Conqueror (38 page)

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.

“God
dammit!
”

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.

“To Guinevere.” He flung the door open and walked out.

Gywn was down in her rose garden, walking between the rows of clipped thorny branches. Evening was purple and cold around her, but she did not care. She needed to soothe the restless energy out of her, until Griffyn came back and she could tell him the truth. It made her giddy with relief and fear.

The gates would soon close for the night. She heard the shouts of the guards, alerting those still down in the village or on the fields.
To home
, they called.
The gates are closing. Couvre-feu to hand. To home.

She knelt beside the long bed of roses and gently mounded the dirt up around one plant’s base with the edge of her hand. Soon, the twice-blooming buds would burst forth again, in time for Yule. Such beauty to look forward to, when everything else was always so dark and cold.

A shadow fell over the garden. Gwyn looked up. A lean, mailed figure stood over her. A messenger. No device, no insignia, no identifying design.

“Lady Guinevere?”

Her heart tapped out a faster beat. She nodded.

“I have something for you.” His low-pitched voice carried no further than Gwyn’s ears and the roses.

She got to her feet. “What is it? Who sent you?”

“I was instructed to give you this.” He thrust out his hand. The mail armour encasing his arm stopped short of his hand, and there, balanced on his palm, rested a small leather pouch.

She put her hands behind her back. “What is that?”

“I do not know, my lady.” He glanced around. “I must go.”

She stared at the pouch. Only one person would be sending her secret messages. She snatched it off his palm. “What if my husband had been about?” she asked curtly, filled with anger and confusion.

His somber eyes met hers. “I was told you had not yet wed.”

Her face flushed hot.

“If Lord Griffyn had been about, my lady, I would have given you this, instead.” Another pouch, black leather, emerged from the bag at his hip. He handed it to her, then flipped the flap shut and bowed.

“My lady.”

He was gone. The whole encounter had taken not a minute. Gwyn stared at the two pouches, then opened the black one first.

Guinevere,

Many wishes for your approaching nuptials, dear friend! I unfortunately cannot come. Dear Stephenson has turned ill, and could never make the ride. But you know him—always so sickly! It has been so long since we last spoke, though. I miss our little chats, and will never forget our long talks in your rose garden. I recall your words so clearly. I trust you do not let them fade in your memory, either.

Best and warmest affection, old friend!
Ellspereth

Gwyn had never met anyone named Ellspereth.

Trembling now, she lifted the flap on the other pouch and shook out a light, cloth-covered bundle. She flung the fabric open and out tumbled dozens of dead, dried rose petals, all around her feet.

Gwyn was standing by the window when Griffyn walked into their bedchamber. She swung around. He halted just inside the doorway, looking surprised to see her.

“I thought you’d be asleep.”

And yet, they’d both come to the one place they knew the other would be.

She stood a minute, watching him, the look in her eyes too complicated to put a sound to, then she walked towards him with long strides, her skirts whispering over the rushes. Without a word, she stood on her toes, pulled his face down to hers, and kissed him.

He responded in kind, pulling her into an embrace, lifting her off her feet, holding her against him hard. Their mouths searched one another’s with a sudden, desperate passion. Finally he lowered her back to the ground, but she kept her arms around him, hugging him tight.

“What is it, Gwyn?” he asked softly.

“Nothing,” she murmured, then shook her head. “Nothing.”

He pressed his lips into the silky warmth of the top of her head. “What did you want to tell me, earlier? I’m sorry I had to leave so suddenly.”

She burrowed into his chest deeper. “I don’t want to talk.”

Neither did he. Whatever intensity was in him, it was in her too. And all it wanted was more passion, more fuel to the fire of his deep and intense desire for her. Not just her body. Her being, her heart, whatever moved her and animated her.

He wrapped her long dark, silk-entwined braid around his palm and dragged her head backwards.

“What do you want to do, Guinevere?” he asked in a low voice. Her face was tipped up to his, her breath hot.

“Whatever you want,” she whispered back.

He descended, plying her mouth wide beneath him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him, her tongue meeting his every almost violent lash with one of her own, kissing so hard their teeth clicked together. Mouths still locked, his hand still wound amid her braid, he made her walk backwards until her legs hit the mattress and she sat.

Then he stood in front of her, wordless, their eyes locked, swiftly unwrapping her braid with one hand. He pushed the other, without warning or permission, down the front of her dress.

“Like that,” he said almost roughly, as her hair came spilling out. “That is how I like it.”

“Then that is how you shall have it,” she said, her whispered words as rough-edged as his own. She reached forward and moulded her slender fingers around his erection. He dropped his head and closed his eyes, one hand resting gently on her head, the other still down the front of her dress. Her hand slid up and down the length of him, hard.