Maiden of the No World

By Jon Jacks

Each time Queen Rhiannwn bears a child, it’s stolen away by an elusive beast.
Is it because the king once spent a year ruling the No World? Or because Rhiannwn herself is from there?
It’s only when she rides out alone into the wilds that a son is safely delivered.
A son who ages three years each day.
A son who’s also stolen away.
Rhiannwn is determined to rescue him; despite knowing who’s responsible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jon Jacks
• Release date: Oct 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005840709

Jon Jacks

While working in London as, first, an advertising Creative Director (the title in the U.S. is wildly different; the role involves both creating and overseeing all the creative work in an agency, meaning you’re second only to the Chairman/President) and then a screenwriter for Hollywood and TV, I moved out to an incredibly ancient house in the countryside.On the day we moved out, my then three-year-old daughter (my son was yet to be born) was entranced by the new house, but also upset that we had left behind all that was familiar to her.So, very quickly, my wife Julie and I laid out rugs and comfortable chairs around the huge fireplace so that it looked and felt more like our London home. We then left my daughter quietly reading a book while we went to the kitchen to prepare something to eat.Around fifteen minutes later, my daughter came into the kitchen, saying that she felt much better now ‘after talking to the boy’.‘Boy?’ we asked. ‘What boy?’‘The little boy; he’s been talking to me on the sofa while you were in here.’We rushed into the room, looking around.There wasn’t any boy there of course.‘There isn’t any little boy here,’ we said.‘Of course,’ my daughter replied. ‘He told me he wasn’t alive anymore. He lived here a long time ago.’A child’s wild imagination?Well, that’s what we thought at the time; but there were other strange things, other strange presences (but not really frightening ones) that happened over the years that made me think otherwise.And so I began to write the kind of stories that, well, are just a little unbelievable.

Book preview

Chapter 1

When the queen gave birth to a foal rather than the longed-for son, her six attendants realised they must act quickly to prevent a scandal.

The maids stole the poor foal immediately away. What’s more, fearing naturally that it could be no normal animal, they directed a startled woodsman to secretly carry it off and abandon it on some lonely hillside, where it would be wolfed down by ravenous wolves and ravens.

Working quickly, almost without daring to contemplate the consequences they would face for their deeds, they slit the throat of a staghound’s recently birthed puppy. Then, smearing its blood everywhere about what should have been the boy’s cot, they also left a trail leading towards an open window and beyond it too.

As an extra gruesome measure, they added the odd shred of puppy flesh to give substance to the tale they would tell; that, while they’d slept, exhausted after the successful delivery of a future heir to the kingdom, some fearful creature of the night had silently sneaked in to steal the poor boy away.

*

The charges the six maids found themselves accused of – as they had, of course, fully expected and anticipated – could hardly be more serious.

Putting their own needs and comfort before the safety of a wholly innocent and vulnerable new-born babe, they had allowed – in fact, in a way, even aided and abetted – some dreaded beast to enter the queen’s chambers and cruelly devour the defenceless child.

And of course, this was no ordinary boy, but the king’s son, placing their appalling disregard for care and safety on the level of treachery.

Worse still, this was an heir that the king and his realm had patiently awaited for three years.

The sentence was a foregone conclusion: the maids would be executed, set dangling from nooses like common criminals.

*

Chapter 2

The queen fruitlessly pleaded with the king for mercy. She pointed out that she must have slept through it all too, being unable to remember much of what had obviously been a strenuously painful birthing.

She mourned the loss of her son, naturally, and couldn’t help but hold some animosity against her previously faithful attendants for their unwarranted and uncharacteristic laxness – and yet she couldn’t also help but feel that this strange tale her maids insisted on spinning couldn’t in anyway be the full story of the events that had taken place that night.

‘What is it you’re not telling me?’ she wretchedly begged them to admit. ‘If you’d only tell the truth, then I feel sure you’d come to no harm!’

Yet they steadfastly remained adamant that they were guilty, and wholly deserved the punishment served upon them.

In the same manner, on the day of their hanging, they walked towards the waiting scaffold as placidly as any might be able to walk towards their deaths.

They were aided in retaining this remarkably dignified composure, it’s said by the few who were there to watch, by the arrival of three birds who sang the most delightful of tunes, a melody that could ease the most distraught into an easy and peaceful sleep.

Not that anyone saw the three birds, for it seemed to those who heard the song that it came from far away, flowing across the rolling hills and the waves of the sea alike.

And so, even when they each dangled on the end of the noose, they appeared wholly at peace, accepting their calling to attend to the Great Mother with admirable grace and composure.

Only the queen knew who’d sent the birds to ease the death of each maid.

Yet she naturally remained silent, simply remaining grateful for this unasked for gift.

*

King Pwyll – whose name could be said to mean a deliberated wisdom – could hardly accuse his wife of failing their son.

It would only add grist to the mill of the court advisors, who’d long advocated that he should seek a replacement for his queen.

Of course, their supposed reasoning behind this extreme request over most of the past three years had been their constant lament that she appeared incapable of producing his heir. She came across as alien, otherworldly to them, he realised: and thus they both feared and loathed her influence over their king.

Fortunately, she had proved them wrong – she was indeed more than up to the task of giving the king a son who would one day take up the reins of kingship.

They had all waited three years for the birth of an heir.

They could easily wait one more.

*

Chapter 3

Fortunately, it wasn’t at all long before the king could proudly announce that the queen was once again carrying a child. They were both happily expecting that she would give birth to a son on the Calends of May.

The five maids chosen to attend the birth were this time picked with especial care, for the most part being younger girls who could be expected to stay awake all night if needs be.

Not that anybody, of course, seriously expected the child to be cruelly stolen away once more.

The previous year’s dreadful incident had quite obviously come about through nothing more than a combination of truly unfortunate and entirely unexpected events.

This time the child would be safely delivered. And he would be a son worthy of inheriting King Pwyll’s realm.

The king had great expectations