Cymru - Chapter 53

Having spent ages trying to write the next part of this story and it just not happening, I on a whim yesterday thought I should put the information I was shoehorning in into a different chapter for Madog to react to. Suddenly, I managed to write a chapter. Funny how these things work. It's fairly short, but gods damn it I just wanted it up so I could write the next bit now, so here it is. Enjoy, losers.



MADOG

Dylan was practically clawing at the Council Chamber door like an abandoned puppy by the time Madog quietly eased himself out through them, trying not to disturb the incredibly important conversation within. It was so embarrassing, Madog reflected. The ante-chamber was fairly large, and currently lined with unnerved-looking Riders of all levels, talking quietly to each other through the shock and trying to work out which way was up; but Dylan was totally irreverent. As the door clicked softly shut again he leapt forward, fuelled by his frustrated desire for knowledge, and made a spirited attempt to seize Madog by the lapels, a move only thwarted by his not wearing any. It meant he ended up gripping Madog's shoulders and pinning him to the door instead.

"For the love of gods, what is happening?" he all but screamed. Madog blinked. "Eifion's taken her! Where! Why! What's going on?!"

"I..." Madog stared at him for a moment, the wildly untameable hair, the frantically roving eyes, the still-haunting scarring, and sighed. He pulled Dylan into a hug, ignoring the tension. "Indulge me for a moment."

Dylan's response was an interesting half-mewl, half-hiss of frustration, but he did as he was told, his forehead dropping petulantly to Madog's shoulder before his entire body went still. Madog stared blankly across the ante-chamber, not seeing the Riders as they all watched him hopefully for news. Awen's speech had shaken him to the core. He'd spent the last few days already thinking she was beyond amazing at this job; now he knew she was. And... she'd been right. And he'd known that. And he could never have done that.

"What's happening?" Dylan pleaded. He'd probably never been this out of the loop before, Madog thought. "What did she say? What did they say? What are they saying now?"

"She said they'd failed Cymru," Madog said, astonished.

"What?"

"She said she'd saved it from them because they were about to turn us into our worst nightmare," Madog carried on, dazedly. The chamber had gone silent, everyone listening, and he realised the door was open and his words were carrying into the hall beyond, and the ears of the crowds out there. Dylan had frozen in his arms. "She said they'd forgotten whose side they were on. And that they were letting Flyn stay because it was easier and they didn't want to fight. And that they'd done so in front of the Audience envoys, who were going to go home and tell the world that the Union was weak and ineffective, so they'd know they could now try attacking Cymru. And that... that they'd damaged Cymru more than the Saxons ever could, and that the Council had become as bad as Saxons."

"Good gods," someone said faintly. Dylan very nearly wrestled himself free and stood back a step, staring at Madog. It was such unexpected behaviour that Madog nearly just stared back at him blankly, but he caught himself in time. Everyone was shocked. Everyone was expecting someone in authority to take charge and tell them what to do; but he knew for a fact that every Coucillor was currently sitting in the room behind him asking themselves where they went wrong and each other what to do next. Which meant the Alpha Wingleader collar was the only authority anyone was going to see for a bit. He couldn't afford to fall apart.

With an effort, Madog pulled himself back together, and watched with immense pride as Dylan visibly did the same, picking up his cue.

"That's the worst report ever, boy," Dylan sniffed. "But fine. What did they say?"

"Well, Gwyn made the classic error of telling her she didn't understand the threat the Saxons represent," Madog said wryly, and grinned as Dylan burst out laughing. Around them, the silent, nervy Riders started to calm down a bit, more fascinated than horrified. "To which Awen's response was to outline his easy career in which he never fought a day in his life. No one knew where to look."

"I'll bet," Dylan grinned evilly. "So? What else?"

"Well, once she'd finished they all basically agreed with her," Madog recounted, running a hand through his beard distractedly. "Except - funny story - you know that meeting you, Awen and Aerona had with Rhydian?"

He did, it seemed. Dylan's eyes roved the wall and doors behind Madog quickly.

"Thought so," he said solemnly. "That's why Eifion?"

"Yes," Madog said, shaking his head. "For five minutes."

"Say again?" Dylan's eyes whipped onto him, limiting their range to a brisk search of Madog's face only.

"Eifion gets five minutes with her," Madog said, savouring the sentence and all that it meant. "And then Lord Gwilym gets three hours, because Rhydian reckons he's the victim. While in the meantime... the Council try to work out what to do next."

"Ha!" Dylan shoved the fingers of both hands into the mass of curls on his head, looking on average up at the ceiling. "Right. Okay. What are they thinking? What's the debate so far?"

"Non-existant," Madog said grimly, glancing at the door. "They're just analysing her arguments at the moment. I think they're trying to get a grasp of how much damage control is needed."

"Yes," Dylan said, staring upwards. He seemed to be thinking fast. "Ha. Yes. Witnesses, that's the trouble. What they do next has to take that into account, so everyone gets the right impression. That's lame paint. She can't be Alpha Wingleader now."

"Can't she?" Madog asked, bewildered. "I think she's just proved she should never be removed from station ever again."

"Oh, Madog," Dylan said, patronisingly. "One day when you're older, you'll understand. Alpha Wingleaders are supposed to just seem noble and strong and as thick as planks, like you."

"Dylan," Madog said wearily. "I am certainly not above smacking you into a wall right now, intense situation or no."

"When are you?" Dylan asked morosely. "You abuse me so. I'm right, though, you dystopia. You aren't really meant to have a personality in your Sovereign's eyes, remember? You're just supposed to be a direct line to Union opinion. Now everyone knows Awen thinks like an individual and reads diaries and you're not allowed to do that because everyone says so. It's a damaged rep. No good for Alpha Wingleader."

"Damn." He hated it when Dylan was right. It encouraged him. Madog sighed, and rubbed his eyes. "Academic, though, I take it."

"If she's not purified," Dylan nodded, turning and scanning the silent crowds of Riders behind them for no reason Madog could fathom. "Yeah, she's dead in a few days. Limits the options, though, because whatever they do with her needs to be public and symbolic."

The world was watching, Councillors. And it would have to watch the consequences. Madog winced.

"What do you think, then?" he asked. "Hasten the execution?"

The ambient temperature dropped a few degrees.

"Maybe," Dylan said indifferently, waving a hand as though the whole thing was simply an academic exercise to him. Madog wasn't fooled. "Probs. Or make a big point of demoting her to somewhere quiet and out of the way of politics, somewhere in the Union itself. A Guard or something, like. It's a problem, though."

So were the Riders listening. He could feel the emotions, riding high on the words of their conversation, and they were Not Happy. Awen had forged a support structure out of every Rider in the country, it seemed, but it wasn't helping right now.

"You know, all you do is tell me problems these days," Madog said disapprovingly, putting his hands on his hips. "I thought getting a girlfriend would cheer you up."

"Oh, because I'm the realist," Dylan said, putting on his best put-upon, long-suffering tone. "Don't worry, Madog. You're a Wingleader, you're meant to be as thick as a pla-"

Smacking Dylan upside the head was always so satisfying, but it was even better than normal by dint of being Necessary For Public Morale. Madog grinned as Dylan yelped and leapt back, the tension in the room abruptly winding down a notch or two at their informality.

"I told you," he said sternly. "And I don't mind finding a runway to push you off. Now: what's the new problem you've decided on?"

"Madog!" Dylan rolled his eyes, rubbing the side of his head just out of arm's reach. "It's not my problem, plank boy! Gods, I hate you -"

"Dylan," Madog said evenly, his eyes on the ceiling, and Dylan huffed.

"Fine," he said, rolling his eyes. "Awen was right. That's the problem. Even if they demote her to show that they are Anti Alpha Wingleader Deviance, the reputation of the Union is still broken because they were willing to let Flyn go in the first place, like losers. Okay? Are we done? Can I go now?"

"No," Madog said automatically, but his heart wasn't in it. Dylan, damn his eyes, was right again. Awen couldn't stay as Alpha Wingleader now; they'd have to demote her. But if they did, it basically cemented the image of the Union being an intransigent corporation of idle bureaucrats who cared more about their own status than anything else...

"You're a loser, too," Dylan declared off-handedly. "I'm hungry, Adara ate all of my snacks. Can we go?"

"Certainly not," Madog said archly. "We're staying to learn the fate of our friend, you social reject."

And then his brain caught up and smugly underlined the word 'friend' a few times for him, and Madog felt old suddenly. She was a friend, he realised wearily. He'd never had one before. There were always other tags to apply, a hierarchical stage to observe, or just a lack of the correct shared affinity. But he liked Awen. She was a friend.

"I want everyone's assurances they heard that," Dylan was saying, looking around at the nervously-smiling Riders assembled in the room and watching them. "You all heard him call me a social reject, yes? Everyone heard that verbal abuse?"

"Of course they did," Madog said. "And they agreed. Now-"

"Move!"

The snarled fury of the voice echoed in from the corrider, sliding in through Madog's ears and freezing his blood, making his fingers clench involuntarily by his sides. All eyes snapped to the door into the hallway where the movement of Riders frantically getting out of the way arrived in a wave, and Dylan spun around and gripped Madog's arm, pulling him to one side of the door -

"Follow him in!" Dylan hissed as the angrily striding footsteps approached. "It's okay; go behind him, he won't notice you."

"In that mood?" Madog said, his voice low. "You think I'm risking that?"

"Then go now!" Dylan said. "Quick! Be in there already! We need to know what's happened!"

Bloody Dylan, Madog thought. Responding to him when he suggested plans with that urgency was a conditioned response, and it over-rode his fear of Eifion long enough that Madog found himself darting back to the door and slipping inside the Council Chamber just before Eifion himself arrived in the ante-chamber. Someone was talking, Madog noted over his hammering heart. It was a Low Councillor, whatever she was saying punctuated with an expressive arm gesture every three words, but he didn't listen. A few people looked his way as he grabbed the arm of the Guard Rider standing beside the door and pulled her quickly to one side, ignoring her startled, questioning look -

The door slammed open with a reverberating crash, slamming through the space the Guard had been standing and into the wall behind it, and Eifion strode in like the wrath of the gods, his rage lending him a youth and speed that didn't belong in his aged frame. He bore down on the dais holding the High Council like a hurricane, silencing the rest of the room.

"Thanks," the Guard Rider whispered, beside Madog, squeezing his arm, and then crept away to close the door again. He barely heard her, his eyes on Eifion. You watched Eifion when he was merely bored. Now he was incandescent.

"Eifion," Rhydian said carefully, leaning forward. "Is there - ?"

"He started counting," Eifion snarled, his eyes almost bulging, "while we were still here!"

The silence oozed.

"Ah," Rhydian said. No one else even breathed. "So -"

"So I hadn't started!" Eifion roared, flecks of saliva flying from his mouth, visible in the sunlight. "And yet he stopped me! And will you allow this?"

Dangerous, Madog thought dizzily. Rhydian was only tacitly in charge of the Council, not its actual head; challenging that now...

"No," Rhydian said calmly. "We'll speak with Lord Gwilym."

"Good," Eifion hissed, triumphantly, taking a step back toward the door. "I won't -"

"But there's a problem there, bach," Gwenllian said, leaning forward suddenly, and Madog found that, somehow, his chest could get tighter. "When you say you hadn't started, do you mean that -"

"One strike," Eifion said coldly, his pale eyes trained on her venomously and warningly. Gwenllian nodded.

"That's a start, see?" she said. "The sentence was passed that Lord Gwilym would time out five minutes. By the time you get back down there that'll be up, now."

The silence was toxic, and so thick it could have strangled a horse. Madog felt light-headed, and realised he hadn't breathed in a while. In his mind Gwenllian was suddenly lit up and surrounded by happy bluetits and blackbirds while flowers grew at her feet. Who went against Eifion? Good gods! She must have been semi-divine herself, Madog considered dizzily. She was just smiling serenely now, taking the full force of Eifion's lancing glare as he focused all of his hatred onto her, and -

Eifion drew himself up, the rage apparently converting into the cold of winter, and he stared at the Council for a long moment.

"I see," he said at last, and Madog tried not to shake at the sound. Eifion was terrifying beyond all reason, he felt. How Gwenllian wasn't fleeing the room was anyone's guess. "Then I suppose I shall have to be content with a caution for Lord Gwilym. Am I needed here?"

"You'd be invaluable," Rhydian said neutrally, lifting a page of notes and scanning it briefly. "We've a lot to discuss now, we could use a full High Council."

"Very well." Eifion walked back to the dais, his walk suddenly sedate and composed, but Madog could see the cold fury in every movement. Quickly, he darted back to the door, and before Eifion had retaken his seat to face the Chamber Madog slipped outside again, the relief as the door clicked closed behind him almost overpowering -

Dylan was standing two inches away from his face, watching him brightly.

"Well?" he asked chirpily. "Why anger happen?"

"I loathe you," Madog declared, and pushed Dylan away. "He only got to hit her once. Lord Gwilym counted from the point Rhydian told him to, apparently. For which he'll get a slap on the wrists, but that's it."

Dylan burst out laughing, and a low mutter rippled out across the room and into the corridor beyond.

"Owned!" Dylan crowed. "Oh, he's good, this one! And he said he couldn't do politics?"

"Repeatedly," Madog grinned. "He's a natural, I think. I give him ten years until everyone just votes him into being Monarch or whatever it was Flyn wanted anyway."

"Yeah," Dylan said contentedly, and turned to lean against the wall beside Madog, his pose the extremely relaxed state of a man who hadn't just been in a room with a wrathful Eifion. "So you know your Phoenician?"

"Would you stop calling him that?" Madog asked wearily, moving off the door and leaning back too. The focus had moved off them by now, he noted; the Riders in the room and beyond were all discussing Awen's rescue from Eifion's clutches in astonished mutterings, leaving Madog and Dylan to just stand around and Be Authoritative. "He has a name, you ingrate. What about him?"

"I found out what he wanted from his Audience," Dylan grinned, and Madog couldn't help but smile fondly. "You know sugar?"

"I'm aware of its existence," Madog shrugged.

"Well!" Dylan said emphatically. "He said he wanted to talk about beet sugar specifically to the Union, which I thought was odd because it's a boring conversation topic and they already trade small amounts of sugar here so what could he want -"

"I refuse to believe your reports to Rhydian are this bad," Madog interrupted. Dylan snorted.

"Only marginally clearer," he said, in a rare moment of complete honesty. "Now listen, young man. Sugar is a very expensive crop, and so the best stuff comes with a guarentee that it won't go rotting within a fortnight, right?"

"I believe you."

"Good, you should, I'm excellent. Now, Hannibal, turns out, owns a very successful company."

Madog thought of the silk ropes.

"He's very rich," he nodded thoughtfully.

"Yeah," Dylan grinned. "Except you're wrong. He's not very rich. He's very rich. Know why?"

"No?" Madog offered.

"Trading standards!" Dylan said gleefully. "He started with his sister, and they decided that the surest way to business success was to be different from the rest of the market, right? So people would remember them. So firstly: no slaves."

From the very beginning. Madog grinned.

"He did tell me he didn't approve of slave trading," he said reminiscently.

"He doesn't," Dylan confirmed. "His sister wrote a paper on the merits of free labour for a surrounding economy, apparently. And it worked out for them; trading in slaves is labour- and resource-intensive because, you know, feeding and that, so running commodity ships is faster and easier. And more lucrative, if you sell right. He clever man."

"He is," Madog said thoughtfully. "Okay. So what -?"

"Well," Dylan said, in the tone of a serial gossip. "There's the thing! That's only part of the mandate. No slaves, and high quality. They run a lot of food ships, and that's the back bone of the business because they're so good at it. They can put high guarentees on their food not rotting immediately. Do you know what a Phoenician trading city is?"

"Heard of them," Madog shrugged. "But - well, aren't they cities built in other countries? Run by Phoenicians, used as trading ports, built on foreign soil?"

"Yeah, largely," Dylan nodded, scanning the carpet. "They're what the Phoenician Empire is made of. They only have, like, three cities of their own. Their empire is commercial, see. Anyway; the idea is, they own the city and run it accordingly as a massive trading port. They have deals and things with the farmers and landowners and such that live around the city, so each one produces a few specific commodities that the Phoenicians will own and can then sell on, but then that's it. Phoenician city, foreign country. Which is strange to you and me, Madog, but it just goes to show it would be a funny old world if we were all alike."

"Stop feigning wisdom and finish the damn story," Madog told him. Dylan Saluted irreverently.

"Phoenicians have been asking to build a trading city in Cymru for centuries," he said. "We said no because we have no space and anyway, that was the Wars. We've been very territorial for a long time, because we're all very dominant and need castrating to calm us down. But Hannibal uses trading cities a lot because that's how he operates his produce business, see? See? He only transports any given foodstuff, like, two hundred miles or whatever. Less time at sea equals less time to rot. People pay him more money for the quality. Clever, see? Ahhh."

"Yes," Madog said cautiously. "But I'm positive you haven't yet explained -"

"No, I haven't, shut up," Dylan said. "He wants to sell sugar here, right? Sugar beet would grow in our soils. So, he wants a trading city here to do this."

"What?" Madog stared at him. "Surely he knows we'd never agree?"

"Of course he does," Dylan said, rolling his eyes. "So he hasn't asked for one. He's adapted it. Because, you see, what he cares about here is the sugar, not the city all to himself. So, he wants a trading scheme with a City - or town, as long as it has a port he's not picky - whereby he will give them his sugar beet and and plans for the processing to get the sugar and his brightest smile and maybe a quick session in bed with him since he's so highly recommended by you, and then they will sell it exclusively to him, for which he will never pay below minimum market price. And it's sugar, it's a good price. And then he sells it on. See?"

"Wait, so..." Madog stopped, thinking. "So he'd entirely control the Cymric sugar trade? We'd produce it, but couldn't sell it amongst ourselves without him?"

"Exactly!" Dylan said brightly. "Which literally doesn't matter, because it's sugar! It's a luxury additive that only Courts could afford anyway! Also, he'll be the one selling the excess on to Erinn or wherever. Good earner for him, excellent earner for the unemployed farmers and distillers of Port Talbot and Pen-y-Bont."

"Good gods." Madog thought about it. "That's... pretty good, actually. Will the Council say yes?"

"No," Dylan said. "Because they already have! Ha! Yeah, it's going ahead."

"I think I might throttle you," Madog told him conversationally, and received an unabashed grin. "Or maybe I'll just trade you in. The Councillors in there do not know which way is up at the moment. I'm sure they'd let me."

"Oh Madog," Dylan intoned. "But who would you cry to then?"

"Anyone else," Madog declared; but his eye was drawn, hawk-like, to the movement at the entrance to the corridor, and as he watched the petite figure of a Rider shouldered it's way surprisingly efficiently into the room -

"Aerona!" Dylan said brightly, standing up from the wall and reaching out to her. "Awesome! What's happened?"

"Massive news!" she exclaimed, bounding across and into his arms. She was out of breath, Madog noted, her eyes wide and filled with an irrepressible urgency. A silence in the assembled Riders had followed her in, and they all watched intently at her words. "Seriously! It's Awen -"

"Is she alright?" Madog found himself asking sharply, and Aerona barked an incredulous laugh, short and shocked.

"She's been purified!" she said, and the entire world crystallised around them all, transfixed on the impossibility of what Aerona had just said. "He did it! She's fine!"

The whispering began, spreading backwards from the room, and this time Eifion himself probably couldn't have stopped it.

"But... how?" Madog found himself asking blankly. "That's not... that's never happened before."

"I know!" Aerona said, and laughed, the sound of sheer relief. "And it was intensely traumatic, it really was. But it's done! She's safe again!"

"My gods." Madog stared at her. "That's incredible."

"Yeah," Aerona giggled. "The Wing are all there, anyway - oh, except Adara, who has gone to see Owain. We might need to hastily get approval for her, actually. But she's back to normal again now! Or, well, in one sense."

"Madog," Dylan said suddenly, his voice urgent, and Madog glanced at him. He was scanning the far wall, his scarred eyes lightning-quick as he thought, his grip on Aerona tight. "You have to go in there, right now, and tell them."

"Really?" Madog said, eyeing the door in trepidation. "With Eifion in that mood?"

"I know," Dylan said, and actually looked at him. "But you have to go and tell them! I think there's another option we haven't considered. But you have to tell them before they decide anything, quickly! Important, boy! Go!"

"Some days," Madog told Aerona levelly, "I can't quite work out which of us is in charge after all."

He put his hand on the door handle as she giggled and swallowed his nerves down.

"I hate you, Dylan," he muttered, and went in.

"... quite the issue," Rhydian was saying, his head in one hand. "It's the publicity of it, Gwen. It has to happen in front of everyone who was at that trial, back in the Great Hall, with all due ceremony and officiality, because it's going to be all about the message."

"Yes," Gwenllian said calmly. "I just think it has to be the right message in that case."

Gods, Eifion was looking at him... Madog fixed his eyes on Rhydian instead and strode purposefully towards the dais. It was like magic; suddenly every eye was being drawn to him, fixing on him as he went. He hadn't quite reached the middle of the room when Rhydian finally looked up at him.

"Leader," he said calmly. "Do you have something to add?"

"Rhydian," Gwenllian muttered. "It's not Open Day on Alpha Wingleaders giving us their opinions, bach."

"Gwen," Rhydian said wearily, and Madog found he was suddenly seeing a lot of himself and Dylan there. "Leader?"

"I have news, Councillors," Madog said, halting where he was. The middle of the room was fine! No need to get too close to Eifion. "Awen has just been purified."

He might as well have dragged in a foreign dignitary, stripped them naked and made them dance. Half the room suddenly exploded into speech, more than loud enough to hide the abrupt silence of the other half, who stared at him in astonishment. Rhydian sat bolt upright up on the dais, the weariness falling from him like a cloak, while a good three or four of the Alpha Wingleaders threaded their way swiftly past the seated Councillors and out of the room. Madog drew in a deep breath and waited, silently. Any second now...

"Councillors," Rhydian said clearly over the noise, and it died away. He looked down at Madog, suddenly all authority. "Thank you. Leader: are you sure?"

"I was told by someone who was," Madog nodded. "And I trust her to have brought the right news -"

"And who was it?" Eifion asked sharply. Madog ignored the stab of adrenaline.

"Aerona Celynnen," he said, and a quiet ripple of approving muttering quickly spread through the room. Madog wasn't surprised. She was an Intelligencer, after all. For all he knew she played gwyddbwyll with them all on a daily basis and won.

"Very well." Rhydian sat back in his chair, clearly thinking. Mererid actually smiled at Madog.

"Thank you, Leader," she told him. "Your information is appreciated."

"We owe you a pint!" Gwenllian said brightly. "Pub later? Although you have now complicated things, you bastard."

"I both accept and apologise, Councillor," Madog said, Saluting. "Next time I'll send Dylan if it helps. You can throw things at him."

"Can and will," Gwenllian grinned. "That'll make up for not swimming. So, children? Her death is no longer inevitable. In the short term, obviously."

"No," Rhydian said clearly, and looked at her. "The right message, hmm?"

"Sound," Gwenllian grinned. "I was hoping you'd say that."