37. The Lord’s Return
XXXVII
THE LORD’S RETURN
The gates of Thornwyck groaned open under a bruised dawn. The drawbridge dropped.
Seren stood on the roof-walk with Godric, David, and Ragnar, her fur mantle tight around her shoulders as Henry’s broken host dragged itself through the bailey. The horses stumbled while injured men limped. Their banners hung in tatters.
Retreat.
But Henry’s face—ashen, hollowed with humiliation—was the worst omen. He looked like a man who needed someone to bleed for his failure.
Seren drew in a deep breath and knew the day had come; she was to die.
She scanned the knights beside Henry; she didn’t see Erik’s familiar build. A weight dropped in her stomach.
“Inside,” Seren murmured, guiding David, Ragnar, and Godric back from the wall. “Quickly.”
Inside the keep, panic rippled through the corridors. Servants hushed children. The great hall filled with frightened whispers.
Seren gripped Ragnar’s arm.
“Take your sisters,” she said, keeping her voice steady. “And Baldwin—take them to the vault by the storeroom. Bolt the door. Do not open it unless Godric, David, or I come ourselves. There is enough for you to live for a year.”
Baldwin’s brow furrowed.
“Go,” she urged. “If Henry means to kill me, he will not spare them.”
Her daughters ran to her. Seren gathered them close, kissing each forehead as if committing their faces to memory.
“Be brave,” she whispered. “The Lord sees you.”
“Mother,” Ragnar said. He winced. “I love you.”
She cupped his cheek. “You wear my star, my son, just like your brother and your sisters.”
No more words were needed. There was no more time.
Ragnar led them away, Baldwin following.
David watched them before he took his place beside his mother.
Seren turned to the household staff and the keep’s guards. “Let Lord Henry do as he pleases,” she said. “Do not oppose him. Disobedience will fall on David.”
Heads bowed. They understood too well.
“No tears,” she whispered at the misting in their eyes.
She lifted her chin, inhaled once, and walked toward her seat, and David stood beside her. She locked eyes with Father Osbert, who sat in his usual seat, frantically rubbing his knotted prayer rope, prayers silent on his lips.
They waited, listening to the rumble on the floor beneath them. Boots thundered from the stairwell.
“Be strong,” Seren whispered to David, and tried to settle her racing heart.
Henry stormed in, mud streaking up to his knees, armor dented and filthy. The hall fell silent as he strode toward the dais.
His fist closed around the back of a chair, and he hurled it across the wooden planks.
“Commander de Montfort is dead,” he snarled, voice echoing off the stone wall.
Seren froze.
The world narrowed to a single point of sound.
Her pulse crashed in her ears. Her hands trembled. David shifted beside her.
“Dead—?” David whispered.
But Seren couldn’t speak. Grief sliced clean and deep—but she swallowed it, burying the agony beneath breath and bone though her soul cried out to God.
Henry stalked closer, eyes burning with accusation. He stomped toward her with a rage burning on his face. His hand curled with a finger pointed.
“Lost my best knight because of you!” he roared.
Her stomach turned to ice.
“I know it was your doing,” he hissed.
Seren stood slowly and shook her head. “It was not my doing. I have done nothing wrong in the sight of God.”
“Strip her of her noble garments,” Henry snapped as he snatched her and threw her from the dais.
She stumbled but regained her composure with grace. Geoffrey and Jovin stood among the keep’s guards. Only a few of the men-at-arms who had fought in the Marches were within the great hall.
The keep’s servants approached and took away her mantle and her outer dress with gentle hands as if disrobing Christ himself.
Seren’s stomach rolled, but her face stayed calm.
The December cold made her shudder from the sudden loss of warmth from her cloak.
“On your knees,” Henry ordered with a snarl. “Bring my Welsh daughters too!”
She dipped her head and kneeled, wearing only her chemise, fingers folding neatly into the wool.
“Your daughters perished in an accident in the orchard,” she said in the doe’s voice she had learned to use with Henry. “There is no one else to bring.”
“Good. Less blood on my hands.” Henry accepted the lie in his anger as he circled her like a wolf.
“Montfort never loses,” he growled. “Never. Yet he fell. Yet we were forced to retreat. We were defeated. And I know why.”
His voice dripped hate.
“You sent messages. Spies. Betrayed me in my absence. Warned your kin. Told them of my attack formations,” he spewed.
“I am but a woman, my lord husband,” she said. “I knew nothing of your attack formations. Who would I send? You never sent word of where you were. How was I to know what to say in betrayal?”
He slapped her hard. “You may have everyone else fooled, but you do not fool me!” He struck her again.
Blood tickled high in the nose, but she sniffed it back and down her throat.
“I was not the reason you were defeated,” Seren said, bracing herself for another strike.
It came as expected, but this time, a closed fist.
David trembled, watching his father as one might watch an executioner.
Father Osbert stood in his corner. “My lord, this is your lady. The mother of your children, and you are accusing her of treason with no proof presented. You cannot—”
Henry whirled on him. “Remove the priest. Drag him to the chapel. He can pray while she dies a traitor.”
No one moved to obey. Even Geoffrey and Jovin shifted in place. Seren turned her head, and the keep’s guards obeyed her silent request and surrounded the priest.
Seren steadied her breath. She could not allow any rebellion to break out, not with David standing behind his father and not with her daughters and Ragnar hidden below.
If Thornwyck defied Henry, then the king’s justice would crush them all beneath the crown’s order for the Norman armies to march upon Mortlande. The Welsh would likely descend as well.
Father Osbert’s nostrils flared, his eyes darting between David, Seren, and Henry.
He lifted his chin to her—an honor he had given no one else. “I will pray for your innocent soul, milady,” he said as the guards took him away. He tried to fight for his arms, but they kept a tight hold.
Her throat tightened, but she did not falter. Better her life than their blood.
Henry snapped his fingers once Father Osbert was gone. “Commander de Bramber. Take the traitor’s head.”
A hush fell as Geoffrey drew beside Seren.
David went still as he locked eyes with Seren.
“Father,” his voice pleaded. “She’s done nothing wrong. She’s not a traitor. She is loyal to you.”
Henry flicked his hand. Two guards seized David’s arms.
“She is my mother!” David shouted, voice cracking.
Henry turned and struck him across the face, hard and final. David dropped to his knees, blood dripping down his lip.
Seren’s heart convulsed. She locked eyes with him, pleading—begging her son not to speak again. The slow pain crawled across his face.
Henry’s face twisted. “I had a mother once, too, boy. I heard my mother’s screams until I didn’t.
At least your mother’s death will be quick—though her head may roll at your feet.
” He turned to face the great hall. “May you all learn a lesson. I am a Marcher Lord! The Marcher Lord of Mortlande, and you will obey me.”
He pointed at Seren.
“I will not show mercy to traitors.”
Seren’s heart thrashed against her ribs as David’s eyes brimmed with tears.
“Commander Geoffrey,” Henry barked. “Take her head.”
A stunned silence swallowed the hall.
Seren’s breath shook. The Lord had not answered her silent prayer to spare David the spectacle of her death.
The guard beside her removed her veil and pulled her braid forward. The cold light through the high windows fell across her bare neck.
She had known her own death would come. She had made peace with that long ago when she walked the path of swords at seventeen, but kneeling and waiting for death after having children and finding love was entirely different.
Erik, she thought of the way he’d held her before he left.
At least he would not bear the horror of killing her and carry that guilt for the rest of his life. It was a single mercy in a world stripped bare of them.
Geoffrey drew his sword.
“Do it,” Henry snarled.
Geoffrey remained still. “Is there evidence of your accusation, Lord Henry? She is a favored one of God. I will not spill her innocent blood.”
“You will do as I, Marcher Lord of Mortlande, command, Bramber. Retreat is my evidence, and I do not need to show it to you, knight.” The threat was implicit. Though he was a noble’s son, he might just do away with him, too.
Geoffrey lifted his sword—but hesitated. Its tip returned to the ground. “My lord . . . does the lady have any last words?”
Henry seethed, but allowed it.
Seren lifted her necklace from her neck. The silver cross dangled from her fingers. She laid it across her palm. The warm metal grounded her as she lifted her face toward Heaven.
“Our Father who art in Heaven,” she whispered before her voice returned.
“Glory be to Your name forever. If You will a righteous hand, then let Your hand do what must be done. Be with my children. Give them peace.” Her breath shook.
“Be with those no longer with us and the ones who are forced to spill blood.”
She touched her brow, her chest, her shoulders.
“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
Her breath rattled.
“Amen.”
“Amen,” Geoffrey murmured a few moments later. She had prayed for him, too, and he wavered. “I have a swift aim, milady,” he said.
“Then do not fail me,” Seren answered.
Geoffrey drew a long breath. “I beg your forgiveness, Lady de Thornwyck.”
“There is nothing to forgive, Commander.”
Geoffrey glanced at Henry—seeking the final confirmation he dreaded—among the shifting and shuffling feet behind her.
“Her blood is on your hands, my lord, not mine. She is innocent in my eyes,” Geoffrey said above the clamor.
But Henry gritted, “Obey me.”
Seren returned her gaze to David, who stared at her with fear etched into his brow while guards held his arms. She had done the best she could, and all she could do was trust the Lord’s hand to cover her children. Two tears slid down her cheeks. She mouthed the last comfort she could give.
“Close. Your. Eyes.”
The sword lifted high.