“I do, indeed.”
“I was very young,” Kevin said. “I was nearly four years of age, I think. You were six. I was old enough to know better, however, and I greedily ate the apple slices. You saw what I’d done and you took the stick from me just as Father caught sight of you. He punished you for that and you never told him that I was the one who stole them. Why didn’t you tell him?”
Sean returned to his ropes with slower actions now. “Because you were my little brother,” he said simply. “It was my duty to protect you.”
Kevin spoke softly. “You are still protecting me. Only now, you are protecting all of England, too. You are still the big brother, taking the blame for things that are not of your doing.”
Sean didn’t look at him, but he was no longer fumbling with the ropes. He was simply fingering them. “What would you have me say, Kevin?”
Kevin could feel the tears stinging his eyes. He didn’t know why, but he was close to crying. Perhaps because there was a history of Sean being a martyr for the greater good and he could see that now. He’d put it into a context he could understand and, suddenly, he didn’t hate Sean so much anymore. He was starting to understand all of it. He opened his mouth to speak but a sob caught in his throat.
“I hate that you have to take the blame for a man who is not worthy of you,” he said, his lip trembling. “I hate that the man I love and admire most in this world is reviled and hated. Mayhap I do not show you the respect you deserve on the surface, but inside, I love you like I have always loved you. I just hate that you have done this to yourself, Sean. I… I am trying to come to grips with it and I will continue to try. I promise I will. But I do not hate you. I just thought you should know.”
Even in the darkness, Kevin could see the tears glistening on Sean’s cheeks and he turned way, but not before releasing another sob. He simply couldn’t help it. Emotions he’d kept bottled up for years were coming to the surface whether or not he wanted them to. Here, of all places. But he quickly wiped his face and took a deep breath, struggling to compose himself as he headed over to his horse.
He’d said what he needed to say.
It was the right thing to do.
As the sky began to cloud overhead, the agents of William Marshal departed the small bailey of Fairstead and headed out into the night, taking the road back to Dereham.
Kevin rode with Sean all the way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It hadn’t been much of a fight.
In fact, Christopher’s army saw about an hour of serious fighting before the royal soldiers began to surrender in droves. Perhaps that was because they’d lost about one-third of their numbers in that hour, or perhaps it was because they’d grown lazy and simply didn’t want to fight anymore.
Whatever the reason, Christopher had sixty-one prisoners surrender to him by midday and by nightfall, he decided to send them all back to John with their weapons stripped and their tunics torn up and vandalized. Come the next morning, he planned to do exactly that.
While his men guarded the prisoners in a field south of town, Christopher and David and Peter had supped heartily and slept in The Cock and Bull, a tavern that they found to be a step above most. The food was excellent, the beds soft, and Christopher was awakened before dawn the next morning by Peter, shaking him gently.
“Papa?” Peter whispered loudly. “Papa, wake up.”
Christopher had been sleeping heavily, enjoying his first real sleep in days. “I am awake,” he muttered. “But you had better have a good reason for disturbing me.”
“I do,” Peter said. “Christin has returned!”
Christopher sat up so quickly that he nearly hit his son in the chin. “Where is she?” he demanded.
Peter was pulling him out of bed. “She just rode into the livery,” he said. “Sherry and Maxton and Sean and the others are with her. They brought her back!”
Christopher was in his breeches and a thin tunic and nothing else. He yanked on his boots, tying them haphazardly as he rushed out of the chamber after his son. He was just passing David’s door when he kicked it open, revealing David passed out on his small bed.
“David!” he hissed. “Get up! Christin has returned!”
David struggled to rouse himself, rolling out of bed and ending up on the floor as Peter and Christopher continued down the stairs into the common room of the inn. As David scrambled up and grabbed his boots, Peter and Christopher were already out the door, rushing over to the livery just as Christin and Alexander and the rest were dismounting their thoroughly exhausted horses.
The first thing Christopher saw was the headless body on the back of Sean’s sweaty horse. He came to a halt, peering at it and suspecting who it was before he was even told. Sean, seeing where Christopher’s attention was, made his way over to him.
“It’s FitzRoy,” he said as he wearily removed his helm. “Christin and Sherry made short work of him.”
“Sherry killed him because he was trying to kill me,” Christin said as she came out from between a couple of horses. She went straight to her father and they embraced tightly. “Sherry saved my life, Papa.”
Christopher was holding her so tightly that he was certain that he was squeezing the life out of her, but she clung to him tightly as well. The joy of having her back in his arms, safe, was almost more than he could bear.
“Are you well, sweetheart?” he asked. “He did not hurt you, did he?”
Christin shook her head, releasing her father but realizing he had no intention of releasing her also. She had to pry his hands from her.
“I am fine,” she assured him. “Did you hear me? Sherry killed him.”
Christopher took a deep breath, struggling to compose himself because he was so damned relieved to see her. “I heard you,” he said. “Tell me what happened from the beginning.”
“We reached Fairstead Manor, which is FitzRoy’s home,” Alexander answered him. He was standing a few feet away, back behind the butt of a horse, and all attention turned to him as he spoke. “When we arrived, FitzRoy came to speak with us and Sean told him that his father wished for him to marry Christin, but there was an immediate complication with that because FitzRoy was already married.”
Christopher’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “He was?” he said. “And John did not know this?”
Alexander shook his head. “He did not,” he said. “FitzRoy ranted about how his father never cared for him, so he’d evidently married without permission.”
That changed the entire dynamic of the situation and the impact wasn’t lost on Christopher. In truth, he was stunned.
“Christ,” Christopher hissed. “So FitzRoy was already married. But what happened that you had to kill him?”
“Because he considered Christin a gift and wanted to take her as his whore,” Alexander said. “She fought against him valiantly. But in the end, I stepped in to end it. I was not going to stand by and watch her fight for her life.”
“And that is how he ended up headless?”
“Aye, my lord.”
“Where is his head?”
“Here,” Kress said, lifting up a bloody tunic he’d wrapped around the skull. “He is in pieces, my lord.”