The Conqueror

He cleared his throat. The room stuttered into silence in five seconds.

“As I said, she was in danger.”

“Not so much danger as we’re to be in when d’Endshire comes looking for a ghostly knight who appeared out of nowhere and whisked his betrothed away,” observed Hervé Fairess.

“I agree.” Alex’s voice came low and calm from the back of the room.

Griffyn shook his head. “We leave this inn at dawn, England in two days’ time. We’ll be in Normandy the next morn, and will not be here to be bothered by Endshire. And,” he added on an impatient gust of air, “she wasn’t his betrothed.”

This started another small quake in the room. Alex spoke over the ensuing laughter. “She may not have been, Pagan, but what does it matter? She’s in our camp now. What if she discovers who we are, or what we’re about?”

“She won’t. She’ll wake up tomorrow to find an empty inn, and be on her way.” He looked around the room and shook his head, despairing of them. “All we have to do is get through one night with a woman in our midst. Cannot we manage a simple thing like that?” he asked plaintively.

When they started laughing again, he shook his head in disgust and went to the back of the fire-lit room, where Alex sat at a table.

He dropped onto the bench opposite. “Do you have anything more to say?” he asked curtly.

“Oh, aye.”

“Thought so,” he muttered.

He splashed the contents of a pitcher of ale into a wooden mug Alex pushed his way, then leaned back, resting his spine against the wall. He unbuckled his hauberk at the shoulder and the heavy mail flap fell forward onto his chest. He put a boot up on the bench, slung one forearm over his knee, and stared into the fire.

The sound of cold, wet raindrops pattered on the windows and walls. The fire burned hot, and the room smelled faintly of drying leather and old straw and smoke. Firelight flickered and the low murmurs of his men grew quieter as they dropped off to sleep.

Griffyn took a long swallow of the tepid ale, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at Alex, an eyebrow cocked in silent query.

Alex answered in kind, lifting his brows, then his gaze, to the ceiling.

Griffyn shrugged. “I don’t know how to be any clearer. I will see her off in the morn, and we’ll be finished with her.”

Alex wiped his finger over a wet ring of liquid left by the pitcher of ale. “Finished, is it?”

“This is not the first time I have met a woman, Alex. Nor,” he added crossly, “the first time I have enacted my knightly vows. Some I know might do well to adopt a similar stance.”

Alex rubbed his fingertips together, drying the wetness. “Is that what this is? Your knightly vows?” Griffyn lifted his eyebrows again. Alex lifted his higher. “Is that what you were doing up there, Pagan? Being knightly?”

“This is ridiculous,” he announced.

“Vows?”

He exhaled noisily and ran his fingers through his hair.

“Why is she here?” Alex said. “You have more important things to do. Anything that distracts, intrudes.” The firelight bounced shadows on the far wall. “Why is she here?” he asked again, his voice low. “I mean, truly, Griffyn. What is going on?”

Griffyn shifted his gaze over. “What is it,” he asked so flatly it wasn’t a question anymore. “What are you worried about, Alex? You know me.”

They were quiet, the only sound the crackling fire. “I know you, Griffyn. I do not know her.”

He spun the mug between his fingers and held his silence.

Alex waited a moment, then went on. “You have a destiny, Griffyn. You are of the bloodline, the Guardian. The Heir.” He looked at Griffyn’s implacable face and shook his head. “’Tis neither my place to convince nor instruct you.”

“Oh, aye? Then why do we go over this same matter time and again?”

Alex’s face hardened. “Because there is treasure to be guarded. Or do you not believe?”

Griffyn leaned forward, across the table. “I’ll tell you what I believe, Alex,” he said in a low, swift voice. “I believe greed and fear exist, and that is what motivates men. Holiness does not, or rarely. Goodness makes them attack. Legends of hidden treasure excite them like nothing else. I do not want it.” He threw himself back on the bench and pushed his fingers through his hair. “I do not want what it makes men become.”