Morgan couldn’t help but shake his head and smile. She was Fairy…every small inch of her.
He never noticed that the slash across his shoulder had been healed.
Chapter Eight
Oryan listened as Morgan and Jacob made their reports and paced worriedly across the room that Dorset had given him to use as his office. Arriving only an hour or so before them, Kyri had already given her account but she’d only seen a blur of shadows and teeth in the night. Besides Kyri and her people, Oryan had built up a small network of trusted people who reported to him via message posts. All of those supported and more than supported what Morgan and Jacob told him.
However disturbing those reports were.
He and his entourage – such as they were – had only been in Dorset a few days and Oryan didn’t intend to stay long. So far as they knew no one knew he was here yet, hopefully, save for Dorset and a few of Dorset’s most trusted people. They wanted to keep it that way, not only for Oryan’s safety but for that of Philip and his people. Preparations were already being made to leave. He dared not stay in any one place too long, not with them scrying for him. A still target was easy to hit, a moving target wasn’t.
So he wouldn’t be still.
Morgan and Jacob had only just arrived, having taken only enough time to bathe while they could. They took their meal as they gave their reports.
Listening, Oryan looked at the intelligence piled on his desk.
If nothing else had convinced him of the necessity to fight, it was those.
Haerold was already instituting the harsh strictures he’d always advocated, rescinding many of Oryan’s policies. He’d restored the practice of conscription and levied new taxes on farmers and tradesmen.
“Delaville,” Oryan said. “I can’t say I’m surprised. He always loved the things gold could buy.”
Sighing, he turned to Kyri.
“Have you ever heard of anything like these things?” he asked, knowing her long-lived people might have heard of things his records didn’t show.
Searching through the memories of all those who had come before her, Kyri shook her head.
The images she caught from Morgan and Jacob’s thoughts were enough to make her shiver inwardly.
“No,” she said, “not even tales of them. Either they come from far outside our borders, or they’re a new thing. A creation of magic.”
That thought worried her.
They all looked at her.
Helplessly, she spread her hands. “It’s wizard’s magic, not a thing of the Fair. We know little of such things, but there have been tales of other such – lesser animals given life, intelligence and abilities they shouldn’t claim.”
“This, though,” she said, and shook her head. “I don’t know. It appears to have gone the other way, men being given abilities they shouldn’t have. After all, why not the reverse?”
Her wings fluttered a little. It was the only clear sign any of them had of her agitation. And proof, perhaps, of what she said.
She, too, was a creature of magic.
“From what we hear most people with magic have gone into hiding, save for a few herb women,” Morgan interjected. “We’ll have to see if we can find someone, maybe a wizard who could tell us more. If we could find one.”
“We’d had other reports of something like this from other parts of the Kingdom,” Oryan said, “but I chalked it up to the ferocity of the attacks. Haerold has consolidated his forces, so he’s preparing to march, but we just don’t know where. Although it’s likely he’ll turn here. I’ll send word to Dorset to prepare or surrender, his choice. We simply don’t have the forces even with his levies to make a stand. Not yet. I’d sooner not have people die for no reason. It’s not surrender to choose to fight another day.”
“No,” Morgan agreed, “it’s not.”
Oryan paced to the windows.
It was truly lovely out there. Patchwork farmland curled away from the gentle rise of the mountains at his back. The farm folk brought their herds to water at the lake to the east and south.
It was a shame he couldn’t give it the attention it deserved.
He wouldn’t bring war here until and unless he had a chance of winning it.
“Morgan, are you staying?”
Nodding, Morgan said, “My people could use the rest.”
It had been a long hard ride north and west through the mountains above and beyond Caernarvon, around Remagne, dodging Haerold’s men. Easier and shorter than taking the southern route, though. Everyone was tired. If their plans went ahead, sleep would be a rarity. Best to take their rest now while they could. It might be the last time he or they would sleep in a bed for a very long time.
In the pastoral silence they all heard the regular sound of a cob’s hooves clopping on the hard-packed dirt of the long shady tree-lined avenue outside, bringing them out to the broad veranda, Morgan’s hand on his sword.
Kyri’s hand brushed his lightly, tingling.
“I heard no word,” she said, softly. “I would’ve known.”
Her people watched from above.
The old man rode out of the shade of the avenue. A great broad-brimmed hat shadowed his face, but it couldn’t conceal his familiar, slightly portly, form. They all recognized him and smiled, even Kyri.
He didn’t ride alone. Slightly behind him rode two others, both of them tall and gangly, their heads bare so their thin brown hair blew lightly in the wind. One was clearly the father, while the other was younger, his hair more reddish. He was clearly the son.
Oryan and Morgan knew both of them.
With a wave of his hand, Philip of Dorset gestured, smiling,
“Look what I found along the road. I thought you might have need of him, Oryan.”
“Geoffrey?” Oryan said incredulously, walking slowly down the broad wooden steps of Philip’s summerhouse.
Lifting his head to reveal himself, Geoffrey smiled, his teeth very white in his dark, creased face. “I thought you could use a Steward, my Lord.”
He slid off the old cob, found his legs, wobbly though they were after riding so long, and stepped forward to make his bow.
Oryan, though, was already holding out his hand and Geoffrey met it heartily.
Pleased with his surprise, Philip sat back to watch the reunion, giving his son Jordan a wink. The boy grinned, waving to those still on the veranda.
“How?” Oryan asked.
With a shrug, Geoffrey said, his eyes shadowed, “In all the confusion that night, when that brother of yours started bringing his people in, I got out. I took a chance you might be here. If you weren’t, I’d have kept looking, leaving word so you could find me if you had need. My Lord Philip, though, was kind enough to offer me his warrant of safety.”
For some reason, Geoffrey’s simple devotion caught Oryan off guard.
Geoffrey looked around, confused and concerned…
He’d stayed hidden that night, watching the bodies being brought down, his heart aching, fearing to see those most important faces, but needing to know, to be sure.
One was missing here that shouldn’t have been. He hadn’t seen them bring her down with the other dead.
“Where is the Queen?” he asked, not wanting to know, but again needing to know. “Where is Gwenifer?”
Oryan went still.
All of them did, waiting… Watching the King.
The smile disappeared from Philip’s face, he swallowed hard and closed his eyes before quickly dismounting.
Something in Oryan cracked…gave way…
The grief he’d held back so long welled up inside him.
“She’s gone, Geoffrey,” he said softly, his voice choking.
On a gasp, Geoffrey looked into Oryan’s eyes, saw the truth there as comprehension filled him and his own tears spilled over.
“No, my Lord,” he whispered.
Geoffrey couldn’t imagine it. A world without tall, practical Gwenifer in it?
She’d been a won
der to work with and for. So sweet, a little shy, sometimes wry. He wanted to weep. It had been such a joy to look on her and Oryan together, to see the love there as they looked at each other. He couldn’t imagine Oryan’s grief.
“She’s gone.” Oryan finally said the words he hadn’t dared speak aloud until that moment.
The reality of it finally struck him.
He wasn’t going to turn someday and see her walk around the corner.
His days had been so busy, so full of tension, constantly on the move. He’d fallen into bed each night exhausted, too weary to think, to miss her. Yet he’d found himself reaching for her in the mornings as he always had. He’d fended off the knowledge of her absence by focusing on the plans that had to be made, making lists, calling for servants or messengers.
Oryan hadn’t thought it possible for her to be gone. Not his Gwenifer.
She’d been so strong, so sure, so vital to him, so beautiful to his eyes.
Some had named her plain but Oryan couldn’t see it, he never had.
He’d loved her pale gray eyes, her determination and her wry spirit,. He remembered her so vividly. Especially the day she had delivered their son. Even now, through his tears, he remembered the day she’d given him Gawain.
Such a miracle. Kicking and squalling, protesting the burst into life and his emersion into the world. Their son had fought being brought into life, but he’d ever been a joy after.
Even after the long labor, Gwen had had to laugh at that protest.
‘He’s truly your son, Oryan…’ she’d said then.
Now his son was far away and Gwen…
His beloved Gwen was gone…
He walked to the rail of the veranda, looked out over the distant hills.
“How do you do it, Kyriay?” he asked, quietly. He found he needed to know.
For a moment Kyri went still, knowing what he asked.
How did she rule, alone?
Her breath caught and her heart ached for him.
With a gentle smile she said, “Is that what you truly want to ask of me? I was born to this. I’ve never known any other, Oryan, it’s all I know. There has never been another beside me, so I’ve never had and then lost it. You simply do, and keep doing.”
It struck Oryan, then, what it was he’d lost. His life partner, companion, advisor, friend…beloved wife…half of his soul...
“Excuse me,” Oryan said softly.
The others nodded.
He turned away, unbearable pain sweeping through him suddenly, his hand pressed to his eyes, moving down the veranda away from them. They shouldn’t see this.
Did Gwen know how much he’d hated letting her go that night and how proud he’d been that she had? That she’d gone to defend him and their son?
The pain inside him burst free, scorching, terrible.
But Kyri was there, touching his hand lightly.
He looked into her large liquid eyes, so lovely. Compassion and a deep understanding shone there and peace – a quiet sureness.
“She knows, Oryan,” Kyri said, softly, so he would know, so the healing would begin. She gestured toward the others. “We, they, loved her, too. It doesn’t weaken you to show it, or to share it. They will only love you the more for it. Set it free, Oryan.”
It erupted and flowed through him like a wound that had been lanced, it burned and spilled out of him, as tear ran down his face.
Kyri’s own grief spilled over, for him and for herself.
She missed Gwenifer, too.
A single tear glittered, for the friend she’d once had, for the one who stood here grieving even now, and spilled down her cheek.
That tear froze even as it slid down that smooth, perfect skin. A single crystalline gem.
Oryan caught it in his hand.
For a moment he stared at it, his grief and sorrow caught in that one perfect jewel.
It was said that the Queen of the Fairy wept crystal tears.
“So, what they say is true.” he said as the great well of his grief opened, emptied.
Kyri looked at him, her friend, her ally, and at what he held in his hand.
“Yes.”
One perfect tear, his grief and hers, caught in his hand, gleaming.
He gasped against the pain that caught him then. A last burst of pain as he finally acknowledged that his Gwen was truly gone.
“I miss her, too,” Kyri said, simply.
Gwenifer had been funny, wry, oddly self-deprecating.
Tears streamed down Oryan’s face.
“If she’d been a little shorter,” Kyri added, with a trace of her impish smile, “she might have been Fairy.”
For a moment the incongruousness of that thought startled him.
And then Oryan broke up, laughing at the thought of his tall, angular Gwen being one of the small Fairy, all but the tallest of the women only barely of a height to reach her shoulder.
She would have laughed at the thought herself.
Gwen had learned how to do that over time and he’d loved her all the more for it.
In the early years there had been a trace of bitterness to that laughter, the price she’d paid for being thought too tall, too plain, but it had faded as her humor had been set free, until toward the end she was as likely to make a joke of it as any.
One thing had been true, though, and Oryan had treasured it. The moment when Gwen had turned to him, laughing, saying, “At least we will always see eye to eye.”
He smiled. They had. It had been absolutely true.
A thousand memories flooded through his mind.
“Morgan, Geoffrey, Phillip, Jordan – you’re too young,” Oryan said, drawing the others into the conversation. “Do you remember the time that Gwen faced that clothing merchant, with that horrible dress…?”
As Oryan recounted an off told tale Morgan did, suddenly and piercingly.
The dress had been particularly horrific, a thing of frills and whatnots, completely inappropriate to the tall, spare Queen.
It had taken only a look from Gwen, the lift of an eyebrow.
The merchant had looked from her to the gown…
That was how it started. The stories spilled out.
They shared recollections of Gwen as someone brought them refreshments.
Drinking wine they toasted her memory.
Morgan looked at Oryan’s laughing face as old his friend retold another story about his beloved Gwen that they’d all heard a thousand times before.
And now never would again.
There would be a touch of it in Oryan’s heart always but the pain had begun to ease.
Another story leaped to mind, even as the grief ran through him, even as Morgan told it, of a gifted sword that was far too small, far too delicate and ornate for the tall and gangly Queen.
Philip contributed another story.
Beneath the broad veranda and late into the night as it fell, they shared stories of Gwenifer – sweet, smart, gawky Gwen.
They were waking her friend Gwenifer well, Kyri thought, with laughter and fellowship, as it should be.
However late it went, none of them seemed to care.
Leaving them laughing over another story, Morgan excused himself, stepping out into the darkness to take a moment for himself.
He hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it that night – the pain of seeing Oryan come around the corner alone, without Gwen. The decision had been made and he had no doubt she’d made it, she and Oryan between them, in that way the two of them had. Neither doubting for one moment it was the right thing to do.
Nor would he.
Orphaned as a child, Morgan had known no family – save for the Marshals – until Oryan and then Gwen had made him a part of theirs.
It had never been a spoken thing, not in so many words, but he’d always been expected to be at their table at holidays and festivals.
In many ways, Gwenifer had been like the sister he’d never had.
Maybe she’d been no dancer, but she’
d been one of his best students with a sword.
Gwen had always thought that that skill was her only talent, her only saving grace, but it wasn’t, hadn’t been, it had been a grace of another kind – her humor, her kind heart.
He’d known even in that terrible moment in the hall to Royal rooms what it was she’d done, for her husband, for her son, to buy time for those she loved. She’d gone to her death to save them.
Knowing how devoted they were to each other, what had it then cost Oryan to let her go and do it, so he could save their son?
Morgan didn’t know if he would’ve had that kind of courage, that strength.
In all his life he’d never known anything like it. He’d always been too busy, moved too much too often, to form personal relationships beyond the friendships he had with Oryan, Gwen, Jacob and Caleb. Seeing what Oryan and Gwen had? A part of him had envied them a little and longed for something like to what they shared.
While always wondering if he was even capable of it.
It was hard enough to have Gwen gone, to not see her at Oryan’s side, to not hear her throaty laughter.
From the darkness a soft voice spoke and fingers brushed his hand lightly. “Tell me?”
He turned to look.
Kyri stood there, her face somewhat shadowed but her glistening eyes intent on his.
So he did, as Kyriay listened silently until he gave way to his grief as Oryan had.
Then she left him alone in the darkness, hollowed out, but at peace.
For a time, at least.
Kyri stood in the shadows on the stone height of her aerie and took a breath of the sweet forest air, looking out, up, and around the glade at the homes of her people, her shoulder against the cliff face outside her sleeping space.
What she saw was beautiful as only a Fairy glade was and could be.
The small magical glimmers men called Fairy lights danced high among the tree-tops for those who liked to live among the branches, while others made their nests closer to the ground.
In the night, those lights twinkled among the leaves like captured stars.
For these dark hours, the glade was quiet as it rarely was in the day, her people asleep, the children tucked in their beds.
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