The Hounds of Annwn (1-2)

Chapter 2-2

He’d have to invite his brother Edern, he thought, without delay. No more standing in isolation pretending he was strong enough to fend off any attack on his sovereignty.

What would he do for a huntsman? He didn’t think Rhys could do it, and he couldn’t imagine what would happen to him if he tried it and failed.

What about this unexpected apparition, Georgia’s grandson, pulling the hounds somewhat raggedly along in front? Too convenient, just dropping in like that. Was he planted there?

Should I believe the implied lineage? The man was in his early thirties. Standing on the ground, our eyes were level, so he’s about my height, but so much broader. That’s those Norman Talbots, I wouldn’t be surprised. He didn’t recall Georgia’s mother very well, she had died so young, but he had stayed twenty-one years to raise his daughter and see her wed, and it was to her he looked for comparison. The hair looks like mine, but he has her mouth and her green eyes. I suppose it must be true. To think that little Léonie had such a son. When I saw her last, she was trying to push that horrid pony over a jump of her own devising, and winning.

It must be almost sixty years since I last wore clothing like his, the red coat with the collar in Talbot colors of dark gold and red piping, those uncomfortably tight breeches, and the knee-high black boots. I’m surprised so little has changed.

What’s this fellow like? He reached out to him with his mind and recoiled. He tastes rather… odd. Human and fae, clearly, but there’s something else, something dark and alive. Is it part of his blood? Georgia’s Gilbert Talbot was normal enough, but who was this man’s father?

Gwyn watched his performance with the pack as they followed the side of the slope westward along open ground at a walk. The hounds were staying together, for the most part, and Rhys helped keep them from breaking left.

Maybe he’ll do, Gwyn thought, better than risking Rhys for the purpose. Let’s keep him around for a couple of days and look him over. Perhaps I can persuade him to stay for the great hunt.

George kept the pace to a walk to accommodate the dead man on the led horse. Ahead the open ground widened as it began to descend to the west as well as the south, and he saw from above a village surrounded by fields in an enclosed upland dell that extended to his left down the slope. A stream of some size descended from the north end and ran through the village, and he spotted an arched stone bridge and the first roads he had seen here, dirt trails wide enough for vehicles.

Lifting his eyes, he made out a large stone building with a wall around its grounds about two miles away across the vale and north on the far side, partway up the slope, backed against the woods that continued uninterrupted up to the ridge line. The building was well-sited, with good views in three directions, and pennants in green and gold blew from each of the square fort-like front corners.

He looked a question back over his shoulder at Rhys who nodded. “We follow that road across and up to the manor,” pointing at a minor road between fields that began a short distance below them.

Just one problem: the hounds weren’t ready to stop for the day.

By ones and twos they were slipping away to check out nearby coverts as they passed. Rhys intercepted the ones on his side, but George couldn’t stop the others effectively, and Owen and his men were useless, trailing behind them and avoiding his gaze. It was like trying to control a handful of water with a mind of its own, and getting worse by the minute.

He could feel the eyes of the silent riders behind him and his stomach clenched in embarrassment. You’d think I’d never done this before, he thought, but then he’d never tried with strange hounds.

Finally, in exasperation, he called loudly, “Pack up,” and echoed it with some swallowed curses. To his astonishment, the hounds on the edges lifted their heads and moved closer together, like so many lambs.

Really? The next hound that started to drift away got a “Pack up, get back here” with some backbone, and it worked. A shiver went through him. They shouldn’t obey a stranger so easily. Something unnatural about this, he thought.

People in the fields stood and watched. He saw that the bridge met a larger road that paralleled the stream on the eastern side, and that his current path led directly to the crossing. The stream was large and a bit rough—would the hounds cross at the bridge or through the water? It would be easier to control them if they stayed together.

He called over to Rhys, “Will they cross at the bridge or try to swim?”

“Over the bridge.”

George nodded.

Houses and other buildings stood along the main road, but he saw few people as he approached with the pack. Most of the buildings were made of stone, with a few wooden dwellings. He looked for the typical old Virginia houses, in wood, or stucco, or even logs, but these were very different, though porches were common enough. The bridge was stone with timber flooring and rose smoothly to a high point in the middle.

As he passed the first building on his right before the crossroad, he could see well into its interior main room from his elevation on horseback. Two faces pressed against a window, a man and a woman. Glancing at the other buildings, he saw more faces at the windows. Almost all the people he could see were indoors. There was little noise other than the moving hounds and horses, and he cleared his throat uneasily.

He paused deliberately at the bridge, expecting that the hounds would break to drink anyway. They loped to the edge of the stream and lapped eagerly, but made no attempt to cross. After a few moments, conscious of the waiting procession behind him, he called the dripping Dando back to him and headed across the bridge, Mosby’s feet clopping hollowly on the wood. To his relief, the hounds fell in behind him, or more likely behind Dando, and the whole pack crossed up and over.

He turned right, up another, smaller, road that kept pace with the stream on this side, clearly just for local use. He noted one woman who looked about his age, dressed in gray, standing on a porch in front of a baker’s shop. She alone remained outside to watch the hunt go by. Nice that someone else trusts me with these hounds, he thought. Good thing she doesn’t know how little control I actually have.

He touched his cap to her.

As George approached the manor he’d seen from across the river, he discovered that what he had taken for a wall was really a sort of impenetrable living palisade enclosing the grounds. The opened gates were solid wood set in a stone wall that extended for ten feet on either side before joining the palisade. The passage between the walls smelt of damp stone as he rode through, passing under a manned stone archway.

He came out into a sunlit park and gardens that surrounded the manor house, though the grounds behind the house were hidden by interior walls extending from the sides of the house out to the palisade.

George picked up the pace to clear the path behind him for the main procession. At Rhys’s direction, he circled along a path to the left that avoided the front grounds and brought the pack in behind him with their sterns waving, in good order. Owen the Leash and his companions maintained a discreet and constant distance and followed him. Behind him the procession moved across the grounds at a solemn pace to his right, along a wide path bordered with low bushes, now in autumn foliage.

As George came alongside the main building with the pack the full extent of it became clearer. Standing three stories high, its extended square corner towers in front gave it the impression of a fortification. The tower corners were connected by the three levels of a stone portico across the front of the building. The first level had a recessed grand entrance. The building was rough-hewn stone, and overall the manor seemed like a cross between a small castle and an English country house of the more rustic variety, both defensible and comfortable.

The back lacked the fortified corners of the front. About halfway down the manor house’s side a two-story stone wall extended in a curve out sideways and back to the palisade, matched by another wall on the other side. It was large enough to stand on, crenelated for defense, and protected by a pair of large solid wooden gates, now standing open.

As he crossed through the gateway in this curtain wall he discovered many extensive outbuildings arranged neatly with straight lanes between them, like a Roman outpost. Far more space was enclosed behind the curtain walls than in front of the manor. From his position he could see several stables and a variety of workshops which must include a blacksmith, since he could hear an anvil ring. There seemed to be small dwellings, mixed in with the rest. It reminded him of the interior of a castle yard, but much larger and laid out more elaborately. The builders had left a space open between the back of the manor house and the first of the outbuildings that flowed up the slope, and more space was left open along the palisade that surrounded it.

It was also noisy—an establishment this size required many people—and the sudden silence that spread as he came into view with the pack was striking. Rhys cantered ahead of him toward an isolated area not far from the palisade on the left that was clearly the kennels, and he followed at a walk with the hounds.

Rhys bent over his horse to issue orders to a couple of boys in red. They turned and opened the kennel gates, disappearing inside. He straightened up and beckoned him in.

George brought the hounds into the kennel yard, followed by Rhys, and the gates closed behind them. Owen and the other hunt servants remained outside and turned away.

The kennels were large and elaborate, with the resident hounds raising a racket as their packmates returned. Working with Rhys who knew the hounds, and helped by the kennel-boys who held the gates and pointed out where the hounds belonged, George directed first the dog hounds, and then the more biddable bitches into their respective pens. The younger hounds had their own quarters separate from the older ones. Finally the yard was empty and each hound was where he belonged.

The boys in red came up for more orders, and George realized with a start that they weren’t boys at all, but small folk, one bearded, dressed in red jackets and wearing leather breeches with low boots. All were comfortable with the hounds and clearly functioned as kennel-men. He tried not to stare rudely at them. Time for some answers, George thought.

George turned to Rhys. “What now?”

“The lutins will see to the hounds. Come with me and we’ll find a place for your horse.” George swung Mosby toward the gate and followed him, wondering what on earth a lutin was.

One of the small men opened the yard gate for them and shut it behind as they left, with a clang. The noise of the busy establishment had resumed.

George pulled up beyond the closed gate. “I should be headed home,” he said. “I’ll be missed.” He didn’t bother asking for a phone—he doubted he’d find one here, wherever “here” was.

Rhys apologized with his eyes. “Gwyn will want to speak with you, please. We might as well make your horse comfortable in the meantime.”

No arguing with that, even if it was a delaying tactic, as it seemed. Surely he wasn’t suspected of being involved in that death. There were now two gates, a village, and several miles between him and the woods where he met the buck. He felt more like a guest than a prisoner, but if he was wrong he might as well let Mosby rest up while he tried to get answers from Gwyn. No point in putting Rhys on the spot if he’s just obeying orders. Besides, he suspected he would need their willing assistance to get home.

Rhys and George ambled to the nearest stable where two more of the small men in red came out to greet them and take their horses. George dismounted and followed the one who was leading Mosby inside, wanting to be sure of his horse’s comfort.

As Mosby was led into a loose box, George asked, “What shall I do with my gear?” Rhys pointed to a room at the end of the stable aisle, clearly a tack room. “You’ll be assigned a chest during your stay. Come see.”

The lutin silently handed him a basket that had been hanging on the stall door. George unclipped his sandwich box and wire cutters from the saddle and added them to the basket. Then he unbuckled the girth and removed the bridle. Mosby bent his head to some fresh hay and oats in a manger and a welcome wooden bucket of cool water, while one of the grooms began rubbing him down, standing on a stool to reach high enough.

George used the advantage of his height to pull off the saddle and pad, and another groom took them from him, along with the bridle. With the basket in his hand, George gave Mosby a pat on his hindquarters and followed Rhys to the tack room to claim an unoccupied chest. Several were stacked up in the sunlight streaming through the window, and more in the dimmer corners.

Wouldn’t hurt to have a bit more light in here, he thought. He stood in the doorway looking for a light switch. No power? He looked up to confirm his suspicions—no lights. But what’s that next to the window? He walked over and stared at an ordinary oil lamp hanging from a hook on the wall, like a sconce. It seemed so normal, in this place, but where did it come from? It was the first thing he’d seen that didn’t look like it was manufactured here. A shiver went up his spine at the incongruity.

I’m not the only thing in the wrong place.

Meanwhile Rhys and one of the lutins had pulled out an empty chest and opened it.

“How shall they mark the chest and stall for your stay, my lord?” Rhys asked.

George looked around and saw no names or even letters or numbers on the chests, only a variety of what seemed to be symbols drawn in charcoal on small wooden shingles hung on hooks. They were largely simple geometric shapes or drawings of an animal, reminiscent of heraldic signs. He recalled seeing similar charcoal drawings on some of the stall doors.

He thought of the old Talbot arms that hung in his grandfather’s dining room, gold on red. “A lion rampant,” he said whimsically, without thinking, but Rhys nodded and it was clear he understood the heraldic term’s meaning: “standing to strike.”

“Very well. I would judge that your task is done. Allow me to return you to my lord Gwyn.”

Rhys preceded him to the front of the dim stable. As George paused on the threshold behind him, he heard light running footsteps and a bright form leaped at Rhys, causing him to stagger lightly. George’s eyes adjusted and he saw a young teenage girl dancing about his guide. Her blond braid bounced along her back over her simple rose-colored dress.

“Did you see it? What did it look like? Is he really dead? They won’t let me in there. What about the stranger? Did he do it?”

Rhys grabbed her shoulders, smiling, and forcibly held her in place to slow her down. “What courtesies are these to our guest?” he said.

George emerged from the dimness of the stable entrance and she stopped, abashed, staring at him.

Rhys said to him. “Please excuse this ill-mannered display.” He looked at her sternly, if fondly. “Allow me to present Rhian, my sister. Rhian, this gentleman is George Talbot Traherne. He’s brought the pack safely home for us.”

She brushed the loose wisps of hair off her face and dropped into a courtesy, glancing up at her brother to see if this was acceptable. George smiled down at her. “No, I didn’t do it.” Her cheeks reddened.

She rose and said forthrightly, “Thank you, sir, for your deed and please excuse my unbridled words.”

She took her brother’s arm and accompanied them to the house.