The Conqueror
Page 134
And now it was piracy and shipwrecks and every other, awful thing.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Griffyn was sitting in the hall, alone, with a cup of ale, leaning over a sheaf of parchment, when Guinevere entered the room. He looked up and waved her closer.
“Gwyn. Good. I’ve just received word: Henri fitzEmpress is coming to the Nest sooner than expected. Should be here by the morrow. He’ll be here for the wedding…”
His voice trailed off when he saw the way she stood in the archway. Dark, staring eyes under a halo of wild, spinning hair. Her cheeks were wet from tears, her fingers twisted in a tight ball in front of her stomach. He pushed to his feet. The chair toppled to the ground behind him.
“What is it?”
“When did your horse die, Griffyn?” she asked in a flat voice.
“What?”
“Your Rebel. The stables. When did they burn down?”
He paused. “When I was eight.”
“I know. But when was that?”
“When we left England. When the wars began. When Stephen took the throne.”
“When my father took Everoot?”
He was quiet a moment. “He burned it to the ground.”
A single sob wracked her body. “That’s what I thought.” She swallowed. “I have done something.”
He went still. “What?”
“I did it before I knew you.”
He watched her silently, coldness pouring through his limbs.
“But I kept doing it after, too, God save me.”
“What?”
Her body seemed to suddenly wash away. She leaned her shoulder against the stone archway. “I have the king’s son in the cellars.”
His face screwed up in confusion. “Henri? He doesn’t have a son.”
“Stephen does.”
Gwyn watched as he stared, the implications settling like bricks on mortar. Blazing eyes bored into hers, then he was up, away from the table, striding to the door without another glance.
She called out after him with what breath was left in her lungs. “There’s another way.”
He froze.
“There’s a secret passageway to the cellars,” she whispered to his back. “In our chambers. Behind the tapestry.”
His dark head swung back around with an animal fury, slate grey eyes washed of colour.
“Did you think I didn’t know?” he rasped, his voice harsh like fire had scalded it. “Good God, Gwyn, what were you thinking? All this time, you thought I didn’t know, and you let it be. With treason down below.”
“I never meant it to be so,” she whispered wretchedly, tears streaming down her face.