Cymru - Chapter 2

GWILYM

In the corner of his study, the revoltingly ornamental yet sadly traditional grandfather clock clanged midnight noisily. Gwilym leapt awake with a start, adrenaline hammering at his heart and leaving him feeling slightly sick. He sighed. One of these days he was going to take an axe to that clock, and his court advisors could either deal with it or find a new Sovereign to bother.

Although that said, he really shouldn’t have fallen asleep. Blearily, Gwilym rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands and tried to stare at the official form with the tiny, tiny writing on the desk in front of him. It was probably an official political tactic, actually. If you wanted another Sovereign to sign something, just get a baby to write it in the tiniest hand it could and send it late at night. That way either their eyes would melt or they’d become legally retarded while trying to read it, and would end up signing the damn thing just to get a decent night’s sleep. Gwilym made a mental note to ensure that Watkins used the smallest font possible on every future note to Lord Flyn.

Guiltily, Gwilym considered the possibility of simply making Watkins read the forms for him and giving him the gist, but decided against it. If nothing else, Watkins looked somewhat like a kettle. Gwilym’s late father, rest his soul, had always been very clear on not trusting men who looked like kettles, which was logic Gwilym couldn’t coherently argue with.

He was on his tenth attempt of reading the letter when Gwilym remembered the magnifier in the desk draw; another revoltingly ornamental yet traditional piece of the study furniture. In this case though, Gwilym was ready to accept it as a treasured and oft-used piece of stationary that, five years and a thousand tinily-worded letters down the line, he’d happily make into his Grand Vizier. And it didn’t look like a kettle, which Gwilym was given to believing was probably a bonus.

My Dear Lord Gwilym,
I hope this letter finds you both in good health and well-settled into your new position as Sovereign of Aberystwyth.

Gwilym paused. It seemed like an inordinately expository opening to him. He wondered if his official letters were supposed to be encyclopaedic – he’d never thought to check.

As you are aware, soon the Archwiliad will be starting. The Casnewyddian Wing will be arriving in Aberystwyth with you shortly. However; they will raise certain matters with you that you may need to hear in private.

Gwilym blinked. That was unexpected. The city Wings were merely a formality these days – they’d done little more than go through the motions for almost thirty years. They certainly never said anything that required privacy.

For two years now, I have been keeping a careful watch upon certain other Sovereigns throughout Cymru – and I have become convinced that their intentions toward our country have become less than noble. I can say no more in this letter; but I beg you to listen carefully to my Wing Riders. I am certain you shall act as the patriot I know you to be, however, and make the right choices when the time comes.

What followed was a complicated list of instructions to give Watkins on the arrival of the Wing, but Gwilym barely skimmed it before putting it down and staring off into space.

The news was… alarming, to put it mildly. There had been no conspiracies that anyone knew of for almost forty five years. Not since the Wars had ended and the Senedd formed. If there were Sovereigns acting against Cymru it could feasibly tumble the country straight back into war, and the last one hadn’t ended well.

Of course, it seemed that Lord Flyn was suggesting a conspiracy of his own to counter it. Gwilym got up and went to the window, placing his forehead on the glass to cool. From here he could see all of Aberystwyth glittering below him, from the torches on Great Darkgate to the Landing Tower and stables on the seafront. Across the water, deceptively close, the Archipelagan city of Caerleuad winked back. Gwilym wondered what Lady Marged was doing at this hour. Sleeping like someone sensible, most likely. Was she one of the people Flyn’s letter had mentioned? Gwilym hoped not; quite aside from the massive economical and political advantages to Aberystwyth being twinned with Caerleuad, he rather liked Lady Marged. She was like a very eccentric aunt, and insisted on knitting him socks every time they met purely because he’d once told her that he liked the colour green. Apparently, Caerleuad made excellent green dyes out of its native seaweed.

Not for the first time, Gwilym wished his father could have had the foresight to leave him with a convenient book on how to run a city before his untimely death. Gwilym had been Sovereign for almost a year now, but at twenty six he was still a long way off the usual age of ascendancy, and he had no clue what he was doing beyond securing cheap green dyes for Aberystwyth and avoiding men who resembled kettles.

Which he’d failed at. Watkins really did look like a kettle.