The Conqueror

De Louth swallowed. “This.” He extended a small silver key, hung on a rusting linked chain. Marcus unbent his knees. “I found it on the floor, my lord. Looks like it fell when she fled.”

“Christ on the Cross,” Marcus murmured, almost reverently. “One of the puzzle keys.” He pulled the chain from de Louth’s palm, his eyes locked on the steel key, his voice soft and almost crooning. “I recall seeing this, years ago. There are three, you know.” He slid the long silver chain between his fingers, smiling faintly.

“No, my lord. I didn’t know.”

Marcus’s eyes snapped up. “Find her. Tonight. Now.”

“My lord.” De Louth choked out the words and left the room. The gossamer veil he’d held in his hand fluttered to the floor, a tawny splash of colour against the dull wood. Marcus barely spared it a glance as he trod behind his man, crushing it under his boot.

Gwyn dug her spurs hard into the horse. “I am sorry,” she muttered, and then did it again.

Steam rolled from the stallion’s flared nostrils as he snorted in anger and half rose on his hind legs, his monstrous hooves pawing at the air before dropping back to the earth. Great clods of damp earth flew into the air as he leapt forward in a ground-eating gallop.

Gwyn rolled wildly around on the saddle, jamming her pelvis into the pommel before righting herself again. Biting her lip to clamp down on a screech, she bent low over the horse’s withers and guided him with a deft but trembling hand.

Sunset had come and gone, evening had turned into night, and she was barely two miles from London and the danger it held.

When she had arrived back at the apartments on Westcheap, no one had been present, not even Eduard and Hugh, the two young knights left behind to guard Gwyn when the others were sent north to relieve the siege. The house had been eerily quiet. She’d flown through the dark rooms, skidding on her knees to a stop in front of the huge oak chest at the base of her bed.

Gowns and smallclothes and bolts of bright fabric flew into the air as she searched frantically for one of the “promises,” the small, simple but exquisitely-wrought chest her father had bequeathed to her on his deathbed. The padlocked, curved chest held letters of love her father had written to her mother when on Crusade.

She was not leaving it behind.

She almost screamed in frustration as she flung another handful of underlinens over her head. Through the window floated the sound of booted feet.

“Please Jésu,” she begged softly, practically in tears. As if in answer, her hand alighted on a soft, bulky felt bag. She grabbed for it and tore a fingernail in half on an iron hinge.

An unintelligible shout blew through the window.

“A few more doors up,” answered another.

Sweat pouring down her chest, she flung herself to her feet and grabbed the one remaining pouch of silver. The chest tumbled out of her hand and fell, spilling parchment scrolls across the floor. Gasping, she bent and swept up the box and the parchments. Tying both satchels around her waist, she clattered down the stairs to stare wild-eyed about her. Hair tumbled from its knot as she shook her head, trying to clear it.

Eduard and Hugh, the two guards left behind for Gwyn’s protection, were still nowhere to be found. One thing was certain; she couldn’t waste time to find two errant knights. Spinning into the stables, she saddled a sidestepping Crack, Hugh’s newly acquired warhorse. He would be heartsick at finding the stallion gone.

“’Twill teach him a lesson,” she huffed as she guided the sensitive, thousand-pound behemoth to a block of stone and scrambled into the saddle, throwing her leg over top. She had no time for wayward knights, less so for the niceties of riding sidesaddle. Reining around, she shot out of the stable yard less than ten minutes after returning home.

Aldersgate would be long closed, as would all the gates leading in and out of the city. She galloped towards it, slowing only when it came into sight. A hefty bribe ensured she was allowed passage through. It also ensured anyone who wanted to follow her could, but there was little she could do about that. Trotting under the gates, she had kept to a placid pace until a rise in the land and a copse of trees hid her from view. Then she’d dug her spurs into Crack and sent the wind whipping by her ears.

The autumn night was chilly and damp. Thin slivers of fog hovered a foot in the air like ghostly ribbons. Crack’s churning forelegs tore through them, sending the mists spiraling away to cling around tree trunks and reeds. The only sound was the cold wind whistling by her red-tipped ears.

Crack suddenly threw himself up in the air, ploughing the earth into furrows with his hind legs, his head swinging to and fro in fury at the conflicting messages of bit and spur. Gwyn pulled harder on the reins and threw one terrified glance over her shoulder. It couldn’t be. Not so soon.

Hooves. Coming up on the road behind her. At a dead gallop.

She slapped the reins against his shoulder, sending him into a frenzied, bounding leap. Hair stuck to her neck in long, sweated claws. She plucked at them furiously, gasping for breath. Twice she craned her face over her shoulder and peered through the whip-like strands of hair. Each time there was nothing, only low ribbons of fog, deepening darkness, and the thundering of hooves dim beneath the sound of her pounding heart.

A third twist in the saddle brought the awful sight: the outline of five horsemen and their monstrous stallions on the crest of a small hill. With billowing capes, swords swinging from their sides, and steam pouring off their surging mounts, they looked like spectral beasts from Hell.

She dug her heels into Crack. The boggy, pockmarked highway was dangerous in daytime but an exercise in madness at night, which is why it was with a curse but no surprise that she almost pitched over the horse’s head as he went down on his knees, his hooves splayed in four different directions. A wave of mud crashed over the saddle.

She slithered off. The stallion threw his head into the air, his eyes red and wide and wild, then scrambled up and raced away into a stand of trees, leaving Gwyn on her knees in the centre of the road, muddy and bedraggled and utterly alone.

Chapter Three

“Dear Lord, save me, for ’tisn’t possible to do so myself,” she whispered, staggering back to her feet.

The moon was rising and she could just make out the crossed swords that heralded Marcus’s device as the five soldiers advanced. One was a knight she recognized as part of Marcus’s personal guard: de Louth. The others were men-at-arms clad in hauberks and steel helms. She stood, wiping mud from her chin and chest.