The Conqueror

His hand fell open, and on the calloused, dir

t-stained palm lay a scattering of dried rose petals, their crimson colour still bright, even in death. Gwyn’s mouth fell open, her words hushed. “’Tis my bloom. The Conqueror.” She gingerly touched one of the dried petals.

“Aye. And His Grace now asks that you recall your vow to him, as he has recalled it to you.”

“’Twas ever to be his at need,” she murmured, staring at the broken flower. She recalled the councils in London, her meeting with the king overshadowed by her heartbroken tryst with Pagan. How long ago had that been? A hundred years? How much had she aged? A thousand?

“The need is great, my lady, and the time is now.”

She dragged her gaze back up. “What would he have of me?”

“Safekeeping for the prince.”

“You said—you said he was dead.”

“I said some say that. But ’tis not so. Not yet.”

“Yet?”

“He is ill, mayhap deathly so. He needs tending, else he’ll surely die.”

“God in Heaven, where is he?”

“Here.”

She leapt to her feet, almost knocking the kneeling herald over. “Perdition, you have the prince here?”

He straightened and smiled faintly, a ghostly gesture on his somber visage. But the deep lines of laughter that readily absorbed this smile implied a past filled with happier times, when perhaps such expressions of joy were not so unfamiliar. Gwyn had a fleeting wonder about whom he’d shared such laughter with, and where that woman was now.

“I recall your father well, my lady. He was ever loyal to the king, and just now, you reminded me of him.”

“Just now, I would have him here more than all the ginger in Jerusalem,” she said solemnly. “Where is the prince?”

“Wrapped in a shroud and thrown over the back of my horse as if a sack of wheat.”

“How many are you?” she asked swiftly, walking towards the door. The messenger was fast behind, reaching above to hold the door open for her, then stepping through into the cool, shadowy hall. They hurried down the winding stairs, speaking in whispers as they went.

“Just three. The lord prince, my attendant, and myself.”

“And you are?”

“Adam of Gloucester.”

She hurried around the final twist in the stairs. “Who else knows of this?”

“None but I. And you.”

They reached the bottom. The great hall stretched out beyond. Servants were at various tasks, passing in and out. She could hear the faint giggles of a gaggle of girls from a distant room; the women had not made it out of the castle yet. Two off-duty knights sat playing a game of chess at a table. A group of young squires sat whittling at another table, released for the moment from their unending tasks as aspiring knights. Everywhere she looked were people, sweat-stained and half-dizzy, who had retreated into the cool castle air to escape the sweltering heat of mid-day. Only those who had to be outside were.

“No one knows but you, Adam?”

“And you,” he reminded in a low voice, his gaze following hers over the pockets of people, people with eyes and ears. And tongues.

“Come.” She grabbed his sleeve and tugged him back into the shadows.

They hurried through a long passageway that ran past the kitchens. Someone’s high-pitched voice rang out, saying something about wishing for a harp. They must be in one of the offices where she’d stored the beautiful, be-stringed things the harpers used to play at the wondrous feasts once held at the Nest. None were held now, and Gwyn told herself selling the harps was a negligible loss.

Some said the times were too grim and uncertain for such revelry, but it hadn’t been the uncertain times; it had been the uncertain money that brought silence to the hall. Dinners and suppers were now punctuated by knives and scattered, short-lived laughter, and the long, soundless nights were disrupted only by dried grasses rustling in faint breezes and women wailing for their lost men.