A woman in her late thirties rushed into the muddy yard, taking in their grim faces and silence with a look of fright. Clinoch sat swallowing repeatedly, apparently unable to stir from the saddle. Morgana was the first to break out of the awkward paralysis that held them all as frozen and cold as the statuary watching from the fringes. She slid fluidly out of the saddle and crossed the muddy courtyard to grip the other woman's hands. "Braithna..." she said inadequately, voice breaking.
"He's dead, isn't he?" the queen of Strathclyde cried, voice shrill with terror. Her hair, streaming wild and wet down her face, lay in limp copper ribbons and her skin had run ashen beneath a dusting of freckles. Clinoch, deathly pale beneath his own scattering of freckles, sat watching in numbed silence from his saddle. The boy obviously had no idea how to comfort his grieving mother. Morgana lifted the wet hair back from the woman's trembling lips and brow so she could meet streaming blue eyes that did not want the worst confirmed.
"Braithna, I grieve with you, for my own husband is not yet in the ground, and my sons too young to safeguard the throne he has left empty. Your Clinoch fought as bravely as any man I have ever seen, Braithna. He will rule Strathclyde wisely and will take care that no harm comes to you or to any more of your family."
The other woman began to sob uncontrollably, collapsing into Morgana's arms. The two queens clung together, their grief as raw as the rain pelting down with such pitiless fury. Stirling found himself on the ground without realizing he'd intended to move, and guided the women out of the rain, all but carrying Braithna. "See to the horses," he called over his shoulder, then they were inside and Clinoch was right behind them, paralysis broken, shouting for servants to see to his mother.
The royal reception hall was several degrees warmer than the raw outer air, clearly having been constructed by someone at least passingly familiar with Roman central heating, but all resemblance to Roman architecture ended there. Bare stone walls lacked plaster or murals, although someone had fastened animal skins as decorative insulation along most of the open wall space. Oil lamps rested in iron brackets riveted to the stones. One long wall boasted an open hearth, the most strikingly un-Roman feature of the large room, where a large fire blazed cheerfully. A bed of coals two meters long spilled additional heat into the room, while smoke escaped through a narrow opening in the roof.
A wide-eyed, red-haired boy of perhaps five stared at them from beside the hearth, sitting in the midst of toys he had clearly been playing with just a moment previously. He hung back, frightened and beginning to cry. A girl of perhaps ten, a slender, freckled version of her brothers, gathered the boy in, hushing and rocking him as Ancelotis guided their mother to the hearth.
Morgana retrieved her satchel of medicines, crushing a handful of leaves into a steaming kettle hanging over the fire and steeping them until the water turned a dark, mysterious shade that satisfied her. Someone brought blankets and wrapped them around the shuddering Braithna. Morgana dipped up her brew into a simple, wooden cup and got the entire cupful down Braithna's throat, coaxing her with apologies for the strong and bitter taste.
"Just a bit more, that's good, I've made it strong, to fight off the shock you've had."
Artorius, Stirling noticed, was quietly and efficiently giving orders to summon the council of Strathclyde while Clinoch sent riders to bear his father's body to the chapel. The boy retained enough presence of mind to order servants to bring food and hot, mulled wine for the weary and chilled soldiers who still waited in the rain outside. "Quarter the men of Gododdin with our own," Clinoch told an older man who clearly filled the role of that ageless and ever-present type of official who appears wherever courts of power come into existence, calm and colorless and competent. "Then send hot food for the men, hot bran mash for the horses, we've come a wicked long way and have a worse ride ahead. Artorius is calling for a full high council of the Briton kings at Caerleul. Bid the council of Strathclyde meet in this hall no later than one hour from now. Decisions cannot wait for time nor tide when the Saxons are on the march."
The colorless official bowed and departed in considerable haste.
Meanwhile, whatever Morgana had persuaded Braithna to swallow, it seemed to be helping. The harsh, uncontrollable weeping had tapered off to a few sodden hiccoughs now and again as she struggled to bring her wild grief into some manageable form of containment. More blankets put in a welcome appearance and Stirling wrapped himself in thick, woolen warmth, grateful as well for the mulled wine and fresh-baked, hot-from-the-oven barley cakes beginning to make the rounds.
Servants were bringing piles of dry clothing, as well, and set up a heavy wooden screen near the fire, which allowed Morgana, Covianna Nim, and Ganhumara to doff heavy, wet gowns and capes that held the rainwater against the skin and added to the chill. The women soaked up the heat of the hearth on their side of the screen, even as the men changed clothing on the other side of the screen, equally grateful for the warmth. Servants took their wet garments away, presumably to hang near other hearth fires to dry them. The women emerged at length and began working on their drenched hair, while Queen Braithna had calmed enough to call her children to her and hold them close while they wept.
Grey-haired councillors began to arrive, full of apologetic horror at the news, hardly knowing whether to address their own grieving queen, their dead king's heir, Artorius the Dux Bellorum, Morgana who was also recently widowed, or Ancelotis, because he now sat on the throne Morgana had declined. They reminded Stirling of a flock of fluttering, uncertain pigeons, trying to decide which cat to placate first.
Artorius put them at their ease with few enough words, outlining the entire series of disasters in a handful of terse, to-the-point sentences, making it quite clear that he supported Clinoch ap Dumgual Hen. Morgana added her support, as did Ancelotis. Within a quarter of an hour, the decision was made and Clinoch was officially King of Strathclyde. His younger brothers and sisters looked on in confused awe as he was invested with the full power of the crown by the church, in a ceremony only slightly more formal and ornate that Ancelotis' own.
It was, however, just as brief.
The new king's first order was to see to his father's funeral arrangements in his absence, "for the Saxons are massing to the south," he explained to his councillors, "and maneuvering in the midlands, and if successful in both places, they could punch through to demolish the northern kingdoms within the year."
Braithna kissed her son's cheeks and murmured, "We will see to all proper ceremony. Ride like a sudden summer gale and do your part to keep the Saxons guessing and off guard."
They waited only long enough to shovel down hot stew and bread and stow more trail rations in their kit bags, then they were under way again, amidst a great flurry of trumpet calls. The brassy voices of the signal trumpets pursued them down the twisting, muddy road from the fortified heights down to the Clyde estuary. Narrow, cobbled streets echoed with the sound of unshod hooves on uneven stone. Then they were through the town's southern gate, clattering onto a well-paved stretch of Roman road leading south. Once past the cat's-claw hook of water that formed the very tip of the Firth of Clyde, they drove straight down through the Southern Uplands and the Tweedsmuir Hills toward the distant and meaningless—to anyone from the sixth century—border between modern Scotland and modern England.