The Hounds of Annwn (1-2)

Chapter 4-1

CHAPTER 4

Rhian came running up behind them and they paused to let her catch up. She had changed to breeches, boots, and a long jerkin over an old shirt. The leather jerkin was too big for her and George suspected it was her brother’s, outgrown. It had clearly visited kennels before, judging by the paw prints left behind. She’d bound her braid up in a kerchief to keep it clean and donned worn leather gloves.

George looked over at Rhys as they stood before the kennel gates. “What are your duties here?”

“I’ve been learning mastery of horse and hound. I must understand everything about the hounds, their training, and the management of kennels. I can’t set people to their tasks if I don’t know those tasks myself. We two,” looking fondly at his sister, “have the blood for it, as well as the inclination, though Rhian can handle hounds better than I can.”

“What will you do now that the huntsman has died? What will happen?”

Rhys and Rhian exchanged serious looks.

“Iolo’s death is a disaster. He was my lord Gwyn’s foster-son, and has been the huntsman for the pack since Gwyn’s rule began. I don’t know how, or if, we can continue.”

“If you don’t have anyone suitable, wouldn’t you get a huntsman from somewhere else and then go on after some interval?” He could see from their faces as he spoke that it was much more serious than that.

Rhys shook his head. “The hunt must go out on Nos Galan Gaeaf, the night of the first day of winter, the change of the year, to hunt in the old way. Our lord Gwyn must provide justice and be seen to do it. Not to do so would break the ancient compacts and I don’t know what would happen. I think he might lose the hunt and perhaps, with it, all of Annwn, this realm.”

Rhian stared at him. “Could that really happen?”

Rhys nodded soberly.

George said, “So maybe it’s a political enemy, then. The killing might’ve been targeted for this purpose, aimed more at Gwyn than Iolo. Does Gwyn know who his enemy is?”

“He has, we have, many enemies, but they’re not usually secretive, especially about their victories. Perhaps we’ll hear a boast in the next few days.”

“When’s this deadline, the night of the first day of winter?”

“I don’t know your name. Our neighbors in the old country called it Samhain.”

All Hallows’ Eve, thought George. “Can’t anyone else hunt the hounds? What about Gwyn? Or you?”

“Gwyn rules here, he doesn’t lead the hunt himself. It’s been two years since I was released from my weapons-master to learn about the hounds, but it wasn’t to be huntsman. I don’t know that I’m capable of it, nor is it my ambition. We don’t have that much time for me to learn, either—just two weeks.”

Sounds like they’ve got a real situation on their hands, George thought. Too bad. Glad it’s not my problem.

Rhian ran ahead to the gate of the kennel yard and opened it. All three walked in, Rhian closing the gate behind them, and George paused to get a better look now that he no longer had a pack of hounds surrounding him.

The kennels had an enclosing wall of stone raised to well over a man’s height, whitewashed and bare of encroaching vegetation. The yard itself was flagstone paved, slanted slightly toward drains along one edge. Two large unroofed pens stood on either side with solid walls halfway up, separated by a third pen. Through a doorway in the solid wall at the back of each pen, George could see a roofed area with long benches built along the walls. A solid door, now open, allowed the inner portion to be closed off from the weather, and windows alongside the door admitted light.

The hounds erupted off their benches when they heard the gate open and stood in the front of their pens to watch them, barking and standing up against the metal bars to inspect their visitors. The middle pens were empty.

The dog hounds were housed together first on the left, followed by the empty pen and then the b***h pack. On the right, he saw the same gender division for the younger hounds in their first season, not yet full-fledged members of the pack. Past the two pens of youngsters was one more small enclosure, apparently empty. “For whelping?” he asked Rhys, who nodded.

Just beyond the pens in this yard were entrances to the kennel buildings on either side. They followed steam and a smell of meat into the left entryway. In a room just off the entry two younger lutins were stirring large cauldrons suspended by chains over a fire, one with boiling meat, and one with something that resembled porridge. A third one, older, was bent over, mending a leash at a table.

“Any injuries today?” Rhys asked the lutin at the table as they entered.

“No, all are well.”

“And Holda’s rash?

“Healing. She’ll be able to go out again soon.”

“Master Ives, this gentleman’s George Talbot Traherne. He’s our guest for a while, and a kinsman.” All three lutins nodded. “George, this is Ives, the kennel-master.”

“I’m pleased to meet you,” George said. “The yards are splendid and beautifully maintained, and the hounds are magnificent.” Ives straightened with pride and nodded his thanks.

“These are Tanguy,” indicating a small lutin with a beard, “and Huon.” The youngster, beardless, smiled at them.

“Rhian,” cried a voice from the entry. “I didn’t think we’d see you today.”

A young lutine dressed in red under a long dirty coat ran up to embrace Rhian. She was much smaller though clearly a few years older than Rhian. Ives beamed at her indulgently.

“My daughter, Isolda,” he said to George. “I can’t keep them apart.” He paused, “Would you care to see the hounds?”

“Indeed I would, if you can spare the time.” The girls brightened.

“Excellent,” Rhys said. “I’ll turn to some of my other duties here, and Ives can return you to me when you’re done.”

Ives picked up a dirty garment to throw over his clothes as a kennel coat and led them further in to a corridor that ran along the back of the building. “We’ll do the dog hounds first. They always expect it, conceited beasts.”

Their boot heels rang on the flagged floor. On the right they passed rooms for gear and equipment. On the left, the solid doors at the backs of the pens were matched with windows on each side so that one could look in on the hounds on their wide benches. An outer door stood at the end on the right, and George could see through the window alongside that it led to two turnout yards along the inner wall of the kennels, each of an acre or more, surrounded by high fencing.

Having reached the farthest pen on the left, the first pen George had passed on his way in, Ives paused with his hand on the latch. “I was told you brought the pack back today. Did they give you any trouble?”

George described how he had walked through them and treated Dando as the leader. “Most of the people here seem afraid of them. Isn’t it the same for your folk?”

Ives smiled in his beard. “It’s not us they hunt. We send our souls elsewhere and punish our own. They hunt the tall folk, human or fae.”

“Who were they hunting this afternoon, then?”

“Oh, well, we haven’t so many villains that we hunt them every day,” Ives chuckled. “Mostly they hunt deer, for the pleasure of the company.”

He opened the door. All the hounds had risen off the benches along the sides at the sound of their voices. They stood quietly, their tails waving slightly.

Rhian pushed past George to single out one hound, white with red ears and little other red on him. “This is our Dando.” George walked over and renewed his acquaintance.

Ives pointed out individuals and described their breeding and characters. “Iolo and I plan, er, planned, all the activities.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” George said. There was silence for a moment.

The group returned to the corridor and this time Isolda walked ahead with Rhian to enter the bitches’ pen. As Ives and George followed, they found Rhian sitting on one of the wide benches with a hound next to her.

“Look, Master Ives. Anwen’s sore needs tending,” Rhian said. George peered over Ives’s bent head. The hound’s licking was keeping the sore from closing.

“Thank you, my lady. I’ll take care of this.” He pulled a lead from his belt, looped it over the hound’s collarless neck, and brought her with him out to the corridor.

Back in the cook room Ives brought down a small closed jar from a shelf and put it on his low worktable. He sat down which, at his height, brought his head close to the standing hound’s shoulder.

“Would you hold her for me, Rhian?” Rhian stepped forward to oblige.

He opened the jar and dipped a finger in the salve within. George smelled a bit of rotten egg and recognized sulfur. He couldn’t identify the other herbal scents.

Ives gently smoothed the ointment over the sore, then took the b***h’s head between his hands and murmured, “Do you leave that alone now, my girl.”

He held the lead out to his daughter. “Isolda, return her, please.”

As Isolda walked back down the corridor with the hound, accompanied by Rhian, Ives rose and led George outside and across the yard to the matching entry on the other side.

Standing in the doorway, George could see a door on the right and a corridor beyond. Ives opened the door to a large room on his right. It contained a desk, worktable, chairs, and many shelves, as well as a small fireplace on the far wall separating this chamber from the whelping pen. A shuttered window opening was on the same wall, not far from the desk. Papers and gear were scattered on the desk, and the shelves held books and boxes.

“The huntsman’s office,” Ives said.

The room seemed to George as if it expected its owner to return at any moment. “It’s a good arrangement.” He pointed at the shutter. “He can see into the whelping pen from there?”

“Yes, and the heat warms the wall as well. When necessary he can bring the b***h and pups right in.”

George admired the intelligent setup. “And those empty pens separating the hounds are for feeding or for gathering the chosen ones for a hunt?”

“Both, and also for occasional use as an infirmary, if the whelping kennel’s occupied.”

Footsteps sounded outside and Rhys appeared in the doorway, with Rhian. “I fear I must interrupt and return you to the hall. We’ll be wanted for dinner soon.”

George turned to Ives. “Thank you, master, for your time. I hope we’ll have the pleasure of meeting again.”

They went back out through the first yard and shut the kennel gate behind them. The bars of the gate cast long shadows on the ground as the sun started to disappear behind the Blue Ridge.

George felt the pull of that huntsman’s office. What would it be like to hunt these hounds, to shape their breeding and make them his own? He envied the next man who would slip into that post.

They entered the manor through the back hall and ascended the stairs together. Partway up, they almost collided with a manservant hastening down who came to a halt and moved to the side to let them pass. George glimpsed a face, distorted as if arguing violently with himself, that smoothed as he bowed his head. He made note of his appearance: brown hair with broad streaks of white along the temples and a rigid, locked demeanor. The man’s apparent internal conflict caught George’s attention, but he didn’t know what to make of it.

They climbed past him and heard his steps descend. George looked at Rhys who shrugged. “He’s in the service of Creiddylad, my lord Gwyn’s sister. I don’t know his name.”

Rhian unexpectedly burst out, “I hate him.”

They both looked at her in surprise. “He stares at me like he wants something.”

Rhys c****d an eyebrow at her, and she blushed. “I don’t mean like that. When he does it, it’s slimy, nasty.” She shivered.

He spoke to her, seriously. “If he ever bothers you, says or does anything, you come tell me.” He looked her in the eyes. “I mean it.”

She nodded.

On the second floor landing, Rhys and George parted from Rhian who continued up to the third floor. Rhys came as far as George’s room to confirm that the clothing for the evening had been freshened and returned. “Would you care to bathe? There’s enough time for it.”

At George’s eager assent, Rhys said, “There should be a robe and foot gear in the wardrobe, and everything else you need in the bath room.”