The Conqueror

John shook his head. “I know not. I did not know the messenger. He wore no emblem, carried no seal, gave no information, and disappeared before my men could apprehend or question him. Unheard of, that. I thought,” he added grimly, “it might be a trap.”

“None that I know of. But the countess is not here.”

“Christ,” snapped John of Cantebrigge.

“My lord!” The abbot’s voice rose an octave on his emphasis.

“My apologies to you and your God. But where in Christ’s name is she?”

“My lord!” The abbot’s voice dropped an octave on this reprimand. John sighed.

“I have been doing penance for many years, my lord abbot. A few more won’t hurt me. You can lash me inside, but right now I’m more concerned with Lady Guinevere. You’ve heard nothing? Seen nothing?”

“Nothing.”

John said something unintelligible, then: “I’ll send out my men out to scour these woods. Perhaps she’s lost.”

“But how then did she ever send word?” enquired the abbot.

John shook his head as they turned and walked back towards the abbey.

Gwyn had been sinking further and further into Pagan’s back during the conversation, as if hiding, which was the oddest thing, for had not this been her destination for the entire day and previous night? And was that not her very own friend, come to save her?

Why then did it feel so like being hunted?

“You’d best go, Raven.”

“Aye,” she agreed tonelessly. She slid off the horse. He hopped down beside her. “And you?” she asked fiercely. “What will happen to you? Where do you go now?”

He didn’t say anything. She held back a shameful sob. The world was tilting, sending every thought into the tangled nest of her emotions. She stepped backwards, towards the abbey, out of the trees, into the solid, sunsetting world.

“Pagan—”

He reached out, his fingertips reaching out into the sunset, and she held her breath, hoping somehow he could change what had to be. But he didn’t. His fingers ran along her cheek, then dropped back into the shadows. His blue-grey gaze travelled slowly over her face, as if he were memorising her.

Nothing mattered but that look in his eyes. Not John, not the abbot, not the king nor his wars nor Papa from the grave. Nothing but that look in Pagan’s eyes.

Someone shouted. She jerked. His gaze tore from hers. Another shout. Her name. Someone was calling her name. She’d been seen.

Pagan melted back into the trees. Gwyn looked over her shoulder. One of John’s men was calling and running for his horse.

She spun desperately. Pagan’s perfect, dark shadow was disappearing into the dimness of the wood.

Another shout rose up from outside the abbey gates. She twisted around again,. There were John of Cantebrigge’s men, then she saw the others. A whole host of others, with crossed red swords on their tunics and a sable-black pennant, riding under the Abbey gates.

Marcus d’Endshire.

Her heart stopped beating. She reeled backwards. Something hard thumped against her thigh. She looked down wildly. Papa’s heirloom chest. Shivers spread outward over her skin like cracks

on an ice-bound lake. If she went in with that, Marcus would take it. The letters, and whatever lay beneath.

The knight from the abbey was galloping towards her.

She made a choice. Her only choice. Reckless, intuitive, dangerous.

She slipped back under the eaves, heart hammering. “I don’t even know you,” she whispered, more to her self than his.

Griffyn heard her murmur and ripped his gaze from Marcus’s men to her lovely, frightened face. “You know me, Raven.”