The Conqueror

“To where does it lead?” The attendant stood behind Adam, chewing on a piece of food recovered from his teeth. He stared impassively at Gwyn.

“The lord’s chambers.” She paused. “My chambers.”

They followed her up the towering staircase in silence. Three flights they climbed before reaching a small landing, then up another series of stone steps. By now William the attendant was grumbling in the background. They finally reached the top and climbed aboard a small landing, cut deep in the rock. An arched door was before them, carved into the stone, dark and silent. They stopped.

“Let me see if the way is clear,” she whispered, and twisted the latch. The door swung outwards, crowding them out to the far edge of the landing. If one of them stepped wrong, ’twould be a long time before he landed, some four stories below, perhaps bouncing off the curving staircase along the way.

“My lady, if you’d hurry,” suggested William in a tight voice, eyeing the black descent, his boot dangerously close to the edge.

“Think you I am dawdling?” she snapped.

“Nay, not a’tall,” he vowed heartily, still peering behind him. Adam watched her in silence.

Gwyn stared at the back of a tapestry that shielded the entryway on the interior side. It hung on one wall in the lord’s bedchamber, and was the most exquisite piece of hand-dyed silk imaginable, stitched through with scenes of foxes and wolves and greening hills, and a distant stream of smoke, as if home was over the hills. Something in it had tugged at her when she first saw it at a fair two years ago, when there was money in the coffers and hope for her future. She’d bought it on an impulse. It had seemed like a message, beckoning her, fortokening all the pleasures of home and hearth awaited her, if only she would climb the ridge.

Now it just looked like a limp layer of cloth between her and the rampaging world.

By the time she had gotten the three of them back down to the hall and the squire outside to round up the horses, she was bathed in sweat again. Her hands twisted around themselves as she waited with Adam at the edge of the hall.

“You’ve royal permission to do as you see fit, my lady,” Adam said quietly.

She nodded.

“’Tis a most burdensome honour you’re taking on.”

“I gave my word. Everoot holds to its word. Papa would have taken the burden.” She swallowed thickly. “Roger would have. My brother, Roger. Prince Eustace was his friend. If my brother were running the estate, if he were aliv—” She pressed her lips together rather than let the heavy press of onrushing tears pour out. “They would have done a great deal more. I can do no less.”

“Still, some would rather not,” Adam said quietly.

“Some prefer to enjoy the fruits of other’s labour, and consider themselves well fed,” she said firmly.

He ran his hand over his hair-roughened chin. “Aye. But sometimes, my lady, we don’t recognise the spice until after we’ve eaten. One must be most careful what is on one’s plate.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Now you’re speaking in riddles, Adam of Gloucester.”

The thoughtful look passed. “I don’t mean to. Be careful, be safe and be well, my lady.”

She walked with him to the door. A few eyes strayed to the pair, but no one really wanted to know what the grim-faced soldier had to say. If anything of import had occurred, they would know of it soon enough. He was just one of many messengers who hied themselves north to tell what news from the wars in the south, or to beg money to start another one. More often than not nowadays, no news was good news.

By the time Adam sat astride his horse again, the wiry, impudent squire at his side, the gatehouse had already been alerted to their departure. Gates to both baileys were raised, the drawbridges dropped. Gwyn stood midway up the keep staircase in the shimmering waves of heat. Adam edged his mount close and reached up a hand.

Surprised, she touched the tip of her fingers to his, smiling down at the kind, grim man who’d brought her such a doubtful treasure. He leaned sideways in his saddle and she crouched down to him, the heat from the sun burning hot on her back.

“Be careful what is on your plate, my lady.”

A chill felt its way up under her dress. He dipped his head in a brief nod, then reined away. They cantered under the arched gateway and disappeared in a cloud of dust and shimmering heat.

Gwyn unbent her knees. She felt as if she was about to faint, and shook herself. She was giddy from the heat, that was all. And there was some small consolation, she realised bleakly: for the first time in ten months, she hadn’t thought of Pagan.

An hour of peace from the restless, passionate memories, from the awful

, agonized regret of the choices she could never unmake.

That made three people she’d killed.

Where the moisture came from, she did not know, but her eyes filled up with tears, and she stumbled sightless back into the castle.

Book Two: