Her mother touches her cheek and there is sorrow in her eyes, sorrow and a savage rage. “Blood must pay for blood, my daughter,” she says. “We will find our revenge.”
Chapter 12
The stew was delicious. The pork had simmered for hours until it was so tender it fell apart in my mouth. I took a seat at one of the long trestle tables and focused on nothing else until I had wiped my bowl clean with a crust of bread. Stuffed but still eager for more, I looked over at where Arawn was still serving ladlefuls from the Giant’s Cauldron into the neat wooden bowls. The queue for food had stretched as far as the eye could see, although most people had taken their portion and left. Even the the small fraction who sat down to feast with us still numbered in the hundreds, with every table packed.
I picked up another slice of soft manchet bread and began to chew on it mournfully. “Room for one more?”
I looked up to see Rhiannon shooing someone from the opposite side of the table and sitting down. She plopped her bowl of stew in front of her, seized the intricately carved spoon sticking up from the pile of meat and tucked in.
“Delicious,” she said, swallowing. “Not at all bad for your first time cooking, Mallt. You can come back and work at Calan Gaeaf any time.”
“I’ve never seen so many people at once,” I said. “Outside of an army, I mean.”
“Calan Gaeaf is a festival most enjoy celebrating,” Rhiannon said. “The dead believe the greater the feasting here the gentlerthe winter months will be in the living world. They rejoice in helping their relatives. And everyone loves a party, no matter the reason.”
I looked around at the crowds.
“There should be more still, no? In all the thousands of years I have been shepherding souls I must have escorted more than this and I only help the handful of lost spirits. Most make their own way.”
“You don’t know much about Annwn, do you?” Rhiannon took a sip of mead and waved a hand at the dead. “Annwn houses the spirits of the unquiet dead, those who died early or unfulfilled. Those who are waiting for loved ones or are simply not ready to rest. Most people stay here for a couple of decades, some for centuries, a rare few longer still. But in the end they all fade. Only Arawn endures.”
“Can you stop people from ‘fading’?” I asked. “Where do they go?”
“They just disintegrate, their spirit passes and the life force goes back into the living world.” Rhiannon wiped her mouth and smiled at me. “It’s a good thing. People want to find peace.”
I inspected her face, the deep lines and tired eyes. I had known Rhiannon briefly in the living world, thousands of years ago. I hadn’t questioned her presence before, but now it seemed strange.
“What—” I cut my words off before I could insult her. I was learning human ways. She smiled at me, pointed teeth gleaming.
“What am I still doing here? You can ask, I don’t mind people asking. My husbands, my son, all my grandchildren are long passed. I stay because there is work to do. I was queen of Dyfed and that doesn’t go away with death. I still feel a responsibility, a duty, to my people. One day I will have done enough and I will rest.”
“Aren’t you tired?” I asked. Rhiannon shrugged.
“I’ve been tired all my life and all my death. It’s never stopped me from my labours before.”
She took another draught of her mead and squinted at me appraisingly.
“Surely you can empathise. You have been shepherding the spirits of the dead since long before I was born. Do you wish to stop?”
I considered. Had Rhiannon asked me such a question a year ago I would have immediately and fervently said no. Even before I had met Belis, I had thought I was perfectly contented to wander Britain until the ending of the world. Now I wasn’t so sure. I remembered Vatta telling me this life of mortals was sweet. Maybe it was in the nature of humans to crave an ending, a definite finish to a life. I had known only a very few high fae who had abandoned their immortality. This new body of mine seemed full of strange desires, emotions that I did not know how to comprehend. The idea of going on the same way forever seemed less pleasing than it had.
I realised Rhiannon was waiting for an answer. “I don’t wish to die,” I said.
“That was not my exact question,” she replied and drained her goblet. “Regardless, the feasting is almost done and it is time for the dancing to begin so I will not delve any deeper. Calan Gaeaf to you, Mallt Nightshade.”
Rhiannon nodded at me and stood. I watched as she headed over to Arawn, who was tipping his own bowlful of stew directly into his mouth. He dropped the empty bowl back onto a table and called for quiet.
The gathering silenced almost instantly. Thousands of revellers turned their eyes towards him. Arawn crooked a finger at the stage, which was now filled with musicians, and they hurried to their posts. There was a brief cacophonous confusion as instruments were tuned. Then they crashed into a song.
Arawn bowed deeply to Rhiannon and she sank in an equally deep curtsey. She took his outstretched hand in hers and began to dance. It was an old song, and an older dance, modelled on the spinning wheel of the seasons. Arawn and Rhiannon whirled around the centre of the clearing, turning sharply right at the edge of the laughing crowd and dancing back into the centre before wheeling out again. When they had spiralled a full eighttimes, other couples joined them, dancing back and forth, missing each other by inches.
The onlookers began clapping in time, stamping their feet to the beat of the drum. One of the musicians put down his instrument, standing to wave his hands over his head, directing the crowd in the tempo of the song. More couples took to the floor and the remaining feasters seated drew back, allowing them more space. In the back of the crowd I could see porters hurrying away with the empty tables, widening the area for dancing.
I felt the music beginning to wind me in. I was tapping my toes already and now I could sense the dance pulling at me, begging me to join in, to dance the summer away. I had ever loved to dance but it had been the artful stylings of the fae. This called to my human heart, itching at my feet, and the rhythm thundered through my veins. I turned, looking for a likely partner, and found Belis at my elbow.
“My Lady Nightshade.” She made a deep bow.
“Princess Beliscena,” I said, curtseying just as I had seen Rhiannon do. It was harder than I had thought and my legs almost tangled but Belis had already held out her hand and I caught it to stop myself falling.
