Griffyn looked his query, in the form of a sidewise, raised-eyebrow glance. Fulk elaborated.
“We choose. We didna choose the duty, but we choose how it marks us. Or we’re supposed to. Our power over the power of the thing.”
Griffyn’s gaze dropped to Fulk’s chest, where the tattoo now lay hidden beneath his armour. “Why there?”
“It lies halfway between my head and my heart. Exactly where it’s supposed to,” he added dourly.
They walked in silence for another few moments and turned down a small, crooked alleyway. It was dark in the buildings overhanging the street, all candles extinguished by command, the couvre-feu, to prevent fire. In a few buildings, on the third floors, a rogue flame still burned here and there, but mostly they made their way by the lantern in Fulk’s hand and the wet ground reflecting moonlight.
“And you’re certain Gwyn knows nothing of it?” Griffyn asked.
Fulk shook his head. “Lady Gwynnie knows nothing.”
“I suspect I owe you for that.”
Fulk stopped walking, his gaze sharp beneath his bushy, grey-flecked eyebrows. “Ye owe nothing, my lord. I’m paying off old debts myself. Ye may not want to hear this, but if I could have, I’d have told Lady Gwyn everything. I think she’s a right to know.”
“I think that would be unbelievably dangerous.”
Fulk nodded. “Aye. Every way ye turn, there’s danger. Ye’re the Heir. That’s the way of it.”
Danger was the least of it, Griffyn thought. It was the unveiled craving he recoiled from. He could already feel it building inside him. He ran his finger over the serrated edge of the steel key, still cupped in his hand. That made two. Two of the puzzle keys.
“There’s three, Fulk?” he asked suddenly. “Three puzzle keys.”
Fulk grunted. “Aye. Three keys that, when fitted together, open the gate to the resting place of the Hallows.”
So why had his father given away two of them? Why make Griffyn hunt down his destiny?
He ran the key between his fingertips thoughtfully. “What do you remember of my father, Fulk?”
“Well, now, I recall he changed. He grew…hard.” Fulk looked over briefly through the reflected moonlight. “I know ye think ye know yer father well, Pagan, and I’m sure ye do, but ye only know that part of him.”
“Which part?”
“The part after the Crusades. He was different upon a time. Before.”
“How?”
“Well, now, he and your mother, they sure did love each other. ’Twas as clear as anything.”
Griffyn’s mouth fell open. “What?”
“Dearer than that twice-blooming rose she was to him, and that’s saying something. And you and he were inseparable upon a time, that ye were.” Fulk pinched his eyes half-shut and peered at Griffyn’s shocked face. “About two weeks before the coup that put Stephen on the throne, your father up and left for Normandy. The only thing he took with ’em was ye and yer mother. Now why would he have done that?” His eyes never left Griffyn’s. “Take yer wee self, and leave everything else behind.”
The rhetorical question hung in the air between them.
A familiar surge of anger flooded Griffyn’s limbs. Indeed, his father had taken him, and his mother, and had left behind such a brutal legacy that his name was still remembered among the Norman tenants and noble neighbours as an accursed thing, Mal Amour: “Bad Love.”
“And recall this,” Fulk was saying. “Ye were thirteen when your father died. And he did not want ye Trained. I dunno what ye make of that, but there it is. And who knows, mayhap he was right. For centuries these things have laid quiet. Perhaps for a thousand more. This is ancient treasure. There’s no rush.”
“Not for my father, surely,” Griffyn said bitterly. “He wanted to keep it all for himself. Thought he’d live forever.” He paused. “Could he? Could something about the Hallows make him live forever?”
Fulk glanced around. It was dark and silent and empty. The lantern swung back and forth in his gloved hand. “There’s a powerful lot o’ rumours, aren’t there, Pagan? The most I can tell ye is what ye already know: ’tis pure power.”
They finished their frosty walk, passing darkened storefronts. The wooden platforms that served as shelves during the day were drawn up tight. As they passed one narrow building, Fulk muttered, “Agardly, the goldsmythe. That’s where Lady Gwyn’s harps were taken.”
Griffyn pulled his mind to the present. “Harps?”