Epilogue #2
“Happy?” he said after a moment, his voice tight.
“There has not yet been a word invented that conveys how I feel, Katia. It’s joy and love, all melding together.
It’s a feeling of something eternal and bright.
When I look at you, there aren’t any words big enough or deep enough.
I told you once that you were the easiest decision I have ever made.
And loving you… it has been the easiest thing I have ever done. ”
Katiana smiled up at him, her hands on his cheeks as he bent over to kiss her, a lingering kiss of the joy and love he spoke of.
Of something eternal and bright. As Titus put his arm around her shoulders and led her inside Castle Questing, along with his mother and sister, his uncles followed, but Scott held Patrick back.
They waited until everyone went back inside before Scott turned to Patrick.
“You asked me something when you first arrived, and I’ve not had the chance to answer you because Titus came shortly after you did,” he said. “I know he doesn’t want to know anything, but you do. I can show you if you wish.”
Patrick glanced over toward the entry door before nodding to his brother. “Quickly,” he said. “I never asked what you did with them.”
“Let me show you.”
“Let’s be swift about it.”
They headed off to the gatehouse, a massive thing that also contained the vault in the sub-levels. It was a bright winter’s day, but the cold wind was whistling off the moors, blustery. It blew against them as they reached the gatehouse and headed down into the vault below.
The narrow stairwell was lit by torches every few feet.
The stone was slick and icy, and they moved slowly so they wouldn’t slip.
Down at the bottom was a locked door. Scott used a key that was hanging nearby to open it, revealing four cells beyond.
There were torches lit in this chamber, too, but it was dark and freezing, smelling of hay and urine and mold.
It was everything a collection of prison cells should be.
Taking the torch off the wall next to the door, Scott held it up so Patrick could see the content of the cells. Two of them were occupied, but he couldn’t see the occupants of one cell. Only the other, which happened to be a man he recognized.
A man missing several teeth and one eye.
Ansel de Edington gazed back at them with a baleful expression.
“Well?” Ansel said. “So the mighty Lord Berwick has come to see the sights? Am I everything you had hoped for, my lord?”
Patrick could hear the arrogance, the disdain in the man’s voice.
Ansel limped over to the cell grate, leaning against it because when he’d received the terrible beating those months ago, his left arm and left leg had been broken and they hadn’t healed correctly.
He could hardly use his arm, and his leg was twisted.
But he’d lost none of that fearsome and misplaced pride.
“What about me?”
The figure in the cell next to him suddenly came to life, leaning against the grate. Patrick found himself looking at Zora, dressed in woolens, wrapped up like an old woman. She tried to shake the iron grate.
“What about me, my lord?” she demanded. “When do I go home?”
Patrick lifted an eyebrow. “Your father says you are to remain here until I decide otherwise,” he said. “You and your friend can sit here and think about what you did and decide if it was worth spending the rest of your lives in this vault.”
Zora didn’t like that answer. “I’ve done nothing wrong!” she declared. “I was forced into it by Ansel. He coerced me!”
Patrick didn’t believe her for a moment. He could still see that troublemaker who had fostered at Berwick those years ago, the lass who had forced his patient wife to send her away simply for the good of all. Zora would never change, and this time, her distressing ways would cost her.
His focus turned to Ansel.
“As for you, I’ll answer your question,” he said. “Are you everything I hoped for? You are exactly where you belong, and for that, I am satisfied. For the murder of your sickly father and the abduction of your sister, you will pay the price. Aye, I hoped for that.”
As Ansel thought of something insulting to say, Zora growled and beat on her bars. “It’s not fair!” she shouted. “He’s far more evil that I am! I do not belong here at all!”
“Shut up, you stupid cow,” Ansel rumbled. “We all know that your greed for Titus brought you here.”
“And your hatred for your sister caused all of this!”
“Shut your lips.”
“I’ll say what I like!”
Patrick listened to the two of them bicker.
That was enough for him. After a moment, he silently turned for the exit.
Scott followed him, depositing the torch back into the old iron sconce, listening to Zora plead and threaten and growl as he shut the door and locked it.
He didn’t hang the key up again, but rather brought it with him, following Patrick up the stairs to the door that led outside.
He told the sergeant on guard that if anyone wanted to get into the cells, including for feeding the prisoners, that they would have to come to him first for the key.
He wasn’t taking any chances that it might somehow end up in the wrong hands.
And with that, Scott and Patrick headed back toward the keep.
“Well?” Scott finally said. “What do you want me to do with them?”
Patrick pondered the question. “I think keeping them there, the way they are, is adequate,” he said.
“Now, the two of them can fight and argue for as long as we decide to keep them there, and longer still. I’ll bury them side by side outside of the churchyard so they can spend eternity together, miserable in each other’s company.
I think that is a fitting end for that pair. ”
Scott smiled, shaking his head at the thought. “They deserve one another,” he said. “Like two cats in a bag, they can kill each other for all I care. But they’re never coming out of there alive, Atty. I promise you that.”
Patrick nodded, more than satisfied. As they approached the keep, the entry door opened up and Titus was there, shouting something about a harpsichord that Scott’s wife had bought as a gift for Katiana so she could play for the baby.
Both Patrick and Scott watched Titus, the unbridled joy in his movements, and knew they’d made the right decision where it pertained to Titus and Katiana’s enemies.
The de Wolfe pack protected their own.
For Titus and Katiana, the threats had been removed and the joy of their new life was on the horizon. There was no beginning or end in their world, only love.
And that’s all there would ever be.
You are the easiest decision I have ever made, Titus had once said.
He meant it.
* THE END *