by Karen Myers
Benitoe followed. He bowed to George and presented him with a summoning token, like the ones he’d left for the lutins to find in Edgewood, all made of new straw and red yarn. Ives gave him a stern look at that, but Benitoe said to him, “Why not? When he killed the barrier way at Edgewood, were we not summoned? Our folk would still be huddling in caves and windfalls without him.” Ives made no response.
Angharad reached into her pockets and pulled out two more items. “Our new friends,” she said, handing him one.
George realized these were the bits of Seething Magma and Granite Cloud that they had extruded as farewell remembrances. Angharad had set them in cages of wood and wire. She told him, “We’ll keep these on our mantel the rest of the year.”
He reached into his own chest pocket and looked at Ceridwen. She shrugged. He begged a bit of spare ribbon from Angharad and tied the thunderbolt to the top of the tree. No star of Bethlehem here, he thought, but something strange and unknown. I suppose that star was, too, once upon a time.
Angharad led their guests back into the study and Alun started to offer them hot cider and stronger drinks. George lingered in the hall to admire the tree, full and colorful. It was far better than he’d imagined three weeks ago, no longer just a sign of intent in his hall, but covered in meaning and memory. So much to have happened in such a short time. Children.
Ceridwen’s words lingered. He expected they’d burn in him for a while. She was right, he’d been living his life blindly, thinking he could just go along like a child himself, without ambition. It was comfortable, but unrealistic, an unexamined habit he realized he’d brought from his old life, where the decisions of private life, even in adulthood, had little consequence to anyone else, to any larger community. He’d wanted a more “real” existence, and now he’d gotten it. It brought responsibilities he barely suspected yet.
He considered Cernunnos. The notion that he might have just let him die out of cold prudence, that shook him. He’d reached an uneasy modus vivendi with his occasional presence in his mind, but this disturbed that status. He doubted he’d ever be comfortable with him again. Was his every thought from now on to be monitored for threat, as if he were a dangerous weapon that might go rogue? It felt as if someone with obscure motivations had put explosives in his head and held the trigger.
It took real effort to bring himself back to the pleasures of the moment. I won’t let him ruin it, he thought. I can’t control the rest of it, but I can control that.
He walked into the study where his guests were talking and went up to the mantel. What was that, bright between the holly branches? When he got close enough to see it clearly, he chuckled. It was Angharad’s work, obviously. She’d made a large carving of a cornucopia spilling fruit, but instead of a horn of plenty it used the bottomless cauldron of legend, lying on its side, and instead of meat and drink or harvest fruits it poured out… oranges. Lots and lots of oranges, all sizes.
He turned around to seek her in the crowd, and there she was, standing by the door to the library, watching him. She smiled when he did, and they shared a private moment. She filled his heart. To hell with Cernunnos. If this was all he got, it was worth it.
He joined her and gestured at the empty room behind them, the huntsman’s library. “Did you get everything?” he asked quietly. His life had been derailed before he could think of a suitable present for her, but he wanted Maelgwn, at least, to benefit from the traditional association of Christmas and gifts. He’d gone to the armory with Hadyn earlier today for his, and he knew Angharad had something in mind.
“All ready,” she said, “and something from Rhys, too, which Rhian will present.”
He turned and faced his friends and family. “Well, folks, I’m sorry not to have little keepsakes to give you in return, but I thank you, more than I can say, for yours and for coming today. I call that a proper Christmas tree now.” He waved his hand in the direction of the hall.
Ceridwen remarked, “You’ve been a little busy, we understand.” They all laughed at that.
“It’s also a tradition where I come from to give gifts to each other at this time. Maelgwn, please come here.”
The astonished boy got up and walked over to stand next to his foster-parents. “I’ve already received my gift,” George said, as he put an arm around Maelgwn’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
Angharad murmured, her arm curled around her belly, “And I, mine.”
George broke off to smile broadly at her. “But Maelgwn hasn’t gotten his yet. It’s time to fix that.”
Angharad fetched him, from the library, an object about a foot long, wrapped in a cloth. He took it and presented it to Maelgwn. “Every man needs one, sometimes more. Your foster-sister Rhian can talk to you about that.”
Maelgwn unwrapped the belt and sheathed hunting knife, practical and unornamented. He swelled with pride and bowed to his foster-father in thanks.
Angharad gave him a flat package of her own. He opened it and found a set of wood carving knives in a box. “In memory of a very pleasant day together,” she said to him. For the first time, at least that George witnessed, the boy threw his arms around her and hugged her.
Rhian stood up and whispered in Angharad’s ear, and she ducked back into the library for something. “Foster-brother,” she said, “Rhys charged me with a task when I left, since he couldn’t be here himself. When he was your age, he received his first sword. He can think of no one he’d rather see it with than you. He thanks you, and I do, too, for the saving of his life.”
Angharad handed her a plain boy’s saber with a belt wrapped around it. It was small, suited to his size, but in all ways a real weapon. Rhian unwrapped the belt, knelt, and buckled it on him.
Maelgwn held his ground at these unexpected events, but he couldn’t manage anything beyond a stammered thanks. George kept his face appropriately dignified so as not to spoil the moment, but smiled inside, remembering that Rhys was only ten years older than Maelgwn even now, though that probably seemed like an immense distance to the boy.
George caught Benitoe’s eye, and the lutin rose to speak from where he was sitting next to Ives. “One more thing, Maelgwn.”
The dazed boy turned his head.
“As soon as he can ride again, your father and I will take you to Iona’s to get you your own horse.”
That did it. Maelgwn lost his composure and fled the room, and everyone laughed.
George looked down at Angharad, “Well, that was a success.” He caught himself in a yawn. Not again, he thought.
That was the cue for the party to wind down. He stopped Gwyn for a moment and said quietly, “Ceridwen gave me an earful. I’d like to speak with you, in the next few days.”
Gwyn smiled and gripped his arm. “Merry Christmas, my boy, it reminded me of your grandmother.” He glanced at Ceridwen. “Yes, we’ll talk, later.”
Ceridwen and Angharad lingered in the hall, speaking of nothing important, but George could feel an unspoken undercurrent of communication, that way women had of conveying much more than their words alone would indicate. He couldn’t tune in to that channel, but he’d lived long enough to recognize it. He’d ask Angharad about it later, but meanwhile he had one last thing to do.
He took Angharad’s pendant off and stood on a footstool to tie it to a beam in the hall. It spun and pointed to Angharad. He stepped down and moved the stool out of the way, standing directly beneath the hanging arrow.
“Now, Ceridwen, I wonder if you’re familiar with the human seasonal customs surrounding the hanging of mistletoe?”
As he’d hoped, that piqued her interest, and she broke off her conversation with Angharad to focus on the question. Angharad drifted his way while she talked, just as he’d planned. It was like waiting for a trout to take his fly as he floated it by on the current.
“Gwyn mentioned something. I believe you hang it up and then exact a kiss from someone as they pass beneath it?”
He reeled Angharad in as she got within r
each. “That’s right.” He leaned down to kiss his wife, and forgot about Ceridwen. The sound of the door opening and closing barely registered.
It was quiet in the great hall for dinner, none of the fuss they’d made in Edgewood, for which George was very grateful. He stopped by Eurig’s place at the head of one of the floor-level tables, and bantered with him for a moment.
“Going to pick up that honeymoon again?” Eurig asked.
“He’s a fast worker, dear,” Tegwen said over her shoulder as she congratulated Angharad. “I think he’s got the hang of it.”
Brynach made room for Maelgwn to join him. Five years was an intimidating distance for him at first, but soon George heard him telling Brynach all about his second riding lesson with Benitoe today.
George accompanied Angharad to her seat on the dais. A child, he thought to himself, still listening to Maelgwn, fondly. How did that happen? And another one coming.
He took his seat next to Angharad feeling blessed. The extended healing he was enduring, the marks it had made, all of that faded to insignificance.
He leaned to Angharad and spoke quietly. “You know, I always regretted not finding a suitable wife and starting a family when I was younger. Well, I hate to remind you of my excessive youth…”
She smiled.
“…but I’m barely old enough even now to be Maelgwn’s father. It’s as though I haven’t lost any time at all.”
He put a hand over her stomach under the table edge. “I don’t deserve this, I know I don’t.” She lay her own hand on top of his.
Angharad sat in bed, reading by lamplight while the banked fire flickered companionably. Maelgwn was tucked into his own room for the second night and seemed to be settling in. She smiled to herself. She’d bet he was stalking around his bed waving Rhys’s saber in the air, if she knew boys.
George dozed lightly next to her, lying face down to spare his tender back. The room was warm enough that he’d pulled the covers down to his waist to cool off, intending to raise them later.
She put her book down and caressed his back with its scars. They were livid with newness, but the skin was welted and thickened as if they’d been there for a decade. She traced the thick lines with her fingertips, remembering what his back had felt like, that last night in this room before he’d left for Edgewood.
It’s a very small price to pay to get him back, she thought, a very fair trade. The real honeymoon is getting to keep him.
She made an involuntary noise at the thought of how close he had come to not returning.
George opened his eyes and smiled up at her, not changing his position. “I remember the last time you did that,” he said.
“So do I.”
“Do you mind it, very much?”
“Everyone has scars.” She leaned down to kiss the back of his neck. “It’s the price we pay for life.”
GUIDE TO NAMES AND PRONUNCIATIONS
MODERN WELSH ALPHABET
A¹, B, C, CH², D, DD², E¹, F², FF², G, NG², H, I¹, J, L, LL², M, N, O¹, P, PH², R, RH², S, T, TH², U¹, W¹ ², Y¹
¹ These letters are vowels. The letter ‘W’ can be used either as a vowel (when it is said ‘oo’ like in the Welsh word ‘cwm’ (coom) meaning ‘valley’) or as a consonant (when it is said like it is in English, for example in the Welsh word ‘gwyn’ (gwin) meaning ‘white’). This is the same with letter ‘I’ which can also be used as a consonant (when it is said like an English Y like in ‘iogwrt’ (yog-oort) meaning yoghurt).
² Letters that are not in the English alphabet, or have different sounds. CH sounds like the ‘KH’ in Ayatollah KHoumeini. DD is said like the TH in ‘THere’. F is said like the English ‘V’. FF is said like the English ‘F’. NG sounds like it would in English but it is tricky because it comes at the beginnings of words (for example ‘fy ngardd’ - my garden). One trick is to blend it in with the word before it. LL sounds like a cat hissing. PH sounds like the English ‘F’, too, but it is only used in mutations. RH sounds like an ‘R’ said very quickly before a ‘H’. TH sounds like the ‘TH’ in ‘THin’. W has been explained in the sentences before about vowels.
It helps to remember how Welsh is pronounced in order to translate the unfamiliar orthography into familiar English sounds. The language has changed over time and so has the spelling. People with very long lives tend to be conservative in how they spell their names.
Some nicknames are descriptive, occupational, or locational, as they are in English (e.g., Tom Baker, Susan Brown, John Carpenter, Meg Underwood)
Bongam - Bandy-legged
Goch - The red(-haired) one
Owen the Leash
Scilti - The thin one
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS & PLACE NAMES
HUMANS
Conrad (Corniad) Traherne
Father of George Talbot Traherne, husband of Léonie Annan Talbot.
George Talbot Traherne
Huntsman from Virginia. His parents are Conrad Traherne and Léonie Annan Talbot.
Georgia Rice Annan
Mother of Léonie Annan Talbot, wife of Gilbert Payne Talbot, daughter of Gwyn ap Nudd (Gwyn Annan).
Gilbert Payne Talbot
Father of Léonie Annan Talbot, husband of Georgia Rice Annan.
Léonie Annan Talbot
Mother of George Talbot Traherne, wife of Conrad (Corniad) Traherne.
FAE & IMMORTALS
Alun (AL-an)
Servant to the huntsman of Gwyn ap Nudd.
Angharad (ang-KAR-ad)
Artist affiliated with Gwyn ap Nudd’s court.
Beli Mawr (BEH-lee MA-oor) - Beli the Great.
Father of Lludd Llaw Eraint (Nudd) and Llefelys.
Bleddyn (BLE-dhin)
Artistic mentor of Angharad.
Brynach (BRIN-akh)
Great-nephew of Eurig ap Gruffyd.
Cadugan (kah-DUG-an)
Steward to Rhys Vachan ap Rhys at Edgewood.
Ceridwen (ke-RID-wen)
Scholar, healer, magician at Gwyn ap Nudd’s court.
Cernunnos (ker-NOO-nus) - Master of Beasts.
A god who takes the form of an antlered man (the horned man) or an antlered red deer-man.
Creiddylad ferch Nudd (krey-THIL-ad verkh NIDH)
Daughter of Lludd Llaw Eraint (Nudd), sister of Gwyn ap Nudd and Edern ap Nudd, one-time wife of Gwythyr ap Greidawl. Ex-Lady of Edgewood (Pencoed) to Gwyn ap Nudd.
Cydifor (KEED-ih-vor)
Musician seeking employment at Edgewood.
Cyledr Wyllt (KIL-eh-der WILT) - Cyledr the Mad.
Son of Nwython. Warrior of Gwythyr ap Greidawl.
Edern ap Nudd (EE-dern ap NIDH)
Son of Lludd Llaw Eraint (Nudd), brother of Gwyn ap Nudd and Creiddylad ferch Nudd, father of Rhys ab Edern, grandfather of Rhys Vachan ap Rhys and Rhian ferch Rhys.
Eiryth (EI-ryth)
Wife of Rhys ab Edern, mother of Rhys Vachan ap Rhys and Rhian ferch Rhys.
Eluned (e-LII-ned)
A master scholar and healer to Rhys Vachan ap Rhys in Edgewood. Grandmother’s sister to Eiryth, mother of Rhys Vachan ap Rhys.
Emrys (EM-ris)
One of Idris’s guards.
Eurig ap Gruffydd (EI-rig ap GRIFF-ith)
Husband of Tegwen, great-uncle of Brynach. Vassal of Gwyn ap Nudd.
Gwyn ap Nudd (GWIN ap NIDH) - Gwyn Annan.
Son of Lludd Llaw Eraint (Nudd), brother of Edern ap Nudd and Creiddlyad ferch Nudd. Father of Georgia Rice Annan. Prince of Annwn.
Gwythyr ap Greidawl (GWI-thir ap GREI-dul)
Ex-husband of Creiddylad ferch Nudd. Gwyn ap Nudd’s opponent each Nos Galan Mae.
Hadyn (HAY-din)
Weapons-master to Gwyn ap Nudd.
Huw Bongam (HUE BON-gam) - Hugh Bandy-leg
Innkeeper of the Horned Man in Green Hollow.
Idris ap Hywel - Idris Powell (IH-dris ap HIH-wel)
Marshal to Gwyn ap Nudd. 2nd in command.
Ifor ap Griffri - Ifor Moel (IH-v
er ap GRIFF-ree), (IH-ver MOYLE) - Ifor the Bald.
Steward and administrator to Gwyn ap Nudd under Idris Powell.
Iolo ap Huw (YO-lo ap HUE) - diminutive of Iorwerth.
Huntsman to Gwyn ap Nudd.
Iona (YO-na)
Breeder of ponies and small horses.
Lleision (LHEI-shon)
Marshal to Rhys Vachan ap Rhys. 2nd in command.
Lludd Llaw Eraint (LHIDH LHAU er-AYNT) - Nudd/Lludd of the Silver Hand.
Son of Beli Mawr. Brother of Llefelys. Father of Gwyn ap Nudd, Edern ap Nudd, and Creiddylad ferch Nudd. King of Britain.
Madog ab Owen Gwynedd (MAA-dog ab OU-ain GWI-nedh)
Son of the Prince of Gwynedd. Discovered a way to the new world around 1100.
Maelgwn (MYLE-goon)
Young way-finder, friend of Granite Cloud. Adopted son of George Talbot Traherne.
Meilyr (MYE-lir)
A leader of the new world fae on the Edgewood expedition.
Morial (MOR-yal)
Weapons-master to Rhys Vachan ap Rhys.
Nudd
See Lludd Llaw Eraint.
Rhian ferch Rhys (HRII-an verkh RHEESE)
Foster-daughter of Gwyn ap Nudd, daughter of Rhys ab Edern and Eiryth, granddaughter of Edern ap Nudd, sister of Rhys Vachan ap Rhys. Junior huntsman to Gwyn ap Nudd.
Rhodri ap Morgant (HROD-hrii ap MOR-gant)
Distant cousin to Gwyn ap Nudd, cousin to Rhian ferch Rhys and Rhys Vachan ap Rhys. Diplomat to Gwyn ap Nudd. Musician.
Rhys ab Edern (HREESE ab EE-dern)
Son of Edern ap Nudd, husband of Eiryth, father of Rhian ferch Rhys and Rhys Vachan ap Rhys.
Rhys Vachan ap Rhys (HREESE VAKH-an ap HREESE) - Rhys the younger, Rhys Junior.
Foster-son of Gwyn ap Nudd, son of Rhys ab Edern and Eiryth, grandson of Edern ap Nudd, brother of Rhian ferch Rhys. Earl of Edgewood under Gwyn ap Nudd.
Scilti (SHIL-tee) - The thin one.
From Irish Cailte, Caolite.
Senua (se-NOO-ah)
A goddess of springs and wisdom.
Taranis (ta-RAN-iss)
A god of thunder and strength.
Tegwen (TEG-wen)
Wife of Eurig ap Gruffydd.
Thomas Kethin (KETH-in) - Thomas the Swarthy.