Cymru - Chapter 25b

Sorry guys; this should have been on the end of the last chapter, but my IQ sadly only reaches double figures and only by the skin of its teeth, so I'm hastily including it here. I'm re-posting it from a bit before the end of the last post to make it flow a bit better.

"I used to have five sons," Breguswid said quietly. "But the others all marched on the border. Two were dragged there with their father," and she spat the word with venom, "one went after they were killed, and one went after his father finally died. And for that, Rider," Breguswid smiled thinly, "I owe you personally my thanks."

"I killed him?" Awen asked calmly.

"That you did," Breguswid nodded. "My brother saw you. He told us all about it. You ran him through on his own sword. Well done."

There was a pause.

"Right," Awen said. "But, in spite of me killing your husband, whom you clearly hated, and very possibly your other sons, and, oh, maybe even your brother -"

"He's still alive," Breguswid said darkly.

"- and despite your culture demanding that you attempt to wreak bloody vengeance upon me, you in fact are here because you want to do no such thing. Am I right?"

"Yes," Breguswid said. "Well, partly-"

"You want social change for your people, not least of which is the ceasation of a pointless war against Cymru that only results in innocent people and Saxons dying," Awen interrupted. "And, if your role here is anything to go by, gender equality. But, owing to your society being violently opposed to evolution, someone has tried to stop you. I guess... your brother."

"Very good," Breguswid said quietly. "My brother is what we call a thane - a lord. My husband was king of our kingdom. I chose to marry him because I thought I might be able to convince him to see things as I did. Obviously I failed."

She hugged herself, eyes lost in memory, and Awen wondered what he'd done to her.

"Anyway," Breguswid sighed, and looked up. "You overstated things, earlier, although I do understand. But Saxon women aren't quite slaves. We have certain rights; lands, titles and posessions we have before a marriage we get to keep, we can't be forced to marry, and if we have husbands with titles who die we're expected to take over the running of the lands."

"So after your husband died you should have inherited the kingdom?" Awen asked. Breguswid nodded. "But... your brother, who could get support because he's your blood relative, drove you out to stop you from taking over and changing anything."

"Yes." Breguswid looked at her hands. "I also had a daughter. I had a lot of things, once."

"Rider?"

The voice was polite, satiated with deferential subservience, and came from the still-empty doorway. Awen twitched and glanced at it, Breguswid stiffening and looking between her and the bedroom. There was a pause.

"Yes?" Awen asked.

"Is it okay if I come in?" the voice asked. As far as Awen could remember, it sounded like Saberct. "I'll stay across the room from you. I want to see Mother."

"Just you," Awen warned. "And don't move too quickly. I'm afraid I'm quite jumpy."

"I understand." He came back into the room, movements steady, and sat in a chair next to Breguswid, putting a hand on her shoulder. She didn't even look at him, sitting with her upright hauteur again.

"So what are you planning?" Awen asked. Breguswid smiled.

"Ah," she said, interlocking her fingers and leaning her chin on them. "Well, now, that's a good story..."

"As if she didn't know," a voice spat, and Awen twitched again, glancing at the bedroom doorway. The argumentative man, Hengist, was standing there, arms crossed belligerently across his broad chest. It didn't help that he was a well-muscled man and tall with it; even small movements from him would have made her jumpy, but in an agressive state her hind-brain was jumping up and down, screaming for her to listen. Awen sighed.

"Look," she said, her voice coming out even sharper than she'd intended. "I have not had a good week. In - gods, two, maybe three days' time, maybe less by now, I'm not even sure - the most important date in my social calendar is rolling around, so I'm what you might call stressed. I don't remember the last time I properly ate or slept, and after all of this is over, I need to hunt down someone I was, until two days ago, extremely close to. These factors are not aiding my mental well-being, as you might expect. On top of that, I live on my instincts, which right now have spotted that you bear an uncanny resemblance to what I recognise as the ultimate threat to my world, and now you are waltzing in here with your hackles raised and doing nothing to help me not murder you where you stand, which both legally and physically I could easily do right now." She paused, flexing her fingers at her sides. "I am, however, trying very hard not to. You might like to increase your chances."

"You're not exactly displaying non-threatening behaviour to me," Hengist said, eyes narrowed.

"I am at no risk from you," Awen shot back levelly. "And I'm sitting down. That's more than you should possibly expect from a Rider, Saxon."

"Actually," Saberct's deferential voice cut in, "you're not. Sorry," he added.

Awen glanced down. She was indeed on her feet again.

"Ah," she said, blinking. "So I'm not. And I didn't even notice. There's a clue, there."

"Sit down or get out, Hengist," Breguswid said irritably, but Hengist shook his head, his mane of blond hair flying.

"This is a trick," he snarled. "For gods' sakes, Breguswid! A Rider, coming here alone? Who knew enough to find us, but doesn't know anything about us? We saw that Rider with your brother! They know what's happening!"

Time seemed to freeze around the sentence.

"What?" Her underlying emotion must have leached in, because all three of them looked at her suddenly apprehensively, even Hengist. "What Rider? When?"

"About a year ago," Breguswid said carefully. "In the forest between our kingdom and the border. He came a few times, in secret. That any of us saw, anyway. A month or two back I found a few more refugees who'd just arrived, looking for us. It seems that after we left he started being received more openly in the main hall, although not often. Only at night, too."

She shouldn't have been surprised. She really shouldn't have been surprised. She just... hadn't expected the betrayal to be so deep that Owain had been personally to Saxonia, to personally speak with a Saxon king.

"Was he blond?" Awen asked, her voice eerily calm. "Blue and gold beads, strange fringe, uniform a lot like mine?"

"That sounds like him," Saberct offered. "His collar looked a lot like yours, but... less ornate."

"Yes," Awen said, more or less to herself. "Okay. Did your brother, either personally or through an emissary, ever meet with anyone else from Cymru?"

"Several times," Breguswid nodded. "He went himself while my husband was alive - thanks again - and then messengers after that, usually. He said it was to meet with a Sovereign. Saba saw him once."

"He looked - not completely Cymric," Saberct said carefully. "I couldn't work out who it was for a while. Cymric clothes, but his face was almost Saxon. Thinner than a Saxon's. More pointed."

"That's Lord Flyn," Awen said quietly.

"And this is his Alpha Wingleader," Hengist growled, voice low. "She's making you both say it, but she knows this, all of this. She's playing a game."

"Blood ties," Awen murmured, ignoring him, and winced. "Oh, dear. You're Old Family. He's related to you."

"That's what I suspected," Breguswid nodded. "I doubt my brother would have bothered otherwise."

"Do you know what their bargain was?" Awen asked thoughtfully. Hengist snorted. Breguswid shook her head.

"No - shut up, Hengist - although something that gave them both power would be a safe bet, I imagine," Breguswid said. "He's ambitious, my brother. I do know that he's already been taking advantage of the in-fighting at the moment and seized three kingdoms north of ours. Almost the whole border is his, now. And from what I hear -"

"He's redirected the troops north," Awen said, thinking of Madog and the late border warnings. "Which coincides. What in-fighting?"

Breguswid smiled, in humourless, grim satisfaction.

"Part of my story, actually," she said. "I'm not the only Saxon to grow weary of our 'changeless perfection' and push for change." The sarcasm had teeth. "Part of my travelling to find other refugees is for news; if you can find land-traders through Saxonia these days, they can tell some of it too. But people have had enough, Rider. I told you, we've no real patriotism. Even away from the border, kingdoms still pointlessly fight each other, ridiculous power struggles that bring no benefit at all."

She rubbed her eyes wearily, and Awen felt a pang of empathic tiredness.

"These days, the world is smaller," Breguswid went on. "These days, cultures fuse, and people see what clearly works and what doesn't. The Phoenicians rule the world on an empire grown on the sea, and they believe that men and women are equal. If you ever chose to, and Riders were dispatched to the four corners of the world to conquer every civilisation you found, you would rule within a week, and no one would ever stop you. You believe that change is strength, something to accept, to embrace. The Graecian Empires have invented such technologies as to be interchangeable with magic, and they believe in learning, in the aquisition of wisdom. Saxons? What do we offer?"

"Off-beat humour," Saberct interjected solemnly, and Awen laughed out loud in spite of herself. He smiled quietly.

"My point," Breguswid said, giving her son a dry look, "is that even Saxons have eyes. Sooner or later we'll all question ourselves, as I already have. And I'm not alone. It's causing... tensions."

A small silence spread and Awen sat back down slowly, thinking about it.

Flyn wanted Cymru. Flyn wanted all of Cymru, himself as Monarch or whatever he was planning on calling it, which he was aiming to get at this Archwiliad by using Marged as a scape-goat. Flyn was also using Breguswid's brother for this, to help put pressure on Lord Iestyn up in Wrecsam to vote for him. But that didn't entirely make sense. Flyn didn't need to use Breguswid's brother at all; yet he had to be offering something in return, something he would give once he was Monarch. So why bother? Why run up that debt?

Unless...

Unless it was something that would suit them both. Such as... ruling Saxonia? Breguswid's brother had already started, pushing to unite the Saxon kingdoms under himself; Flyn as Monarch could lend Riders to his cause, probably on the grounds that once Saxonia was under one ruler, a ruler he had an agreement with, there would be no more attacks on Cymru. That way he could convince the Union that using Riders in such a way was for the good of Cymru. Which almost made a twisted sort of sense. Was that why Owain was involved? It had to be, really. Riders didn't turn traitor.

Except... Awen knew Flyn. He had a god complex, a sense of grandiose entitlement that even actual gods probably stopped short at, including those psychotic Greek ones. There was no way short of rewriting his entire personality that he'd be content to rule just one country when he could so easily take another, especially Saxonia; he believed in his parentage giving him the right to rule both. And he craved power. Once the country was united he'd simply remove Breguswid's brother and install himself as Monarch of both. And then where would he stop? Would he start on Alba? Covertly instigate an attack by them, so he could once again conquer a country "in Cymru's best interests"? What about Erinn? What about Gaul? The Norselands? Celtiberia? Germania?

If you ever chose to, and Riders were dispatched to the four corners of the world to conquer every civilisation you found, you would rule within a week, and no one would ever stop you.

"Oh, gods," Awen muttered. "Your brother has no idea what he's unleashing."

"Indeed?" Breguswid asked. "Then I'll laugh myself to sleep tonight."

"I wish I could." Awen swallowed. "I'll probably be crying. Your brother, what's his name?"

There was a very slight pause, the type that suggested some cultural toes were being trodden on.

"We don't speak his name," Hengist snarled, and Breguswid sighed, looking wretched.

"It's... a custom," she said, throwing Hengist a warning look. "When we break ties to family it's a big thing. We fully disown them. Names are part of it."

"Then I'm honoured to be a small part of your Cymric re-education when you tell me," Awen said pointedly. Hengist's face twisted, his fists clenching, but Saberct spoke before the larger man had a chance to do much more.

"Coenred," he said, Breguswid placing a hand on his wrist and squeezing in the first maternal gesture Awen had seen her make all night. "His name is Coenred."

"This is ridiculous," Hengist snapped abruptly, standing up so suddenly that Awen had again mirrored him before even realising it. Breguswid rolled her eyes frustratedly and sat back, apparently giving up on him. "We're Saxon, not stupid!"

"That's actually become quite an ironic statement when you say it," Saberct murmured.

"You must know all of this!" Hengist snarled, planting his knuckles on the table and leaning forward. "You're the Alpha Wingleader! You can't not know this! What's your game? Why are you playing with us?"

The battle-rage was back; suddenly the large hunched figure behind the table was becoming the focus of the entire world, her senses slamming into overtime and shifting her weight subtly to the balls of her feet. To the side, Breguswid very slowly edged herself away from Hengist, her movements as smooth and deliberate as she could make them, Saberct following.

"Sit down," Awen said, her voice low and even. "I'll not tell you again."

"Just tell us what you want!" he hissed, leaning closer. "Is this fun for you? Is that it? Just make your move, Rider! You know what -"

She didn't find out what she apparently knew, though, because that was the moment Hengist chose to stab a finger in her direction with a level of wisdom Awen usually associated with frogs, and before the situation fully registered her hand had closed around his fingers and twisted, the bones snapping inside before she yanked them towards her, gripping the back of his head as Hengist lurched forward with a bellow and slamming his forehead into the tabletop -

- and then the silence bloomed as Hengist slumped unconsciously to the floor, Saberct deftly catching his head on his foot before it hit the flagstones. Awen carefully let herself freeze in place. In the doorway of the sleeping quarters five extra faces had now appeared, three women, a man and a child watching in mute immobility; in the doorway opposite she recognised the angry man from the tavern, although, he seemed far less angry now and far more watchful, his eyes trained on her impassively. Breguswid snorted after a moment, and rubbed her eyes.

"Sorry," she said wearily. "He really is an idiot. His brain agrees with me, but his heart doesn't. Is he still alive?"

"Of course." Awen glanced at her, startled. "He'll only be out for an hour or so. And he'll have a headache."

"Thank you very much," Breguswid grinned. "And well done. Remarkable self-control, given that even I wanted to thump him. But I imagine you don't get to Alpha Wingleader with anything less."

"No," Awen said blandly. "Now, I'm trying not to look, hence my fixed staring at you - sorry about that - but how many people are now surrounding here? And, for the record, I'm counting the rather large gentleman in the doorway scanning me for weapons as five people."

"Sorry," the man broke in as Breguswid smiled. "I could hear Hengist shouting, but I see you've saved me the bother and knocked him out for me. Would it be easier if I stood with the others? Left this doorway clear?"

"Much." Awen backed up to the wall again and leaned against it, next to her chair. Her nerves were jangling far too much for her to sit down anymore, and suddenly she wanted the feeling of a solid wall against her back. "Go ahead. Keep a distance, though."

"Try to look about half the size, too," Saberct interjected solemnly as the man moved carefully into the living space that was far too small for them all. Awen snorted. In the bedroom doorway there was a shuffled moving of children and adults to make room. "In the least aggresive or accusative way possible though, Rider, I do agree that it's... strange... that you seem to not know this already."

"No it's not," Breguswid said, her eyes steady and strangely compassionate as they locked with Awen's. "She said earlier that she's going to be hunting down someone close to her. That's the Rider in our kingdom, yes? Whatever the plan is between your Sovereign and my brother, your Union has not approved it."

Mentally, Awen swore at herself. She was, she reflected, going to have to stop underestimating Saxons. This one, at any rate. She was clever.

"Something like that," Awen said neutrally. "And luckily for you, eh?"

"Yes." Breguswid grinned, and for the first time her haunted eyes were gleaming. "I thought you might say that."

***********

By the time Awen finally got back to the Wing quarters she was ready to collapse where she stood, exhaustion making her fingers fumble on the door handle. Inside, the fire in the grate had understandably gone out, but the curtains still hung open, the moonlight picking out the room surprisingly efficiently in silver. The gwyddbwyll board shone, the metal pieces still arranged halfway through the game Tanwen and Meurig had been playing before they'd left. On the back of a sofa Adara's travelling cloak lay in a rumpled heap where she'd carelessly thrown it down earlier, a dark, twisted shadow against the paler upholstery. Books were on most surfaces not designed for seating, neatly stacked on the dresser where Cei had tidied them, propped open on a chair arm beside Llio's usual seat, on the floor where Caradog had finished reading and just dropped it. The harp in the corner hummed silently to itself, the strings vibrating the memory of music into the room. Awen swallowed, her throat feeling suddenly thick, and wondered why.

Her own bedroom felt empty. That was weird. Objectively, Awen was quite aware that it basically was empty, since its furniture totalled a bed, a dresser, a wardrobe and a shrine in the alcove, and it contained the usual complete absense of personal touches found in Riders' rooms. Subjectively... she'd never cared. Ever. It was just somewhere to sleep and store her clothes, and a secret route out of the quarters and into the rest of the Residence. The lolfa and the bathrooms were the parts that were home. But for some reason, tonight, the room was oppresively, distressingly empty, a mocking void taunting her for something she couldn't understand.

Methodically, Awen annointed the shrine. It made her feel marginally better; enough to clime into bed at any rate, but the softly comforting feeling faded almost as soon as she had, replaced with the emptiness. The echoes of an absent Wing filtered into the room. It was stupid, Awen told herself. They basically made no audible noise at this time of night normally anyway. There should have been no difference.

And her room was next to Owain's - in the back of her mind Awen could feel the lurking, squatting presense of the mirror, grinning its blank seduction into an empty wardrobe. How often had he looked in it? Everytime he'd used the wardrobe? Or had there been a routine, once a week?

But there was no point in speculating. Owain could have been looking into that mirror every bloody day and Awen wouldn't have known. He'd been negotiating with Saxons and she hadn't known, for gods' sakes. He could have had a small army of Saxon warriors in his sock drawer for all the use she'd been. He'd betrayed them. All of them. Everyone.

And still all she could ask herself was why.

Hesitantly, and not really understanding why, she grabbed her quilt, padded back to the lolfa and huddled up on the sofa.