To Carry the Horn

Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

Alun found George at the stables, as he handed Llamrei over to a stable lad. The skies had darkened all afternoon and a light drizzle was beginning to fall.

“There’s been a development,” Alun said. “Edern ap Nudd is arriving, unexpectedly.”

“That’s his room I’m in, isn’t it?”

“Not any more it is. At Gwyn’s request I’ve moved you to Iolo’s place.”

George checked his pocket watch. He had an hour before the afternoon session with Hadyn. “Shall I come see my new quarters, then?”

They walked up the lane between the kennels and the stables. There were a few workshops on the right opposite the kennels, and then a high wall with a gate facing the lane, before the row of buildings continued. Entering at the gate, George discovered a two-story house fronted by a small tidy yard, much of which was garden. Two hollies, a male in dark green and a female forming berries, flanked wide steps to a veranda, and a tall tamarack larch provided shade over the whole house while leaving the garden’s southern exposure open. The walls of the neighboring buildings rose windowless on either side to provide a private sheltered haven.

There were benches in the garden, and seats on the veranda, with tables. “Iolo liked to spend his time outside whenever he could,” Alun said.

It was peaceful here, George thought. You could hear the kennels faintly, but separated by the garden wall, the lane, and then the empty kennel yards, it was a pleasant background noise rather than a nuisance. A neighbor’s barking dog is an annoyance, he thought, but fifty of them was music.

“Easy access to the kennels, isn’t it?” George said.

“There’s a door across the lane there. His own corridor to his office. They call it the huntsman’s alley.”

They climbed the steps to the veranda. George could see that the house stretched almost from one side of the space to the other, with a narrow way around. “Does it go all the way through?”

“This is the back entrance. The other side’s grander and fronts on the lane.”

It’s bigger than it seems, he thought. More deep than wide. As he entered, he confirmed his prediction, seeing three rooms on each side of a wide central hall to a double door in front. “Iolo lived here all alone in this space, with you? You must have rattled about like two peas in a pod.”

“They tell me he raised families here, before my time. His great-great-grandson Islwyn lived here with him for several years before he died, but he was already grown. Since then we’ve kept rooms closed upstairs, and there have been few guests.”

Alun took George on a brief tour. Kitchen to the left, followed by dining room and a front parlor. On the right, George could see Iolo’s personality more clearly: a workroom with hand tools and materials that seemed to be an overflow from the kennels, a library in the middle, and a study at the front of the house that appealed immediately, with its worn leather chairs, fireplace, and books.

Upstairs, Alun showed him the guest bedrooms in front, furniture draped in sheets. The middle room on the west side was smaller and currently given over to storage for furniture too large for the attic. Beyond that was a corridor leading to two small rooms with windows fronting the garden side, above the kitchen. “My room is there,” Alun said, indicating the outer room, “and years ago there was a maid in the next room.”

The end of the hall held a bathroom with a view of the garden over the veranda roof. Next to it, over the workroom, was the main bedroom.

Alun opened the door for George. “I’ve packed up Iolo’s clothes and stored them. Your things from Edern’s room are here.”

There’d been a woman’s touch here once, thought George. The bed was backed by the eastern outer wall, leaving the windows all along the garden wall free for window seats, with a fine view of the Blue Ridge marching south on the right, over the outer palisade. Three wardrobes stood against the wall, mostly empty now, and two chests of drawers. A comfortable pair of armchairs with a table between them completed the picture of a little private world, where two people could lock themselves away for a time. “What does that door lead to?” he asked, pointing to a door opposite the garden windows.

“That was the nursery.”

“Ah.” The location made sense. He opened the door. This was a small room, over the library. The furniture was draped in cloth. “How long since it’s been used?”

“I don’t know. Many, many years.”

It seemed melancholy to George, this empty nest sort of life played over and over again. I suppose you get used to it, he thought, but the constant reminders must be depressing. Or maybe family visits would fill a house like this with life and compensate for the ebb and flow of grown children.

“Thanks for making me at home here,” he said. “I must be off to the training. Should I eat at the manor generally?”

“Breakfast here. Lunch or dinner or guests, just let me know.”

“Who takes care of the garden?”

“Ifor Moel has the grounds men see to it. The rest of the place, that’s my job.”

“I’ll see you before dinner to change, then.” A thought occurred to him. “While I’m gone, I’d like you to choose something or two of Iolo’s, to remember him by. I’m sure he’d want you to do that.”

Alun flushed. “Aye, I shall do so.”

George spent the earlier part of the evening in the huntsman’s office, listening to the rain fall.

He’d been surprised at dinner by Gwyn’s public congratulations on the successful morning hunt. Gwyn then upped the ante by announcing that he would accompany him on Thursday’s excursion to see for himself, forbidding anyone else from joining him. This afternoon’s conversation with Angharad had made Gwyn’s political position clearer to him, and his public praise just ensured that his opponents would be motivated to act lest their long plans fall to nothing. He wondered if Gwyn recalled the plan to bring the relationship with Owen the Leash to a conclusion on Thursday.

George had hoped to meet Edern but he hadn’t yet arrived. He had the stern face from Angharad’s portrait of him still vividly in mind and wanted to see the original to form his own opinions.

The post-dinner session learning the hound names had gone well. In another night he and Benitoe would have touched all the hounds once as a group and would be ready to cycle back around till they were reliable with all the names.

Tomorrow’s hound walk would take them to Eurig’s place. He was eager to see it and to use the opportunity to strengthen his bonds with him. He was sure Eurig would prove to be a valuable guide to the politics, if he could keep his interest and goodwill.

Moved by the portrait of Iolo with the oliphant horn, he’d asked Ives for the key to the cupboard, but Ives told him it was among the personal effects that Alun had taken charge of. This left him grappling with a good task to sink his teeth into for the remainder of the evening, and he decided to start researching the events preceding the coming of Owen the Leash.

He walked over to the shelves of hunt journals. He needed the ones from more than twenty years ago, starting with a healthy staff of Islwyn and Merfyn. He picked out a volume from about thirty years earlier, and flipped through it looking for those two names. Merfyn was mentioned throughout, and Islwyn made an appearance near the end, so this seemed to be a good place to start. He pulled the handful of volumes from that point to the present, added the current one from the desk, and put them in a buckskin sack to protect them from the weather.

No point lighting a fire in here tonight, he thought. Let’s look at these in my new study, in comfort, and then toddle off to bed nice and early.

He took the private exit Alun had shown him, down a roofed walkway between kennel yards, unlatched the gate at the lane, and latched it behind him again. A quick dash across the lane to the gate in his garden wall and then up the path to the huntsman’s house kept him relatively dry, but he was glad for the warmth of the house. This rain seemed to mark the turn of seasons to true autumn, putting a chill in the air.

He stripped off his boots on the porch—still his only shoes until Mostyn’s work arrived—and padded in stocking feet into the house, carrying them. Alun appeared out of the kitchen to take them away but paused, his eyes riveted by the toes beginning to poke holes through George’s much abused socks. “I can fix that,” he said. “Go on in to the study. I’ve laid a fire there.”

Oil lamps were lit in the hall. Walking carefully in his stocking feet so as not to slip on the polished chestnut floor, George carried his sack of books into the front room and put it next to a worn leather chair by the unlit fire. By the light from the hall he found a lighter on the mantle and lit a wood splint from a holder there, touching the splint in turn to the oil lamps along the walls and then to the kindling beneath the logs, leaving it there to catch.

The sound of the rain outside on the lane intensified, coming down in sheets and making the fire and lamp-lit room more appealing by the moment in contrast. He took off his somewhat dampened coat and collapsed with a whoosh of pleasure into the seat by the fire.

Alun reappeared with slippers and socks in hand, and a robe over his arm. “These slippers were never used. They should fit, and the socks, too. I’ll take those you are wearing.” His look invited no disagreement on the subject.

He draped the robe over a chair. “This robe is little used. It’s for sitting, when the hunt coat comes off.”

George changed his socks and tried the slippers. It felt odd to wear a dead man’s shoes, but the fit was fine. He was amused to see they were moccasins, not moccasin-styled, but the real thing: one-piece, ankle-high, stitched together at the top with leather thongs, and made of a heavy buckskin. He stood and lifted the robe, holding it out to look at it. It was more of a dressing gown in dark burgundy wool, with pockets and cuffs, suitable for appearing before other people if they called. He could see the point of such a garment to supplement the fire as the weather grew colder and tried it on. It was tight across the shoulders, and he could see Alun making note of it. “I’ll tell Mostyn to make a robe to your size. What color should it be?”

“Any dark sober color will be fine. Perhaps not green, to make a change from hunt clothing. Don’t forget pockets. Will I also need a robe for the bath?”

“No, a loose one hangs upstairs for that. Try it and let me know if it’s suitable. Or not.”

Alun straightened up a few items around the room that didn’t need it. George remembered his suggestion to choose keepsakes of Iolo’s, and thought Alun might be working up his courage to mention it. He asked, “Was there something you wanted to say?”

“Picked two things, I did, for remembering Iolo. Shall I show you?”

“Yes, I’d be very interested.”

Alun returned in a moment. He carried in one hand a small framed portrait of Iolo, looking down fondly at a hound who was returning the gaze. George thought he recognized Angharad’s work. “Very fine,” he said, “and an excellent choice.” Alun looked relieved.

“The other’s just a little pocket memento.” He held out a jointed snaffle mouthpiece, two bits of polished brass without rings. “Iolo used to fiddle with this in his pockets, he did, whenever he was thinking about something. I don’t know where it came from.”

“Very suitable, and a good reminder.”

He continued, “Where do you spend your evenings, Alun, when you’re not on duty?”

“I have friends, of course. There’s work I turn my hands to, also. Iolo would let me use his workshop here in the house.”

“Alright by me, too. What do you make?”

“Oh, small whimsies, is it? Birdhouses and the like.”

“Will you show me sometime?”

“Yes, if you wish.”

“I do indeed.” He sat back down reluctant to move again.

“Will there be anything I can get you?” Alun suggested.

Ah, tempting thought. He’d need to take notes. “Something to take notes on.” What else? “Do you know where the pipe and tobacco went? And an ashtray, of course.”

“And I’ll bring you something to drink, shall I? Mild or strong?”

“Good idea. Mild, please.”

Alun took a bound notebook from a drawer of the desk in the room, larger than the one still in the breast pocket of the coat. “Iolo kept a personal journal of his own, here. The older volumes are in the library,” pointing at the next room. He brought an ashtray from the mantle and the notebook over to George’s table, leaving to fetch the rest of the items.

A personal journal—that will be a help, he thought. Sorry, Iolo, but I’m going to have to read your private words to help solve your murder.

The notebook Alun brought him was new. Herein starts my own journal and permanent notes, he mused. Not much casual use of paper for temporary purposes here, to be chucked in the fire. Think of it as a discipline to organize my thoughts before writing them down, then. And remember, it may not stay private; how hard would it be to come in when Alun was out and just read a journal sitting on that desk? Circumspection will be required.

He laid the full-sized journal aside and rose to fetch the pocket notebook and pen from his coat and bring them back to the table. He picked up the new unused journal again and wrote on the first page.

George Talbot Traherne

He turned to the next full leaf, and began, inhibited by the thought that, just as he was planning to read Iolo’s private journals, someone someday (if not sooner) might be reading his own.

Tuesday, October 20

I arrived Saturday, four days ago, apparently at the moment of the death of my predecessor, Iolo ap Huw. Such a short time for so much to recount. I will not attempt a full account of my experiences in this journal, but will use this for occasional reflections and for notes.

He paused to think. I should use this as bait, truthful but incomplete or misleading. I can use my pocket notebook for truly secret notes, and only transfer important things to a permanent record.

I am reading Iolo’s hunt logs for the last three decades, to form a quick understanding of the customs.

He didn’t want anyone to form an impression that he was looking into Merfyn, Islwyn, and Owen the Leash as part of a deliberate plan. He wanted Owen’s discomfiture in the next two days to look coincidental and personal, not part of a tactical defense for Gwyn. This provided a reason for looking into these years in the hunt logs and had the added virtue of also being true.

Pulling the hunt logs out of the sack, he found the oldest one and opened it on his lap. Alun returned with a mug of hard cider, and the new pipe with its fixings, and took the coat away for a good brushing.

George filled the pipe with the fragrant tobacco, packing it loosely with his thumb. He took a long sip of the cider, lit up, and began reading, kept company by the crackle of the fire.