Tales Of Gallanol : Ch.2 (Part2) The Departure

High King and King’s Companion, soon to be made Captain of the High King in Elladein, could be seen coming down the road , which led from the Palace through gardens to the wharves on the west bank, where the last of the river barges waited for them.

The Queen Mother stood at the great Lanardein made wrought iron gate, which punctured the garden walls, wide enough to be mounted with a path for palace sentries. At her right and left sides were her brothers, Deneldinhew’s rich and powerful uncles. Cadwallion Cadwallon, wearing thick white Falwent snowbeast furs, which made him seem more thickset than usual. His hair was thick and black, beginning to grey, tidily cut in straightforward manner, which underlined his rational down to earth political and commercial abilities. And Rodin Cadwallon, slightly less tall and less thickset, whose hair was similar to Cadwallion’s, and facially was also similar. He wore a blue Prydeini woollen cloak, with the House Cadwallon, black-blue bordered with a white band, representation of its Central Merchant House in Emywid, with the dome on it.

Next to Rodin Cadwallon stood his younger son Roderic, who was still in his teens. He was a fresh faced young youth with thick black tousled black hair. A skinny slight youth who was dressed all in Baerwysian white like Luneid Lenwar, who stood close behind, and the sentries who lined the cobbled route between the artisans’ shops and merchant warehouses down to the waterfront. These sentries were the Emywid White Guard, who served the Palace and City and acted as a Guard for the High King. There were more of them now than there had ever been before. Recent wars with Martainia amid the recruitments of the winter had multiplied their number fivefold in the last seven or eight years. Some of them had left on the first barges with Eric Cadwallon and Anarawd earlier in the day. Others were waiting in the three barges still to leave, along with the Lanardein Archers and Cavalry.

Prince Llewelyn of Lanardein stood with Luneid Lenwar behind the Cadwallons, dressed in a light blue tunic, with a green cape and red trousers. He was about the same age as Owen and the High King, a very handsome tanned youth with straight black hair, which was fringed above his eyebrows.

Deneldinhew was embraced in greeting by Roderic, who wished him luck. Deneldinhew took his mother’s arm and they led the party down the half a mile of cobbled street to the wharf, where his barge lay. Prince Llewelyn and Luneid came next, followed by the Cadwallons and Owen in the rear.

Roderic explained to Owen that he could not go north to fight because he was being groomed to master the finances and trading of House Cadwallon, and that if men like he were to leave their work and ride to war there would be no unified Gallanol to fight for. “We should be an anarchic collection of little city states, fighting amongst ourselves and trying to get rich by conquest, instead of by trade, and slowly being eaten up by Martainian and Telmartan conquerors.”

Owen agreed, but added, “And yet if there were no men of war in Gallanol, willing to leave their trading and ride to war to preserve the unity of Gallanol, and to defend it against the Martan race, there would soon be no Gallanol that way either.” Roderic agreed to this.

Citizens stood wrapped in furs and cloaks, waving hands and cheering as they strolled onto the wharf. The people were cordoned off from the quayside where officers stood. Macbeth was there. He shook Deneldinhew’s hand warmly and wished him well. Eocha and Bleddys of Falwent and their young son Duncan were there. Queen Bleddys spoke kind words of encouragement to Deneldinhew, Llewelyn and to Owen, planting a kiss on each of their foreheads. Diarmid, the Chancellor of the Royal Purse, wearing frilled and laced cuffs over a red, orange and green striped tunic, other leading civil servants and merchants of the city were also on the quayside. Deneldinhew shook each of them by the hand before he led the officers, Llewelyn, Owen and the other King’s Companions, Hew, Cynan, Idwal, Rhodric, Morgan and Bleddyn, who had also been waiting on the quayside, into the last barge, the other two having begun to move off as the party had strolled down from the Palace garden gate. All the men aboard the barges stood on deck, a colourful sight on that cold grey-white day.

Just as the High king’s barge was about to cast off Deneldinhew came back to the edge of the barge and jumped back onto the quay. He embraced his mother Queen Cythrin lovingly. Just before he turned to jump back onto the barge there was a stirring in the crowd.

“Grandfather,” he called, and he raced across to the horse-drawn carriage which had just arrived on the quay. It was Grandfather Cadwallon, his mother’s father, patriarch of House Cadwallon – Ronand Cadwallon. He was standing up in the carriage, wrapped in brown and white furs. The old man was ninety years old and senile, dying of old age, but he was still in command of himself enough to know that his grandson was High King, dedicated to the restoration of the Golden Years in Gallanol. Too much trouble for him to get out of his carriage, he had Deneldinhew get up beside him and whispered family secrets and grandfatherly advice in his ear for a hushed moment. For Owen on the deck of the barge time again dragged on, but he was stirred by the crowd cheering loudly as Deneldinhew leaped manfully back onto the barge.

The ropes were cast off in an instant, and without the need of aid the Royal Barge floated majestically towards the middle of the Great River where the other barges were beginning to hoist sail and tack downstream towards the north. The Royal Barge hoisted the emblems of House Cadwallon, Lanardein, Baerwys, and the High King’s emblem of Gallanol, a blue swan on a white background. Then her tacking sails were hoisted, and although on the quayside at Emywid there had been no wind, out in mid river there was a substantial breeze. The barge silently sped north to catch the other two barges, past the Palaces of Emywid, and on past wooded and parked scarps, river gardens and rich Baerwysian merchants’ houses and mansions until only the twin domes of the High King’s Emywid Palace could be discerned of Emywid. And now light snow began to fall and the afternoon began to darken.