by Kris Kennedy
The last of Everoot’s mounted knights came through the gates. A few dozen foot soldiers marched behind, carrying battleaxes and pikes. Marcus leaned over and said to his herald, “Call for them all. We’ll hold no one back. Everyone into the valley. This is going to be a rout.”
The herald nodded and lifted the horn to his lips. He bugled different patterns. Along the front of the army, pennants of various styles shot into the air. First the horsemen rode forward in a line, the great destriers snorting and pawing, leather creaking. On their backs, the men were a row of anonymous, helmed faces. Behind clustered the foot soldiers, their armour hardly less sturdy for being made of layers of boiled leather.
Marcus wheeled his horse around. The knights were his men, cleaved to him by vows of fealty, deeds of land, and a shared partiality for warring. Most of the foot soldiers were a different sort. They may share a certain joie de guerre, but they had few ties to bind. It was a ragtag army of unpaid mercenaries and debtors freed from Endshire holding cells.
Marcus knew he had to keep it simple, attempt nothing which required trust or skill to execute. And, above all, he must give them something to fight for.
“This is no siege, men!” he shouted. “To the death, now. No holding back. Foot follows the horses, no retreat. Whomever you kill, everything on him is yours. No plunder in the castle, only the village. But that, you may burn to the ground. And above all,” he shoved his helm on his head and bellowed, “Sauvage is mine.”
His horse reared up. Marcus lifted his arm and swept it down. The cavalry exploded like it was shot from a trebuchet, kicking heels and galloping hooves. The troops came running behind, thunder rolling into the valley.
They met in a violent clash of steel and flesh on the valley floor. Lances crashed into armoured chests, driving the men backwards off their saddles like sacks of bloody wheat. Their bodies hit the ground with dull thuds that rocked the earth. The cavalry made one determined, steady sweep through the ranks, then the swordplay began.
Long, polished blades swept at legs and heads, and men started screaming in pain and shouting to comrades. Horses reared up with red-rimmed noses, snorting foam. The foot soldiers rushed into the mix, slashing with pikes and swords. The sun glittered brightly on their wet, red blades.
Marcus spotted Sauvage from forty paces away. Sauvage had just clobbered one of the Endshire knights off a horse and spun his own huge, black destrier around when he caught Marcus’s eye too. He sat back hard in the saddle and lifted his hands to his chest, pulling the reins tight, his eyes never leaving Marcus. The horse swung around, snorting in fury and pawing the air.
Marcus smiled. Griffyn glanced over Marcus’s shoulder and smiled too.
Marcus jerked off his helm and spun to look over his shoulder. Bloody hell.
Hundreds of knights and horses, Sauvage pennants snapping in the wind, were hurtling down the hill towards his army. His entire army. It had been a trap.
The onrushing riders hit the wall of battle like a tidal wave, crashing up against its bloody shores with neighs and snorts and crashing steel. Marcus slammed his helm back on his head and spurred straight through the middle, towards Sauvage, who reined his stallion around in circles on a small rise of land, waiting for him.
“Well done,” Marcus said, nodding towards the fresh wave of death to the right.
“I will kill every one of you.”
“Call them off,” he said shortly. “We have to talk.”
Griffyn bent his elbow over the pommel of his saddle and leaned forward. “Every one of you.”
“I mean it, Griffyn. Stand them down. I have something. For Guinevere.”
Griffyn stared a moment, then stood in his stirrups and waved his arm in the air. His personal guard spurred towards him, Alex at their head. They moved with such triangulated force that the battle split open before them, like a sea parting. They skidded to a halt all around Griffyn. Twelve spears were lowered and aimed directly at Marcus’s head. Griffyn spoke rapidly to Alex, then turned back to Marcus.
“You first.”
Marcus cuffed his herald on the shoulder and the man bugled the retreat. Sauvage’s pages waved flags in the air, and within one minute, the fighting ceased. Each army backed halfway up different sides of the gently sloping hills and stood, panting and sweating, weapons lowered, watching the small figures at the centre of the valley floor.
“Bring Guinevere to us,” Griffyn ordered, his eyes never leaving Marcus.
Edmund spun and spurred his horse towards the castle, already hollering for Lady Gwyn.
Gwyn sat in the hall, helping to tear strips of linen into bandages. She only barely kept wrenching sobs at bay. Marcus’s army looked strong. Griffyn hated her.
A huge pile of table linens sat on the dais table. Ten or so women were sitting at the table on either side of her, cutting and tearing, speaking in hushed whispers. Children were scattered all around the hall, not speaking, not playing.
A cluster of boys hovered near the door, feinting at one another with pretend swords, looking as though they wanted to run out and join the fray. Three older knights, far past the age of combat, kept them from doing so, primarily by telling stories of older combats, legends that entranced the young boys. Lancelot. Sir Gawain. The Irish god-king Cúchulainn.
Gwyn directed food and drink to be brought out in abundance, although no one was eating. But she had no intention of rationing stores. For what? This was no siege. They would win, and there’d be no need for rationing. Or they would lose, and Gwyn didn’t plan on giving Marcus anything that was ripe or tasted good. Truth, she would poison the well herself if he rode under the gates.
A distant rattle drew her head up. It was outside, coming closer, getting louder. Soon, everyone in the great hall noticed it. People started looking around, murmuring.
Gwyn got to her feet. Her heart hammered. A loud crash reverberated through the hall. More clattering, loud, furious and fast, getting louder, coming closer. A shouted command: “Open!” Another crash, then a horse’s whinney that echoed to the rafters of the great hall.
“God in Heaven,” she exhaled.
A snorting, sweaty horse appeared at the top of the stairs. Astride sat Edmund, Griffyn’s squire. He’d ridden the animal straight up the outer stairwell, a suicidal act, rather than get off and waste the time to run inside.
“Oh no,” she whispered. “Please God. Not Griffyn.”
Edmund shouted, “Come, my lady! He calls for you.”
She took one look at the line of women jamming up the narrow space behind the dais table, then scrambled atop and over the table. She fell to the ground on the other side, stumbled back to her feet, and took off running.
“Go, go, go!” she screamed. “Outside!”
Edmund spun and kicked the horse, who skidded and thumped wide-eyed to the outdoors and back down the stairs, leaping off the last four entirely. Edmund reined around just as Gwyn barreled out. She flung herself down the stairs two and three at a time, just shy of a headfirst plunge down the twenty-foot staircase, until she was only a few feet above Edmund’s head. He caught her hand and yanked her off. She landed on the horse’s back and they galloped hell-bent for the gates.
The gelding skidded almost sideways to take the turn just after the gates, which would lead them down to the valley. Edmund steadied him with his hands. Gwyn lay low and close to Edmund’s back. The horse straightened and, with a kick and shout from Edmund, laid himself out flat for the final mad dash.
Dark clouds had scuttled over the sky. The storm on the horizon thundered ominously. A stab of lightning lit up the western horizon. Gwyn risked a glance over Edmund’s shoulder. Would they make it in time? How bad was it? How long did they have? Would her beloved already be—
Standing next to Marcus?
She yelled above the rushing wind into Edmund’s ear, “I thought he was dying!”
“Nay, lady,” he shouted back, “but he’s ready to kill.”
She laid her cheek down on
his back again and tried to stop from crying in reckless joy. He was alive. He wasn’t dead, he wasn’t dying. She could handle anything but that.
If she’d only known.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
She stood next to them, her chest still heaving. Marcus was looking at her. Griffyn was not. He stood without moving, staring at the horizon. In truth, he seemed lost in thought, as if this, none of it, mattered anymore.
Her red overtunic blew back in the breeze, revealing the bright yellow linen beneath. Wind tugged at her hair. The scent of the sea was strong today, and it rode under the smell of blood. Time to end this thing.
She pressed her fingertips to her temple, trapping the blowing hair beneath, and turned to Marcus. His eyes were calm, but something hectic lurked beneath their surface. He had sprouted an unkempt beard.
“What are you thinking, Marcus?” she demanded. “What is all this?” She waved at the soldiers. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Aye.” He put his foot up on his helm, set on the ground beside him, and grinned quite like a madman. “How is Eustace?”
She shook her head. “You’re too late to ruin me, Marcus. I did that myself. Griffyn knows. I told him.”
“Oh, good.” He glanced at Griffyn, who was still staring at some distant point on the horizon. “Then we can do business. Each of us has something the other wants.”
“You have nothing I want,” Gwyn snapped.
“Oh no? And only a fortnight ago I was your last hope. Tsk. Well, in any event, I have something Pagan might want.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked, when it became clear Griffyn had no intention of opening his mouth. “Please, Marcus, stop. It’s over, thank God. I was wrong.”
“You were wrong, Gwyn, but ’tisn’t over. Not yet. At the risk of repeating myself, I say again: I have something your Griffyn wants.”
“You don’t have anything I want, Marcus,” Griffyn finally said without lowering his gaze. “You could kill me, if you dared. I do not care.”
“But Guinevere does.”
Something chill flowed down her back, and it had nothing to do with the roiling weather.
“You care very much, don’t you, Gwyn, what happens to Griffyn? I can see it in your eyes. You’d do almost anything for him. Not quite anything, of course.” He smiled. “The little treason in his cellars. I got that. But almost anything else. You don’t want anything to happen to him, do you?”
“What are you talking about?” she whispered.
He shifted his crafty gaze back to Griffyn’s profile. “Henri fitzEmpress is coming.”
Gwyn waved this off. “We know that.”
“He is riding for the north like the very devil is at his back. I’ll wager you didn’t know that. He should be here by day’s end. Mayhap sooner. He’s coming for Everoot.”
“Why?” She couldn’t even glance sidewise at Griffyn, her agony of self-loathing was so complete.
Marcus affected a baffled expression. “Who knows? Perhaps he got word of some perfidy here in the north.”
She looked at him in growing horror. “Oh, Marcus, no. No.”
“Did he know of your plan?” Marcus turned to look at Griffyn in mock appraisal. “Did she tell you how I was to hurry Eustace away, from under your nose?”
“Stop talking.”
“But I chose a different route, Guinevere. It seemed wise to me to have a few manœvers that even you were not privy to. That, now,” he gestured to the battlefield, “seems most wise.”
She grabbed the thick mail of his hauberk sleeve. “What have you done?”
“Henri will know of your beloved’s treachery, Gwynnie. Hiding the prince in his cellars?” Marcus clucked his tongue in mock dismay. “Henri is forgiving enough with those who’ve never claimed for him, but your betrothed? His right hand in the field, trusted councilor, esteemed diplomat? Première spy? Friend?” Marcus shook his head. “It always hurts most when those closest to us do the evil deeds. Treason is a terrible thing.”
She was shaking her head, spilling hair from its case. “No, Marcus. No.”
“Rather, I should say it hurts most when one is disemboweled while still alive, dismembered, parts flung to the four corners of the realm. That hurts a great deal.”
The only reason Gwyn wasn’t weeping was because she was about to scream. Her head was ready to explode with rage and self-hate and unadulterated fear.
Griffyn stood, arms crossed, staring out across the fields and distant forest. He shifted at this, angled his head in Gwyn’s direction without actually looking at her. “This matters to you?”
“Of course,” she exhaled the words, deep, hot sounds of agony.
Marcus clapped his hands together. “Then let us bargain. I am willing to do business. You want Griffyn safe.”
“And what do you want?” she asked wretchedly.
“You.”
Gwyn’s mouth dropped open. Griffyn finally looked down. Marcus smiled.
“Glad to have your attention. Now,” he continued in his blithe tone, “maybe you”—he looked at Griffyn—“actually do not care if you’re alive or dead. I do not know. Your father was a wild man, unpredictable, so perhaps it runs in the blood. But while you might not care so much about your living or dying, I have something you care about above all that.”
An almost imperceptible shake of Griffyn’s head. “You have nothing I want, fitzMiles.”
“Oh, but I do. Something meant only for the heirs of Everoot. The one, true Heir.”
This finally got a flicker in Griffyn’s eye.
Marcus’s voice dropped. “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? The thing you’ve been looking for? Oh, I’ve heard how you renounced the treasure, and your destiny. But I know you. I know this thing. You’ve been looking for it, haven’t you? I have it, and I will give it to you. If you give me Guinevere.”
The winds blew around them, pulling hair from helms and hair bands. Gwyn’s skirts flattened against her legs, as if they’d tried to flee but got caught on her knees. She looked at Griffyn. His face was expressionless, but his eyes were furious, wrecked. The muscle beside his jaw ticked. She spun back to Marcus.
“What are you doing to him? What are you talking about? What is this thing?”
Marcus never looked at her. “Tell me, Griffyn: how much is she worth to you?”
Silence, again. It was as if Griffyn were doing battle inside himself, only barely aware of the words being said. Except that his eyes were locked on Marcus, his look murderous.
Gwyn’s eyes filled up with hot tears. A year ago, she swore to kill herself before marrying Marcus. She and Griffyn had shared a laugh over it. Now it was Griffyn, not she, who would die if she did not submit. She bent her head.
“I will do it.”
She said it so quietly neither man heard at first. For the moment she was incidental, although she was the chip they were bargaining with, she who had incited this madness. Griffyn’s face was impenetrable and hard as stone, but when Gwyn said it again, “I will marry you,” he turned to her.
Marcus did too. Many emotions raced across his face, but all of them seemed to make him smile. “I’ve said it all along, Gwynnie: you’re impetuous, but not stupid,” he observed with real affection. Gwyn felt astonished at that. “So we have a deal.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
They turned at the sound of Griffyn’s voice. For he first time since he he’d learned of her betrayal, he was looking at her, and he didn’t break his gaze, even when he said, “Leave us, fitzMiles. She’s not marrying you.”
Gwyn reached out. Her fingers brushed his arm. “Oh, but Griffyn, I must. They’ll hang you if they find out about Eustace.”
“There is nothing for you here, Marcus,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. “There’s never been anything for you here. And fitzMiles,” he added, shifting his gaze to Marcus’s flushed face, “by this treason, you’ve forfeited the lands you hold of Everoot. I disseise t
hee.”
Marcus laughed hoarsely, a little wildly. “Henri fitzEmpress will simply grant me others.”
Griffyn’s face hadn’t changed during the entire interchange, but Gwyn saw the slightest ripple disturb it now. “That will not be my doing,” he said softly. “And I answer for my deeds alone.”
The mask settled back. His gaze swept to Alex. “If his men haven’t left the hills in twenty minutes, kill them all.”
He turned on his heel. Gwyn stared around her at the shocked, helmed faces, then took a step to follow him off the field.
But Marcus, master chef of intrigue, had one last sotelty to reveal, one last spectacular, complicated dish to add to this meal of madness Gwyn had helped him deliver to their doorstep.
“You’ll never get it open, Sauvage,” he called to Griffyn’s back. “I have one of the keys.”
Gwyn’s heart dropped, if possible, another yard. It would be through the gates of Hell soon, where it belonged.
Griffin turned. Marcus lifted a chain from around his neck and held it in the air. On it hung a steel key. Gwyn gasped. She almost leapt forward to snatch it.
Just then, Griffyn lifted a chain from around his own neck. “You mean this?” he said, no inflection in his voice. And from his chain dangled a key, too.
Two keys in fact, one black like iron, the other silver like steel. Marcus’s eyes flew wide, then narrowed. He whipped to his right, where de Louth stood, his captain. De Louth closed his eyes briefly.
“You bastard,” spat Marcus, the truth dawning in a low, audible hiss. “You had a copy made, when you picked up the chain.”
Griffyn met de Louth’s eyes. “Your daughter: you should send her to me now. Come yourself, if you choose. You have a livery here for life.”
Then he turned and walked off.
All around her, the huge Sauvage destriers started to move forward, pushing Marcus’s forces back up the hill.
She shivered and hurried to Griffyn’s side. “What is it? What does Marcus have?”