The Once and Future Queen

I squirmed away as Gideon tried to pull me closer and threw my shoulders back. I was not entertainment. I was not here to be the object of those pitying gazes.

I stopped in front of Llewelyn, Prince of Gwynedd. His hair was soaked into his skull, the lack of curls making his head seem smaller. His partner, Rhys, had his arm around him.

“My lady.” His eyes fell to the bag I now cradled in my arms. They all knew, then. Of course, a full report would have been conveyed to the ruler of these lands. After all, he was uncle to the dust I held – all that was left of Devyn. Llewelyn’s eyes were dark too. I couldn’t bear them.

I walked by him towards the entrance to the great hall. Stumbling against a tall man standing on the steps, I heard a growl from Gideon behind me behind me as the stranger put his hands out to steady me. I looked up to see the cold grey eyes of a handsome, older man directed at Gideon and a caustic smirk as he took his hands back in no great hurry.

I blinked in recognition as Oban extricated me from my dripping cloak, clucking at my wet hair and clothes where the fur-lined cloak had failed to protect me from the elements. He wrapped my bare shoulders in a warm woollen shawl while I held on to the bag. He had helped me into the ruined velvet dress that I was surprised to find I was still wearing. Had it only been the night before last that he had laced me into the beautiful gown for the Solstice festivities?

I stood there, unsure of where to go. With so many people inside the walls, did I still have the room I had left behind with the paltry possessions I had picked up since leaving Londinium?

Llewelyn appeared at my shoulder. He went to put his arms around me, but I backed away with an awkward step, straight into the ever-present hulking body of the dark warrior who seemed to have become my new shadow. I twisted my head around to glare up at him. He was not Devyn. He needed to leave me alone.

A huffed laugh had me turning to face the unfamiliar visage of the man I had stumbled against a few moments earlier, and I levelled a deadened glare at him too for good measure.

“My lady,” Llewelyn called my attention back to him and without a further attempt to touch me, indicated that I should precede him into the great hall.

Rhys led the way, and I followed him through the hall, which was filled with the press of even more bodies. The damp heat rising from them was an ugly, foetid thing. They pushed back into each other to allow us to pass through. We went through the top corner of the hall, and down a corridor with which I was unfamiliar, until Rhys opened a door on the left. Inside the room was a study of sorts; a large desk had been pushed back against a book-lined wall to allow for chairs to be arranged in a circle.

Pulling back a seat beside Llewelyn, Rhys inclined his head to me to take my place before he took the seat on the Llewelyn’s right side. Rion took the seat beside me while Gideon loomed behind me as other men and women took their seats. Some I recognised from the trial – the trial during which they had found Devyn guilty of being an Oathbreaker and had condemned him to death. Now that he was dead, were they glad? Did they feel he had got his deserved end?

Lady Morwyn – who had spoken at great length about how an Oathbreaker couldn’t be trusted, no matter what the justification for breaking his fealty – didn’t meet my eyes now. Neither did Lord Arthfael or Lady Emrick, who had also judged him. The High Druid, Fidelma, who had presided over the trial, sat opposite, her steady, sympathetic gaze making my bones clench. I wanted nothing more than to smash the jar in my hands into her gentle, judicious face. The had condemned him, and they were hypocrites all. A tremble went through the room.

Then Bronwyn was there, a whirlwind of dark hair and plush velvet wrapping around me. She smelled sweet and fresh, and the jar of ashes dug awkwardly into my ribs as she pressed against me. She pulled back, and her glistening eyes took in the bag I held, lifting them back to me for confirmation that what was left of her cousin was contained within. Her chin started to crumple as I averted my eyes and extricated myself from her embrace. Rion stood, pulling her to him and held her while she swallowed back her sobs.

I would not break down here, in front of what was clearly a gathering of the great and the good, which amounted to maybe a dozen people in all. This included the lords and ladies who had been here for the trial, some of the druids who had travelled back with us, and a few I didn’t know – maybe they had been here for the Yuletide festivities and I just couldn’t remember them. There had been so many people, all here to see the Lady of the Lake, newly returned from the dead. Rion was the last to take his seat with Bronwyn on his other side. She looked across at me, anguish clear in her eyes as she whispered urgently to Rion. He shook his head, quieting her, taking her hand in his. She was a lady in her own right, but I suppose she was doubly important now as the future Queen of Mercia.

Also seated in the inner circle was the man at whom Gideon had growled. He was tall but blocky, and had the air of a man who had little patience and expected his every word to be obeyed, immediately.

“Well, what bloody mess is all this?” he sneered before everyone had fully settled.

Chapter Two

Llewelyn threw him a dirty look before turning back to Rion, his hands splayed wide, his eyes red with grief. “What happened?”

“It appears that Londinium attacked the druids at the Holy Isle to steal the mistletoe harvest.” Rion spoke for us. “They massacred the community to do so.”

A number of the nobility looked to the robed druids for confirmation of what they surely already knew – as if Rion was making it up, or maybe because they just weren’t ready to believe it. I could understand that.

“And my nephew?”

Rion cast a glance at me before he continued.

“It was bad timing. My sister, Devyn, and Marcus arrived as the attack was ending. Devyn was killed, and Marcus was taken.”

I looked over at him dumbly. Bad timing? Was he hiding the truth, or was he simply not aware of it? I barely knew this man, but he had struck me as intelligent – high-handed maybe but not stupid. The effort it would take to correct them felt far away. And why should I. All these people and their judgement of Devyn, what would they say once they knew he had brought a traitor into their midst?

“You let them take Marcus Courtenay? He should never have been here in the first place. The Glyndŵr pup should have taken him to York. He’d have been safe there,” the newcomer growled.

I bit my lip at the defence of Devyn that seethed inside me. Who was this man and what right did he have to call Devyn names? What did it matter now? My anger seeped away as quickly as it had surfaced.

“Why were they there? Why did you go after them?” Llewelyn asked, stiff-backed, as if the other man hadn’t spoken.

He didn’t know. Didn’t see that it was my fault. I was the reason Devyn had been there. His face was grey and lined: he had lost the last son of House Glyndŵr, the nephew whose return he had barely had time to celebrate. He had been so happy – for himself and for his disgraced brother Rhodri who had survived long enough to see his son return to Cymru. Did Rhodri know? Would Llewelyn have sent word?

Rion’s jaw locked, his eyes hooded when he answered.

“Devyn and Catriona were planning to get married by going to the Holy Isle where nobody knew I had forbidden it. We went after them hoping to stop their foolishness.”

I hated him. I hated him referring to me by that stupid name. Hated him.

“We would never have been there if not for you,” I said.

Rion drew a breath and Bronwyn laid a hand on his arm, quelling whatever he had been about to say in reply.

“How much of the harvest did they get?” Lady Morwyn asked, leaning back in her chair, her lips tight. She was less concerned about why we were there than the impact it would have on her and her people.

“More than half,” the druid from the Holy Isle, John, answered him.

“Why were they even after the harvest?” Lady Emrick asked. “I saw no ill Imperial citizens at the last treaty renewal.”

“The Mallacht is in Londinium too,” the sneery newcomer said. “The illness inside the walls is rampant across the population this last year and despite all of their fancy medicine, the Romans have been unable to do as much as us. People are dying in droves, and they haven’t been able to cover it up anymore. Riots in the streets, unrest in the province like they haven’t seen in generations. As bad as anything that happened in the rest of the Empire over the last decades.”

There had been a map on a college wall in Oxford that tracked the northwest progression of the illness from the central Mediterranean. I knew this much from the research that had been gathered in the library, if not from the news feeds in Londinium.

“The illness will be worse in Londinium because the ley line there is almost beyond repair,” Fidelma added, and was ignored for her trouble by the newcomer, not showing even a modicum of respect for one of the most senior druids in the land.

“How do you know?” Rion asked Fidelma, when the man she had addressed failed to do so.

“It is inevitable. The Empire has hunted magic to extinction in line with the rise of technology. We tend the lines out here, holding back the decay and the corrupted energies, protecting the western and northern lines as best we can from Glastonbury,” Fidelma explained. “But the line that passes under Londinium has been deteriorating over the last two centuries, ever more rapidly in recent decades.”

“How do you know there are riots?” Lady Morwyn redirected the conversation back to the lord I didn’t know.

“I keep an eye on things. Ever since the lady was killed, we have been vulnerable. If they ever discovered she was gone, we needed to be ready, and I for one was not going to be caught off guard,” he answered. His martial appearance said that he had been more than just keeping an eye on things. This man looked like the very embodiment of constrained violence; I imagined he had spent every day of his life, long before my mother had died, readying for battle.

“How did they find out we had something that treated the illness?” Llewelyn followed up. It was a good question. I hadn’t been aware of how bad the illness was and I had lived in the city. The exchange of information between the Roman province and the rest of the island was even more limited. I had known next to nothing of what life out here was like, much less that they had a cure, until we had witnessed Rhodri being treated. But Marcus had known.

“No doubt they have their spies too.” The newcomer’s face twisted.

Guilt lashed at me. We had brought their spy home with us, brought him deeper than any Shadower could have come. How stupid, how impossibly gullible – it had never occurred to me that Marcus might betray us. But of course, he had never abandoned his position: he had only wanted to help the citizenry. If I wasn’t such a self-centred idiot, I would have realised that Marcus would never desert the people of Londinium to save his own skin. I thought Marcus had fled the city for my sake to save two paltry lives. He had always favoured the many over the one, had always been the noble prince of the city, the devoted doctor. I was an idiot.

“How will we tell people that Londinium has stolen more than half the harvest?” Lady Morwyn moaned.

The martial lord stood. “How will we tell them that Londinium has stolen mistletoe? Damn the mistletoe! Sentinels came all the way here and attacked one of our holiest sites.” His eyes narrowed. “How many of them were there? How were they armed?”

“Perhaps two or three centuries’ worth,” Rion assessed. “There were five maybe six ships. It was all but over when we got there – most had already boarded the ships. Only a handful remained.”

“And yet you let them take the heir to the York throne?” the stranger circled back to his earlier concern.

I tried to summon the energy to correct them. I should correct them. Marcus was not who they thought.

“Let them?” Gideon’s snarl came from somewhere behind me as he stepped forward. “There were half a dozen ships full of armed men, they held Devyn Glyndŵr under their weapons, and there were but eight of us.”

The stranger stood and stepped up towards Gideon until they were eyeball to eyeball – no mean feat as the dark warrior was very tall. “Really? I just heard only a handful remained. And that you watched while they took the York Prince back to Londinium because they threatened the Oathbreaker.“

Gideon glared at the other man. His jaw locked, a pulse in his forehead speaking to his barely contained anger.

“Gideon,” Rion cautioned.

“Ah, is that why you failed? Was your leash being held?”

“No man holds my leash,” Gideon said through bared teeth.

“No son of mine would have stood by while the heir to our throne was taken by thrice-damned sentinels,” the stranger threw at him.

Our throne. Not a stranger. York. This man was Richard Mortimer, the Steward of York.

Gideon’s face transformed, and his whole body relaxed before his lips spread in a smile designed to infuriate its recipient.

“Well, my lord,” he said, inclining his head as he addressed his father formally, “as it happens, my priorities are not what they might have been.”

The man clenched his fists as Gideon turned his back on him and sauntered over to the window where he took up a casual pose, leaning back against the wall, the taunting grin lingering on his lips.

“It wasn’t how…” I finally found my voice.

The Steward’s gaze turned from his insolent son to me.

“Ah, yes. Here she is. The long-awaited Lady of the Lake. This is what the gods have sent us. This child.” He looked around at the assembled lords and ladies. “Her mother was a fool, taking her south, losing her to the Romans, leaving her untrained for years. What good is she to us now? I hear she has little command of the elements. What good was she when the Empire attacked?”

His eyes flicked to a shadowy corner of the room. There, behind the nobles gathered around the seated principles, was Callum. Returned to his master – to whom, it seemed, he had told everything.

There was muttering and shared glances between those who only two nights ago had gaily celebrated my return. But he was right. What use was I? To Devyn? To anyone?

They had all assumed that I had command of my mother’s powers; Bronwyn and Gideon had testified to my use of them. But my training in Oxford had shown me up for what I really was: I had no command of magic; it came and went of its own accord. I had no idea how I had called up a storm in Richmond, or how I had absorbed the energy that the Severn river had then used it to save us on the road north.

I sat there dumbly. Part of me screamed that I had been drugged. But another part sneered at my excuse. What of it? He spoke the truth: I had no control, no skill. I couldn’t deny it.

Even if I hadn’t been drugged yesterday, there was no guarantee I could have done anything to defend those people. Or to save Devyn. The truth was that I had been powerless to keep these people safe when Governor Actaeon had attacked. “Is this true?” Morwyn asked.

I looked down at the jar in my hands. Just yesterday morning he was alive. Now he was gone. I should have been able to do something. I was so tired of the events of my life, of Devyn’s life being twisted and judged by others. Somehow this felt all too familiar.

“So blind. You all saw what you wanted to see. The Lady of the Lake come back to us. Deverell, you were there – they cut down her lover in front of her, isn’t that right? And she didn’t so much as raise a breeze in his defence,” the Steward of York scoffed. “At least if the Oathbreaker were still alive, we would have had something. He’d lived for years amongst them, was adept in their technology; he would have given us some advantage with his knowledge of their defences.”

But Devyn was dead. And all that remained was me.

“He’s right,” I said. “The Griffin’s dead and I’m useless. I just stood there.”

I turned to Llewelyn. If I just admitted my guilt perhaps this would all go away. I just wanted to be alone. For all the noise to stop.

“I just stood there.” I said again. “Devyn died because of me.”

I made to leave. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t just sit here.

“Sit,” the steward ordered. “We aren’t done with you.”

Gideon began a predatory stroll from his position by the window back to his place behind me as Rion bristled but remained silent.

I faded back into my seat. What did I care if I came or went? It mattered not at all.

He’s dead.

Dead.

I had done nothing.

It repeated over and over inside me. Was it my lack of training? If I had trained more, been better, would I have been able to get past the suppressant? Had I still been blocked? I hadn’t even reached for it to save Devyn. It had all happened so fast. So fast. And yet I had to sit here as they went over it again and again. Absently, I noted that Rion’s account of Devyn’s death lacked some rather significant information – my pregnancy, Gideon becoming the Griffin and our hasty marriage withheld from the group. Rion had recounted everything else in detail – what he had seen, the numbers, the weapons, the damage done to the community who had lived there. All of those bodies, so many dead. Children, women, druids – peaceful people who had done no harm to anyone. All dead. Who mourned them? Did they have families across the land who even now were receiving word of the attack? Wondering if their loved one, the child, the brother, the sister who had dedicated their life to healing, to tending the land, was among those cut down by the sentinels?

The steward had again returned to yesterday’s attack, tracing the sequence of events. “Marcus went to them first, while the girl waited for you.”

“Yes, we were almost there before she saw they had Devyn,” Rion agreed on my behalf.

“Why did Marcus go then?” Gideon breathed, understanding what his father saw that the rest had not. They were all so focussed on the theft of the mistletoe and the brutal massacre that they had not, like the steward, reflected in detail on the earlier sequence of events.

“Surely she had more reason than the Courtenay boy to save Glyndŵr’s life if she was there to marry him,” the steward pointed out for anyone who had failed to follow.

“Marcus wanted to go back to Londinium.” I confirmed quietly. He had never intended to stay here.

“What will he tell them, of our magic, of our defences?” Llewelyn asked catching my words.

“Everything. He’ll tell them everything.” That had been the plan all along. I had been so blind, so stupid.

“Maybe he’ll keep our secrets,” Bronwyn countered, speaking up for the first time. She of all people should know better; Marcus had attempted to deceive her when they had met, and she had seen through him then. But she had seemed distracted throughout, not entirely focussed on the meeting. Her hands twisted in her lap, her eyes occasionally seeking mine before darting away. Now that she’s had time to absorb the facts she couldn’t even look at me. Did she blame me for her cousin’s death, for not finding a way to save him somehow?

“What secrets? Why do you think he was here? How do you think the sentinels knew to attack the Holy Isle?” I asked incredulously. How could they not see it? “It was Marcus, it was all Marcus.”

I looked over at the sneery Steward of York to see if he had finished putting together what they all seemed to be too blind to see. It was all so obvious now. As ever, the praetor had been pulling the strings, making us dance… from the very beginning.

“You have no secrets. Marcus knew you had a cure, that was the only reason he came here.”

Bronwyn’s head snapped back at the force of my anger. I turned from her to Rion.

“You think they don’t know the Lady of the Lake is dead? Calchas has always known. They killed her.” Somehow I had found my feet. Fury poured life into my veins, shaking me out of the stupor that had held me in its grip. The rage at finding myself once more manipulated by the praetor pushing me out of the mire of guilt and self-castigation. Turning that anger and blame outwards. “Think about it. I wasn’t some random foundling they decided to marry to Marcus Courtenay. The city, you, you all wanted me to marry Marcus, to tie the powerful bloodlines together. That’s why he did it, to take me. She was killed because of me.”

My outburst hung in the room, the silence following my explosion drifting heavily down as each person absorbed the meaning of my words, the repercussions of these new realities. The heat of my anger seeped away, the emptiness inside giving it no purchase.

“They killed our mother and took you. It wasn’t an accident.” Rion’s innate control cracked and he took a deep breath, pain and anger visibly vying for supremacy. “It was planned.”

“They knew she was gone, all this time?” Llewelyn was disbelieving.

“Why haven’t they attacked us, if they knew? Without the lady’s magic, we have been practically defenceless for nearly two decades,” the steward observed, the quickest to identify that the balance of power had substantially shifted long ago. Yet their enemy had not taken advantage of it.

The repercussions were evident to all. If the Empire had engaged at any time since the lady’s death, the Britons wouldn’t have stood a chance.

“Calchas knew. I don’t think Governor Actaeon did; he would have wiped you all out had he known. But Praetor Calchas plays his own game,” I said dully. Marcus’s betrayal was nothing to the people in this room compared to my mother’s death. But to me it was…

“Do you know what Calchas…?” Rion’s question petered out.

Was he really asking me if I knew what Calchas was plotting? If I had known that, Devyn would not be ashes now.

“Will they attack now?” Lady Morwyn asked the obvious.

“They’re too late. We have Catriona now; they’ve missed their chance,” Rion said.

“Have they?” The military-minded Lord Steward asked, his lips tweaking in a downward moue that suggested he, for one, didn’t think so.

All eyes turned my way. Even disconnected as I was, I squirmed under their attention, wishing I was anywhere but here. He was right. If these people thought that I would be of any use to them against the Empire’s legions, they were sorely mistaken.

Mortimer rose and walked over to me, scanning me up and down, his gaze reflecting all too clearly what he saw. A pretty enough city girl of little use beyond decoration.

“We need to prepare,” he said, turning dismissively and addressing the room.

“For what?” Lady Emrick asked.

“War,” he said grimly. “They will be coming for us.”

They argued for a while about whether or not the threat was imminent, occasionally pressing me for my reading of the situation. Before too long there was a common understanding that I had nothing of worth to contribute. I knew little of the politics of war, though if this was anything to go by it consisted largely of travel and food logistics. I sat numbly while they all droned on, cradling the bag on my lap.

The Steward of York, Prince Llewelyn, and Rion did most of the talking. Gideon’s father pushed for attack before Londinium had time to prepare or to heal their ill, chafing to respond to the Empire’s first strike. But Rion and Llewelyn needed time, not being nearly as prepared for war as Anglia.

The Lady of the Lake had been the biggest weapon in the Britons’ arsenal for centuries. But not this time. I had been useless in battle, had done nothing when it counted. What if I had been trained? A thought blindsided me: Callum was here. He had tried to teach me magic and he had abilities himself. Perhaps it wasn’t too late? Maybe we could fix this. Fix it all. I caught Callum’s eye and jerked my chin towards the door.