The Conqueror

by Kris Kennedy

  “I don’t know. Madness?”

  Fulk shook his head. “I don’t think he was mad.”

  Alex laughed shortly. “You weren’t with him there at the end. Christian Sauvage was raving. He was terrified to die.”

  “De l’Ami wasn’t looking any too rathe to meet his Maker, either, Alex. They done some awful things, and no one knows it better than ye and I. But I don’t think madness made Sauvage give away the keys.”

  “Well, I cannot think of any other reason.”

  Fulk scowled. “Ye wouldn’t.”

  “Blessed Mother, Fulk, we are Watchers. Did you forget? We have a duty to the Heir.” Alex took a step closer, his voice growing louder. “Why did you leave Sauvage? Why did you abandon us?”

  Fulk let the words settle into the dust coating the cobblestones, then shook his head and wiped his open palm over the top of his sweat-stained head. “Alex, my lad,” he said sadly, “I didn’t abandon ye—”

  Alex jerked his head, as if deflecting a blow. “I’m not your lad,” he said coldly.

  Fulk sighed. “So be it. I need to see Griffyn.”

  “No.”

  Fulk’s bushy eyebrows went up. “No?” He laughed. “Ye’re not the door warden, Alex. He’s not yers to say yea or nay about—”

  “He’s mine to protect. And I say no.”

  “About what?”

  They both spun. Alex was surprised, not to see Griffyn standing a few paces off, but to realise his own heart was hammering like he’d just run a footrace.

  “No about what?” Griffyn said again, but even though he was speaking to Alex, his eyes were on Fulk.

  Fulk immediately bent his head. “My lord. We’ve missed ye.”

  Griffyn gave an abrupt burst of laughter. “Is that so? I would never have known. My father wouldn’t have either.”

  Fulk stood his ground. “Sir, we’ve to live by our consciences. Ye by yers, me by mine. I had to decide. ’Twas yer father who placed me with de l’Ami. I was his to command, and he sent me to de l’Ami, saying if anything happened to his dearest friend Ionnes, ’twould be too big a blow for him to survive.”

  “Something did happen to Ionnes de l’Ami,” Griffyn pointed out coldly. “The same thing that happened to my father. Greed.”

  Fulk wiped his hand across the back of his neck. “I won’t deny anything ye’re saying, my lord. What I will say is that yer father wasn’t the only Guardian. And neither are ye.”

  Something like a spasm of shock passed over Griffyn’s face. “Guinevere.”

  Alex stepped angrily forward. “De l’Ami stole the Nest, Fulk, he didn’t become an Heir. And neither did she.”

  “The Hallows were here, and not a Sauvage in sight to protect ’em,” Fulk pointed out mildly.

  “It’s the blood that makes a Guardian, not possession of the treasure. Ours is an age-old duty, Fulk. Twists of fate do not change it.”

  “There aren’t no twists of fate here, Alex. Christian Sauvage knew ’zactly what he was doin’ when he left England without it.”

  Alex shook his head angrily. “It matters naught, Fulk. This bloodline goes back five hundred years, the treasure a thousand and more. If the treasure is out of our sight for a few years, even a generation, what matters that? Our duty does not change. Watchers guard the bloodline. We’re meant for the Heir. Charlemagne’s heir.”

  Fulk shrugged. “Someone will always be in possession of the treasure. And that person needs guardin’ too. Usually it’s the Heir. Never been different afore.”

  “But when it is, people have to make choices.”

  “And live by ’em.”

  Alex stepped up into his face. “Are you regretting yours, Fulk?”

  “Never,” retorted the leather-strapped mountain. “How ’bout yerself?” He pushed his bearded face right back into Alex’s. “Have ye been regrettin’ the choice that took ye so far away from it? Wondering if it was safe, were ye? Dreamin’ of it, rather than women, were ye?”

  Alex’s fist shot out.

  “Enough!” Griffyn shouted, shouldering between them. Alex and Fulk stumbled backwards, glowering at one another. “You see? You see what it does?” He looked at Alex, disgusted. “And you would have me cleave to this thing? Look to the hand it laid on my father, on de l’Ami, even the two of you.”

  “Not me, my lord,” Fulk said quietly.

  Griffyn swung his head around. “No. Just that, when given the choice, you chose to break faith and stay close to the treasure, rather than your charge, my father.”

  Fulk met his gaze. “I’d tell ye why.”

  “Then do.”

  “Lady Gwynnie.”

  Griffyn lifted an eyebrow.

  “She’s the why. She was two. I couldn’t even imagine the trials laid out before her. Her brother was alive, but there was something awful about what was happening to de l’Ami, and the civil wars kept getting worse. Men like Marcus and his father Miles were about, running free, marauding the land, getting granted estates. Wanting Guinevere.” He put a hand over his hauberk to tug it straight, but for all the world, it looked like he was putting his fist over his heart, like a pledge. “She’s my why. I’d do it again.”

  Griffyn’s palm was still on Alex’s chest, holding him back. Alex tore free and backed up a few unsteady paces. Griffyn lifted his eyebrows. Alex flung up his hands, looking down and away. “I’m fine.”

  “Are you done?”

  He nodded. The sun was still blazing onto his body, burning him up. “Aye. I’m done.”

  Griffyn waited a moment, then turned to Fulk. “Guinevere. Does she know?”

  “No. She knows nothing. Nothing about the Grail Hallows, nothing about yer fathers ’cept they hated one another. She knows nothing about ye either, my lord, yer destiny. Nothing about the travails of every soul who’s ever guarded the treasure, the same treasure she’s been guarding all these years in ignorance.”

  Fulk bent one side of his mouth in the façade of a smile. “And I must say, that seems a bit unfair. And mighty dangerous.”

  Chapter Seven

  Gwyn tiptoed down the curving staircase to the lord’s chambers with her heart in her throat. She encountered no one. No guard had been placed at the lord’s chambers; Pagan must have thought his threat sufficient bulwark against disobedience.

  He has much to learn, she thought sourly.

  Her determination did not eclipse her fear, though, and when she reached the landing and one long, terrified glance across its vast five foot space assured her no one was near, she broke into a cold sweat of relief. Her subsequent journey through the lord’s antechamber—so recently her own antechamber—induced a health-endangering thundering of her heart no leech could have quieted.

  When she finally pushed open the door to the inner chamber and found the room empty, she sighed so deeply a cat curled on the bed meowed disconsolately, roused from a warm nap.

  “Mores the pity such a one as you doesn’t know his wrath,” she muttered as she stalked by. Pagan had a cat?

  Indeed he did, perhaps the most orange-eared, fur-endowed, long-clawed creature ever assembled. It peered at her through blue, angular eyes, then yawned and stretched out a paw, as if welcoming her. Gwyn resisted the urge to stroke the feathery head and turned instead to one particular woven tapestry that had not—praise God—been ripped down along with the rest.

  In fact, the room vibrated barrenness. The shield that had hung above the bed, encrusted with the image of a gauntleted hand gripping a rose, and the blood of Englishmen shorn of their greatness when Stephen came to power, was gone. The stone was brighter where it had hung for eighteen years, revealing the unseen wear that had occurred everywhere else.

  The long, narrow table by the window was gone, as was the wardrobe where she folded her underlinens. Her face flushed hot. Had he taken that too? Good Lord, who had unpacked it?

  She pushed aside the heavy tapestry and felt for the handle of the hidden door, then descended into the dark.

&n
bsp; Wet cobbles toyed with her footing but a firm hand on the walls let her descend without incident. The castle underworld was dark and cloying, yet damp, and quiet as death.

  She hurried to the chamber. The padlock hung open, the dragon’s mouth in a silent roar. She called out softly, and the door cracked open. Duncan’s pale little face looked at her, illuminated by the thick, stubby candle he held. She stepped inside and glanced down. The prince’s body lay motionless on the straw.

  “How does he?”

  “I cannot say for sure, milady, but I’ve got him tucked so deeply in blankets and furs so he’ll break a sweat if he tries to sneeze. But, milady,” the boy’s voice dropped into a whisper. The echoes came off the wet stone, bouncing moist worry back to her ears. “He’s well far gone.”

  “Well,” she said lightly, lifting the hem of her skirts, “he will simply have to hang on. We have.”

  “Aye, but we’re not knocked into pieces by fevers and bad humours. I fear he cannot hang on much longer. He’s closer to death than life, and there’s a fact.”

  She dropped to her knees beside the prostrate form of her prince. A fact, was it? A fact that the uncrowned king might die on her watch come some night soon? A fact that the pillaging boy-king fitzEmpress could sweep o’er her isle with nary a flame of resistance? Not while she was in stead at the Nest. Not while blood pulsed through her heart. Not if she were truly her father’s daughter.

  Not if she wanted this last chance to make up for past sins.

  “Has he spoken?” Her lifted head shone in a wedge of light cast by the candle burning from Duncan’s hand.

  “Not so’s it’d make any sense, my lady,” he replied, worried eyes on the would-be king. “None but to groan and reach for the heavens, as if He could see anyone down here.” A black look condemned the stone roof, but the gaoler lay even further above, his bootheels likely clacking even now over her father’s once-hallowed halls, ordering jongleurs to work their magick and pretty harps to play their spell in preparation for the victory feast.

  While in the cellars lurked his undoing.

  Gwyn placed Eustace’s head back on the rushes and took back the key from Duncan. Against every fibre of her being, she knew what she was bound to do. Surely King Stephen was aware Griffyn had taken back his home. The king would send word, instructions. She must hold on until then.

  “Keep him well, and warm.” A look at her young servant brought a sigh to her lips. “And yourself as well, Duncan.”

  “Ah, well, sure’s anythin’, I’m well warm,” he avowed, icicles forming on his nose with each exhalation. Tears welled up in her eyes: could anyone have more loyal, valorous men, be they the cowherd’s son stowed beneath a castle floor?

  She patted Duncan’s shoulder, promised more blankets, and rubbed her hands together for warmth. Stephen may soon be ruling at the privilege of Henri, as some said would be the case come another month, but Eustace would rule at the call of his barons one day, lords who would rise up en masse when he stepped into the glorious light of day.

  Until then, Gwyn thought, her head falling, he needs rest.

  She turned and glided up the stairs, the darkness only a faint hindrance now, since she was not looking where she went anyhow. Her mind was turning on paths far distant from the shadowy cellar.

  Mindless, she reached the top landing and flipped the door latch up. It swung open. She pushed aside the tapestry with a flick of her head.

  The door swung shut behind her, the tapestry fell flat against the wall and, after bending over to free a skirt hem caught in her boot, she looked up into the eyes of Griffyn Sauvage.

  Chapter Eight

  “Good Lord!” she cried, falling back with her hand at her chest. “What are you doing here?”

  He took a step into the room, a long stride that seemed to bring him right beside her, although he was still standing some ten feet away. He was divested of most of his armour by now. The soft shirt that lay beneath mail hauberk and padded gambeson clung to his muscular body. His hair was longer than it had been last year. Slightly damp from a bathe or dunk in the horse trough, it was plastered across his forehead and down the column of his strong neck. She backed up a step. He took one forward.

  “I think I’ll ask you that same question.”

  “I was just…looking about.” She fingered the edge of the tapestry that hid the passageway to the donjons, then snatched her hand away.

  His gaze flicked to the tapestry before sliding over her body slowly, as if digesting something of uncertain flavour. “What did you find?”

  “Nothing,” she said in a bright, cheerful tone. “I know I should not be in here. I’ll leave now—”

  He kicked the door shut behind him. “Stay.”

  “I should go.”

  “You should do what I tell you.”

  She felt weakly behind her for some support: a table, a wall, a weapon. “Did you tell me not to come in here?”

  He smiled, a predatory, slow grin that sucked the moisture from her mouth. “Not yet.”

  “If you told me to do so now, be assured I would do it with a right good will.”

  “Oh, I am.” He ran his fingers along his jaw, drawing Gwyn’s eye to the square outline of his chin, and his mouth, which seemed intent on making her squirm as it continued its tormenting smile.

  “Well, then, I’ll just—”

  “Stay.”

  She scrambled backwards again. She would be climbing out the window in a trice. He glanced to the right again, his gaze travelling over the tapestry. Her heart hammered. Given a moment more, he might move towards it.

  “Did your lackeys find my chemises to their liking?”

  His gaze swung back blankly. “What?”

  “My wardrobe.” She gestured to the space it used to occupy. “’Tis gone.”

  “’Twas yours?”

  “Whose else?” She wandered to the other side of the room, making a path away from the tapestry.

  “Your father’s,” he suggested.

  The old familiar pinch of pain tightened. “He loved that old wardrobe. Did you notice the way it was carved? Legend says ’twas the Conqueror’s, but Papa always scoffed at that. He just liked the skill of the craftsman.” She laughed a little, unsteadily. “But why am I telling you about my father? You know everything, is that not so? Enough to hate him for a hundred years.”

  “I could hate him for a very long time,” he agreed quietly.

  “Well, how pleasant for us.”

  “But I don’t hate the wardrobe, Gwyn. If you want it, I’ll bring it back.”

  “I cannot fathom how that would matter in the least.” She paced to another corner of the room, leading him ever away from the linen draped innocently over the wall. “I suppose you’ve arranged for the meal?”

  “You could have come down and done that yourself,” he said. Well, true, she could have, but she’d been busy in the cellars. “You’ve not been sequestered.”

  “And why not?”

  He opened his hands. “To what end?”

  Indeed. She lowered her buttocks to the ledge in front of the window and almost started crying. “Truth, Pagan, I don’t—”

  “My name is Griffyn.”

  She drew up, her tears stalled by this. “Last year, ’twas Pagan for me. And your men call you that.”

  “Not my wife.”

  “Oh.”

  He watched her for what felt like a very long time, then said, “There are worse things than missing your father when he dies, Gwyn.”

  This time the tears did push forth, burning the rims of her eyes. “Really? What?”

  He lifted his hands a little, tilted up. “Not.”

  She blew out an unsteady breath. “Well. I had not considered that.” They were quiet for a moment. “There’s no seed, Griffyn.”

  He blinked. “Seed?”

  “No seed. Barely enough for to sow this winter, and for certes not enough for the spring. We might make it through the winter. We might not.�
� He was watching her with a quiet regard, listening closely. “There’s nothing left to sell. Everoot has naught. I hope you did not come north expecting treasure or riches,” she added with a watery laugh. “The wars have been too long, the summer too dry. The leavings up north are barely worth it.”

  “Those ‘leavings,’ lady, are my ancestral home,” he said, his voice dropping into a low, vibrating tone that would have warned off a bull. “I was born here.”

  Their eyes locked. Griffyn watched her face shade through more emotions than a single moment ought contain. Then she took a deep breath. “Well,” she murmured. “I see we are at odds once again.”

  “Aye.”

  She threw up her hands. “When have we ever not been?”

  Griffyn swung away, looking for wine. But the room was empty, save for the one, gold stitched tapestry that had caught his eye and had stayed his command when everything else was ordered stripped from the room. Everything, including the wardrobe with her…smallclothes. He felt a grin threatening but, glancing at her flushed, down-turned face, Griffyn decided to hold it in check.

  Harder still was to make sense of the rapid and powerful changes of emotion whenever he was within five feet of the woman. He swept his gaze over the room, irked. ’Twas not his yet, nor hers anymore. It sat in a state of suspended transition, holding nothing but memories. Nothing but wretched memories. Not even a jug of wine.

  He went to the door, wrenched it open, and shouted to an attendant.

  Mayhap they’d expected his command, or else the kitchen staff was better trained than any he’d seen—or perchance they feared his temper—for in under a minute a tentative knock came on the door. Griffyn whipped it open, nodded grimly to the young page who stood with a tray and a flagon of wine, and growled when he was asked in a muted voice “if the lady wouldn’t be needing a cup too?”

  The jug went on the windowsill, the wooden cup in his hand. A generous splash of ruby liquid gurgled into the cup, which he pushed into Guinevere’s palm. Then he lifted the jug to his lips and downed a goodly portion, his throat working hard to swallow the drink as he had been forced to swallow so many things ere this day. But never again.