by Kris Kennedy
She turned to face him. “Why didn’t you tell me your name last year?”
“Why didn’t you tell me yours?”
She paused coldly. “Well, it seems that our names did not matter at all.”
He smiled. “If you can show me what else does matter, I’ll have Henri apply to the Pope to canonise you.” He took a step forward, she a step back. “’Twas a name that ensured I lost these lands some eighteen years ago, and my name that assured me of a hearty welcome in the Tower a year back.” Each phrase was followed by another step in her direction. “’Tis my name which has kept me sane, and my name that has given me my lands back.”
“It looked to me to be your sword.”
“You, Guinevere, show a keen mind. Happens I will keep it close, and use it.”
“Your sword or my mind?” she snapped.
He stopped the length of a long stride away and smiled into her furious glare. “Both.”
Tyber, her aging dog, slowly rose to his creaky paws and walked out the door. Traitor.
“Your lord knows little of what he must do to win this country back,” she said coldly.
Another slow smile slid across his features. “He knows enough to send men into all the rebel castles, to wed the women and silence the rebellion.”
“Really?” She drew the word out, as if unwilling to fully release it.
“Aye. And ’twould behoove you to recall this, too.” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You have been betrayed by your Stephen, not Henri.”
She covered her heart reflexively. “King Stephen ruled by right!”
“He ruled by might, and rather poorly too. You keep house up here in the north, and perhaps know little of the state of the realm, but I will tell you: ’tis terra guerra, a land of war.”
“Are you mad?” she snapped, biting the words like ice chips. “You think I do not know my country is ravaged—by men like you.”
He shook his head. “Every baron and knight knows the way to end the civil warring is to have Henri take the throne. ’Tis no secret, simply a matter of time. The Pope would not even crown Prince Eustace, not that it matters now that he’s dead.”
Gwyn felt the blood drain from her face, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Stephen is kind and chivalrous,” she managed to say through gritted teeth.
“He is a fool, gallant though he may be. And he stole the crown, my lady, do not forget that. He vowed to honour Mathilda’s queenship, then took it whilst she was not looking. How fits that with your notions of chivalry?”
“Better than my notion of you right now.”
He smiled, a dangerous curve of flesh.
Something hot and longing moved through her chest, right over her heart. She wanted him. Wanted that smile, directed at her, for her.
And how could that ever be? Lord Griffyn abovestairs, Prince Eustace below? The family her father had hated, the enemy her king had made her oath-bound to oppose. She could see the awful future shimmering right before her eyes, like a reflection in a pond.
Breaking her gaze, she retreated to the window. “I weary of these games. What do you want to know?”
“The defence. How many?”
“Some twelve in the garrison, mayhap two hundred from the surrounding villages and town.” Her voice caught in her throat. “Ignoring those who died.”
His voice was a low stroke through her pain. “They will not be forgotten.”
“By you?” She laughed bitterly.
“By you.” She lifted her head, surprised to find him so close again. So close she could hear him breathing. “Perhaps you would be surprised by how much respect I show towards loyalty.”
His square chin jutted out a bit, prompting a sensual consideration she squashed flat. His handsome arrogance was not to be one of the surprises.
“What else do you want to know?” she asked in a cold, clipped tone.
“The seneschal.”
“That is my William. Of the Five Strands.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “I recall you speaking of him. You were right.”
She looked halfway over her shoulder. “About what?”
“Five is about all I noted.”
She bit her lip to quiet the unconscionable twitch of her lips and looked down at the ground. Feign surrender, she counseled herself angrily. Do not actually do it.
“And his leaning?” Griffyn asked.
“Towards me, no doubt.” She paused. “Have you a thought for him, though, he is well endowed with a capacity for numbers, and bides his calling well.”
“I’ve no need of him. What of your knights—how many?”
“One score at the moment.”
“And what can I expect?”
She smiled thinly. “Resistance, to a man.”
His smile was rather broad. “To a man, you say?”
“What?”
“They are loyal to a man, you say?”
Her smile faltered. “Do you know otherwise?”
“I know they pledged their fealty to me.” He paused. “To a man.”
Her mouth fell wide. A fly could have buzzed in and out with nary a tense moment. “Jeravius? Fulk?”
“A tall, muscular fellow with a glint in his eye? Likes architecture, stone?”
“Jeravius,” she breathed.
“And your marshal?”
Her shoulders slumped. “Fulk.”
He considered her from head to toe. “They said ’twas for your safety I received their pledge.”
“My safety? For my safety?”
“They seemed to think ’twas in danger,” he mused, his eyes now travelling over the room’s threadbare furnishings.
“And I’m sure you were not troubled to put their minds at ease.”
His gaze swung back. “What makes you think you are not in danger?”
An involuntary shudder of fear shot through her but an angry glare, meant to burn away his arrogance, fell well short of the mark.
“Am I?” she managed to say.
“What did I tell you before?”
“When, before?”
“London. The inn.”
She looked at him sharply. “That was no inn.”
His eyes grazed down to travel over her bodice, down her skirts, then back up. “What did I tell you, Guinevere?”
She took a full minute to swallow. Good Lord, he had told her a hundred wicked, carnal things.
“You…you said many things.” She gestured distractedly to his belt. “But then you were not standing with a sword at your side.”
His hands moved. He unbuckled the belt around his waist. It clattered to the ground, taking with it the sword, dagger, and falchion notched in the banded leather. And there, standing still as still as could be and without a weapon on him, danger shimmered off him in waves.
“Now, again, Guinevere: what did I tell you?”
She felt a shower of heat rain down her belly. Her gaze was pinned on the arsenal of blades flung across the floor. “You said I had naught to fear from you.”
“And so it is.”
“And my men?” she asked, stepping backwards and tripping over the hem of her skirt. She righted herself and backed up until her spine was against the wall. “They must believe there is much to fear. What did you say to Jerv and Fulk?”
“I did but tell them what it meant to have my home back. And what I would do to those who opposed me.”
“Good Lord, Pagan. You might just as well have popped their eyes out and been done with it.”
“They were a bit wide-eyed.”
Her eyebrows flattened. “They are good men, loyal, and do think the world of me. If you made a threat to them—”
He took a step closer, his body radiating heat. Chills shimmered over her body like a fever. Then he slammed a palm against the wall beside her head. She jerked to attention. “I made no threats, lady.” He put his other hand on the wall, so she stood between his outstretched arms. “I shall tell you what I told them: The
castle is mine, you are mine, as is everything within. If you sport with me, you will get burned.”
“You dare threaten me?”
He looked at her coldly, his eyes glittering. “You have seen nothing of what I dare, lady, nor what I have lost. You are a sheaf of wheat. And I have not threatened you,” he corrected in a low voice. “I have explained my position.”
“Too good, my lord,” she said in a cold, clear voice. “Now hear mine: I did not wield a blade in battle, so have not yet fought. Do you think to squash me like a bug, be forewarned: I sting, and carry a venom the likes of which you’ve not seen in Normandy these long years.”
She ducked beneath his arm and stumbled away. A sheaf of wheat? That was what London had meant? She suddenly felt as if she’d had too much to drink and wanted to retch.
He was watching her, his eyes unreadable. “I have not forgotten the pests of England, lady. They have been in my mind for some long time.”
“You mean my father,” she spat.
“I mean your father. And you.”
“Me?” she practically shrieked. “Me? What of you?”
“Me?” The look on his face was almost comical. “What?”
She threw her hands in the air. “Oh, mayhap, the army you drove before you?”
“To regain my home, lady,” he returned in a low voice. “For my home, I would drive a chariot of hell.”
“That I well believe,” she spat. “For you and yours, you would do all the things we none of us should do, and the rest may rot in hell. Know this, Pagan,” she vowed, her words trembling with too many emotions to name, “you cannot threaten me, nor cow me. And I do not bend.”
A predatory smile edged up his lips. “You bent once. For me.”
She almost died of shame. Choking on a horrified gasp, she drew her herself up. “You met me for one night, Pagan. Do not confuse that with knowing me.”
His upper lip almost curled in derision. “I know you.”
“You know nothing. You are a child playing at being a man. Warriors all, fighting for lands your women and children do not want, leaving a legacy of scorched earth and fatherless children behind. Listen, Pagan, whilst I explain my position: I do not intend to grovel at your heels, begging for any small mercy that might allow me to lift my skirts when I cross the muck in the stable yard. This is my home too.”
“’Twould be a mercy indeed to lift your skirts elsewise, when you’re in a fury like this.”
“Then, my lord, expect to see me in such a fury every night henceforth, and beg that you show me no mercy.”
Pagan was on the move, striding through the filtered sunlight of the room, until he towered above her. His voice reached down and jerked her head up. His jaw was locked, his eyes ice-grey, the animal rage in him barely constrained, and then she knew true fear.
“Ponder this, de l’Ami spawn,” he rasped. “My mercy is the only thing that can save you now.” Her face was inches from his, his chest even closer, throbbing heat onto her like a blanket. “Cross me and you’ll be pleading for mercy and then some come the morn. As will every other soul inhabiting this castle.”
He spun on his heel, grabbed his blades, and was gone, the door crashing shut behind him. She stood in the middle of the room, reeling. Good God, everyone in the castle? Settle her bones into his reign? With the heir to the throne belowstairs?
And what would happen if he ever discovered that piece of the loyalty he so avowed? She had a brief vision of her neck in a noose, swinging from a barren tree branch.
“My lady?” said a voice from the hall a long time later. The door inched open a notch and an unfamiliar brown-mopped head poked in. “My lord wishes to have the keys to the castle,” he said hesitantly, nodding towards the huge iron key ring affixed to her girdle. She looked down helplessly. “And he would see you in the hall come Vespers.”
“What of my prayers?” she asked in a shaky voice, thinking that now, of all times, she needed a visit to her confessor.
A worried look met this, as if the boy read her mind. “My lady, if you please, he’s said he’ll see to that himself.”
She fell back to the bed, her hand at her pounding chest.
Chapter Six
Griffyn barreled down the winding staircase like a bull in a headlong rush. Buckling his belt as he went, he landed on the bottom step and crashed into the busy great hall. Servants and soldiers and varlets hurried here and there, dodging between the trestle tables, tapestries, and benches scattered everywhere as the new cleared out the old.
Raashid, a middle-aged Muslim, long in Griffyn’s employ as estate steward, was in conference with the balding seneschal William in a far corner. Sauvage knights were trolling in and out, grabbing food from passing trays and eyeing the women who scurried to and fro. Chaotic and disconnected as they were, all occupants in the great hall sputtered to a halt as Griffyn plowed into the mayhem.
“And the streams have gone dry, but even so, earlier this summer we…” William of the Five Strand’s tinny voice drifted off from his accounting of the demesne manor’s income. He turned and stared at the new, apparently enraged, lord of Everoot.
Griffyn looked at Raashid, met his eye, and angled his head towards William of the Five Strands in silent query. Raashid smiled and nodded, and Griffyn turned away, confident the Muslim could manage one aging steward, however reticent he was to say anything terribly relevant about the estates they had just conquered. Raashid had more years of experience under his robe than a whore had customers and an almost terrifying knack for numbers. He accompanied Griffyn everywhere, no one knew where he came from, and neither Griffyn nor Raashid ever said.
Raashid nodded and turned back to William with a wide smile on his handsome, dark face. “Suppose you tell me of the estate’s monetary reserves, rather than its fish runs, Master William?”
Griffyn started for the door, intending to find Alex, and almost trod into Edmund, his earnest squire, who’d already watered and walked Noir, and was now banging along at Griffyn’s heels. He paused and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“Lady Guinevere is your task, Edmund.” The boy nodded eagerly. The perils of youth. “She is not to stay secreted in that room,” he explained grimly. “She comes down to sign the betrothal papers. She comes down for the meal. If she wishes, she may plan it. If she wishes, she may mortar the herbs herself, but she will come down. See to it, Edmund.”
“My lord,” Edmund nodded. “And should she want confession?” he added, because everyone usually did, upon a surrender. Even at thirteen Edmund knew that. There was always so much guilt to absolve. “Because,” the boy was saying, “the chapel priest is down in the village, and—”
“I’ll take care of that. Make sure she’s down here by Vespers.”
“Aye, my lord.”
He started to turn away, then stopped. “Lady Guinevere has the keys to the castle.”
“Aye, my lord.”
“Get them.”
“Aye, my lord.”
Alex stood in the bailey, in the gusts of hot sun, long after the others had gone inside, letting heat blow over him like the wind. Waiting.
Sweat beaded on his neck, under his arms. He could feel it burning onto his skin, but he was used to that. Years of it, upon a time. Hot winds, parched, angry earth, denying anything green or fertile to the greedy hordes of Crusading hooves galloping over it.
He approved. Deny them everything. Men were too small to contain greatness. Even Griffyn so far had balked at reaching out for his destiny. Only then would he be truly great.
Sun baked the back of Alex’s neck. He unbuckled his mail hauberk and slowly dragged it over his head, bending his neck to the side. His muscles were long and strong, sculpted from years of wielding not just a sword but lance and bow and knife. But now, today, in this heat, at this homecoming, he felt beleaguered, his armour as heavy as lead. He dragged the weight of it over his head. Sharp metal links caught at the thick quilted gambeson underneath.
“Alex
ander,” said a gravelly voice.
He dragged the armour off the rest of the way and let it drop to the ground. Then he turned.
There he was, the stone block of flesh from decades past, Fulk. Alex and he went back far too many years to count, long before the chasm of civil war tore apart England. Fulk was once his mentor. Fulk was a Watcher too.
A false one. He’d forsworn his oath eighteen years ago, done something no Watcher had ever done before, abandoned the Heir, Griffyn’s father. He’d stayed with the de l’Amis.
More proof, as if it were needful, that the de l’Amis brought nothing but ruin.
“So,” rumbled Fulk. His eyes were shadowed. “’Tis yerself.”
“And yours.”
Fulk glanced around. They were not the only ones in the bailey, but they were alone in this little corner. He looked back. “You’re with him still.”
“I am,” Alex agreed. “Although you are no longer with your man.”
“He’s no longer around to be with.”
“No. So you are with her.”
“I’m with Lady Guinevere, if that’s who ye mean by ‘her’.” Fulk stood motionless, his belt emptied of anything resembling a blade. But Alex knew Fulk did not need a weapon to do damage. A lot of it.
Fulk said gruffly, “Took ye awhile to get here.”
“We were delayed by eighteen years of a civil war. Thanks be to your master and his ilk.”
“Aye, well.”
The response could have been comprehension or contempt, but it was all Fulk gave.
“Where are they?” Alex said suddenly.
Fulk looked confused. “Where are what?”
“The keys.”
A sour smile rippled across Fulk’s face, all traces of confusion swept away under his complete comprehension. “The keys are not ours, Alex. I thought I taught ye that.”
Alex continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Griffyn has only one. The iron one. I assume the rest were given to de l’Ami, before he betrayed us.”
“And why do ye think he did that, Alex? Why do ye think Christian Sauvage gave away two of the three keys that open the gate to the treasure of the Hallows?”