The Conqueror

He turned and strode out the door.

Gwyn watched him disappear with long, self-assured strides, leaving her heart hammering in her chest so swiftly she worried for her health. She fell asleep with a smile on her face and no Ache in her heart for the first time in twelve years.

Chapter Sixteen

Alexander was waiting when he emerged into the narrow corridor. Griffyn said nothing as he pulled the door shut and started down the hallway. Alex fell into step beside him.

“How long were you at the door?”

“I wasn’t at the door. I was downstairs, intent on matters holy.”

Griffyn gave him a sideways glance as they thumped down the stairs. “Holy? Sounds serious. I wouldn’t have expected it of you, Alex.”

“I’ve been known.”

“To what?”

“Do what we all do—seek redemption. Or vengeance,” Alex added as they swung into the gathering hall.

His men sat in a small circle in front of a brazier, trying to keep themselves warm in the dampness permeating the room. Outside the storm battered against the walls. The wind screamed, then went silent, losing its voice momentarily. On the table, a candle flame flickered wildly, pulling upwards towards the ceiling, then squatting low and fat around the wick, huddling close for its own warmth.

Griffyn pulled a blanket over his shoulders and sat on a bench amid the circle of shadowy men. They all looked back at him, oddly quiet. Griffyn scanned their faces.

“Redemption or vengeance.” He turned to Alex. “Why do I have the feeling you are expecting one or the other from me tonight?”

“There’s news.”

“What?”

“Ionnes de l’Ami is dead.”

He lifted a mug and splashed ale into it. The only sign he’d even heard was his knuckles tightening into whiteness around the handle.

“When?”

“A fortnight ago. They’ve been trying to keep it quiet.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” he asked in a tone devoid of emotion. The foul traitor, the focus of his silent enmity for these seventeen years, dead? The man who had betrayed his father, forsworn his oath, stolen Griffyn’s home, broken his heart, dead? And not by Griffyn’s hand?

“His heir.”

“Heir? The son died years ago.”

“There’s a daughter.”

Griffyn stared into the flames. “I forget. What’s her name?”

“Guinevere.”

He entered the bedchamber long after the moon had risen and watched as she slept. Her hair drifted across his pillows like some dark, exotic silk. Her face lay half pressed against his pillows, her stunning body stretched beneath the blankets.

De l’Ami spawn.

God was cruel. Ionnes de l’Ami had been too many things to count. The worst of enemies and closest of friends. He had once saved Griffyn’s father’s life, deep in the depths of Palestine. He’d been the man whom Griffyn once called ‘Uncle’ and thought threw the very stars into the sky.

Griffyn collapsed onto a bench by the bed and leaned forward, forearms on his thighs, watching Gwyn but not seeing her.

He had been young back then, fewer than eight years to weigh against the centuries-old destiny awaiting him, back when de l’Ami had been ‘Uncle’ and the summers had been long. The laughing, grey-haired bear, Ionnes de l’Ami had known Griffyn’s destiny, cared for him more than his own father did. Taught him some of his ear