Cymru - Chapter 42

GWILYM

"Gwilym, boy! Visitor! You should get up!"

The bone-shaking boom of Mental Uncle Dara's voice exploded inside Gwilym's eardrums, speeding his heart up to around eight times its until-oh-so-recently resting rate and dragging his eyes open so quickly one eyeball narrowly missed being pressed into the pillowcase. In fairness, though, it missed it because his body had sat bolt upright in the bed without any impulse from his conscious mind. His conscious mind was too busy trying to work out where the polecats had gone and why his bedroom seemed to be under siege.

Instantly, he thought of Awen's Mysterious Letter, tucked into his pocket.

"Ha ha! You're awake!" Mental Uncle Dara marched in cheerfully, grabbing the quilt in two giant fists and hauling it off the bed and, horrifically, Gwilym. The polecats fled his mind. There was a very real risk of being thrown out of windows by Mental Uncle Dara.

"What?" Gwilym managed. His heart was slamming in his throat. "What's -?"

"You have a visitor!" Mental Uncle Dara boomed. "As well as me! Well, your rooms are lovely, so they are! Benefits of being a Sovereign, eh?"

"What time is it?" Gwilym shivered, rolling wearily to the edge of the bed and attempting to rub his eyes while watching Mental Uncle Dara.

"Time?" Mental Uncle Dara paused, the quilt held up to his chest, eyes wide. "I haven't looked, lad. Is it important?"

Gwilym sighed, and tried not to cry. Yes. Yes, this was exactly what his childhood had been like and, come to think of it, what had driven him onto a Phoenician ship. The gods only knew what time it was. And that was after being up for a long time the night before drinking -

"Have you slept yet?" Gwilym asked abruptly, looking up at Mental Uncle Dara.

"No, no not yet," Mental Uncle Dara said, wearing the quilt as a hood. "Drinking with that Marged lass, she's great fun, that one! Is it important?"

"Yes," Gwilym said decisively, standing up and looking around blearily for a shirt. It was far too early to be wandering topless around the place. "Go to bed, Uncle. You need sleep now."

"Heavens!" Mental Uncle Dara said cheerfully. "So I do, lad. Night!"

He ambled over to Gwilym's bed, climbed on and curled up like a hedgehog in the centre under his quilt-cloak. Gwilym watched him for a moment to make sure he wasn't about to go on a rampage, breathed a sigh of relief when a soft snore started emanating from the bequilted huddle of king and bedding and left as quietly as he could, pulling on a shirt.

He padded into the living room and learned two things. The clock told him it was half past six. Councillor Rhydian told him he was the visitor.

"I'm the visitor!" Rhydian grinned, looking unfairly well-groomed for half six in the morning. "And I come bearing a gift. I hold here the censored-for-reasons-of-national-security version of the official Union file for Leader Awen Masarnen, Casnewydd Alpha Wing. You'll love it."

"Excellent," Gwilym said placidly, taking the file. It was plain, completely unremarkable-looking given its contents. In his pocket the Mysterious Letter from Awen felt heavy. "I'm now thoroughly excited. Don't tell me how it ends."

"Well, you'll find out soon enough," Rhydian said, swinging himself easily into a chair. "Because, you see, even censored that file is so classified I'm barely allowed to read it, and you'd be truly astonished at what I'm allowed to read if I so wish. So I'm going to sit here and wait for you to finish, and then take it straight back off you."

"Good idea," Gwilym declared darkly, dropping onto a sofa and making himself comfortable. "My Mental Uncle Dara is here. I honestly wouldn't trust him not to take it off me and make it into a hat."

"Awen's not allowed to read it, by the by," Rhydian added, putting his feet up on the small table between them. "You can't tell her what's specifically in her file. Anyway! Enjoy."

It was a strange thing, to be holding photogenically exciting forbidden knowledge. Gwilym opened the file and looked at the first page. It seemed to be a list of quick-reference facts.

"She's thirty-three?" he asked in mild surprise, looking at the birth date. Rhydian linked his fingers behind his head and leaned back.

"Thirty-four tomorrow," he smiled, closing his eyes. "Not that she knows it."

"Is that why Riders are so bad at counting years?" Gwilym asked curiously. "You don't know your birthdays, so you've got nothing to mark them by?"

"Gwales Ritual," Rhydian shrugged. "When you're aging more slowly you don't notice the years anyway."

And Awen had undergone it twice, according to this, which explained why she looked twenty-six. Gwilym read on.

"She took command at eight?" he asked, astonished. "She said it's ten, usually."

"Leadership Trials were advanced for their Wing," Rhydian said lazily. "A few dominant personalities, they needed a Leader earlier. It's all in there."

Eight to thirty-four. That was twenty-six years of responsibility and nearly all of her childhood. No wonder she had control issues. And...

"Eleven years old when you recruited her as an Intelligencer," Gwilym said neutrally. "I assumed she'd have been older."

"It's intensive training," Rhydian said, opening his eyes and looking briefly thoughtful. "We start them young. They have to learn complete mastery over themselves."

"In what sense?" Gwilym asked, carefully turning the page. Rhydian waved a hand.

"Well," he said. "Facial expression and demeanour are the big things. Whatever they hear, they have to show only the emotions that won't give them away. An impassive or blank face is a giveaway by itself. They need to be instantly on top of their reactions."

Oh, for gods' sakes. So in addition to carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, Awen spent most of her life acting. Was there any way at all in which this girl was normal?

He read on, and quickly found that there wasn't. Awen had been a popular child among her Wing members, naturally charismatic and an incredibly quick learner; at three she'd been attracting hopeful attention, and by six she'd been attracting mild concern that she didn't seem to have any personal interests until her musical gifts mercifully surfaced at seven. At eight she'd become Wingleader, and proven so good at it that in order to give a slightly bolshy Wing some stability she'd not been taken out of the role. At ten she'd begun the training for the wristblades; at eleven to be an Intelligencer; at thirteen she'd mastered eight languages and the extraordinary ability to lip-read; at fifteen she'd learned a further three to fluency; at sixteen she'd passed the training for the wristblades; and at seventeen she'd passed the exams into Active status with the highest marks possible in using a sword, knife, wristblade, bow, crossbow, axe and staff. They'd been added onto the roster of Casnewydd's Active Wings, initially stationed at Y Fenni but quickly moved on into Casnewydd proper within two years. At twenty-seven she'd become Alpha Wingleader, thus taking charge of every Rider in every Wing below her, every person in the streets of every town around her, and every plot her manipulative Sovereign contrived.

It was the most depressing thing Gwilym had ever read, until he turned the page to the psychological evaluations and just wanted to cry. Awen didn't hate herself exactly - well, until the past few days, at any rate - but only because she had no clue who she was. As expected, not being allowed to grow up properly combined with constantly pretending to be something she wasn't had left her with no genuine sense of identity. Add on the standard Rider disregard for self...

Well, there was no way of rehabilitating a mind like that. Not without a complete overhaul of principles and worldly understandings, and even if that were possible, it certainly wouldn't be allowed. Gwilym sighed. It would be a challenge, he reflected. To get her to a state of accepting herself again... It was a tall order. He thought about Rhydian's blasé comment that he'd probably decline any romantic involvement after reading the file, and could understand the point. Awen was a difficult person to care about, even for her Wing. She would never prioritise him over duty, that was glaringly obvious. She didn't know how to give herself in a relationship. And the concept of sharing her problems was completely and utterly alien to her.

"Scared off, yet?" Rhydian's voice broke through Gwilym's musings. He had his eyes closed again, looking utterly relaxed. Gwilym watched him for a second.

"Not yet," he said thoughtfully. Rhydian snorted, but said nothing. Gwilym read on.

There was something called a Rider Evaluation Report, which was basically a big list of all the things she was good at within the job. Gwilym paused over 'Emotional Control'.

Despite initial trauma after the first kitten test administered, subject has been exemplary in all subsequent excersises, showing a pleasing desire to overcome all obstacles including her own mind.

"What's the 'kitten test'?" he asked aloud. Rhydian actually winced, and gave Gwilym a hesitant look.

"Incredibly important," he said. "But you really won't like it. To be a warrior you have to be able to switch yourself off, or you're no damn good on a battlefield."

"Right," Gwilym said, suspiciously. "'Despite initial trauma', this says. What's the test?"

"They're given a kitten each," Rhydian said, sighing and closing his eyes again. "Or a puppy, or mouse, or whatever adorable small animal we can find. Anyway; they have it for a week, in which they have to look after it well, feeding, playing, all that. Then at the end of eight days they have to kill it and eat it."

"Oh, my gods," Gwilym muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. Rhydian gave him a sharp smile.

"It seems barbaric, yes," he said. "And is, I suppose; it took me three goes before I could do it. But it's necessary, Sovereign. As I say, it's vital a warrior can face taking a life, and they have to learn that before they reach a battlefield."

"How old?" Gwilym asked wearily. "How old are they when that first happens?"

"It varies," Rhydian said. "But yes, your horrified suspicion is correct, Sovereign. They're children still."

"That's beyond messed up," Gwilym sighed. Rhydian snorted.

"Yes," he said. "So isn't it nice you didn't have to do it? That your children won't have to? Because that's the sacrifice, Sovereign. That's why we do this to ourselves, to each other as you put it. We're saving you from doing it to yourselves."

"Has it struck you," Gwilym said carefully, "that by doing that to children who haven't chosen that life you've made an unacceptable sacrifice?"

"No," Rhydian said blandly. "Because if we only trained adults, they wouldn't be Riders. How did you phrase it to those Phoenicians, Sovereign? Riders don't belong to the Union, we belong to Cymru. That doesn't happen by recruiting fully-developed adults. That happens by raising from scratch."

The chasm opened up in front of Gwilym's feet, and he turned away from it. This, he reflected, was not a subject to push. Not with a Councillor, and not if he wanted Awen. And to just generally live.

"This was written by Councillor Eifion," he said instead. He'd disliked the man so far. You couldn't trust anyone with that unpleasant a face. It was the face of a weasel who'd committed arson and was blaming it on its elderly crippled mother.

"Yes," Rhydian said in the slow, awkward tone of a man who had something he wasn't quite saying because it was quite important but you probably weren't going to like it. "Yes, there's something you should know about Councillor Eifion's role in Awen's life."

"Really?" Gwilym glanced up warily. "Did he lock her in a cupboard and beat her or something?"

"Oh, probably," Rhydian shrugged, somewhat alarmingly Gwilym felt. "And considerably worse. Councillor Eifion's job is probably the most unpleasant we have. It's his role to punish infractions and handle the negative conditioning, amongst other things. Thing is, though, any Riders who show particular promise get extra training of all kinds -"

"Extra torture?" Gwilym asked sourly, unable to help himself. Rhydian's smile was icily neutral.

"Something like that," he agreed. "They're all afraid of him. Alpha Wingleaders are terrified of him."

"Does he enjoy it?" Gwilym asked suddenly. He didn't bother to hide the edge of anger. Rhydian would obviously know, and anyway, it was a fair question to be angry about.

"Unofficially?" Rhydian sat up abruptly, dropping his feet to the floor and leaning forward, elbows on knees. "Yes. Immensely. He's sadistic. Something I try not to judge him for too harshly; he was a Rider in the Wars, Sovereign, and for a long, long time. Back then, that changed a person. And in spite of that, he does as he's told to not overstep the mark. Yes, he enjoys it, but he doesn't get carried away. He understands restraint."

"While torturing children," Gwilym said tonelessly. "Well, that's something, I suppose."

Rhydian sighed.

"Be grateful for it," he muttered, and then looked up. "Officially, no, of course he doesn't enjoy it, Sovereign. But he bears the burden anyway, because that's his sacrifice. If you're nearby and he orders her off to a nice, quiet dungeon with him, by the way, don't let her go. We've told him not to."

"I thought you said he had restraint?" Gwilym asked, raising an eyebrow. "If you've told him not to -"

"Yeah, well," Rhydian muttered darkly. "He's therefore on the look-out for her to slip up over something else, so he can have her then. The thing about sadists is that they like a good vintage. She's a big prize. Unofficially, of course."

"Of course," Gwilym said gloomily. Being in a secret club that got you in on all the gossip was far less exciting than he'd hoped. Already he wanted to go for a quiet lie down, and Mental Uncle Dara was on his bed. And good gods! How was he suddenly thinking about a childhood with Mental Uncle Dara as 'not so bad'? Bloody Riders.

He read on. Marged's summary had been spot on about their emotional handling, he noted, but she hadn't quite gone far enough; she'd said Riders used their negative emotions as fuel while fighting, but it was slightly more complicated. Awen was highly praised at several points for her apparent skill at fighting with her brain working, using her anger "as motivation rather than letting her anger use her." And finally, the reason for her not fracturing into several pieces years before was revealed. According to the file her purification rate was higher than for any other Rider in the Union. She relied heavily on her mind being cleansed at least every two months, frequently more. Gwilym sighed.

Complex, he thought. Yes. Incredibly difficult. But worth it.

"I'm done with your important file of death," he told Rhydian pensively. Rhydian beamed, and leaped to his feet.

"Excellent!" he said merrily, taking it back and pulling a folded piece of parchment out of his pocket bearing his seal. "I shall lock it away again. Now; this is my official sanction to say you're legally allowed to do forbidden things with my Rider, for you to give her. Do you still want it?"

"Very much," Gwilym said, ignoring the blatant surprise in Rhydian's eyes and taking the parchment. Oh, how many people were giving him important bits of paper these days. He carefully put it in a different pocket from Awen's Mysterious Letter. "Thank you, Councillor."

"Not at all." Rhydian regarded him seriously for a moment. "To be honest... she'd be a loss, Sovereign. There are few Riders as good as her. I don't think anyone else is as purely devoted to Cymru as her. If you can save her, I think it's fair to say this country will be in your debt."

No pressure then, Gwilym thought as Rhydian left to be busy and important. And concept of him saving a Rider was turning his head upside down. He glanced at the clock.

Seven in the morning. Well, the nightmares would probably be keeping her awake these days. He went to get dressed, and find Awen.

*************

"Sovereign!"

Llio beamed up at him in the doorway to the Wing's quarters, obscenely chirpy given that it was still, to all intents and purposes, seven in the morning. There was something incredibly loveable about her, almost like a puppy. It was depressing to realise that she'd happily killed and eaten puppies in her time, therefore. Gwilym put it out of his mind.

"Rider," he returned merrily. "Well, I was woken by my mental uncle. Why on earth are you awake?"

"Early riser," she said, stepping aside for him to enter, but her eyes flickered to the corner in a quick gesture that said 'Oh, and also, my Wingleader was screaming but is sitting over there'. "Come in! It's just me, Llyr and Awen at the minute."

"That's fine," he said, ambling in. "You three are my favourites. Don't tell the others."

"Excellent!" Llio declared, going back to the gwyddbwyll board with Llyr, who gave him a grin. "We've beaten Caradog, Llyr!"

"You're spreading discontent in my Wing, Sovereign," Awen said without looking up. "I'm going to have to ask that you stop."

She was sitting cross-legged in an armchair, her hair loose and flowing about her shoulders, dressed casually in a sleeveless, hooded woollen top and a pair of linen trousers in blues and greens. The low table in front of her was covered in paperwork that she was carefully going through with a pencil - left-handed, Gwilym noted absently. It was strangely exotic to see her in something other than a uniform. Especially her hair. She made rainbows look like they weren't trying hard enough.

"Can I ask you carry on?" Llyr said, moving a piece. "Where does Caradog fit in your scale?"

"Just above Meurig, because he seems to be a reknowned cheat," Gwilym said, and Awen sighed over Llio's loud laughter.

"Sovereign," she said reproachfully. "I'm not above arresting you for something, you know. They don't need encouraging."

"I'm canvassing," Gwilym grinned, heading over to her table and placing the letter from Councillor Rhydian very deliberately in front of her on top of the page she was checking. "That's what politicians do, I'm sure of it. I've read books on the subject."

"Oh, that's where you heard of ninja dancers," Awen said with good humour, picking up the letter and breaking the seal. "And the flock of mutant birds. And those nubile food tasters that -"

She froze, reading the letter. Gwilym sat carefully in the chair opposite, watching her. Across the room Llyr and Llio both looked up, suddenly alert in a way that made him hope very much she wasn't about to set them on him, the kitten-eaters. And he had to stop thinking about that.

Awen clicked at them and pointed at the door to the bedrooms, her eyes not leaving the letter. They glanced at each other but went, Gwilym carefully avoiding their eyes. He waited. Awen stayed paused a moment more after the door clicked shut and then stood, crossing to the fire and dropping the letter onto it. She watched it burn.

"I have no idea where to start," she said quietly, staring into the flames. She sounded shaken.

"No." Gwilym smiled fondly at her, suddenly feeling bizarrely happy. "I know. I didn't think you would."

"He told you about - " she broke off, covering her mouth with one hand, her voice sounding shell-shocked. "No one finds out about that. No one."

"Gwenllian wants to go drinking with me to celebrate being the first person to ever find out and not die," Gwilym said brightly. Awen gave a strangled laugh, almost horrified-sounding. "Well. It would have been mean, since I'd worked it out using Cultural Understanding and Intelligence and such. The Maurya did this all the time, you know. And the Greeks. And the Romans. And the Egyptians."

"I take back my suggestion that all Sovereigns should travel," Awen said faintly. "Clearly, it's dangerously subversive."

"Or perhaps you should travel," Gwilym said, standing up, and laughed at her shudder. "Or not. You're a bit rooted, there, Rider."

She was silent for a moment, watching the last shred of paper burn away, one hand still covering her mouth while the other leaned against the mantlepiece for support. He walked over to her, and waited.

"I don't -" Awen started at last, and broke off, dropping her other hand to the mantlepiece. "I don't understand. Why? Why have they -?"

"Oh, well," Gwilym grinned, running his hands over her shoulders, pressing against the tensed muscles. She made a small noise in the back of her throat, bowing her head. "I am pervasive and influencial. And, and I quote, 'if you can't save her she'll be the country's loss.' That was Rhydian, that was."

"Like hell," Awen muttered bitterly, a tremor running through her body, but she didn't pull away, arching into his touch almost involuntarily. The magic of the massage, Gwilym thought. It was almost overwhelming to a Rider.

"It's true," he said. "I read your file."

"You did what, now?" she asked, alarmed disbelief lacing the words. Gwilym chuckled.

"That's where I've just been," he grinned. "With Rhydian leaning over my shoulder and snatching it back out of my hands once I was done, and answering questions like 'hey, what does this bit of torture mean?' It was great fun."

"Good gods, there should be such a price on your head," Awen sighed. "I don't understand any of this. I don't -"

She stopped as the knot dissolved under his thumb, her fingers tightening on the mantlepiece. He smiled sadly.

"It's very simple," he told her. "You, with your self-destructive mind, think that you're a terrible failure and not worth saving. Everyone else, with their external viewpoints and their objectivity, can see that you're quite the opposite. Steps have therefore been taken to try to prevent your untimely demise at the hands of anything other than a Saxon."

"It said 'relationship'," Awen said desperately. Her body shifted slightly, a twitch that strongly suggested to Gwilym she was trying to pull away but not quite managing it. "Why? I mean, telling you about Intelligencers is one thing, especially if you've already worked it out, but -"

She broke off again as he caught another knot, and Gwilym sighed and stopped. He was going to have to hear her objections if he wanted to talk her down off her ledge, and as he'd noted once already, conversation escaped Awen if massage was involved. He slid his arms around her waist instead, and pulled her tightly against his chest.

"Go on," he said softly. Awen shuddered, one hand going back to her face again, the other gripping his wrist.

"It can't happen," she said, her voice flatly calm. "We live at opposite ends of the country, and that's just the logistics. There'd be no equality, Sovereign. None whatsoever."

"Doesn't matter," Gwilym said serenely. Awen made a frustrated noise.

"Of course it does!" she said. "We've been through your old-fashioned religious views, remember? You'd hate an inequal relationship! And I can't even use your name!"

"Oh, well, that just makes it quirky and different," he shrugged. "And no, I wouldn't hate it. Don't get me wrong, it wouldn't be ideal, but it's not like there isn't a fully understandable reason for the discrepancy. And I think you're worth it."

"You're wrong."

"Am not," he grinned. "And I can keep this up all day if necessary."

"Yes, and on the subject of children," she said sarcastically, "you need some. You're a Sovereign. You need an heir. I can't give you one."

"Adoption is a wonderful thing."

"Oh, for -" Awen twisted around in his arms, not an easy task given how little room he'd left her. Her gaze was like a lance. "Stop it. You've known me for five days, Sovereign! That's all!"

"Six."

"I'm going to hit you," she told him squarely. "I think I'll punch you in the face."

"Worth it," he smiled. "And it's for me to decide that, not you. Next problem?"

"I want to punch you in the face," Awen said evenly. "That seems problematic."

"Well, I knew a relationship with you would be volatile," Gwilym grinned. Awen shook her head, closing her eyes briefly.

"I'm an unstable killer," she said roughly. "How's that one? I could, at any time, snap and dismember you. I am not safe, Sovereign. Not even when at the peak of mental health."

"For anyone else," Gwilym said.

There was a pause. Awen looked away.

"Look," Gwilym said softly, drawing her hair back behind her ear. "I'm not planning on jumping out at you from behind pillars with axes to test the theory. But clearly, your brain doesn't, for whatever reason, perceive me as a threat. I think we'll be fine."

"And what if I hurt you?" she asked. She sounded suddenly lost, voice suddenly raw. "I don't just mean physically, Sovereign. I have the most dangerous job in the country. I nearly die at least once a week. If you're all emotionally attached -"

She broke off, looking away again, her eyes haunted. For once, he could see someone far older looking out through those eyes. He looked at her closely.

"I can't keep hurting people who don't deserve it," Awen said, her voice hardening. "I pretty much destroyed Gareth's entire family -"

"Damn, you're good," Gwilym breathed, cutting her off. It was so believable, so carefully, cleverly wrapped up in just enough truth to ellicit the right response. No wonder Rhydian wanted her alive. Awen watched him warily, suddenly tense. "You don't believe that. You're far too intelligent for that."

"It was Owain who -"

"No." Gwilym shook his head. "Wrong though you are, and that's a conversation for later, I don't mean that bit. You're clever, and you're a bard. You know how this works. I'm already emotionally attached. That means I'm already going to be devastated if you died tomorrow, and separating us will do nothing to stop that except depressing me more beforehand. You're trying to not say your real objection."

A small smile twisted her lip, and she looked down.

"Wow," she murmured. "It's been a while since anyone picked me up on a lie."

"I imagine it has," Gwilym grinned. "Get used to it. I know about you now. Real problem?"

"Aside from all of that?" Awen asked wearily. She leaned back, her hand running down his chest in a move that did all sorts to his poor old imagination until her palm ran over the inner pocket where the Mysterious Letter was, and they both stopped. She met his eye.

"There are things you still don't know, Sovereign," she said, her voice so quiet it was on the verge of a whisper. "And until you do, we can't. And when you do..."

"You think I'd turn you away?" Gwilym asked, his eyebrow raised. What on earth was in that letter? Either way it won't be fair on you, she'd said on the mountain side. He hadn't cared at the time.

"Can't talk about it here," Awen breathed, so quietly the words barely existed. Gwilym pulled her in tightly, one arm rising around her shoulders, and kissed the top of her head. She rested her head on his collar bone, totally pliant in his arms.

"Can we go flying again?" he asked at normal volume. " You need a break. You were more relaxed then."

"You weren't," she grinned against his shoulder. Her fingers had knotted themselves into the fabric of his tunic, apparently subconsciously clinging on. "You'd have screamed if you could. Admit it."

"Of course I would," Gwilym said, rolling his eyes. "We were flying. That's not normal. Can we go again?"

"I rather think you're supposed to be here for an Archwiliad," Awen smiled, but he could hear the waver in her voice. And, he realised, she was looking at the paper on the table. Without letting go he shuffled over to it, dragging her with him, giggling.

"What's that?" he asked brightly.

"Archwiliad, Sovereign," Awen said. "Not to mention the arrival of your family. You need to be here. And stop looking at my top secret adventuring documents."

"Well, that entire exchange was a masterclass in making me want to come on the fun excursion and give you the right excuses," Gwilym said happily. "How devious you are, Alpha Wingleader. I won't get to see them much today until this evening, anyway, because their Audience is today. Which also, of course, means no Sovereign interaction. So I'm free all day! Where's the adventure?"

"The Archipelago," Awen said, her smile slightly mischievous. "Caerdonnau, to be exact. I need to find someone, and I believe he's there."

"Ooh, exciting!" Gwilym said. "Who?"

"Casnewydd's heir, hopefully," Awen smiled grimly. "To have the best chance of Flyn going down I reason I'll need everything in place and ready to go the second the torque stops spinning. About twenty years ago the mother of his children grabbed the kids and ran away to keep them all safe from him."

"Oh, the number of women who've done that to me," Gwilym sighed. "Can I come? You can be the useful, brilliant one and I can be the clownish oaf. We'll be a crack team."

Awen leaned back and regarded him for a moment, fixing him with her openly analytical gaze.

"You'll have to leave the torque here," she said after a moment. "And wear something slightly less ostentatious. And we'll need some sort of cover for you. Can you be a clerk?"

"Just give me pens," Gwilym told her. "I will take your minutes."

*************

She was far happier in the air, the slightly-panicking edge of denial gone.

"It's still terrifying," Gwilym called conversationally over the wind, his arms probably crushing her diaphragm. "But slightly less so this time. How long did it take you not to scream?"

"I never screamed," Awen grinned, pushing Brân onto a thermal and smoothing out their motion as he settled into a glide. "But I giggled like an absolute maniac for every second of my first flight. My Tutor seriously considered having to slap me."

"That's brave," Gwilym declared, making Awen laugh. "How old were you?"

"I don't know," she shrugged. "Early teens, I think, it's probably in my file. Which you've seen."

"Do you like it?"

"Flying?" She sounded surprised. "Good gods yes. It's freedom."

The only freedom she had, he supposed. He watched as the land melted away beneath them, yielding to the race of the sea, the rocks of the Archipelago rearing up. From up here... yes, he recognised the temptation of the horizons, the unexpected wanderlust, could recognise the feeling of detachment from the world below. It was a strong sensation from the window of a Carriage, strong enough once to send Gwilym around the world, looking to see what was over the horizon, but on the back of a single meraden it was stronger. He wondered if Awen would have wanted to travel, had she not been a Rider.

"How often do you fly for pleasure?" Gwilym asked. He was definitely holding on too tightly. One of his fingers had gone to sleep.

"I don't," she called back, and then paused. "Well. I do and I don't. I never fly just for the sake of it. But, I fly places even when I don't need to, so I suppose it evens out. I shouldn't, really."

"Why on earth not?" he asked, astonished. "What's wrong with -?"

"Merod are precious," Awen said matter-of-factly. "We're not supposed to risk them out of battle. And I wouldn't if it weren't Brân. He has extra energy that he genuinely needs to burn off."

Gwilym sighed, leaning his chin on her shoulder.

"It's like your entire life is built around the principle of you being unhappy," he said morosely. "Do you like your life?"

She was silent. The waves sped past below them, the wind a cheery yell all around, threaded with the screams of the gulls. Gwilym didn't push her.

"Yes," Awen said at last. "I - yes. Normally. There are parts that are hard, I'm not... I feel lucky, Sovereign."

"Lucky?" Gwilym asked, fascinated. "Really?"

"Definitely," Awen nodded. "It's not a job, it's a life you get chosen for. I could have not been. I could have been overlooked."

"And instead?" He wasn't surprised, really, but it was still slightly depressing hearing someone tell you how grateful they were for the honour of being brainwashed from birth.

"Instead?" She grinned, and Brân suddenly rose twenty feet in the air, wheeled around and just hovered, half a tonne of animal balancing on air, facing the land.

"See that?" Awen said with satisfaction, pointing down. "That, Sovereign, is my country. That's mine, mine to defend, mine to preserve. Do you know the world's greatest tragedy?"

"Is it by Euripides?"

"No," she laughed, the sound clear. "It's all the greatness that could have been, Sovereign, if it weren't for circumstance. Euripides! He's a fantastic example. One of the best playwrights Greece ever produced, amongst so many others; this enormous literary tradition, even rivalling our own - but only the men. Do you see? The women they've produced who could have been bards, doctors, politicians, anything! But they were born in the wrong place."

"But here?" Gwilym pushed, unable to hide his smile. Awen seemed to have lit up, as though several days worth of terrible revelations and a death sentence had never happened.

"Here," Awen said, the pride in her voice like a rock. "Here, people get their chances. It's not perfect, I know that. But we're constantly working at it. We've got the Archwiliadau, we've got the Urdd, we've got the Gorsedd, we've got the Union. We have a concept of what is and isn't acceptable; the gods only know it's hard to find another country that doesn't deal in slaves. But so much of that, so much of that progress happens because we don't have wars anymore."

Her eyes fixed on the horion in front of them, broken by the peaks of Eryri.

"And that's what I do," she said, the satisfaction back. "All of that potential, all of those chances for all of those people down there; that's mine to defend, and that's why I defend it. I fight for that. And I so nearly might not have had that chance, see? If I hadn't been chosen. If my mother, whoever she may have been, had decided not to give me to the Union. I wouldn't have been able to do this."

"You're completely and utterly mental, you know," Gwilym said fondly, hugging her tightly. "But in a better way than my uncle, so it's fine."

"Yeah, well, you asked," Awen grinned abashedly, turning Brân back to the Archipelago and resuming course for Caerdonnau. "And anyway, you can't talk. I've seen your budget."

"Yeah," Gwilym agreed. "I had an idea for a banking system yesterday, too, but I think someone will put out a hit on me if I cause any more paperwork this Archwiliad. Hey, can I ask you something?"

"You generally do," Awen said, her tone just slightly dry. "Is this going to be another personality test question, or are you planning on depressing me with politics this time?"

"Neither!" Gwilym protested defensively, and then shrugged at her snort. "Yeah, okay. Sort of both. This Mysterious Letter you've given me, that is preventing our epic love affair on the grounds that I'll apparently spit in your eye on reading it."

"Oh, that old chestnut," Awen said, her tone jumping from 'dry' to 'parched'. "I know the very one."

"What's the decision?"

"Sorry?"

"Well," Gwilym said. "You're either going to tell me to drop it in a fire for no one to read ever, so grave is its importance, or you're going to tell me specifically to read it. Two different options. What's the dilemma?"

"Ah." Awen looked down at her hands, her eyes hidden by the goggles. "I was hoping you wouldn't ask me that."

"I can rescind it if you like," Gwilym offered. "Or, well, I can try, but I think I'd have to ask it again backwards, and I phrased it fairly exotically."

"It's the thought that counts," Awen said absently, and then sighed. "You're holding in your pocket the difference between me trusting the Union to do what's best for the country and me deciding I know what's best for the country and forcing them to act."

There was the sort of pause that generally accompanies such massive announcements.

"Oh," Gwilym said, faintly shocked. "Really?"

"Yes," Awen said glumly. "And even giving it to you and not Rhydian means I've already travelled part way down the second path there. I just - I can't work out if I'm right, in which case you absolutely definitely have to read it, or if I've just become as arrogant as Owain ever was, in which case you absolutely have to destroy it."

"So if you'd given it to Rhydian -"

"They might have done the right thing," Awen nodded, and then laughed bitterly. "Gods. 'The right thing.' As if I'm in any way qualified to judge that over them. But - yes, they might also have destroyed it and covered it up themselves."

Her previous good mood had leeched away, it seemed, her shoulders slumped defeatedly and head bowed. Gwilym rested his chin on her shoulder again, glad that his innate terror meant he had her in his arms anyway.

"Listen," he said quietly. "Obviously I can't know what it is, so it's difficult for me to really help. But there are a few things I can tell you. Firstly, you don't possess an ounce of arrogance, so that can't be a motivating factor here."

"I thought the same of Owain," Awen said wearily. "He had to start somewhere."

"He did," Gwilym said. "Birth. And latterly a bloody mountain-top. Don't compare yourself to him, though, because you're comparing the wrong part."

A self-loathing killing machine she may have been, but she was intelligent. She paused, thinking about it, biting her lip.

"Okay," Awen said slowly. "Well, right now I'm thinking I know more about what Cymru needs politically than forty people whose job it is to know such a thing. That just seems -"

"It's not arrogance if you're right," Gwilym shrugged. "And if you're right, and do nothing, it's not modesty - it's stupidity. But that's beside the point. The thing about Owain's arrogance, you see, was the motivation behind it."

"Oh," Awen said. "Himself."

"Exactly!" Gwilym beamed. "Your concern is for those people down there, not yourself. You're not trying to prove that you're better than the Full Council. You're trying to get them to make the right choice for the country. That's not arrogant."

"Maybe not," she said, unconvinced. "I might also be making it personal."

"You?" Gwilym asked dismissively. "Doubt it. Although if it's something you want you might be mistakenly thinking you're making it personal, because you never get want you want."

"I might just be wrong, too," Awen sighed wretchedly. "It's outside my training, really. I don't know why I'm doing this."

"As I say, I don't know the circumstances," Gwilym said. "But I might suggest that if you never normally do this, but have decided to now... it could be because there's something to it."

"Well yes," Awen said, her smile hard. "But I'm also crazy right now. Maybe I'm not that reliable. Anyway; landing now."

She probably made it as sharp as she did to shut him up, but it worked. To Gwilym it was a plummet out of the sky on a vertical gradient to an extremely narrow ledge, and he just about managed not to scream, thus fusing his arms onto Awen's ribcage tightly enough that she probably lost all feeling in her legs instantly. She definitely stifled a laugh as they landed. Definitely.

"Welcome to Caerdonnau, Rider," a fifteen-year-old stablehand said pleasantly, his grin showing a missing tooth or two. He gave Gwilym an interested look. "My name is Dafydd, and I'll be your stablehand if it pleases you."

"It does, thank you," Awen told him merrily, the words from both of them carrying the ring of long practice. It was presumably the formal exchange. "We won't be here long, you can just leave his tack on and throw him in a stable. Although, could you fetch a stool and possibly a crowbar for my companion here? Clerks don't fly well, turns out."

"Ha! You can use the mounting block," Dafydd said gleefully, taking Brân's harness and leading him in. "It's high enough."

"So was the flight," Gwilym offered. "That's the trouble."

So this was undercover, he thought excitedly as they walked into the tower. It was already brilliant not being recognised as a Sovereign; it had been a year now, and gods he missed the ability to go walking through the crowds sans molestation and bodyguards. And Awen was already demonstrating her brilliance at it. Within seconds his cover had been neatly inserted without arousing any suspicion at all, meaning he'd be interesting but quickly forgettable to the stablehands. She chatted easily to Dafydd as he unhooked the multiple harness straps from Gwilym, and he carefully withdrew his death-locked fingers from her stomach.

"Okay, sir," Dafydd said cheerfully, taking off the last buckle. "Hop off! Or you can just slide if you'd prefer, I'll catch you."

"I don't think my nerves could take just letting myself fall off," Gwilym said frankly. "I've been trying to avoid that very eventuality for miles. Hold on."

He wriggled, shifted and fell off. Dafydd caught him.

"Oh, well," Gwilym said, standing and dusting himself off while trying to ignore Awen laughing. "I didn't need my dignity anyway. I think on reflection, Rider, I prefer carriages."

"So I see," she grinned, hopping down with the nimble grace of a cat. "Anyway - thanks, Dafydd. We won't be long."

It was pretty much a case of going incognito for Awen, too, Gwilym reflected as they descended into the lower levels. She was wearing the most casual of the Rider uniforms, knee-high boots, slightly higher socks, plain breeches, flight jacket. She took the jacket off and left it in the stables, though, so by the time they hit the streets of what was presumably downtown Caerdonnau she was just in a plain, unmarked undershirt, obviously a Rider but with no markings as to rank or City. No one spared her a second glance.

"So what's the plan now?" he asked neutrally as they passed a row of shops and cafes. "Where are we headed?"

"A butcher's shop," Awen smiled, scanning the scene around her like a tourist who was actually a spy. "I think he works in one, or did last year, at any rate. Hopefully he won't have moved too far since then."

"Is he likely to have moved?" Gwilym asked, dodging three teenagers carrying bolts of cloth and following an old man with a measuring tape. Awen looked thoughtful.

"I'd expect so," she mused. "They've always been moving, see? Keeping ahead of the pursuit. And he's got a temper, it seems."

"Is that a quality we want in a ruler?" Gwilym grinned. "If trade meetings don't go as planned will he sink their ships?"

"Of course not," Awen said serenely. "That's the purpose of me. There'll merely be a risk of him throwing his water in their faces, so I'll have to make sure there's none in the meetings."

"Ooh, you're good at this," Gwilym said approvingly. "It occurs to me to ask, by the way: how are you going to cope in a crowded shop?"

"You're a calming influence, it seems," she said, flashing him a quick smile. "Give me a poke if I look edgy."

They passed through a large market room, not far from the docks and so full of overseas merchants, all happily yelling their wares and prices. Awen wove her way neatly through the crowd, one hand firmly gripping Gwilym's wrist as she towed him along, forcibly keeping calm. On the other side she went down a side street, slightly narrower and quieter than the others they'd been along, and finally they reached a shop with a faded 'McGregor's Butcher' painted over the door. Gwilym raised an eyebrow.

"McGregor?" he asked. Awen smiled.

"Alban," she said, pushing the door open. "Ex-traders account for a lot of Archipelagan shops."

"That we do!" a jolly fat man said from behind the counter as they entered, his enormous orange moustache covering most of his face. "We add flavour, I say! And what can I get you both?"

"Information at the moment, sorry," Awen grinned. She was, Gwilym realised, putting on a flawless Aberystwyth accent to match his. It was sort of strange to hear; he'd gotten so used to her odd Casnewydd slant. "We're updating records. How many workers do you have here?"

"Oh, let's see, let's see." McGregor looked thoughtful. Gwilym poised his pen over his pad like a good clerk. "Well, there's me, obviously... Delyth, wee lass, had to take her on after the business with her brother... Oh, and Teleri does Wednesdays, on account of her father having his troubles and all."

"Lovely," Awen smiled, glancing at Gwilym's pad. He'd just done a doodle. "Ah, yes, that has changed. We still had a Maelon and no Delyth."

"Aye, well," McGregor said with the dark enthusiasm of a serial gossip about to update you. He even looked around furtively. "Brother and sister, you ken? Took her on after I had to let him go. Angry lad. Picked one too many fights with a customer. What with them not having much money and that, though, and their poor mother half-blind now... well, didn't seem right to kick him out entirely. So I took on wee Delyth, so I did, and I sent Maelon on to a friend of mine who was recruiting."

"Really?" Awen grinned. "And did you tell your friend that Maelon had a terrible temper?"

"Aye, I did!" McGregor chuckled. "Don't fret. She's a blacksmith, though, and they can take a lot. And, he works in the back, away from customers."

"Ah," Awen nodded. "She's still your friend, then. It was good of you to do that for them."

"Ach, well," McGregor shrugged, pleased. "He's a good lad really. Just quick with his fists. I get the feeling the family used to move a lot, you ken? Until the mother lost her eyes. Bairns don't always grow up well that way."

"No, that's true," Awen agreed. "Well, thank you very much! You've helped our records no end. I don't suppose you could point us to your blacksmith friend, could you? We probably won't be up to date with her, either."

"Aye," McGregor said happily. "Up on the third level; nice wide street to get merod to from the Landing Tower. You'll not miss it, it's the only one up that high."

"No wonder you like your life," Gwilym marvelled as they moved back up the streets again, dodging hauliers and traders and customers. "This is tremendously exciting. Will we get to chase someone in a bit?"

"Yes, if they run," Awen said generously. "Leave the fighting to me, though, would you? I really don't know if I'm breaking every rule in the Union's extensive handbook by bringing you here anyway, but I definitely can't let you jump into clouds of fists."

"That's fine," Gwilym agreed. "I don't know how to fight, anyway. I just sort of flail at people until they go away."

"I'll have to teach you a bit," Awen said, throwing him a concerned look. "You should know self-defence."

"Oh, I have that!" Gwilym said brightly. "I jump behind Riders. It works spectacularly."

"They jump in front of you, more like," Awen said wryly, looking at the white scar crossing her palm; and then the crowds got too thick for conversation as they reached the stairways, Awen grabbing his wrist again to prevent a massacre.

The third level, when they reached it, was lovely; a strange mix of shops and posh furnishings. As the upper eschelons of Archipelagan society lived on the upper levels it made sense, though. This was their shopping district, away from the crowds and smells of the lower areas. Which explained why there was only one blacksmith to ruin the effect.

It was a large, open-fronted shop, currently filled with three merod being shod and with a separate, classier front to one side that sold jewellery. It went back a fairly long way, Gwilym noted, with multiple forges inside and a small forest of metalwork hanging from the roof, tools of all kinds and descriptions. Awen headed confidently in, clearly at home in such a place, making a beeline for a broad, middle-aged woman cheerfully showing an apprentice how to viciously attack a pair of bellows without blowing up the forge. The woman glanced up as they approached, her round cheeks red and shining, and she beamed.

"Rider!" she said. "Welcome to my humble establishment! Can I help?"

"Good news!" Awen said amiably. "You can! We're updating our personnel records. Could you give me a run-through of all the workers you have and point them out?"

"Oh certainly," she said, standing up and dusting her hands off. Her apprentice meekly stepped in to take her place. She gestured to him. "Well, this is Dewi. That's Branwen over there - say hello, Branwen! Oh, she's dropped her hammer, clumsy girl - there's Gruff, that's Ioan, that's Rhys under that meraden - never mind, Rhys, it's just practise - that's Goewin, and Maelon's just gone off shift. The pub, I should think."

"Typical!" Awen grinned. She looked at Gwilym's pad, where he was doodling again. "Well, we've got the rest of them. Do you happen to know which pub? I just need to lay eyes on him and have him confirm it."

"Take the service shaft at that end," the woman smiled, pointing down the corridor-street. "It's right in front of you, one level down. He'll be the one sitting alone and brooding."

"Right," Awen laughed. "Thanks very much. Enjoy your day!"

They moved on, and once out of sight she took the pad from him.

"Is that Flyn?" she asked suspiciously. "He's wearing a torque, and you've drawn a knife through his head."

"Well, I needed to draw something," Gwilym shrugged defensively. "And I'm a hopeful kind of guy. Will we get to chase him in the pub?"

"What, like, around and around the bar?" Awen asked blankly. "This isn't a farce, Sovereign."

"The number of levels of Caerdonnau we're seeing?" Gwilym asked archly. "Yes it is."

The service shaft was a sloping spiral floor, designed to move carts and animals up from the docks below. There was more dodging of people and crates, more Awen gripping his wrist and more generally trying to look like a clerk, and then halfway through a briefly exciting bit where Awen suddenly went on Full Alert, sprang terrifyingly up onto a cart and dragged a man out of it, who seemed to have been stealing bread from it. A native Rider arrived with unnervingly good timing to take the man away. Finally, they emerged at the bottom onto the next street, Gwilym still buzzing, the door directly opposite bearing a painting of a tankard to avoid lingual confusion. They pushed their way in.

It was very nearly empty. Three Indo-Greeks sat at a table in a corner, chatting comfortably among themselves and ignoring the rest of the world. A woman sat at another table with paperwork spread around her, absorbed in the columns of numbers, a tankard of mead perched to one side. At the bar sat a dark-haired man, his build tall but thickly muscled, clearly a manual labourer of some kind, nursing his drink. There was no barman in attendance. Awen looked at the man at the bar for a second, and then ambled over.

It was clear it was him almost instantly. As he looked up he had Lord Flyn's face for one thing; long and thin, his eyes grey and piercing, only his hair colour and a slightly smaller nose really varying from his father. But also, he saw Awen walking towards him and immediately tensed up, one foot dropping from the kick-bar of the stool to the floor, his hands clenching into fists.

"Ah," Awen said sharply, freezing in her stride and falling into what Gwilym's hind-brain saw as 'scary predator stance'. "Don't do that, Nobleman. I'm twicthy right now. If you start squaring up so will I, and I can't tell you how little I want to attack you."

She'd let her accent return to Casnewydd as well. Maelon's eyes narrowed, his body language not downgrading from 'wary'.

"Right," he said, his voice hard. "Then I suggest you stay there and I'll stay here, Rider. Is that acceptable?"

"As long as you do stay there," Awen nodded shortly, and then looked down. "Dammit, no. You've activated me, now. And in the nicest possible way, your face is unhelpful."

"That's nothing new," Maelon said sourly, taking a swig from his tankard. Gwilym stepped forward and laid a hand on Awen's shoulder; instantly, she froze, and then slowly relaxed. "It's been fun, looking like the man we've spent our lives running from. So? What brings you here now, Rider? Are the Union now bothering to pay attention to who Daddy does and doesn't try to have assassinated?"

"Oh dear," Gwilym murmured. "This is going to be complicated."

"My life generally is," Awen sighed, and picked her way to the bar, sitting five seats away. "Okay. Nobleman -"

"Don't call me that," Maelon spat. "I don't have a title, do I?"

"Of course you do," Awen said wearily. "You're officially missing, that's all. It's just not a title you're using. And I have to use it, I'm sorry."

"She really does," Gwilym added. "She's very strict about names."

"Your father," Awen said, ignoring him, "has done something very, very bad, Nobleman. A lot of things. He's going to be arrested this Archwiliad."

Ioan regarded her for a few moments, swirling his drink with one hand.

"Who are you, Rider?" he asked evenly. "Before we go on. You know who I am."

"My name is Awen," she began, but there was no need for her to complete the title. Everyone in Cymru knew who the Alpha Wingleaders were, and Maelon had probably been taking a keen interest in who the big movers and shakers of Casnewydd were for years. He raised an eyebrow.

"Is that so?" he said, looking her up and down. "Tell me, Leader. Are you here representing the Union, officially? Or is it just you?"

"It's just me," Awen nodded. "At this stage."

"Is it you who's managed to get him arrested?" Maelon asked.

"No," Awen said, and Gwilym frowned at her and put a hand on her shoulder again.

"Yes," he said pointedly. "Yes, it is. She doesn't like herself very much, though, so she wants you to shout at her."

"Generally how I communicate with the world," Maelon muttered, looking into his drink. "Well; well done, Rider. And thank you. You've removed a monster, even if it is forty years too late, but that's not your fault."

"There's a problem," Awen said wretchedly. "I'm sorry. You know how well he plans things. He might have to be left on the throne for political reasons."

"Oh, of course," Maelon all but snarled. "Yes, naturally. Never mind what he did. There are shades of grey, so let's just leave him where he is to carry on doing what the Union swore it would stop Sovereigns from doing. It's easier."

"I said 'might'," Awen said neutrally. "I'm here and talking to you for a reason, Nobleman."

Maelon watched his drink for a moment, and then sighed, rubbing his eyes.

"Yes," he said calmly. "Obviously. Sorry. Go on."

"If he was removed from office, you're the heir," Awen said. "Would you be willing to be the next Sovereign?"

He blinked, and stared at her.

"It's a funny thing," he said distantly. "I've never actually thought about it in terms of whether I'd actually do it or not. I never thought it would come up."

"I know that feeling," Gwilym sighed morosely, pulling out a stool beside Awen and sitting in it gloomily. "Hell of a shock when it happens. And advisors are snooty."

"This is Lord Gwilym of Aberystwyth," Awen said brightly. "He doesn't like his title either, so you can be best friends and compare notes. If you say yes, Nobleman, there's a higher chance of your father being dropped in a dungeon somewhere."

Maelon paused, watching them.

"I have a temper," he said finally. Gwilym snorted.

"Let me share with you the secrets of Sovereigns," he said. "They're massive children. Massive children. You being angry a lot is wildly overshadowed by Girly Lord Ieuan's libido, and Lady Marged's knitting, and Lady Marged's insanity."

"You already counted her," Maelon said, a smile quirking his lips. Gwilym grinned.

"Trust me," he said. "She counts twice. You're in good company. If you don't know what to do, just stand there and wave and let your advisors and Riders do everything for a year. Then be hands-on. It's worked for me so far."

Maelon smiled down at his drink, and then nodded.

"Yes, then," he said. "I'd be willing. What happens if he stays a free man?"

"Well," Awen said, pulling a face. "He'll be watched like a hawk for the rest of his life. You'll be safe to live wherever you want. Oh, and you'll get the throne eventually anyway, because he's definitely going to be castrated, so he won't have any other heirs."

"Which is nice," Maelon nodded, his eyes hard. "But it's not enough."

"It's not, is it?" Gwilym agreed. "Although I for one plan on making as many testicle-based jokes around him as I possibly can afterwards, because I'm also a massive child."

"We need to go," Awen said looking up at the clock above the bar. "I really shouldn't be keeping you away from the Archwiliad for this long, Sovereign."

"It's so much more fun here, though," Gwilym said, disappointed. "And we haven't chased anyone yet."

"I said we'd chase him if he ran," Awen said, standing up. "Not just on principle."

"I can do a few laps if you want," Maelon suggested blithely. Gwilym sighed.

"Nah, you're alright," he said. "It's not the same without the thrill of charging through a crowd and knowing that you have a Rider to do the actual hard work. But thanks, it's decent of you to offer."

"If he does go down I'll send for you to come to the Union," Awen said, looking at Maelon. "Tomorrow or the day after, probably."

"I'll be ready," Maelon nodded. "And - thank you, Rider. It's good to know that someone is trying to stop him."

"I hope I can," Awen muttered, and bowed, the Rider-to-Sovereign bow. Maelon blinked. Gwilym sympathised. "Good day, Nobleman."

And they ended the adventure, and went back to the Archwiliad, and politics.

Cymru - Chapter 41

This chapter ended up being far longer than intended, and sadly I don't have time to cut it down before going to the Northlands this weekend, so here it is. It's split into three with rows of asterisks if you need to break it up, though. Also, I've said it before and shall say it again: damn the Anglo-Saxons had ugly names. Damn.



AERONA

"Here!" Adara said triumphantly, pointing at the map. "I'm not going to try to pronounce that. Ooh, that's not far from Trallwng, look, which is creepy."

"Oh, Adara," Dylan sighed, affecting a voice of great fatherly condescension. "Trallwng isn't creepy, it's just in the Canolbarth. Their ways may seem strange to you and I, but as Madog says, it just goes to show that it would be a funny old world if we were all alike."

"You know what would be funny?" Adara asked mildly. "If I broke your nose."

"That would not be funny," Dylan said decisively.

"Yes it would."

"It would not be funny."

"I think you'll find it would be hilarious."

"Guys," Aerona broke in reproachfully. "This isn't getting anything done. Let's just agree on a compromise that if Adara broke Dylan's nose it would be mildly amusing and get back to the important tactical planning, shall we?"

"Hey!"

"Agreed," Adara agreed. "Anyway, it's here, which looks like - half an hour? Three quarters? Not long, anyway."

"Time for lunch, then!" Dylan said brightly. "I like honey. What do we have left from the stuff I stole and the stuff Adara killed and the stuff Aerona made?"

"Two kebabs from last night," Aerona offered, carefully withdrawing them from the box they'd stored them in. Adara yanked the bag of stolen Saxon goods over and peered inside.

"Half a loaf of bread," she said, examining it critically. "Enough for a chunk each. A bit of cheese, although it's hard on the outside because they have no understanding of correct cheese maintainance in this backwards country. Oh, and a couple of those inordinately delicious biscuits."

"That's living," Dylan nodded, satisfied. "Let's do this thing, my friends. So, our boy Owain has been killing dissenters?"

"Mmm." Aerona careully slid the chunks of meat and leek off the skewers to divide them. "If popular rumour is to be believed, anyway. It could, of course, be propaganda."

"Doesn't matter." Dylan took the bread from Adara and tore it roughly into three. "Because if the Lord God Coenred actually needs to spread anti-dissident propaganda, then clearly there are dissidents. That's logic, see? Tell Madog I used it when we get back. He'll be so proud."

"No, he won't," Adara sniffed. "He'll say, 'Stop wasting my time with your lies', and then he'll never speak to us again. And I prefer him to you."

"Did I mention the barman I spoke to was personally mutilated by Madog?" Aerona asked suddenly. Dylan turned away from Adara and what would have been a stunning retort to raise an eyebrow.

"Yeah?" he asked, impressed. "This guy knew?"

"Apparently he went fighting as one of eighty men, and your Wing alone killed everyone but him," Aerona explained to Dylan's gleeful laugh. "And then Madog cut off his arm and his eye and sent him back home with a message not to do it again."

"Ah," Dylan said cheerfully, handing the bread out. "That was a while ago, then. He wanted to try talking to them when he first became Alpha Wingleader. He thought it might help."

"You can't talk to animals," Adara said derisively. "You train them. Although, I can't believe Awen can speak Saxon and never told us."

"Not a skill you'd want to shout about," Dylan sniffed with casual dismissal. "Anyway. Eating and going. Rooks look bald."

In spite of both cheese and bread being oxidised, it wasn't a bad lunch. Once they were done they began the task of pulling down the campsite, which predictably took far less time than it had to set up, and then repack the saddlebags, which predictably devolved into a scrambling fight between Adara and Dylan that involved a lot of rolling around on the floor until Aerona managed to step in and pull them apart by the scruffs of their necks. And then, finally, they were able to mount up and go.

As Adara had predicted, it wasn't a long flight, but it was hampered by the additional stealth requirements. The closer they got to Owain, the more likely they were to be spotted, since he must be permanently on the look-out for Riders flying to catch him. And, of course, the flying routes they were following to remain unseen were the ones written by Owain himself, so there was no guarentee he wouldn't also be using them. They landed five miles away from the new campsite once they reached it, and rode through the woods on foot. Or hoof, in any case.

They would have had to have ridden part of the way, anyway, though. As Aerona reined Briallu into a halt she could instantly see why Owain approved of the spot; the clearing was hidden perfectly well by a few rows of trees that marked the edge of an incredibly steep drop down into the valley, the town nestled around the river below them and giving them a spectacular view of the roads leading in and out along the valley floor and into the plains beyond. It was a perfect spot to spy from. And in the midday sunlight Aerona could see the individual people moving about their lives, travelling from building to building. Some were lining the main roads with foliage and flags. Clearly, they were preparing for Coenred's visit.

"Right," Dylan said as they halted, unclipping harnesses and jumping off. "Quick vote; who thinks we'll need to bother setting up a camp and who thinks we'll be gone by sundown?"

"If he's here, we'll be gone by sundown," Adara said bluntly. "I tell you, I'm not hanging around."

"Better safe than sorry?" Aerona the Teacher suggested. "I mean, it won't take me five minutes to get something basic set up, and then if we need it we can add to it."

"Go on, then," Dylan said, complete with magnanimous air. "I'm generosity itself. I'll even help you, you know."

"Astonishingly municifent," Aerona giggled, surrendering her reins to a preternaturally calm-looking Adara. "Cheers. So? Once we've done this? What's the plan?"

"Oh, I'm working on it, alright?" Dylan said irritably. "Gods, you're demanding! It's like you think I'm in charge or something."

"The thought had crossed my mind," Aerona agreed mildly. Adara had tethered the merod and picked her way to the edge of the drop, quietly watching the town below.

"I think," she said neutrally, settling herself comfortably against a tree trunk, "we need to split up again."

"We are listening, oh butterfly of wisdom," Dylan said, pausing in his helpful carrying of a branch to unhelpfully bow to Adara. "What do you propose?"

"I'll stay here again for a while," Adara said. "I'm going to watch for the full procession to arrive and make sure Owain won't come here before I go down to the town to join you. But in the meantime, you two should go down and integrate yourselves wherever you think he'll go. One of which, I'm telling you now, will be a bar, because he's a big hedonistic."

"Has his good point, then," Dylan said casually.

"Dylan!" Aerona giggled. "Look, more importantly; it's daytime now. Your eyes stand out like a sore thumb, as does your hair. I'm not convinced you'll be able to blend in that well."

"You're ruining our integration plans, Dylan," Adara complained. "Stop being a big awkward."

"No one will see me," Dylan said, rolling his eyes. "I am a master of stealth because of practical jokes on Madog. And, I planned ahead and brought make up. Okay; Aerona, you find all of the taverns and see if you can work out which one they're likely to go to. I, meanwhile, because I am brave and courageous, am going to go digging for dissenters."

"You just want to join a revolution and feel daring," Adara sniffed.

"How dare you, madam?" Dylan said in mock-outrage. "I wish to save them! I might even tell them I'm a Rider and their only hope for life."

"Don't," Aerona advised, lashing two branches together. "They'd definitely run away. Your eyes are terrifying."

"My eyes are cool," Dylan corrected. "You and a Saxon said."

"The Saxon said you were a demon, Dylan."

"Same thing." He caught the end of the branch Aerona was wrestling into place and helped her manoeuvre it flat. "And anyway, they will be make-upped. Reckon he'll still be in the uniform?"

Adara caught her breath sharply, and then shook her head.

"I have got to stop being shocked by anything I hear about him," she muttered, and Aerona gave her a sympathetic look.

"There's a good chance he will be," she said apologetically. "Since he still thinks he's a Rider, doing this for Cymru. Although I suppose he might have modified it a bit."

"Maybe he's wearing a skirt now," Dylan suggested brightly, and Aerona giggled.

"That's what their women wear, Dylan," she said. "Not the men."

"Well, that would be appropriate," Adara commented sourly. "Since he so desperately wanted to be Awen. Maybe he'll have castrated himself by this point. It'll save us the bother."

"We live in hope," Aerona grinned. "Okay, that's the frame done. If we need it later we can add to it, if not we can tear it down quickly."

"Hooray," Dylan said, dead-pan. "Let's go, I'm bored. Later, Adara."

"How can you be bored by den-building?" Aerona asked, astonished. Dylan rolled his eyes and grabbed her wrist, yanking her towards the steep path down to the town.

"Because," he said in tones of great suffering, "as I've already had to actually tell you once: I'm not six, petal. I grew out of it at the same point Madog stopped playing with dolls."

"Madog never played with dolls," Aerona giggled. "It's not allowed."

"He would have if he could," Dylan declared, leaping nimbly down the track. Fortunately it was fairly rocky, so their progress was made much easier by the ability to spring from rock to tree-root rather than sheer mud and scree. Combined with their proximity to the town, it only took around two minutes to reach the bottom where they put new clothes over their uniforms, covered Dylan's eyes in foundation as best they could and slipped nimbly into the narrow alleys between the buildings, unseen.

In the sunlight, the culture shock was stronger than the night before, because Aerona could now see the buildings. After thrity seconds of walking that brought them near the main street it became clear they were in the poor area of town; the buildings around them were all made of wood, wattle and daub, rectangular affairs ranging from one to two storeys high with thickly thatched roofs. None of them had windows of any kind. Each was emitting a thin, sickly plume of smoke from small chimneys, and as they passed one open doorway Aerona glanced inside. The floor was, surprisingly enough, covered in floorboards, strongly implying some sort of storage pit or possibly even cellar beneath. It was an enormous fire hazard. She wondered how many Saxons had died in house fires in order to preserve their great cultural purity.

Or of general diseases. As they threaded their way between the closely-packed houses they passed two middens, fenced off on three sides from the streets and smelling like death. In mainland Cymru, Aerona knew, there were plenty of small villages and independent farming settlements that still used middens, but there wasn't one town in the country that hadn't adopted drains after the first Phoenician ship had offered the schematics several centuries before. Suddenly, she felt a burst of understanding for Breguswid. To live your life in a society that you knew could change for better, but to be shouted down because of tradition... How on earth had she coped for so long? It was astonishing.

"I think this just might be hell," she muttered quietly to Dylan. His roving eyes flashed to her for a moment, giving her a tight, grim smile of agreement as he nodded once.

"They live like this," he murmured poisonously. "And then they come and burn what we have. What cads, eh?"

"Depends on how the leaders live, of course," Aerona whispered. "Something to consider, by the way; did you see the suspended floor?"

"Basements?" Dylan asked, quietly impressed. "I'll look into it. Literally. Ha!"

As they neared the main street the houses finally started to spread out a bit, as though they were trying to look a bit more respectable to passers-by. More of them stood at two storeys too, Aerona noted. She wrapped her cloak about her more as though unused to the colder, non-Phoenician weather and went to step forward when Dylan caught her shoulder and stopped her, turning her to face him.

"There'll be crowds," he said, the rising background noise of chatter proving him right. "So you'll blend in. But be careful. This isn't Cymru."

"Same to you," Aerona said, her voice low. "You don't know the layout here, and from the looks of it there won't be any secret passages to find. You won't be able to retreat if you're seen."

"Danger is possibly my middle name," Dylan grinned. "I've not met my mother, so it could be. Anyway."

He kissed her forehead and stepped away, his eyes already scanning the wooden buildings around them.

"Remember; the name not to mention in these parts is Llywelyn."

"I'll try to keep it in mind," Aerona giggled, and then Dylan was gone, melting into the maze of wood and thatch like a shadow. She smiled, and headed for the main street.

It very quickly became crowded even a sidestreet or two away; suddenly there were people everywhere, women in skirts sweeping the streets and scrubbing doorways, men bustling about with armfuls of flags and flowers or ticking off lists. The buildings were more sturdily-built here, and Aerona realised that they weren't all houses anymore; there were shops and workshops, each with carefully-brightened signs to advertise themselves, each with smiling workers at their doors holding trays of whatever they produced. It took Aerona a second before she realised she understood the signs because they were pictoral rather than written in Saxon, and she wondered how many people here could read. Probably not many in this part of town, she thought bitterly. The areas of comparitive activity were depressing. Clearly, the townsfolk were focusing their efforts only on the parts King Coenred would be actually seeing. Clearly, he'd have no interest in the slums.

She stepped onto the mainstreet and lost herself in the crowd, using the natural cover to look around. The mainstreet was, at the very least, paved with stone, although it wouldn't have passed a Cymric inspection test. The slabs had been unevenly laid, the corners either sticking up to catch an unwary foot or wheel or dipping down to form small drainage pools of rain and animal faeces. Aerona thanked the gods she was still wearing her uniform boots under the costume. They were waterproof. If she stood in one of those puddles, it would be the only thing to stop her from just massacring the crowd.

The smell of baking bread alerted her to the bakeries; or rather, to the town ovens. They were situated in a cluster at the edge of town behind a simple stone wall, a series of domes about the same height as Aerona obviously kept away from the predominant wood of the rest of the town to minimise the fire risk. Currently they were being manned by between twenty to thirty women of all ages, cheerfully chatting away as they kneaded dough and pulled the round, flat loaves out of the ovens on long-handled paddles. Once out the bread was loaded onto waiting carts and wheelbarrows and taken away by a group of mildly stressed looking men, whisked into the crowd presumably in readiness for the King's reception. On the other side of the wall was an open square, clearly a market, filled with merchants of all kinds and races selling their wares. Further up the main street again were more workshops, a blacksmith's prominent among them, backing onto more timber houses, and then -

Aerona had been right. Up ahead the main street rose up a hill slightly, and even to her untrained eye she could tell the discrepancy in quality between the buildings up there and the ones in the slums. Up there there were a few halls, a good twenty-five metres long, tall and proud above the town; and amongst them, finally, were buildings of stone. With towers. It was fine for the rich to break tradition then, thought Aerona the Rider angrily. But not the peasants. They should stay where they were, because that was traditional. They should carry on in their foetid squalor and waiting fire risks. But the rich would live in stone towers, very impressive.

"Beautiful, aren't they?" a voice said in Punic, and Aerona turned.

The man addressing her was tall, probably in his mid-thirties and Saxon. He was leaning against the wall of a shop that seemed to sell furniture, a half-eaten slab of ham and bread in one hand as he smiled at her. His eyes were just slightly too watchful. Aerona smiled.

"Certainly different," she agreed. "I am very used to wooden buildings among your people."

"It was the royal household of the kingdom, once upon a time," the man said, nodding to the stone walls. "This was a fairly rich kingdom. But, times change."

"The wealth is gone?" Aerona asked carefully, and the man smiled.

"The kingdom is," he said. "Have you been keeping abreast of our changing politics, my lady?"

And that was a bloody weird title, only made bearable by dint of being a different language and therefore lacking the punch of 'Sovereign'. In Aerona's world, that was what she called Lady Gwenda. It went against everything holy to receive it herself. But, even more odd, was that a Saxon man had just used it to address a Phoenician tradeswoman. It was an attempt at respect made slightly clumsy and condescending by being out of his cultural comfort zone. Aerona's suspicion about him solidified fractionally more.

"I've not, I fear," she said, bowing the short, apologetic bow of Phoenician traders who wanted you to pay them lots in spite of a cultural slight the world over. "My caravan has come from over the border, although I've heard rumours, naturally. You have a new king?"

"Indeed," the man said amiably. "The king to end all others, in fact. Oh; forgive me. My name is Bertwald."

"Asherah," Aerona lied easily. "It is a pleasure."

"Might I interest you in a drink, Asherah?" Bertwald asked with smooth charm. "If your grasp of our situation is only passing, you'll need a fuller briefing before you can effectively trade."

"Ah!" Aerona smiled slyly. "An offer unrelated to my having just been over the border and therefore likely carrying political news of my own, I imagine."

"Name your god!" Bertwald laughed. "And I shall happily swear by them that my interest is entirely based on altruism and a desire for conversation."

"Then I shall name no god of mine," Aerona told him. "But I shall nonetheless accept your kind offer. I don't turn friendly faces away."

"Excellent!" Bertwald smiled, passing the leftover ham and bread to a waist-high boy lurking in the shop doorway who looked like he might be one meal away from starvation. He took the food, and fled wordlessly. "Then follow me, if you would. What are you trading?"

"Many things," Aerona said comfortably, walking beside him as they threaded through the crowd. "Although most of the cargo is gone by now. Out here, we are on a tour to determine the demand for new produce."

"Such as?" Bertwald asked, with apparent genuine interest. Aerona almost felt bad for the lie.

"Sugar," she said. "Although it is, of course, an expensive commodity."

"I've never heard of it," Bertwald confessed, and through his light tone Aerona's well-trained ear heard the tiny, tiny hard edge, and her suspicion solidified another fraction. "Is it a cloth?"

"A food," she explained. "Not dissimilar to salt in many ways; it is the same to look at, and it cannot be consumed as a foodstuff in its own right. But it is very, very sweet. As salt is an ingrediant for savoury food, so is sugar for sweet food."

"Quite a luxury," Bertwald observed. "I can see why it's expensive. I can't imagine you'll find much of a market here."

"Nor can I," Aerona agreed. He stopped outside a building that looked not unlike a long house and pulled open the door.

"In here, Asherah," Bertwald said politely, standing back for her to go in first. Aerona kicked down the instinct that wanted him to stay in front of her and in no way wanted to step into the darkness unarmed, and stepped into the darkness unarmed.

It really was dark after the brightness of the sun. Aerona paused to let her eyes adjust as the thickly smoky atmosphere enveloped her, the chatter and heat of a bar full of patrons oppressive. Bertwald stepped beside her, his fingers finding her arm. Somehow, she neither shied away nor attacked him.

"It always takes a second to see again on sunny days, doesn't it?" he grinned. "Come. The bar is this way."

He led her into the room, an experience that Aerona vowed never to repeat again as long as she lived in which she basically had to trust a Saxon to lead her blind into a suffocating room full of other Saxons. Fortunately, her eyes adapted quickly, and by the time they'd reached the bar she could see again. In fact, she noted, there was the same level of illumination in the room as the tavern she'd been in the night before, the light coming from the fire-pit and the cressets of oil around the walls and along the tables. It was a lot of naked flame and oil near a lot of wood and straw, Aerona felt. And only one door. And no windows.

The murals on the walls were pretty, though. Saxons could paint at least.

The bartender arrived and then vanished again as Bertwald said something in Saxon to him, and then turned to Aerona, smiling.

"I've ordered you mead," he said. "It's no imposition you understand; they're simply saving the other drinks for the arrival of the king and his retinue."

"I would have ordered the mead in any case," Aerona assured him, sliding the cloak off. The Phoenician robes felt far too revealing, a feeling that intensified as Bertwald ran his eyes quickly over her body, and she missed the secure, all-encompassing feeling of her uniform.

"So will they buy your sugar in Cymru?" Bertwald asked her. Aerona smiled.

"I won't know until I return," she said. "The company owner has the Phoenician Audience at the Archwiliad this year, and is asking there. But many of the Courts have expressed an interest."

"Yes, I should imagine they have." It was a nonchalent sentence; but this time, Aerona saw the quick, upward thrust of his chin as he said it, projecting the hidden anger. Although there were several reasons he could have been angry there. "They have the money to spare in Courts."

The bartender reappeared with two tankards, but as Aerona went to draw out her money pouch Bertwald stopped her, and said something else to the bartender. The man gave a short bow, and bustled away. Bertwald smiled as he picked up the drinks, heading for a quiet corner.

"Either you just threatened that man's life or you have not yet told me something important about yourself, my friend," Aerona laughed, following him. "But either way, we seem to have not paid for these."

"The latter," Bertwald grinned, setting the drinks down at the table and pulling her chair out for her; again, it was a clumsy attempt at courtesy that became just fractionally condescending, albeit unintentionally. "I am, in fact, part of King Coenred's staff. I am here ahead of him to help prepare for him."

You still have to pay for your drinks, you dick, Aerona thought irritably, but she kept her smile in place.

"Ah!" she said. "Then perhaps it is to you I should offer my sugar. And now I realise I was right about you, my friend."

"Oh?" Bertwald sipped his drink, amused. "In what sense?"

If only you knew, Aerona thought.

"You have asked for this drink merely for my political knowledge over the border," she told him, earning a laugh. "Especially given that you do not have to pay for it."

"I swear that is not why," Bertwald said, his eyes twinkling. "Feel free to tell me nothing of Cymru for the rest of this conversation. I shall tell you of King Coenred."

Like hell, Aerona thought. If she was right about him, Bertwald was after some very specific news from over the border.

"Ah yes!" she smiled. "Your new king! I shall tell you one rumour I have heard; he has a Rider, from Cymru?"

"Oh yes," Bertwald grimaced. "In honesty, this is worrying. I imagine the Cymric will come for him. But yes. Part of the arrangements I've made today are for secure stabling for his... flying horse. I don't know the Punic word for it, I'm sorry."

"We generally use the Cymric," Aerona invented quickly. "'Meraden'. Yes, I suppose it would need guarding. In the stone building, I presume?"

"No," Bertwald said, his smile just fractionally hard. "There are no stables there. The previous king felt it was not for him to waste space on livestock; and who are we to argue with royalty? No; it will be housed in the stables beside the first long hall up on the hill, but under extremely heavy guard. No one will get near it."

Riders will, Aerona vowed mentally. We aren't leaving it here. But it was very good information already; that meant that as soon as Owain arrived in the town he would be on foot, and Adara could come down and join them. So; now to see if her suspicion about Bertwald was right...

"A shame," she purred. "From a personal perspective. I am Phoenician; I would move mountains to obtain a meraden! But, I could not have transported it back through Cymru, anyway."

"There is that!" Bertwald laughed. "If I'm honest, Asherah, we are mostly guarding it from the Phoenician traders in the marketplace."

"A wise precaution," Aerona nodded solemnly, and hoped Saxon guarding was sufficient to keep the bloody thing in its stable long enough for them to fetch. "But we digress! You promised to tell me of your king. This 'king to end all kings', as you phrase it. Why is this?"

Just for a moment - one tiny, fleeting moment - Bertwald's eyes swept the room around them as he drank, checking for listeners.

"It's unusually appropriate," he said lightly. "As of three days ago, King Coenred is officially the head of nine different kingdoms, now one under him. Naturally, in order to claim such territories he must defeat the previous wearers of the crowns."

"He kills them, I assume?" Aerona asked neutrally. Bertwald waved a hand lazily.

"Some, certainly," he nodded. "Not all. Although of those who willingly ceded their kingdoms to him, the two who were unhappy about doing so appear to have met with some rather unfortunate accidents."

"I see," Aerona nodded. Bertwald wasn't bad, she reflected, but he'd never have made Intelligencer like this. He went from looking at her to watching her on every important bit, telegraphing hidden motives. "This, I must say, seems to me to be very unusual behaviour for your people."

"Yes and no," Bertwald grinned. "We've always been at war with ourselves, Asherah. We are a casually violent people, I suppose. And, in all honesty, much though everyone likes to forget it there have been kings before Coenred who united large chunks of the country under themselves. Not as smoothly, not as successfully; but it has happened."

Interesting, Aerona thought. Coenred's meteoric rise to power wasn't as un-Saxon as the Saxons thought, then. Although that could easily have been propaganda on Bertwald's part.

"You say your people like to forget it," Aerona said carefully. "Not all approve of your new king?"

"We are a traditional people," Berwald said casually, his eyes briefly making the sweep for listeners again. "For which there are many things to be commended. But the drawback to a mindset that clings to tradition is, of course, an occasional willful blinding to the facts."

"Contraversial," Aerona laughed, and Bertwald gave a wry grin, the small chin thrust making a reappearance.

"A sad fact," he nodded. "But it is foolish to overlook it. After all; if one looks to the future to create an ideal of perfection, one can either work around or avoid any... problems, any unsavoury aspects. But, if one finds the ideal of perfection in the past, then the unsavoury aspects cannot be changed, as they have already happened. Therefore, they are ignored."

Cymric religious philosophy in a nutshell, there. It was strange hearing it from a Saxon. And it helped to solidify Aerona's suspicions even more.

"Well put," Aerona offered, and Bertwald nodded graciously.

"Thank you," he said. "In any case, King Coenred has begun his campaign to unite Saxonia under his rule, and has so far been very successful to the dismay of many."

"The traditional?"

"Mostly." Another sweep of the bar, another nonchalent sip at the mead. "He has dissidents to contend with. Those who challenge his right to rule."

"But as you say," Aerona began, and Bertwald shook his head. Another look around, another sip. Definitely wouldn't have made an Intelligencer, she thought. The closer he got to the point, the more he gave himself away. It was a tell a mile wide.

"For another reason," Bertwald said. "There are those who challenge his claim on his title. We hold the inheritance of station through family lines very dearly, you see, and he did not start out as a king. He was a thane, who stole the crown from his sister."

"His sister?" Aerona raised her eyebrow. "Forgive me, my friend, but my understanding was that you did not allow women here to rule."

"They can if their husband dies," Bertwald said. Another look around, another sip, another look around. It was quite exciting. Aerona bet herself that he'd try to namedrop Breguswid. She hoped he would; it would make her life far, far easier. "Which was the case. A southern kingdom along the border. King Eadfrid there, so the story goes, managed to get himself quite literally torn apart with his own sword by the Casnewydd Alpha Wingleader - we have poems about it. After that, the station reverted to Queen Breguswid, but she had ideas..."

He trailed off, his attention like a lance as Aerona very carefully made herself look thoughtful.

"I am truly sorry," she said apologetically. "Names are my weakness; I struggle with them. You said - Breguswid?"

"That's right," Bertwald said, his voice so casual it had nearly fallen asleep, the sip at his mead so nonchalent he was nearly forgetting to swallow, and his eyes almost impaling her to the chair. Aerona creased her brow slightly in concentration.

"It seems to me I know that name," she said softly. "Hmm. Perhaps it will come to me later. Well. I presume that this particular Breguswid is now passed along, in accordance with your new king's methods of conquest?"

"It's unknown," Bertwald said, the very personification of blitheness. "After he took the crown she vanished, along with several others from the city who had liked her ideas. Some say he killed them. He denies it."

"Indeed?"

"It is forbidden within our law to kill a kinsman," Bertwald said. "We prize family ties. If he did kill her, not only could he not rule, but he'd also be put to death himself."

"I see," Aerona said thoughtfully. "How very complicated! And... would it be treasonous to ask what her ideas were?"

"It would," Bertwald smiled, scanning the room with such ferocity Aerona was almost surprised people didn't turn transparent under his gaze. "Let us say... they went against the traditional mindset of many."

He watched her as she sipped her mead, again taking up the pretense of pondering the name.

"It is curious," Aerona said after a moment. "But - yes. I definitely know that name."

"It is an unusual name," Bertwald said, his indifference so staggeringly vast that the entire bar was probably now aware of his furtive ulterior motives. "Although I would be careful of whom you explain it to. These are not easy times to mention such a name aloud."

"Sound advice," Aerona smiled, drinking the mead. Bertwald gave her what was probably the most charming smile in his repertoire, turning his eye twinkle onto maximum dazzle, and finished his drink.

"Well," he said smoothly. "I fear I shall have to return to work. But, if you do remember your Breguswid, and would like to talk some more later..."

He fished a folded piece of paper out of a pocket and passed it over the tabletop to her. Aerona took it.

"I'll be there, at that time," he said. "And thank you very much for your enchanting company, Asherah. I enjoyed it immensely."

"As did I, my friend," Aerona returned with a bow, and examined the paper as he left. It was a crudely drawn map with a time scribbled in the corner, one of the slum houses circled, and Aerona nodded with satisfaction.

"As did I," she muttered, and went to find Dylan.

************

She eventually caught up with him halfway back up the track to Adara.

"Good news!" Aerona announced brightly, jumping onto a rock. "I met a man -"

"You're already breaking up with me, and we aren't even together yet," Dylan said morosely. "And this is good news. Why. Why was I made, to cry."

"Shut up!" Aerona giggled. "It's not like that Dylan, I swear. We're just friends."

"That's what everyone says to me," Dylan said. "Fine. Go and be happy with this, with this man who's so much better than me."

"He's part of Coenred's retinue," Aerona said, giving up on steering the conversation and jumping straight in. They scrambled up the last few metres to Adara's contented Salute. "He's here ahead of the full procession to make sure everything is arranged and things. Oh, so I know where Owain's meraden will be stabled."

"Ah, the old sexual wiles," Adara nodded approvingly, throwing over a water bottle that Dylan caught one-handed. "Good work. Sneaky, sexy and efficient. Where?"

"See the long halls on the hill?" Aerona said, crossing over to Adara's vantage point and pointing. "There's a stable block near that first one, apparently. It'll be heavily guarded, since there are Phoenicians in town."

"Those famous knaves," Adara nodded, and held up an arm. Her red kite flew down to her, whistling. "Well, that makes things easier. Well done."

"Cheers," Aerona said happily, accepting the flask from Dylan as he ambled over. "Anyway, he's even more useful. I think he's one of Breguswid's followers. He spent ten minutes trying to not-especially-subtley make me tell him of news about her after I told him my caravan had come from Cymru."

"They'll learn subtlety one day, you know," Adara said sagaciously, feeding the bird a small piece of raw meat. "Enjoy their lack while it lasts."

"Stop it, you'll make me cry," Dylan said. "So? What did you tell this upstanding citizen?"

"That the name was familiar, but I couldn't quite place it because I'm not good with names," Aerona recapped. "And then he gave me this map with a time scribbled on and an invitation to come and talk to him if I remember thinly disguised as a romantic encounter."

"Epic wins!" Dylan crowed, taking it. "Aerona, you just owned this backwater! Yeah, I checked that house. That one has a cellar."

"Really?" Adara asked, surprised. She let the bird go again. "They can build cellars here?"

"I'm as astounded as you," Dylan told her. "But these people are actually quite good with wood. Makes sense, since they seem to build everything out of it. I swear even their food is wooden."

"They have floorboards," Aerona explained. "Makes for a better-insulated floor. A suspended floor is pretty much the dream in shelter building."

"Although most don't have cellars," Dylan added, stretching. "They build those huts they call 'houses' over pits. Most are just stuffed with straw. It sticks up between the boards. That one, though," he said, tapping the circled house on the map, "that one has a lot of space beneath it, and a conspicuously-hidden access hatch under the table."

"Dylan," Adara asked with mild reproach. "Did you break into people's houses today?"

"No, of course," Dylan said defensively, rolling his eyes. "I sidled in when the residents left to investigate my massive distractions."

"Anyway," Aerona said, taking the map back. "He didn't draw this for me, he already had it. So I think it's a meeting. In which case, if Owain's killing dissidents, they'll be a target for him."

"And therefore he'll probably go there secretly and alone for us to pick him off," Adara nodded. "Excellent! I shall pack my implements."

"We want him largely untouched, you know," Aerona said, but Adara waved an arm.

"Oh, I know," she snorted. "Don't worry. My desire to give him to Awen far outweighs my desire to extract my own revenge."

"Ooh, speaking of Awen," Aerona said happily, "it was her turn for a mention today! The Saxons have a poem about her killing Breguswid's husband with his own sword."

"I love this job," Dylan declared over Adara's proud smile. "Seriously. Okay: Aerona, you keep your meeting with Saxon Man. Adara and I will stay up here until we see that meraden going into those stables, then we'll come down and check the tavern just in case. Then we'll come and wait for you. Then we'll have a party. I don't like wine."

***********

As it happened, Aerona was back in the town and on her way to her meeting with Bertwald when King Coenred finally arrived. She slipped around to the market square to watch, a Phoenician family happily pulling her up on top of their caravan with them to see over the crowd, the daughter even handing her a small cup of tea. Aerona offered her sugar. It made them all firm friends, just in time for the procession to reach them.

And what a sight it was. Coenred sat in a chair large enough to be a throne, mounted up on a cart pulled by four grey horses, covered by a velvet awning that formed a rudimentry but expensive roof. He was fairly unremarkable to look at, Aerona felt; she'd been expecting someone considerably more devious and furtive-looking, really, because apparently her mind worked like a children's book, but obviously it wasn't the case. He just looked Standardly Saxon; broad, strong jaw, strong brows, strong nose, blond hair, pale eyes. His clothes were coarse by the standards of Cymric Sovereigns, but considerably more ornamental than those of the townsfolk, as were those worn by the other members of his bodyguard riding on either side of the cart. He smiled graciously at the cheering people, waving lazily at his subjects with the indulgent air of a cat just fed and willing to be affectionate. Aerona hated him instantly. People who waved like that could frankly fuck off, she felt.

But he wasn't the star of the show. Up on his throne, in his rich clothes beneath his velvet roof, with fourteen armed men riding prancing war horses to either side of the cart and heralds riding ahead with banners and shouting his name, Coenred was upstaged. Because to the right of the cart, riding emotionlessly beside it on his winged black beast, went Owain Masarnen.

It was a strange thing, to see in the flesh someone you'd been despising for quite a while, someone with such a staggering price on their head. Aerona couldn't work out if seeing him in person made her angrier or not. Over the last few days she'd heard so much about Owain, the man who was Deputy Alpha Wingleader. She'd gone through his profile in minute detail, processing and assimilating everything she could about him to get inside his head, and now, within spitting distance, here he finally was, a face to match up to the name. And...

Well. He wasn't as ugly as she'd been led to believe, actually, although he certainly sat on the wrong side of the attractiveness scales. He very nearly didn't, Aerona thought; if his mouth had been slightly less wide, his nose slightly narrower, slightly shorter, his eyes slightly less sunkern, if his wiry blond hair had been slightly better styled, avoiding that widow's peak... he could have been handsome. But every feature was off just enough to produce what even Aerona had to admit was really quite an ugly face.

He looked partly Saxon, actually, a coarsely ugly version of Flyn's handsome Cymric-Saxon hybrid features. Which probably helped to explain his partial defection after obtaining a mirror. Aerona forcibly kept her lip from curling. There really was a reason for not using mirrors, she reflected. Owain was going to be in every manual on how not to be a Rider for the rest of the Union's days. She stopped focusing on his face, and studied him.

They'd been right about the uniform. He wore the old Casnewydd Alpha Deputy uniform, a comparitively smart one that Aerona recognised as the model generally used when on diplomatic tours, and presumably the one he'd fled Aberystwyth in; but it had indeed been modified. He'd kept the collar denoting his rank and the Union and Casnewydd symbols declaring allegiance, but had added a new one, a sharp, spiky image that jarred against the swirling lines of the rest. It matched the insignia on the banners carried by the heralds, Aerona noted. Owain was a dog with a new master. His hands were gloved, but - she looked carefully - two of the fingers on the right hand looked wrong, as though the fingers inside didn't quite fill them out. The sword at his hip sat on the right side, implying that he now drew with his left hand.

And finally, there was his manner. It was like seeing a machine for all the soul he seemed to be displaying. Owain looked straight ahead as he rode sparing no attention whatsoever for the crowds that drew back from him when he passed. He sat upright, and seemed alert, but that was about it. His eyes stared, a dull burn. Aerona shivered.

She'd honestly never seen anyone more dangerous. He was an insane, angry Rider in exile, with utterly no morals and all of the horrifying skill the Union was capable of pouring into him. And they were meant to take him alive.

"And that is their Rider," the Phoenician man beside her said thoughtfully, his dark eyes pensive. "Well. He certainly seems altered from Riders I have met. As could be expected, I suppose."

"I don't like him," the little girl said, snuggling into her father's side. "He's scary."

"We mean him no harm," the man smiled, brushing her hair. "He will not harm us. Do you remember the nanny goats in Gaul?"

The little girl nodded, and Aerona resisted the urge to ask about the nanny goats in Gaul.

"Think of Riders in that way," the man explained patiently. "They will only watch as long as you clearly mean them no harm. They only attack if you threaten their young. Their country."

"He has no young," the girl said, and the man exchanged a glance with Aerona. The adorable small child had missed the point, their look said. But she had also hit it perfectly.

"He is leaving," Aerona said softly. "He will be in the stone house, see? He won't come near you."

Because, in all honesty, Owain Masarnen was going nowhere near any more children. Not if Aerona could help it.

Ten minutes later the procession had vanished up the hill, Aerona had thanked the family and jumped down and the sun was just setting over the town. She wove her way through the moving crowds, heading into the maze of narrow streets again. The evening air was cool, but Aerona couldn't feel the chill through the adrenaline. Just seeing Owain, just laying eyes on him had filled her with a mixture of anger and loathing and trepidation that she couldn't shake. That was the man who had turned on his own Wingleader and cut her throat. That was the man who had murdered Little Dewi. That was the man who had tortured an innocent old woman to death. And that was the man who still had the temerity to be wearing a Rider's uniform with a Union sigil emblazoned across the front. Gods, she wanted to kill him.

But still; one step at a time. The house, when Aerona found it, was sort of one-and-a-half storeys high, apparently the product of an extension, and on the edge of the slums. As ever, it had no windows. Cautiously, she knocked at the door.

It took a few seconds to open. A pair of eyes level with Aerona's collarbones peered up at her through the thin crack between frame and door, bright and piercing.

"Yes?" a voice asked suspiciously, and Aerona tried not to smack her forehead against the lintel at what terrible Intelligencers these people were. No wonder Owain was finding them all over the country. There were cats who could have been trained to find them.

She pulled out her Friendliest Smile from her Mental Box of Smiles.

"Good evening, my friend!" she said as pleasantly as she could. Well, if nothing else, she was really keeping her oar in as far as her Punic went. "I met a young man earlier who suggested I come here. His name was... Bertwald? I believe?"

"Bertwald?" the suspicious voice asked suspiciously. Aerona bowed the apologetic Phoenician bow.

"I believe was his name," she said. "But, my apologies. Names are not my gift. I may have it wrong."

"No, there's a Bertwald here sometimes," the voice said. It seemed to belong to a man, but it was thin and wispy, possibly with age, making it hard to tell. Aerona beamed.

"Excellent!" she said. Really, whoever was there was horrible at secrecy. If they weren't hiding something they were at the very least a bit simple. "Is he here? I can come back if not."

There was a pause long enough to be so obvious Aerona was mildly surprised it hadn't yanked Owain towards them like a magnet. Clearly, Reedy Voice was trying to think. It didn't seem to be a natural gift.

"He's not here yet," it said at last. "But... you can come in and wait."

"Many thanks," Aerona bowed graciously. Good gods, she had half a mind to turn these people over herself. The door was opened for her, and she stepped inside.

As she'd expected from the tavern, it was a painted wooden room containing wooden furniture, a fire-pit and the lit oil cressets that produced light. The floorboards rang slightly with the promise of an underground cavity beneath her feet, and Aerona wondered how many people were down there. A single rug adorned the floor in the corner, sufficiently out of place to be hiding something like, for example, a cellar hatch. A flight of four stairs in the corner led to a storage area above the bedrooms. One of the corners of the room had been patched up with moss and ferns. Aerona smiled, and turned to her host.

Ah. Not old, just mutilated. He was a man, maybe fifties, with no legs below the knees and an over-developed torso. His hair in the dingy light was either pale blond or grey, and an enormous scar ran from one eye down his face and over his neck, possibly explaining his weak voice. He had a pair of three-legged stools that he seemed to use to get around; as she watched now he planted the one he wasn't sitting on between himself and the table and swung himself easily onto it, pulling the first one along and placing it in front of him again, using them like stepping stones. He had a surprising turn of speed with them, Aerona noted. He'd never escape Owain.

"Sit?" he offered as he reached the table, letting go of a stool to pull out a chair for her. Aerona took it. "Bertwald said... here? Now?"

"Yes," Aerona said happily, pulling the map out. "He gave me this. A charming fellow, I thought."

The man looked at the map, frozen for a good two seconds, and then grunted and nodded. He held out a hand to her. It took Aerona a moment to realise it was friendly.

"Egbert," he said shortly, and Aerona smiled and shook it.

"Asherah," she said. "It is a pleasure."

He gave her a suspicious look at that, although if his manner with her was anything to go by she probably was the first person to ever claim to derive pleasure from Egbert's company. He took the map again, running a blunt thumb over the time scribbled in the corner.

"Bertwald gave it to you," he repeated. "Why?"

"He was returning to work, and wished to meet me later," Aerona shrugged. This man had utterly no social grace, either. She wondered if he knew specifically who'd chopped his feet off. They seemed to take notes around here. "I suspect, if I'm honest, because of my recent trading across the border. As he works for your new king, I imagine he wishes to learn of the politics there."

"You were in Cymru?" Egbert asked, his eyebrows raised as though it was simply astonishing to find someone there. "Did you hear?"

There was a pause.

"I fear, my friend, you have lost me," Aerona said carefully, and at that moment there was a knock at the door.

A special knock, Aerona noted. One long, two short, two long. Bloody sodding amateurs.

Egbert glanced at her, and then knuckled his way over to the door with his stools. He opened it slightly, and then pulled it quickly open to reveal the form of Bertwald silhouetted against the dying light as he slipped inside, the door shut and locked firmly behind him. He gripped Egbert's shoulder briefly, who jerked his head at Aerona.

Bertwald glanced at her, and his eyes lit up.

"Asherah!" he said happily. "You came! I feared you would not. My apologies for being late; royalty has many requirements."

"So I'm told," Aerona smiled, giving him a short bow. "You are forgiven. I saw your king. He seemed most impressive."

"This is one word for him," Bertwald agreed, slipping off his cloak and sliding into a chair beside her, his pose one of studied casualness again. "Also demanding. In many senses. Would you care for a drink?"

"No, thank you." She smiled, folding her hands over each other on the table. "And I assume the meraden is safe from the clutches of myself and my fellow countrypeople?"

"A thousand apologies," Bertwald grinned. "But it is. A great many guards now surround it. Not even a Rider could get to it!"

Of course she can, Aerona thought, trying not to roll her eyes. What was it with Saxons and Riders? There was a man at this table with no feet and half a face, but they still underestimated their enemy.

"I am saddened to hear it," she said aloud. Bertwald snorted.

"Naturally," he said. "So! Have you remembered how you know our forbidden name?"

Egbert perked up, staring at her. She fancied she could feel the vaccuum of several people below the floorboards all trying to hear at once. She'd been right, then.

"I have, in fact!" Aerona said carefully. "But, my friend, first I must ask you something."

"Ask away," Bertwald said, propping his head on his hand. Aerona looked at her demurrely folded hands.

"You told me that your Queen Breguswid vanished," she said slowly. "But, she is the rightful heir to her crown. You also told me that you work for the new king, and he arranges accidents for those who oppose him."

She paused, letting the message sink in. Bertwald nodded slowly.

"Right on both counts," he said seriously. "But -"

"I cannot give you information on a person who will be killed on its merit," Aerona said firmly. "I will not. This woman may well be a different person entirely. She may be the same. It doesn't matter. I will not be responsible for someone's death."

"I swear to you, Asherah," Bertwald said intently, picking up one of her hands and looking her straight in the eye. "I am not a killer, nor will I pass on this information to one who is."

"My friend," Aerona said softly. "You are in the employ of your king. If he asks, you must tell him what you know. I understand this about your people. You are sworn to him."

"I would not tell him this," Bertwald said keenly. "I swear I would not. Not this."

"Then I must ask," Aerona said, covering his hands with her free one. "If you do not ask for your king; why ask at all? Why would it concern you? It seems to me that your interest goes beyond mere curiosity."

Bertwald hesitated, his eyes straying to Egbert, who watched him back wide-eyed-

And someone was moving beneath them. There was the sound of motion and cloth, and muted whispers on the edge of hearing coming through the floorboards, the words inaudible. Bertwald and Egbert froze, staring at each other apprehensively, and then Bertwald swallowed and forced a smile.

"It does not," he said lightly. "If you would prefer, we will say no more of -"

"No!"

The yell came up through the floorboards in the direction of the obviously-hiding-something rug, which suddenly exploded upwards, the cellar hatch dropping back with a thud. A girl in her twenties, probably Aerona's age or thereabouts, leaped out of it, her long blonde hair tangled and dull, clothes dirty. She looked like she'd been living rough for a while. She looked desperate. Arms tried to snatch her back into the cellar, and Bertwald stood abruptly, looking alarmed, but she nonetheless made it across the small room to Aerona and fell to her knees in front of her, her fingers clutching at Aerona's robes in Greek-style supplication.

"What -?" Aerona started, but the girl interrupted, her voice raw.

"Please!" she begged. "Please tell me! She's my mother, I have to know if she's still alive! I need to know!"

"Eanfled," Bertwald began, bending down and taking hold of her arm, but she shook him roughly off, almost snarling.

"No!" she screamed, clinging on. "Please, I - I'm begging you. We won't tell him. We don't want to kill her! We want to help her! We want her back!"

She'd never felt sorry for a Saxon before. It was the most bizarre experience. Aerona leaned down, and wrapped her arms around Eanfled, bringing her mouth level with the girl's ear.

"She's alive and she's safe," Aerona said, her voice low. Eanfled seemed to stop breathing, her fingers digging into Aerona's shoulders. "She's doing well. And she's not given up."

"Thank you," Eanfled whispered, trembling. People were climbing cautiously out of the cellar across the room. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Aerona said. Well, it was time to drop the pretence, then. She'd done her good deed for Saxon resistance. She stood, absent-mindedly undoing the clasp at her shoulder holding the robes together and stepping towards the door. "You're all trying to reinstate her as Queen, then."

"You can't tell," Bertwald said urgently, his tone tinged with alarm. "We'd all be killed -"

"I know," Aerona said, putting her ear to the door and cursing the lack of windows. "I'm intrigued by you, by the way. I thought fealty to the king was a high vow among Saxons."

"We need to change," Bertwald said. "It's - I had to. We're dying, Asherah, all of us, and we need -"

"Yes, I know," Aerona sighed, and turned back to the room, holding the open clasp together. Fifteen people watched her with various stages of anxiety. "Listen, and listen very carefully, because I may be the only thing that saves you all tonight."

"Your accent is Cymric," Eanfled shivered. The anxious expressions upgraded to horrified suspicion.

"That's right," Aerona said evenly. "Listen. I am not here to kill you. I'm here to help you, understand?"

She dropped the robe, leaving the uniform in full view. Egbert made a strangled noise in his broken throat, lurching back against the table; a few people slapped hands over their mouths, cutting off their own screams; one man took a few steps towards the poker for the fire; others backed away. Bertwald, strangely, looked betrayed.

"My name is Aerona," she said. "Stop cowering. I haven't killed you yet, and I don't intend to, so please put that poker down."

"Put it down," Eanfled told the man holding it. He swallowed, and dropped it, the sound of it impacting the floorboards loud. "I - Rider? You said you're here to help?"

"Yes," Aerona said, looking around again. "How many exits does this house have? Any other than this door?"

"There's a passage in the cellar that leads out into the woods," Eanfled said, hugging herself. Aerona nodded.

"Good," she said. "Any others? Anyone?"

"We might - " Bertwald regarded her for a moment more, and then sighed, looking away and running a hand through his hair. "We might be able to knock a hole through that corner with the moss."

"Excellent!" Aerona smiled. "Now, how well known is that hole in the cellar that leads to the woods?"

"Only to us," Bertwald said. "It was dug two days ago."

Aerona winced, shaking her head.

"Right," she said. "We'll have to risk it, I think, but before we progress; you are all horrible at stealth. Horrible at it."

"We lack your training, Rider," Bertwald said, his voice faintly accusatory. Aerona spared him a glance, vaguely bewildered.

"Well, it's lucky for you," she said. "In future? When a psychotic rogue Rider is known to be killing political dissidents, don't hold clandestine meetings on the night he's in town. Now, someone grab Egbert and his chairs and get going."

"He's coming here?" Egbert said, his thin voice terrified. "But - you aren't -?"

"I'm very much after him," Aerona said, turning to the corner held together with vegetation. "Don't worry. What you want and what I want coincide, which is making for a lovely cultural alliance never before seen. Get out, and make your ways back into town in groups of no more than three. Go."

They went, achingly slowly, Egbert carried by two men, his stools carried by a fourteen-year-old boy with limbs gangly enough to be a spider. Aerona pulled on her cloak.

Your best chance is if you can take him by surprise, be as subtle as possible.

The cloak would hide the uniform for longer, keep him from attacking on sight. If he came in through the door, which was fairly likely as the only entrance, then she could pretend to be just a Phoenician trader, unaware of the others below the floor. And Adara and Dylan would be on their way, only a few minutes out.

"You accepted that drink just to get to the Rider, then," Bertwald said in Cymric, watching her as the people filed down into the cellar one by one. Aerona raised an eyebrow at him.

"You offered just to hear about Breguswid," she told him. "And now I'm saving your life. I'm really being very caring."

"Can you handle him alone?" Eanfled asked. After the news of her mother she seemed to have calmed right down, proving herself to be inherently capable in a crisis. "He'll be a desperate man, Rider. He has nothing to lose."

"I'm not alone," Aerona said. "Now both of you go -"

The doorhandle turned, thwarted by the lock. They turned to look at it, the rattle loud in the quiet house. Aerona waved a hand at the Saxons to get them moving and stepped towards the door, switching neatly back to Punic.

"Bertwald?" she called, twisting the doorhandle herself as though trying to open it. "Is that you, my friend?"

"Not quite," the mocking voice called back in Cymric. It was hard, distorted by the Casnewydd accent, the arrogance oozing out of the syllables.

"Who is this?" Aerona called back, switching back to Cymric but keeping the accent as best she could. Behind her, the Saxons were still slowly going down the hatch, held up by the slow progress of Egbert in the tunnel. Behind the door, Owain laughed.

"Open up," he called. "In the name of King Coenred. You have three seconds from the end of this sentence."

"I will find the key," Aerona called. "It is not my house-"

"One second, friend," Owain threw back, his grin audible, and then Aerona just had time to step to the side that wouldn't be crushed between door and wall when the house trembled under a thundering crash, the lock ripped clean out of the doorjam as the hinges screamed their death and Owain stepped inside, throwing a large metal object to the ground behind him with a defeaning clang. The beady eyes, suddenly animated in stark contrast to their earlier glass, scanned the room, taking in Aerona in her Phoenician cloak cowering to one side and the final three Saxons trying desperately to get into the cellar, and he smiled maliciously.

"Now now, Eanfled," he said, walking with predatory slowness towards her, ignoring the frantic shouting echoing up from beneath the floor. Aerona silently dropped the cloak. "You have been bad. But Uncle Coenred will be so happy to know I've found you. Of course, we'll have to punish you -"

It happened very fast then. Aerona had her daggers out and moved, springing forwards and up, but Owain's instincts turned him before he'd even finished speaking, his own knife springing up to catch one blade, gripping her wrist with his right hand, opening his mouth to say something suitably mocking -

And he saw her uniform at the same moment as Aerona slammed her forehead into his nose, her knee making hard contact with his stomach and he pushed forward, a sudden slash with the knife that caught just the edge of her neck, the pain not even registering but his weight throwing her off-balance, and as they started to go down she knew she had to move, couldn't get caught under him...

She twisted, and managed to land at just the right angle to force his hip to land hard on her boot-heel, her free elbow catching his already-bloody nose. It naturally rolled him off-balance just enough to let her leap out from under him, rolling away -

Her arm. Shit, he still had her wrist. It was too late to stop it, though; he twisted her arm savagely, dropping her to the floor, his other arm raising to drive the knife through her back, and Aerona rotated the dagger in her trapped hand, catching his injured fingers on the blade and elliciting the first response from him. He snarled and jerked back, the memory of Awen's assault in Aberystwyth apparently sufficiently repulsive to his hind-brain without purification to provide a weakness, and giving Aerona the tiniest chance to roll and kick back, making Owain in turn leap reflexively back out of reach.

They both paused, crouching, watching each other in the now-empty room. She was running out of time, Aerona knew. If Dylan and Adara didn't get here soon, she wasn't going to survive much longer. Owain was a better fighter, simple as that. And he was stronger. And while she was looking to take him alive, he was looking to kill her. So far, she'd only found one chink in the armour, that automatic protection of his hands. There didn't seem to be anything else.

Except... Aerona knew more about his mind now.

"Awen is dying," she said, and launched herself at him in the split second after it where Owain froze, the mocking mask in his eyes splintering just for a moment. The dagger hilt smashed upwards under his chin -

The blade sliced across her rib-cage on the left, caught from going deeper by the bones, and in the moment she jerked away from it his fist slammed across her face, jolting her neck to its limit and easily throwing her back down onto the floor. It was just enough; as Aerona tried to roll away his body weight pinned her down and he grabbed both wrists, yanking them above her head painfully hard and holding them in place with one hand, the fingers of the other closing about her throat, abruptly cutting off the air supply.

"Say that again," Owain snarled, his breath hitting her face and speckled with saliva. "Right now, you little bitch. Tell me that again."

His fingers loosened slightly, just enough to drag in a weak breath, not enough to ease the growing ache in her head and lungs.

"She's dying," Aerona hissed, trying to control her limited breathing as much as possible. "She can't - be - purified..."

He stared at her for a moment, the emotions storming through his eyes, and then he let go of her throat to punch her across the face again. Well, Aerona considered dizzily as the pain finally started to surface over the adrenaline, at least she could breathe again. She drew in a deep, careful breath, fighting not to choke.

His fingers slid into her hair, gripping it tight and holding her head sideways.

"You're lying," Owain said, his voice loud in her ear. "You lying fucking bitch. Nothing beats her, you hear that? Nothing."

"You have," Aerona managed, baring her teeth. Come on, Adara, he's here... "When you turned... she blamed... herself."

"No," Owain said coldly, his fingers tightening.

"She knows...now," Aerona panted. "The...druids, and... the child in... Cas-Gwent... and Flyn... and Coenred... everything."

"Then she doesn't understand!" he screamed, his lips actually touching her ear. It was really rather unpleasant. "She should be with me! Why would she -?"

"Because you're wrong," Aerona snarled. "You're insane, and arrogant, and you're breaking the country you swore to protect-"

It was back-handed this time, which had the pleasant side-effect of pushing her neck the other way, but unfortunately led to him gripping her throat again. It also meant he wriggled slightly, though, so happily Aerona managed to jab her knee up hard between Owain's legs. That was alright, then, she reflected as he vision started to grey around the edges, stars dancing across Owain's furious, contorted face. She could die happy now. Which seemed to be happening. There was a roaring in her ears, the pain gathering -

"Whoa now, pickle," Dylan's voice scythed in a split second before suddenly the weight vanished from her, her breath rushing back into her lungs too quickly and making her cough. "That is not looking good on an already dystopian record."

"Fuck you," Owain snarled, somewhere to Aerona's right. She blinked, trying to reclaim her vision. "Dylan? Fuck you! You think you're better than me? You think you're anything-"

"Gods, dude, shut up," Dylan said, the eye roll actually audible. Aerona rolled to her hands and knees as best she could, dragging herself to where she remembered a wall being. "You kill kids dressed as a bear. You could not fail at life more."

Owain's snarl was gutteral, and the fight instantaneous. Aerona leaned against the wall, rubbing her eyes slightly. The world was still filmy and grey around the edges, but she could see in the centre again, giving her a view of a fight of equals. Two Alpha Wing Deputies, she thought vaguely. Dangerous odds. Although still stacked in Owain's favour; he was willing to kill Dylan, while Dylan was hampered by avoiding making a killing blow. Aerona tried to stand, and the world swam around her, dropping her back to one knee.

"I'll be there now," she managed, holding herself up with a hand on the wall. "I'll just..."

"Stay there, petal!" Dylan said, cheerful but breathless. "Guess who's coming in a bit? Guess!"

"Shut up!" Owain screamed. "Stop -!"

"Oh, you're not strong enough to shut me up, my psycho Wingleader-killing friend," Dylan sang. "Considerably better people than you have tried. Serious! My Wingleader's tried for years! And I've not killed him."

His scream was almost primal, rage and hatred combining into one horrendous sound. He launched himself at Dylan, his movements suddenly frenzied, driven, the knife flashing, and as she watched Dylan gave himself over to instinct just to keep up, the chatter falling away. Desperately, Aerona tried to rise again, but again the dizziness towed her down; she looked up, swaying, the images blurring together of Dylan fighting, Owain striking, the chair rising behind him -

At which point, Adara calmly brought the chair down over Owain's head and ended it in disdain and concussion.

Owain collapsed at her feet, Adara giving him the smile of a shark. Dylan staggered back, blinking for a moment as his higher brain functions reasserted themselves, and then spun around and jumped to Aerona's side, pushing her gently but firmly down to the floor, examining her head. She hurt now. Although clearly she was suffering with a mild concussion of her own, so the pain felt distant. To the side Adara dropped swiftly to a crouch over Owain, disarming him.

"He's down," she announced, pulling weapons away. "How is she?"

"Injured," Dylan said quietly. "Hey, Aerona, can you see my pretty face in gorgeous clarity?"

"It's fuzzy," she said thickly, and smiled. "It's okay. I'm okay."

"Yeah," he grinned, his hands running over her gently. "Hey, we're even! Now we've saved each other from death. That makes us BFFs, you know."

"Thank you," Aerona murmured. "The Saxons ran away. I think the man was disappointed."

"What, to live?" Dylan asked blankly, and Adara snorted.

"That she was a femme fatale Rider and not a pretty, demure Phoenician," she said. "Maybe I should get Awen to teach me some languages. Hey, Owain!"

An abrupt movement out of the corner of Aerona's eye suggested Adara had just smacked her former Deputy in the head injury, a theory backed up by Dylan throwing out an arm to her in alarm.

"Did you know she can speak Saxon?"

"Hey hey!" Dylan exclaimed. "Need him alive, remember?"

"Oh yeah." Adara sounded crushingly disappointed, and sighed. "You know, I'll be really pleased once he's tied up but awake. We're having us a great conversation as soon as he's awake."

"I'll bet," Dylan grinned. "Alright. We're going in fifteen minutes. Merod outside?"

"Yep." Adara pulled at a knot unnecessarily. "All ready to go. Can Aerona ride?"

"Not for long," Dylan said, studying her again, and through the cloud Aerona thought she could see the concern in his restless eyes. She raised an arm to try to tell him not to worry, but she couldn't assemble the words quickly enough, and he caught her hand and laid it back down again. "But long enough to get to Trallwng and a druid. And then we're going to the Union, and then we're going to drop that streak of semen in a cell."

"Riders?"

The voice was timid, deferential, but backed with its own strength. A word popped into Aerona's mind.

"Eanfled," she said. Dylan glanced down at her briefly from his alert crouch.

"That's right," the voice said, seeming to come closer. "I - thank you. For stopping him."

"We needed him back," Adara said indifferently. "But you're welcome. Don't take this the wrong way, but if you come too near me right now I'll punch you."

"How many ways are there to take that?" Dylan said. "Let's get them saddled up, come on."

"Eanfled," Aerona said again, her hand finding Dylan's arm. He paused in starting to scoop her up, looking at her. "She's the daughter."

"Oh, there's a mystic daughter now too?" Dylan asked brightly. "Excellent! Whose daughter?"

"Breguswid," Eanfled said. "She said - Aerona said she's alive?"

"And kicking," Dylan said, scanning Eanfled. Aerona wished the world would stop spinning. "Well then. That makes you a very important person."

"We needed to send a carriage anyway," Adara said, which made no sense to Aerona. "We could send her in it."

"I'm tired," Aerona said sleepily, and Dylan rose abruptly, holding her closely to his chest.

"Stay awake," he commanded. "Just for a few minutes, Trallwng's no distance at all because Saxons like danger. Right. I'll take her with me; you strap our boy there onto his own meraden. And as for you, Eanfled, mystic daughter of Breguswid! You're about to come for a ride."