Bound into the Blood

by Myers, Karen

  A ping alerted him to a new email. He got very little email these days, and Mariah handled most of it, but when he looked he found a reply from the lawyer.

  That was quick, he thought. The lawyer suggested a budgetary limit and, if that was agreeable, he’d start the process immediately. He thought George could see some results in a week or two. George sent him a go-ahead.

  Shall I go home now? For months, he’d resisted the temptation to stay current with the attractive chew-toy that was the internet, with all the daily news and cultural updates. It no longer fit with the life he’d committed to, and its attractions were fading. He couldn’t speak with his friends in any case, and the more remote happenings of humanity were receding in importance to him. He found it difficult to keep a foot in both worlds.

  I can’t do that anymore, he thought. If it were just me, well, I can vanish and do what I want, but if I really have to advise the rock-wights or Gwyn on the doings of the human world, I can’t do them any good if I fall out of touch myself.

  He spent the next hour or so refining his news feeds to accumulate heavily filtered weekly highlights, and vowed to come check them every week or two. He frowned at the necessity, then a movement of Seething Magma’s, intent at her computer, caught his eye. Better that than turning Mag loose on an unsuspecting human world.

  CHAPTER 8

  “So, how does it work, then, all this human trade?”

  George looked around at Ifor Moel’s office while waiting for his response, envying the largely empty desk with its tidy stacks of paper. He’d only seen Gwyn’s steward at work in his own place a handful of times. He was no longer the bewildered visitor of a few months ago—this time he had a line of inquiry he wanted to pursue, and Ifor was the expert on the economy of his great-grandfather’s domain.

  “Maybe I better explain,” he added. “Benitoe tells me the Kuzul wants to explore setting up its own trading channels for lutins with the human world, but I thought the korrigans had the monopoly on that. Who trades in what, and how do they do it? Are any of the fae involved?”

  Ifor stroked his cheek as if thinking where to begin. “I’ll skip the history and talk about present times, shall I?”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Let’s start with internal trade in our own world. Korrigans move most of the long-distance goods. They’ve created a network of warehouses and routes, using roads and ways, and even rivers where possible. Most of the korrigans tend to stay with craft work and construction, but a goodly percentage are in the merchant business, usually by family and long tradition. You saw some of that when we re-opened Edgewood, and you’ve seen their deliveries here.”

  “But surely they’re not the only traders,” George said, settling in for a lecture.

  “Certainly not,” Ifor said. “In each locality there are local merchants, fae or korrigan, and sometimes the lutins, too, especially for agricultural products.”

  He pursed his lips, as if considering how much detail was necessary. “There are a few fae families who have specialized in trade over a wider area. They have an advantage—sometimes ways are open to them which are not made available to the korrigans. A fae usually has a much longer life to build up his reputation. For the korrigans, the reputation is based more on the family name. I imagine the lutins will do the same. Already some of their clans are more well known for local trade than others.”

  “What about across the sea?” George asked.

  “Only for large items that are hard to send by land, and for short distances—between Britain and Gaul, for instance. Otherwise, the ways are just more convenient. And nothing comes here by water, across the wide ocean.”

  George pictured a world where most bulk produce traveled locally only, but had to shake his head—the ways gave “local” a different meaning. Travel time mattered, but not necessarily distance. “So what do trading networks look like, on maps? They must be governed by the placement of the ways.”

  “Quite,” Ifor said. He rose and fetched a wide scroll from a side table and partially unrolled it onto the desk. “Here’s Broch’s set of tariffs.”

  George stood and looked down at the color-coded drawing for a moment, trying to make sense of it. There were local clusters of settlement where he recognized a few names, and colored tongues extending halfway across the document to meet other clusters with a different color. It was organized like an ordinary map, but the strange amoeba-like color-clusters criss-crossed each other unpredictably.

  He recognized the Travelers’ Way and suddenly it all made sense to him. “I get it,” he said. “This shows the number of, um, stops along the network and how easy it is to get from point A to point B, given both roads and ways.”

  Ifor pointed out some fainter colors. “And rivers,” he said. “They have a different set of rates, though.”

  “And settlements grow up along the exit points of the ways, of course,” George said.

  Ifor nodded.

  “I don’t envy Gwyn’s choices of where to have the rock-wights build ways,” George said, staring down at the chart. “He can strengthen connections between towns, or point to empty locations where towns can be encouraged.”

  He looked up. “But won’t that be disruptive for the trading families already in business?”

  “Yes, very,” Ifor said. “They’ve been making their own proposals to my lord Gwyn, through me, for his consideration.”

  “Of course they have,” George said, thoughtfully. No wonder everyone’s eager to get a foot in the door. The whole world will be changing for them.

  He sat down again. “What about the human world? Who trades there, and where?”

  “Gwyn has his own place, of course, but that’s a private holding. We do no commercial trade there—he wants to protect his privacy.”

  “At Bellemore, you mean?”

  “That’s right. As part of my responsibility it’s no different from, say, a rural lodge that he visits occasionally. It costs some small amount to maintain and produces no income.”

  “Then where does the trade come from, in human goods? The lighters, the lamps and lamp oil, things like sugar?”

  “Besides Bellemore, there are four other ways in Annwn to the human world that we know of.”

  George raised an eyebrow.

  “And then there’s the way you used, when you came,” Ifor said. “That one is new, and it just goes back to Bellemore so we make no use of it.”

  George nodded. He assumed Cernunnos had made it, though he’d never gotten an answer.

  “Where’s the nearest human way?”

  “South of here, about fifty miles, at Tremafon. That was close enough that we built wagon roads there, and the korrigans have set up a base of operations for storage and transportation that’s shared by several of their trading families.”

  “Where does it come out, in my world?”

  “Well, I don’t really know,” Ifor said, a bit embarrassed. “It hasn’t been relevant.”

  “Why not, don’t you ship human goods to Britain? Don’t you want to know what else is available?”

  “We send little of human origin beyond the crops we grow that originated there. We keep the rest for ourselves.”

  George stared at him. “But luxury goods, scarce goods, would be more profitable than bulk goods.”

  “Yes, I know,” Ifor said. “I’ve wanted to trade more widely, but my lord Gwyn has been cautious about our exposure in your world. We don’t discuss the origins of our potato and corn crops with others.”

  He rolled the scroll up carefully and returned it to the side table, where it joined other scrolls. Different tariffs from different korrigan companies? Or korrigan families? If the connection to the human world at Tremafon is just one node on a trading network for one group, there must be other groups with networks that don’t have such a connection, and might like one of their own. It must be like a port city—not everyone trades abroad, but everyone connects to it.

  “So, from what Ives and Benitoe say,
the Kuzul wants to see for itself what’s available in the human world. Maybe they want their own way, maybe they just want the korrigans to bring something in on their behalf—they didn’t say.”

  Ifor nodded.

  George continued, “And the korrigans presumably already know what’s available, from wherever they come out in the human world.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Ifor said. “It’s my understanding that they would have a hard time fitting in, in a world of humans.”

  This was true, George thought. They resembled stunted humans. An individual might be mistaken for a human dwarf, but a band of them would be hard to explain. The lutins would have a similar problem. They might pass individually as small adults or perhaps tall children, but not as a group.

  “You’re suggesting they might not be able to explore very far,” he said. “What about the fae, who look most like humans?”

  “I don’t know of anyone who actively visits the human world, other than Gwyn. Perhaps in Britain, or Gaul, but not that I’ve heard. For us, in Annwn, special orders are made through Tremafon.”

  George raised his eyebrows. Weren’t they curious? He hesitated. “And then there’s the rock-wights. You’ve heard the request?”

  “I have,” Ifor said, and gave him a considering look. “What are you planning to do about it?”

  “All these years and no one needed a human to give them a tour,” George commented, “and then I show up, and suddenly everyone wants to look around.”

  “It’s your own fault, huntsman,” Ifor said. “You’ve been a welcome addition but, there’s no denying it, a disruptive one.” His half-smile took some of the sting out of the words.

  “Oh, well,” George pushed his chair back and stood up. “Stability is overrated, I suppose. Let’s see what I can come up with to add even more disruption, once I figure out what to do.”

  He paused in the doorway and looked back. “Are we still on for tomorrow, then?”

  “I’ll meet you at the kennels directly after the mid-day meal,” Ifor confirmed.

  “You’ll be fine showing the hounds,” George said.

  Dyfnallt remained unconvinced. “This is your pack, huntsman, and your idea. You should be the one.”

  George rolled his eyes. They were waiting for Ifor in the kennel courtyard, with Ives, standing in the shade under the archway that connected the two wings of the building. The July sun beat down on the bare paving stones in front of them, making the air shimmer.

  “You know I can’t. It wouldn’t be fair. And Rhian can’t either, for the same reason. People would assume we were using the beast-sense to make the hounds behave well.”

  Kennel-master Ives smothered a smile from behind Dyfnallt’s back, and George groped for patience. The backup huntsman was more than twice his age and very well-experienced, but he couldn’t seem to shake the guilt of having been introduced as a spy as part of the power struggle between Gwyn and his father Lludd, King of Britain. His role in saving the pack subsequently had paid all debts, and George was glad of his presence, but this inconvenient diffidence cropped up from time to time.

  “Look, this is an experiment. It can’t go wrong, because no one here has ever seen a puppy show before, except maybe Gwyn. All we need to do is avoid the most obvious potential problems.”

  He went over it once again. “Part one—we show all the puppies, first the dogs and then the bitches. They’ll be a bit wild, of course, because they’ll have only been in the pack for a couple of weeks at that point.”

  Ives muttered, “The ones that we don’t get back ahead of schedule, anyway.”

  George ignored him. “We confine them in a temporary space. Your role is to get them to show themselves and move in ways that will let the judges see if they’re fit and healthy. It’s all about organized chaos. Some will be shy, most will be boisterous, and a few may try to escape into the crowd of spectators to see what else is going on.”

  Dyfnallt said sourly, “That sounds like the voice of experience.”

  George grinned. “That’s right. Remember, puppy shows are supposed to be fun. No one expects the young hounds to be perfectly behaved.”

  “A good thing,” Ives said.

  “The judges pick the best dog, then the best bitch, and finally select one of the two winners as the best overall.” George started to count on his fingers. “There’s a trophy for the best and for the runner-up, and the person who walked those hounds for us gets bragging rights. We get the whelps out from underfoot for a few months, and the pups learn something about domestic animals and living with people. And we entertain the volunteers and reward them for their work.”

  Dyfnallt said, “And that’s why you want to show the whole pack afterward?”

  George nodded. “A quick exhibition of the pack, so that people remember to stop thinking of them as dangerous.”

  He heard the creak of the kennel gate opening. Ifor, at last, he thought. “We’ll go through it together until you’re alright with it,” he told Dyfnallt. There’s lots of time for practice—we have almost two months.”

  As they talked, they all sauntered over to join Ifor at the gate. “Thank you for joining us, steward,” George said. “I hope we can settle on a spot and put that part of the planning behind us.”

  They paused on the other side of the kennel gates, in the bustling back area of the palisaded space. The buildings and shops reached out along several lanes, like a small village, beginning from an unoccupied space at the rear of the manor with no structures at all.

  “You said you wanted shade, huntsman. Nothing suitable on this side of the curtain wall?” Ifor asked.

  “Only the orchards would be large enough, and you wouldn’t want a lot of people trampling the ground there,” George said.

  “Then let’s look at the front.” The four of them walked through the open gates of the curtain wall that connected the central manor to the outer walls that enclosed the grounds on either side. From the broad steps at the front of the manor, George looked down on the sloping grounds, a mix of close-cropped meadow and trees like any park, except for the sheep that kept the grass under control. It was a large space, suitable for hound and horse exercise in bad weather, for small-scale military training, and now for a public assembly and celebration.

  “How many people do you expect, huntsman?” Ifor asked.

  “Well, that depends. The minimum requirement would be a large pen for the hounds and space around the outside on two or three sides for spectators, ideally under some shade trees. I don’t know how many people. Maybe three or four dozen?”

  Ifor smiled and shook his head. “I don’t think so. My lord Gwyn has asked me to make this the morning entertainment of a general festivity—a fair with other amusements, and a feast outdoors in the evening, perhaps more than a single day. To celebrate the new kingdom. We expect visitors from beyond the domain.”

  George’s ears shifted back on his head and he saw Dyfnallt swallow. Even Ives straightened up to his full height, such as it was.

  “I see. A grand display of the hounds and the health of Annwn, is it?”

  Ifor nodded. “And of the hunt staff. You are all to have new livery, including you and your staff, kennel-master,” he said, turning to Ives.

  “Who will judge?” Ifor waited for George’s response.

  “I’ve asked Edern, and he’s agreed,” George said. “It can’t be anyone with a direct interest, to help prevent any charge of bias. But like I told Gwyn there should really be two judges, and I can’t think who the second should be.”

  “He told me in that case that he would take care of finding someone.”

  A political choice, George assumed. Let’s hope whoever it us understands hounds.

  “I warned Gwyn that Dyfnallt should show the hounds and that Rhian and I should take secondary roles.”

  “He has agreed, but he’s commanded that you and his foster-daughter take the pack through the crowd after the judging, to let anyone meet with the hounds who wi
shes to. He believes there is still a lingering unease and fear of the pack which we know to be unwarranted.”

  George nodded to himself, unsurprised. It would take more than a few months to undo all the years of harm Madog and Creiddylad had done, creating the appearance of uncontrolled violence from the hounds that served their ends. Well, that sabotage had failed and Madog was dead. It was hard to take it too seriously, here on a summer afternoon. The puppy show would be a good way to cap the new peace.

  CHAPTER 9

  “I don’t understand. Why can’t I come? Or both of us?” Rhian leaned forward in her chair and looked over at Brynach in the huntsman’s office and turned to face George again. “We’ve both been there.”

  George kept his face straight with difficulty and sighed. He’d heard this from others throughout the week. I’m going to be hearing it some more, he thought, and summoned patience.

  “Dropping in on your foster-father’s rural Bellemore estate is not the same thing. I’m not conducting a vacation tour for friends and family.”

  She tried to hide her disappointment and Brynach’s shoulders drooped a bit in sympathy, more for her sake than his own, George thought.

  “Look, what the lutin’s Kuzul wants is a commercial evaluation. Broch will escort us to the korrigans’ way at Tremafon and we’ll, um, take a look around.” Once I find out where that comes out in the human world.

  “That’s not what Mag wants,” Rhian said, stubbornly. She straightened up in her wooden chair and tossed her blond braid back over her shoulder.

  “Well, I don’t really know what Mag wants. Do you?” he said.

  Brynach stood up with all the dignity of his nineteen years. “He’s right, Rhian. This isn’t a pleasure trip, and there’ll be other opportunities.”

  George tilted his head to him in approval. He’s not far from his full-growth, he thought. He’ll be as large as his kinsman Eurig in not too long.