Of course, for all her fancies that Rhiannon was of the Gods, the Queen knew full well she was just an ordinary girl, albeit one in favour with the pantheon. However, without actually lying – which was anathema to both positions she held – neither did the Queen seek to quash the rumours flying about that the girl could do Cunning even beyond the realm of the most able Chief Druids themselves. “Let the people have their sport”, she thought.
“Besides”, she reasoned, “Rhiannon will need all the good wishes she can muster in the dark places she must soon walk and, meanwhile, the reputation engendered by rumour will cover for the deficiencies engendered by her old life.” In this, the Queen was wise beyond all telling, because she knew that everyone had a disability of some description, and those borne by the youngster were exacerbated by those inherited from her previous existence, which would themselves be all the more keenly felt by the difference between the technology available to the tribe and what should surely come in the excess of two thousand summers which separated their times.
And she knew the youngster had been a little too timid for her own good. The way she was always checking herself, not really as sure of herself as she would have been had her fifteen summers been spent here instead of in that debauched and godless future of which the Monarch shuddered to think. The way things were, without that aura of specialness, albeit contrived by rumour uncorrected, the young'in would be an easy target for things of which the Queen couldn't even bear to think. At least this way, she could be protected without having to have a constant retinue of bodyguards all the time – something which irked the Monarch mightily during her own teenage years, in the aftermath of the Pictish invasion.
The Queen also knew there would be no harm in letting the people think Rhiannon was Goddess incarnate if that comforted them, for she knew that the Gods manifested their designs through the living all the time. And as Rhiannon would soon know how to be of one force with those designs, then no consequence would be birthed from the anomaly. The Gods knew the people needed no saviour for each was connected directly and, as each held true that the eternal pairing of power with responsibility was bound unbreakable as iron, they generally sought out whichever God or Goddess was appropriate to them for their aid.
But that left Pennek. Panicking Pennek.
Click Follow to receive emails when this author adds content on Bublish
Comment on this Bubble
Your comment and a link to this bubble will also appear in your Facebook feed.