Chapter 1 #2
He could hear others approaching. Shouts, gasps. It was all a ringing rush; he couldn’t hear them over the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears.
It was a messy, chaotic fight. Ash hadn’t had a fight like this in years, not since—
There was mud beneath his feet. Grey fog blinding him. There was shouting; shouting and wailing and the visceral, awful sound of death. Steel. Horses. He was surrounded.
He slipped. A shout from far away – Ash! Behind you!
Another fist collided with his face. He tasted blood. He could smell smoke, hear yelling – no, screaming. His neck and jaw suddenly burned in sharp, bright pain, his face hot and slick, his mouth full of blood.
He lashed out again, hands scrabbling desperately at his attacker. He needed to get out, needed to fight, needed to win—
‘Ash!’
There really was mud beneath his feet. Through the haze, he looked down and saw the fresh earth of the grave staining his boots. The garland was trampled beneath his foot.
And then there were hands gripping his shoulders and he was being pulled backwards.
‘Ash, breathe.’
He couldn’t. His lungs had been torn out.
He collapsed to the ground, barely missing the grave.
A body sagged beside him – and for a shining, brilliant moment, he had done it.
He twisted himself around, pulling him into his arms, burying himself in that messy, straw-coloured hair and the smell of home.
‘Ash?’
He took a great, shuddering breath. And pulled back.
Blond hair turned dark. A sun-reddened face turned pale and freckled. Worried eyes stared at him, not the laughing ones he knew.
Of course. Of course. Raff’s anxious face emerged, his hands gripping Ash’s shoulders.
The fog lifted. Across the grave, Simon was also being restrained, blood seeping from his nose and bubbling over his mouth.
‘You bastard,’ he snarled, spit and blood foaming at his lips.
Hugh hauled Simon to his feet. His expression was worryingly calm.
‘Now, Simon,’ he said, helping Simon steady himself. ‘Remember, your cousin is not in his right mind.’
Ash raised a single shaking hand to his face.
He did not find the deluge of blood he expected as his fingers brushed against his jaw and chin and lips.
The open wound he sought was no more than furrowed, tight skin – poorly healed and long-since scarred.
Confusion mingled with the panic still swirling in his chest.
He managed to grab Raff’s wrist. ‘Raff?’
Raff looked pale and scared. ‘Let’s get you inside.’
Ash leaned against the wall of the buttery, a spent jug of wine dangling uselessly from one hand.
He had gone to fetch it; the one on their table had run dry.
He had seen it off in the darkness before he had even realised that he was drinking it.
The others could cope without him – and the damn wine – for a few more moments.
Spare him their judgemental gazes, and allow them the chance to gossip about the mad earl without him present.
He could hear the wake. People talking, musicians playing. It was like trying to eavesdrop on a dream. Every so often there’d be a voice, a crash, the sound of a dog, and he’d jump. But then it would pass.
When Ash closed his eyes, he could still see him. His terrified face, his wild blond hair, his pleading blue eyes. He could hear the shouting, feel the cut of the knife.
He wondered for how much longer he would be plagued with these episodes. Respite was brief, and their return was always vicious and fast, leaving him unsure what was real and what was not. They tormented him, both awake and asleep.
His life felt like a long path, carved into the earth. There was ruin behind him, and fog ahead of him. Soon, the road would run out.
Ash took another breath. The horrible memory of the battle faded, leaving a new one in its stead: the scene he had made at the graveside.
He had crushed the flowers beneath his boot. They had chosen them specially, plucked from their mother’s garden. And he had ruined them.
Beneath his undershirt, the golden ring he wore around his neck burned against his skin, the cord about his throat heavy as a noose. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, watching the swirl of shapes and colours in the dark. He could hear the thud of his own heartbeat in his ears.
If only it would stop.
Would anyone notice if he left? If he crept out through the servants’ quarters and escaped into the dark?
If he let the slope of the hill from which his father’s keep was carved beckon him down, down into the valley below, to the bank of the fast-moving river?
It would be black, now, the water like tar under the moonless sky.
He would open his mouth. Breathe the cold water in, let it fill him. Watch the bubbles pour and flutter and pop. Let it all out. Stop that ceaseless noise at last.
And then it would all be gone. All that pain.
Worse than the pain – the well of emptiness that came alongside it.
There was no fear to the thought. There never was, not anymore.
Just relief. The release of a long-held tension.
A hope, ephemeral and uncertain: perhaps he would see him again, wherever their shared sins had left him.
Something cold and wet urgently nudged against his palm.
He opened his eyes. Litillwitte, the enormous, shaggy deerhound, was staring up at him.
Ash looked around to see Raff closing the door behind him. Ash hadn’t even heard it open. He sighed. The sense of relief burrowed itself away once more.
The dog was one of several things he had inherited from his father. Raff must have fetched him from the kennels – a kindness, unearned. Lord Griffin always had a passion for hounds, and for as long as Ash could remember he had brought them into the keep to train.
Litillwitte had been the last such undertaking before his death.
After he found him wandering in Skeldale as a pup, Lord Griffin had brought the beast home.
He’d intended to train him as a hunting dog, but while Litillwitte did prove to be a reasonably adept hunter, it was clear he much preferred to remain indoors, resting by the fire or hidden beneath a table at his master’s feet.
And then Lord Griffin had died, suddenly and horribly.
That day, Litillwitte had been like a ghost. He’d lingered in Griffin’s chambers – never moving too much, never getting underfoot – simply watching the comings and goings of the physician and chamberlain and family.
That first night, he’d howled until the sun rose.
The next morning, Ash had found him waiting patiently outside the door to his own chambers as if summoned there. Unsure what else to do, Ash had let him in, and the animal had plodded inside and sprawled next to the fire, legs all at angles.
Somehow Ash hadn’t had the heart to force the beast to leave. He allowed him to come and go as he pleased and accepted his presence beside him as a second shadow when Ash wandered the grounds or walked around the keep.
He was not a particularly keen or useful dog, with all the manners and appearance of a well-used sheepskin rug. But as Ash stroked his head, tickling behind his ears, he felt his heart calming, his mood shifting so he could better see past the panic.
Finally, he turned to speak to his brother.
‘What do you want?’
‘I came to find you,’ Raff said. ‘People are asking after you. You ought to return.’
Raff had been kind to him earlier. Ash should have known his tolerance would not last.
‘And if I do not want to return?’ he spat. ‘You may leave.’
‘No.’
‘You refuse?’
‘I do.’
‘I am the earl.’ Ash’s tongue was heavy around the word. He forced himself on. ‘I could have you removed.’
He could feel Raff staring at him.
‘Do it, then,’ he said at last. ‘Remove me.’
They both knew he wouldn’t. When Ash fell into silence, Raff walked over and settled against the wall beside him.
‘So,’ he said. ‘What in God’s name possessed you to punch Simon?’
Ash examined his bruised knuckles. ‘He deserved it.’
Raff sighed. ‘I’m sure he did,’ he said, ‘but Ash, at Father’s funeral? Why? You need a better reason than—’
‘He insulted Lily.’
Raff went quiet. ‘What?’
‘They were talking about us. All of us. Then they started on Lily, how she is unwed, how wild she is.’
‘Both true, you must admit.’
‘He – Simon – he was saying that someone ought to put her in her place. By force.’
‘By force?’
‘He was saying she needs a man to … to force her, Raff. That she ought to be taken by some brute of a man and forced to wed and forced to be a wife.’
Raff had gone very still.
‘It was horrible,’ Ash continued. ‘I do not care if Hugh claims I am a madman, but to talk about Lily like that … I could not stop myself.’
Raff shook his head. There was nothing more to say. Ash had failed to enact justice, merely given his uncle more ammunition against him.
‘We are awaiting your return,’ Raff said gently. ‘Come, you cannot remain here forever.’
Ash rather thought he could. But aware that Raff would not take no for an answer, he followed him back into the hall. As he entered, people gawked at him. Did the chattering stop as he walked in, or had he merely imagined it?
The rest of the afternoon passed in a haze of grief and wine. People called him Earl Barden. Sometimes he remembered to respond to the title. He was asked again and again about his hunt for a wife. His answers got shorter, his grip on his mug tighter.
It felt like an age before he was alone again, sat at the long table upon the dais with the remainder of his family.
The great hall buzzed not with the sound of guests, but with the staff clearing away the remnants of the feast, piles of food to be given away to the poor.
His head was numb, a veil between him and everyone else.
Raff sat beside him. Penn sat on his other side, holding him up.
‘Thank God that is over,’ Penn said.