his head towards Matilda.
‘We should eat,’ Matilda agreed.
‘Surely the fields are empty at this time of year?’ At their quizzical looks, he added, ‘It’s too late for man or beast to still be out.’
Matilda frowned. ‘We’ve been able to get the work done before dark these last few years...’
That wasn’t what he was asking. Over the years he’d received Louve’s reports and, despite everything else, he trusted them when it came to maintaining the estate.
What and who he didn’t trust was Roger, who was avoiding this welcoming feast. However, eventually Roger would be expected to enter the hall to eat. Until then...
‘I will wait to sit until everyone is present.’
Nothing. Louve looked mildly curious while Matilda stayed implacable. Did they expect him to say nothing about the man—his friend—who’d stabbed him in the heart? Then they didn’t know him very well. He’d wait until next winter if that was what it took.
Louve drained his ale, the tenants’ chatter eased, and all eyes turned to him. Of course they would—because they couldn’t eat unless he sat. He wanted to announce that it wasn’t he who delayed their meal, but a coward. One he should have faced years ago.
He had been travelling for weeks alone, lacking sleep in order to protect his horses and the satchels. His body ached and rest beckoned. Still he stood, waited, and thought about what he would say to Roger. His childhood friend, his reeve, who took care of the crops. Waited for the man who loved his betrothed but hadn’t had the courtesy to tell him, who had married her and given her a child.
Patience, he told himself. But it wouldn’t come. Not with all eyes turning to him now. Not with the constrictive band and the pressure of the patch over his eye. His right hand tightened as if it wanted to grasp a sword. His heart thumped as if he rode onto a field of enemies.
He’d been polite and had enquired gently regarding Roger’s absence. He’d waited for Roger to reveal himself, or for Louve and Matilda to inform him of Roger’s whereabouts. He’d come here to bury his past. To seek some revenge. To demand apologies. The man had married the woman he loved, and now he wouldn’t show his face.
Enough was enough. Right now he would demand that Roger show himself. He wouldn’t wait for answers—he’d force them.
He didn’t—couldn’t—ease his stance, or the tension mounting inside him as he bit out every word. ‘Matilda, where is your husband?’
There was a sound from Louve and Matilda paled. The crowd around them faded. The lights seemed to dim as her brows drew in.
No. No balance. No patience. No understanding.
His fingers curled and there was a roaring in his ears as he glanced to Louve, whose expression was stricken, his mouth slack.
Nicholas glanced behind them to the Great Doors that remained shut, and the tenants waiting by their seats. Even the children and the animals were finding their places.
There wasn’t space for anyone else.
His gaze locked on Matilda. There was a flush in her cheeks and an answering emotion gleaming in her hazel eyes. He recognised them all. Anger. Rage. A warrior’s cry for battle.
His sense of betrayal was overwhelming. Patience? Balance? None to be found. He shook his head—a warning to himself, to Louve, who stood agape. To Matilda, whose lips had parted.
He was lifting his curling fist before she said the words, ‘He’s dead.’
Nicholas struck.
‘You should go after him,’ Louve said, holding his sleeve to his bloodied lip.
Matilda crouched beside her fallen friend. Louve had hit the floor faster than she had been able to react to what Nicholas had done. The corner of his lip was bleeding and the entire right side of his face was bright red, his eyelid beginning to swell.
‘Your eye!’
‘He only glanced it. I’m lucky.’
‘Lucky? Lucky is being told that Cook didn’t burn all the bread for the day. The right side of your face is swelling faster than said bread loaves is not Fortune smiling on you.’
Her heart would not stop thumping and her every word shook. That moment when Nicholas swung. The expression on Nicholas’s face. Something raw, visceral. It had gone through her before she’d registered what he meant to do.
Louve had been completely unprepared.
The people in the hall had been unprepared too, as the crack of Nicholas’s fist against Louve’s jaw had reverberated against the stone.
She hadn’t heard Louve hitting the ground—not through the sudden gasps of the crowd.
Then there had been a void of sound, except for Nicholas’s harsh breaths and his brutal growl aimed at no one as he stormed through the unnaturally still room and out through the Great Doors.
‘Lucky?’ she repeated. ‘You’re bleeding. And despite him only glancing it, you’ll have a black eye.’
‘Luckier yet, for Mary will care for me now.’
Matilda saw Mary, standing as still as the rest of the crowd. She’d never understand the hold she had over her friend. ‘You’re incorrigible.’
Louve took her hands and helped her stand. Then he waved off the now circling crowd with a smile. The crowd dispersed, but the chatter increased. Soon everyone within a day’s ride would know of what had happened here tonight.
What a great welcome from the lord of Mei Solis. No, it had been a welcome from a mercenary. Nicholas had always been impulsive, but that violence hadn’t come from the Nicholas she’d once known.
‘You should go after him,’ Louve told her.
‘You’re the one he struck—don’t you want to talk to him?’
‘Not this time.’ Louve flexed his hand and gave her a look she recognised from years of friendship. ‘I dare you.’
‘That won’t work on me.’ And no such childish challenge would influence the mercenary who had strode out of the Great Hall. ‘Nicholas has gone, and maybe he’ll keep on going.’
‘You know where he went. And, despite his aim, it’s you he needs to talk to. He’s been gone a long time, but from his reaction...’ Louve placed his hand on her arm. ‘He didn’t know about Roger, Matilda. You can’t leave him like that.’
She could. ‘He left us.’
‘He’s returned to find his friend dead. Not only a friend, but Roger. For all he knows, Roger could have been gone for years.’
‘The time of Roger’s passing makes no difference. Nicholas chose his path years ago—as I chose mine. He left first. He holds no more importance to Roger’s death than to any other friend. In truth...’ In truth she saw little of the man she had once called her betrothed. ‘You don’t know if he thinks of any of us as a friend. He never answered our letters.’
‘You think he feels nothing over Roger’s death? He struck me in his home—in front of his people. That’s some indication of where his heart is.’
She didn’t want to think of Nicholas’s heart. He didn’t deserve it. Yet Roger had been her friend and her husband. And in that she knew she was the one to answer whatever questions Nicholas might have.
Dares didn’t work, but she always faced her challenges.
She knew the path towards the chapel’s graveyard all