The Conqueror

by Kris Kennedy

  “Griffyn.” It was a pant, begging for release.

  “Tell me, Gwyn.”

  She whispered the words he taught her last night, “Make me come,” and then she tumbled over the cliff, crying out his name.

  When she opened her eyes a few moments later, he was watching her. He tightened his hold, and nuzzled into the warmth of her neck.

  “For me?” she asked. It was a winsome, fragile thing, her question. He held her tighter.

  “Just yourself, love.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  They walked back to their chambers while mist fell like a single wet kiss on the world, his arm slung over her shoulder. Gwyn was certain she was experiencing the first peace she’d had for twelve years. It lasted five minutes.

  They were drawing near one of the rooftop doorways that opened from ramparts to the keep. He dragged open the heavy door and held it. She slipped beneath his outstretched arm, just as he said, “Gwyn, there’s been news.”

  It may have been his tone, or some other way of communicating beyond words, but Gwyn knew immediately the peaceful respite had been just that, a small, short break.

  She pasted a false smile on her lips. “What news?” She aimed her brittle smile in his direction. His face grew watchful.

  “Perhaps we should talk in our chambers,” he said warily.

  “Of course.”

  She swung away, her spine hitched straight as a spoke on a wagon wheel. She did not wait for him, and upon reaching their room, began immediately straightening the manuscripts and cups and other items left out last night. Last night, when he’d reminded her heart it was not yet dead. Too bad.

  She heard his footstep at the door. She pushed the edge of a manuscript so it was even with the others on the shelf.

  “Gwyn.”

  She began tidying already tidy clothes sitting on the shelves.

  “Gwyn, there’s news.”

  She picked up one of his tunics and smoothed it. “What sort of news?”

  “News of Stephen.”

  A small sound of terror escaped her mouth. He looked at her oddly. She pulled the tunic in her hands taut and folded it in a rigid line down the middle, making a crease so tight it would never come out. “What of him?”

  He laid one of his hands atop hers. His touch was warm. “He is signing a treaty with Henri. Early November, in Winchester.”

  She slipped her hands free and walked to the window. “What sort of treaty?”

  “The sort that makes Stephen king in name only. He will yield the country shire by shire, and seek Henri’s counsel on all matters of state. All adulterine castles built during his reign will be razed.”

  She nodded, as if he’d told her they needed fresh rushes in the hall. “So Henri will be king.”

  “Aye.”

  She looked out the window. The roofs of the buildings below were slick and bright with wetness. A boy in tattered breeches was rounding up an escaped chicken.

  Her head felt immense, as if all the notions in the world could not fill it up. Every thought she had floated up and she couldn’t catch hold of it again.

  “’Tis for the best, Gwyn.”

  Someone came to help the boy. They herded the animal out of sight. “But how do you know that, for certes?”

  His deep, resonant voice rumbled across the room. “Because it has to be.”

  She nodded dully, not looking around.

  She heard his boots start across the room in her direction, then stop. After a moment, they retreated and the door closed behind him.

  A few minutes later came the sound of running footsteps. Shouting. Someone calling for Griffyn. Muted voices. Another messenger had arrived.

  Gwyn stared out the window for perhaps half an hour. The misting rain slackened, then stopped.

  King Stephen knew his son was not dead. Any agreement or treaty would simply be a ruse, a strategy to buy time, time for Guinevere to heal the prince and set him loose, to save her king and kingdom.

  She’d made a promise. She’d given her word. What was different now? Nothing. Her duty remained, unchanged by sentiment. Unchanged by having a heart.

  She felt it rising up inside her like a scream. To ward it off, she lifted her chin delicately, as if it were a glass phial.

  She needed help. She must visit Marcus.

  Slanting, sparkling sunlight began bursting through the clouds. It was going to be a beautiful day.

  Griffyn loped down the stairs, Alex on his heels. William of the Five Strands hurried over as they entered the hall.

  “A messenger, my lord. I took the liberty of putting him in your office.” He gestured to the long corridor of offices that ran along the first-floor level of the castle.

  Griffyn started forward, Alex directly behind. William brought up the rear, the sleeves of his overtunic wafting back in the breeze. They drew up at the door. William leaned forward and murmured, “He said ’twas exceedingly private, my lord. I hope I did not overstep?”

  “You did well,” Griffyn said, and touched him on the shoulder. He looked at Alex. “Wait here,” he said, with a significant nod in William’s direction. Alex’s face tightened, but he nodded and took a step back, setting up by the wall outside the office chamber, with a suspicious eye on a nervous, flustered William.

  It was dim and windowless inside the office chamber, lit only by several candles on the walls and tabletops. The young messenger had perched the edge of his rump on a bench beside the table, as if afraid his full weight would collapse the four-inch-thick oaken legs. He was begrimed and haggard, and looked like he hadn’t eaten in days. He leapt to his feet as soon as Griffyn entered.

  “My lord Everoot!”

  “Your name, son?” Griffyn asked, striding forward.

  “Richard, sir!”

  “Sit, Richard.” He picked up the jug of ale William had put in the room, and splashed some into a wooden mug. He thrust it at the boy, who took it and gulped down half.

  “What news?” Griffyn asked when the boy’s throat stopped moving.

  Young Richard yanked the mug from his mouth in a frenzy of obedience. A wave of brown ale splashed over the rim, onto his tunic. “I carry a message from a knight in the north, my lord,” he said briskly, pausing neither to wipe his mouth nor his drenched tunic.

  “Who?”

  “I’m given leave to say only that you do not know him.”

  “The message?”

  Richard flung himself at the pouch hanging by his side and wrestled it free. He yanked the flap over, and drew out a crumpled roll of parchment. “My master asked only that if you did not wish to hear more after reading his missive, you would not hold it against me. Not,” he gulped, trying to be inconspicuous, so it actually looked like he swallowed a bug, “make me eat the message.”

  Griffyn glanced up from the parchment. “That would taste awful.”

  “Aye, sir,” Richard agreed with solemnity.

  Griffyn checked the blotted seal, then broke the heavy red wax and rolled the scroll open.

  My lord Everoot,

  I hear you have ridden north to take the Nest, and all that lies within. I have come upon something you may want. Or need. ’Tis a small thing, small enough to fit inside a keyhole. Young Richard has orders to await your victory, then deliver this message. Hold any arrogance perceived herewith to my self, not his.

  Thankfully and in God, yours,

  Someone with something you want

  The humming started inside Griffyn’s chest, strong and whirling. As if he’d held this very possibility in the back of his mind, and now it was unfolding before him.

  It could be a trick, of course. By someone who knew too much.

  He looked up. “Where is this master of yours?”

  Richard had small beads of sweat on his forehead. “Ipsile-upon-Tyne, my lord,” he stammered. “The Red Cock Tavern. Awaiting your reply.”

  “Awaiting me.”

  “Aye, my lord, if you saw fit to—”

  Griffyn w
as already halfway out the door. “Look alive, Richard. We ride.”

  He swung under the office doorway and ran smack into Alex. “I have to see to something,” he said, and clapped Alex on the back.

  Alex looked wildly between Griffyn and Richard, who was buzzing like an adolescent bee in his wake.

  “Ready my guard,” Griffyn said. “I’m going to Ipsile-upon-Tyne.”

  Alex looked at him in shock. “Pagan? Ispile? But what—”

  He was already striding down the corridor, issuing orders over his shoulder. “We leave in an hour. Rations for forty on the packs. Thirty men off the fields, on the walls, full armour. Pull the Everoot men.” He loped across the great hall. William and Alex followed in his wake. “Feed young Richard a shovelful of food and give him a new mount. He rides back with us. Tell Fulk I want him too. Alex, I need you to stay here.”

  Alex pulled up like someone had yanked on his reins. Griffyn stopped beside him.

  “Pagan,” Alex said, his voice low and urgent. “I should be with you. If this is related in any way to—” He glanced at William, who had stopped just behind them. “Everoot’s cache, I need to know of it. ’Tis of the utmost importance.”

  “So is having someone at the Nest whom I trust, Alex. We arrived here two days ago and required an army to get in. I cannot leave it unprotected. The men must be arranged, orders given and followed. The Sauvage presence must be felt. Shall I trust that to anyone but you?”

  Alex’s throat worked. He stared at the ground and shook his head. “No, my lord. I will see to it.”

  Griffyn clapped him on the shoulder and took the steps to the outer door three at a time. He kicked open the door. Sunlight streamed in.

  “Must you go?”

  Griffyn had come up to their bedchamber to say good-bye. He came without his squire Edmund, the boy being engaged in swift preparation of Noir, and so Griffyn was tugging on his tunic himself.

  “I must,” he replied, his words muffled by the fabric. Gwyn hurried up and unraveled the hem so he could pull it over his head, her fingers trembling with tension.

  “But, now?” she persisted, thinking herself mad. Was this not a godsent answer to her prayers? Griffyn was leaving. She could visit Marcus. So why was she trying to convince him to stay? “’Tis just that it is so close…close to…”

  He sat down on the bed and began tugging a boot on. “Close to what?”

  She waved her hands in the air. “’Tis just a bad time to leave me!”

  He buckled his spur on and dropped his foot. “Why?”

  “Our wedding, I suppose,” she explained shrilly.

  He rose, gave her a kiss, and sat back down to wrangle on the other knee-high leather boot. “Your yearning is lessened?”

  “No!”

  He looked up slowly, several tendrils of dark hair curling just past his temples and cheekbones. She suddenly realised she had to cut his hair. That was her job now.

  “Good,” he said slowly. “Are you well, Gwyn? You’re not—” His face suddenly lit up. He reached out and touched her wrist. “You don’t think you’re with child a’ready, do you?”

  “No!” she almost shouted.

  He drew back, peering at her as if she’d sprouted a growth on her forehead. “Well, Gwyn. I cannot fathom the mood possessing you. I must go. If you’re worried about me and the fair maidens of Ipsile-upon-Tyne—”

  “No!”

  He looked over flatly. “’Twas but a jest. Would you please stop shouting at me?”

  She nodded and fingered the tapestry, then snatched her hand away. “’Tis just, it’s so soon,” she finished lamely.

  “I will be back.” He got his spur buckled on and rose. “We will be wed, and we shall go to Ipsile-upon-Tyne and any other northern town you develop a sudden interest in. We’ve over two weeks until the wedding, Gwyn. I will be back in two days.” He planted a swift kiss on her lips.

  “Please don’t go,” she said again, in a whisper, but it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d shouted, because he’d already left the room.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The wooden sign swinging in the darkness outside the tavern had a red cock on it, or at least a cock, rutted, chipped, and pockmarked such that it might have once been red.

  Fulk snorted. “I doubt anyone ever went to the effort of painting it, my lord. Mayhap ’tis blood, and they just stuck it up there anyhow.”

  “That I’d believe,” said Griffyn in fervent agreement.

  They stood outside the Red Cock Tavern, pondering not only the wisdom of entering, but the wisdom of the man who would direct them there. Its thin walls listed precariously to the right. It was huddled between two other establishments of much the same ilk, and boasting much the same clientele. Fulk and he stood in an ice-encrusted puddle and stared at the slime-encrusted door.

  “I’ve been in worse,” Fulk announced.

  “So have I,” Griffyn said, just as firmly.

  And they had, both of them, much worse. But neither wanted to go in here.

  The night was cold and dark, and the mists were building. White ribboned ghosts swirled about their ankles like cats. The alleyway was narrow, and above them, the three-storey buildings lurched inwards, like old women over a cauldron. From between the shuttered windows of the tavern, small bright candles shone. A loud shout of laughter burst out, then someone opened the door and stumbled out. The door slammed shut. Griffyn looked at Fulk.

  “At least they’re laughin’,” said Fulk grimly.

  “Aye, but about what?”

  They went inside. The tavern was mostly open space, filled with men in various stages of drunkenness. Seven or eight tables sat at odd angles across the crowded floor, and a long counter stretched along the length of the back wall. It was manned by two bartenders and strewn with drunk men, mugs of ale, and women covered in rouge and dilapatory pastes.

  “Now there’s paint,” Fulk said, gazing reverently and solemnly at the buxom women.

  Griffyn snorted. “Aye.”

  It was an unruly, festive crowd. They were packed together like cows, loud like cows, and stinking like cows.

  “And cow piss,” muttered Fulk as they crossed the threshold.

  The men closest turned to regard them sullenly. In response to eighteen years of a civil war on the border between two hostile nations, the men of Ipsile had developed a fierce sense of community. They looked out for their own. Griffyn and Fulk were unknown quantities, and as such, treated with a polite regard that bordered just north of hostility. Griffyn did not care to enlighten them on the fact he was actually now their lord.

  Fulk and he exchanged glances, then Griffyn shouldered his way towards an empty table he’d spotted, hoping Fulk was following behind. He glanced over his shoulder.

  He wasn’t. Fulk had detoured to the bar, and was staring open-mouthed at the cleavage of one of the prostitutes, ignoring the bartender standing in front of him. Griffyn sighed and pushed onwards to the table.

  He got waylaid by an argument between a few drunken townsmen. When the shouting escalated and he heard the words “Bloody fricking bastard,” shouted near his right ear, he stepped back just as a man’s body was flung through the air and landed with a sickening thud on a tabletop. The table shimmied convulsively, then its four legs folded. The table, with occupant, crashed to the ground. Griffyn stepped over the wreckage and continued on.

  The table he’d spied was still open. He edged onto the bench behind it, back to the begrimed wall, and waited for Fulk, the mysterious message-sender, or Satan to approach him. He was making bets with himself on which would show first.

  It was Fulk.

  He plunked his armoured body down onto the bench next to Griffyn, two pints in his fists. “Truth be told, my lord,” he said, shoving one pint at Griffyn so hard a portion of it splashed onto the table, “those Scottish women are good to behold.”

  Griffyn reached for the mug. “How can you tell, behind the cosmetics?” he asked, truly curious.

>   “Och,” Fulk said with a confident air, sitting back and pushing his belly out. “Ye can tell.” He took a long pull from his mug.

  “Umm.”

  A figure pushed through the bodies filling the room and approached their table. “My lord,” the man said in a low voice. “You came.”

  “Call me Pagan,” Griffyn said swiftly, then his eyes focused and his breath jammed back into his throat.

  De Louth. It was de Louth, Marcus’s henchman, the one who’d tried to kidnap Guinevere on the London highway, the one who almost killed Griffyn.

  Griffyn pushed to his feet, his breathing slow and controlled. His hand moved to his sword. Fulk rose beside him. Tension pushed out of them like waves into the air, ready for a fight.

  “De Louth,” Griffyn said, then flicked his gaze around the pub. It was crowded and smokey. Men stood in small herds everywhere, leaning over each other’s shoulders, guffawing, clicking dice across the tabletops. No one seemed interested in this little corner of the room. He shifted his gaze back.

  “You’ve nothing to fear from me,” de Louth said quietly. “I give you my word.” He stood a few paces back from the table, his hands near his hips, but palms turned forward, splayed. He had no weapon. At least not in his hands.

  Griffyn’s eyes ratcheted back up to de Louth’s. “You sent me a message?”

  “I did.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s what I’m here to tell you.”

  “You, or him?”

  De Louth shook his head. “Not him. Just me.”

  “He doesn’t know you’re here?”

  “If he knew I was here, he’d cut off my tongue. And my prick.”

  Griffyn smiled thinly. “So, your lord cannot trust you, but I should?”

  De Louth dropped his hands. “Sir, you’ll either believe me or you won’t. But what will it hurt to listen?”

  Fulk crossed his arms over his chest. “It might hurt the backs of our heads, if we were to get smacked upside them with a club while we were listening.”

  “I’ve come with no tricks, or men.” He looked to Griffyn. “So, aye or nay? Do you want to hear what I’ve got to say?”