39. The Turned Tables
XXXIX
THE TURNED TABLES
“My lord,” she said, halting the guards’ movements.
Her voice was hers, not the meek one she played.
Erik watched her walk past him. His hand was ice, trembling as though the cold had seeped into his bones, and she felt the shudder travel through her own arm.
He had come back to her barely upright. She feared that if she let go, he would fall, and if she held on, Henry would kill him for it.
Her fingers slipped through his, and she hoped it wouldn’t be the last time.
“I did not pray for your victory when you first left, but now my homeland marches here to kill my son.”
She strode to Henry with grace, her long hair in loose waves, fallen from her braid, down her back and shoulder.
“Let me ask God now, as his favored one, for victory. Let all your hosts and Father Osbert be present.”
Henry chuckled, but his pride swelled in a beam surveying his subjects. He straightened his tunic and announced to the hall:
“The lady wishes to pray for her lord.”
He stepped forward and off the dais. “You realize, at last, you are alone, Lady Seren, but I will take your prayer, as you are, as it seems, favored. I will reconsider your place here, should the Lord answer.” The lie slid easily from his lips.
Henry shot a glare at Erik as if Henry had won.
“Pray, Seren,” Henry said and patted her cheek with too much force.
The hall exhaled, unsure where to fix its eyes.
Seren chose not to kneel because the words about to be spoken would not be holy, or perhaps they would be.
She had tried her whole life to live within God’s commands, to keep faithful to her vows and the Lord’s purpose of repentance and love, but the insatiable claws of vengeance took hold of her heart.
She felt Erik behind her—shaking with shallow breaths. She heard the scrape of his boots as he tried not to fall. The Lord had brought him back to her doorstep, but at what cost? If she did not end Henry now, Erik would die by Henry’s will or by exhaustion before dawn.
Her pulse hammered in her throat.
Three drops.
That was all it would take.
The time was right. David was barely old enough to take his father’s place. They had all survived Henry’s reign.
“Oh Lord, Our Father who art in Heaven,” she began, her eyes never closing, but staring into Henry’s soul. The one she was about to extinguish.
She had prayed for her enemies before. She had forgiven worse than this man’s cruelty. But what she had planned—it was too close to her soul.
And Erik was watching. Her son was watching. She hoped this act would not rot her heart or make them see only sin in her if they ever learned the contents of her pendant necklace.
The prayer in her heart cried to the Lord, “Let my hand be righteous. Let my heart be blameless. Let this justice be Yours, not mine. He will kill all I love and so many more if I do not do it. And if I let my son or Erik remove him, it will mar David’s lordship.
Peace will only come after much blood. If there is another way, intervene for me, Lord. ”
She drew in a deep breath and calmed her shaking hand. The others poisoned, she had simply taken away their agony from a certain death, like her grandmother before her, but this time—this time, it was different.
Was it mercy for Mortlande and its borders? Was it murder? Was it an eye for an eye?
The Lord would answer her.
“I pray for victory for your righteous one,” she said aloud.
She heard Erik grunt and shuffle behind her, and her chest tightened. He sounded like a man standing on the last of his strength.
Stay with me, Erik, she wanted to tell him.
“Decide now who is righteous, Lord.” Her words rushed from her lips. “If Lord Henry is not, strike him down. If he is not worthy to rule as a Marcher Lord, remove him.”
Henry growled and snatched Seren’s throat, squeezing hard.
“You unfaithful witch!” he yelled.
But Seren continued strong as Henry rushed her to the edge of the great hall.
“If I am not blameless, strike me down. If Lord David is not fit to lead, strike him down. If my father is wrong to march, strike him down.”
Henry’s arm hid her sliding of the top of her pendant, three drops, for three fingers: the thumb, the fore, the middle.
“Purge this land,” she yelled, hoarse from Henry’s grip.
He rammed her into the wall.
“You dare raise a prayer against me!” Henry yelled. Guards held back Erik and Father Osbert. Tomas looked at her with wide eyes. She had told them all to let Henry do as he pleases, so they stood as loyal knights would.
Seren rammed two fingers into his mouth, slipping between his teeth and lower lip. Her thumb followed, pressing hard against the soft flesh of his inner cheek—the poison already seeping in beneath the guise of self-defense.
A stroke for mercy.
A stroke for justice.
A stroke for judgment.
Years of rage built within her as she ripped his face away from her. His hold faltered, and she took in a large breath.
“Strike down the wicked,” she yelled. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
Henry punched her across the cheek, sending her to the floor. “Amen,” she whispered with blood in her teeth. The sting raced across her face.
Henry pulled his dagger and yanked her up by her hair. She yelped as Erik rushed toward her.
“You want to be struck down, then I will strike you down.” He raised the blade, but Erik caught his wrist before the point could cut her flesh. He threw Henry backward, sending the smaller man shuffling to the floor in the middle of the room.
Erik bled, likely cut from the spears and guards holding him. He bled for her to save her life. It ran freely down his arms and from a gash on his side. He sank to his knees; he held himself up with one hand pressed tight against the floor. The sight was more than she could bear.
He’d spent everything he had to reach her—given her what strength he had left. She ached to brace him, to keep him from sliding to the floor, to shield him from all of this, but she couldn’t. Not here. Not with the hall staring. Not with David watching. Not with God weighing every step she took.
“She said her God to strike her down, not you,” Erik slurred through ragged breath. His chest rose and fell hard.
“You pagan!” Henry said. “Kill him,” he slurred as well. He shook his head. “Kill him,” he tried to say again. He faltered as he tried to stand on two legs.
No one moved.
Eyes stilled upon Henry, his son, and his wife.
“What have you done to me?” Henry slurred as he shot hate toward Seren.
She grazed Erik’s exposed shoulder with her fingertips.
His skin burned cold; his shoulder trembled hard enough to make the tattooed Norse serpent of Fate slither.
Her finger pad slid over the indentation of the star she had stitched into his skin.
Erik had carried her with him all the years, but if the Lord needed to strike her down as well, she would receive the punishment, and she hoped He would allow Erik to live and find love in another woman.
“I asked the Lord to remove the unworthy, the unrighteous, the unrepentant,” she answered Henry as she moved closer to her husband, the man struggling for his life on the floor.
His legs did not move. He slapped them hard.
“And the wicked,” she said.
“I am righteous!” he yelled in a slur. “You are the whore!” Henry snarled, just before his arm gave out and his head crashed to the floor.
“If I am a whore, then the Lord would have struck me down beside you as I would not have been blameless before Him,” Seren said.
A murmur rippled through the hall. If it were the Lord’s will, maybe this act would also end any lingering doubts about her fidelity.
Henry’s chest rose and fell as a fast-beating drum.
Father Osbert drew near and stood over Lord Henry.
“It seems the Lord has spoken,” Father Osbert said. He rubbed his braided prayer rope and recited the last rites. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want . . .”
Seren stooped and brushed Henry’s hair from his brow as Father Osbert continued.
“As your wife, I will follow all the mourning and remembrance rituals required of Lady de Thornwyck for David’s sake,” she said softly.
But then she locked her gaze with his. He tried to murmur something, but his tongue failed.
As the life faded from his eyes and his breathing slowed to a soft hitch, she stooped lower and whispered, “But as a woman, I know your soul will burn with that of your father.”
Fear replaced rage in his eyes before the light went out.
Mercy, she reminded herself.
This was mercy, not vengeance. She had murdered with mercy, not vengeance, she repeated to herself.
“I am not your mother,” she finally whispered to Henry. “Though I know why she did what she did, if it were even true.” She let his black locks fall back over his brow and sat back on her heels.
Her children would live.
And the price of peace had been paid—almost. Tomorrow would still come, and Thornwyck might still burn.
She bowed her head and steadied her breath.
All eyes turned toward David, who stood shaking, stunned—the boy suddenly Marcher Lord of Mortlande.
She rose from Henry’s corpse and walked to the dais. Both hands fell on her son’s shoulders.
David looked down at her; his busted lip and bruised cheek a testament that mirrored her own.
She pressed a smile and whispered, “It seems the Lord believes you fit to lead, David.” She hoped she had not angered God with her manipulations.
“Remember what your soul feels,” she told her son. “Remember to do good. Tell the men-at-arms of Ragnar and your sisters. Tell them, you and I will ride out tomorrow to meet the chiefs and secure peace.”
David pressed a finger and a thumb into his eyes to keep tears from falling and wiped his sleeve to remove the last of the blood from his nose.
“Yes, Mother,” he whispered. He wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his head in her neck. He took a deep breath as Father Osbert concluded the rites.
“Remember how I taught you,” Seren said low. “Think only of the words to say. You can do this. Be the lord I know you are.” She stroked the back of his head.
David kissed her cheek before releasing her and letting her step aside.
“My father has passed in the Lord’s service,” David stammered, addressing the great hall. He drew a long breath as he scanned the room and then looked back at Seren. She gave him a firm nod. He returned his gaze to the hall with a firmer voice.
“As the sole Heir de Thornwyck, I assume the title of Marcher Lord . . . unless the Lord God or the crown I serve revokes it, as is their rightful authority.” David paused, and the hall kneeled before him, except his mother and Father Osbert.
Seren lifted her chin in pride. He hadn’t asked the hall to kneel, and yet they did.
All of them pledged fealty to her son. She stood beside him, and David glanced between her and Erik.
“We told my father that Ragnar, son of the former Commander de Montfort, and my sisters had passed, but they are alive, hidden from my father’s wrath. ”
Erik’s strong shoulders caved. Blood still ran down his arms.
David noticed too. “Bring the physician to tend any wounds, starting with the former Commander, for he saved my mother’s life,” David ordered, his words rushed.
“And tonight, sleep well. Tomorrow, Lady Dowager de Thornwyck and I . . .” —he caught his breath—“will ride to meet Chief Madoc and the northern chiefs to prevent war and siege . . . and forge peace once again.”
A holler of support rang through the great hall despite the falter in David’s speech. Seren glanced at Father Osbert, who nodded with an unburdened smile. David needed to grow into his lordship, but he was well-equipped and well-prepared.
Erik swayed; she saw it. His body folded to the floor an instant later, the collapse he had held back for too long. Her breath ripped from her chest.
Had she traded one life for another? Was this God’s judgment—that for the blood on her hands, she would lose the man who had bled for her?
She wanted to run to him, but the hall still watched.
Geoffrey leaned over Erik and checked his neck. “He’s chilled.”
Seren almost shouted the order, but David did first. “Take him to the council chamber; bring flax and vinegar. Light the hearth. Bring furs.”
Seren breathed only when Erik was lifted because his chest still moved.
And she promised herself she would not lose him now—not after this, not if it was the Lord’s will.
Not after he had crossed winter and death itself to reach her.
But David needed to give more orders, so she whispered, “Ragnar, sisters, father, keep.”
David shifted his weight and gulped before the orders spilled out in a rush.
“Godric, bring Ragnar and my sisters from hiding. Steward, take my father’s body to the chapel. Everyone else, prepare for a siege in case our peace negotiations do not go as planned.”
He motioned to Father Osbert. “Father, please come with us. Montfort needs you. The dead can wait.”