The Conqueror
Page 37
It must flow in the blood, he thought. He’d never seen it before, only read about it in the ancient texts upstairs, yet it was as familiar as his father’s face. He felt with his fingers along the edges, sweeping away decades or more of dust and dirt and cobwebs, until the outline of a huge, stone carved door was clearly visible.
“I never knew it,” Gwyn murmured behind him in a reverent tone.
He pressed the tri-colour puzzle key together again and slid it into a smooth, flat keyhole at the edge. Again, he’d never have known if he hadn’t just read about it upstairs. And yet, it felt so familiar. Then he placed both palms against the cold rock and pushed.
Hung in these dark, damp cellars, the hinges should have been rusty and creak like old bones. But the door swung open soundlessly. A gust of cold, old air raced out from the echoing recesses, like a cloud of fluttering wings. Gwyn drew a sharp intake of air.
He turned and tipped his head to the side. “You’ve always liked adventures, Raven.”
She laughed shakily. “You’re wrong about that. I abhor adventure. It simply keeps finding me.”
“No. I keep finding you.”
She reached for his hand. “I love you.”
Instead of taking her hand, he smiled and thrust a lantern in her palm. “Come.” He turned and strode into the midnight darkness of the cavern, his own lantern held high in the air.
Gwyn took a steadying breath, pushed her foot over the rounded wooden threshold, and plunged into darkness.
It was like climbing into a silent, echoing catacomb. It surged straight through the underbelly of the earth, its rounded walls dripping with a wetness, coating the rock with moist slime. By torchlight, she could make out the etchings on the walls, strange and fantastical imagery that demanded awe and no little dose of fear.
She had a very dim memory just now; it flitted through her mind like a little bat. She’d been here once before. Very young. Her father had said something about these etchings. Said they had been painted long ago, the rock transported from far away. He never told her more than that, whether because he didn’t know or didn’t want her to know, Gwyn had no idea. But why would someone move rock?
A small spot of light coming from Griffyn’s lantern flickered ahead in the distance, as he strode ahead, confident in the darkness. His face was lit up in relief, his cheekbones and nose, his determined, focused eyes. He paused, tipping his flame forward, until more pinpricks of light blazed forth here and there. He’d come into a chamber. She hurried forward as fast as she dared.
Torches hung on the wall and a lantern on a far table, set up almost like a monk’s copyist desk. The tiny embers snapped to attention on cobwebbed wicks, then blazed into bright, confident flames that illuminated the entire room.
“Jésu wept,” she said on an exhale.
Treasure.
A huge, long, broken sword hung on the wall. A pile of small vessels were lumped together on the desk, alongside a bejeweled belt and plain wooden goblet. Treasure. Not so many in number, but she felt like she was being blinded by the force of them, pushed against. To the wall, to the edge of the earth.
She put a shaking hand over her mouth. Griffyn’s steady grey gaze was waiting when she looked his way.
“And what—” Her voice caught. “And what are you supposed to do with it all?”
Something like amusement flickered across his face. “I do believe I’m supposed to give it away.”
Her hand dropped. “What? What about the maps? Aren’t they…treasure maps?”
“Some. I’m supposed to return the treasures.”
She stared. “To whom?”
“The world.”
Gwyn nodded weakly and lowered herself into the copyist’s seat before her knees gave out entirely. “I see. No, I don’t. When are they to be returned?” She wiped her hand over her forehead. “Where? Why? I don’t understand.”
Griffyn’s face was illuminated by the flickering light. “Charlemagne’s Heir has reparations to make,” he said simply. “Although I could never have guessed ’twould be this.”
She stared at the ancient treasures. “It’s so beautiful,” she murmured, then looked at Griffyn. “A burden.”
He shook his head. “No. Not anymore. Not if they’re to be given away.”
Gwyn closed her eyes. “When?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. At the right time, the right place. I have to read more, learn more. No, probably not now.” He glanced at the treasures, then back to Gwyn. “I suspect our children will be Guardians for generations to come. But one day, when ’tis time, the treasures will be given back.”
“How? How will you know? Who will decide where and when?”
“I don’t know. It will, I assume, become clear to the ones who are living in the times. Should we be faced with a choice in our time, Guinevere, you and I will decide what to do, and how.”
She backed up a step. “Us? I cannot intrude there, Griffyn. You are the Guardian.”
“You were, too.” He considered her pale face. “Would you leave it to me alone?”
Her eyes swam with tears. Her slim, cool fingers closed around his hand, like silver filigree on a crown. “Not if the whole world came riding for me would I leave your side,” she whispered. “Not if you would have me there.”
He pulled her to his chest, his arms wrapped around her body, a body so packed with good intent and strength and honour that she took his breath away, and Griffyn knew he had the greatest treasure of all.
He bent over her lips. “Before all others, Guinevere, I would have you. If I were offered a queen, I would choose you. If I were offered no pain, I would choose you. If every choice in the world were laid out before me, I would choose the you amid them all. I choose you above all other things.”
Author’s Note
There really was a Prince Eustace, the eldest son of King Stephen. And, according to the chroniclers, he really was brutal and in the end, when it became clear he would never be king, he became lethal. He led his own personal retinue on a murderous, burning, plundering spree, laying waste to the countryside for weeks, including the abbey at St. Edmunds, a saint known for his lack of humour and his fierce protectiveness.
Eustace seems to have suffered St. Edmund’s wrath when, a few days later, he died 17 August 1153 due to a surfeit of lamprey eels. Or perhaps it was the rich food mixed with bitter anger. Whatever the recipe, it was perhaps a fitting end for a man who, for altogether different reasons, may have made as poor a king as his gallant father had.
Still, I always wondered…what would have happened if Eustace hadn’t died that hot August day? If people only thought he died. If someone was made responsible for the care of this brutal prince, while the kingdom collapsed around her?
Regarding the betrothal…technically, if two people made verba de furturo, vows to be wed at some later point (‘I will take thee’ instead of ‘I do take thee’), but followed that by consummation, they were, in the eyes of the Church, legally wed. I played rather loose with that in this story, as I needed Griffyn to be decisive in claiming what was his, but also needed Marcus to make one last stand for the thing that mattered most to him—or perhaps, the thing that mattered most and that he had a chance of every securing—because he would never have the Nest, and he would never be the Heir. And he would never have his father’s love.
I love the sweeping, dangerous feel of the Middle Ages. If you do too, please come visit my Web site and let me know! www.kriskennedy.net.
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Kris Kennedy, The Conqueror