Conqueror (31 page)

His heart started thudding a little faster as he stared at the ceiling. What harm could come from simply looking?

He began the next morning. It was not the only thing he did, nor even the first, but neither was it the last, and he was grimly aware of that.

Slowly, methodically, before the grey light of a mercifully damp dawn lightened the horizon, he was in the offices. A huge tumble of chests and coffers sat on the hard stone floor, rounded lids musty with dampness and pollen and dead bugs. Griffyn shoved several cone-handled torches into the iron rings hanging from the walls and started flinging them open. Each bang of wood against stone or metal bounced off the walls and came back at him, hollow and loud.

He pulled out a sheaf of documents from the first one. A sinking feeling rose inside his chest. Would this speak of the treasure? Would he even recognise it as such?

That is where he needed to rely on Alex. Trained and educated in the ancient mysteries, Alex was a Watcher, one of those who guarded the Guardian. He knew every nuance of Griffyn’s unwanted heritage, every rumour, secret, or legend about Charlemagne and the legacy and what Griffyn was supposed to be. Griffyn carried the papers close to the torch and stood beneath its flickering light, reading.

A long time later, as the dim murmur of Prime bells penetrated the stone walls of the office chamber, every chest had been open and searched. They’d dispensed nothing but old ledgers and deeds, signed with an
X
by men who’d regarded themselves as mighty, then died like everyone else.

Almost stunned, Griffyn sat back on the stone floor, spine against the wall. He planted the heel of one boot into an uneven edge of flagstone and stared across the icy, empty room. Coldness pressed through his woollen hose.

The rounded lids of the coffers were like flung open like yawning mouths, a dozen of them, baby birds waiting to be fed. Griffyn felt dirty. He’d have been better off as a fisherman. A blacksmythe. Anything but a nobleman.

He got to his feet and brushed himself off. He needed to talk to Alex.

They went up on the battlements in the misting rain just as the guard switched. From far down on the fields, and in the bailey below, rose the sounds of men as they began their daily labours, voices conversing, iron hitting stone, a cock crowing. Up here on the battlements, though, it was all muted, with only the light misting rain to sluice down around them. Tired men in damp hauberks lifted their hands in greeting as they passed inside.

Once they were alone, Griffyn said, “I’ve been looking around a bit.”

Alex kept looking over the battlements. So did Griffyn. “And what did you find?”

“Nothing. But then, I suspect there will be locks my key will not open. Is that not so? I have a puzzle key, don’t I?”

He could see Alex nod out of the corner of his eye. “There are three keys, each set inside the others. Yours is the iron one, the outer key.”

“And inside?”

“A steel key, and a small gold one at the centre.”

Griffyn turned his head slowly. “Why haven’t you told me this before?”

Alex looked over too, and lifted his eyebrows. “I didn’t know you were looking. You almost took my head off once, for even suggesting it.” He paused. “Why didn’t you get me?”

Griffyn shrugged. “I wanted to be alone.”

“I see. Why, of a sudden?”

He shrugged again. “Lady Gwyn spoke of a dream, things her father said.”

“You trust Ionnes de l’Ami and not your own father?”

Griffyn leaned his shoulder against a merlon and kicked one foot in front of the other, toe resting on the stone walkway. “I don’t trust anyone, Alex, except you. For certes not either of the men who were ruined by it.”

Alex was quiet for a minute. “Greed does motivate men, Griffyn,” he said quietly. “But so do other things.”

Griffyn looked out over the valley of the Nest. Mist was glistening off the russet and flaming gold leaves of the majestic oak tree that grew in the exact centre of the valley floor. Its leafy crown marked the hub of almost every castle event of the year. Hallmote, fairs, and summer courts were held there. Bonfires burned near its arching branches during the old pagan rituals his father had never seen fit to forbid. In the distance, men were trudging off to the fields. A faint scent of the sea slipped under the nearer smells of hay and wet stone and leather.

He rested his palms on the knobbly stone battlement wall. A wife could motivate a man, he supposed. Or a family.

“Stephen is going to sign a treaty with Henri,” was what he said, though.

Alex paused, adjusting to the new course of their conversation. “I thought I saw another messenger come early this morn. So, Stephen will surrender.”

“A few weeks at most.”

“
Bien
. The war will end.”

Griffyn ran his hand over his jaw. Stubble was already beginning to roughen the surface he’d shaved clean for the feast. “In most of England, maybe. I still have to tell Guinevere.”

Alex gave an obligatory laugh, and Griffyn looked over.

“You needn’t indulge me as regards Guinevere, Alex. I know you don’t like her.”

“’Tisn’t that, Pagan. As far as I can see, she is brave and stalwart, commendable as a lady and a leader. ’Tisn’t that I don’t like her. I don’t trust her.”

Griffyn was quiet a moment, then gestured to the wall. “Aubrey the Mason is coming. He and his men will be here by the Sabbath.”

Alex smiled. “The walls will be rebuilt by Yule—”

“—the castle by Easter,” he finished with grim satisfaction, then looked over Alex’s shoulder. Guinevere was coming through the misty morning. She was smiling. At him. The tight centre of his chest lightened a little. Still pleased, but not so savage or furious.

“Better than even my father had done.”

Guinevere woke up and sat in the bed, taking a layer of furs with her. The room was empty, but a fire burned in the brazier. It was wonderfully chilly. It was also rather late in the morning, judging by the brightness of the pearly light. And yet, if so, why so grey? She shook her head, trying to clear it.

“My lady?”

Mary, her serving maid, was laying a bundle of wood by the brazier. Wood. They needed a fire. It was cool enough to need a fire. She smiled.

“Would you want help dressing?”

Gwyn shook her head.

“You’ll be wanting to go to chapel, but Father Wessen is away at the village, seeing to Grania.”

“She’s ill again?” Gwyn asked distractedly.

“Aye. So, he said to tell you there won’t be mass this morning—”

“Where is he?”

“Father Wessen?” She gave a confused look. “Forgive, my lady, but as I was saying—”

“Lord Griffyn.”

“Oh.” The young maid smiled as she reached to add another stick to the flames.

“Well?” Gwyn asked again, eyeing the maidservant dismally. Perhaps she
had
been a bit lax in her administration.

“He’s about. He’s been everywhere, my lady. The men are in the fields, and up on the walls.”

“On the walls?”

“Aye. Repairs, my lady. They’re fixing up the walls a’ready. They say a mason’s coming, if ye can believe it.”

Gwyn lay back in the bed and hugged the furs to her chest. Mary looked over with a smile.

“And it’s raining.”

They stared at each other for a moment, then Gwyn flew out of the bed, furs around her shoulders.
“Raining?”

Mary’s head bobbed. “Raining, a lovely sort of mist that’ll soak deep into the ground, it will.”

“Rain,” Gwyn breathed, dragging the pelts behind as she went to the window. Indeed, rain. A solid sheet of light mist covered the world in a pearly shroud. Rain. The drought was over.

She dressed in under two minutes and ran down to the hall. Each step on the winding staircase was more excited than the last, although she didn’t have to admit the reason until she reached the hall and Griffyn was not there.

He’d be outside. In the rain.

She took off so quickly an approaching servant blinked in surprise, then headed back to the kitchens with the tray of bread and ale.

She climbed to the battlements and found Griffyn ten minutes later, talking with Alex along one of the loneliest stretches of the endless curtain wall. He had a shoulder propped against one of the towering stone merlons, arms crossed over his chest, smiling. A flood of affection crowded into her heart.

He caught sight of her over Alex’s shoulder. He continued talking, but now his eyes were on her. When she reached them, he stepped back a bit to allow her in.

“My lady.”

“My lord,” she murmured, then turned to respond to Alex’s polite greeting.

“’Tis raining,” she said softly and, if truth be told, a trifle stupidly. For her first words since their…last night, they were not terribly
absorbing
things.

Griffyn did not seem to mind. A corner of his mouth crooked up lazily and her world slipped into slow motion. She felt a blush begin in her cheeks.

The soft rain barely made a sound. Pungent scents were carried low on its back: wetness and worms and woodsmoke, and long, elusive trails of the sea. She leaned her face up and let the mist fall on it for a moment, then straightened, suddenly self-conscious. They were watching her.

“It smells good,” she explained. The men sniffed obligingly.

“It smells different from Normandy,” Alex allowed slowly.

Griffyn was still watching her. “Come,” he said in a low-pitched voice that sent ripples of completely unnecessary desire pulsing through her blood. “Look at the walls.”

She leaned over the wall. Forty soaring feet of ashlar stone lay in crumbles for half the length of the wall. Papa had had the money but not the time. Gwyn had possessed neither. The accompanying defensive tower was sixty feet of tumbling stone. Together they posed more danger to a passerby than a besieging army.

“The masons are coming,” Griffyn said quietly, pointing. “The tower, the chapel, will be rebuilt.”

She smiled.

“And over there,” he swept his arm northwards. “We’ll build the kitchens.”

“We have kitchens, Griffyn.”

“We have old kitchens. Wooden kitchens. I am talking about stone. I’ve seen your cook. I’ve tasted her food. Her meals are awe-inspiring, her method is chaotic beyond reason.”

“She’s…enthusiastic,” Gwyn allowed.

“She’s terrifying.”

She laughed.

“We’ll have guests, Gwyn. Many. Your staff needs a new kitchen. We’ll rebuild.”

She nodded. The smile would not leave her face. “They do need that, you’re right.”

He leaned his forearms on the wall and clasped his hands together, looking out over the misty valley. “It will be strong again.”

“It will be wonderful,” she agreed in soft pride, then glanced at Alex. He was watching them, his eyes unreadable but certainly not friendly. She turned and gave a brief curtsey to Griffyn. “I will not disturb you any longer. My lord. Sir Alex.”

She turned and continued walking to the southernmost turret, knowing, knowing,
knowing
he would follow.

She walked to the edge of the sixty-foot tower and tilted her face up to catch the moisture falling in gentle sheets over the land. She might never go back inside again. She would just stay here, in the misting rain, and wait for Griffyn, if she had to wait a hundred years.

Griffyn barely waited a full minute before he took off after her. When he reached the top, she was leaning back, arms behind her, palms resting on the top of the wall.

Beads of mist clung to her hair. A cloak was clasped at her neck. She wore a simple, demure dress and undertunic with long, tight sleeves, but the wetness of the day was moulding the white fabric tight against her skin. The round heaviness of her breasts was outlined, the small nubs straining against the material as she shivered and smiled.

A brisk breeze shot up the side of the walls, tossing her hair in airy strands of black silk. “Can you feel it? It’s like silver in the air!” she called out.

Instead of replying, he turned and called to Alex. Gwyn watched as he went halfway down the stairs and crouched on them to speak with Alex, who had climbed midway to meet him. Griffyn rose, clapped Alex on his shoulder, and came back to the tower.

He walked towards her. Wordless, he caught her face between his hands, bent his head, and kissed her so she thought she would die from the tenderness. Like a breeze, he passed his lips over hers, two kisses, three, then slowly, painfully slow, he explored her mouth, her lips, her teeth, lighting fires in Gwyn’s body everywhere she already ached to be touched.

She wrapped her hands around his waist, reveling in the feel of his body standing before her, hard and sturdy. His kiss deepened, and he walked her backwards, the front of his thighs pushing against the front of hers. Away from any prying eyes, he crowded her up against the curve of the stone tower, his hands hot and searching. Everywhere he touched burned, everywhere he had yet to touch ached.

“No,” she gasped.

“Aye,” he growled in her ear. Faster came the throbbing heat between her thighs, cords of wet, snapping lust that lashed at her and sent her body bucking against him.

“No,” she protested weakly. “Not here.”

“Alex is guarding the stairs.”

“Pagan, no!”

He lifted his head. “Why, only last night ’twas ‘Griffyn,’” he said with a twisted grin. “Have I lost so much in a day?”

She shook her head, fumbling for the skirt hem, trying to tug it down again. He pulled her up against him, his eyes holding hers with that strange absence of emotion. Intent and distant, it was a look that twined around her heart. He ran the back of his knuckle down her cheek. “You are so beautiful.”

His hands closed over hers, his palms warm against the backs of her hands as he slowly made her curl her own fingers around the skirts and lift. The fabric bunched beneath their enjoined hands. With a gentle, irresistible pressure, he made her lift it higher. Cool air brushed over her knees. A hot tightening came between her thighs. His hands left hers and slid further up her leg to grip her hips, bare under the dress.