The Conqueror

Griffyn nodded, his mind turning. “So this could be the Hallows chest,” he said after a moment of reflection, “and you wouldn’t even know it?”

“I thought it was the chest,” Alex admitted ruefully.

They stared at it for long minutes. Shreds of thoughts and emotion still bobbed through Griffyn’s mind, flotsam after the storm. Confusion. Determination. Fear, for he’d rushed here so quickly, left Guinevere behind.

Anger. The most potent thing left behind was anger, he realised. At his father.

It wasn’t the anger that surprised him. He’d spent years doing that. It was the why of it that shocked him: he was angry because his father had not let him be Trained.

“And now, Alex?” he said dully. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“Why don’t you read the letters?”

Griffyn started laughing, and that felt good. This is how it used to be, between Alex and him. Comraderie, laughter, friendship. But now, since the treasure was being spoken of, everything had changed. “Is that your guidance? I suspect I’d have thought of that myself.”

Alex smiled. “I never said I was the wisest Watcher, but—”

“I’m stuck with you.” Griffyn completed their long-standing jest. Alex smiled. They sobered, and Alex gestured to the parchment scrolls.

“So, what do they say?”

Griffyn picked one up. “Guinevere said these were letters between her parents, while de l’Ami was on Crusade.” He unrolled it, the roughness of his fingers scraping against the parchment.

Dearest mine, I did not wed you to speak of you to others. I wed you to be something wondrous together. Without, I am fairly muddling through. Come to me. Why do we wait? I want your hair in my hands. I’ll send Miles for you. Few can stand against him, and he thinks the world of you. You will be safe with him. Damietta will fall soon, and I think Jerusalem is next. My destiny lies in that City, and in you. Come to me.

The next were much the same, only further along.

Dearest mine, I was wrong to send for you. I cannot call Miles back, but if you have

not yet left, do not. Do not come to this hell. The sands never stop shifting, the winds never stop blowing, and the fighting never ceases. If you come, I cannot think. Stay to home, build us one. I will come to it. I want a son, and however many daughters you demand from me. Keep yourself safe above all other things.

My love, ’tisn’t going well. Not for us, nor our Dear Lord, not here in the Levant. I have prayed to God these missives reach you, that you did not leave the Nest. We’ve only enough food for days. The water is rancid, the horses are dying under us. Please God let you be to home. I want only to come home, to be with you in our beloved Nest. The one light in this darkness is our dear Ionnes. We must make him something special when we return. Can you not ask your father for some of those prickly Welsh hills? Ionnes would love their wildness, as I love him. He is the reason I am able to hold on long enough to see you again.

Ellie, my love,

We’ve got it.

Griffyn lifted his head slowly. These letters were from his father. To his mother. Christian Sauvage to his wife Alienor, known to all as Ellie.

So Guinevere’s father had been sitting in front of the fire reading these letters, night after night. Love letters, from Christian Sauvage to his beloved wife, about his love for de l’Ami. Before everything was wrecked.

Had de l’Ami repented, after all those years? Had torment wracked his soul, in the dark, by the fire?

Griffyn’s fingers tightened around the edges of the scrolls. He forced himself to relax them. How fitting, that the last of the letters spoke only of the treasure. All the love stopped then. They’d found the treasure. Or been given it. But however it had happened, the Heir of Charlemagne, in the form of his father, had laid his hands on some part of the treasure in the Holy Lands. And that same blood now pounded through Griffyn’s body, making him want the thing with something bordering on desperation.

Just like his father. Just like hers.

He jerked to his feet.

“Where are you going?” Alex exclaimed, shocked.

“To Guinevere.” He flung the door open and walked out.

Gywn was down in her rose garden, walking between the rows of clipped thorny branches. Evening was purple and cold around her, but she did not care. She needed to soothe the restless energy out of her, until Griffyn came back and she could tell him the truth. It made her giddy with relief and fear.

The gates would soon close for the night. She heard the shouts of the guards, alerting those still down in the village or on the fields. To home, they called. The gates are closing. Couvre-feu to hand. To home.

She knelt beside the long bed of roses and gently mounded the dirt up around one plant’s base with the edge of her hand. Soon, the twice-blooming buds would burst forth again, in time for Yule. Such beauty to look forward to, when everything else was always so dark and cold.