The Conqueror

“Keeping an oath,” she snapped. “Unlike you, who cannot follow simple instructions.”

He let go her arm. “What kind of oath?” he asked slowly.

“The kingly kind.”

Jerv’s eyes narrowed. “Gwyn, what is going on? What are you doing?”

Tension had already squeezed the muscles in her neck and chest and back tight. Much more and she’d begin to collapse in on herself. Fear was working hard to make her back out of this oath. Jerv must not be allowed to assist.

“I am keeping faith,” she whispered through gritted teeth. “I have no choice. Leave me to it.” She pointed. “Go back inside. Guard my door.”

He reached for her again. “You come back inside and—”

“And what?” She jerked away and fought to keep her voice at a whisper. “Forswear my oath? Prove faithless to my lord king?”

“Faithless? To Stephen? What are you doing in Stephen’s name?”

“Making good on old promises.”

Jerv stared. “God’s bones,” he said in a low voice. “What are you doing, Gwynnie?”

“Don’t call me that!” They called her Gwynnie in tenderness, when they loved her. That would ruin everything. “But ’twas a deed done before Griffyn ever came,” she added, hoping that would matter to him. To her.

“When?” he asked swiftly.

“August.”

“August.” Jerv’s gaze shot ceiling-ward. “That was after Stephen was thrown from his horse. After the siege and truce at Wallingford…The truce.” His words started running together. “Ipswich was taken in August, then Eustace died, and…” His words trailed off. He looked down slowly. “Gwynnie, what are you caught up in?”

“I cannot say.”

“Will not.”

“Fine. Will not.” She looked up at the tumbled-down battlement walls, the ones Griffyn had given to Jerv to restore to greatness. Jerv had his path, his life’s love. She gave a slightly bitter smile. “’Tis simple for you, Jerv. You have what you want. ’Tis a simple matter to think everything bad is over now.”

He’d been her friend since childhood, but he was looking at her now like she was a stranger. One who’d spit in his tankard of ale. “I am not a child, Gwyn,” he said coldly.

“Nor am I. I am holding to an oath, and ’tis eating me up.”

Jerv raked his fingers through his hair. “If your oath is about keeping Stephen in power, prolonging this god-awful war, then it has nothing to do with the world we live in anymore. Nothing of goodness, or right. The war is over, Gwyn. Let it go.”

“You think I want more war? You think I want more people to die, more lives to end?”

“You want something, else you wouldn’t be doing whatever you’re doing now.”

“I want—. I want—.” He looked disgusted. She started shaking with anger. “I do not recall being offered a choice, Jerv: ‘Would you like to keep to your vow?’” she said in a sing-song, querying tone. “‘Is it quite convenient to honour your oaths?’ ‘Has it grown in the least bit inconvenient? Do you regret anything you said or did, for we can surely forget the whole matter.’” She leaned forward and said in a furious, desperate whisper, her voice breaking, “I regret nigh on everything, Jerv. What matters that? Being sorry is never enough.”

He stared a moment, then turned on his heel. He paused at the stable door and looked back. “Your father was wrong, Gwyn.”

Her hand fluttered to her heart. “Papa? Wh-what are you talking about?”

“It was an accident. He should have forgiven you. But this? Whatever you’re about to do? It will not make that right.” He turned and stalked off.

Gwyn stood for a long time, staring at the stable door, hand at her chest. Jerv was wrong, completely wrong.

This had nothing to do with the guilt that crushed her spirit. Nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that her father had never forgiven her for killing his son and then his wife. It was completely unrelated to her desperate search for a way to prove herself worthy, to absolve herself of the sins of the past, and she, with no new penances to perform.

It was this or her heart would die.