34. The Last Plea
XXXIV
THE LAST PLEA
Erik carried her in a sacred hold of husband and bride. Her head lolled against his shoulder, breath shallow, a flush blooming dark at the site where he had struck her. His stomach knotted at the sight.
His steps echoed off the narrow stairwell in a firm cadence, not reminiscent of his erratic heartbeat. He paused midway up, pretending to adjust his grip.
"Forgive me," he whispered in her ear.
Her lashes twitched. A sound curled between her lips but did not form.
Sunlight barely illuminated the corridor, filtering in through the narrow arrow slits. The shadows fell on her face in bars after each window.
She stirred as they reached her chamber. Her hand rose to his chest. Her fingers curled in the wool of his surcoat, an anchor in the storm that threatened to pull him under.
He pushed the cracked door open with his shoulder, holding her tight against him. Margot and Isolde entered behind him and began preparing the hearth.
Erik moved to the bed, kneeled, and placed Seren down, cherishing every moment near her. He removed his arm from beneath her knees.
She stirred again.
“Erik,” she whispered.
He froze.
Her voice was raw.
She reached. Her fingers brushed his jaw. He caught her hand in his. His heart thundered, and he hoped Geoffrey hadn’t seen her hand or heard her whisper.
Margot stilled before she turned to Isolde.
“I need hay for the fire,” Margot said, chin dipping subtly toward the door.
Isolde caught the cue instantly.
“Master de Bramber,” she said lightly, “will you help me bring it down from the attic?”
Geoffrey hesitated, his weight shifting on the wooden planks.
“I will stand guard,” Godric said firmly. “You two go.”
They left.
Margot turned her back to them at the hearth as Erik peered over his shoulder.
Godric closed the door halfway, his pointed glance giving unspoken permission to speak, but to be quick.
A soft, private silence fell.
“Forgive me, Lady Seren,” Erik said.
“There is nothing to forgive,” she said with a sad smile. Her fingers grazed his beard, and he let them, his grasp sliding to her wrist and down her arm. For four years, he’d missed her touch, and to have it again was almost more than he could bear.
“Whether you return successfully,” she whispered, “he will kill me. And he will make you do it as his commander. Today was a test.”
His throat closed. Tears stung the backs of his eyes. He’d known it all along.
“You know this,” she whispered, reading his mind. Her lips pressed thin.
“Ragnar would give his life for you,” he said. “And I will give mine a thousand times over.”
“I know, but who will protect my daughters and help guide my son in my absence? They will need you. Do not make them lose their mother, their adopted brother, and their guardian—all in one night.”
He ran his hand up her side and onto her back, pulling her into an embrace. Grief tied his voice as she brushed a tear from his cheek. Their faces were close, and they breathed the same air.
“I can strike him down,” he whispered. He’d thought about how he’d kill Henry more times than he could count.
But to his surprise, she shook her head.
“And then you’d be executed for killing a Marcher Lord, Ragnar too, because he is your son, and David would begin his rule in blood with targets on his back from his own men.
I came for peace, Erik. I was and am willing to die for it.
And . . . I want my son to enter his lordship with the loyalty the Lord God has given him. That is you and Ragnar.”
His jaw clenched. “He’d have you,” he said, “You’d be by his side.” He pleaded; he couldn’t bear watching her die, much less being the one wielding the blade that ended her life.
“If I lived, I’d go to the next lord who needed an arrangement with the chiefdoms,” she whispered.
He had nothing left with which to argue. “Please.” It was the only word he could muster.
“Promise me,” her voice broke, “you will obey.”
He nodded, but it wouldn’t soothe the nights of guilt he’d carry for the rest of his life. The ache of future loss twisted his throat. He committed her to memory; he wouldn’t have the luxury to hold her in death like he did Astrid, nor mourn her, grieve her, as he had with Astrid.
“I’ve always wondered,” she whispered, studying the pain in his eyes, “your feelings for me.”
He opened his mouth, his voice hoarse, weak.
”I am—"
But she pressed her thumb gently to his lips, ending his words.
“If you feel for me the way I believe you do, make our lives easier when that time comes and lie to me now,” she whispered.
Lie? Now? When he wanted nothing more than to tell her how much he loved her? Respected her? Admired her? Missed her? Wanted her for his own?
He stroked the darkening bruise with the backs of his fingers, but if she wished for a lie, he would give it. Yet he would not deny his own heart, not after four years of forcing himself to stay away.
“I have never wished for your touch, milady.” His eyes found hers—they grew wet as she stroked his lips and cheek.
“Never dreamed of you, nor envisioned your hair as it was when I first saw you—long and loose—nor have I ever imagined you as mine.” He relished the touch of her against him.
“And if you were my wife, I would be as cruel and savage as he is.”
Her eyes shone with the warning of breaking beneath.
At her silence, he whispered a truth, “I only hope your life is easier to bear, as mine will not be.”
Tears slipped free, her mouth twisting in a grimace that tore at him. “Some things never are as we hope . . . or wish.”
He cupped her cheek.
She brushed his lower lip with her finger, eyes drinking in his face.
“I wished for a life not mine. I did,” she said, cheeks flushing. “But you. You can have the life you wish for. Find another woman, Erik. You deserve peace.”
“I’ve already pledged my love and loyalty to you, Seren,” he whispered, and turned into her hand, pressing a kiss to her palm.
“You will live a lonely life if you keep your pledge,” Seren said, pulling his face closer.
He rested his forehead against hers.
“Henry made sure it would always be lonely,” Erik whispered. “Both you and Astrid have and will suffer at my hand and his order. No other will. I will love you, only you, until the end of my life.”
Their lips brushed—barely. Her breath was warm against his skin. He wanted to dive against her, hold her tight, but she whispered, each beat a thud against the thick of his lip, “Don’t make me more of a sinner than I already am. Don’t make it harder for us on that day.”
Removing the temptation of going against her wishes, he shifted and kissed her bruised cheek with tenderness, how a man should kiss his wife.
He bent to her ear. “If I fight against your homeland, will you still choose me, Valkyrie?”
“Always,” she whispered—and kissed his cheek, just enough for her lips to graze his.
That was her line, her boundary as a married woman, and he would respect it, though every part of him ached to press his lips to hers in a final seal of his commitment to her and her legacy.
Godric knocked softly, a signal that Geoffrey was coming back.
They were out of time, so he drew from his pouch one of the two wooden kingcups he’d carved on his six-month sentence so long ago and tucked it into her hand. It was a symbol of his unfading, unwithered love.
He murmured, “May the years he is gone bring you peace, Seren.”
She whispered, “Carry my star,” she touched his shoulder where she’d stitched it, “and I will have peace.”
“Always,” he said, brushing her lips—just barely once more—as a small glimpse of what could never be.
Erik placed a slow kiss on her forehead and pulled back to gaze into her eyes as he stroked her face.
“Go,” she whispered, eyes full and fingers wrapping his trinket.
She released him just as Godric shifted at the door.
Erik removed his arm from beneath Seren’s shoulders. He didn’t want to leave her, not yet. So he said aloud as some pitiful excuse to stay near her side, “Ensure you use cool water for the bruise.”
Margot, still turned, responded, not missing the cue. “It will be done, Commander.”
Godric grunted and cleared his throat. His shadow fell into the room.
Erik straightened so Godric would not see him bent to their lord’s wife. “We don’t want her worse when Lord Henry returns.”
Margot finally turned. “Yes, Commander.”
“Return to us, Erik,” Seren whispered.
His hand slid from her shoulder to her side, pressing her gently to him; his back hid his movements.
“Keep her in bed until she can walk without faltering.”
Margot nodded. “We will care for her, Commander.”
A knock. Erik moved his hand to the edge of the bed.
Geoffrey’s shadow fell long over Seren’s face.
Erik stood as Geoffrey and Isolde came in with the hay. He backed toward the door, never looking away from her. He held it open for Geoffrey to exit, stepped through, and shut it.
The guards stared at his back.
He had to become Commander de Montfort again.
Geoffrey spoke after a few moments of subsequent silence. “You know where I stand with Lady de Thornwyck. Do not make me lie for you.”
“There is nothing of which to lie,” Erik said, turning to face Godric and Geoffrey.
“We were friends. Nothing more,” Erik explained. “I apologized for striking her. In your law, that should be the husband’s burden—is that right?”
“Yes,” Geoffrey said in a drawl. “But Lord David will be old enough soon, and then if she has been whoring with you, let God do with her what He pleases.”
“She is blameless before your God,” Erik said, wanting to knock him to the floor for such an accusation. “Despite what you may believe, women have a different strength that is much stronger than a man's. Perhaps only those whom you call ‘dogs’ can sense as such.”
Geoffrey scoffed and sneered. “Do not get mighty, pagan. You will need me to watch your back in battle. Perhaps I might turn a blind eye.”
“You’ve already tried that,” Erik said and pushed past him, knocking his shoulder. He peered back at the Master-at-Arms. “I still lived, and I’ll do it again.”
Geoffrey glared at him. “All that time alone, and you only said an apology?”
Erik had to offer something to remove the doubt.
His gaze dipped. “Lord Henry will order me to kill her when we return from the Welsh Marches—victorious or not. She knows it too, but she wishes her son’s reign to begin with peace, not blood, and so I will obey as I always do.
I begged her forgiveness for when that day comes. ” His eyes met Geoffrey’s.
“And?” Geoffrey asked with a shift in his eyes.
“She forgave me as a friend would because she is a woman who loves and trusts her God more than her own life. And that is why she is blameless, just as you testified before the bishops.” Erik walked down the corridor, but when he didn’t hear footsteps behind him, he looked back.
The Master-at-Arms stared at Seren’s door—hand hovering over the handle.
“Bramber.” Erik’s call echoed down the corridor.
Geoffrey flinched and withdrew his hand. He gave Godric a curt nod and followed Erik. “If what you said was true, pagan, then I believe she will die innocent of whatever Lord Henry accuses her of.”
“We all will,” Erik said. “And I fear then what Mortlande will do when her blood soaks the ground. Many more will die in rebellion.”
Geoffrey grunted in agreement as they descended the spiral staircase to the ground floor. He cast a glance of reconsideration toward Erik, but Erik didn’t care.
Nothing mattered anymore.
He could only hope Henry died, but Henry was only five years older than he was. And though Henry was a skilled warrior and sometimes attended the battle, the lord never fought. Death by age or war seemed unlikely.
The sun hung lower than it should have for the hour, a strange gold spreading across the keep’s entrance like an omen. Erik walked the length of the ground floor, but the weight of what passed behind that chamber door clung to him like blood on his hands.
A wind picked up through the arrow slits.
Down in the yard, the knights and guards were gathering—except Ragnar—the surety in case Erik fell or if he lived.
Horses cried. Metal clanged. Banners shifted. Henry’s campaign would begin before nightfall.
But above them all, on the highest floor, Seren lay still in her chamber, watching the sky darken with war coming to her people. And if her God were listening, He would have to know a divine intervention would be the only savior for them all.
What came next would demand more than steel.
Blood would answer blood.
Neither Thornwyck nor Mortlande would ever be the same.