King of the May

Chapter 2-2

Gwyn bowed and said, “I propose we part now and prepare something for formal discussion, on each side. Would you be willing to resume this meeting tomorrow morning?”

*Agreed. Seething Magma will come for you.*

Gravel and Ash Tremor turned and entered the way in the rock face behind them while Cavern Wind stayed behind and approached George.

*Music? Can you teach us more about music?*

George laughed. “Rhodri,” he called, “We need to add music to the list.”

Rhodri walked over. Cavern Wind extended a pseudopod toward him, but George stepped between them. “My lady, it will hurt him if you touch him.” They had discovered that the touch of a rock-wight was like trying to penetrate through a way from the side, or cross the way-focus barrier at the top of the ridge line—something very painful to creatures with some magic in them. George’s relationship with Cernunnos seemed to be the reason he was largely immune. It made him magical enough himself not to be harmed by the effect, like the outsider hounds that came from Cernunnos each year at Nos Galan Mai.

*I want to talk to him and he can’t hear me. If I touch you and you touch him, maybe?*

Now that was an interesting notion, George thought. “Rhodri, time for another experiment. She really wants to talk to you. She’ll touch me and I’ll touch you. I don’t think you’ll feel anything, but I also don’t think it’ll work. What do you say?”

“I’ll give it a try.”

George put out his right hand and touched Cavern Wind. Greetings, he thought. Then he lightly tapped the back of Rhodri’s hand with his left fingers, just in case there was any danger to him. Nothing happened so he clasped Rhodri’s hand and waited.

Instead of the sense of someone riffling through his own mind, he felt the attention go by and he could faintly overhear a conversation, as though he were tuning in to a very distant radio station. Only a few words penetrated.

Rhodri stood still, wide-eyed and grinning. “I have lots of ideas for you, Windy.”

Cavern Wind backed away from George. *Thank you. That was very interesting.*

Seething Magma and Cavern Wind turned to go back into the way at the rock face. *Until tomorrow, mid-morning,* Seething Magma said, as she vanished into the darkness.

Lludd spoke to Gwythyr alone late that evening, in his private rooms. He was pleased with the report from Gorwel—Bryntirion entered without resistance, and the Travelers’ Way exit held.

“I told her, my way was better,” he said. “My daughter’s vision has always been too limited in her ambitions for me.”

He looked over at Gwythyr’s composed face and tried to read it.

He continued, “Think what could be accomplished with the rock-wights. Access into any keep, support for my armies abroad, even an improvement on the expense of road and bridge building. No one could stand against me. My son has no business denying them to me.” What a waste—I will make proper use of them, he thought.

“I can understand your wrath at the refusal,” Gwythyr murmured. “How can I assist you, my lord king?”

Smooth and dignified as always, Lludd thought. He’s clever, he is, clever enough to know he can only get this gift at my hand. Annwn will be a realm like any other, and he will hold it for me. Maybe Creiddylad can be induced to resume the old alliance, if he’ll have her back.

“I’ve laid the foundations for this over the last month,” he told Gwythyr, leaning back in his comfortably cushioned broad chair and watching him carefully, motionless and effortlessly erect on his own hard wooden seat. “My agents in Gwyn’s domain have new orders.” And I have new agents in place, too. No need to share that with Gwythyr. He agreed with his adviser Derlwyn about the virtue of secrecy. He was impatient to hear about his latest experiment—had it worked?

Still, it would do no harm to let Gwythyr know this was no small or secret endeavor he was undertaking. “As you can see, I now control his passage from the new world.”

Gwythyr replied, “There is one other, as you know, my lord king.”

Lludd waved that aside. “Yes, yes, the one they think no one knows about. But it’s small and private. The Travelers’ Way, now, that’s their main route for trade. They will pass through my blockade, or not, at my pleasure.”

He drew himself upright. “Will you take Annwn from me, at my hands?” he asked Gwythyr.

“Gladly, my lord king,” Gwythyr said. “But Gwyn’s hold is on more than the land. What about Cernunnos?”

“What of him? I remember a time when there was no great hunt each year, no antlered master of beasts to impose his notions of justice on us all. His fastening on this human to serve as his huntsman and give him a way to manifest may impress the rabble, but I hold to Camulos and the other, older gods. Camulos has never disappointed me.”

Gwythyr said, “I have often wondered how you came to take him as your sponsor.”

Lludd smiled broadly and thumped the arm of his chair. “He promised me power, raw power, whenever I required it. All that I needed to take and hold my position.” And damn my father Beli for an interfering fool, with his notions of morality. That’s not for kings, he tried to tell him. When he finally received the long overdue weapon of his line from Taranis, he’d explain it to him more forcefully.

“While you are exploring the military option and an economic blockade,” Gwythyr said, “it would be well to consider how to undermine Gwyn’s obligations for the great hunt. Better to cause Cernunnos to abandon his protégé than to have to fight with him directly.”

He tented his fingers before his chin and spoke calmly and analytically. “To win the annual contest in a few months at Nos Galan Mai, as your father Beli Mawr has required, Gwyn must be present. If he wins, his huntsman must also be in attendance to retrieve new whelps for the pack from Cernunnos. If you can prevent any of this, the pack is weakened. Do it for six or eight years, and the pack will be worthless—no hounds able to do Cernunnos’s bidding for the great hunt. No more great hunt, no more Cernunnos as sponsor for Gwyn. A bloodless victory.”

Lludd nodded. “Yes.” Derlwyn had been thinking along these lines, too—stop the huntsman, control him. What he’d actually said was ‘control the wife, control the huntsman.’ A nice, simple, traditional lever. “It takes too long for my taste, though. I could just press through the Travelers’ Way now, after all. Gwyn doesn’t have enough men to stop me.”

“But he can close the way,” Gwythyr said, unmoved. “You can block the way but you can’t invade without way-token control. And what will your barons say, as you assault your son’s domains, both here and in the new world? They will fear receiving similar attention.”

“Let that be my problem,” Lludd said.

George watched as Gwyn’s impatient gesture silenced the side conversations in his council room. He’d called for a meeting of all his senior staff. Even Idris would be attending, having brought Madog’s old domain in Dyffryn Camarch far enough along toward normality to leave it briefly in the hands of his delegates. Rhys had sent Edern in his place, since his grandfather’s frequent visits had kept him up-to-date on the situation in Edgewood.

Gwyn looked around the table as they quieted and attended to him.

“Nothing has changed since yesterday.” George caught fleeting expressions of relief on some of the faces. “Before we discuss the Travelers’ Way, I want to bring us all up to date on our different tasks. We need to know where we are, before we can plan our next steps.”

Gwyn pursed his lips. “Our alliance with the rock-wights was formalized this morning. We plan an initial round of gifts, a taste of what they can learn from us, well, really from the humans, through George. We explained the notion of an ambassador to them, and they’ve appointed Seething Magma to that role.”

Surveying the smiles around the table, he added, “So, now we have access to new ways, beyond their first contributions. We must take measure of how this changes everything for us, how best we should proceed.”

“We will begin with a summary of the situation in the outlying districts. Idris, please tell us all how things are going, over the mountain.”

Idris leaned forward to speak. “I know some of you are more current than others, so forgive me if you’ve heard this before. After the death of Madog more than a month ago,” he tipped his head to George, “neutralizing his officers was surprisingly straightforward. The destruction of the internal ways hampered their ability to communicate and, without the fear and threat of Madog or any heir to defend, their heart wasn’t really in it. It took about two weeks for the last pockets of resistance to yield.

“I am minded to reinstate some of them, the ones that seem least corrupted, but I’m waiting until we can organize more information from the populace they controlled, lest we unknowingly include any that have serious accusations against them. My senior officers are sitting in summary courts, listening to the complaints of the people, and have been for a while.

“As we expected, we’ve experienced a version of the awakening at Edgewood, now that the external barrier way is gone. The effect was never as severe because the distances were greater, but the population is also much larger, so I’ve been working with Rhys to copy his basic methods of cleaning up and moving forward to make as much progress as fast as possible. Edgewood was collapsing when we got to it, but Dyffryn Camarch was more self-sufficient and is recovering much more quickly. I think we can slow down some of the emergency supplies.”

“A good thing, too,” Ifor Moel commented. “It’s been a strain on our resources supporting both of them at once. The real answer is to get the traders involved. There never were korrigans in Dyffryn Camarch, but they’re certainly welcome now. There were no outside traders at all, near as we can tell. The korrigans have been a big help at Edgewood, getting the mills going and setting up shop again. And they’re eager to work with the rock-wights.”

Gwyn asked, “Do you think we should let it be known that we seek settlers for Dyffryn Camarch, as we did for Edgewood?”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Idris said. “The folks at Edgewood were our own, and so are many of the adventurers that have poured in for resettlement. Madog’s people are different. We don’t have blood ties with them. They have their own way of doing things, and we will need to be careful how we integrate their folk and ours.”

Gwyn shook his head. “They’re all our folk now,” he said. “As soon as you can be confident that you’ve located most of the threats hiding in the general population, I want you to draw up a plan whereby they can operate on the same basis as the rest of the people in this domain, with the same resettlement options.”

“As you wish, my lord,” Idris said.

Gwyn looked at his notes. “How are the new ways working out for you?”

“They’re a great help, my lord. We used one to join Tan-y-bryn, the village at the base of the keel mountain Y Farteg to Madog’s old court, which we’ve renamed Tagell, the Snare. That one allows us to supply the keep three thousand feet up, and it makes a superb base of operations. The Rescue Way from the old garden at Tagell to Edgewood gives us direct communication with Rhys so that we can support each other militarily at need, or simply exchange goods. And there’s the Dyffryn Way, of course, from the keep back to Daear Llosg, so all three are well connected.

“The other four ways connect the most important of the market towns, but we’ll need to start building roads soon. Dyffryn Camarch was rich in ways, many more than we’ve just added, so the roads are ill-tended.”

George winced privately, but it couldn’t have been helped. He’d had to kill all the ways in Madog’s domain, with Cernunnos’s help, in order to trap him there and destroy him. It was like burning all the bridges over a wide area—it would take time to restore the routes that people relied on for everyday use.

“Edern,” Gwyn asked his brother, “How goes Edgewood?”

“Much improved. All the survivors have been accounted for and, where possible, reunited with their families. The good news is that none of the damage from the barrier way that imprisoned them seems to be permanent, though many people lost family members while under its influence. They’re rebuilding as quickly as they can, and each of the villages is a hive of activity. They’re determined to move forward and put it behind them.”