The Conqueror
Page 67
The Reaping
Chapter One
The day before Michaelmas, 28 September 1153
Northern England, Ipsile-upon-Tyne
The conspirators met in an alley. The huge harvest moon had already crested and slunk down past the tops of the buildings. It filled the alley with dark, slanting shadows.
“How much?” asked the first, who had requested the meeting. He was lean and muscular, taller than average. Other than his build, identifying features were hard to make out. The only distinguishing aspect of him was a small but brilliantly vivid tattoo inked on his left chest, evident for a brief second when he reached inside his tunic to yank out a bag of coin.
“You don’t waste time,” said the other, looking back to his would-be customer’s eyes.
“I have no time to waste. I want the key. How much?”
“Why do you want it?”
The tattooed man took a step forward and said in a low voice, “I’m willing to pay. A lot. That is all that need interest you. Do you have it?”
He nodded coolly. “I’ll ask again: why do you want it?”
The tattooed man reversed his step and crossed his arms over his chest. “I know the rightful owner. He’ll want it back.”
He glanced down at the bulging pouch of money in the man’s right hand. “Mayhap I’d get a better price from him directly, than you. Did he send you here?”
The tattooed man moved forward with the grace of a leopard. He wrapped his mailed hand around the other man’s neck and crashed him against the town wall rounding behind them. “Where the hell is it?”
“I don’t have it here—”
“You said you had it,” he said in a dangerously quiet tone. “Are now you saying you do not?”
The man with the key thrust his fingers up, inside the band of strangulation around his neck. He jerked free, furious and gasping. “God’s bones, I have it, but not here—”
“Fool.”
Without looking back, the tattooed man turned and strode away into the darkness.
The man with the key gasped for breath a few more moments, alone in the grimy alley. Then he pushed off the stone wall. Briefly, he dipped his hand into his pocket, felt the small steel key resting coldly inside, and continued out.
Next customer. This one had been mad. He would go straight to the source this time.
Chapter Two
The day after Michaelmas, 30 September 1153
Outside the Nest, Northumbria, England
A cool puff of autumn air exhaled across the battle camp. For months now, it had been only hot, dry air—the drought-like conditions of the summer had not abated with the onset of autumn and the harvest—so the sudden coolness drew everyone’s attention. Griffyn barely noticed. He was staring at the dark, turreted battlements of the Nest.
Home. Somehow, through eighteen years of anarchy and a shattered heart, God had seen him home.
Camped before his own castle walls with an army, of course. He smiled grimly. Not the homecoming he’d planned, but in truth, the one he’d always known must be.
The soaring walls were exactly as he recalled. The forest eaves, two leagues away, were as beckoning at twenty-eight as they had been at eight. He leaned his shoulder against an oak tree with sweeping branches and watched the darkness unfold.
Alex came striding up the hill as darkness fell fully and stood next to him on the small rise of land. They were the only two upright figures in all the warm, dark land.
The village was darkened humps on the plains below. Small fires burned here and there throughout the army camp, but the men had pushed away from them as soon as the food was cooked, and now lay sprawled in dark bundles. The unexpected autumn breeze cooled the night, but it was still too warm to huddle with anything that didn’t moan beneath their battle-hardened bodies.