The Ways of Winter

by Karen Myers

  “Good girl, Cloudie. You’re taking great care of him.” He could feel her glowing at the praise.

  He set his pack down in an empty space near to the entrance and unfastened his ground cloth and bedroll. As he started to make up his bed, he asked casually, “How old are you, Maelgwn?”

  “I guess I must be twelve,” he said, “My birthday’s just two days after Nos Galan Gaeaf, the start of the year, and we must be past that by now. Do you know the date?”

  “It’s the twelfth, of December.” At his blank look, he dredged up the Welsh name. “Of Rhagfyr. Six weeks past the start of the year.”

  “My mom called me the start of the new year for the family. I was the eldest.” His voice changed. “I guess I still am.”

  “What happened?” George asked quietly. He thought Maelgwn wouldn’t answer, but then he spoke.

  “They came at night, with torches, on horseback. Some of them had bows. My father took one look, and told us all to run and hide. My mom gave me the baby. He was so heavy.” He was quiet for a moment. “She picked up one of my father’s swords and joined him at the door.”

  George moved carefully, making his bed, not wanting to disturb his story.

  “We went out the back. I had the baby in one arm and my sister held onto my other hand. They were really, really good, they didn’t make any noise. It was cold and we didn’t have any coats on.” His voice choked. “There were more of them outside when we came out. Two of them shot my little sister, and she let go of my hand.”

  His voice continued, out of the darkness. “I froze, and they laughed at us. One of them tossed a knife, right into the baby. I felt him die.”

  George let him recover for a moment, then asked, softly. “What happened then?”

  “I put him down and ducked under the house. They couldn’t follow me. We used to play games under there and I knew every inch of it. They got tired of looking and set fire to the house, but I wasn’t there any more. I got away in the dark.”

  George ached for him, but he knew any attempt to comfort him directly would be rebuffed. He began to empty his pockets conspicuously, hoping to entice the boy in his direction like a curious packrat.

  “How did you get here? How did you meet Cloudie?”

  “I followed them for two days.” At George’s look, he said, “They weren’t in any hurry, and I had woods to hide in. I didn’t have a knife, though, at least not a big one. I wanted to kill them at night, one by one, but I was afraid if I started, they’d wake up and I wouldn’t get them all. So I had to wait.”

  A chill ran down George’s spine as he listened to the childish voice.

  “They met Madog in his village down below, where he was out in the field, and told him what they’d done. They boasted about how hard we fought, and said I was burned and buried in the house with ‘the rest of the scum.’”

  George would never have credited a twelve-year-old with so much bitterness.

  “He laughed and thanked them for a job well done. I couldn’t do anything about it. I should have killed some of them at least while I had the chance.”

  “And Cloudie?”

  “She stayed behind when Madog left. I was watching from the edge of the woods, and then I stopped looking for a while, and then she found me.”

  *He was very sad. I didn’t want him to be sad.*

  “I’d never seen anything like her before. I like animals, my father taught me woodcraft. I reached out my hand to her, but it hurt when I touched her. She was real sorry about that.”

  *Sorry, sorry.*

  “Oh, it doesn’t matter, you know that. You couldn’t help it.”

  Maelgwn crept out of the dimness at the back of the passage to talk to her and approached George, seated on top of his bedroll. “She made a way and took me with her up to the old garden here. We protect each other.”

  “You could see the ways already?”

  “My mom had started teaching me about them, but I couldn’t really do much yet.”

  He was fascinated by George’s saber, lying next to him on the ground cloth. “Can I look at that?”

  “Sure. Try not to make too much noise.”

  Maelgwn picked it up and carefully pulled the sheath off. His arms weren’t long enough yet to pull it all the way out directly. He had to lay it on the ground to withdraw the last few inches. He lifted it with one hand, but George could see it was too heavy for him.

  “Try it with two hands. That’s always easier when a weapon’s too big.”

  “I bet you use one hand.”

  “Well, I’ve been training with it for a while and I’m a lot bigger. You’ll grow into it,” George said.

  Maelgwn tried to swing it for a while, then put it back into the sheath. He pointed at the watch-chain with the compass at one end and the pocket watch at the other. “What’s that?”

  George showed him the compass first and explained what it was used for.

  “What’s the use of that? You can just look at the ways and tell what direction it is.”

  He’s right, George thought. Sensing the ways was like having beacons on a mental map, hard to get lost any more once he’d started doing that.

  Maelgwn picked up the pocket watch next. George opened it up and showed him how it worked and let him hold it up to his ear to hear the ticking. But it was the engraved back that really interested him. He tilted it to catch the dim light a little better.

  “There’s a story about this man on the watch. Would you like to hear it?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, I’m going to get comfortable while I tell it.” He crawled partway into his bedroll and leaned his back against the passage wall. He patted the space next to him. “I’ll have to talk quietly so no one can hear us.”

  The boy accepted the invitation and sat down next to him, leaning against him, his eyes on the engraved watch in his hand.

  “You, too, Cloudie. Would you like to hear a story?”

  *Yes.*

  “Alright, come a little closer now.” He looked down at the weary boy and the strange alien child, here in the heart of Madog’s domain, and started to tell them a story from another world.

  “Once upon a time, almost two thousand years ago, there was a soldier named George.”

  The boy sat up. “That’s your name, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right. He was very famous and many people are named for him. Now settle down.”

  George waited for Maelgwn to stretch out again. “Many things happened to him, but this story is about his encounter with a dragon. First I have to explain to you about dragons…”

  He kept his voice low and quiet as he told the tale. Before he finished, stringing it out with invented incidents, he heard the even breaths of the boy as he sank down next to him, warm and sleepy. He drew one end of his blanket over him, wondering how he would react to this much contact with someone else after two years on his own.

  Cloudie, he thought, I’ll tell you the rest of the story this way, so we won’t wake him up.

  *What happened after he rescued the girl?*

  George was tired himself, and he was never sure if he reached the end of the silent tale or not before drifting off.

  CHAPTER 19

  Ever since he’d left, Seething Magma spent George’s waking hours monitoring his movements from the conservatory. Eluned had mounted a bell for her, in case news came in while no one else was in the room, and when Granite Cloud met George, she struck it sharply with the hardened end of a pseudopod.

  She listened in on the conversation between Granite Cloud and George as the council members gathered, Cydifor the first in, as usual.

  “What is it?” Eluned asked.

  Seething Magma was becoming fluent in this strange hybrid method of communication. She plucked the dog collar and the gray fabric fragment from their spots and put them together on the table.

  “George and Cloudie have met up?”

  One knock.

  “That’s wonderful! Where are
they?”

  Mag turned to a map of the upper end of the Shenandoah Valley that she had made with Ceridwen, each drawing parts of it. Mag had learned to narrow and sharpen a pseudopod and dip it in an inkwell. It worked as well as any pen. She pointed to the western edge of the Blue Ridge about twenty miles to the south.

  “So Cloudie came to him?”

  One knock.

  “Did you tell her where to find him?”

  One knock.

  “Can she get away from Madog?”

  Two knocks.

  Mag returned to the gray piece of fabric and moved it away from George. She flowed to the table where the unused symbols lay and poked through them with one pseudopod, then grasped a toy wolf and brought it back to join the Cloudie symbol.

  “Cloudie has a pet?”

  Two knocks.

  “A companion?”

  One knock.

  “An animal?”

  Two knocks.

  This wasn’t working. Seething Magma moved to yet another table with blank paper and ink. She delicately dipped a pseudopod into the inkwell and began sketching a schematic but recognizable man. She added deer antlers.

  “That’s George,” Eluned said.

  One knock.

  Mag drew another figure, much smaller but otherwise very similar, without the antlers.

  Cydifor said, “That’s Cloudie’s friend?”

  One knock.

  “A boy?” he said.

  One knock.

  She plucked up the cup that represented herself, and soon the sketches had the collar on the George drawing, next to her cup, and the wolf on the boy drawing, next to Cloudie’s bit of cloth.

  Cydifor said, “So as George is your friend, this wolf cub is Cloudie’s.”

  One knock.

  She stuck up a pseudopod in her gesture of “wait” and froze.

  She set up a new tableau—wolf, tapped the symbol for speech, collar.

  Eluned followed along out loud for the benefit of everyone in the room. “The wolf cub tells George…”

  Seething Magma added the toy crown, Rhys’s symbol.

  “Is he alive, Mag?” Edern asked, from the outer ring.

  One knock, then three knocks.

  “She’s not sure, but she thinks so,” Cydifor offered.

  One knock.

  Tableau—wolf, the symbol for hearing, crown.

  “The wolf cub heard Rhys,” Eluned ventured.

  Two knocks.

  “Heard about Rhys?”

  One knock.

  Seething Magma was frustrated she couldn’t tell them anything more precisely than this, but she could see they took this as good news.

  Ceridwen said to Edern, “It confirms his capture but at least we know he wasn’t killed out of hand.”

  *Mother, he’s changing. It’s scary.*

  She held up her pseudopod again to catch the attention of her audience. She saw what George intended to do, and watched, fascinated.

  Still holding her pseudopod up to forestall interruption, she reached with another one and added the antler to George’s drawing, next to the collar.

  Ceridwen said, quietly, “He’s invoked Cernunnos?”

  One knock. Wait, her gesture said.

  Rhodri lifted his head, turning away from Seething Magma who was frozen in place in an uncanny imitation of listening to something far away. He felt movement, at the very edge of his senses, progressing in an arc around him, from south to east to north.

  It stopped, and suddenly there was a change in atmosphere, as if a fresh breeze had swept through the air without a breath stirring. Everything looked clean and bright, and even in the lamp-lit room he could see objects gleaming. The sounds of the fire and the movement of the people became clearer and more distinct, as if he’d removed plugs from his ears.

  He felt remarkably well, as if a headache he’d hardly noticed had been going on for weeks and then stopped. Everyone in the room stirred, smiles breaking out.

  “The barrier is gone,” he said, realizing what it had to be.

  One knock.

  He did a little jig of euphoria, and Cydifor laughed at him. “You don’t understand, I felt it go down. It was… remarkable.”

  He glanced at Edern’s controlled face and sobered suddenly. Rhys and George were still in danger, and George no closer to Rhys than before.

  Seething Magma picked up the three symbols for George, Cloudie, and Cloudie’s friend and dropped them on the map on top of the mountain George had called Massanutten.

  “That’s where they’re going?” Eluned asked.

  Two knocks.

  “They’re already there,” Cydifor said.

  One knock.

  Seething Magma pointed at the Cloudie cloth.

  “Cloudie made them a way,” Eluned said.

  One knock.

  Into the center of Madog’s domain, Rhodri thought. Seething Magma added Rhys’s crown.

  Edern worked in the conservatory the next morning, composing his reports to Gwyn. He didn’t want to stray too far from Seething Magma, the heart of his communications with George’s venture.

  Cadugan hastened in, his usually composed expression replaced by surprise.

  “My lord, there are fae here, come from the village.”

  Edern looked at him blankly.

  “Not our settlers,” Cadugan said. “The original inhabitants. They want to know what happened to them.”

  Edern’s heart rose. George and Rhodri’s suspicions had been correct about the cause. Maybe these people could be saved after all.

  “We’ll have to take charge of this right away. There will be hundreds of them, all asking questions. Organize delegates and temporary leaders. Get the settlers involved, too, with their neighbors.”

  He wished Rhys were here to see this.

  Benitoe and Maëlys walked their ponies past the mill at mid-day, clad in conspicuous lutin red. They’d felt the effects of the lifting of the barrier the night before, and Rhodri told them what had happened. Maëlys wanted to visit the lutins north of the mill again. Maybe this time they’d come out of hiding.

  She took the opportunity to instruct Benitoe about his new family, and he listened carefully. He found the topic absorbing. He wasn’t sure if it was the removal of the barrier’s oppression or the aftermath of his rebirth into a clan, but he was thirsty as a sponge for knowledge, to learn where he fit in this extended family.

  “So Herannuen’s the one who married Corentin and had nothing but twins?” he said.

  “No, that was Argantan. Herannuen’s the one who scandalized everyone by picking up a hammer and learning smithing from the korrigans, leather apron and all.”

  Benitoe laughed. “Good for her.”

  Maëlys smiled back. “That’s what I always thought. Now Luhedoc’s family were altogether more respectable. Mostly. Except for him.”

  “What’s he like, auntie?”

  “He’s a practical joker. He spared me most of it—wise fellow—but he bedeviled his siblings and his friends. Clothing would acquire knots, backsides would appear dusted in flour, and stockings would show up in the strangest places.” She smiled fondly, reminiscing.

  “We knew each other growing up, our families visited. I spotted his little traps and didn’t give him away, and he didn’t set them on me, in gratitude. We got to talking, in our teens, and discovered how much we had in common, how little we liked pompous meddlers, and how much we wanted to live our own lives. Like all young people, I suppose.”

  She looked at Benitoe. “Still, for us it stuck. He decided he wanted to raise horses, not just tend them. We married and started a place near Iona’s. It was a wonderful life for a few years, except there were no children. I don’t know why, but it’s not too late even now. It made him restless, though, and he wanted to see if he could do better here, and then bring me to join him. He left me in charge and then went off for a few days to look things over. He never came back.”

  Benitoe reached over to her
pony and patted her hand.

  “I kept the business going for him for two years, waiting, but eventually I lost heart in it and had to give it up. I didn’t want to live alone, so I made an arrangement with Iona. She absorbed the business, and I went to live with her, as a companion and a helper. It kept me from returning to my parents and being bothered by other men, wanting me to renounce Luhedoc and marry them instead.”

  She shook her head. “Until Brittou offered for me himself. Oh, it was kindly meant, but I won’t give up on Luhedoc. I don’t think he’s gone.”

  “Don’t fret, auntie. If we don’t find him with this group, we’ll keep on looking,” Benitoe said.

  He spotted movement at the side of the road ahead and drew up his pony. They were just approaching the first of the outlying farms past the mill.

  A small figure dressed in rags stood in the road, cautiously.

  Benitoe dismounted and gave the reins to Maëlys. “Wait here.”

  He walked up to the strange lutin and bowed. “I am Benitoe. We’ve been looking for those who live here, like yourself.” He gestured at the stranger.

  “I’m Berran.” He looked confused but determined. “We don’t understand what’s happened, and I said I would find out. I remember the two of you with your assembly tokens.”

  “That’s why we’re here. Can we come with you and meet the others?”

  Edern called the council meeting together in the evening after dinner. He was struck by the change in everyone. The whole crowd was noisier and more cheerful than the day before, despite the fact that Rhys and George were still in peril. I hadn’t realized just how depressed we had become, Edern thought. It crept up on us. Insidious

  “Cadugan, please give us all a summary of what’s been happening today.”

  The steward couldn’t keep a smile of satisfaction off of his usually neutral face. “Yes, my lord. It’s been a busy day.”

  That raised some laughter.

  “Apparently our suspicion that the barrier caused the general malaise of the inhabitants was correct. Since the huntsman destroyed it last night, there’s been a remarkable recovery throughout the population. Reports are still coming in from the other two villages but it seems to be the same there.