“To be able to tell us what he thinks we might be hunting,” Emlyn grimaces, gesturing to herself and Benger, “Argonath had us sign specialist contracts with the King’s Guard.”
“She forced Argonath to agree that the King’s Guard will accompany her on this thing,” Atres grins, “I’ve never seen him give in so easily.”
“I was quite prepared to punch him again,” Emlyn shrugs, “if he hadn’t. I think he knew that.”
“What was it that made you laugh so?” Atres asks, “When we were in his office?”
Despite herself, Emlyn starts to giggle, “Among other things, he wanted to recruit me so he could send me to balls to dance with the duke’s sons.”
“Why’s that funny?” Atres asks, filing away her comments.
“Hah,” Benger grins, “She already gets invites from them and Prince Armeniel to the balls. She’s already on a first-name basis with the whole brood.”
At Atres’s dark look, Benger shrugs again, “Don’t worry. She won’t be attending them alone. I don’t want her to have to skewer some lordling who thinks to take advantage of the foreign, orphan princess.”
“That’s not that funny,” Atres casts a glance at Emlyn, “You’ll tell me the rest of it later.”
Emlyn grins largely and flicks her imaginary fan at him in silent agreement.
“I was never a princess, a member of our Royal House,” Emlyn explains, “The King wouldn’t allow it even though I had offers from three of the five princes. He refused to sanction any of the offers.”
“I know Gethin said he was surprised that the King didn’t pull some shenanigans to marry you himself,” Ember says, “Gethin says that he’d have adopted you into the Royal House and then married you off to one of the neighboring kingdoms as part of a trade deal.”
“If our king had tried to marry me himself, the princes would have revolted. That would have meant he would have set aside their mother and he’d be attempting to disinherit them. Had the princes revolted, I might have joined them and become queen. Besides, the king would never have allowed me to marry outside the Cymry,” Emlyn shakes her head, “No country marries off any of its generals outside its own borders. No other country would take the risk of joining their royal house to a foreign general. Well, no intelligently run country. I was hoping to get a Ban Gwyr offer from my friends, since it would have let all of us remain together, and I didn’t think Midir’s house would be able to raise that sum on their own since that first group of miscreants made such a generous offer.”
Frowning, Benger asks, “I thought you had a dowry fund.”
“Like everything else, Cymry,” Emlyn grimaces, “it’s complicated and competitive. We had various kinds of marriages for different situations. Ban Gwyr offers are rare, reserved for exceptionally high-status girls who could command a bride price instead of having to pay a dowry to secure a husband. If I’d taken a lower price than what they offered from Midir’s family or paid a dowry, I’d have given a grievous insult to those boys from Suren, Gothan, Cregoria, and Stilba that made the first Ban Gwyr offer. That would likely have started a feud with my House and Midir’s house on one side and all four of their Houses on the other, who were nearly equal to my own. I was angry with my older brothers, but not that angry.”
Atres rocks back and looks at her, “Does that mean you’d have had four husbands, then?”
“If I’d accepted them,” Emlyn nods, “but they were a bunch of miscreants. I wasn’t having any of it. I wanted no part of their schemes.”
Arching a brow at Emlyn and Atres, Kethas grins, “Maybe sending for your cousins wasn’t such a good idea, after all.”
“Hmm,” Atres grins, “We’ll have to discuss this in more detail later. You’ll have to tell me more about how that works.”
Emlyn blushes, and Atres laughs before becoming serious.
“I have a bone to pick with you,” Atres says with a hard look at Ember, “Why are you sending her against this thing when you know it’s likely to take her as tribute?”
“That’s something Gethin and I have discussed at length,” Ember grimaces, “If we don’t send her and something happens to anyone in her cohort, she’ll feel guilty. She’s got enough guilt now, even though she shouldn’t – about anything. Even Lugh told her that. If I send her, she’s at risk. There’s no good answer. We finally decided to send her, with all the support and protection we can send with her.”
“You heard what she said,” Benger tells Atres, “She’s determined not to sit this one out. I tried to get her to. When the rest of us get back, they’ll try, too. None of them is going to be happy about it.”
“What’d she say?” Ember asks, so Benger repeats Emlyn’s statement about asking Benger if he’d remain behind if this thing were asking for big blond men instead.
Pointing at Emlyn, Benger says, “I’m going to make you hash it out with all of them. They’re all going to have something to say about it. I’m not going to run a single bit of interference.”
“Urlin will understand,” Emlyn shrugs, “Falnor and Garmer, too. The rest will take some convincing, but they’ll come around. If it were asking for handsome, golden-eyed men, would you expect Atres to hide from it? No. Or would you expect Ember to hide from it if it were asking for grumpy old paladins? No. Or even Kethas to hide if it wanted crusty old bar keeps? No. If they were to try that, they’d be told to get out there and do their duty. Yet you expect me to cower here at the Temple while my cohort, which is the sum total of all of my closest living friends, goes out to face this thing in my stead?”
Atres smirks, Ember grins, and Kethas barks a laugh, “She’s got you there, lad.”
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“I think I know you a bit, by now,” Ember says to Emlyn, “I thought you’d feel like that. That’s why we agreed to send you.”
“I don’t know what else I can do,” Emlyn says, “to make sure that we all come through this, but I will find it. I will do my best to make sure that all of us who ride into that place ride back out. I wasn’t joking when I said my curse is finding the path to victory. Once, I thought it was a blessing, but it’s not. Between Atres’s gift and my curse, I think we stand a good chance.”
Turning to Atres, “What happens to them if I don’t go?”
“I don’t know,” Atres shrugs, “I’ve got no bond with them.”
Curious, Emlyn looks at Kethas, “Do you know if there’s a way to get his gift to reveal what things might influence the outcome?”
“I don’t,” Kethas says, “I know that a lot of people have tried, but not had much success at it.”
Emlyn starts to pace again, thumb and forefinger tapping for a while, before stopping and looking at Atres.
“I think we need to go see Abato,” Emlyn nods, “If anyone knows where to find Vadoma, he’s most likely.”
“Who’s Vadoma?” Atres asks.
“The Tinker-Folk seer from the fair,” Emlyn shrugs, “She’s the only seer here that I know of that’s worth her pay.”
“What makes you think she’s worth anything?” Ember frowns, “They just tell you what you want to hear.”
“She read my past and my present right enough,” Emlyn nods, “without understanding it, and said a couple of things that only the Goddess and I knew about, even though she didn’t understand how those things could be right, only that they were. All that remains to be seen if her predictions for my future hold.”
“And what were those, hmm?” Atres purrs in her ear.
“Hidden nature becoming unhidden, victory, financial success, moving into a less turbulent part of my life,” Emlyn replies, “and a warning not to be so consumed with past disappointments that I miss what is being offered for the future.”
“Oh, my bonnie lass,” Atres sighs, “Let’s have some dinner and a bit more whiskey, before I pack you off to bed, hmmm? Maybe while I’m tucking you in, you can answer a few… more private questions for me.”
“Like what?” Emlyn asks.
“Like what your Goddess had to say when you two talked,” Atres grins as Emlyn’s face goes flaming scarlet.
“Be careful what you ask the Goddess for,” Ember chuckles, “Remember that one of Her aspects is fertility.”
As Emlyn’s blush goes from scarlet to deep crimson, Atres laughs delightedly, “Oh my. Had a chat with her about that, did you?”
Emlyn starts to wiggle to get away, but he whispers in her ear, “You know that I find your blushes captivating and oh so tempting. Seeing you blush like this is just…. Positively spellbinding. You are not going anywhere.”
With her escape cut off, she burrows into his shoulder instead, and Atres sighs contentedly.
“Don’t worry,” he purrs, “I’ll get you to tell me all about it later. Do you think I’m handsome?” he asks quietly.
Her blush now almost incandescent, Emlyn nods against his shoulder, and Atres chuckles.
Laughing at Emlyn and Atres, Kethas heads back into the kitchen to finish preparing dinner.
“Ember,” Kethas calls out, “Are you staying to eat or heading home to Amalie?”
“There’s a Madam Ember?” Emlyn asks from the vicinity of Atres’s shoulder, “I hadn’t realized. I suppose I need to start taking on more duties.”
Grinning, Benger replies, “As much as we might like to think he lives at the Temple, he’s actually got a home to go to.”
“The important thing,” Ember shrugs, “is that you get back to your full strength. The rest can wait. It’s mostly paperwork anyway. Duty rosters, provisions, supplier contracts, and a thousand other items of minutia.”
Emlyn unburies herself, “That won’t do.”
Turning to face him and crossing her arms, Emlyn shakes her head, “I know you have an assistant, but we need to get you an adjunct or three to handle those things. I had them as an Awst, and being able to delegate all those tedious details to someone competent, capable, and trustworthy doesn’t just free up your time, it frees up your mind. I know that once I take over from you, I won’t be doing all that personally.”
“Why would the girl-child be taking over for you, Ember?’ Kethas asks.
“That’s the other half of the deal that I struck with the Goddess,” Emlyn says slowly, “when I was dying, and something I haven’t had a chance to talk to Atres about yet. Once I’m physically capable, I’ll attempt the Test of Pain and if I pass…”
“You’ll become the next Badb,” Kethas finishes for her.
“That’s why there hasn’t been a Choosing,” Ember agrees, “The Goddess has made her selection and said that no trial she could compose would be more of a test than what Nia’s already been through.”
“Lass,” Atres frowns, “You should’ve said.”
“Our… courtship hasn’t been very… normal so far,” Emlyn says, “I’m blundering around again, and I’m sorry. With the promises I’ve made to Ember, it seemed like something best left alone because your next question would have been either why or how, and that leads back into all the things I’d sworn to Ember that I wouldn’t tell anyone outside the Temple.”
At the look on Emlyn’s face, Atres melts, “Oh, lass, come here. I suppose I do see your point. It’s been just over a tenday, but let’s have no more of this. You can tell me what’s been going on while we go poke around the armory tomorrow.”
“No, not there,” Emlyn says, shaking her head, “It’s still quite the tale and likely not for other ears. It’s not as long as the rest of it, either. I was struggling with the guilt, and the Goddess sent the current Nemhain to see me, to talk to me, to see if she could help me with that. We talked for most of the day, and I was still struggling when Lugh offered to render his judgment in the matter. If you can’t trust a God of Judgments to render a judgment… That’s how I ended up standing in front of Lugh for a second time. Only this time, his Hall was packed with Cymry. I heard from both Lugh and my people that I am not at fault, that I am not their executioner, and that as long as I live, they have hope. Our entire pantheon raided Rigan’s afterlife because he was trying to consume the souls of the fallen Cymry to reconstitute himself. Once the souls there were allowed to convert to the other gods, they dismantled all that, and with a little luck, Rigan is well and truly dead this time. Now, Neit is also interested in my people and wants to see how many can be resurrected. He wants to determine if my people and culture can be saved. I haven’t been involved with it since Neit and his followers have been preparing for it, but my Goddess has sanctioned this. They’ll need my help when it’s time to call any still living. I’m the only one who knows how to man the drum. Any of my people who survived the Mad God’s wrath and the invasion that followed will be very wary. I’ll have to show my tattoo – all of it, and we’ll have to talk about how to deal with that. I’m also the only one whose banner might be enough to pique their curiosity and get them to come and speak with us. They’ll need my help to find the bones of the fallen to see who can be resurrected. Then there’s my big plan to get myself some proper armor, but to do that, we’ll need mines, smelters, foundries, and a whole host of other things.”
“We’ve already made arrangements to start sending out mapping parties,” Ember says, “to start poking around. Not just here in Harito, but around all the Temples to see what we can find. We think that if we expand Davilla’s potion operation first, the income from that might offset this venture into metals, but that means finding different growing and storage locations for both the potions and the ingredients. Davilla’s going to come back with lists of ingredients, and we’ll see if we can’t come to a longer-term agreement with her.”
“If there’s anything on that list that will grow under the same conditions as wheat or barley, send that to Benger’s mother,” Emlyn explains, “The women in the village might be willing to grow it for us.”
Emlyn and Benger explain how the women in the village grow enough food to feed their families, and expanding these plots to include their potion ingredients would work.
“Hmm,” Ember muses, “That might work at least for now.”
-
Current Jar Total: 12 coppers, a silver button, and a very confused beetle.
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Boltir’s Plea: "Did you hear that? Nia talking about 'Ban Gwyr' offers and having four husbands at once? My heart almost stopped! I can barely handle her alone; imagine three more of me trying to keep up with her temper. Atres is clearly out of his depth, but I’ve got the rhythm to match her stride. Toss a coin in the jar, kin! I need to buy a 'Royal Protocol' handbook so I can properly court a woman who tells Goddesses to 'shove it'. Also, if we hit 20 reviews, I’ll share the limerick I wrote about Atres’s 'imaginary fan'!"
How well do you think Atres is doing at handling her trauma? Let me know in the comments.