To Carry the Horn

by Karen Myers

  “Such as?” Ceridwen said.

  “He doesn’t have any tasks to do. He’s always there to help with the dinner service, but otherwise they see little of him. Guests who bring servants, why they keep them busy, especially with clothing and little errands, and so the staff get to know them, but my lady Creiddylad uses the house staff for that, not Meuric.”

  “What does he do all day, then?” Ceridwen asked.

  “They don’t know, but they like to make up stories about it. Some hold he’s not natural, that he stalks small animals to eat them.”

  Ceridwen gave him a look.

  “Well, there’s this giggle he has which will send shivers down your spine, it will. A few think he must be a bedmate of his lady, but most think that couldn’t be hidden from the house staff and dismiss the notion.”

  “Anything else?” Ceridwen said.

  “They know he’s in and out of the house at all hours and that he keeps out of the way of the lords. Except for young Rhian and Rhys. His eyes follow Rhian, and the house staff are outraged by it and united in wishing him ill.”

  “I’ve asked Gwyn, and he doesn’t recall seeing his face. That’s strange for one living in the house,” Ceridwen said. “It must be deliberate avoidance.”

  George said to Ceridwen, “I suggested to Alun that one of the lords could have glamoured himself and come in from a wet day like today secretly, but he tells me that’s impossible.”

  Alun said, “Someone would notice him wet, his clothes would need to be cleaned, the servant straightening his room would have seen evidence—there’s just no way it could be hidden, even if no one saw him leave or come back. The staff would know, there are no secrets there. Plenty of servants come in wet, for their work or from errands, but not the lords, not without notice.”

  Ceridwen nodded. “You’re probably right.”

  She looked out at the windows where the light was getting darker and stood up.

  “It’s time we were going. Stand up, now,” she said. “Let me get a good look at you.”

  George watched Ceridwen standing across from Alun and taking in his clothing. She was dressed as he was, to make things easier.

  Ceridwen, in a single instant, shimmered and reformed as Alun’s copy. She gained slightly in stature but otherwise was changed mostly in face, hair, and clothes. When she spoke, it was in Alun’s deeper tones. “This is easy enough, especially when you start with similar clothing.”

  Alun looked deeply uneasy to see such a duplicate of himself. “Is that what I look like, then? Surely I don’t sound like that.”

  “Everyone asks that,” Ceridwen said, in the same voice. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care for your reputation while I borrow your form.”

  “We’ll make better arrangements next time,” George said to Ceridwen as they came in, soaked, a couple of hours later, to the relief of the anxious Alun.

  “Did it work, then?” he asked.

  “Like a charm,” George said. “We bickered in the stable about going to town in such bad weather, and you could see the lads hiding their grins. If anyone was paying attention, I think they were satisfied. We took the route up along the palisade once we were out of sight of the gate guards.”

  Ceridwen had dropped her glamour the moment she reached the study. She stood with George in the doorway, to minimize the mess she was making with her sodden garments. “Thank you for the borrowed form, Alun. I hope you found something to amuse you?”

  He looked down at the small book still in his hand, caught up when he rose. “Yes, my lady, very interesting it is.”

  “What have you got there?” she asked.

  George glanced at the book and thought it looked relatively recent, compared to most on the shelves.

  “It’s about a lad raised by wolves in a far country with strange beasts,” Alun said.

  Good heavens, George realized. It’s Kipling’s Jungle Books. “Where did that come from?” he asked Ceridwen.

  “Gwyn brings back books when he travels, and they tend to end up here. Sometimes I wish I could get more of some of the authors.”

  She waved at one of the shelves, but George couldn’t make out the details from the doorway and didn’t want to cross the carpet, wet as he was. He vowed to look more thoroughly at his next opportunity.

  “Take that one with you and bring it back when you’re done,” she told Alun.

  “Thank you, my lady.” He closed it and put it carefully inside his coat, and accompanied George to the door.

  “Try to look wet,” George said, as they dashed across the lane. “It seems highly unfair that you’re not.”

  “Ah, but I’ll get to clean a second set of clothes for you when we get home.”

  “There is that,” George said, with a grin.

  CHAPTER 28

  What if I can’t keep this under control, George thought, in the huntsman’s office after lunch on Sunday. That glamour in the woods was all external, but now he was trying to change his own appearance again. The last thing he wanted was to trigger that horned man form.

  He was afraid to try it alone, but yesterday’s excursion with the glamoured Ceridwen made it clear how much this was a basic tool. He’d have to learn to master it.

  He was taking a break, interrupting the selection of materials for his apprentices to study with practice on his glamours. The internal window to the dark nursing pen that still held Aeronwy served as an adequate mirror.

  His most recent attempt had yielded an implausibly tall female who strode about like a man and had only the faintest understanding of how skirts should move. Alright, no women, he thought.

  The man I know best is grandfather, but I need someone in a younger age range so I can fade into the background—there are few elderly fae. I’d best make up a persona for myself and learn to know it well. The first thing to eliminate is whatever makes me stand out in a crowd from a distance. Then I can work on the face and surface appearance.

  My size is the big problem, so to speak. The height’s not so unusual, but it makes me obvious and a few inches shorter would be good. Breadth was worse, he thought. They’re all rather lean here.

  Alright, think “narrow.” He envisioned Rhys and Gwyn, tall but lanky. His appearance changed in the reflection, drawing in at the shoulders and chest. Now let’s try for shorter. He saw his reflection shrink by three or four inches. Not bad, he thought, turning around and checking from other angles.

  A rap on the door startled him, and he walked over to open it. He watched his shorter arm reach for the knob but his real hand was already there, and he rapped his knuckles badly with the careless thrust.

  “Ouch,” he said, dropping the glamour and successfully turning the knob with his other hand while shaking the fingers on the damaged one.

  Isolda stood there, looking puzzled. “I was walking by after talking to my father and couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing through the window.”

  George shook his head ruefully. “I’m doing my glamour homework. Ceridwen set me the task of developing a standard alternate appearance. My first try with her didn’t go quite as expected, and I wanted to surprise her for next time.”

  “Benitoe told me about yesterday in the woods. Can I watch? Maybe I can help.”

  “Why not,” he said. “You’ll have to keep it a secret, of course. I wouldn’t want it to become generally known.”

  She nodded and sat down.

  This time he tried the thinner and shorter body without the benefit of the mirror. Isolda’s eyes widened, but she nodded to show he had succeeded.

  “Walk around and pick things up,” she said.

  He moved about the office, weaving around the furniture, and found that he stumbled easily, misjudging distance. When he went to pull a book off the shelves, he almost dropped it, then recovered and opened it awkwardly as if to read. He walked to his desk and sat down, reaching for a pen to write with and knocking it to the floor.

  He dropped the glamour and sat back in his desk cha
ir. “Not quite a success, is it?” he asked Isolda.

  “I would imagine that changing size is a real challenge,” she said, thoughtfully. “You move around like a larger man, which you are. The stride length doesn’t match the apparent length of your legs, so you look very odd as you walk. When you reached for that book, your eyes probably told you one thing, but your sense of your own body told you something else.”

  “That’s about right. I wanted to mask my size and height to blend in better.”

  “I can understand that, but movement’s giving you away,” she said. “Can you make yourself actually smaller, to match the new dimensions? I mean, could you hunch over a little, slump, and hold your upper arms closer to your body, to effectively shorten your reach and narrow your chest?”

  He was nodding as she spoke. “Maybe keep my knees bent, too. That way, the body and the appearance will be closer in synch.”

  He stood up again. His appearance didn’t change much, but now he moved less clumsily around the room.

  “Yes, much better,” she said. “If you practice that way, it should work. Keep thinking about taking up less space.”

  “Uncomfortable, but doable,” he agreed. “It’ll never work on a horse, though. Better not need to fight, either.”

  He glanced at her. “Now I have to choose a face. Let me try this without a reflection.” He closed his eyes and concentrated on feeling his jaw wider, his cheeks hollower, his hair shaggier.

  Isolda’s bright laughter made him open his eyes. “No good?” he said.

  Wordlessly, still laughing, she covered her mouth and pointed at the internal window to tell him to see for himself.

  Sigh. His reflection looked like a zombie, stiff and lumpy.

  A knock sounded on the door and Benitoe opened it. “I heard noise…”

  He broke off and stiffened, seeing Isolda sitting there laughing at a stranger in hunt livery with his back to him.

  George dropped the glamour and straightened up. “Just practicing,” he said. “It’s not easy.”

  Benitoe relaxed. “Let’s see,” he said.

  George resumed the body portion again. “I’d gotten this far and we were starting to work on the face when this young lady here lost her composure,” he said, with mock severity.

  “I couldn’t help it,” she said to Benitoe. “Try again,” she told George.

  This time he widened his mouth and held it open, and narrowed his chin. He browned his eyes and lightened his hair to a medium brown, fading his eyebrows to match.

  He looked at Isolda to see her reaction. This time she gave him a sober appraisal. “Much better. Looks like a real person, and not quite you,” she said. “Go look.”

  His reflection showed him an ordinary, unremarkable man, very much the effect he was looking for.

  He raised the timbre of his voice from baritone to tenor. “What do you think, Benitoe?”

  Benitoe startled at the change of voice. “Very odd, sir, but effective.”

  George considered Alun’s usual clothing and added that change.

  Isolda clapped her hands once in approval. “Now walk around,” she said, and George obeyed, while both lutins scrutinized the performance.

  “If you can return to this appearance at need and practice it, I think it will mask you well enough,” Benitoe said, and Isolda nodded her agreement.

  “There were fewer here last year, this far ahead of the great hunt,” Gwyn said to Edern at Sunday dinner, shaking his head.

  “You know they’ve come to see your new huntsman, and they’re making an effort to see him at work beforehand. There will always be more come to watch a potential disaster than to applaud an ordinary victory.”

  Gwyn’s mouth quirked at that piece of wisdom.

  Edern continued. “I predict there won’t be many arriving tomorrow, that this is just about everyone.”

  “As each one comes to greet me, I can feel the same old alignments. The same people profess to be friends, the usual subset of them smile to cover their enmity—no surprises.”

  “And you expected to sense particular enemies this year?”

  “Well, they’re here, aren’t they? We know that.” Gwyn clenched his fist on the table.

  “Brother, they’ve probably been here every year, since this particular plot started.” He tried to encourage Gwyn. “It’s a good thing that you sense nothing different. I believe you have special enemies, indeed, but they’ve been scheming for several years, by the evidence. If there were a general uprising planned, you’d know it from the changes in their less adroit peripheral allies, excitedly anticipating success.”

  “Instead, you think it’s just a long conspiracy hoping to finish. I suppose that’s better, but we may all end up just as dead either way.”

  Edern looked at him as he watched their guests dine in his hall morosely. “It’s not like you to be down-hearted in this way.”

  Gwyn was silent for a moment. Then he said, even more quietly, “I fear Arawn’s fate, the withdrawal of the favor of Cernunnos.”

  “For the old… actions?”

  “For the old crimes, yes,” Gwyn bitterly corrected.

  “That was a very long time ago.”

  “And it’s never been properly paid for.” It was even rewarded, he considered, when he received Annwn partly in compensation for ending hostilities with Gwythyr. He started his reign from a position of dishonor, and how could he remove the shame of that?

  Edern objected. “They were your enemies, fighting against you.”

  “They were my prisoners, my hostages, and their care was in my hands.” And they had good reason to fight—they were obeying their lord, who had a sufficient cause. He didn’t want to dwell on the familiar thoughts.

  “We know Cernunnos is taking a hand,” Gwyn said. He had brought Edern up to date on George’s strange manifestations two days ago.

  “But it may be on your side, in support. He’s provided a huntsman for you, after all.”

  “Yes, but Iolo’s gone. Did he help with that, too?” He hadn’t forgotten that Iolo was tainted by the same cruelties so long ago. “Iolo was less guilty than I am, and I’m still here.”

  He glanced down the table at George, laughing with his deep voice at the punchline of one of Rhodri’s elaborate stories.

  “I can’t help but wonder if young George there is being sponsored as more than huntsman, as…” he broke off.

  “As your replacement?” Edern supplied.

  “Clearly Cernunnos is working within him. To what end? The fact that he’s of my blood only makes me the more uneasy; what more natural to legitimize a transition of rulers?”

  Edern frowned. “He’s done well by you so far. What do you intend?”

  “What can I do? The hounds must be hunted, and he’s the only practical choice.”

  “Well, but afterward?”

  “If we’re all still here, you mean.” It may be too late by then, of course, he thought. “I don’t know yet. We’ll have to see how much of a threat he poses.”

  Monday evening, George slipped inside the house gate eagerly, and paused in the yard. Light streamed through the windows, and he could smell the cooking inside.

  He’d hastened his staff through the pre-hunt meeting, raising some surreptitious smiles when they saw him dressed for dinner in his new clothes, since he hadn’t attended the meal in the great hall. They knew about Angharad’s visit, of course, but everyone carefully avoided the topic.

  As he came into the house, he heard voices in the front room and walked through quietly to join them. Alun and Angharad were bent over the small painting of Iolo that Alun had chosen for a keepsake.

  He paused to look at them before interrupting. Angharad was wearing a charcoal gown with crimson touches about the cuffs and collar. Her long hair was coiled in elaborate braids like a coronet, and she looked positively regal.

  “Sorry I couldn’t break away sooner,” George said, and they lifted their heads.

  “Alun’s
taken great care of me,” Angharad replied. “He was just showing me an old painting of mine. I remember this one. The hound’s name was, let me see, Rhyfelwr. Warrior. He was one of Cernunnos’s hounds, I believe.”

  “You know about those? Do you know where Iolo got them? He keeps it obscure in his logs.”

  “Gwyn should know. Whenever he won on Nos Galan Mai, Iolo would leave and return with the year’s new whelps for all to see. No victory, no pups.”

  Alun picked up the painting to put it away.

  “Have you been settled in your guest room?” George asked.

  “All fine and comfortable,” she said. “How did you spend your day?”

  “After the hound walk, I rode out with Rhys to see tomorrow’s fixture for myself, to check the lay of the land. Then I read about the old hunts there in Iolo’s logs, to get a sense for what to expect.”

  “Hunts from the Dale are usually quite good,” she said.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of, the comparison.”

  Alun reappeared to shoo them into the dining room. The table had been reconfigured to seat two, and set with plates George hadn’t seen before, clearly of Angharad’s manufacture. She smiled faintly to see them.

  Alun brought in wine, and busied himself in the kitchen, delivering courses but otherwise making himself scarce.

  “How has your week of practice hunts worked out?” Angharad asked, as they ate.

  “I think it’s gone about as well as I could have hoped, but it’s an absurdly short amount of time to take over a pack. Don’t misunderstand me—I’m not that worried about embarrassing myself tomorrow; if it happens, it happens. It’s just that I gather the stakes on Saturday will be higher for everyone than I realized when I accepted the job, and I’ve only got these next two hunts to rehearse.”

  She nodded soberly. “That’s so. You’ll have seen the many new arrivals in the last couple of days?”

  “I skipped dinner in the great hall tonight, but I saw them yesterday. A glittery bunch, and some seemed to have their knives out for Gwyn.”

  “And for you, too. For some, it’s personal; they don’t like Gwyn to have so much power, or he’s done them some wrong. For others, it’s just a taste for change, destructive or not.” She took a sip of her wine. “Long life brings boredom to some. It’s a great vice, to not reckon the consequences, or simply not to care.”