Dubhaine Family/Brigdha/Roleplays/2017/September
September 6th -- Morning -- Oligarch
The guards at the ruins of the Great Gate of Oligarch were sheltering from the noonday sun, content that the few remaining pickets of the Northern Host could do nothing to threaten their day. Their battered wargear and bruised bodies told the tale of recent battle, the desperate defence of these once imposing walls as the war engines of Elves and Men wrenched ancient stoneworks from their moorings. The work of long-vanished Orcs, haughty Elven Lords and the mighty men of Fontan's glory crumbled to ruin.
It was here amidst the rubble and detritus that Garas had mounted his desperate defence, calling all able-bodied burghers to the defence of their homes. A host at once glorious in its might as it was ludicrous in its juxtaposition: old soldiers in ill-fitting cuirasses; young boys in the hand-me-down hauberks of their grandsires; bureaucrats in their ostentatious but impractical dress armour; peasants armed with billhooks and reaping knives; hoydens and gentlewomen with their skirts trailing and a motley of umbrellas, cooking implements, pokers and brooms, for one brief moment united in their hatred.
Such a host could never be wielded in open battle, but here in the moraine of fallen masonry, littered with the scree of burnt houses and broken war machines, even the haughtiest warlord could meet an undignified end.
The nobility were want to dismiss such militias as final acts of desperation and perhaps they were right to do so, but Brigdha new the truth. She'd seen that fear in the eyes of battle-hardened veterans, the gorge choking their throats as they realised the true power arrayed against them. A Citizen Militia was not an unthinking mob. It was the raw expressed power of the termite mound when a small boy foolishly thrusts a burning branch into its midst. There for but a brief moment the desire to build so common to all social creatures becomes the incandescent will to kill.
And why should not the people of a great city such as Oligarch feel that rage when foreign princes destroy so much that they'd striven to build? When their brave soldiers had given their all what other outlet for their rage could there be?
Such thoughts were not comfortable for those who drew lines on maps and moved their armies like chess pieces, and Brigdha had known more than her fair share of those in her long career. The martial popinjays who thumbed their nose at Fontan's Assembly were a fine example of that breed, all glory and honour but little humanity or soul. She'd noted an old KDF banner as she passed a company of guardsmen in the colours of Nivemus on the long road from Commonyr, her dark robe wrapped around her frail frame as she leaned heavily on her staff for comfort. Few of their eyes registered the itinerant old woman and those that did had little in the way of kindness to them. A defeated Lion still craves its meat.
Had the watchers at the gate been less mauled, had their relief at surviving so dreadful a siege been less, had the long days of fighting not tired them beyond endurance, perhaps they would have seen Brigdha's approach. Perhaps.
Etain
"Grandmother," Etain whispered into the dark interior as she perched precariously against the window sill, left arm and leg wrapped in coils of the silk-wrapped hemp rope descending from the crenellations far above. This was the third window she'd checked since losing the toss to her brother Leopald, the former Ghost Watch captain slapping her on the shoulder with great mirth as he'd lowered her over the embrasure.
What did the mad old bat think she was doing, wandering into the heart of the enemy's camp even as the armies of the North sped away with their tails between their legs? So much for all those long lectures on duty and caution...
Etain kicked back from the wall and slipped down to the next storey, cursing the lunatic who planned the high eyries of Oligarch's rambling palace complex. The cunning stonework and near-ethereal flying buttresses demonstrated the annoyingly flawless craftsmanship she associated with the Elven Republic and she wondered if this part of the complex had been commissioned by the enigmatic Doc.
"Grandmother?" a glimmer of light broke through the thick brocade curtain as Lady Brigdha drew it aside, revealing a well-appointed sitting room.
"Etain!? What on earth are you doing dangling outside my window at this hour?"
"Isn't it obvious Grandmother! I'm here to rescue you!" her voice sounded considerably more confident than she felt.
"Oh, a rescue. You think I need rescuing? Who do you think I am? Some frail crone at the mercy of any damn fall with a blade?" the force of personality caused her to inadvertently jerk backwards.
"Are you okay down there sis?" Leopald leaned over the embrasure with his bow half-knocked.
"I might have known," Lady Brigdha crossed her arms, "Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber."
"Please Grandmother, keep your voice down," Etain shifted uncomfortably as she scanned the night for signs of danger.
"Keep my voice down? I'm not the one hanging from a rope shouting my head off for all and sundry to hear."
"That's hardly fair!"
"Oh, do come in. You're making the place look untidy. And you Leopald," Brigdha stretched her hand out of the window and snapped her fingers thrice in quick succession.
A few minutes later they were sat around a roaring hearth drinking tea as a maid served delicate pastries. It wasn't exactly the circumstances Etain and Leopald had expected to find their grandmother enduring and they were still somewhat on edge.
"Oh alright, I apologise for calling you Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber. I know your hearts are in the right place, and I apologise for worrying you. But I know what I'm doing," she handed them the letter from Prime Minister Garas and they sipped their tea in silence, mulling its contents.
"Is it true?" Etain elegantly placed her cup and saucer on the occasional table next to her chair.
"I don't know for sure," Brigdha sipped her tea, "but it's true that your great aunt has always kept her private life very private indeed. I still don't know who the fathers of any of her children are Rhidhana was three before Moira even told me about her. So yes, it's possible Garas may indeed be my grand nephew and your second cousin. I have to examine the journals he refers to and compare their dates with our family archives."
"So should we stay and help?" Leopald popped a particularly sweet pastry into his mouth, causing him to mumble his words slightly.
"There precious little to kill in an archive," Brigdha's brow creased in amusement.
Garas Gabanus
Glory had left the old lady in the tower to read the journals she left her and went to get a few more books from the library. "This one, oh this one for sure... Where is the book on Fontanese history?" she asked to one of the servants who had joined her "I have it here milady," he replied but Glory shook her head "No the one about the schism and the creation of the Sultanate," she said as she paced away, "I've got it!" she yelled and placed it on top of the pile of books the man was carrying when she returned. "Perfect, I'm sure we've got everything now, follow me" she continued as she walked back to Brigdha.
When Glory knocked and subsequently opened the door, she was only holding a single blade, and was followed by two servants who carried the books for her. When she opened the door however she saw Etain and Leopold in the room and did not recognize them. Leopold and Etain only saw the blade in her hands and jumped up from their seats, while Brigdha remained seated calmly. "Sit down you two," the old lady said, "This is Princess Glory Gabanus, we are her guests. My Princess, these are my grandchildren, they came to 'rescue' me."
Glory quickly settled her surprise and responded with a smile "Well it is a pleasure to meet you both." She excitedly turned back to Brigdha and placed the blade on the table. "This was a present given to me by my mother, she had received it from my father at their wedding, who in turn had received it from my mother who had only said it was an important family heirloom. While reading to her journals however, I found the blade mentioned as well. Apparently it was a gift from Moira Dubhaine to my grandfather, Aeneas Archirium. Here you can see the wolf head beautifully carved at the handle," she said as she gave the blade to Brigdha. "I believe the wolf refers to the Sultanate of Asena," she continued as she ordered the servant to hand her the book on the Fontanese civil war. "This book details the internal conflict within Fontan at that time period, showing how the military council had created a plan to form a new realm from Kazakh, even before it was captured, but did not inform the Fontan Assembly which was their governing body. When the news leaked from the military council, a civil war of sorts broke out. It seems Lady Moira was one of the major spokespersons of the Fontan Assembly while my grandfather spoke mostly for the Military Council."
Glory paused for a moment and then started smiling even more, the kind of smile only a young girl can get when she dreams of princess and fairytales. "It makes this all the sweeter," she said as she took her mother's journal "look here, my mother describes a story of how my grandfather and Lady Moira grew together in this time of conflict and a mutual respect grew into much more...ooooh it's so romantic!"
September 12th -- Evening Oligarch
Brigdha examined the journal, speed-reading the soft flowing hand with its elegant flourishes. It reminded her of another journal, long since set aside, and the tales of the Idyll of Cagil before the death of her beloved but unacknowledged father. Being a Dubhaine was a heavy burden, much of import left unsaid to satisfy honour and duty.
"I cannot vouch for the tale," she said, trying to reconcile the tenderness revealed with the sister she knew and loved, "but it's true that Moira seemed to mellow for a time. Her correspondence had generally been focused on the great debates in Fontan and the heroic battles against Sirion, but for a little while there was a lightness to their tone which frankly was most out of character. That was before the Civil War. Before the rape of Oporto. Before the betrayals."
"So do you think...?" Glory's face shone with excitement.
"Let me see that blade girl," Brigdha accepted it, raising the wolf's head to her forehead, following the thread which had led it to this place and time. Back through the generations of heirloom her mind's eye stared, to a pavilion, one amongst many, and a field of chivalry. Thence to a forge high above volcanic scree, and a headland gazing towards the glassy cliffs. The blade was hot in her hands as she watched its forging, charms of warding and grace woven into its tempered steel.
The young noblewoman could barely contain her excitement as she watched.
"I know this blade by its twin," Brigdha released the blade and it fell perfectly straight, biting cleanly into the wooden floorboards and humming sweetly, swaying like a sapling in the summer's breeze, "though I know not its name it is undoubtedly the brother to Lannceann MacTiré."
In the thickest of the fighting pressed Aednadh's dame,
Rhidhana of the gold-spun mane.
As the sun fled westerly she cast aside her Lion helm
Her blonde locks burning a vivid flame.
The wolf's head blade drank deep and fell,
Sharp Lannceann MacTiré of the slakeless thirst.
Oh woe to thee servants of Jor,
Your doom is sealed!
May thy flesh perish before that blade is once more drawn,
The day when Rhidhana's vengeance is due!
"That blade passed to my niece Aednadh and after her tragic death I returned it to my sister. One day Lannceann MacTiré will return to feast deep and long on those who have sated themselves on Fontan's carcass," for a moment the cloak of age fell away from the priestess, offering the merest glimpse of the young warrior she had once been. Few now were the band who'd stalked the woods of elfland, feathered death on ashen stalks. Fewer still those who knew the secret war which had raged beneath that conflict, to thwart the plans of the dragon.
