The Ways of Winter

by Karen Myers

  He turned to Maelgwn. “This is my foster-father, Gwyn ap Nudd, Prince of Annwn.”

  Maelgwn’s eyes widened and he managed a creditable bow, but Rhodri could see he was dying to go. He looked at him more closely and realized he might be another way-finder. That would explain why he was Cloudie’s companion.

  “Sorry, my lord,” Maelgwn said, “but I have to go.” He ducked Rhys’s hand and ran off to follow after George.

  Rhodri thought, just a few days and he already sounds like George.

  Rhys was wearing what must be George’s coat, much too big for him, and carrying his pack. He looked exhilarated to be back. Edern couldn’t speak, and Rhodri noted how Gwyn gave him time to recover.

  “I am more pleased than I can say to see you back safe,” Gwyn said.

  Rhys nodded, but then he walked over and hugged his grandfather. Still speechless, Edern wrapped him in his arms and rocked him for a moment. He pulled back and looked at his grandson, tears on his face. “I feared you were lost like your parents.”

  “I know. I’m so sorry I was careless and made you worry like that.”

  Rhian walked slowly out of the darkness where she’d been standing and into the ring of torchlight. “Don’t you ever, ever do that again,” she said, and punched his arm. Then she hugged him.

  “I’m sorry, sister,” he said down to the top of her head. “I thought of you often while I was there.”

  Gwyn gathered them up. “Is the way closed, Rhodri?”

  “Yes, sir, but not by me. It’s gone.”

  “Then let’s get you cleaned up, Rhys, and find out how my great-grandson is doing. And your new relative.”

  “He’s really George’s foster-son. It’s a long story.”

  “Yes, I imagine it is.”

  Angharad stood several feet off and kept out of the way while Ceridwen and Eluned quickly and efficiently stripped George, cutting the clothing off of him, and started to clean him and remove the bandages. The room was ablaze with the light of several oil lamps on the wall, and assistants brought more light closer as needed. Two fireplaces kept it warm.

  He’d been placed on his right side. When they cut the knee bandage off and got a good look, they froze. Eluned put her hands on it and on the skin above and below and looked at Ceridwen, who was biting her lip. George shivered in the warm room, semi-conscious.

  “Let’s get the fever down, anyway, and he needs water. We can clean this, some, but it may not make any difference now. Why put him through it?” Ceridwen said. She looked at the dark traces ascending George’s thigh, and patted him on the hip in an absent gesture of comfort as she moved up him to cut the chest bandages off and look at the burns on his back.

  “Ugly and painful but not urgent,” Eluned said, and Ceridwen nodded.

  “Are you her?” a young voice asked.

  Angharad looked down. A dirty boy of about twelve had come in unnoticed and stood at her shoulder. It had to be Mag’s wolf cub.

  “Who would I be?” she asked, quietly.

  “His wife.” He said it tentatively, preparing to be defensive.

  “Yes. I’m Angharad. What’s your name?”

  “Maelgwn.” He hesitated for a moment. “He said I was his foster-son.”

  “Why, then, and so you are,” she said, calmly. This boy needed mothering but she knew better than to offer it directly.

  He looked at her. “What do you think about it?”

  “I think George has excellent taste, and I think we should get to know each other better. Would you like to stand here with me while Ceridwen and Eluned finish cleaning him up?”

  Maelgwn said, “He thought he was going to die.” He didn’t look at her.

  “I won’t let him,” she said fiercely, “Not without a fight.”

  “Good.” He stood there and kept vigil with her.

  After several minutes of suspense, Ceridwen came over to Angharad. She looked at Maelgwn, but Angharad put an arm over his shoulder and said, “He can listen to anything you have to tell me. This is our foster-son, Maelgwn.”

  Ceridwen nodded.

  “It’s bad news, I think you knew that. The leg’s gone bad and it’s too advanced. We can’t save it and I think it’s too late to try and remove it. I’m sorry.”

  Angharad swallowed hard. “You have an idea, I can tell.”

  “I do, but it’s not very likely to succeed. You can watch, but don’t disturb us. We’re going to try and reduce the fever and bring him around first, so you may be able to talk with him.”

  Eluned had gotten a febrifuge infusion into George and covered him with a blanket. Angharad and Maelgwn pulled up chairs to sit next to him so that he wouldn’t have to lift his head. The eye wounds were exposed and unbandaged, but Angharad ignored them.

  “Welcome back, love,” Angharad said, and she took his hand.

  “I’m here, too, foster-father,” Maelgwn said.

  George smiled to hear their voices. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered. “Forgive me?”

  “I’m not done with you yet, husband, don’t you believe it.”

  “What do you think of my Christmas present?” He nodded in Maelgwn’s direction. “You know, he rescued us.”

  “A son any mother would be proud of. I’ll be glad of him, if he’ll have me. But he needs a father.” She stood up and placed his open hand on her belly. “So does this one.”

  “Then that was true, what Mag showed me?”

  “I’ll never lie to you,” Angharad said.

  “Well, foster-son, looks like you’ll have a young brother or sister to protect. Do me proud.”

  “I will, sir,” Maelgwn said.

  George heard Angharad and Maelgwn push their chairs back, and Ceridwen faced him in their place.

  “Now, George, I’m planning to have a talk with Cernunnos. Try not to interrupt. We’re going to have to seat you upright so he has enough space, but I’ll give you something that should dull the pain of moving you again. Do you understand?”

  “Good luck,” he said. “I think I’ve exhausted his list of favors.”

  She lifted his head and gave him something to drink. In a few moments, he recognized the blissful feel of an opiate. It dulled the edge of the pain as several hands sat him upright and lifted him to a chair, stretching out the left leg straight in front of him. The pain of moving the leg was given a bit of distance by the drug. They draped a cloth across his lap for modesty.

  He felt someone stretch a rope across his bare chest and flailed his arms at it. He cried out, his speech blurred, “No, don’t!”

  Maelgwn shouted, “Don’t tie him to a chair, my lady, don’t.”

  The hands hesitated then took the rope away, and he breathed again. “Very well.” Ceridwen’s voice said, “Stay as upright as you can, George.”

  Ceridwen moved to his front, standing clear of his leg. “My lord Cernunnos, I would speak with you.”

  George felt her power and tried to invoke Cernunnos for her. Cernunnos rushed up from the depths and George stepped aside instead of sharing his space.

  He bent under the weight of the antlered head and concentrated on holding it up. He watched out of Cernunnos’s eyes.

  Cernunnos shifted to the horned man so that he could speak. “Yes, my daughter?” he said in his deep bass voice, so much lower than George’s baritone.

  “I’m no daughter of yours, beast-master,” she replied, tartly. “You have my respect but I serve Senua.

  “What is it you want, daughter of Senua?”

  George, standing apart, caught a glimpse of the great force of nature that was Cernunnos, chaos and will, balanced, and a merciless search for justice, to maintain that balance.

  Ceridwen said, “This man has served you well. Would you see him broken and discarded like a worn out rug?”

  “All creatures die.”

  “Is this your justice, lord?” she said.

  George heard the outer door open, and through the horned man’s eyes he saw Seethi
ng Magma and Granite Cloud come in together, followed by Gwyn. Cloudie went to stand by Maelgwn, and Mag joined Ceridwen who moved aside to make room for her.

  He heard Gwyn murmur to Ceridwen before retreating to stand with Angharad, “Sorry, she insisted.”

  *This is wrong, great one.*

  George marveled to hear her accurately, the way she must sound to her own kind and to Cernunnos.

  *You should heal him and let him serve again. Where do you think to find another such?*

  Yet he enslaved you, Cernunnos thought to her.

  *We agreed upon it together, for the sake of my child and the death of the abomination Madog. Which you wanted.*

  The horned man looked at her. His thoughts were opaque to George. Then he spoke out loud. “Huntsman. Given one request, what would it be?”

  George surfaced and said in his own voice, sleepy from the drugs, “Let me release Mag.”

  “She’ll be free in any case, when you die. Don’t waste the gift.”

  George said. “That’s what I want. I promised.”

  There was silence for the space of several moments.

  “So be it,” said the horned man. He withdrew back into the depths, and George took his place. He felt a boiling and bubbling in his knee and gasped, despite the drugs. He could feel a tugging at the skin and realized Ceridwen must have sliced it open to allow for drainage. He was grateful he couldn’t see it, he could smell it all too well. Liquid dripped off the injury, and he felt large bits which he took for bone and dead matter being expelled. His lower leg tingled and pulsed in a welcome if painful return to feeling. He could dimly perceive something scrubbing at the impurities in his blood and drying his mouth.

  “Water,” he croaked.

  He drank glass after glass of it, held to his mouth. His own arms were occupied trying to hold him to his chair. Eventually the last of the damaged material was expunged from the gash in his knee, and he felt the ends of the joints, and then the patella coming more and more to match the other leg. Bone, cartilage, tendons, blood vessels, nerves, and muscle were all involved, with the most disconcerting sensations.

  Someone stitched the cut, and bandaged the knee, and the whole leg from heel to hip was immobilized.

  “Still with us, George?” Ceridwen asked.

  He nodded weakly, panting.

  “Good. Lean forward now, we need to reach your back.”

  He bent at the waist and someone knelt in front of him to help support his shoulders against the work going on behind him.

  The opiates were beginning to wear off with the cleansing of his blood and he could feel them cutting away the dead flesh, but they suddenly stopped and he heard them back away. He felt the burns age, all at once, as if they were decades-old wounds. Ceridwen put her hand on his back, and it was tender and scarred, but it was far from the damage of a few minutes ago.

  “Let’s leave this alone for now,” she said uncertainly.

  They leaned him back in the chair carefully and for the first time in a while he put some weight against his back. Not too bad. He smiled.

  What were they standing around waiting for, he wondered. Ah, his eyes. Didn’t look like Cernunnos was prepared to go that far. Well, he thought, can’t have everything. He’d think about it later, he was very tired.

  “Mag,” he called. “Come here, please.” He heard the slur in his speech.

  He felt a pseudopod take his hand and turn it upright. It dropped a small object into his hand, and he realized this was the toy hat for Madog, crushed. He closed his fist around it. Good.

  “Did you do what I suggested?” he asked Mag.

  *Yes. Very satisfying.*

  He could still hear her clearly, a legacy from her conversation with Cernunnos.

  “Thank you, my lady.” He released his claim on her.

  *Thank you for my child.*

  Cloudie came up and held his other hand. *Thanks for bringing my mother.*

  With a wincing pain, George doubled up again and matter poured from his eyes to drip upon the floor. Hands returned to hold his head, pulling his own hands aside, out of the way. Hot wet cloths soaked the last of it out, and then he felt his eyes regrowing from the inside out until they pressed lightly against the cloths. Someone lifted his head and gently washed his face, and he blinked several times. Couldn’t see much, but at least he saw light.

  Someone poured another glass of water down him. It had a peculiar taste. “Go to sleep George, you’ll be fine.” It took little persuading. He was out before they lifted him from the chair.

  Angharad sat by George’s bed. He was sleeping restlessly. She felt his forehead, warm to the touch but not burning hot like before. Eluned had warned her there would be residual fever, possibly for days.

  His face twitched as he wandered in some nightmare. She opened the package she’d asked for from Idris and removed an orange. Gwyn’s human agent, Mariah Catlett, had given the messenger what she had in her refrigerator at Angharad’s relayed request. George had courted her with oranges and Angharad thought he’d associate the scent with better times. She scratched the peel with a nail to release the volatile elements and held it under his nose.

  George breathed it in once, twice, and sighed, his face visibly relaxing. Until next time, she thought.

  He looks so strange with this beard growing. She wasn’t sure what she thought of it. It was starting to hide his sunken cheeks.

  Maelgwn had his own pallet in the room, next to hers, but he had trouble sleeping. Now he came up to stand by her chair. He’d been scrubbed raw, and someone had given him clothes in the right size. She ran her fingers through his clean hair and thought, I need to give you a haircut.

  “How is he?” he whispered.

  “He’s doing fine,” she said. “Maelgwn, do you know when he last ate?”

  “He wouldn’t touch any food after we got him, said the fever wouldn’t let him. Last time I saw him eat was just before we tried for Rhys the first time. That’s…” he paused and counted back on his fingers, “five days ago. Maybe Madog fed him.”

  Unlikely, Angharad thought.

  “Lie down and try to get some sleep,” she said. “It’s late.”

  She watched him climb back into his blankets and turned out the lights. She dozed in her chair.

  Sometime in the dark of the night, George cried out. Angharad reached for a lighter and lit the lamp on the table beside his bed. He stared at her wildly. “I couldn’t see.” His new eyes, in the lamplight, were a dark green with flecks of gold now, subtly different from the lighter green she remembered.

  “I’m sorry, dear, I turned the lamp out. I won’t do that again,” she said. “Go back to sleep.”

  He looked at her, gradually settling down, and a sheepish expression crossed his face. “Sorry to be so twitchy.”

  He reached for her hand with one of his and brought it up to his nose. “Mmm… Oranges. Where did you get them?”

  “I have my methods,” she said.

  He smiled at her and held her hand loosely, never taking his eyes off her face.

  She stroked his bearded cheek, and gradually he fell asleep again and released her.

  Maelgwn waited until his breathing was regular, then spoke out of the darkness where he lay.

  “Do you know why he couldn’t bear the rope to tie him down?”

  “No. Will you tell me?” she asked quietly.

  He told her about the iron chair and the torture George endured in it, strapped to it by the arms, chest, and legs.

  She couldn’t speak for a moment after he finished, then she said, “Thank you, foster-son, for getting him away.

  He choked. “If I hadn’t threatened Madog with Cloudie’s mom, it might not have been so bad.”

  She sat down beside him on his pallet and pulled him against her, wrapped in his own blanket. He wept in that safe cocoon while she crooned to him quietly. Then he pushed back and wiped his eyes, looking anywhere but at her.

  She patted his shoulder to s
pare his embarrassment and went back to her chair. George was lost in another nightmare.

  CHAPTER 30

  Rhys felt much improved for a bath, a couple of meals and a good night’s sleep. There seemed to be no fear of counterattack so, since Angharad had Maelgwn in tow and George was… occupied, by tacit agreement everyone had decided to postpone business until morning.

  After Gwyn’s update on George, they’d left him and Maelgwn to Angharad and the healers overnight. Rhys was planning to go see him as soon as this first meeting was over.

  Benitoe was there, at Rhys’s request. He’d appeared last night on ponyback and joined the tail end of the mad scramble to the returned travelers. He’d just missed seeing them bear George off on his stretcher but stayed to give Rhys a warm welcome back, once his grandfather had finally released him.

  Rhys took his accustomed spot, trying not to let his foster-father’s presence fluster him, and called the council to order.

  “There will be a second session this afternoon to discuss policy regarding our neighbors to the west, but for now I’d like to keep this fairly short and local. First, what do the healers say about George?” He looked to Ceridwen and Eluned.

  “We expect him to recover fully, in time.” That brought smiles and some surprise around the table. “Cernunnos was persuaded that justice was better served by a healing.”

  “Excellent news. And unexpected.” Rhys pulled the broad smile off his face and returned to business. “The next item is to report what intelligence I was able to gather while I was captive.”

  He turned to Edern. “Grandfather, I am sorry to tell you that Madog convinced me that my parents, and all those who traveled with them, are certainly dead. Madog had Cloudie build a trap way like the one here, but the other end wasn’t anchored properly, it was in the air. They fell to unwitnessed deaths and we are never likely to recover their bodies. I don’t think even he knew where they were.”

  All hung their heads at the sad confirmation.

  Rhodri said, “Don’t tell Mag, it wasn’t really Cloudie’s fault.”