The Conqueror
Gwyn’s heart leapt. “Hipping is there?”
“Oh, aye, he’s there. And he’s not alone.”
She beamed. “Who else?”
“Leicester.”
Her eyebrows crumpled together in confusion. “Robert Beaumont?”
“Aye.”
“The Earl of Leicester is at Hippingthorpe’s hunting lodge?”
“Aye.”
Earl Robert Beaumont, most powerful peer of the realm, was riding to the remote hunting lodge of a minor baron? Hadn’t he been in attendance at the king’s feast—was it truly only a few hours ago? No, she realised. He’d been strangely absent.
“Robert Beaumont, Lord of Pacy-sur-Eure and Breteuil?” she added for clarification.
Clid scowled. “He might be Guardian of the Lord’s pearly gates by now, I s’pose, the way his royal lordship throws around titles. What I know is that
he’s at Hipping’s lodge. Arrived a few hours ago.”
She frowned. Why on earth had she not seen him or any of his retinue on the king’s highway?
“There’s back ways to everywhere,” said Clid, shrewdly reading her thoughts.
She considered this. It would be a dark and dangerous ride, what with the boars and wolves, and Hipping known as a wolf himself, but he was currently loyal to the king, and right now, nothing mattered more.
She looked into the chieftain’s eyes. “I must get there.”
He exchanged a few eyebrow-wagging glances with the men, then shook his head. “That’s a danger for us, missy. Best that the great ones don’t know we’re here. They’ve forgotten us, and I’d have it stay that way.”
“They’ll never see you,” she promised. “We can share a horse, and you can leave me miles from the lodge.”
“That’s where ye are now, missy. Miles and miles.”
“But sir—”
“Every time the great ones remember we’re here, it costs us. There’s not much ye can offer us to make it worth that.”
Gwyn grabbed one of the felt bags around her waist, fumbled with its knot, and dumped the pouch open on the table. Gold and silver coins tumbled across the scarred wood, clinking loudly in the suddenly hushed room. They gleamed brightly in the dim hut. She looked up into Clid’s amazed eyes. “Please. I have to get there. Tonight. ’Tis my home at stake.”
He ran his fingers through his grey-and-white beard. “Where’s home?”
“In the north. Besieged.”
He looked at her distrustfully. Behind him, the fire spat and crackled, then blazed brightly as a fresh log caught. “Pagan didna say anything about that.”
“Be that as it may, you can see that I need to be on my way.”
“Ah, well, and maybe not. Yer father will tend to it.”
Her throat constricted. “I haven’t a father. I’ve myself and a dozen knights, and ever so many villagers and their children and if I can’t stop Lord d’Endshire—”
Clid grunted. “Marcus fitzMiles?”
“—then it will fall, my men will die, and I will be wed to—” She stopped short and stared wide-eyed into the firepit, blinking hard.