Page 77 of The Queen's Huntsman
She defied anyone to look at her now and think her unsuitable or weak, no matter how few warriors rode by her side. With her Fae-given armor, and her father’s bloodstained mantle draped over her shining black mithril, her short, glyph-marked hair, and the adamantine sword she now wielded more instinctively, she felt like a warrior queen, and older than her years.
Moreover, to prepare her for the event, instead of kohl and pretty maquillage for her face, Esme also painted her with the woad of her mother’s people—a visual reminder that, at some point, Gwendolyn fully intended to call upon her blood ties in the north.
At the moment, she might be a disfavored queen, with an army of too few, but she would not stop until she faced Locrinus with twice his number, and more.
One by one she intended to gather Pretania’s tribes, beginning with the Catuvellauni. And once she had Caradoc convinced to follow, she would take back Trevena. She only needed a few good men to help her retake her city and then hold it.
Thereafter, she would take a handful of men and ride north to barter with her mother’s kinfolk. And, if she swayed the Prydein to her favor, she would ride south to persuade the Brigantes. And then the Parisi.
Finally, once she had enough warriors behind her to face the Iceni, she would endeavor to recruit them as well. And with the Iceni would come Trinovantes and Cantium.
And then, she would mount her final campaign…
Against Locrinus himself.
But first she must win Caradoc.
Gwendolyn had only met the man once, many moons ago, when he’d first brought the youngest of his daughters to the city to enroll her in thedawnsio.
The elder, Enid, was already a master dancer and the youngest, Bronwen, was meant to follow in her sister’s shoes. Gwendolyn had a use for those two as well, but first she must convince their father that she would be a worthy queen to follow.
After speaking with Bryn, she suspected she understood how to move Caradoc’s heart. He was a hard man, a loyal man, but he was also a family man. He had five daughters he loved, but only one remaining son. His city was now destroyed, his armies vanquished, but Gwendolyn knew he still reserved hope for his people, even though they hid like animals, hungry and weakened.
He was also a fair and trusting man, else he’d never have sent the elder of his two remaining sons to verify Bryn’s story, and Gwendolyn surmised he was eager for alliances.
No doubt this was part of the reason he’d sent his son to speak with Adwen—much to the son’s woe. But Gwendolyn also knew he would be motivated to discover if her warning was true—if Loc’s armies intended to march on his beloved city, a city he must still hope to recover. He simply hadn’t the means to retake it and keep it—not without more men, not in the state it was now in, nor without walls or proper defenses.
However, that he had not abandoned the region entirely told her he had not given up. Clearly, he loved his Plowonida as much as Gwendolyn loved Trevena.
If he would help her retake and keep hers, she would return the favor, and return to defend his. But, if he should refuse, she had a good sense of what to offer in order to win his favor.
All the while she formed her plan, Bryn led the way… through chalk downlands, clay fields, and finally over gravel ridges and pasturelands riddled with brackish ditches.
As Bryn confirmed, Plowonida’s hill fort stood no longer.
Once settled near the wide, flowing, dark river for which it was named, the city had been moated on the south by the great river and by fens on the north. But this alone had not protected Caradoc nor his people against the Iceni. Only a pitiful length of the ragstone wall remained, and Gwendolyn and her party rode past the blackened remnants of wattle and daub homes into fenny lands. Apparently, after the Iceni burned their village, the Catuvellauni retreated into nearby marshlands that, during this time of the year, were almost too flooded to traverse, except by foot. Only those mounted on Enbarr’s light-footed mares remained in their saddles. Everyone else dismounted to lead their horses afoot, boots sinking to the cuff into stinking mud.
These were not lands that should be occupied permanently, Gwendolyn noted, and she intended to argue that they should not be occupied at all—especially when she could offer them a walled city for protection.
Unfortunately, the boggier the path got, the more treacherous their journey became. At one point, as heavy as he was, Ives sank into the mire up to his thighs, and he had to be dragged out by one of Enbarr’s mares, with a length of rope Jago produced from his satchel.
At long last, as night fell on the second day of their travels, they emerged into a small glade, surrounded by peat bogs, and there they were met by Caradoc’s men—thirteen well-armed soldiers to Gwendolyn’s seven—six, considering that Lir couldn’t fight his way out of a sack.
Carrying torches that flickered against the velvety night, they emerged from the black woodlands, led by Caradoc himself.
Gwendolyn’s belly turned with nerves.
This would be the first time in her life she had bartered in place of her father, but she would not allow herself to be cowed, not when she must earn Caradoc’s respect.
He stood before her—a strapping man, far younger than her sire, but still old enough to have fathered many children, some who were older than Gwendolyn. His hair was still black, and his eyes shone with a ferocity unmatched by any of the warriors he’d led from the woods.
Almost at once, his eyes found Bryn’s, narrowing. “You’ve some nerve returning here, young Durotriges—else you are stupid, or mayhap both?”
His voice was deep like a bear’s, and his body was thick as well.
Bryn slid down from his saddle, stepping forward, undaunted by the chieftain’s ire. Leaving his horse beside Gwendolyn, he walked taller than she’d ever witnessed, making his way forward to face the wrathful chieftain. He said, “If you know what transpired in Durotriges, then you know your son fought valiantly by my side to save women and children. He died with his sword in hand.”
Caradoc’s eyes glinted, hard as steel, his jaw clenching.
