33. The Withering Years
XXXIII
THE WITHERING YEARS
Four years passed, marked by seasons and the count of bruises that seemed to never fade.
Castel Thornwyck watched from stone and shadow as its master’s cruelty shifted shape. The bishops’ warning had caged his fists in public, but behind closed doors, pain came dressed as a reaper waiting for the death blow. Seren’s voice thinned to reverence, spoken only when survival demanded it.
Even so, the lands still called her favored.
Still, they called her March Mother. She tended the orchard with her daughters, and David helped her keep count of the dead.
The people loved their family but hated the father.
Henry could feel it, too. He’d sneered at Seren.
The wish for her death flamed in his eyes.
The Marcher Lords kneeled for her prayers. Bishops asked for her counsel. Word of her grace spread beyond the rivers. It shackled Henry in ways he could not undo. Her name gave his lordship prestige, but her presence made him a prisoner of his own warped mind.
He circled her like a leashed wolf—unable to maim her fully, unwilling to set her free, yet needing her favored status with the Lord above. All her prayers—answered. And each answered prayer cemented his hate.
Every year, she refined her cunning, but in the privacy of her chamber, a hollow spread behind her ribs.
Henry was gutting her slowly, death by a thousand cuts to her soul.
But whenever she died, she knew at least she had the favor of most of Thornwyck’s host. They would mourn her when she was gone and protect her children, or at least she hoped.
It had to be enough to die with honor when Henry finally snapped.
Her daughters bloomed like spring violets in frost. They tethered her to what remained of hope.
Her love for them kept her hands steady and her spine straight.
Her love for Erik lived in glances, formal words, and greetings.
He said nothing else. She said less. But every chamber that held them both pulsed with what they could never be.
Whispers had grown since the accusations, and Erik had stayed away from her, likely to protect her.
And she never let herself go near him. The kingcups stopped coming, and her heart broke.
Though in the way he positioned his shoulders to her, the brief break in his expressionless glance every time they locked eyes in a formal exchange, spoke the exact words that never left his tongue in the council chamber when she’d stitched him up: he longed for her.
Erik stayed where Henry needed him: at the front of every threat, the edge of every sword, on months-long campaigns—always victories.
But jealousy simmered beneath every command the lord gave.
Erik obeyed without question, colder with each passing season, iron in posture and voice.
Ragnar, now grown strong, became a pawn—groomed as a replacement, as a risk, and a tool.
Henry made sure Erik knew it and Ragnar, too.
He pitted them against each other—who would break first: Father or Son.
Who would cause whom to die with an act of disobedience?
When would Ragnar succeed his father? The boy was a liability yet also a rough asset, not yet refined like Erik.
The leverage Henry would use for Ragnar after Erik’s death was still unknown.
And David—nearing twelve—learned to wear obedience like a cloak and mask. He bowed to his father, but his eyes were numb. He held the truth behind silence. He watched. He remembered. And he waited, just as his mother told him to.
Within him warred two legacies: his father’s demons and his mother’s light.
Seren prayed he would choose the latter.
But the air shifted during the years. The keep could no longer even breathe freely. Its stone seemed to listen now with dread screaming from the mortar—what future atrocities would it witness?
Henry’s patience thinned. His wrath sharpened. His plotting drove him mad. He wanted Seren gone, and Seren was wise enough to know something was coming.
Something with a hunger for blood.
It was a map.
A slow campaign traced in ink across the northern Welsh Marches—rivers and ridges, fortified keeps, and hills where Seren’s kin once roamed free. Her homeland. Her blood.
Deheubarth, the southern Welsh kingdom, had already fallen to the Normans.
Princess Nest ferch Rhys had been taken hostage by King William’s family.
Resistance burned again in the central Marches.
Hereford’s scattered barons, Shrewsbury, and Wellenford were actively engaged.
It was only a matter of time before the fires of rebellion spread north to Mortlande and Chester.
Henry meant to take the northern Marches by force—crush the last Welsh chiefdoms—and earn greater favor from the crown for doing what the other Marcher Lords failed to do.
Erik had seen the markings first.
Red crosses. Circles. The line of march bled toward the chieftains like a scab about to be pried off skin.
Knights were summoned under the guise of training and tournaments.
Messengers arrived at dusk and rode out before dawn.
Letters were sealed in black wax. Tributes were sent south under heavy guard.
The air around Thornwyck had grown thick with apprehension, but the truth had a sound.
And Seren had heard it too, or if she hadn’t, she was clever enough to have figured it out.
So Seren did not comply when Henry stood before her, flushed with wine and the fever of conquest, and demanded her divine blessing on the eve of their departure and before his private court.
Erik stood at the back of the hall, silent, along with Geoffrey and Jovin. Father Osbert sat in his corner, watching and rubbing the beads of his knotted prayer rope.
“I will not bless a conquest that slaughters my kin,” Seren said.
“My people bowed their heads so I might come here and keep them alive. If our daughters were married and their husbands attacked Mortlande, would she pray for her husband’s victory, or would you want her to stand for you, her father? ”
Henry stilled. His goblet tipped. Wine spilled down his hand.
Realization flickered behind his eyes.
Then came the maddening shift that was too frequent in these last few years. His nostrils flared.
“My daughters,” he muttered, as if tasting the words, “are liabilities.”
Erik’s stomach twisted.
Seren stepped forward, her voice urgent, trying to undo the idea she’d placed in his head. Erik knew the feeling all too well.
“My lord husband—”
But the lord’s order cracked like a whip: “To the nursery. Now.”
Steel flashed in the corridor.
Father Osbert stood and glared at Henry, but Henry sneered at the gray-haired man.
The great hall guards snapped to attention, and three of them hurried toward the east wing.
Seren and Tomas shared a glance, a second too long, as Tomas marched toward the nursery with two others.
Henry paced, muttering, then turned when the guards returned empty-handed.
“Your daughters weren’t there,” Tomas said. “Neither were the nurses.”
Erik hoped they had hidden in the secret passage.
Henry wheeled to Seren, his eyes bloodshot and boiling.
“Where are they?” he growled.
“I don’t know,” Seren’s reply came with a forced meekness, only known to Erik.
Henry’s hand shot forward, seizing her jaw.
Erik moved half a step before catching himself. He’d only heard Henry’s wrath through the walls, but he hadn’t seen it since the day Jovin had lied and nearly had them both killed for false infidelity.
Henry squeezed until blood lined her mouth.
“Pray to God for victory, wife,” he gritted.
Seren kept her hands by her sides, fingers twitching but refusing to curl.
Henry shook her hard. “Obey me, Seren.” He spat her name like a plague.
“I will not go against my father,” she muttered through his iron grip.
Henry leaned closer. “I reserve the right to have your head for such disobedience,” he said. “But I think I’ll cut out your tongue so you can’t pray ever again. I’ll leave your ears so you may hear the screams of your people as we slaughter them—and your eyes so you may watch them burn.”
The dagger cleared its sheath. Its edge gleamed in the lowlight.
Erik stepped forward so fast the guards flinched for their hilts, but none drew their weapons. Seeing Seren beaten was one thing; witnessing torture was another. His voice cut through the air.
“My lord.”
Henry froze mid-motion. His blade hovered just below Seren’s chin.
It was always the dagger when he was angry.
Henry had spoken often of his mother’s gruesome end, that which his father had made him witness.
No man came back from that unscathed. Maybe that was why he wanted Seren to be unfaithful—wanted her to be a traitor or a liar.
To ensure he wouldn’t be his father’s fool.
“If the Welsh Marches are not won,” Erik said, unwavering control, “their warriors will blame you for the murder of Chief Madoc’s only daughter.
We saw the swords laid at her feet when she boarded the transport to Thornwyck when she first became your bride.
They pledged themselves and their sons to her life, not yours.
Kill her, and Mortlande bleeds for generations. ”
Henry pointed the blade at Erik, but Geoffrey stepped forward.
“Your Commander speaks the truth. I was there and saw the swords at her feet. She is the reason the peace still holds with the Marches.”
Henry’s face contorted with rage. Shame flickered just beneath the surface.
Jovin added, “I was there as well. It is as the pagan described. If we attack the chiefdoms of the Welsh Marches, I would humbly suggest leaving her unharmed until victory is yours.”