The Conqueror

Griffyn might be coming dangerously close to the edge of a rage that had been contained for eighteen years, honed with a staggering discipline. All the grueling self-denial, all the months and years of blood and purpose, had been in the service of this single moment: the Earl of Everoot was home again.

And something was terribly wrong.

Chapter Four

Gwyn stood in the third-storey solar, staring at the knight who’d escorted her as he prepared to leave the room. He pointed to a tray of food and pitcher of wine.

“For your comfort, my lady.”

She sourly suggested that if it were truly for her comfort, perhaps she could be better placed in her own chambers.

He met this with an impassive look. “You’d rather not be there just now, my lady. Lord Griffyn is…converting them.”

Ah yes, she thought as he bowed out of the room, converting them…or taking possession. Whichever way ’twas phrased, it was the same. He was taking over, stripping the keep of any sign of the de l’Ami presence. Except her. She would be brought out when it was all complete, the final resistance brought low.

“They are all alike,” she snapped aloud, and almost screamed when Duncan, her young page, lifted his face up over the side of her bed.

“Duncan!” she whispered furiously. “What are you doing here?”

“Milady,” he whispered back, creeping out with the stealth required if they were stalking deer. “I needed to see you.”

She hurried to his side and knelt, running her fingers over the back of his head, down his back, up his thin arms, feeling for injuries. “Monsters. Why would they do harm to a little boy, after I’ve opened the gates? I shall expect nothing but brutality forevermore from men—”

“Milady!” he said plaintively, wiggling free. “I’m not injured. I’ve come to help.”

She sat back on her heels. “Help? Help, Duncan?” She felt like crying. “How on earth could you help?”

His pinched little face was less pinched than it had been three months ago, when he’d arrived at the gates of Everoot, a refugee from the wars, he and his little sister, running for their lives. And here he was now, earnestly looking at her, thinking he—he, a ten-year-old boy—could help, while the world fell apart around her.

“I can watch out for whoever you’ve got in the cellars, milady.”

Gwyn’s mouth slowly fell open. “What did you say?”

He looked embarrassed. “I seen you go down there, milady, three times a day or more. Once, I saw ye with a tray o’ food, and after that, I followed ye.”

“Why?”

“I thought ye might need some help one day, seein’ as how no one else seemed to know what was going on. And ye always look so sad when ye come back up again. I thought ye oughtn’t be so very alone in it.”

That brought tears right to the edge of her eyes. She leaned forward and hugged him tight, then sat back and said in a soft, but bright voice, “Well, now, Duncan, you may have a very good idea there. Can you be quiet?”

“As a mouse.”

“And follow direction?”

He dragged his wrist under his nose, wiping it. “Better’n a monk.”

She gently propelled his arm back down. “You may be right.” She handed him a strip of linen. He stared at it. She pointed to his nose. He rolled his eyes and wiped. “And being alone, Duncan? You could not come up and down from there. You’d have to stay there until—” She broke off. “Until I say so. It may be weeks. Months.”

“Lady Gwyn, I’ll miss every fair that ever was, if ye need me to.”

She put her hand on his shoulder and nodded gravely. “So be it, Duncan. To the cellars. Here is the key.” She yanked the pouch off her skirts and handed over the little golden key. “You’ll know which chamber he is in, for ’tis it has a terrifying padlock on it. I’ll be down as soon as I can, to check that all is well and retrieve the key.

“Now,” she said, rising and looking at the door. “Let us give the guard a few minutes to get fully away, and you can go straight to the cellars.”

“Aye, milady.” He paused. “Did you see him, milady?”

“Did I see whom?” She began pacing the room. She pulled her long braid over her shoulder and began trying to reweave it, something to occupy her time. Her fingers got tangled in the knots. It was hopeless. If not enclosed in its tight silken case, her hair inevitably came unbound like a spring uncoiling. And this morning there’d been no time for silk wraps.