Chapter Twenty #2
By now, the hall was beginning to rumble with men repeating the story and discussing it, shocked and angered at what they were hearing.
Aeddan tried to raise his voice, to calm them down, but the buzz was too strong.
It was Pryce who finally leapt onto the dilapidated feasting table and began shouting.
“Morys threatened to kill Blayth if he tried to leave him,” he boomed.
“At the gates of Gwendraith Castle, he had a crossbow in his hands and he threatened the man, who was determined to leave. Morys finally tried to kill him, but he hit Lady Asmara instead. She, too, was armed, and she fired back to Morys, striking him in the neck. And that is what killed him, good lords. He deserved it!”
The roar in the hall reached a splitting capacity as men shouted their support of Morys’ death, while still more were shouting about the entire situation.
Above all of the shouting, Cader sank down into a chair, his face in his hand, while next to him, he heard sobbing and turned to see Fairynne weeping.
“Is my sister dead, too, Papa?” she sobbed. “What happened to my sister?”
Cader was wondering that very same thing, completely overwhelmed with what he’d been told. Standing up unsteadily, he pushed his way through a few men until he came to Aeddan. Cader grabbed him by the arm.
“What of my daughter?” he demanded. “Did she survive?”
Aeddan turned to him, looking into a father’s worried face.
“Morys hit her in the shoulder,” he said.
“I do not know how bad it was, but she rode from Gwendraith with the arrow in her shoulder. It was not bad enough to topple her from her horse. Great lord… she went with Blayth to discover the truth behind his past. I cannot believe that she succumbed to Morys’ arrow.
She is too strong for that, and God is not so cruel. ”
Cader was relieved, but he was still very concerned. “But where did they go?”
Aeddan shook his head. “I wish I could tell you, but I do not know,” he said.
“All I know is that Asmara told me his real name was de Wolfe, so mayhap they have gone to find the House of de Wolfe. I wish I could tell you more. But I can tell you this – I do believe that Blayth was in love with her, and she with him. No one told me, but you could see it in their eyes. There was something between them that was very special, indeed.”
Cader was struck by his words; Asmara in love? He’d never heard anything so foolish. Asmara wasn’t the type. He pondered the information, struggling not to be overcome by it.
“What of my brother?” he asked. “What became of his corpse?”
Aeddan paused, wondering if he should tell the man about his brother’s grisly end, being trampled by horses, his body broken and smashed. Ultimately, he decided against it; it didn’t matter in the end, anyway.
“I gave him over to St. John’s Church in Llanegwad for burial,” he said. “Forgive me, great lord, but after what I witnessed, I wanted nothing more to do with him.”
Cader accepted the statement without judgement.
Perhaps there was none to give. In any case, Aeddan watched the man struggle with what he’d been told, but he didn’t sense any animosity because of it.
Simply resignation. Cader finally turned away from him and put his arm around Fairynne, who was still sobbing her eyes out.
With his gaze lingering on the pair, Aeddan leapt onto the table beside his brother and emitted a piercing whistle between his teeth, loud enough to shock the room into silence.
He had more to say and he wanted men to hear it.
“Listen to me, please,” he said. “I did not tell you all of this to turn you against Blayth, who was lied to. I told you all of this because you needed to know that there was subversion going on, perpetrated by a man you trusted. Although I know Morys was self-serving, and his reasons for the most part were selfish, we must all remember one thing – Blayth was a leader in our fight for freedom. Whether the man was real, or a myth, the fact remains that his name means something to the cymry. Morys built up a Welsh hero in his lies and it is something we must not take away from those fighting for our freedom. Mayhap, it will be an even greater inspiration now that he has left us. This is a gift, good men. The myth of Blayth the Strong is our gift. We should not waste it.”
The young Welshman had a point. It was possible to turn such a shocking situation into something positive, by using Blayth as a martyr in their question for freedom. As Morys himself had once considered, martyrs made the very best heroes of all.
Aeddan climbed off the table, followed by his brother, only to be faced with Howell.
The older man looked particularly worn and weary.
He was having a difficult time accepting what had happened.
But in Aeddan’s final words, he found hope that it would not be as devastating as he originally believed.
“Morys built up an elaborate web around Blayth,” he said. “It is something that has indeed given the cymry great inspiration. You are correct – mayhap it is a gift we should not waste. Sometimes the myths are even greater than our realities.”
Aeddan nodded. “That is very true,” he said. “But there is something else to consider – when Blayth fled Gwendraith, Lady Asmara went with him. The rebellion has also lost the Dragon Princess, as great a legend as there ever was. Her memory should not be forgotten, either.”
Howell thought on that. “It is difficult to lose such strong warriors,” he said. “You said that you saw them leave together?”
“I did, great lord.”
“You do not know where they went or if they will return?”
Aeddan shook his head. “Lord Cader asked the same question,” he said.
“All I know is that Blayth went to discover his true past and Lady Asmara went with him. Whether or not they will return, I cannot say. But if I could speculate, I would not think so. Blayth was living a lie here in Wales, and a man cannot live a lie forever. Even so, what he has left us is a gift, as I have said. The memory of Blayth, and of Asmara, shall fuel this rebellion, mayhap stronger than before.”
Howell was willing to accept that. With Morys dead, and Blayth vanished with the lady warrior known as the Dragon Princess, the rebellion led by Rhys ap Maredudd had lost three very strong patriots.
But it was true what Aeddan had said – sometimes myths were stronger than truth, and Howell was willing to use the memories of Blayth and Asmara to inspire those fighting so hard for their freedom.
Perhaps the rebellion would find new life from it, after all.
As Howell went to gather his thoughts and continue the discussion that needed to be pursued at the gathering, the next phase in the rebellion, Cader was still reeling from the news of his brother’s death and Asmara’s disappearance.
He found a chair against the wall and sat down, pulling Fairynne with him as she wept over her sister.
In truth, Cader didn’t know what to say to her to give her comfort because he had no idea if Asmara was dead or alive.
Aeddan’s words had given him some hope that she’d survived, but he still didn’t know for certain.
It was going to be a difficult thing to tell Asmara’s mother, but Morwenna was a strong woman.
That was where Asmara got her strength from.
Morwenna would be philosophical about the situation and she wouldn’t let her husband know how worried she was.
That was simply her way. But through the chaos, something Aeddan said stuck with Cader above all else.
I do believe that Blayth was in love with her, and she with him.
That was something Cader never thought he would hear and reliving those words in his mind brought a smile to his lips.
At first, he hadn’t believed it, but now that the news had time to sink in, he was willing to believe anything.
Asmara? In love? How many times had he scolded her for having no marital prospects, and for not allowing him to find her any?
Too many times to count. Every time he’d bring up grandsons, she would say “someday, Dadau, but not today”.
That was her standard answer to about anything he said to her regarding marriage and children.
Now, he was told that she’d fallen for Morys’ silent warrior, a man who wasn’t even Welsh, so they had discovered.
But Asmara was an excellent judge of character, and Cader had always trusted her instincts, so he couldn’t imagine that she’d put herself in a stupid situation with a man who wasn’t everything she thought he was.
Cader hadn’t really known the man, or shared more than a few words with him, but he saw the warrior as a scarred, nasty brute who was fearless in battle.
Surely Asmara saw the same but, clearly, she saw even more than that.
Finally, she’d found a man who didn’t mind that his woman could fight.
More and more, Cader pondered that very thing. The death of his brother was fading; he was distressed by it, but not overly. Given Morys’ ambitions, it was only a matter of time before he got himself killed or someone killed him, so Cader simply accepted what had happened. It was done.
But Asmara – that had his attention far more than his brother did. His long-legged, beautiful daughter who had lived the life of a warrior had actually fallen in love, and now she was with the man she loved helping him seek out what was important to him… who he was.
It was a noble quest, Cader had to admit, and he didn’t feel one bit of disapproval for what Asmara had chosen to do. In fact, he was glad – she was no longer fighting in a rebellion meant for men as she found her place alongside the man she loved.
That was noble, indeed.
It would take some time for Cader to accept her absence, but he refused to accept her loss.
Somehow, he suspected he would see her again.
He couldn’t believe Morys’ arrow had killed her and he refused to believe that she would never return to see him, perhaps with those grandsons he so badly wanted.
Someday, Dadau, but not today.
It seemed that someday had finally come.
As Cader sat back in the chair and thought of Asmara and her adventure of a new life, he happened to glance over to check on Fairynne and saw her talking to the younger of the ap Ninian brothers, Pryce.
She was no longer weeping as he held her hand and seemed to be gently explaining things to her.
Fairynne, his flighty, silly, and sometimes rebellious daughter, was listening to him intently, wiping away her tears, and then finally smiling at him.
Pryce smiled back.
That was when Cader chuckled, shaking his head at his daughters, warrior women who were tough and skilled in battle yet, at heart, they were women just like all the rest, women who were the happiest with a good man by their side.
As much as Asmara and Fairynne pretended otherwise, the devotion of a good man was perhaps the greatest achievement they could both find.
For their father, it was the thing that gave him the most peace of mind.
His gaze lingered on Fairynne as she let Pryce hold her hand, and it was bittersweet to realize that she, too, might soon be leaving him.
Glancing up to the heavens, Cader said a little prayer for Asmara.
Fair winds and fortune, my daughter, wherever you may be.
Somehow, he knew God heard him.