Pawns and Queens--A 15th Century Gwynedd Story--Chapter Seventeen

[Evie]

Previous chapter: https://www.rhemuthcastle.com/index.php/topic,3230.0.html


Chapter Seventeen

March 12, 1464
Mid-morning
The Royal Infirmary
Rhemuth Castle

"Can you see it, Sire?" the Royal Healer asked his King.

Cinhil frowned in thought. "I think so, but only when I am viewing it through my link with the Banfhlaith. And even then, it's very ephemeral, more like...." He tried to think of some comparison that could evoke what he dimly sensed in his wife's mind. "Like a small spot of mist that I can barely see if I look at it just right, but am unable to touch it directly with my mind."

"Curious," said the Royal Healer. "I have a similar experience, except that I can see the touch-point clearly enough if I am linked with Lady Saoirse, but not at all if I am trying to find it by myself without her guidance. I have never experienced anything like it." He looked at the young Llyrian Healer. "Are you able to touch it, or just see it?"

"With the King and Queen's permission, I am willing to attempt touching it. I don't detect any hazard to attempting it, though since this is completely outside of my experience, I can't completely guarantee that it won't harm her."

That was certainly enough to give the King serious pause, but after a long moment, Alixa said, "Cinhil, I want to know." The young Queen looked frightened but resolute.

Cinhil squeezed her hand, his thoughts racing. "Might there be any harm to our child, or to Alixa's mind?"

"We don't think so," the Royal Healer said, "though as with anything else that is completely experimental, we have no way of knowing with absolute certainty until it's ventured."

Alixa looked up at her husband. "I'm scared, but I need to know. My father and brother are Deryni. I always thought that my sisters and I were not, that somehow the talent had skipped over us, but now I need to know if this birthright was stolen from us instead, to keep us easier to control. I don't want to be kept easy to control." Her eyes flashed with anger, rarely ever seen from Cinhil's young Queen, but readily visible now. "Even if I am too old to be trained, maybe it's not too late for Cécile and Marthe."

"If you are Deryni, you're not too old to be trained," the Healer assured her. "Sometimes the talent springs up in a person who doesn't realize they have the gift until later in life."

Cinhil took a steadying breath. "It's your choice, love."

"I'll try, then, Your Majesty," said Saoirse. "But I can make no guarantee that this will work either. Though if your powers have been taken from you, then I agree some effort must be made to bring them back." She went back into trance, extending a tendril of thought towards the touch-point that only she could see clearly and without assistance, and with very narrowed focus reached out and touched it...just...so.

Alixa gasped as she felt momentarily overwhelmed by the abrupt change in what she could sense around her. It felt as if every natural sense had suddenly been magnified, and above those, there was some other, additional sense, that she had trouble defining in words. Perhaps it was more like a magnification of intuition or instinct than a physical sense. With her newly rediscovered powers, some memories began to emerge, at first a faint trickle of fragmentary images, then suddenly a flood.

Tears streamed down her face. "That bastard! I'll never forgive Renier for this." She turned to Cinhil. "I feel like I've spent the past seven years living in a fog, but now for the first time in years, I can see clearly again." She cupped her hands in front of her as if seeing them for the first time, focusing on them as a particular memory came back to her. As she stared, a golden sphere of handfire began to form.

#

March 12, 1464
Mid-Morning
Somewhere in Nördmarcke

"I would like to know how exactly you managed to lose a corpse, son," Ingrid the Konungamóðir asked her errant son, glaring frostily at him. She had already taken him to task earlier that morning, reminding him that the blót was only meant to offer up ninety-nine sacrificial victims to Odin in the grove, not one hundred, and that his eager bit of improvisation might well have caused some sort of unforeseen disruption to all her careful plans. Haakon was more subdued now, but his sullen attitude had not improved her mood, nor had her discovery that his bride's body was now missing.

"She was right here, I am certain of it!" said Haakon, although his voice sounded a trifle less certain than it had just a few minutes earlier. He studied the ground beneath the tree, perking up visibly as his keen eyes spotted something in the half-decayed leaf litter below. "See?! That's dried blood, isn't it?"

Ingrid's eyes swept the vicinity, looking for any signs that the Jouvian girl had somehow managed to drag herself elsewhere, but that would have been far too obvious for even a child to miss. Nor had she been in any shape to get up and simply walk away. No, chances were that she had succumbed to her injuries, but if so, where, and who had moved her?

If the girl was still alive, she could not be left that way. There was no way she could have survived and still consider herself on friendly terms with Eistenmarcke and Nördmarcke, and she knew far too much of their plans, whether she was aware of it or not, to be allowed to escape.

And there was also the matter of the bond. Would the girl's death have broken the bond Ingrid had so carefully set out to forge, or would it merely have rendered it even more unbreakable, her shed blood sealing the union? It was a matter without clear precedent.

Ingrid was far from pleased with her son at the moment.

Her gaze landed on a broken twig a few feet away. She walked toward it, scanning for more signs that someone had passed through this area besides Haakon. After a few moments, she found others.

The track led to a burned-out, abandoned manor. She turned to her followers.

"Search this place."

#

March 12, 1464
Mid-Morning
Somewhere near Ramos

Prince Nicholas considered the information that his squire had brought him from his foray into Nördmarcke. "And roughly where were their forces gathered?"

Sebastian glanced at his father. "Close to a hundred miles due east of Culliecairn, I think," he said hesitantly. Lord Geoffrey nodded as he studied the map he held as they walked through the war camp alongside them.

"How many men would you estimate were there?" the Prince asked.

"It didn't appear to be the main force," said Sebastian, "but by my rough guess, I would think there were at least a thousand gathered, perhaps a little more. And by their dress and actions, they were definitely Eistenmarckers, and not just those from the border area closest to Nördmarcke, who are culturally closer to the Nördmarckers than their northwestern kin."

"So perhaps from somewhere closer to Eistenfalla rather than Avarsland?" Nicholas frowned. "I don't much like the sound of that. And you say they had a smaller force of other men-at-arms mixed in with them?"

"Yes. They were outside of the main ritual circle that Cillian and I witnessed, so it was hard to make them out in the shadows beyond the area lit by the bonfire, but they looked to be men from somewhere in the Forcinn, possibly Joux. But that's more a guess based on their armor styles rather than sound knowledge, though the girl we later rescued might also point in that direction." Sebastian declined to say more about the latter, not knowing who else walking through the camp might be listening, and feeling certain there were some discoveries Their Majesties would not wish to become common knowledge.

"It may just be a guess, but your instincts for that sort of thing are usually good." Nicholas glanced over at Geoffrey as he acknowledged a guard's salute and ducked into the entrance of the large pavilion that was his camp headquarters, the others following behind him. His junior squire Oisin stood at attention as they entered.

"We are not to be disturbed unless the need is urgent," Nicholas informed him as he moved past a partition separating the larger common area from his personal living space.

Oisin allowed the others through, then shifted position to guard the entrance into the Prince's private chamber.

Nicholas took a seat, inviting the two intelligencers to pull up stools to join him. "All right, Sebastian, let's see what you've got," he said.

"I should warn you, it's rather grim."

"Yes, I can feel that radiating off you like heat from a hearth." Bracing himself, he extended his hand. "Let's see what Torval's new allies are up to."

Sebastian shared the stream of collected memories, from their surveillance over the rope walks to the violence he and his companion had both witnessed, their swift escape back to Gwynedd, Saoirse's Healing efforts on the young woman they had rescued, and their subsequent discoveries gleaned from her mind. Their visit to Rhemuth in order to deliver the rescued princess to the Infirmary there and into the safe-keeping of her sister the Queen, and the Healer's request for Saoirse to stay and assist him with undoing the damage to their unexpected guest's body and mind, the Queen having also requested and required the scout's presence until her assistance was no longer needed in Rhemuth..

As the flow of memories ended, Nicholas disengaged from the link, staring at the two intelligencers. "Nördmarcke, Eistenmarcke, and Joux united against us, and the Queen's sister caught in the middle of it all. Khadasa!"

#

March 12, 1464
Late afternoon
The Royal Chapel

Father Camber found the Queen kneeling at a prie-dieu in the family chapel. He was not surprised to find her there; just an hour earlier, his brother the King had informed him of the unexpected arrival of Alixa's sister and the equally unanticipated discoveries they had made while tending to the girl.

Alixa stood, crossing herself before turning to face him. By her expression, he got the impression that she had already sensed his approach before rising, something she had never been able to do previously. Also, he could see as well as sense the deep turmoil within her.

"I just heard the news," he told her. "I'm happy your sister is alive and safely in your care now, but grieved to hear of what has happened to bring her here. How are you doing?"

"I'm stunned," she said. "And happy, and grieving, and angry as hell. Is it wrong of me to want to kill my brother?" Since the discovery of Alixa's powers, the Royal Healer had returned to sifting through Cécile's damaged mind, seeking to restore her to greater wholeness before waking her from her deep sleep, and had made even more discoveries about how badly her sister had been treated in her childhood home that had made the defenseless girl think a marriage to an Eistenmarcker stranger was an escape to be looked forward to.

Camber took Alixa's hand, leading her to a bench at the side of the chapel, taking a seat beside her. "As a priest, I should probably tell you that fratricide is wrong, but as a friend, I'd be very tempted to leave my best hunting knife somewhere easy for you to find."

She gave a teary chuckle. "Somehow I figured you'd say something of the sort." She leaned her head back against the wall. "I don't know how to help her, Cam."

"I supposed that's something we're going to have to sort out a little bit at a time. At least she's safe here now."

"As Cinhil's hostage," Alixa said, sounding weary and slightly bitter.

Camber squeezed her hand. "Technically, yes. She is still Queen of Eistenmarcke, after all. But that's as much for her protection as anything else. I can't see him clapping her in irons and locking her away in the Old Keep."

"No, I can't imagine he would do that either, at least not without sufficient provocation. But Master James says she has so much anger and distrust in her right now, there's a chance she could be dangerous."

"I don't doubt it. But I think she's more likely to be a danger to herself than to others, unless she perceives them as a direct threat. So I suppose we shall have to do our best to not seem threatening. And it could well be that blurring the worst of her memories, so that she can recall them with no strong emotional response attached, will aid with that."

"The Healer can't just remove them altogether?" Alixa asked.

Camber shook his head. "That's usually unwise. Everything that happens in our life helps to shape us into who we are. Removing or attempting to block those painful memories completely generally does more harm than good. I can't really think of a good analogy, but it's sort of like...I suppose if you had a deep cut on your arm, you would want to clean and stitch the wound, or have it tended to by a trained Healer. You wouldn't simply lop off the arm, though that would certainly eliminate the original problem of having a badly cut arm. However, it would definitely create a new sort of wound that's more difficult to deal with. And simply hiding the cut and pretending it doesn't exist is more likely to cause it to fester and grow worse because of the delay in dealing with it properly."

Lowering her voice, even though there was no one else nearby to overhear, Alixa confided, "Master James says that Cécile is carrying a child, but it's so newly formed, she likely doesn't even know yet. I can't imagine how to tell her. I don't think it could possibly be her husband's, though under the circumstances that's probably for the best, but I'm not at all certain the alternative possibility is all that much better."

"Who would that be?" Camber asked.

"King Torval," Alixa said, her voice bleak. "She's in love with him, or at least she was. He didn't intervene while her husband was attempting to murder her, so that might have taken the bloom off the rose a bit."

Camber sighed. "Jesú. Poor child."

"Which one?"

"Both."

#

March 12, 1464
Late afternoon
Somewhere in Nördmarcke

The earlier search for Cécile's missing corpse had been fruitless, the Eistenmarckers combing through the destroyed manor uncovering little more than a few signs that someone had very recently sheltered within the ruined walls, but who had done so or exactly when was less certain. But later that day, with Torval and Rémy at her side, Ingrid had returned, and after only a few minutes their Deryni senses had picked up the portal signature which her human hirðmenn had not.

Torval had attempted to trace where the last Deryni to utilize the Portal had jumped, that being well beyond Rémy's weak and only partially trained abilities, but his senses warned him that the destination end of the jump was possibly warded or trapped. At any rate, he had a strong feeling that there was no guarantee of ever coming back to this end of things if he were to venture through to see where it led, though he could have cheerfully pushed Rémy and Haakon through it if only Portals were made to function in that way.

However, it mattered not exactly where the Portal jump had led; Torval was fairly confident that whoever had used it last had ended up somewhere in Gwynedd. A Gwyneddan scout or intelligencer would be the most likely person to take advantage of the portal, and one of the few who would wish to venture close to their war camp to spy on them. It was either a Gwyneddan or someone from Joux, wishing to rescue his princess and take her back home, but Rémy had already assured him that there were no Deryni among the Jouvian men-at-arms who had traveled to Nördmarcke with him, and at any rate, none had been missing from their ranks that morning.

Rémy might have lied, of course, but he would have had no reason to. The weasel would not have wanted to help his sister, nor wished for any of his men to make such an attempt. He was more likely to have finished her off as slowly as he could manage, just to add a final torment to her dying moments.

Why would a Gwyneddan scout or intelligencer have taken the risk of rescuing Cécile? Torval could only think of one possible reason. She was still alive, or at least she had been when they found her.

It was a hope to cling to, but it was also cause for concern. Ingrid was right, Cécile knew far too much for her own good. Even though she might think she knew nothing of their plans, a Deryni intelligencer fluent in the Eistenmarcker tongue might still manage to glean some useful information from her memories.

They would likely have taken her to her sister, at least once they knew who she was. If she survived long enough to get to Rhemuth, perhaps they had a Court Healer. Despite the risks to his upcoming campaign if she remained alive, part of him hoped she was alive and well. He could always make new battle plans, after all, and even Ingrid, Haakon, and Rémy didn't know everything that he had planned.

For that matter, he could also find another woman, if all he cared for was a willing wench to warm his bed. But he wanted Cécile back. The little bird had gotten quite under his skin. Most women lusted after his wealth, influence, or power. Cécile had simply wanted him.

Besides which, he was fairly certain she was carrying his child. If so, he wanted them both back.

"I'll trap the Portal," he told Ingrid. "If anyone attempts to come back through it, we can sift through his mind to see if he knows where your son's Queen is."

"And if he doesn't?"

"If he doesn't, or I suppose even if he does, then once I extract the information that we need, you can make a Blood Eagle sacrifice of him as a warning for future intruders to discover, or keep him as a hostage for your next blót."

#

March 13, 1464
The Rhemuth Castle Infirmary
Morning

Cécile woke up in a strange bed in an unfamiliar room, feeling somewhat restored but ravenous. It took her a few moments to work out where she was; her last waking memories were a disoriented blur. Sitting up, she tried to piece together how she had arrived here.

She had no memory of ever being in this room before now, but she was fairly sure she was somewhere in Rhemuth Castle. She could remember Alixa's face, eyes wide with concern, and then a man had arrived with some sort of glowing crystal. After that, she remembered nothing more until this moment. But before that, what had happened?

There had been two armored strangers. They were the ones who had brought her here. She remembered a dimly lit room, the two of them bent over her. The honey-haired man–or was she a woman?–had been trying to assist her in some way that Cécile could not remember just at the moment, while the darker-haired man with the beautiful blue-violet eyes crouched slightly further back, watching, speaking to her in her native Jouvian tongue. He seemed concerned for some reason, but Cécile could not remember why.

How had she ended up with two Gwyneddan strangers bending over her?

A flood of other, more distressing memories returned. At least they ought to have been distressing, even terrifying, yet Cécile felt strangely detached as she remembered them, as if viewing something that had happened to someone else besides her, many years earlier. And yet a part of herself became aware that these were very recent memories.

Her husband had tried to kill her. She had thought she was going to a festival to perform some sort of re-enactment of her wedding vows. There had been an animal sacrifice which, though unpleasant, she had expected, and then Haakon had led her into the center of the ritual circle, she thought so they could exchange vows before his people. But even then, she hadn't been thinking very clearly. Something must have been in the drink Ingrid had given her that evening.

She had not been so drugged that she could not remember that loathsome consummation, nor the knife plunging into her flesh repeatedly, the second consummation a sharp parody of the first. But she felt nothing now, as if the drug still lingered in her system. Strange, that.

And where had Torval been, when she'd been stripped of what little had been left of her dignity and innocence on a makeshift marriage bed and left to bleed to death upon the forest floor?

He had stood outside the circle, watching. Ah, there it was at last! There came the pain.

Cécile retched, dry-heaving for a few moments, then broke into loud sobs.

#

The Royal Healer and the Queen found the young princess awake and aware when they entered the room, having stepped out only briefly to confer with one another about a treatment plan for the new patient. Alixa wanted to rush in and scoop her sister up into her arms, but remembering how badly her attempt to comfort had been received the previous evening, instead she walked more slowly towards her sister, taking a seat beside her bed. "Would you like a handkerchief?" she offered. "I brought some food as well. You've lost a great deal of blood, so it would be a good idea to eat and drink as often as you feel able in the next few days to renew your strength."

Cécile looked over at her sister, nearly a stranger to her after seven long years. "How long have I been here?"

"A full day," Alixa told her. "You arrived shortly after midnight on the twelfth of March. It is now the morning of the thirteenth."

"The thirteenth," Cécile repeated dully. "A month ago, I was still in Joux. A month ago tomorrow, I was marrying Haakon." She looked up at her sister. "I suppose that makes me your enemy now. What do you intend to do with me?"

Alixa took her sister's hand. "You are not my enemy. Now, eat!"  She handed her sister a honeyed pastry, trying to tempt her appetite. Cécile took it, for she was hungry, though she hardly tasted it, too lost in her despair to appreciate the flavor.

"You are still technically the Queen of Eistenmarcke, that much is true," Alixa continued, "though given the circumstances of your arrival, we hardly intend to send you back to your new husband! My brother-by-marriage seems to think that since you weren't married by Holy Church, there is no need for an annulment as far as the Church is concerned, though he will check into that to be certain that you are not bound to Haakon of Eistenmarcke in any way hereafter. I do assume you weren't hoping to return to him."

"Only if I can sheathe a knife in his chest next time," Cécile said.

"The problem is, they might still consider you bound to him, at least if they should ever discover you are still alive. So for now anyway, the King my husband is taking you into protective custody."

Cécile nodded, unsurprised. "So I'm to be a prisoner."

"Not exactly," said Alixa. "You will have the freedom of the castle, with the exception of those few areas that are generally off limits to guests. But I can't imagine you have any great desire to break into our jail or make off with the Royal Treasury." She handed her sister a flagon of broth. "Here, drink this down, it will help your body make more blood to replace what you've lost."

"How long do you plan to keep me here?" Cécile asked. "Will you be sending me back to Joux?"

"Did you wish to be returned to Joux?" Alixa said tartly. "The only way I'd ever go back to our father's household is in a coffin, shipped there quite against my will, and even then I'd find some way to return here if I have to haunt the place! No, I don't plan to return you to the tender mercies of our father. Jesú!"

Cécile sipped at her broth, feeling a tiny bit of strength begin to return as she ate and drank. Her stomach felt faintly unsettled still.

"You have a home with me as long as you should need one," Alixa told her sister.

"Why would you want me?" Cécile asked.

"Why wouldn't I want you? You're my sister."

Tears filled Cécile's eyes. "You never came back for me."

Alixa's voice softened. "I know. I'm very sorry. But how could I have? Do you think Renier would simply have handed you and Marthe over to me if I'd just shown up at the castle gate?"

The tears spilled over. "I left Marthe there. He wouldn't let me say goodbye."

Alixa gathered Cécile into her arms and held her until the shuddering sobs subsided.

#

March 13, 1464
The Rhemuth Castle Infirmary
Afternoon

Alixa had spent the remainder of the morning getting reacquainted with her sister, trying to coax down the walls that Cécile had spent a lifetime building up. Alixa quite understood; it had taken Cinhil a little time to get past her defenses also, when she'd first come to Gwynedd and needed to relearn how to trust. Though trust had perhaps come more easily for Alixa, who had not been deprived of a mother's love until very shortly before she was sent off to be married. For Cécile, it would likely be a longer struggle.

"You ought to rest now," Alixa told her sister, "and so must I. There is something you should know." Alixa smiled. "I am bearing a daughter, due sometime in September. So far she is thriving, but the Healer has suggested that I stay well rested, as much as I can manage around here anyway."

Cécile looked surprised. "I am happy to hear it! Especially since Father will be livid. He seemed to think you'd be sent back soon and he'd get to marry you off again."

"He'll have to learn to live with disappointment," Alixa said drily. She took Cécile's hand, hoping her sister wouldn't have too drastic a reaction to her next bit of news. "Though while we are on the subject of children, the Healer says that you are also with child. If it helps, he feels certain the baby is not Haakon's. It would have happened a little over a week ago, he thinks."

A little over a week ago. In a clearing, under the Northern Lights. Cécile had felt so cared for then. It felt like half a lifetime ago.

"Thank you for telling me," Cécile whispered, though she had trouble summoning up gratitude. Instead of the joy she ought to feel at the thought of new life inside her, she felt hollow. "Did the Healer tell you whose baby it is?"

Alixa bent to kiss her sister's forehead. "I already know that, sweet sister. The baby is yours. That's all that matters."


Next chapter: https://www.rhemuthcastle.com/index.php/topic,3234.0.html

[DoctorM]

Oh, well done. I like this.

[Evie]

Oh, well done. I like this.

Merci!

[revanne]

I find the most heart-breaking part is when Cécile says to Alixa "You never came back for me" and I can imagine the child Cécile gradually losing any hope of rescue.

[Evie]

I find the most heart-breaking part is when Cécile says to Alixa "You never came back for me" and I can imagine the child Cécile gradually losing any hope of rescue.

And the adult Cécile also finally realizing how Alixa must have felt about it, as well as knowing how Marthe must be feeling, now that she has experienced the hopelessness of that situation from both sides.

[DerynifanK]

A rather heart wrenching chapter. Sorting this out will not be easy. At least for the moment Cecile is safe and I hope she can be helped. I am sorry they found the portal. I hope neither Sebastian nor Siorese try to use it again.

[Evie]

A rather heart wrenching chapter. Sorting this out will not be easy. At least for the moment Cecile is safe and I hope she can be helped. I am sorry they found the portal. I hope neither Sebastian nor Siorese try to use it again.

Using that portal again would be a very bad idea, at least for our side. Those Nördmarckers and Eistenmarckers don't play. Even once they have moved on from this area, I imagine Torval would still leave that portal Trapped in case anyone else should attempt to use it in future. (I can't really blame him there; no king with two or more neurons to spark together would want to leave a Portal open for just anyone to enter and leave at will through if the portal signature is known to others on the enemy side.)

[revanne]

(I can't really blame him there; no king with two or more neurons to spark together would want to leave a Portal open for just anyone to enter and leave at will through if the portal signature is known to others on the enemy side.)

That sounds like a pretty good description of Remy - he doesn't seem to think any further ahead than his own worst instincts.

[Evie]

(I can't really blame him there; no king with two or more neurons to spark together would want to leave a Portal open for just anyone to enter and leave at will through if the portal signature is known to others on the enemy side.)

That sounds like a pretty good description of Remy - he doesn't seem to think any further ahead than his own worst instincts.

Is that your new name for Rémy? "The Prince With Only One Very Lonely Neuron"?   

[revanne]

(I can't really blame him there; no king with two or more neurons to spark together would want to leave a Portal open for just anyone to enter and leave at will through if the portal signature is known to others on the enemy side.)

That sounds like a pretty good description of Remy - he doesn't seem to think any further ahead than his own worst instincts.

Is that your new name for Rémy? "The Prince With Only One Very Lonely Neuron"? 

That would seem to be overstating it. Maybe half on a good day?

[Evie]

(I can't really blame him there; no king with two or more neurons to spark together would want to leave a Portal open for just anyone to enter and leave at will through if the portal signature is known to others on the enemy side.)

That sounds like a pretty good description of Remy - he doesn't seem to think any further ahead than his own worst instincts.

Is that your new name for Rémy? "The Prince With Only One Very Lonely Neuron"? 

That would seem to be overstating it. Maybe half on a good day?

I think calling him more cunning than wise would be an accurate assessment. That said, I would still urge caution. Nicholas would be equally unwise to underestimate the depths of Rémy's ability to be cunning.