Conqueror (18 page)

“My lord abbot, I would praise God if I were returned to
you
, but why, I ask again, am I returned to
him
?” She nodded at Marcus. The abbot looked enraged.

Marcus smiled, the picture of calm, solicitous concern. “Lady Guinevere, you have ever been prone to fits of exuberance. ’Tis one of your charms. But with your father’s passing, and none to guard you, I am growing concerned that you may do yourself harm.”

He moved to her side, took her hand and kissed it.

A small, binding thread of good sense made her hold her tongue until he was close enough to be the only one to hear the whispered venom of her words. “Marcus,” she hissed as he bent over her hand, “I will surely do
you
harm before this night is out. I suggest you worry more on that.”

He unbent. “But I do worry for you, my lady, as do we all.” He gestured to the others.

A small, pricking fear snaked up Gwen’s spine. Her friend John was looking at her as he would a small child who’d nearly been crushed beneath a horse’s onrushing hooves. The abbot was looking at her as if she she’d been the one guiding the horse. He nodded his tonsured head pretentiously.

“You speak truly, my lord Endshire,” he droned. “And well do we appreciate your concern. Without you, we might ne’er have known to watch for the lady.”

“
You
sent word that I was missing?” she cried, looking back at Marcus.

He bent his head in a humble nod. “I thought perhaps you might come here, after you left London so swiftly last night.”

“I left swiftly,” Gwyn gasped, unable to believe this mummery he was performing, “because you threatened to wed me against my will!”

“I did but explore the possibility with you, my lady. That you took offence was not my intention, nor my desire.”

“Your desire? You
explored
it? Why, you threatened me!”

“I explained to you the value of such a union.”

“You sent troops to the Nest—”

“For your defence.”

“—and said if I did not wed you—”

“Then you at least would have some protection from the forces arraying against you,” he finished smoothly. “My men are there for the defence of Everoot. These are dangerous times, Gwyn,” he went on, his face becoming more serious as he dropped the use of her title and affected intimate concern, “and with your father so recently dead, there are those who conspire against the House of Everoot.”

“Indeed! With you among the worst!”

She turned to John, but his look of concern had deepened into one of unease. She spun to the abbot, but his hands were pushed up the sleeves of his robe and he was nodding his shiny head pompously. Gwyn wanted to fly into a rage.

“My lady,” John interjected quietly. He took up her hand again, kindness and worry in his look. “You need to be cleaned up.”

She stared numbly at the far wall, reality hitting her. They did not believe her. They thought ’twas as Marcus had said—either that, or it was more convenient to believe such. They thought she had fled like a small, impetuous child, unable to know her own mind nor to think clearly. They thought her…incapable.

She turned numbly and let John’s gentle hand guide her to the door.

“Where did you get the cloak, my lady?”

Marcus’s voice slid up her back like a cold hand. Her foot paused on its way to the ground, then she hurried forwards, pulling on John’s arm, trying to get out of the room before Marcus could ask his dangerous question again.

“My lady, where did you get the woollen cloak?”

“John,” she turned pleadingly to her old friend, “perhaps I
am
a bit turned in my head.” She swallowed the bilious rancor that accompanied pretending to be witless, and peered into his concerned eyes. “It has been a harrowing night, and I would rest now.”

“Stay, lady,” Marcus ordered quietly. “I would speak with you a while longer.”

“John,” she pleaded, trying to keep the desperation out of her voice.

Marcus laid a hand on her arm. “Wait.”

Gwyn threw him off with a jerk. She was dangerously close to flying into that rage, and it would be the worst possible thing. Assaulting Marcus with bared teeth would hardly prove her a reasonable, capable adult.

She and Marcus stared at one another, eyes glittering, shoulders squared.

“My lady,” interjected the abbot into the silent showdown. “Lord Endshire has not only brought word that you were in danger, for which you should give thanks rather than a critique of our Lord’s grace.” Here he frowned firmly. “But he also brings word that our lord king is considering giving your wardship to Lord Endshire, to ensure protection for you and your estates.”

Her mouth dropped open. “My king would not do that!” she cried. She wheeled to John. “Stephen made a promise to Papa! He promised he would not…he would not—” She tossed a helpless look over her shoulder at Marcus. “
Give
me to anyone without my consent!”

“King Stephen has other subjects than you, Lady Guinevere,” Marcus observed.

The abbot sniffed. “This childish selfishness bodes ill.”

Marcus glanced at the abbot, then took a sip of wine before continuing as if the churchman had not spoken. “Subjects who must be kept happy, as must you, of course.” He smiled. “I will do my best.”

This was not happening. She could barely control herself. Her hands clenched into fists and her face flushed hot.

“And so,” Marcus was saying, “our king felt the need to protect his interests. Namely, Everoot.”

“You mean
Endshire
,” she spat back. “You threatened him. You threatened my king.”

“Lady Guinevere,” the abbot reprimanded.

“He did,” she said, suddenly calm. “You sold your loyalty for a wardship.”

Marcus bowed slightly. “You shall be worth it, my lady.”

“It is not decided yet, is it?” she demanded, spinning to John.

He shook his head sadly, but the abbot interrupted. “By your actions,” he proclaimed, “’twill be determined if such a thing is necessary.” Here he sniffed, as if doubting they would see much to convince them otherwise. “To mine own mind, ’tis becoming more and more clear that such governance is indeed required.”

Her ears started ringing, and the world slipped a little into grey. She leaned on John’s arm, trying to still the dizziness and panic flooding through her body.

“Gwyn,” John murmured encouragingly. It came softly through the ringing. “Mayhap you ought stay and speak with Lord Marcus.”

She ran her tongue over dry lips. He would ask questions she could not answer. Questions of where she’d gotten the cloak, of where she’d spent her night. With whom. Every answer revealed would doom Pagan. Every answer denied would seal Everoot’s fate.

“Aye, John. I will stay.”

Marcus smiled.

John left and the abbot glided behind a tapestry leading to another room, leaving them alone. The only sound was the abbot’s robes shurrushing over the flagstone floor in the distance, then silence. Marcus gestured to an elaborate chair by the hotly glowing brazier.

“Gwyn, sit.”

She debated arguing the point, and then admitted it would be pointless, fruitless, and idiotic. She sat down.

“We were all so worried.”

“Do stop, Marcus,” she snapped. “They have all gone, and there’s no one else to fool.”

He laughed. “You’ve a temper that will be the death of you one day.”

“Or
you
,” she quipped sourly.

His laughter slowly faded. He put one hand on the arm of her chair and bent down. “Where did you get the cloak?”

She turned her head to the side, away from him. “What does it matter?”

He braced his other hand on the other side of the chair, so she was sitting between his outstretched arms. He bent at the hip and leaned nearer her face. “Where did you get the cloak?”

“’Tis mine.”

“Not bloody likely,” he whispered very close to her lips.

She swallowed. “Marcus, how is this helpful?”

His lips pressed together so tightly they turned white. His usually aristocratic, aquiline face turned quite red.

“’Tisn’t,” he agreed. His breath skidded by her face, and the acrid, choking scent of wet leather and iron filled her nostrils. “What would be helpful, is for you to answer my questions.”

Gwyn started slipping off the chair, the sweat of her fear was building so thickly.

“I cannot see how my clothes are of any interest to a man,” she said, hiding the tremor in her voice as she retreated to the only style of communication that would work with Marcus: self-assured irreverence. He had no patience for weakness, no respect for fragility, and without one or the other from him this night, she was in dire trouble. “Still,” she went on, affecting idle disinterest, “I can send you my dressmaker to consult, seeing you are so enamoured of her work.”

He leaned back a bit and looked the torn and tattered gown up and down. “If she dresses you like that, I’ve no interest whatsoever.”

Gwyn had a wild vision of Marcus fitzMiles, Lord d’Endshire, one of the most cunning lords of the realm, dressed up in a woman’s tunic and headdress, capering about a maypole. The mad humour of it almost sent her into hysterics. She shoved her tongue inside the range of her teeth and clamped down hard.

“I know the cloak is not yours, Gwyn. That is why it matters.” He ran the side of his finger along the lump inside her cheek where her tongue was pressed. “Humour me.”

She gave a wild laugh. “I cannot imagine how to begin doing that.”

“You do it with every breath, lady.”

The abbot flowed back into the room like a river of muddy water and looked at them askance. Marcus pushed away from the chair and paced to the far wall just as John returned, followed soon after by two servants. One carried a tray of wine and some foodstuffs, the other carried furs for Gwyn.

The abbot propelled Marcus to the desk on the other side of the room and was speaking in low tones, his tonsured head bent over the sheaf of parchment that had fluttered to the floor upon her arrival.

Marcus was looking directly at her.

She sat, huddled in a chair, bundled in furs and sipping warmed wine. Almost an hour had passed, and around her the abbot and John and Marcus were still rehashing the latest news that had gripped the war-torn country.

“Stephen has confirmation that the rumour of fitzEmpress’s spy is true. He fears he may have infiltrated some noble houses during the London council meetings.”

Marcus and the abbot listened to John relay the king’s concerns, Marcus with a yawn, the abbot with a worried frown.

“I had hopes he’d already been killed,” fretted the abbot. “We’ve had no confirmation from anyone on the matter, but we’ve lost no more lords to the Angevin’s cause.”

“Yet,”
concluded Marcus. “’Twould be unwise of them to announce their defection while in London. We shall hear what word comes in a few weeks’ time, when they are safe behind castle walls and the harvest is brought in.”

John shook his head and leaned the heel of his hand against the wall, hitting the hilt of his sword on the stone. It clanged and he caught it with his free hand unconsciously, his pleasant, ruddy face serious. “We can’t simply wait him out, Marcus. Time is on his side. If the spy is here, we must flush him out ere we find Henri fitzEmpress camping on our shores come spring.”

“Winter, I would venture,” Marcus suggested calmly. He sat on a bench with his legs pushed out in front of him. “One or two more nobles to his cause, and Henri will not wait for the marriage bed to dry afore he comes for England. And Pagan Sauvage is a convincing man.”

Gwyn rose out of her seat like she was yanked on wires. “Pagan?”

Every head turned to her. Marcus went still.

His gaze, fixed on the far wall, shifted slowly over. He stared at her a moment, then smiled, a slow, terrible smile. He pushed to his feet.

“Ready your men, Cantebrigge. She came from the south woods.”

He and John were already striding out the door, talking rapidly of horses and pathways.

“No!” Gwyn cried, running after. “No!
You can’t!
”

They paused long enough for Marcus to lean back and run a finger by her cheek, whispering, “I knew it” in her ear. Then he strode away with the abbot quick on his heels. She started forward again, but John put a restraining hand on her arm.

“Gwyn!” He gave her a small, impatient shake. “What is wrong with you? This is the spy we’ve been hunting. Due to him, your king may lose his crown!”

“He saved my life!”

John’s pleasant, kind face screwed up in an expression of disgust. “Do you know who he is, this Pagan of yours?” he demanded furiously.

“N-no.”

He made an impatient move with his hand. “Pagan is Griffyn
Sauvage
, Guinevere,” he fairly hissed. “Christian Sauvage’s
son. Heir to Everoot
.” Her face went cold and white. “Pagan’s father and your father were once friends. The best of friends. They shared everything. Women, wine, wars. They went everywhere together. Everywhere,” he repeated significantly.

Something dim started coalescing in her mind. Something frightening. “The Holy Lands,” she whispered.

John looked at her sharply. “Aye. And Marcus’s father was there too, my lady. The three of them. Do not forget that.”

She felt nauseous. “What?”

“Did your father not tell you anything? Marcus was your father’s page, years back—”

“What?”

“—long before you were born. He was forced on your father by Miles, Marcus’s father. Griffyn Sauvage was supposed to go to your father as squire too, but something happened. I do not know how, or why, or anything of the tangle, but something binds these three families together, something unholy. Sauvage, fitzMiles, and the de l’Amis.”

“Marcus knows Pagan?” she asked weakly.

“Marcus knew his father, and aye, he knows the son. And Marcus has as much reason to hate him as the de l’Amis do.”

Hate,
she thought numbly.
I am supposed to hate him.
“What are you saying?”

“What I am saying, Gwyn, is that if you gainsay Marcus one more time, you are doomed. Everoot will go to him in wardship, and so will you. And then he will take you to wife.”