Eating the small fish the night before had only briefly lessened Cadogan's hunger. He woke before dawn, his stomach already aching with emptiness. Yet, his mind felt clearer now, more focused, because of the plans he had made. His mind settled on the idea of gorge hooks – a primitive but potentially effective fishing method he'd only ever read about. He had bone – the delicate, picked-clean skeleton of the fish he'd eaten, and the slightly more robust bones from Madog's two rabbits. He had his rusty knife for shaping, and sharp stone flakes for finer work. For a line, he could try to twist more threads from his tattered linen undertunic, or perhaps attempt to process some of the tough, stringy inner bark from a type of willow he thought he'd seen near the stream, if he dared venture there for materials.
The first task was shaping the bone. He selected the straightest, strongest-looking rabbit leg bone. Using a piece of slate as a rough whetstone and his knife with painstaking care, he began to grind and scrape, slowly forming a slender spindle, about an inch and a half long, pointed at both ends. It was incredibly slow, meticulous work, his still-healing arm protesting, his good hand cramping. His injured foot throbbed a dull counterpoint to his efforts. The mallet and iron bar, gifts from his unseen captors, were too crude for this delicate task. Hours passed. The "Calon" stone's glow faded with the strengthening daylight. He ignored the hunger as best he could, focusing with an almost obsessive intensity on the tiny piece of bone, the dust rising from his labor. He fashioned three such gorges by midday, his fingers raw, his patience worn thin, but a grim satisfaction filled him. They were crude, yes, but they looked functional.
For lines, he settled on the linen threads. Processing bark for cordage was a skill he didn't possess and couldn't afford to learn through failure right now. He carefully unraveled more sections of his undertunic, twisting the threads together, then braiding three such strands into a stronger, if still fragile, line. He made three lines, each a few feet long, and carefully tied one to the center of each bone gorge. Bait was the next problem. He had nothing. He thought of the grubs and worms that likely lived in the damp earth outside the tower, or beneath the fallen rubble. The idea was repulsive, but hunger was a powerful motivator.
As afternoon began to wane, Cadogan knew he had to try. He secured his three baited gorge hooks (he'd managed to find a few pale, protesting grubs under a damp stone within the tower's less disturbed corners) and their lines, took his waterskin and fishing spear (as a backup and for defense), and once more ventured out towards the Calon y Cwm. The journey was filled with the same heart-pounding tension as before. He moved with slow caution, acutely aware that the "others" could be anywhere, watching. He saw no sign of them. The forest remained still, indifferent to his plight.
At the stream, he found a quiet pool downstream from where he had speared the first fish, an area with overhanging banks and deeper shadows where larger fish might lurk. He carefully baited each gorge hook with a wriggling grub, trying to conceal the bone as much as possible. He tied the end of each line to a flexible willow branch he'd cut, then propped the branches over the stream bank so the baited gorges hung suspended in the water at different depths. Then, he waited. It was different from the active, frustrating pursuit with the spear. This was a game of patience, of stillness. He sat concealed in a thicket of ferns, his gaze fixed on the points where his lines entered the water. The silence of the meadow was broken only by the gurgle of the stream and the distant cry of a hawk.
An hour passed. Nothing. Another. The sun dipped lower, painting the sky in the direction of Caer Maelog with streaks of orange and purple. Despair began to creep in. Perhaps his knowledge was useless here. Perhaps Glyndŵr was simply barren, or its creatures too cunning for his amateurish attempts. Just as he was about to give up, to retrieve his lines and return empty-handed to another night of gnawing hunger, one of the willow branches twitched. His breath caught. It twitched again, then dipped sharply. With a surge of adrenaline, Cadogan scrambled forward, grabbing the branch. He felt a definite, struggling weight on the line. He pulled, hand over hand, his heart hammering. There, breaking the surface, fighting feebly, was a fish. It was larger than the first, perhaps twice the size, the bone gorge clearly visible, lodged sideways in its mouth.
He hauled it onto the bank, his hands shaking. It wasn't a feast, but it was significantly more substantial than his previous catch. He quickly checked his other lines. Another was still, but the third showed a similar tell-tale twitching. He pulled it in. Another fish, slightly smaller than the second, but still a prize. Two fish. Two actual, edible fish. A wild, almost savage joy surged through him, momentarily eclipsing the hunger, the fear, the despair. His intellect, his knowledge from a lost world, however crudely applied, had worked. He had out-thought, in some small way, the brutal indifference of this valley.
He did not press his luck. He quickly gathered his lines and his catch, his eyes scanning the darkening woods. This small catch was a good sign, but he knew staying longer was risky. The walk back to the tower would still be dangerous, yet he felt more energetic now. He had obtained food, and his new fishing way worked. It was a small start, made from need and some remembered ideas, but it was a start. As he barricaded himself in for the night, the "Calon" stone beginning its soft glow, the two fish lying beside him felt like a king's ransom. The hunger still gnawed, but tonight, it was accompanied by a different sensation: the faint, unfamiliar taste of self-won hope.