him about specifics, and George raised his hand. “Don’t ask,” he recommended.
Angharad took charge of the remains of the party before it could degenerate further. “I think it’s time we all headed to our beds,” she said, firmly. “Brynach, will you see Rhian home?” They both had rooms in the manor house. “And Rhodri, too? I believe he could use a hand.” Maelgwn got the door for them.
George wondered, but not too hard, what the sober youngsters made of this exhibition of their elders. He didn’t envy Rhodri left to their care, grateful that he himself had only to climb the stairs in his own house.
Gwion and Dyfnallt walked unevenly together to the door.
“More hunts like today,” Dyfnallt intoned, raising his hand in a shaky benediction, and George nodded at the wish.
“And more feasts, too. Thank you, huntsman.” Gwion’s sincere smile brought an answering one from George. The two men wandered up the lane together, slowly, leaning on each other. At least they weren’t singing to wake the neighbors, he thought.
Benitoe and Ives grinned and bowed to their host, then headed out the back door toward their own quarters.
“Thanks, Alun,” George said after all the doors were shut. “That’s what I wanted, everyone with drink taken.” He blinked at Angharad. “I thought that went well.”
“Did you, now?” she said, tolerantly. “Find out what you wanted?”
George half-smiled when he saw Maelgwn’s realization that this had all been planned. “Ask me in the morning.” He looked up at the long, long flight of stairs in dismay. “After everything stops moving.”
