Jenny: A Face a Friend of Death

"And that," Gwenhywfar reprimanded softly, "is the man who will bring about the downfall of Britain."

She knew the girl would be scared, perhaps angry, that one of the strangers had had a hand in her enslavement. But the girl must learn perspective. Even now her father was coming out to greet the big man in their midst, the fair and faintly girlish one with the pretty eyes in his head. She knew him as bard would: Cunorix, Attacotti, a maker of trouble and a sealer of tombs. Even now he smiled charmingly at something Vortigern said, and she saw his faint disgust of the foxy man. Nothing but great victories for you, she mused, and a cold fear crept across her breast. Cunorix was a warrior people sang about, as dark of deed as he was fair of face, so cunning, so sly, so sweet and so deadly. She feared for Britain and the ones who thought for Britain, the ones whose ways - like the Romans - were straight and firm and guileless. Deep in the eye of her mind she saw them, more feelings of grappled power than forms or distinct faces, but then it slipped away with a sense of panicked urgency and she was left with no more comfort than before.

But for the sake of those who thought for Britain, for the light and all things clean and familiar, she put aside that fear. Gesturing to Domitia to follow, she crossed the poppy-bordered path and joined her father before his hall, facing those who sought the death of the far-off dreams she held most dear in the deepest, secretest places of her heart.