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.

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.]

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.

Cai feels, sometimes, that he's built himself from scratch into the person Aythr needs him to be. Some people give him guff for being too rough around the edges, too Britain - people want their leaders to be better than them, not the same. Good thing I'm not leading, he thinks, wry. He wears the right clothes and stands at his brother's shoulder and keeps his mouth shut and quietly makes sure everything runs.

That middle part is important.

But he can't change his nature entirely, and he wouldn't if he could. Aythr's his king, but Aythr also relies on him in ways he doesn't think Cai notices. Or maybe he does; his brother, Cai thinks, has always been stupid in very limited and selective ways that have more to do with being a good man than one without any brains

Part of him wants to keep quiet, because he saw how it was before, with Anna. And he likes Gwen, or did. Grudgingly, maybe, but she kept Aythr in line and pulled him out of the misery his first romance had put him through. Now this. If they were private people living private lives, he might have gone to Gwen, but they aren't, and he doesn't have the luxury.

So he clears part of Aythr's schedule, which is easier when he's in charge of it, and they find themselves alone in a car that Cai's carefully checked for bugs, with a ride that's long but not too long in front of them.

Cai's thoughtful, quiet, and doesn't speak right off.

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.

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.

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.

All their lives, Ector has made it Cai's business to look after his foster brother. Athyr is young and reckless, with the unfortunate combination of nearly overwhelming charisma but no substantial ideas of his own; it's easy to persuade him to take idiotic risks, and he often does. Ector has spent a fortune on his education -- not that it would have happened without the considerable gifts the old man brings every year for Athyr's birthday -- but still, it's a lot more money than he's ever spent on Cai in any capacity. Athyr is gently spoiled, has private tutors for reading and writing and mathematics, was taught by celebrated instructors in the fields of riding, shooting, and hand-to-hand combat. He's Ector's prize; the better he turns out, the more money the old man brings.

Then, in the midst of the war that's been going on already for a year, the old man turns up again. It's a few days before Athyr's fifteenth birthday, and the winter is as cold as winters on New Britain ever get, more of a depressing temperate rain than anything else. The whole frontier is mud. The old man takes Athyr up to his room and talks to him with the door closed for three full hours.

When they finally emerge, Athyr's face is flushed with excitement. He's holding a pistol -- an old-fashioned make, with silver filigree and a monogramme, V.L. -- and wearing a gunbelt around his slim hips, looking younger than usual because the belt was made for a bigger, heavier man. Ector tries to catch him and talk to him, but Athyr slips past, leaving him with the old man, and heads straight out to the stable where Cai usually spends his spare time.

He rounds the door eagerly, loading a clip into the pistol as he does, in direct defiance of every gun safety rule ever. "Xiongdi!"

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."

When Athyr finally leaves the conference room, two hours later, he has a sick feeling in the bottom of his stomach that makes it feel shrunken. His throat is raw from shouting, his chest feels thin and airless and his clenched hands are shaking.

Merdhin knew. Athyr's sure of it. He's certain. Merdhin knew from the very beginning about Anna--he was just waiting for the right moment to tell, for the point when it would have the most impact. It wouldn't have been useful before now to have Aloth Lloyd as a political ally, the diplomatic ties wouldn't have benefited him, but he needs Lloyd's money and now he has something to offer, a stake in his kingdom and a beautiful wife Athyr has to get rid of.

Fucking old sorcerer. He knew.

You can't tell anyone, Arthur, Merdhin said. You can't tell anyone. Not even Cai. Just tell them she betrayed you, tell them you have to get her off the planet and Lloyd's the best man to take her. Tell them she has to disappear. Athyr can't even remember everything he said--he remembers himself, he remembers yelling, protesting, he remembers that he broke one of the chairs in the conference room, which isn't like him at all and he can't really think why he did it. And now he has to tell Anna. Merdhin's right--Athyr can't remember why he's right. He just knows he is.

And he knew all along.

Ending up effectively dry-docked on New Britain was not the plan. Then again, it's not like you plan for a string of bad luck that goes on for months, while you hop blindly from rock to outlying, newly terraformed rock hoping that this will be the one that turns things around.

By the time he hit New Britain, it was pretty clear that his little boat wasn't going anyplace else. Not for a while. She wouldn't hardly start, which was probably for the best, seeing as Lanselos was starting to think that it was long past time for him to lay low a little while. He'd been pushing his luck, bad or good, and there are only so many hops you can make on an expired registration. ('Specially when the Alliance is already eyeing you; it was getting to be an awful short hop to one of the work-planets. Which is a nice way of saying that soon enough they'll pull his card and jail him.)

Not that he'd take his own advice and sit still.

Lanselos hadn't been entirely forthcoming with the foreman at the dock about his status or what was in his hold, and he didn't much intend to be. He was only setting out, here, to sell enough of what was in his hold to get the damned thing in the sky again. Shouldn't be hard, since the talk seemed to point to a government on New Britain that was friendly toward guys like him running under the radar, and with a real need for what he had -- an entertainingly mixed up assortment of above-board construction materials and decidedly not above-board Alliance small-caliber weaponry, which he'd cleaned up himself, enough to make them worth having, anyway.

He's been here about a week. And today he's out in the hot sun, leaning against a guardrail and looking perfectly at ease. He has good reason to think today might be the day that gives him an opportunity to talk to one of the government men, arrange a sale. If he can do that, he might get himself and his boat off this rock and back in circulation.

Anna's been happy -- or as happy as anyone can be running this kind of infirmary in the middle of a war that waxes and wanes. But she's doing good work for a cause she believes in; a man she believes in, a man she loves.

She has known for about six weeks now; she started to suspect she might be pregnant when no amount of sleep ever seemed to catch her up after on-duty hours. She'd missed a cycle, but figured that could just as easily be stress, too much work -- a war is on, Athyr has so much on his plate and it worries her, some work days stretch out past twelve hours if things are heavy enough. But the fatigue seemed wrong, and after a few more weeks of this she ordered a spare test kit and took her own sample. Positive.

It's been three and a half weeks since that test result, and she has yet to tell Athyr. At first, things seemed too strenuous to add one more thing for him to think about. But she's reaching the point where she so badly wants to share it with him that she can't keep her own silence, and besides, he'll notice, if he hasn't already.

So she's asked to take dinner with him, alone in their quarters. Anna's made sure his schedule is clear, and so she's waiting for him, dressed casually in a skirt and loose blouse, and unusually nervous.

It's been a long day.

Anna's been on her feet since early this morning, making rounds, doing follow-up on some of the nastier injuries, stopping to talk with anyone she can get a few moments off to the side with. A lot of the nurses and most of the field medics like her, seem to trust her. She knows what she's doing, she's shown them, and she knows if she's got their backing it'll make it easier to press the issue of command when the time comes.

She's just gotten back from the showers, and is sitting on the little bed that's been given her in the cramped little room in one of the outbuildings, plaiting her wet hair. She's worn out, to be honest, but strangely wired. Anna doesn't mind the work, the hours; there isn't anywhere else she'd rather be. There's so much to be done, but she'll impose the downtime on herself.

Athyr is down in the training grounds, cleaning his pistol, a lone figure sitting in the open space wearing the same clothes he's been wearing for three days now.

A part of him is saying he should have been expecting this all along. He couldn't just go on pretending that Lanse and Gwen were only good friends for the rest of his life. And part of him is saying it's his fault, it's his fault that Geffreyn and two of Gwalchmai's sons are dead and buried in one of Camallate's dusty cemeteries, because he wouldn't break down and admit it was going on himself.

And part of him is saying his heart is going to break from losing Lanselos, but it's the only thing he can do now if he really wants to prove Camallate isn't just built on nepotism, favouritism, and corruption, which God knows is getting to be popular opinion. Medraut hasn't done anything to calm those feelings, especially not since the farce that was Lamerok's trial.

Besides, the last part of him is furious. A little rutting discretion, just a little--Lanse had to have known he knew, but that's no gorram reason to get so careless even Geffreyn Lloyd could figure it out.

He's going to have to challenge Lanse. He knows how their skill compares, he knows he'll probably lose unless Lanselos feels sorry for him, wángbā that he is, but it doesn't matter, he's running out of options. He has to issue a statement to-day, and it's going to have to include a challenge.

Athyr closes his eyes and feels the sweat running down his back in the hot-grit sun.

It takes longer than he'd expected for the hazy numbness to wear off, which he blames on the drug and not on his mental state. Lanselos has never been much inclined to sitting around doing nothing -- even out in the black, at least you know you're moving, going somewhere, even when it doesn't feel like it -- and in the end, he's back on duty two days before Athyr had told him he had to be.

Not that that's going real well.

He goes and does his usual check-ins, runs a round of workouts that center largely on him punching the hell out of the sandbag (this goes on until the man-at-arms who logs the drills comes over and makes him stop, for fear he'll ruin the hand he's already injured). By the afternoon, he's in the armory, checking rifles. It's a place that makes him feel at home, useful. It's a place that makes him feel focused. And though he's usually the guy who is making conversation and checking in with everyone, he feels like keeping to himself.

He has managed to avoid Athyr so far, which he's sure is sending up red flags. He took dinner with Gwen last night, though not in the mess hall, and he's sure she's worried, but he has no idea what else to say to her. And he can't help but notice that by now most of folks he works with on a daily basis are giving him a pretty broad berth -- he wouldn't think it, but the fact is that he's a little scary when he's gone all quiet this way.

That Athyr sends for Lanselos and not someone else is partly a conciliatory gesture--he wants Lanse to know he's forgiven for the fight in the mess. His intention is to talk to him for a little while before he sends him out, but as usual the combination of responsibilities and the need to reenter the Glamorgan negotiations steals most of his time.

All he really has the opportunity to do is to tell Lanselos, "I got word from Marguel that a freight convoy from Escalot went down early this morning. Gorram thing crashed and burned--I need you to get out there now and find out what happened, scout me any survivors, pick up any of the freight that's still worth takin' and chase off the scavengers, do whatever you can. You got the authority to take as many men as you need." He squeezes Lanselos' shoulder. "Thanks. Know you're the man for the job."

Then he finishes buttoning up the official jacket and disappears back into the negotiation room with a smile over his shoulder for Lanselos.

It's late when Athyr gets in. The conference lasted another three hours, Esmeree fighting the whole time, and when he finally got out he couldn't find Lanselos, so he bothered Cai for a little while, to no real purpose. By the time he got a message from Lanselos begging off, it was time for the official dinner with the delegates from Glamorgan, and that took another two hours in and of itself.

He finally keys open the door to his quarters with Gwenore, rubbing the small of his back and unfastening the toggles of his dignitary robes and jacket.

"Lăotiān Yé, it's like negotiatin' with a randy bull," he mutters, raking a hand through his hair. "Gwenore?" then, raising his voice a little. "You in?"