Returned from patrol, Gryffudd meets his sister and old friend and hear their council regarding new, troubling rumors.
Danhadlen allows herself a small smile as she approaches Gryffudd. "Gracing us with your presence, old man?"
Canwr |The sounds of the palisaded village hadn't faded as darkness drew in. Shorter nights meant the day's work bled into the evening as the sun's colour bled into the dark western hills. Folk busied themselves driving the herds from the surrounding fields, repairing thatch and a score of other tasks. All the while the din of hammer upon anvil rang from half a dozen spots. However some of the townsfolk had found themselves drawn toward the large cookfires that sat in the clearings, far from the thatch of roundhouses. Here they idly chatted, cooked and shared stories. The soothsayer however, found his company in the flames that danced before him.
Gryffudd trudged up stairs made of birch logs planted into the hill, white and wind-washed, like the stone roundhouses that cluttered the walled-in hillside. He watched the workers gloomily, a heavy sack over his shoulder, as mud-spattered as he was. When he spotted Haddie, though, he smiled. An arm opened to draw her in. "You said gracing, not me."
Danhadlen barked a short laugh, smiling rather more, embracing the taller man in return. "So I did, brother." She leaned back to look up at him. "The news is not so good, then?"
Gryffudd planted a dry-sweat kiss on her forehead and unmantled his arm from her shoulders. "Depends on how you look at it." He nodded to the far-eyed wiseman by the fire. "Wonder if it's the same news as his."
Danhadlen chortled, following his gaze. "I mostly look at it by how it makes you glower. But as to the wondering... there is but one way to be sure."
Gryffudd smirked. "I glower because I do not yet know how to look at it, but you read me better than I'd like." He squeezed her arm just above her elbow and strode up to the seer, then waited for his attention.
Danhadlen moved along with her brother, being temporarily idle otherwise, and curious herself.
Canwr |"Gryffudd Ap Glyndwr, and his surprisingly lovely sister." The man's sing-song voice rang out before he turned. "In your war-finery nonetheless." The smile in his voice did not match the look upon his face when he did turn. "When times are darkest I find biting the coals something of a comfort, would you both care to join me?" He gestured down to a clay pitcher beside a half dozen cups, close enough to the fire to gently warm it's contents.
Danhadlen smirked a bit at the description, but looked to her brother before responding to the invitation.
Gryffudd clapped his hand against the man's forearm in a greeting grip. "Canwr." He slouched his sack off his shoulder and moved a trunk stool nearer the flattened ground around the fire. The scratch of his scale mail covered the groan of sore muscles as he sat. "Times can always be darker. There's still light in the clouds," he said, gesturing to the late summer sky.
Danhadlen nodded. "There is, a bit. And certainly, Canwr, thank you." She settled with her brother.
Canwr would bow his head in respect to the pair, paying due to their royal line before he clasped the man's arm. "The Draig-lûth, as ever, are calling us cowards, and say that we should even now be burning farms across the border." He too eased himself down with a smile flashed up toward Danhadlen. "And that if the border was held in the name of the Dragon, no Forgoil would dare take even one of our folk."
Danhadlen shook her head. The effort of biting her tongue to contain her response was likely evident.
Gryffudd glanced at her. He poured them both cups and handed her one, lifting his brows. "This is no official council, sister. You are allowed to speak."
Danhadlen chuckled, accepting the cup with a flash of a smile. "Mmhm. But I've slowly been learning to measure my words. Some first thoughts are still best not blurted." She shrugged. "And for all I don't like the straw-heads, I don't think they're so stupid as to be unaware of the nature of the Dragon. Or what their border-guarding would mean."
Canwr nodded his approval, his dark eyes remaining on the younger woman even as he drank deeply of his cup. "The Draig-lûth would have each Brenin of each clan bend the knee to their own." Canwr spoke with some scorn, yet inclined his head none the less. "A grand dream, but led by the worst possible folk to do it, the people of Barnavon starve as they slave for the Dragon Clan."
Danhadlen pursed her lips and nodded solemnly. "If they sought to win hearts with words and a real plan, it would be different. But it is as you say, instead." She sighed. "Ah, and we have been remiss in social graces, perhaps? I hight Danhadlen."
Gryffudd |Watchful over the fire, the prince swirled his cup. "If the Draig-lûth are so protective of their lands, then why have forgoil been seen riding their fields?" He passed a meaningful look to Canwr. "Oh. Uh, Canwr, my sister. You knew that." He shook his head, glancing at Haddie. "I keep forgetting you've been gone so long your paths have not crossed. Feels like you've always been at my side."
Canwr smiled brightly, bowing his head once more. "I know you, lady, and as your brother says I am Canwr." His gaze shifted back to Gryffudd. "The Draig-lûth want an excuse to send their warbands into these lands, but as stretched as they are they cannot force them across." Craning his neck, he smiled at a familiar face driving a goat up the hill beyond the prince. "However Danhadlen is right, I'm not so sure the Forgoil would raid across to take prisoners from the villages and farms, and for all their faults they do not trade in slaves."
Danhadlen nodded over a sip from her cup. Her gaze flitted between the men as they spoke and she pondered. "I have, of course, many opinions." She flashed a look at her brother suggesting that this might be an old joke between them. "But fortunately, little direct experience with the forgoil."
Gryffudd smirked. "Many, and just when I think you've settled on one, you have another." He shook his head. "Be grateful for that. I would give my hand before I'd see one come within your sights." He swigged, then swished the wine to clean the grit from his teeth. "So, you think these are just rumors? They wouldn't be the first lies of those hated horselords in our lands."
Canwr shrugged lightly, as if the kidnapping and murder of entire farmsteads were just one of many concerns that played on the man's mind. "Oh I'd not be surprised if there are Forgoil at work in this, but I'm not sure it's an effort from the Thanes of the Isen." He near enough spat the unfamiliar title, twisting his mouth as sour fruit. "But I'd not follow the Draig-lûth into all out war just yet, you know as well as I there can only be one outcome if we march across the fords in force."
Danhadlen looked into her cup for a moment. "There have been other issues with the Draig-lûth. And that concerns me perhaps more than the forgoil, for all I'd rather they dried up and blew away."
Gryffudd bobbed a nod, listening to his councilors on either side. If he had cards to add he kept them in his deck. "The rumors have reached their banks, I've been told."
Danhadlen sits down.
Canwr prodded at a pebble at his side, turning it this way and that as he listened. Frowning, the flicked it toward the fire. "The Draig-lûth." He began, gaze switching between the pair. "Are following a dream I've had since I was a waif of a lad, before I walked beneath the Gravenwood, before I spent my moon in the Bonevales." He fell silent a moment, some distant memory threatening to drag him into his past. "They wish to unite the clans, but their path is one that will leave us all drowning in our own blood, barely a hump for the Horse-Lords to tread flat." His eyes bore into the prince now. "Those in power have a duty to stop it, and have a duty to unite the clans as it should be done."
Gryffudd |A groove formed between his black bristly brows. "The Dragon does not share your dream, Derwos. They would claim lordship over the clans, not unite them. They fight for the Draig-lûth, not Dunland." His gaze was straight as an iron rod on Canwr. "Do not presume to tell me my duty, Seer. I am growing impatient with that habit."
Danhadlen sipped at her cup, gaze flitting again, and somehow managing to hold her tongue without biting it. Then again, she didn't look nearly so perturbed as her brother.
Canwr cocked his head to the side, as if the man were a puzzle to be mastered. "My Prince." He spoke with some mirth, raising his near-empty cup. "Telling you that is my -only- duty, you know this Gryffudd."
Danhadlen tried to hide a smirk with another sip, and then an examination of the cup.
Gryffudd grumbled. "You take advantage of my good will." He swallowed down the cup and poured himself another, then held the pitcher out for his sister. "Tell your stories. Inspire the men. Give us a vision of what freedom from the forgoil will look like. But I..." he thudded a finger against his own chest. "I will decide how we get there. I will decide who needs to be dealt with."
Danhadlen took a refill, and listened, gaze flitting between them again.
Canwr stood, draining the last of the cup and letting it fall by his side. "That is for other Seers, my Prince, tricksters and poets." He offered the pair a wink, bowing his head. "I'd rather see us there, but I'll do what you ask too, and see if the winds carry any news of the Isen, eh?"
Gryffudd |Canwr's mood burnt away the gloom of his own, but he wouldn't give the seer the satisfaction of a smile. "A gift." He pushed the sack on the ground towards the seer with his foot and turned back to the fire. "Open it alone."
Danhadlen nodded to the seer with a small smile, and held it a moment for her brother's response, then had another sip.
Canwr paused for the briefest of moments, before bending low to pick it up. "Lady." He bowed to the princess one last time, then without another word, strode into the night's darkness between two of the largest roundhouses.
Danhadlen looked to her brother again, head tilted. "Clearly, you've known him a while."
Gryffudd watched him go out of the corner of his eye, otherwise intent on the fire. "He thinks that gives him the freedom to speak to me plainly."
Danhadlen nodded. "A disease of the seers anyway, is it not? But what of your news, then? Was it also his?"
Gryffudd grumbled his assent. "I believe it might be."
Danhadlen nodded while blowing out a sigh. "For all the things I might think against the forgoil... it's true that slave-trading is not among them. But the Dragon? Mm. Ugly reports have been whispered that make me think they'd sink there sooner. Though doubtless even that is not news for you."
Gryffudd watched the passers-by, his people, telling her nothing he wouldn't tell each of them. "It has been a pastime for them before. When they are desperate, or when they seek more funds. The sea-folk pay well for galley-men."
Danhadlen grunts sourly and sips a bit more. "I'd tried not to think such of anyone who is... technically... of our people. But the rumours of late have no longer allowed me that illusion."
Gryffudd looked over at her, surprised he could still be reminded of his admiration. "You know I would push every last one of them into the sea for what they do to our people. I would drown each of them with my bare hands."
Danhadlen smiled grimly. "And I'd help. You know that. It's not only my tongue that's sharp." She sighed and shrugged. "But strife with them, that openly, is not going to help right now. No matter how little I like to say that."
Gryffudd folded his elbows over his knees, leaning heavily over his cup. "No...no I think you are right, for now."
Danhadlen nodded. "They have too many... friends, or at least cowed followers, besides the trouble they've helped stir up beyond the usual with the forgoil. Or so I've been hearing, at least." She sighed. "But I have nothing there that's news, and it's not the cheeriest of things to think on."
Gryffudd stared off past the palisade into the hills. "I see a dozen paths to their ends, each with risks. For now, we must gain strength to match theirs, but they cannot catch wind of it yet."
Danhadlen nodded. "Aye." She smirked briefly. "So I shan't tell them that they smell like the forgoil."
Gryffudd chuckled. "I won't tell you what to do, little thistle." He rubbed a knuckle against his brow. "To be true I agree with Canwr. I match his impatience. I am not free as he is, though, to wander where I wish and speak my mind."
Danhadlen nodded. "No. But as long as his plain-speaking doesn't keep him from bringing word back, his freedom is useful, even when his advice that's nearly given as orders might be galling, hmm?"
Gryffudd sighed. "You're right. I shouldn't be gruff with him." He tapped his hauberk. "These are nothing against you."
Danhadlen snorted, shaking her head. "Of course you should. Just not enough so to keep him from wandering for you. Be not too put off yourself, brother."
Gryffudd nodded with her wisdom. It was easier to listen to one councilor than two, but he would be eager to see Canwr's thoughts on his gift. "You should spend time with him. Get to know him better. Perhaps you can help us translate. He'd like you," he added with a wink.
Danhadlen chortled. "Trying to get me wedded again in my old age?" She couldn't hold even mock offence. "I suspect I'll like him well enough. And I'd be happy to hear what he observes."
Gryffudd smirked. "On the contrary, I'd challenge any man who would ask for your hand. You're far too valuable to lose again." He eased back on the stool, no longer hunched like a lurking leopard. "We have the same vision, he and I. That's a rare and valuable thing."
Danhadlen nodded, with a quick flash of a full smile. "It is. Both of those things." She sighed, then shook her head at herself. "And all my impatience at wanting it all better in my lifetime, and better yet, by next winter. Hah! But any progress is good, even when small."
Gryffudd 's smile turned solemn. "We won't see it. Not even if we live to a hundred, and that is a more grim future to face than dying on the battlefield tomorrow."
Danhadlen nodded again. "Aye. But we can try to make progress. It's been generations in building, it will take at least another to fix. I know this. I just don't like it."
Gryffudd |"I am with you." He poured a little wine onto the ground for those who fought and fell before them and watched it soak into the ash. "The more we achieve in our lifetime, the better those that follow will be prepared."
Danhadlen nodded, following his example. "Truth, brother. And in that light... there is food to be had, to keep the sword-arm strong."
Gryffudd smiled. "Now that you mention it, I am rather hungry." He stood and held his hand out for her.
Danhadlen smiled as she accepted the hand up. "Then let's take care of that."
Chat Log 8/29
