The Conqueror

by Kris Kennedy

  Gwyn was changing. Over the course of the weeks, she felt it, deep inside. Shifting like sheets of ice atop a melting river, rushing towards the falls, she was lost in Griffyn.

  She even almost forgot. There were days where hours passed without her recalling the loyal treachery in her cellars. At times, it was as if Prince Eustace didn’t exist. Until the night the messenger came.

  The afternoon had tilted away in long slanting shadows when Gwyn climbed up on the battlement walls and let the wind blow her skirts back. She smiled at the bustling around her, which was slowing now as suppertime drew near. But even during the lull, there was a verve, a pulse, that had been absent for years.

  The castle had come alive again.

  The architect had arrived days ago, and every male over the age of ten was now up on the walls or down in the forests. Huge trees had been felled to make the scaffolding, and now wooden skeletons danced beside the tumbled-down ramparts, their steps and platforms filled with sweating men in chausses and boots, buckets of cement, and pages running hither and back again.

  The valley resounded with the shouts of men and the ring of hammers, the slow squeal of cranes lifting the huge stone blocks into place on the castle walls. Cartwheels clattered over cobblestone, horses whinnied, children shouted and laughed, racing to pick up nails that had fallen or to carry water to the men.

  But what moved Gwyn most of all was that the women were laughing again. Their dead husbands and fathers became more distant ghosts each time a Sauvage warrior smiled at them or their children.

  She doubled rations for every soldier who had made one of her women laugh.

  Out on the fields, too, came renewed life. Griffyn’s men augmented her agricultural force considerably. The effects were immediate and obvious. Fast and furious the fields were ploughed now, ridge and furrow, ridge and furrow. For the first time in two years, Gwyn’s heart lifted.

  Griffyn seemed happy too, turning towards her with the half-smile that dimpled his cheeks and made her belly flip over. Of course, there were the days when no one knew where he was for hours, but she was far too busy to monitor him, and not inclined whatsoever. Unless he came upon her mid-day (which he had twice now, once in the landing outside their chambers, once in the orchards, both times bringing her to such a swift, stunning climax she was dizzy for half an hour afterwards) she might not see him from dawn until dinner.

  Her job was to direct the children, tend the wounded, manage merchants and orders and servants, and ensure food and a steady stream of sweetened water made it up to the workers throughout the crisp autumn days. And throughout all the chaotic, loud commotion, Gwyn smiled.

  Which is why as evening darkened the sky into a dusky twilight that evening, she knew very well why she climbed to the ramparts and let the wind blow back her skirts. Because she wanted to be near Griffyn, purveyor of miracles.

  The air was wondrously chilled tonight, and the men were purple outlines along the ramparts, clustered in groups of twos and threes. Some leaned against stone merlons, some sat on the stairs, others perched on the walls themselves, legs dangling as the sweat dried on their tired faces. Every second man was one of Griffyn’s, but their allegiance was indistinguishable under the cover of darkness, sweat, and the leather flasks being passed round.

  Griffyn stood with a small group of men—Alex, Jerv, Fulk, a few others—the russet sunset flaming behind their outlines.

  Guinevere approached. “My lord?”

  He turned and smiled at her, that slow, lopsided grin. Even now, even after all they’d…done, the blood still rushed to her face. He held out his hand. “Come, Gwyn, see what we’ve done.”

  What they’d done was astonishing. They had almost completed repair along this section of the west battlement wall. Forty soaring feet of ashlar restored to its glory. Even the gap in the accompanying defensive tower had been repaired, up to twenty feet or so.

  This is what Papa had dreamed of doing. Rebuilding, restoring the Nest to its glory.

  “I know you don’t care if he thought you a demon, Griffyn,” she said softly, “but you should know that my father would have been proud of this. Of you.”

  Griffyn pursed his lips. “’Tis simply stone and strong men, Guinevere. Had your father wanted to, he could have done it.”

  Gwyn smiled sadly. “Perhaps. But I think, if he could have, he would have. There was very little that mattered to him after, after—” She swallowed through the tightness in her throat. Behind them, men drifted back to their conversations. She could hear Alex say something soft but abrupt, then he fell silent.

  “After Mamma died,” Gwyn continued, “the only things that moved Papa were my mother’s letters to him on Crusade. I remember watching him, after supper. He would sit on a bench in front of the fire trough, night after night, reading those letters til the flames burned out.”

  Griffyn caught up her hand in his. “Your mother was lettered?”

  “Oh, certes. Papa ensured she could read and write before he left on Crusade. That little chest I gave you, back at Saint Alban’s? All their letters were in there. Not that I could read them,” she added. “But one day, I had hoped—”

  She broke off as Griffyn’s fingers tightened almost painfully around hers. His face looked odd.

  “What is it?”

  He didn’t answer, but swung away to look at Alex, who was suddenly hurrying down the stairs, his boots clattering. Gwyn watched too, a knot of unease forming in the pit of her belly. Griffyn was still squeezing her fingers much too tightly.

  She tugged on her hand.

  He looked down slowly, with that odd, blank expression.

  “Griffyn? What is it?” The small knot of uneasiness rethreaded itself into something prickly. But before she could name it ‘fear,’ it was gone, because Griffyn’s gaze cleared, and his smile returned.

  “My apologies, Gwyn. You were speaking of your father. Your mother, in fact, being able to read. And you, not.”

  She nodded, feeling very much like a missing conversation had just scurried away, much like Alex had down the stairs.

  “You need not fear, Gwyn,” Griffyn said, and this time, his fingers tightened just enough to lift her knuckles to his lips. He pressed a kiss to each. “Your father is gone, as are his strictures. I will teach you to read.”

  She couldn’t summon the will to speak the truth on the matter, to say she’d feared neither Papa nor his infrequent ‘strictures.’ What she feared then is what she suddenly realised she might need to fear again: the strange distancing of the Lord of Everoot. This going-away, when his body was still present.

  She rested the side of her cheek against his long, hard body as he turned and responded to one of the men. He was sweaty, with a strong musky odour. She inhaled, feeling safe and protected and, well, that was sufficient.

  This was all she wanted. Just to be near him, watch him turn his thoughtful grey gaze on whoever was speaking, occasionally asking questions or adding comments, but mostly listening. And people expanded under his attention. He was like a draught. They drank him in, grew brighter. His knights and hers. Jerv. Fulk.

  Griffyn was making good what was once soiled, bringing life to what had been dead or dying. Papa hadn’t possessed the heart to create what Griffyn was doing so effortlessly, in fifteen days, in enemy territory. Griffyn had simply swept in and made it good.

  And she was going to betray him.

  Madness.

  She stared at the rock-strewn walkway underfoot, as a very novel, very reckless thought occurred to her: Need she?

  There’d been no word from King Stephen. He could have had a messenger to Everoot within days if he’d wanted, even if he’d been standing on the cliffs of Dover. Why no news, then? No succor? No instructions for her?

  Perhaps King Stephen was going to sign the treaty. Her heart fluttered. Perhaps there was no ruse. Mayhap ’twas over, and her king knew it. She’d concocted the notion that it was a lie. Her heart started rattling around in the wide, open space
the dawning realisation created.

  And on this flimsy foundation, she was to betray the most decent man she’d ever known?

  Her mouth opened, without any real decision on her part. “Griffyn?”

  It was like those mornings when she wanted just another moment of lying abed, warm under the furs, but her body would start moving on its own, climbing out into the cold morning air, doing what needed to be done, without her ever deciding anything.

  Relief washed through her like sparkling rain. It was over. She was going to tell him about the prince.

  “Griffyn?”

  He looked down. “Aye?”

  Her heart was hammering, her fingertips cold. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

  Alex appeared just then, racing up the stairway. He stopped, one boot on the top step, panting slightly. His tunic was soiled from the day’s work, half caught up in the waist of his hose, his blond head disheveled. He looked flushed, harried. Or excited.

  “Pagan, you need to come. Now.”

  “What is it?”

  Alex leaned forward. “I found something.”

  Before the words were fully out, Griffyn had dropped his arm off Gwyn’s shoulder and was striding away. She stared after them, shocked. At the top of the stairs Griffyn suddenly turned, as if he’d just remembered her. “What did you want, Gwyn? Can it wait?”

  She nodded stiffly. “Of course.”

  Alex glanced at her. “My lady,” he said coldly, and turned away.

  She let her wobbly legs lower her down to rest against the embrasure as Griffyn and Alex hurried down the stairs, wondering whether she ought to feel abandoned, or rescued.

  And wondering what they had found. That they did not want her to see.

  They stared at the small chest almost reverently.

  “You found it among your things?”

  “Among yours, Pagan,” Alex replied. They were speaking very quietly. “Hervé took it from Noir when you were captured last September, after you dropped Guinevere at the Abbey. Hervé carried it to Normandy, gave it to Edmund your squire to pack with your other things. I did not think about it even once. But when Lady Guinevere just mentioned her father’s letter, and a chest….”

  Griffyn did not need him to finish. ’Twas clear what he’d thought: this was the chest of the Hallows. For certes it would hold the third and final puzzle key. Where else would Ionnes de l’Ami have laid such a precious thing but in the revered chest itself?

  Griffyn stared at it hard. For weeks now he’d been making his rounds of the castle, looking without knowing what he was looking for. Each day the search took more hours than the day before, and more of his attention. It was bordering, if he admitted it, on obsession.

  And now, here was this little chest. It sat on the centre of the table. Small, easily hidden, highly alluring. Like a siren on the rocks. It may as well have had a heartbeat.

  This must be it.

  He and Alex looked at each other over the top of it. Then Griffyn pulled it to him. He ran his fingers over the iron latch. It fell open.

  “It’s not locked,” he said in a flat voice. “Wouldn’t such a thing be locked?”

  His sight seemed clarified, making everything rich and vibrant, with sharp edges. The rest of the room, anything outside his direct line of attention, faded to white nothingness. The world was channeled through a parchment-thin funnel, the chest sitting at its vortex.

  His heart beat strong in his chest, fast and loud as he lifted the curving lid. Alex sighed. It rode up on well-oiled hinges, no sign of age. Griffyn peered inside.

  Papers. What looked to be yards of scrolled parchments, some with wax seals still half-attached, like teeth hanging by a sinew, about to fall out. Otherwise, there was not much: a tarnished ring, a scrap of linen, what looked like a short knife hilt, a handful of coins, a few other trinkets. But mostly, letters.

  Just a box of letters. Like Guinevere had said.

  No third key.

  This wasn’t the Hallows chest.

  Something akin to rage welled up in him. It felt like all the emotions he’d ever eaten were pouring back up again. He took a deep breath to push them back down. More proof that, when it came to the treasure, men could not trust themselves. What they wanted overrode every other thing, including the truth. Griffyn had been certain this was the Hallows chest. But it wasn’t.

  Alex reached past him and pushed the letters roughly aside, jettisoning all the items in the chest onto the table. No keys came out, though, and Alex flung himself away from the table with a curse.

  “Goddammit!”

  Griffyn took another breath to slow the hammering of his heart. His palms rested deceptively still on his thighs while Alex stalked to the window and cursed again, more quietly. Then he turned.

  “That isn’t it,” he said in a thick voice. “That isn’t the chest.”

  Griffyn didn’t know what to feel. Thwarted, relieved, enraged: they all were swimming too close to the surface. His heart was still beating too fast, the awful hope had brushed too close.

  “You’ve never seen the Hallows chest, have you, Alex?” he asked.

  Alex shook his head. “Nay. The Heirs receive it at their initiation, when they become true Guardians. Each has a Watcher witness to the ceremony.”

  Griffyn glanced over then. Purple-grey light streamed in through the unshuttered window. So did cold evening air. Alex stood by an unlit brazier, his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at the table where the chest sat.

  “So I’ve kept that from you as well, Alex?” Griffyn said. “By my refusing my destiny all these years, you’ve never seen the Hallows chest.”

  Something flashed in the gaze Alex lifted to his, but Alex only shook his head. “Your father would not let you be Trained, Griffyn. ’Twasn’t your doing. You would have been given the chest, but he stopped you from receiving the Training, just after we left England.”

  Griffyn nodded, his mind turning. “So this could be the Hallows chest,” he said after a moment of reflection, “and you wouldn’t even know it?”

  “I thought it was the chest,” Alex admitted ruefully.

  They stared at it for long minutes. Shreds of thoughts and emotion still bobbed through Griffyn’s mind, flotsam after the storm. Confusion. Determination. Fear, for he’d rushed here so quickly, left Guinevere behind.

  Anger. The most potent thing left behind was anger, he realised. At his father.

  It wasn’t the anger that surprised him. He’d spent years doing that. It was the why of it that shocked him: he was angry because his father had not let him be Trained.

  “And now, Alex?” he said dully. “What am I supposed to do now?”

  “Why don’t you read the letters?”

  Griffyn started laughing, and that felt good. This is how it used to be, between Alex and him. Comraderie, laughter, friendship. But now, since the treasure was being spoken of, everything had changed. “Is that your guidance? I suspect I’d have thought of that myself.”

  Alex smiled. “I never said I was the wisest Watcher, but—”

  “I’m stuck with you.” Griffyn completed their long-standing jest. Alex smiled. They sobered, and Alex gestured to the parchment scrolls.

  “So, what do they say?”

  Griffyn picked one up. “Guinevere said these were letters between her parents, while de l’Ami was on Crusade.” He unrolled it, the roughness of his fingers scraping against the parchment.

  Dearest mine, I did not wed you to speak of you to others. I wed you to be something wondrous together. Without, I am fairly muddling through. Come to me. Why do we wait? I want your hair in my hands. I’ll send Miles for you. Few can stand against him, and he thinks the world of you. You will be safe with him. Damietta will fall soon, and I think Jerusalem is next. My destiny lies in that City, and in you. Come to me.

  The next were much the same, only further along.

  Dearest mine, I was wrong to send for you. I cannot call Miles back, but if you have
not yet left, do not. Do not come to this hell. The sands never stop shifting, the winds never stop blowing, and the fighting never ceases. If you come, I cannot think. Stay to home, build us one. I will come to it. I want a son, and however many daughters you demand from me. Keep yourself safe above all other things.

  My love, ’tisn’t going well. Not for us, nor our Dear Lord, not here in the Levant. I have prayed to God these missives reach you, that you did not leave the Nest. We’ve only enough food for days. The water is rancid, the horses are dying under us. Please God let you be to home. I want only to come home, to be with you in our beloved Nest. The one light in this darkness is our dear Ionnes. We must make him something special when we return. Can you not ask your father for some of those prickly Welsh hills? Ionnes would love their wildness, as I love him. He is the reason I am able to hold on long enough to see you again.

  Ellie, my love,

  We’ve got it.

  Griffyn lifted his head slowly. These letters were from his father. To his mother. Christian Sauvage to his wife Alienor, known to all as Ellie.

  So Guinevere’s father had been sitting in front of the fire reading these letters, night after night. Love letters, from Christian Sauvage to his beloved wife, about his love for de l’Ami. Before everything was wrecked.

  Had de l’Ami repented, after all those years? Had torment wracked his soul, in the dark, by the fire?

  Griffyn’s fingers tightened around the edges of the scrolls. He forced himself to relax them. How fitting, that the last of the letters spoke only of the treasure. All the love stopped then. They’d found the treasure. Or been given it. But however it had happened, the Heir of Charlemagne, in the form of his father, had laid his hands on some part of the treasure in the Holy Lands. And that same blood now pounded through Griffyn’s body, making him want the thing with something bordering on desperation.

  Just like his father. Just like hers.

  He jerked to his feet.

  “Where are you going?” Alex exclaimed, shocked.