Tor and Thomas monitored the situation, watching Ronan battle against a man who had excellent skills. Ronan may have been young, but he was a de Wolfe, and that meant his talent was limitless. He was quite skilled with a blade. Just when it seemed that Ronan might gain the upper hand, something unexpected happened.
Tor saw it first but there was nothing he could do to prevent it. He could see his youngest half-brother, Alexander, back in the shadows because he had come in through the rear entry. He hadn’t engaged in the battle so far, but mostly lingered on the fringe to make sure no one else was going to try to jump in and injure any of his relatives.
But Alexander unexpectedly moved.
Before Tor could stop him, Alexander came up behind Steffan. The de Royans knight caught the movement out of the corners of his eyes and turned into panic with his sword leveled. Alexander had his sword lifted and it was enough to prevent him from being killed, but not enough to prevent part of Steffan’s blade from cutting into his chest.
That brought Tor on the run.
Steffan de Featherstone never had a chance with Tor bearing down on him. Tor’s sword came up and over, completely overwhelming Steffan as a man tried to defend himself from the attack. Thomas started shouting, begging Tor to back away, but it all happened so fast. Tor wasn’t listening to him and the price of Steffan cutting into Alexander was Steffan’s very life.
Big brother Tor wasn’t going to let the man injure his younger half-sibling without consequence. He struck hard and struck fast, as he was the de Wolfe with the hardest strike of all. Before anyone had realized what had happened, Steffan lay on the hard-packed earth of the common room, bleeding out all over the dirt.
Tor had nearly sliced his head off.
“Christ,” Thomas hissed as he rushed forward, crouching over Steffan to see the damage. Already, he could see that it was hopeless. “Damnation!”
But Tor wasn’t listening, nor did he care. He was bent over Alexander, peeling back layers of tunic and mail to see how badly the young man was hurt. It was a nasty slice that had cut Alexander from his neck, across his collarbone, down his chest and across his right forearm.
It was a bad wound.
No one other than Alec and Thomas seemed to be paying any attention to the dead knight on the floor. Everyone was crowding around Alexander, wanting to help, wanting to see how badly he was injured. Tor sent a panicked Jeremy for hot water, wine, and boiled linen, and the young man ran off into the kitchens screaming for the items. Nathaniel, the usually hot-headed middle brother, was surprisingly calm as he helped Tor.
“You were very brave, Alex,” Nathaniel assured him, hand on his brother’s head. “It is not a bad wound. Simply bloody.”
Alexander was pale and shaking as blood from his wound stained his de Wolfe tunic and began to splatter on the floor.
“It is not bad?” he asked, wanting to be reassured.
“Nay,” Ronan said steadily, bending over him, seeing for himself that it was a fairly serious wound. But he lied about it. “It is not bad. You will heal quickly.”
Alexander’s trembling was growing worse. “He was trying to kill you, Ronan,” he said to the man he’d virtually grown up with. “I could not let him do that.”
It was a sweet and honorable intention, but the older knights knew that it had been a dangerous one that had cost him. In truth, it had been the decision of an inexperienced warrior. But now wasn’t the time to scold him.
“You are very noble,” Tor said steadily, grabbing a wad of boiled linen from Jeremy, who had swiftly returned. He began packing it against open chest wound. “I will stitch you up myself. You will heal quickly.”
Alexander was in pain but trying to be brave about it. “This is my first real injury,” he said. “It happened so… quickly.”
Tor was trying not to think about the events that Alexander’s youthful mistake had put in motion that had resulted in not only a dead groom, but a dead de Royans knight. Now that he realized that Alexander was going to live, he pulled Ronan forward and told him to put pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding. Leaving Ronan and Nathaniel and Jeremy to tend Alexander, he stood up and faced the results of his actions.
Steffan was dead a few feet away. Thomas, Alec, Nat and Artus were standing there, looking down at him, muttering softly. Taking a deep breath, Tor went over to them.
“Whatever you may think of my actions, know that I do not regret my choice,” he said. “De Featherstone was going to kill Alexander. I was not going to let that happen.”
Thomas sighed heavily. “You know that Alexander acted stupidly.”
“Of course I do. Was I supposed to simply stand there and let de Featherstone gore him?”
Thomas shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “You did what you had to do. But now we have a big problem.”
That was an understatement. Not only had Isabella’s groom been killed, but there was possibly great damage to the alliance with the House of de Royans because of it. But Tor didn’t regret anything.
“I am not going to pretend that de Featherstone was innocent in all of this,” he said, his usually cool demeanor hardening. “The man compromised Isabella and then ran out on her. When confronted, he made the choice to fight. What did he think was going to happen? What did any of you think was going to happen? He chose the sword and he died by it, so I have no remorse for what has happened. He got what he deserved as far as I am concerned. But the only concession I will make is that Alexander behaved stupidly. That still does not mean I would allow him to be killed because of it. I am willing to go to de Royans and explain my part in all of this if that is what you are afraid of.”
Thomas shook his head, putting his hand on Tor’s shoulder. “Nay,” he said. “I will go. It will be better coming from me because I can try to mend whatever damage this has caused. But you… you take your foolish half-brothers back to Castle Questing and tell my brother that his son has created a hell of a mess.”
“De Featherstone created the mess, Uncle Thomas. That was where this all started.”
Thomas cast him an annoyed look. “I am not going to debate this with you,” he said. “I know where this started but the situation is delicate. Get your half-brothers home and tell Scott what has happened.”
“I’ll do it,” Alec said grimly. “Isabella is my niece, after all. I must speak to Scott about the situation, anyway. I will take Ronan and the de Wolfe brothers home to Castle Questing. Tor, you and Nat can return the body to de Featherstone’s father. You can tell the father what happened to his dishonorable son.”
Since the House of de Featherstone wasn’t far from Tor’s fortress of Blackpool, it made sense that Tor should deliver the bad news. Without an argument to that, Tor simply nodded.
As Thomas went to find the de Vesci knights and use them as his muscle when he sent the de Royans knights away without telling them what had become of Steffan, Tor went in search of something to wrap up de Featherstone’s body with, but the care he took with it wasn’t cautious or kind.
The man didn’t deserve it as far as he was concerned.
The best thing Tor could find was a big, dirty horse blanket from the livery behind the tavern and between him and Nat, they managed to wrap up de Featherstone tightly and haul him back out to the livery, storing him in one of the stalls as Tor returned to Alexander to stitch up his considerable wound.