The Conqueror

Alex stared at the ground and nodded curtly. “Aye.”

“You too, Edmund.”

The boy looked at him in horror. “I can’t leave you, my lord! I won’t!”

“You will. Go.”

Edmund’s earnest face crumpled. Alex clapped him on the shoulder and they started down the stairway just as Gwyn came up, running, holding a hand to her side.

“Griffyn,” she called breathlessly. “Wait. There’s something you must know.”

“You’ve told me enough for one day.”

She stopped midway up the stairs, just below him, and placed her hand on the leather cuff encasing his forearm. “Wait. There’s a secret passageway, comes up in yonder woods—”

“I knew about that one too, Guinevere.” He looked over her head. “At my command,” he called to Alex, just as Alex peeled off to the right and began shouting to Griffyn’s personal guard, gathering the force for the hillside attack.

His commands rang out loudly, and her face blanched. She looked down at the bailey, then back at him, comprehension dawning. “Griffyn. You cannot send your guard from your side. They would die for you.” She lowered her voice. “You’ll be killed.”

“They’re the best fighters—”

“They will be facing the weakest troop

s. Marcus’s strongest will be waiting for you. Not Alex nor your guard nor Edmund—. You’ll be killed.”

He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her almost off her feet, until their faces were inches apart. “To save Everoot for you and ours, Guinevere, ’tis a thing I will do gladly. Do you not see that yet?”

“I do,” she wept, wrapping her fingers around the mail armour. The rings pierced her skin.

He pulled away and gestured to a nearby knight. “Take her to the hall.” He turned away. “She’ll be needed there.”

Gwyn felt her knees giving out. She was sliding to the ground, holding her hand against the wall for support. The knight’s hands were on her arms, pulling her up.

“My lady? Lady Gwyn, please come.”

She dragged herself up by an act of will. Her back unbent along the curve of her spine until it was as straight as the sword Griffyn had just unsheathed as he walked to the front of his men. He spoke to them as he went, passing words of encouragement and victory, an order given briefly to a soldier here and there.

He never looked back.

“Please release me, Robert,” she said with quiet dignity, turning to the knight. Time to do what was directly in front of her, no further, no more.

She started across the bailey, towards the main hall, where villagers and servants were coalescing in small, frightened bands of huddled humanity that she, simply, could not save.

Griffyn could, though.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Everoot’s small army rode under the portcullis gates. Marcus sat at the top of the hill, watching and counting. He smiled. Rumours of Sauvage’s numbers had been exaggerated. No surprise. The Sauvages had always received more than their fair share of everything: esteem, money, women.

His gaze swept over the troops again. But this was even better than he’d hoped. Even counting the men on the wall, he had him outnumbered five to one. The fitzEmpress’s vaunted captain did not appear to be so unassailable after all.

The last of Everoot’s mounted knights came through the gates. A few dozen foot soldiers marched behind, carrying battleaxes and pikes. Marcus leaned over and said to his herald, “Call for them all. We’ll hold no one back. Everyone into the valley. This is going to be a rout.”

The herald nodded and lifted the horn to his lips. He bugled different patterns. Along the front of the army, pennants of various styles shot into the air. First the horsemen rode forward in a line, the great destriers snorting and pawing, leather creaking. On their backs, the men were a row of anonymous, helmed faces. Behind clustered the foot soldiers, their armour hardly less sturdy for being made of layers of boiled leather.

Marcus wheeled his horse around. The knights were his men, cleaved to him by vows of fealty, deeds of land, and a shared partiality for warring. Most of the foot soldiers were a different sort. They may share a certain joie de guerre, but they had few ties to bind. It was a ragtag army of unpaid mercenaries and debtors freed from Endshire holding cells.

Marcus knew he had to keep it simple, attempt nothing which required trust or skill to execute. And, above all, he must give them something to fight for.