Chapter One
Rossington House
Five weeks later
“Sean wants to see you, Kevin.”
“Is he dying?”
Caius shook his head. “Not today,” he said. “The poison in his groin is much better. Gilby says that he might very well make it. It is not a death watch, in any case, but he has been asking to see you for weeks. Where have you been?”
Kevin eyed him. “It is enough that I am here,” he said evasively. “My brother is doing better?”
“He is. Are you going to tell me where you’ve been?”
Kevin wasn’t. He eyed Caius for a moment before pushing past the man, heading into the bowels of Rossington House where his brother was still recovering from what they had all considered to be mortal wounds.
But still, Sean lingered.
Kevin braced himself.
Sean was still in the chamber they’d first brought him to those weeks ago.
They hadn’t moved him even though it was a tiny servant’s chamber and could hardly hold more than a few men at a time.
But it was on the ground level, with a nice window that overlooked the garden and the kitchen yard beyond.
Kevin entered the low-ceilinged chamber to see that his brother’s bed had been pushed up against the wall because, when propped up, he could see outside.
The window was even open a little, letting the sweet scent of spring enter.
It also let in the stench of the rest of the yard in and Kevin caught a whiff of the stables as he approached the bed.
Sean was elevated on pillows, his eyes closed as he lay slightly on his right side.
A male servant was there, cleaning out the piss pot, leading Kevin to believe that his brother might not be asleep because he had just used it.
As the servant left, Kevin shut the door quietly behind him, shutting out Caius as well, who had followed him.
But what he had to say to Sean wasn’t for Caius’ ears.
“Sean?” he said softly.
Sean’s eyes immediately popped open, looking around the chamber until they came to rest on Kevin, standing near the door. He smiled weakly.
“Kevin,” he said hoarsely. “I was wondering if you would ever come. Where have you been? No one could seem to find you.”
Kevin sighed heavily as he made his way towards the bed. There was a three-legged stool against the wall and he pulled it forward, planting himself on it as he sat next to his brother’s sickbed.
“I had things to attend to,” he said, avoiding the question. “But I am here now. Do you have need of me?”
Sean may have been ill, but his mental faculties were intact. He was well aware that his brother was being evasive.
“Tell me where you have been, Kevin,” he said, more lucid this time. “I’ve not seen you since the day after I was brought here. What is amiss with you, little brother?”
Kevin knew he couldn’t avoid giving him an answer much longer. Besides… he would know soon enough. He scratched his ear, a pensive gesture as he figured out how to couch what he was about to tell his brother.
But there was no easy way.
“I have asked The Marshal to release me from my service as an Executioner Knight,” he finally said. “Then I went to Trelystan Castle. I have only just returned.”
Sean’s gaze lingered on him for a moment. “I see,” he said. “And did The Marshal release you?”
Kevin shook his head. “He told me not to be hasty and to think on it,” he said. “He told me to go to Trelystan and then we would speak more on the subject when I returned.”
Sean shifted slightly in his bed, his gaze never leaving his brother. “Why did you resign?”
Kevin’s jaw ticked. “Because I wanted to.”
“Tell me all of it, Kevin. Please.”
Kevin drew in a sharp breath, trying to keep control of his emotions. “Because I no longer want to be part of the Executioner Knights, Sean. Must you know more than that?”
“I must. Will you make me beg you to tell me everything? What has happened that you would leave us?”
Kevin averted his gaze, looking to his feet. Those big, dirty boots that had seen so much action, so much strife and difficulties.
“Many things,” he muttered after a moment. “But the most important thing is that I do not have the mentality it takes to continue, I suppose.”
“What do you mean?”
Kevin lifted his big shoulders, growing restless and irritated as his brother pressed him.
“I mean everything and I mean nothing,” he snapped softly.
“All of the Executioner Knights are the greatest knights I have ever known, and my respect for them is endless, but all of you can carry out a distasteful order so easily and I cannot, not with great ease. While I am stewing over the situation and trying to rationalize the immorality of it, the rest of you do not. You can lie to your fellow man if it is in the course of your mission, or you can slay a priest if you are told to do so, and there are no questions in your mind about it. There is more to this, of course, but I… I have been thinking a good deal about the mentality of an Executioner Knight and I do not think I can continue on.”
Sean’s gaze drifted over him thoughtfully. “Because we do not question what needs to be done?”
“Because you do it without question. Or conscience.”
Sean had always known of Kevin’s struggles where it pertained to some of the darker deeds the Executioner Knights had carried out, but his sense of duty and support for his fellow knights had always been stronger than his hesitation.
But now… now, it had come to a breaking point.
Sean was saddened.
“You have been part of us for several years,” he said after a moment. “You have been an important part.”
Kevin shook his head. “No one is important,” he said.
“Don’t you realize that you have been treated like an expendable commodity, Sean?
The very fact that you are in this bed proves it.
The Marshal is the puppet master and we are the puppets, and watching you nearly bleed to death at the Tower made me realize just how expendable we are in the grand scheme of things. No one is important, Sean.”
“And you no longer wish to be a puppet, as you called it?” Sean asked quietly. “Kevin, we are all puppets. Even The Marshal is a puppet.”
“That is not true.”
“It is. There is no man in England who is not controlled by someone else.”
Frustrated, Kevin stood up, kicking the stool out of the way.
He was becoming agitated. “Look what happened to you,” he said, pointing to his brother.
“Look at you; the strongest man I know has nearly been laid to waste – and for what? A king who is still alive and still as wicked as ever. He’s still hated, and he is still dividing this country. Was your sacrifice worth it?”
Sean’s steady gaze never left him. “I think so.”
“How can you say that? You nearly died.”
“That was always the risk, Kevin. But while I was the Lord of the Shadows, I did a great deal of good for The Marshal’s cause.”
That wasn’t the answer that Kevin wanted to hear, nor did he believe it. Struggling to calm himself, he sat on the end of his brother’s bed.
“I understand you sacrificed yourself for the greater good,” he said. “But, as I have told you before, I just wish it had been someone else.”
“But it wasn’t someone else. It was me.”
Kevin held up a hand. “Please let me finish,” he said.
“I have always been one of many knights in The Marshal’s arsenal.
There is nothing spectacular about me, not like you and Caius and Maxton and Kress and the rest of them.
You are all older than I am and have more experience than I do.
You have all had your commands and your moment to shine, but I never really have.
You asked where I have been? I have been on a long ride to the Marches to see to Trelystan and the other de Lara castles.
They sit alone and waiting for you to return to them. ”
Sean nodded faintly, some of the warmth gone out of his expression as he thought on the de Lara hereditary properties.
“I know,” he said. “They have sat alone for some time.”
“Alone, but not inactive,” Kevin said. “They are well-manned with de Lara men who are loyal to you. They simply wait for your return or my return. In truth, I wasn’t sure you were going to survive so I told them that either you or I would return at some point soon.”
“And Stonegrave Castle? Were you able to go there?”
He was speaking of another, older de Lara property that a relative had inherited long ago, a property that had once belonged to the ancient kings of Deira.
It came with a title, Viscount Darlington, that belonged to Sean as well, but neither the title nor the castle was spoken of much since the more widely known title associated with the House of de Lara was Lord of the Trilaterals, a major Marcher lordship.
But Kevin shook his head to the question.
“It has been a long time since I have been to Stonegrave,” he said. “It still has a small contingent of men because I have seen the annual payments to them, but I have not been that far to the north in some time. I think I saw Stonegrave about the last time I saw our sister.”
Sean nodded faintly, shifting in bed yet again because it was difficult to find a comfortable position.
“Me, also,” he said. “I think I was with you on that trip. I’ve not thought of dear Bridget in some time.
She was eleven years of age when I was born and fostering in the north.
She never really knew you or me, and we never really knew her.
Sometimes I forget I even have a sister, though I should not.
I would like to see her again, someday.”
Kevin shrugged. “She married one of the Umfravilles and has lived her own life, far away from us,” he said. “But you and I… our lives are closely intertwined and ever will be.”
Sean looked at him, then. “That is true,” he said. “And that brings me to the reason I wanted to see you.”
“I am listening.”