A/N: Wow, I can't believe it's been a year and a half since I updated this story... My senior year of college was absolutely insane, and ended really badly, and it's taken a long time to get past that. I also lost my flashdrive; I was convinced that it was somewhere at school and I lost it when I had to move in my last month, but I wound up finding it as soon as I got home! I just haven't been able to write for a long time. But now I'm back! This is a pretty decent-length chapter, and I've got a good start on the next one! We're almost done with Cymbeline's side of the story, and we'll soon be seeing Arthur and the knights' side in Sarmatia! So stay tuned!
Disclaimer: See chapter 1!
.*.*.*.*.*.
In the morning, Cymbeline and Bedivere were hauled in front of Ysbaddadon in the great hall. The warlord was clearly furious; he looked so vicious that the knights were unnerved facing him.
"Leodegrance and his daughter are missing," Ysbaddadon glowered at the knights.
"And you think we're responsible?" Cymbeline scoffed. "We worked alongside your men to fight the fire last night. How could we have freed them?"
"How did the fire start?" Nimue asked.
"I told you last night, I was in Cymbeline's room, discussing our journey back to the wall, and when I returned to my own, I found it engulfed in flames," Bedivere explained. "A spark must have fallen from the torch onto the bed and spread from there. With how dry the materials used to build the hall were, the speed at which the fire spread is unsurprising."
Nimue looked unconvinced, but remained silent.
"You are no longer welcome here," Ysbaddadon declared suddenly. "You will collect your things and leave immediately."
"Thank you for your hospitality," Cymbeline said coolly. She turned on her heel and led the way out of the hall, bag on her shoulder, Bedivere following. In the courtyard, their horses had already been prepared and were waiting; the knights mounted and rode out of the city without another glance over their shoulders.
A few miles out from the city, once they were sure they weren't being followed, the knights turned off the path and headed for a clearing several hundred feet into the forest. Branwyr and Tristan were waiting there, along with Leodegrance and Guinaelle. Branwyr mounted behind Cymbeline, while Tristan sat in front of Bedivere, leaving the third horse for Leodegrance and his daughter.
The ride back to the wall was rushed; they did not stop to make camp or to rest during the day, only stopping to sleep for a few hours at night. For some reason, Ysbadaddon never sent anyone after them, but the knights did not relax until they rode through the gates of the fort five and a half days after they left Camellaird.
"Jols!" Cymbeline greeted the stable master with a tired smile when they rode into the stable yard. "Please take care of the horses; we have to go and see the queen."
"You'll find her at Vanora's," Jols informed them, he and a pair of stablehands taking the reins of the horses to lead them into the stables.
Cymbeline and the knights led Leodegrance and Guinaelle to Vanora's tavern, where they found Guinevere and her sons, along with a large collection of people, including Vanora and her children, Culhwch and Olwyn, and Cymbeline's children. Guinevere was chatting with Olwyn, her younger son in her arms, and Cymbeline's daughter in Olwyn's. As they stepped into the familiar warmth and bustle of the tavern, there was a squeal and cries of "Branwyr! Tristan! Cymbeline!" and several of Vanora's children charged them. With a grin, Cymbeline bent down and hoisted five-year-old Sallem up onto her hip.
"Welcome home!" Vanora cried, running up to hug the two children she'd been missing for the past two weeks, her youngest son in her arms.
"Hello, Mother," Branwyr beamed, embracing her mother before taking three-year-old Llamrei into her own arms. Vanora almost lifted Tristan off the floor in a huge hug before turning to Cymbeline and Bedivere in turn.
Meanwhile, Guinevere had stood and rushed over to embrace her father and sister with her free arm. "I'm so glad you're safe," she gasped, eyes welling up. "When we heard that Ysbadaddon had taken Camellaird, we feared the worst."
"Yes, we're alright," Leodegrance beamed at his older daughter, "thanks entirely to your brave knights."
"We're just doing our job," Bedivere winked, grinning charmingly. "And it was our pleasure to piss off that asshole warlord."
"Most definitely," Cymbeline grinned in agreement, setting Sallem down only to claim her daughter from Olwyn, hugging the baby girl close.
"She's been fussy since you left," Olwyn smiled. "She hasn't slept well—must be exhausted, the poor thing. We couldn't get her to sleep unless she was in someone's arms, and as soon as we set her down, she'd be awake and crying."
"I'm so sorry for leaving you, mo ghile mear," Cymbeline murmured, holding her daughter close to her chest, taking solace in the tiny bundle of warmth in her arms. "I promise, I will do my best to never leave you alone again," she whispered, her hand stroking the soft bronze curls that already covered the baby's head.
Olwyn smiled and rested a hand on her friend's arm. "The boys are down for a nap. They've been much calmer than she has. Although, we haven't been able to find Lot's toy selkie—he was pretty upset about that for a while. I can't imagine what happened to it; it's like it just disappeared!"
With a laugh, Cymbeline dug into a pocket in her sweater and produce the much-chewed wooden toy. "I found it in one of my saddlebags when we got to Camellaird. I have no idea how it got there."
"Well, Lot will be happy to have this back," Olwyn laughed, taking the toy. "Come on, they're probably awake by now."
Cymbeline eagerly followed her friend upstairs to the room used as a nursery during the day while Vanora and Olwyn kept watch over the babies. Sure enough, when they gently opened the door, they could hear the sound of two babies happily burbling back and forth to each other; a quick investigation confirmed that it was Lot and Rhience, the oldest and youngest of Cymbeline's triplets, chattering with one another, while Vanora's baby girl, Jennie, slept soundly in her own cradle. Quietly, Cymbeline passed her daughter back to Olwyn and carefully picked up the boys. She settled down on the roomy chair they kept in the room, holding the boys close and rocking them gently, while Olwyn sat on the footstool, bouncing Bella on her knee. They sat in silence in the warm, dark room, for a long time, Cymbeline simply relishing the presence of her children and mentally vowing to never leave them again.
.*.*.*.*.*.
To their surprise, Ysbadaddon sent no envoy after them. No attempt was made by the warlord to track down Leodegrance and Guinaelle, and the few scouts that were sent above the wall returned with no reports of Ysbadaddon beginning any kind of search for his prisoners.
"I don't like it," Cullwch said stubbornly at a meeting at the round table a few weeks after Cymbeline and Bedivere's return. "Ysbadaddon is known for nothing but being vicious, and here we are, almost a month after stealing some of his own prisoners right out from under his nose, and he's doing nothing?"
"We don't actually know that he's doing nothing," Cymbeline pointed out gently, bouncing a fussy Rhience on her knee—the youngest and smallest of the triplets was down with colic, leading to an incredibly exhausted and frustrated mother. "All we know is that we haven't heard about him doing anything. It's not the same thing."
"That's true," Bedivere agreed. "For all we know, he could be plotting revenge—or even beginning to enact it—and we just haven't seen or heard of it yet."
"I agree," Dinadan piped up—a rare occurrence during these meetings—nodding sagely. "It seems unlikely that Ysbadaddon and his witch-wife aren't plotting something. After all, they've done nothing but plot since Arthur left for Sarmatia, if not before. All logic seems to indicate that something is likely to happen, and, considering that Ysbadaddon isn't exactly known for his patience, it's probably going to happen sooner rather than later."
"I agree," Guinevere concurred. "We need to be ready. Ysbaddadon could move against us at any time. If we're not prepared, we will fall to him." She paused for a moment. "We haven't spent almost five years fighting to unite Britain just to let it fall to a war-mongering monster like Ysbadaddon."
The knights nodded in agreement, but Bedivere leaned over to whisper to Cymbeline: "I almost wonder who's more of a monster: Ysbadaddon, or his wife."
.*.*.*.*.*.
Cymbeline tossed and turned in her bed. The triplets were, for once, all sleeping peacefully. Rhience seemed to be over at least the worst of his colic, and Bellicent and Lot regularly slept through the night anyways, so their mother should have been able to rest—yet she wasn't. Something was wrong; the air, the night—everything just felt somehow off. With a groan, she rolled out of bed and onto her feet and pulled a long, loose shirt—one of Gawain's, she thought; she'd taken to wearing his clothes while she was pregnant and none of her own fit—over the more fitted undershirt and leggings she had worn to bed. Quietly, she slipped on a pair of socks, her boots, and her weapon belt, grabbing a larger axe than she usually carried along with the rest of her weapons as she padded out into the common room of the little apartment. To her surprise, she found Bedivere in the common room, strapping on his own weapons.
"Good morning," Cymbeline said wryly as she gently shut her door behind her.
Bedivere replied with a tired smile as he tightened his sword belt around his waist. "Couldn't sleep. I want to walk the walls."
"Me too," Cymbeline deposited the weapons on the table and began strapping them to her body; her sickles crossed on her back, the bone-handled knives on her right thigh, a short sword on her left hip and the lion-hilted dagger given to her by a kindly Roman blacksmith five years earlier on her right hip. She moved to a series of pegs beside the door and pulled down several cold-weather wraps for herself and Bedivere. They each wrapped a tan, brown, and red tartan cloak around their shoulders; the wool hung to the backs of their knees, while two panels in the front wrapped and were pinned over the shoulders. Cymbeline added a long hooded scarf, the ends stitched together to make it a long loop, around her neck, wrapped twice, and a pair of wool mittens that slipped under the loose sleeves of Gawain's shirt. Bedivere opted to set aside his hood and simply slip on a pair of fingerless mitts.
A creak of a door behind them caused the cousins to turn. "Is something wrong?" Griflet asked sleepily, Lucan's sandy curls visible behind his shoulder.
"Nothing's wrong," Bedivere soothed the boys. "We just can't sleep, so we're going to walk the walls."
"You need your weapons to walk the walls?" Griflet arched an eyebrow.
"It's better to be safe than sorry," Cymbeline smiled placatingly. "Go back to bed. If the babies cry, check on them. We'll be back soon."
Grifflet nodded and yawned, turning to shuffle back into the room and nearly tripping over Lucan.
"Griflet?" Bedivere called after the teenager, and both boys peered back at him in the dim light. "If anything does happen, you know what to do, right?"
"Get the babies to Vanora and get ourselves to the wall," Griflet intoned.
"Right," Bedivere nodded. "Now go back to bed. We'll see you in the morning."
"Night," Griflet yawned, sidling around Lucan to return to his bed.
"Go back to bed, Lucan," Bedivere instructed his brother firmly.
Reluctantly, Lucan turned back to his bed, leaving the door to the room open slightly. Through the gap, Bedivere and Cymbeline could see him crawl into the bed he shared with Griflet and tug blankets back from the middle brother before settling down to sleep.
Bedivere and Cymbeline traded glances before heading for the door, Cymbeline grabbing her axe from the table as they left. They clattered down the noisy wooden stairs on the outside of the apartment, but walked in silence the rest of the way to the wall. Before they rounded the next corner, Cymbeline glanced over her shoulder at the apartment she was sharing with her cousins; she could have sworn that she saw the door close, but chalked it up to a trick of the moonlight as she and Bedivere rounded the corner.
When they reached the wall, they climbed the nearest flight of stairs and nodded in greeting at the nearest sentry, then started a slow amble around the perimeter of the fort. Halfway around, Cymbeline paused, staring out at Hadrian's Wall, which rose a few feet above the wall of the fort itself.
"What is it?" Bedivere asked.
"Let's go up there," Cymbeline replied, heading for the next ladder up to the top of the Wall.
When the two reached the top of the Wall, they found Dagonet and Branwyr crouched behind the crenellations, peering out to the north. "What do you see?" Cymbeline asked, creeping up beside Dag while Bedivere joined Branwyr.
"There's something out there," Branwyr murmured. "I can't see anything, but… There's something."
Cymbeline popped her head up slightly to peer around the battlements. Squinting, she scanned the distant treeline, searching for the source of the niggling feeling at the back of her neck. "I think you're right."