Dubhaine Family/Ciarghuala/Roleplays/1019/May

1st May

Spring day -- Poryatu

Ciarghuala Dubhaine

"So why arrange their escape if you were still going to let them be murdered?" Ginny lent against the parapet, watching the three horsemen shrink into the distance, dark ants scurrying along the road in the pale glow of the westering moon. She was missing the quiet of the mountains, far from the intrigues of court.

"I gave them a chance to live if they were fast enough and a clean death if not, which is a lot more than Bellatrix was offered. Anyway their children are now safe enough so I'm hardly a monster, spirited to a better life where the name Fitz Roberts is worth little compared to a favour owed by a Dubhaine," Ciarghuala betrayed little trace of emotion, "Do you really want to know more?"

"Do you really want to tell me?" Ginny turned to her older sister, the reproach in her voice muted somewhat by her instinctive shivers as the damp, chill wind blowing off the eastern plains picked up its pace. She drew the wolf pelt close about her shoulders and sniffed the air. There'd be rain before dawn. Cold driving sleet and leaden clouds.

"What do you think?"

"I think you take more after mother than you care to admit."

"If that were true Ginny I'd have stood down from this throne long ago," tonight the crown weighed particularly heavy on the Queen's conscience and she wondered why she didn't just walk away. There were oaths obviously, solemnly sworn to Fulco and Seoras and Sholan, the true Emperors. Oaths to Bennet and Matthew, her swordbrothers. Oaths to her mother, Moira the Wolfshead who dreamed dreams far above the ambitions of mortal Kings... even had all the other oaths been nought, that oath would bind her.

And there was duty. One could never forget duty. Duty was in her blood and bone, the virtue which had raised House Dubhaine to such vertiginous heights. Duty to the men and women under her command, to the knights who stood beside her in battle, and duty to the hardworking peasants they risked their lives to defend.

But there was also the ocean, the crests of its mountainous waves crashing into deep chasms as her dragon prow sliced through the roaring maelstrom, the warm becalming of the tropical reefs where the green glass stretched for leagues beyond number, the frigid ice towers of the northern latitudes crushing hearts of oak with hoary old age... for a brief moment she let her mind's eye indulge that same wanderlust she shared with her sisters before the needs of the present brought it to reign.

"Surely if the workman was complicit in the Margrave's plan his life had some value as a witness?" Ginny offered.

"Sadly very little in the accounting of the great. No more worth than his own stature and you're old enough to know the full measure of that. At best his word would fuel a season's scandal but certainly no more, and nowhere near the price to compensate for his part in that grotesque public charade. No, his death was assured the moment he agreed to play his part, willingly or otherwise. Indeed in a just world he'd already be hanging from a sounder gibbet than the one he prepared, with a fine view of the headsman's block and his family strung beside him as a reminder that noble blood must have its due. But as you may have noticed, this is not a particularly just world."

"That sounds more like vengeance than justice," Ginny let out a quiet sigh.

"And now who sounds like mother?"

There was a long pause as the distant horsemen crossed the horizon into the early dawn, and the Queen reflected on the strange twists of fate which had brought her from the Zuma steppelands to this land of walls and secret conflict.

"So this was a distraction?" Ginny broke the silence.

"Indeed dear, a most welcome distraction. Our friend has played his little game and now thinks himself a master of plots, a conceit I'm more than happy to encourage. And whilst he plans his next betrayal - for a traitor very rarely can help himself - we watch and wait and do our duty."

"Then I take it the voyage north proved worthwhile?"

"Indeed," the Queen turned at the sound of footsteps, the lumbering bulk of Kristof, a Sergeant of the Guard.

"Beggin' your pardon Ma'am, the prisoner has confessed."

"What of the other man? Were they both from the Forlorn?"

"Yes Ma'am. But he didn't survive the interrogation," there was a hint of disappointment in his tone.

"A pity. Convene the Court in the morning. The charges will be conspiracy to commit brigandage, accessory to murder, dereliction of duty, and treason whilst in Imperial Service. His cohort can have the honour of carrying out the sentence."

"Very good Ma'am," Kimball lurched back towards the guardhouse.