The Hounds of Annwn (1-2)

Chapter 5-1

CHAPTER 5

Myfanwy’s yip announced the presence of visitors. George opened his door to a quiet knock and let in both Rhys and Rhian. Rhian wore a simple green gown with a modest bodice and low shoes. She had twisted up her blond hair and teased out a couple of curls. Rhys was dignified by a very dark green frock coat with an ivory waistcoat and loose white breeches. Instead of boots he wore white silk stockings and shoes suitable for dancing.

Rhian exclaimed over George’s attire and had him walk back and forth to check the effect. “It really needs a turban, don’t you think, Rhys?”

“Not happening,” George told her. “I don’t see any horsehair wig on Rhys.”

Rhys shuddered. “That’s one style we didn’t pick up from your examples.”

He bent over Myfanwy. “I see you’ve adopted our guest.” Looking up at George, “This is very high approval, you know.”

“I am conscious of the honor she does me,” George said, smiling. “Come along, pup, you don’t want to be trapped here all evening.”

George bade her out the door and waited for the others, then followed and shut the door behind him. This time Rhys turned right and led him to the front stairs. George sighed: so it was to be a grand entrance.

He heard the buzz of conversation long before they reached the staircase. They descended and found small groups in the front hall catching up on gossip and politics. George was relieved to see several other men in robes, and noted with satisfaction that his attire was rather more somber than the peacock displays of some of the others. Some of the women were also in oriental-style dress, where the wrapped robes emphasized willowy forms.

As soon as the crowd caught sight of George the noise diminished, then recovered almost immediately with a polite resumption of conversation. A stately middle-aged woman with dark hair in a yellow silk gown came up to them. Rhian curtsied lightly, and Rhys bowed. “You’re looking well, my lady. Allow me to present to you our kinsman, George Talbot Traherne. George, this is Creiddylad, my foster-father’s sister.”

George remembered the name from the back stairs conversation earlier. He bowed.

She greeted him with a token smile on an unreadable face. “Welcome. We’ve been discussing today’s events, as you might imagine, and many are anxious to meet you.” To look me over, you mean, thought George, keeping his face smooth. This was his aunt, three generations ago. It was difficult to balance a terminology that implied distant ancestor with a living, breathing person not much older in appearance than himself.

As he looked over the crowd it struck him that all of his first impressions of people were going to be unreliable. He was no doubt younger than almost everyone in the room except his two young friends, younger by centuries in most cases, surely. They can probably see right through me. It’ll be hard to keep secrets here.

As Rhys began to introduce him around, George muttered, “You realize I won’t be able to remember them all.”

“They won’t expect you to.”

Gwyn swept up from the left, conversing with Idris Powell as he strode along. He nodded as he passed by and entered the great hall. The crowd turned and began to follow in small groups.

As George came through the archway in turn he saw that trestle tables and benches had been set up along the two long sides leaving a wide empty space in the middle. Many tables were still stacked unused along the left hand wall beneath the minstrel gallery; clearly this space could accommodate a much larger crowd than tonight’s guests.

To his right, people began to take their seats at the long table on the raised dais at right angles to the two rows of tables on the hall floor. Rhys and Rhian walked up the steps, bringing George with them.

All the seats were on one side, with their backs to the wall. Looking out into the room he saw that the seats on the main tables were also on the outer sides. As servants began to bear in platters of food and pitchers of drink, he understood why—they left the inner side free for delivering the food. Serving tables along the outer walls held additional pitchers and trays. Gaps between the long table rows gave them passage space. He leaned toward Rhys quietly and asked, “What happens when there’s a big crowd? Do they occupy both sides of the tables and fill the floors?”

“Yes, and very awkward it is. Noisier, too.”

George estimated the dinner party at about fifty guests and noticed that the hum of conversation was indeed relatively quiet and decorous. Centuries of practicing their manners, he thought. I wonder if they have loud party drunks? Perhaps those are weeded out young. People who live together for hundreds of years must have cultivated the art of good manners for friend and foe, else feuds would surely become too deadly. If you can’t get away from your enemies altogether over the years, better to cleverly insult them than to come to blows on every occasion.

The sound of soft music made him lift his eyes to the minstrel gallery all the way across the hall. It was hard to make out the instruments from here, especially since he could only see the upper bodies of the musicians over the parapet, but he thought he heard viols and soft winds—oboes, perhaps?

By now, most of the guests had found a seat. George’s eye was caught by Eurig with his drooping mustaches at the head of one of the tables on the main floor. Eurig smiled at him encouragingly. Next to him was a matronly figure who must be his wife. George smiled back.

About a dozen people sat along the table on the dais. Gwyn held the middle with his sister Creiddylad seated on his left, another woman and man beyond her, and an older woman on the far end. Idris Powell was at his right hand. He’s more important than I realized, George thought, maybe an adviser, or a second-in-command. Gwyn has no wife? Perhaps she’s just absent, or maybe there isn’t one at the moment.

Rhys was seated next to Idris, then George and Rhian. He turned to his right where Rhian sat silently and smiled at her. “Have I taken your seat?”

“Oh, no, you’re our guest.”

“But I’m sorry to be your only dinner companion this evening.”

“It doesn’t matter. I like to watch.”

He leaned toward her conspiratorially. “Then do you mind if I ask you all sorts of questions? I want to know more about this place.”

“I’d be pleased to help.”

“To start with, who are all these people? Do they live here or are they guests?”

“Most of the year we’re about a dozen in residence and dine informally with our senior staff. Of course there are often visitors, and when we hunt many of the local families join us. Since most of them live at a little distance, it’s not unusual for them to spend a few days here. Some have small permanent guest lodges on the grounds, and others stay here in the manor. As the harvest is completed, more and more join us for the end of the year.”

“The year starts in two weeks, yes?”

“That’s right, on the night of the first day of winter. Some of these here tonight from far away have come for that. In a few days, we’ll be full up to the rafters and some will have overflowed into the village.”

“Do they come for a new year celebration or for the hunt?”

“Both, of course. No one misses the hunt, unless they can’t ride at all. I don’t know what will happen now that Iolo’s gone.”

George glanced down the table. “Does Creiddylad make her home here, like you do?”

Rhys overheard him and leaned in with alarm on his face, murmuring, “Hssht! That’s a topic for another place and time.”

My first screwup, George thought.

Servants appeared and laid out plates and silverware before them. George picked his up to examine it more closely. It looked like ceramic and the material was thin rather than heavy, but it felt like no plate he had ever seen before, and rang almost like metal when he tapped it with a fingernail. The surface was subtly textured, decorated with a horned stag inside a green-leafed border. The only marking on the back was an imprint of an oak leaf.

It came to him suddenly that his behavior was ill-mannered and he hastily put the plate down, but Gwyn caught his eye and seemed pleased with his obvious admiration. Rhys’s plate was decorated with two crossed swords inside the same border, and Rhian’s had a group of daffodils, but they were clearly all part of the same set. “These are the work of one of our own,” Rhys told him, proudly. “Maybe you’ll have a chance to meet her.”

“Are they all different, like these?”

“Each is unique. They’re stronger than they look and rarely break, so by now she just makes a few of these every so often to keep up with our need.”

The silverware was also artisan-made. Only forks and spoons were supplied; each diner brought his own knife. There were even simple linen napkins. Not quite as medieval as I expected, George thought.

The servants brought in platters for each table and set them down. Like a conventional Thanksgiving feast they bore a distinct preponderance of new world foods: potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, acorn squash, and some sort of broad beans he didn’t recognize. The meats were venison and roast pork with apples, and there were loaves of crusty bread and plates of cornbread, dripping with butter.

Rhys said, “Some lords, I understand, revel in the fine goods and exotic foods that they bring from afar. My foster-father’s one who would rather boast of his local goods and produce. Not only does he prefer them, but in these weeks before the new year, with his far-traveled guests to impress, he’s quite insistent about the display. Even our way-tokens take up the theme, with their turkeys and corn stalks.”

“Way-tokens?”

“Our domains are guarded. Each lord’s tokens provide passage through the ways and ease what would otherwise be long tedious journeys. We don’t cross oceans lightly, and avoid them when we use the ways to visit each other.”

Why should I be surprised, George thought. Something like that must’ve taken me from Bellemore to here.

“Rhodri, who’s loaned you his clothing unwittingly, is one of our great way-finders. If he returns for the great hunt this year while you’re with us, you can ask him more about it,” Rhys said.

No one had yet touched the food. Gwyn pushed back his chair and rose to address the gathering.

“Let us tonight honor our huntsman, Iolo ap Huw. To Iolo!”

The crowd echoed back, “Iolo!”

The servants wore a green livery, similar to the hunt staff in the field. Looking down the tables, he saw other servants, dressed in various liveries. Pointing them out to Rhian, he asked, “Are those some of the servants your guests bring?”

“That’s right. They make themselves useful at dinner, otherwise we’d be overwhelmed as we fill up with guests.”

George noticed the servant he had met on the stairs on his way up to change, with the white streaks at his temple. He was dressed now in a dark ochre livery, serving tables at the end of the hall. Rhian followed his gaze and commented, “Creiddylad didn’t bring him on earlier visits. He walks around staring at things. He doesn’t just stare at me, he stares at Rhys, too.”

“Do you know his name?”

“No, but I’m going to find out. He’s only been here a few days.”

Rhys on his other side was attending to Gwyn and Idris, so George focused on Rhian.

“What are your interests? Do you hunt?”

Rhian glanced sharply at him to judge if he really wanted to know. She looked down at her plate and said, with fierce intensity, “I intend to be the huntsman someday.” George hid his surprise. “I can do it, too. I know the names of all the hounds and the horses and the hawks and most of the other beasts. They listen to me. I’m better at it than Rhys, even Iolo said so.

“My foster-father says I must learn to run a great estate, as Rhys learns fighting and hunting and governance. So I must be in attendance on my elders for part of my education. That’s why I missed the hunt today—I was in the yard with the crafts-master in the morning and with our housekeeper for the afternoon. Gwyn doesn’t know that I attend on Ives and Iolo when I can.” Catching Gwyn’s glance, George suspected that perhaps Gwyn did know.