When I woke again, the room was empty. I lifted my head to find it not entirely deserted, a pair of long legs spread towards the fire from a high-backed chair.
I took greater notice of my surroundings now – the canopied bed, the diamond-paned windows set in granite walls.
“Why are we still in the White Tower?” I hated this building. I felt trapped.
Gideon stirred and his head appeared around the back of the chair, dark hair gleaming from the light of the fire. “It’s the most secure building in the city.”
He seemed disinclined to come to me, and I had been in this bed far too long. I pulled a wrap around me and, levering my legs over the side, I tried them out momentarily to test my strength. I seemed fine.
“I’ve been here the whole time.” Gideon read my concern. “I don’t think you need me anymore, but just in case.”
I had disconnected us. I had chosen not to need him.
His voice was low, dispassionate. My tread was silent as I crossed the room to him.
“I thought you were dead.” I recalled the axe falling. The terrible numbness, like a veil through which I had watched it.
“No.”
I laid a hand on his chest, wanting to soften his pain, needing to feel his heart beating beneath my hand. I thought it had stopped forever; I knew he felt guilt and sorrow at his father’s death, but all I could feel was joy and relief that he was still here with me.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. His father had exchanged places with him.
“He was always more interested in winning than living,” he said, his voice tight with pain.
“Did the others know?” I asked.
“No. We weren’t sure it would work.” His face was all hard planes in the half-light as he spoke to the fire rather than face me. “The city watched a different version of events. We knew the technology could see through the glamour, so we had to ensure that there was a lockdown. Linus incited some unrest in the East End, and there were a few minor cyber attacks against the firewalls.”
Marcus had followed through on his promise to make it right. And more. I had only hoped that he would deliver me a charm to give me a small chance to defy the compulsion of the handfast cuff, knowing that if I had that tiny amount of freedom of will, I would have a slight advantage unknown to Calchas should the chance arise that I could do more than directed and heal the ley line. I had hoped, and had asked for no more than that.
He had delivered more. Where he had been complicit in Devyn’s death, now he had gifted me Gideon’s life.
“What now?” Gideon asked. “You are free to make your own choices.”
Was I really?
I had never been free, never had the space to truly decide my own fate.
“Rion will want me to rule Londinium.” To become queen of the former imperial province. Rion had control of the board now, the Steward of Anglia was gone, the princes of Cymru and Bronwyn’s family in Kernow would follow his lead. My brother would lose no time in making sure the future of the island was positioned in our favour. Following through on at least this aspect of the Praetor’s plan was the most obvious strategy. My throat felt as though a band were around it, restricting the oxygen, a heavy hand pressed on my chest.
I had spent my whole life following the path laid before me, a path carved out by the will of others. Before all of this, I had wanted nothing more than to marry Marcus and have a family. To comply with the Code and make my parents and my society happy by keeping to the boundaries they had laid out for me for the type of life I would lead, the needs that would be fulfilled that would make me happy. Devyn had taken me on a different path that had opened up the horizon and showed me a world beyond the confines I had grown up in. In Cymru that cage had conspired to close in around me once more and I had fought for the one thing I wanted even when Devyn himself would have given in. Once he had gone, I had bowed to the weight of expectations once more. I had served my brother, my teacher, the country, even when it had almost cost me my daughter.
“Rion does not get to decide. You are tied to no one. Not even to me. You don’t need the Griffin anymore. The Belinus, May, and Strand lines are all well. Tending them now will not be as difficult.”
“But we’re married,” I said absently. Yet he was right. Rion might have plans, but I did not always agree with my brother.
“We’re not,” he corrected me quietly.
I blinked at him, surprised. I focussed on his words, replaying the sequence in my head. We were. The first time we had married had been a matter of survival, the second time I had been blackmailed, compelled, and he had worn another’s face, but we had still exchanged vows. The cuff had dropped away. Had it been tricked as I and everyone else in the arena had? I had exchanged vows, the contract completed but the name had been wrong. I wasn’t married to Gideon, nor could anyone argue that I was married to Marcus.
“I’m free,” I realised. Truly free.
No one was going to choose a path for me; nobody was going to dictate my life. The ley line was healed, and I was bound to nothing, obliged to no one but my own free will.
A laugh broke free and, unable to contain the emotions within me, I raised my eyes to the sky above and twirled in place. Devyn, can you see me now?
The door snicked as Gideon left the room. I stilled.
I danced while his family lay dead. How could I be so insensitive?
I made my way back to the bed and stared blindly at the darkness until dawn began to break over the city to begin a new day.
As soon as I was respectable, I left my room. My hand hesitated as I turned the wrought iron to release the latch. Too often, I had been restrained in this room.
My very bones eased as it turned and opened into an empty hall and I went in search of Rion.
Asking a passing grizzled, tattooed beast of a warrior who, I learned, had joined our march on Londinium from Powys, I was guided to a study. Of course. Trust my brother to find the stuffiest, bookiest room in any building and make it his own.
He stood and came around the desk and enfolded me in his arms as if he would never let go.
“I thought we were going to lose you,” he said into my hair.
“Never.” I laughed. “Who would annoy and defy you if I wasn’t here?”
“Féile shows great promise.” He laughed, releasing me. The darkness in his eyes was not quite gone. He had been in the circle, had felt me start to leave – they all had before Fidelma had taken my place to heal that final fissure.
“I want to talk to you about the future,” I said, taking one of the leather armchairs.
Rion smiled a welcome to continue.
“I don’t know what you’ve been planning—”
“I have made no plans,” he cut in mildly.
My head went back in surprise. “What?”
A wry smile twisted his lips. “I would not be so foolish, dear sister.”
My eyebrows felt like they would hit my hairline and keep going.
“What do you want?” Rion asked, leaning back against the back of his armchair, one arm laid casually along the top.
“I want Féile to be free to make her own choices,” I began after I had recovered from my shock. Rion was actually conferring with a piece on his board. “Alba cannot have her; they were not needed anyway.”
“The deal was made.” His mouth twisted. “I will see what can be done though. Is that all?”
“No,” I began tentatively. “All I ever wanted was a family and a home. I don’t want to be…”
“Queen of Londinium?” he finished for me.
“No,” I said flatly. The thought filled me with horror. Trapped on a throne, so much power, but power warped, as the history of my line attested. The Lady of the Lake throughout history had been powerful, but for every Nimue there was a Morgan le Fey, for every Elizabeth there was an Anne. The lady could be a force for good, but my line should not be the only source of power – both magical and material. It was too much.
“There was a reason that when the lady returned she only supported the Kings of Mercia and didn’t rule herself.” I tried to explain my feeling that I was not the right fit.
“You’re worried that you might let all that power go to your head.” Rion’s voice was teasing, but he was also checking.
“I don’t think so, but what about my daughter, or her daughter?” I said. “There must be a balance in Londinium, just as in Mercia, so the lady does not ascend the throne on the occasions she has married into the royal family.”
“Then who?”
I raised a brow at my brother. “Who do you think?”
I wasn’t so foolish either. Rion would have already considered all the pieces on the board.
His cobalt eyes gleamed. “It must be someone both city and country will accept. Someone that the Empire accept as the ruler following an outright rebellion. The Empire is failing but we must tread carefully so as not to give them a focal point to make an example of us. Marcus is the obvious choice, but with the steward gone, as heir of Anglia he will have enough to do to keep that house together. Nor do I think the commons here would accept him; he broke their trust when the treatment was kept exclusively for the elite.”
He contemplated the fire before crossing to pour us drinks before retaking his seat.
“There was a reason why Calchas wanted you,” he said as he took a sip. “You have healed the lines, the people of all tribes would kneel to you, and you were raised here behind the walls and you know their ways. Are you sure you won’t consider it? Even for a time?”
I shook my head resolutely. I had no interest in running a country. I had seen Rion in action in Mercia – all the paperwork and organisation. But Rion would never be accepted by the citizens of Londinium.
There was one other who knew the ways of both worlds. Born and raised behind the walls, but steeped now in the Celtic lore of her ancestors, caught in the robes of a druid but too worldly to be confined by them.
“What about Marina? Marina knows the city. Is of the city. She should rule.”
Rion ran a hand over the stubble on his chin. “It might work if she was a figurehead but would the elite accept an urchin from the stews?”
“They might if she had somebody they considered important alongside her,” I prompted.
“A senator?” Rion choked on his drink.
I shook my head slightly, smiling at him over the rim of my glass. “Oh no, someone far more important than that, someone dashing, and regal, and oh so serious…”
“Me?” Rion looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “She’s barely more than a child!”
“Not to marry.” I tutted. “Why do you lot always have to resolve everything by locking people into lifelong relationships they might not want?”
Rion’s brow wrinkled. I had succeeded in truly bamboozling my brother.
I sighed. “As steward. Take a couple of years to advise her and help her while a council is arranged to support her. That’s all.”
“It could work.” My whole body relaxed. He was contemplating this aloud, was listening to me, and was not insisting on trapping me under a crown I did not want.
“Work? It’s brilliant,” I said, not terribly humbly. “Briton and citizen together.”
Rion took a couple of sips of his drink and swirled the firewater around in the cut glass a few times before nodding. “And what about you?”
“I told you, all I want is a family and a home.” I shrugged. “We can mind yours while you’re busy down here, if you like.”
“Who is we?” he asked carefully.
“Féile, Gideon, and I.” I frowned. “Who else?”
“Who else indeed?” He raised an eyebrow. “Does Gideon know about your happy-ever-after plans?”
“You think he won’t forgive me?” Was it too late. Had he already spoken to Rion?
“Forgive you for what?”
“His parents are dead because of me,” I said in a low voice.
“That’s not your fault.”
“Isn’t it? I let the axe fall,” I said earnestly.
Gideon had been off with me since I woke up. Distant.
“I let the axe fall believing it was him. He must hate me.”
“I don’t think that’s the problem.” Rion leaned forward.
“Then what?”
“Catriona Deverell, as Lady of the Lake you are powerful, but you’ve never been able to see what’s right in front of you.”
“Hey,” I objected. “I figured out how to fix the ley line and get one step ahead of Calchas. I’m not entirely… What am I not seeing?”
“You are free now. Free to make your own choices. Free to choose your own path in all things,” Rion said slowly.
“Why would that make Gideon unhappy?” Gideon was the one who had reminded me that I was no longer bound by the ties and obligations of the past.
“Free to choose who to marry,” Rion said pointedly.
“But why would I want to choose to marry anyone? I already have a man I consider my husband.”
“Does he know that?”
Oh.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The question of what to do with the praetor was to be settled the way it had always been in Londinium: in the arena, by the people of the city. Calchas had served his fake justice, had run his theatre long enough, and now the city would know it all. They would judge.
The crowd was hushed, silent. There was no drumming of feet and many of those in the amphitheatre tonight had never had the privilege of attending a Mete before. Those senators found to have had no knowledge of Calchas’s doings retained their seats, which amounted to less than half the council. The rest of the seats were taken up by the Briton delegates. The majority of the arena had been filled by lottery. Linus had argued that the families of the dead deserved to be here to witness Calchas face justice in person, but I disliked the idea of stacking the mob so heavily against the accused. It felt wrong. Too similar to what had gone before.
I was last to enter, with Rion and Marina at my side, at his orchestration. Oban had supplied me with a suitably symbolic outfit, tones of city and country combined in one look. Féile had forgiven him on sight as soon as he had presented Snuffles to her. The others were disinclined to follow suit, but Oban had lost a mother and a sister before he had capitulated. He was my friend and would remain so.
The crowd was subdued, the citizenry, despite our assurances, unconvinced that we genuinely meant them no harm. My eyes scanned the balcony, restored from the damage of recent events, for a tall, dark-haired warrior. Gideon had picked up an old Griffin speciality: elusiveness. He had been with the army keeping order and the like, and I had barely seen him since the night I had woken. Féile, it seemed, was able to find him, as I knew when she wasn’t with me she wandered off to be with him.
But today, in the arena, I couldn’t see him. He wasn’t here, and then I felt a dark shadow position itself behind me, my looming protective guard, and my tensed muscles relaxed.
“Friends, countrymen,” Rion opened proceedings. “We are here today to bear witness to the crimes committed against this great city, and against the very land itself by one whose role was to serve you, and to serve you better.”
The figure that walked out on the sand was dressed in his ceremonial robes. He would be judged as praetor, as a representative of the Empire, as keeper of the city, and it was fitting that he be attired as such.
“Hello,” I whispered over my shoulder.
He was close enough that I could feel his huffed breath. “My lady.”
That was how it was then. Formality was never a good sign with Gideon.
Calchas took his place on the sand below the balcony, flanked on each side by former praetorian guards. Kasen was on his left and another guard was on his right; they had witnessed up close the atrocities, had carried them out; not all had liked their orders.
“You are accused of crimes against the people of this city and province. How do you plead?”
Calchas, of course, with a mocking tilt to his lips fell to his knees with great ceremony. Even cast as the villain, he would want every last moment juiced for maximum drama. The crowd muttered amongst themselves, surprised at the traditional turn of events as the familiar tones rang out and the evidentiary reel began. Linus and his team of hackers had outdone themselves.
There was no footage of my mother’s death of course, taking place as it had in the borderlands, but there was an infant, blood on her robes, being handed to a younger Camilla and Graham Shelton. Then there was Aurelia Courtenay’s death, the higher incidence of illness, Marcus ill as a young teenager. There was a view of the circle below Mary le Strand, an explanation of the ley lines for the benefit of the citizens who were only mildly aware of their existence. Next we saw Devyn being whipped, the blood on the sand, and then the blood in the labs. There were images of us together that I had been able to hear but not see at the Mete four years ago when Devyn had stood on the sands below. How young I looked. How young Devyn looked, and so he would forever remain. I pushed away the wetness from my cheeks. I had forgotten that here there were pictures of him captured forever. Rhodri was whispering to Féile who looked up at the big screen, enraptured. Next came our escape from the White Tower, then Marcus and Matthias returning with the cure that had been stolen from the druid community of the Holy Isle.
There was the cure doled out to the elite, while praetorian guards entered houses located between the inner and outer walls at night, house after house; sometimes one person, but increasingly whole families, were pulled from their homes.
Those people were brought to the old church, entered the circle, then there was nothing until more footage showed the dried-up corpses being carried from homes, and from Mary le Strand, out of the city to great mass graves. So many bodies. The noise of the crowd swelled, hissing in reaction to what they were seeing. Many in the arena were not elite and so they would know people who had disappeared. Knew now that this had been their fate. There was more footage of the arena, of blood identified in the lab, its owners accused of capital crimes and blood spilled on the sand. This blood was on the hands of those who had judged, on the hands of the citizens who had believed the so-called evidence placed in front of them.
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