Bound into the Blood

by Myers, Karen

  “What I’m teaching you are the skills that will suit you for a new world that is just starting, where the rock-wights work with us to change how the world will work. You can’t see it, and I can only see bits of it, but everything’s going to change, now that we can get ways where we want them. Everything. You’ll have to take my word for that.”

  He draped an arm over the boy’s shoulder. “When you mature into your full way-talents, you’re going to be a strong practitioner, stronger than me, I imagine.”

  Maelgwn looked up at him in surprise.

  “Oh, it’s true,” Rhodri assured him. “Maybe all that practice you got with Granite Cloud, or your mother’s blood… but the reason doesn’t matter. You can be great in this art. There aren’t many of us who can do it, and we will be needed.”

  He stood up again, to let the lad finish his lunch in peace. “Take my advice, son. Be careful about the choices you make and learn as much as you can from as many people as you can. You will be many things in a long life, and this is just the start.”

  He rubbed his hands together brusquely. “Hurry up now, so we can get started.”

  He turned away to pick up the sack of way-token blanks he’d brought with him, and Maelgwn swallowed his last bite obediently and stood up to follow.

  “And don’t forget to return the mugs to the inn when we’re through,” Rhodri told him. “And the bucket.”

  Bedo listened carefully to the sleeping household around him that night before cracking open his door. He stepped cautiously out, avoiding the one board that squeaked right in front of his doorway and quietly padded barefoot along the upstairs gallery of the huntsman’s house and down the stairs. He didn’t want to wake Maelgwn, whose room was across the hall from his own, or any of the other sleepers in the house.

  There was enough light coming in from the moonlit sky to steer by but halfway down the stairs he paused with one foot lifted, surprised to see lamps lit in the kitchen. He continued on down to see who else was up in the middle of the night.

  He had no fear of an intruder—one of the many dogs would have barked at the sound or smell of any stranger in the silent house. He scuffed his feet before entering, to give a warning, and then turned the corner onto the cool stones that flagged the broad room.

  Maelgwn was sitting at the worn, wooden table, finishing Alun’s blueberry pie, with one of George’s human books on birds propped open before him. He’d looked up at the sound of Bedo’s steps.

  “Any more pie?” Bedo asked.

  “Sorry,” Maelgwn said. “That was the last piece.”

  Bedo smiled at him. “Couldn’t sleep either?”

  Maelgwn shrugged. Never a talkative boy, tonight he was downright taciturn. Bedo wondered what the problem was.

  It’s awkward living with them this way, Bedo thought. I’m neither family nor servant, just Angharad’s apprentice. Still, he’d eaten enough meals with them over the last couple of months. Maybe he could be useful prying out Maelgwn’s problem and helping him with it.

  “Come on, tell me. What’s the matter?”

  With a surprisingly adult manner, Maelgwn demurred. “It’ll just sound like I’m a child, complaining.”

  Bedo sat down across from him. “I would never take you for a child, Maelgwn. Young, yes, but you’ve proven yourself by my standards. I’ll always take you seriously.”

  Maelgwn flashed him a look of gratitude. “We’ll have to talk quietly—Alun’s room is just overhead.”

  Bedo nodded.

  “Well, you know about my foster-father’s journey to the human world?”

  “Leaving soon, I understand,” Bedo said.

  “I wanted to go and he told me to stay home and look after my foster-mother.”

  He looked up at Bedo to make a point. “I understand why, and it’s a good thing to do, and that’s not why I’m worried. I’m not whining about it.”

  Bedo raised an eyebrow.

  “But he doesn’t understand. Rhodri said it’s not my job to keep him out of trouble, but I know there’s going to be trouble. I just can’t convince anyone.”

  “What do you know?” Bedo asked.

  “There’s going to be a fight, and he’s going to lose.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  Maelgwn’s eyes settled on the table before him. “That’s the problem. I don’t know. But I can see it. I can see him lying on the ground, in the rain, and he’s not moving.”

  “Poor lad. No wonder you can’t sleep,” Bedo murmured.

  “I can’t even warn him. I don’t know where it is, or when it’ll happen.” Maelgwn gulped. “I’m not even sure it’s true.”

  He straightened up in his chair. “But I think it is.”

  He paused for a moment. “What do you think I should do?”

  Bedo sat in silent thought. “Suppose it’s a true seeing,” he said slowly. “If you warn him, there’s nothing he can act upon. Is there any other detail? Is he wounded? What’s he wearing?”

  “I didn’t see any blood or anything, it’s just he wasn’t moving, in the rain. He had on those funny human things. You’ve seen them, the shoes that tie with laces and the stretchy shirts.”

  Bedo nodded. George had been running errands to Bellemore and he usually dressed in human clothes in case he should run into anyone.

  “If your telling can’t change it, then don’t worry them about it, George or Angharad.” Bedo said, decisively. “It can’t do any good.”

  Maelgwn nodded. “I guess you’re right. Maybe it isn’t true, anyway. But if I were there…”

  “You can’t know that,” Bedo said. “You can never know that.”

  He cocked his head and looked at Maelgwn to gauge his possible reaction. Just how grown up is he, he wondered.

  He said to the boy, “And if George is hurt, who better than you to stand between your foster-mother and danger? That thought would comfort him.”

  Maelgwn blinked at this, and Bedo was pleased to see a look of resolve cross his face. “Tough choices,” he murmured.

  “What was that?” Bedo asked.

  “That’s what Thomas says when there are no good answers, just bad ones, and less bad ones. He says those are the tough choices.”

  “That’s right,” Bedo said. “In fact, that’s why I’m up, myself.”

  “Why, what’s the matter?” Maelgwn said, surprised.

  “Well, with the baby coming and all, soon the place will be full here, won’t it? They’ll be wanting their room. And their privacy.”

  “You’re not thinking of leaving, are you?” Maelgwn asked.

  “Don’t you think I should?” he asked.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “But I must be in the way,” Bedo said. “Angharad’s just too polite to say so.”

  Maelgwn looked him seriously in the eye. “No, she’s not. If she wants you to go live somewhere else, she’ll tell you so.”

  Bedo cocked an eyebrow skeptically.

  “Believe me,” Maelgwn said, with a grin. “She’ll let you know.”

  “Hmm,” Bedo said. “Maybe so.”

  He stood up and started poking through the leftovers over by the cold box. “I thought I remembered seeing a bit of cake leave the dining room tonight, uneaten.” He rummaged around and finally pounced upon a plate.

  “Ah, there it is.”

  Someone my age, he thought, and never married. Maybe I should fix that, one of these days. He turned to look at the boy. At least this lad seemed a bit better for talking about his problems, even if it’s just with an old bachelor like me.

  “Some more cider?” he asked. “Might as well make the most of having the kitchen to ourselves.”

  Maelgwn grinned and passed him his mug.

  “Again,” Tegwen said. “Try it again.”

  Rhian grimaced, but she returned to her starting spot, regained control of her expression, turned back and glided once more to Tegwen. She paused and waited for the momentum of her gown to swing the skirt forw
ard without any need to touch it herself, then gracefully curtsied, letting the material settle around her.

  “Much better, my dear,” Tegwen said, and Brynach clapped from the window seat.

  Rhian only just stopped herself from sticking out her tongue at him. What is it about these lessons in manners and deportment that brought out the most rebellious behavior in her nature, she wondered. More like five than fifteen, Tegwen said, and Rhian was forced to agree with her.

  It was hard to set her mind to the task, she thought.

  Tegwen seemed to have heard her thoughts. “Let’s stop for a while,” she suggested. “What’s bothering you?”

  This must be what it’s like to have a mother, Rhian thought. Hers had been killed by Madog when she was very young, but she was learning from Tegwen something of what she’d missed in Gwyn’s consortless court, and it warmed her in odd ways, brought out feelings she didn’t fully understand.

  She glanced over at Brynach to see if he would object.

  “It hard to put it into words,” she said. “Brynach and I, we’ve been talking. About afterward, when we’re married.”

  “That won’t be for quite a while yet,” Tegwen said. “You’re coming along nicely but my great-nephew over there won’t be ready for ages.”

  Brynach rolled his eyes and took the hint to rise from the window seat and join them where they sat in the pleasant, open room at the back of Taironnen, with its views west to the height of the Blue Ridge. Paintings by Angharad brightened the walls, the fruits of her long friendship with Tegwen.

  “We offered to go with George on his excursion to the human world,” Brynach said, “and he turned us down.”

  “That’s not the real problem,” Rhian said. “All my life I’ve wanted to be huntsman, like Iolo, and now that I’m almost there, everything’s going to change again.”

  “Ah,” Tegwen said.

  “And Brynach, he thought he’d spend some time in military training first, and now…”

  “You two have been called to serve your families instead. Things were quiet so long, you thought that would never happen.” Tegwen smiled. “New responsibilities, new restrictions.”

  Rhian nodded.

  “But new power, too. With your foster-father’s ascension to an independent throne and with Llefelys coming to claim his portion of Gwyn’s land, there will be more royal activity than Greenway Court has seen in centuries, and we must all brush up on our courtly manners.”

  Rhian gave her a glum look.

  “My dear,” Tegwen said, “Gwyn has not forbid you your activities with the hounds, has he? Nor will he, I’ll be thinking.”

  Rhian looked up hopefully, then sagged again. “But in the court I’m just a decorative presence, someone to smile and curtsy. What good is that?”

  “You join him at council meetings now, like you’ve always wanted to, isn’t it so? You can’t expect to understand everything that happens right away. Talk to Ifor Moel afterward, or Idris, or Ceridwen. They’ll be glad to explain things to you, out from under Gwyn’s eye.”

  “Aunt,” Brynach said, “Part of it is the extra weight laid on our betrothal, the tie between the royal houses, me as a cousin to the queen of Gaul, your daughter, and Rhian as Gwyn’s foster-daughter. We didn’t mean it that way, but so it is.”

  “I hate being on display all the time,” Rhian burst out.

  “Aren’t you on display when you act as huntsman, especially when you’re on your own?”

  “But that’s different,” Rhian said. “I’m just doing my job.”

  “Yes, you are. And what of your brother Rhys? Are you proud of him for how he’s managing Edgewood in a time of crisis and change? His first experience of rule?”

  Rhian nodded. Of course she was of proud of him, her big brother.

  “And does he worry about people watching him? It’s just part of his job. Talk with him, sometime, about it.”

  That was a good idea, Rhian thought. I didn’t think of it that way.

  Something of that must have shown on her face, for Tegwen laughed at her. “Cheer up, the two of you. Brynach will learn to play ambassador between the courts, and you will learn to be your foster-father’s hostess, and get the same lessons in rule that your brother has had. And in a while, you’ll be comfortable with it. Trust me, I know this.”

  “And besides,” she said, “this is just the beginning of your life. You will be many things, in time, and these are just the first.”

  Rhian straightened up, taking heart.

  “Look at Bedo,” Tegwen said. “The first part of his life was as a servant, in a family of servants. Eighty years of it. But that’s over. Now he can become an artist, like Angharad. He’s already taken the hardest step—leaving his old life. And now he has to shed that skin, leave it behind. It won’t be easy for him, but I liked what I saw of him when Angharad brought him. He’ll find a way.”

  She stood up and beckoned Rhian over to try her curtsy again. “To live is to change, my dear. When you get to be my age, you’ll understand that.”

  Rhian could feel her eyes widen. Eurig and Tegwen were older than her foster-father. She’d never be that old.

  CHAPTER 11

  “This does not impose upon you, kinsman?”

  Gwyn phrased it as a polite question, but George had no difficulty interpreting it as a royal command. He supposed he could raise an objection if there were any serious reason to do so, but then who would lead this ad hoc expedition to the human world?

  The two were alone in Gwyn’s council room in the manor, a concession to George’s status as a member of the family. “Let’s make sure this doesn’t get out of hand,” he told his great-grandfather. “Benitoe as a representative of the Kuzul shouldn’t cause too much of a problem, but I still don’t know what we’re going to do with Mag.”

  Gwyn quirked one eyebrow.

  “Well, how would you hide her?” George said. “We’ve been experimenting with having her peep out of a way. Benitoe says that works—he can’t see her like that—but I can’t tell the difference myself.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I’m far more worried about keeping her under some sort of control. She’ll want to explore everything, you know that.”

  Gwyn suppressed a smile. “I’ve told her that she would be well-advised to submit to your leadership for this visit.”

  “As if that’s going to happen.” George frowned as he considered what could go wrong. He had no authority over a rock-wight, nor was she under Gwyn’s command as King of Annwn. Her people were allies, not subjects. Besides, why would any creatures who lived for tens of thousand of years pay much attention to a mayfly like him, or even Gwyn? His only hope was to play upon her ambassadorial status and try to shame her into some sort of prudent behavior while he played guide.

  Gwyn told him, deadpan, “Rhys tells me that Cydifor has offered to accompany you.”

  George winced. Cydifor had spent the last several months prospering as the court musician at Edgewood, under Rhys Vachan, Gwyn’s foster-son. The song he’d written about George and the death of Madog was still embarrassing him, and in more domains than Gwyn’s.

  He glanced sideways at Gwyn. “He’d probably have the least problem blending in. I could just give him a guitar and he could play on the sidewalk and collect tips.”

  He waved off Gwyn’s look of puzzled incomprehension. “Never mind. Clearly I need to get out of here before I accrue any more volunteers. Broch, for example.”

  Broch would be his guide to the korrigan warehouse at Tremafon, and beyond, to the human world. He knew the destination now, more or less. It turned out that Mariah organized shipments for the korrigans that ended up at Woodward, a flyspeck of a town in central Pennsylvania. Broch’s way-exit was somewhere near there.

  Broch had told him that his excursions were limited to this small rural area, but he’d been eager to let George know that he wouldn’t mind exploring more widely.

  I’m going to have enough trouble restricting vi
sitors as it is, he thought. I haven’t told Benitoe about my other agenda yet. I’ll have to do that soon, can’t hide it from Mag in any case—she’ll just pluck it out of my head.

  The last known address for his father, Port Matilda, was less than fifty miles away. Nothing would keep him away from that.

  Gwyn cherished his rare few moments alone after his great-grandson left. He had misgivings about this human expedition which he hadn’t shared with George. More than any other domain, his own depended on trade with the human world, not for food, but for some of their luxuries and much of their trading stock with the other domains.

  In a true disaster, he could cut off contact with the human world by shutting down the few ways that connected to it. Months ago George had warned him about not letting the human world discover the existence of his own. They had no skills to force a way, but he believed his huntsman’s description of modern weapons, and he knew for himself what their world had been capable of sixty years ago—that was frightening enough.

  He thought of his well-guarded master way-tokens. Yes, he could close the ways, that had always been his strategic fallback, and until a few months ago that would have made him feel secure. But that was before Seething Magma and her kind had made themselves known. They could create more ways at whim and there wasn’t anything he could do to stop that beyond diplomacy.

  George and his grandparents, his agent Mariah Catlett… there weren’t many humans that knew about the fae otherworld, and even fewer who knew how to reach it. Loosing Benitoe and especially Seething Magma into the human world was risky, even with George as a guide. The korrigans had managed it for generations, but very quietly, inconspicuously. They had a procedure that worked for them.

  Had they ever lost one of their own in the human world?

  For that matter, it wasn’t impossible that harm might come to his great-grandson there. What would happen to Cernunnos in such a case— would he be released somehow, in an alien place?

  George and his companions would be out of his control… He took a deep breath and steepled his fingers together. Seething Magma was out of his control at any time, and he couldn’t keep her from the human world if she wanted to go there, or if Gravel, the matriarch of her clan, wanted to send her. Better to go with a human companion than on her own.