brand new colony

It's the first night he's spent with Gwenore in more than a month -- they've both been busy, particularly him, and it's been as hard to make time for her as to find a night he doesn't think she's already planned to spend with Lanse. So it's a relief, a pleasure he wasn't expecting. He makes love to her earnestly.

He's thrice grateful when the next morning finds him so dizzy he can hardly stand. Gwen is already up, her duties don't let her linger in bed with him, and he staggers to his feet, focusing hard to get into his clothes.

(It's not so bad but he wishes Marguel were more circumspect. It's hard enough defending her to Cai and Gwen and Lanse every month, swearing up and down that she won't let anything bad happen to him, that it'd be worse to do something about it. He's toyed with the idea that maybe she wants him to do something about it, maybe it's some kind of test, but he can't reconcile himself to punishing her, and maybe he's thinking of Anna, maybe he's just got something to atone for, but that's the way it is.)

He's not entirely sure what time it is, though he hopes it isn't too late. He could ring, he knows -- there's an emergency alarm next to his bed, the same one sewn into the lining of all his street clothes. But he feels strangely anxious, and instead of doing any of the sensible things he slips out of the room, sliding along the wall for support, until he gets to Lanse's room, where he rings the bell and then leans against the door, pressing his sweating forehead to the cool metal.

It's a long shot. Lanse should be out on the parade grounds by now. He concentrates on breathing slowly, trying to wrap his head around the idea of what he'll do if Lanse isn't there.

Anna arrives on New Britain with little fanfare, in security almost as tight as that which surrounded her departure, if considerably less hostile. Three of her sons meet her at the spaceport -- Medraut and Gadriet are still in Bredigan, they say; they're expected within the week -- and conduct her to the Hall. It's been refurbished, built onto, weathered; there's not much trace of the near-derelict Alliance building that it was when Arthur moved his people in. He's there to greet her, late as it is by planetary time, and Gwenore beside him. That interview is mercifully brief.

Medraut turns up the next morning, a little before noon, at the door of the suite allotted to her. He hasn't bothered to tidy up; he's in battered jeans and work shirt, dust on his heavy shoes, his hair too long and windblown, unshaven since yesterday; in which state he only resembles Athyr all the more.

"Mama," he says by way of greeting, mildly.

They haven't actually seen much of each other since Peredwr and Danbrann stumbled on the archives, that first time; in the intervening fortnight there's been too much else to demand their attention. But now there's a calm space, a sudden quiet, and Peredwr finds it even more unsettling -- unsettling because the city itself is still so overwhelming, so busy, so full of other people doing things, half of which he can't figure out.

So one warm evening, while Danbrann is absorbed in mending their winter clothes -- she's always done what sewing there was to be done, as neither Peredwr nor their mother was any good at it -- he finds his way back to the library building, and in among the ramshackle stacks like a bird returning to the forest.

It's been two weeks since Gadriet woke up. Two weeks since the truth came out. Almost a month that Anna's been dead.

Gahereth and Lianor had been in Camallate when it happened, by chance really. (He should've been in Bredigan, and he wasn't, and even though the reason he wasn't there was because he'd been asked to come to Camallate, Gahereth still can't escape the thought that he should have been there. And he wasn't.) He'd been with his brothers almost constantly since then, except for nights when he went back to his own room, and his own wife, and lay down with her; he didn't talk much, and he slept even less.

He followed his brothers, like he'd done all his life, and he knew they were right -- he was sure they were right, Gwalchmai always made sense and if he hadn't, Medraut would've put sense into him -- and then Gadriet woke up. And they'd been wrong.

Gahereth has, up to today, avoided the hospital altogether. The last few days, he's avoided all of his brothers. But last night, Lianor sat up with him, talking; she looked worn out, worried, and Gahereth guessed she had a right to be both. "You all've suffered enough already," she'd said, "You might feel better if you go see him."

So here he is. Perched on the edge of the visitor's chair in Gadriet's room. Quietly waiting for him to wake up.

It's been three days since Medraut Lloyd arrived in Camallate, and Athyr has been unusually quiet and introspective. Usually he's a model of exuberant energy, bounding around the practise yards and conference rooms, greeting his staff cheerfully and laying plans. Recently, however, he's stayed mainly in his office, and he seems subdued when he's out.

Earlier that evening there was a state dinner to welcome Medraut officially. Athyr presided, of course, in his yellow silk, but when it's over and the guests have begun to disperse he makes right for his and Gwenore's rooms. By the time she gets there, he's stripped down to his underclothes, bent over a pile of papers, signing them furiously and with intense concentration.

There comes a point in every celebration when, barring emergencies, it will run itself. The guards know their places and the caterers have handled the food and the music has all be arranged. Cai has tripled checked the amount of wine, and has made himself available to every person that he's spent weeks planning with, but they all have one answer: they'll call if they need him. Go enjoy the party.

Unfortunately, Cai suspects he's lost the ability to enjoy parties. Even his brother's wedding.

In fairness, he doesn't look unhappy, he just looks out of place. There's a reason why Cai has the job he does; take him out of his element, and he's left with a wretched lack of talent for small talk and a decent ability to hold his liquor, both of which conspire to end up with him watching, on the fringes, even if he's mostly pleased with how everything has gone.

He won't leave early, in case anything does go wrong. But Aythr doesn't have eyes for anyone but Gwen tonight, so he's left mainly to his own devices.

[Open to anyone who'd logically be at the wedding.]

They've been in the Hall for weeks now, longer than they've ever stayed at a stretch. It's almost the first time they've had the opportunity -- Bredigan up and functioning after the first long wave of intense development, Lamwell keeping track of things at home -- but they all know that isn't the reason. It's as if they're afraid to look away. Even Melian is tense and subdued, keeping a watchful eye on his parents as if either of them might be the breaking point.

But Melian is in bed, and presumably asleep, in the corner they've screened off as his own, when Medraut comes in toward midnight. The door shuts quietly behind him, shutting out the yellow light from the hallway; he darts a quick look behind the partition, before slipping past into the bedroom.

Lanselos has been out of Camallate for three weeks, seeing to the King's business in one of the little towns out past Bredigan -- a town that's growing somewhat faster than anyone expected it to, and which now needs a peace enforcement presence to ensure that what's orderly stays orderly. When he gets back, the first place he goes, as always, is to Arthur. The second is Gwen. And the following morning, he's up early to go find Galade.

The two of them get along easily enough, these days, but Lanse often feels a little guilty. His son should be more of a priority, but habits are hard to change, and he feels Gwen and Arthur's lack far more keenly than he misses Galade. Which is wrong, he guesses. So he sometimes over compensates; this morning is like that. He plans to take breakfast with his son, and then to see how Galade wants to spend the day. Maybe they can go to the range, or down into the city. Whatever Galade wants, Lanselos will try to give him.

It's well before the regular morning activity gets underway when Lanse knocks on the door of Galade's little room, just down the corridor from his own. He looks only a little sleep rumpled, and his easy smile is convincing enough.

Athyr is still rather drunk, from his conversation with Lanselos, but he manages to find his way back to his own room, hitting the wrong keycode twice before he gets into his and Gwen's quarters. The yellow silk jacket that goes with his official clothes is gone, abandoned over the back of one of Lanse's chairs, and once inside he starts looking for it, mildly bewildered.

He needs to talk to Gwen, and he knows that. He knows what he decided with Lanse. The hard part is changing something he's spent all his life taking for granted. With a small sigh, he goes back to looking for his jacket and hoping Gwen won't get back for a while, so he won't have to deal with it right away.

Lanselos is just coming off the range; it's early evening, and he's had a full day, but his head is finally clear. Or close to it, anyway. He can't quite get Gwenore out of his thoughts.

It's only happened a few times, and he still thinks it will stop. It has to. No matter what he feels for her, or her for him, or what it's like when they're together. It has to stop, for a hundred reasons. And yet -- he's grinning, now, with just the faintest memory of it. He's never known anything like it; like her.

And a moment later, there comes the bolt of guilt. Lăotiān Yé, if Athyr knew, his heart would break. Lanse would lose everything -- his job would be the least of his worries. He can't stand to entertain the thought; he's suddenly gripped with the urge to make up for this, just a little. But... without saying anything.

He's up the courtyard stairs and into the Hall, still smiling at folks as he passes, on his way to Athyr's office. Lanse knows what he can give him. It's been a long time since they hung out, had drinks, goofing around like they used to. He knocks the way he always does, and makes sure he's grinning for real by the time the door opens.

By the time she leaves to head back down to her own quarters, Gwenore is back in control of herself, although she's not unscathed. She takes the pins out of her hair as she goes, and pushes her fingers through till it's ruffled as ever, and makes her a little more recognizable; the soft blouse and skirt are less uncharacteristic than her expression, distracted and a little pained.

It's Merdhin who points out the need to know what's going on with Aloth Lloyd postwar, where his sympathies lie and whether he's still loyal, and Merdhin who tells Athyr, one heavy hand on his shoulder, that the best way to find out is to use his contact in the Lloyd household. As usual, he explains it all so neatly and forcibly that it doesn't seem reasonable to do things any other way than the way he suggests, and Athyr nods dumbly when he's finished speaking.

He puts off making the call, though, and when he finally does it's with his office door locked, and orders for no one to disturb him for the rest of the afternoon. His hands shake a little as he patches the call through, and the glass of double-strong coffee spiked gently with raw synth liquor has done nothing to steady his nerves.

When the console screen flickers into a connexion, his cow-mild eyes gaze at her in washed-out colours, his face looking weary and grown-up with its new beard and worry lines.

"Anna?"

The trial of Lamerok is a disaster.

He knows it very nearly from the beginning, from the moment Dr. Shea brings her husband into Camallate in stasis -- from before that, when he gets the wire from the Bredigan sheriff that Anna Lloyd is dead. But first he's too angry, and then he's too heartbroken, to stop and think, and he doesn't wait for evidence (it doesn't help that Gwalchmai's as angry as he is, in a different kind of way), he just tells the judge they'd damn well better find Lamerok guilty and get him shot as soon as possible. And the judge does as he's ordered by his king.

Two days later Gadriet's stable enough to pull out of stasis, and when he says he's the one who killed her and Athyr realises he's misjudged it that bad --

But they hush it up; Gwen and Lanse help him, like they always do, and even Bedwyr spreads a few unkind rumours among the barracks about Lamerok's conduct, which is a sacrifice Athyr never meant him to make.

In the aftermath, Athyr turns solitary. Between the way he all but murdered Lamerok, and the realisation that he's never going to see Anna again (as if some part of him really believed that if he just waited long enough he'd get the chance to apologise to her, to tell her he was a stupid boy and if he weren't married now, if he didn't love his wife, he'd beg her forgiveness, he'd tell the world Medraut is his son, his own beautiful child -- a thousand fanciful ideas that would never have happened even if she had lived), he doesn't feel fit for the court. He shuts himself in his office and keeps the door locked, and has meals sent up to him.

He can't bear the thought of talking to Gwen. It's as much a betrayal of her. Lanse is even worse, because he's always been honest with Lanse, but he can't be about this. He can't tell anyone. Five years ago he might have confided in Cai, but Cai is dead.

So he shuts himself up and tries to hide from all the responsibilities he owns as king, breathing out the sorrow gingerly: his lungs ache.

Everything aches.

The Queen is likely to turn up almost anywhere in the Hall on a given day, checking on various operations, making sure everything is running smoothly. The library is not one of her more common stops, being both nonessential and outside the main compound, but it's not unheard of for her to drop by to check some record that's not in the main computer, or just to see that things are as they should be.

Today her reasons are not entirely administrative, however. She stops a moment to talk with the staff member on duty -- there's never more than one at a time -- and then goes to lean in the doorway to the hard-copy room. She moves softly, and for a moment she studies the young man at the desk in silence. Then she straightens up a little, scuffing deliberately against the threshold. "Auelon?"

After the long conference in his private office, Athyr heads for Lanselos' quarters; it's late enough that he knows Lanse will be in, and Gwen's got business elsewhere, so he doesn't need to worry about them being together.

He's still dressed in his official robe and tunic, all yellow silk that makes his slightly olive skin look sickly, and there's a pallor about him that worsens the effect. At the same time, the grim set of his mouth gives away that he's angry as much as he's worried. He stops in front of Lanse's door and knocks sharply.

"Lanse. Need to talk," he says through the door.

Gwalchmai is in one of his soaringly good moods, the kind where he has to concentrate to keep from running everywhere he needs to go and everywhere he doesn't need to as well. All his brothers are here now, within his reach, and he wants very much to run off and make much of Gadriet, show off his brother to his world, show off his world to his brother -

But he has work to do and he is, by dint of considerable effort, bending all that excess energy to necessary paperwork, sitting at his desk in his office instead of running all over creation like some undisciplined puppy.

Marguel is thinking about getting married.

Vriens Gore is boring, but he means well, and he's well-off. Physically he's very similar to Antor, even if he's not like him in any other way; it means that when she looks at him she can pretend without too much trouble, especially in bed if she keeps the lights off.

It isn't going to make Antor jealous, or really accomplish anything, which she's known since she began seeing him, but there's nothing to be done about that. And it's something to do in her spare time. She can't just keep spending all night at the Menw working on her poisons -- although sometimes she thinks she might as well. At least that's fun, and it keeps her busy. The cloned white lab rats she goes through at a ridiculous rate, but the results are interesting. Sometimes she thinks about submitting an article on bioengineering to the Alliance medical journal, and then she thinks about what the Alliance might do if they realised what sorts of things she's been playing with, back here where they can't see her, and she changes her mind.

So instead she sends Athyr a microbial disorder, sealed up neatly in an orange, and waits to see what will happen.

Maybe it will cheer her up a little. At least it might take her mind off sitting here in her office wondering if Antor ever thinks about her at all.

They've been sleeping together for a while -- probably not exclusively, Athyr figures, though he doesn't like to think about that; the idea of another man with his hands on Gwen makes him feel queasy in a way he doesn't understand. He hasn't been with many women since Anna. To be honest, he's been half-afraid, even if it is statistically unlikely that he'd end up sleeping with another long-lost half-sister -- but he can't shake that feeling that when he finds someone he wants to love Merdhin's going to take her away from him again, hit him with some out-of-the-blue bullet that makes him lose her, or talk him into selling her to a political rival without evening arguing, like the ignorant little coward he was then--

It makes him sick to think about Anna, so he doesn't.

But Gwen he can't get out of his head, and every time she's on base in Camallate she spends the nights with him, even when they aren't fooling around. He's used to waking up to find she's come in sometime in the early morning and settled into his bed, and to burying his face in her short blonde hair, his arm around her waist. It's a good feeling. It's -- gorram it, it's a feeling he doesn't want to give up, he wants it to be every day, he wants it to be a sure thing.

He's getting dressed slowly this morning, throwing glances over his shoulder to her lying in the bed, stripped of all her guns and leather and just as strong and beautiful for that. It smarts. It smarts that between Merdhin and the way she reacted last time he doesn't have the guts to ask her.

Athyr swears and starts to button up his doublet. He'll put in an order for dinner with her, just the two of them, no work to-night. Get Cai to clear his schedule. Dammit. To-night. It's time to stop letting the past hobble him like a dog-bit horse. He isn't going to lose her the way he lost Anna, and no matter what Merdhin says he'll go through with it.

It's not as though he makes many decisions any more for things he wants. He deserves the chance for Gwen.

It's the fifth year of his kingship, and Athyr is used to Marguel's attempts to kill him. It's a sort of a game, to be honest, one that he almost enjoys -- she plots, he escapes, the same pattern. Usually the escapes are due to Cai or Gwenore's good sense, although Athyr has caught one or two of them himself.

But this one he missed. In fact, this one was bio-engineered and came in an envelope that he made the mistake of opening himself (honestly, someone else is supposed to open his mail for him, but he thinks this is a stupid idea and tries to steal it first whenever possible), and the next person who comes to his office finds him facedown on the floor.

The first three people the medical staff notify are Gwenore, Cai, and Lanselos. Athyr is in the Menw, in one of the suites, hooked up to an IV and doped up to the ears, humming tunelessly along to the radiator. When the nurse comes in to tell him that Lanse is there, he just grins.

"Yeah, yeah, I want to see him. Send him in."

She turns up in Lanselos' doorway the night before he leaves for Escalot, leaning there with her arms folded. Her fair hair is coming out of its pins, and the leather jacket -- Gwenore sticks stubbornly to offworld style -- hangs a little loosely on her shoulders; but there is nothing waifish in that steady look.

"Hey."