“You saved my life yet again, Sir Knight,” she cried in a muffled voice, with her face pushed into his léine.
He didn’t like that she had seen him kill again. It was a difficult thing to forget. And now, he thought as Charlie and his men returned with Reg, he was going to kill one more. “Come, love. Let Elia take you to our room.”
“No, I wish to stay here and see what happens to Reg.”
“Why would you care about such a thing? Unless you wish to see me end his life—and knowing you, I do not think ’tis that.”
“It isn’t. I want you to remember that he has a wife and children.”
“I would be doing them a courtesy,” he countered.
“That is not for you to decide, Nicholas,” she said softly.
“Do you hear this?” he called out to Reg, who was the one being held back now. “My wife, the woman you brought witnesses against, pleads with me for your life. This woman, whom you were more than ready to see burned alive, asks me to remember your wife and children.”
Nicholas’ gaze went dark. “You are not worthy to stand before her.”
In two strides, he reached his cousin and punched him hard enough to break his nose. “You were always sorry I wasn’t killed along with my family. I had what you wanted. The king’s favor. You sicken me. I let you live because of her. But you will take your family away from Scarborough. As far away as you can get. I will give you a fortnight to go. If I see your face after that, I will kill you. Do you understand?”
Reg nodded, holding his bloody nose.
“Get him out of here.”
“My lord,” Charlie said, staying behind. “We have the king also.”
“Let him go. He is still your king.”
He returned his attention to his wife. “How was that?”
“Very good.” She smiled and moved closer to him. “Now I think I will go with Elia to our room. I would like to rest.”
“Of course,” he said and handed her over to his head maid with a kiss to his wife’s head.
He stayed in the great hall helping his men clear it of the dead. After that, they drank to Kestrel’s safety.
“I had no intention of letting anyone hurt her, my lord,” Charlie told him. “I relieved one of the guards holding her. I killed him just beyond the hall. I knew it was only a matter of time before you broke free and killed them all.”
Charlie raised his cup to him and seeing him, his men did the same.
“What did you do with the king?” Nicholas asked.
“He is locked in his house. I have four guards stationed at the door.”
“Good. I want to speak to him.”
“I thought you would, my lord.”
Nicholas gave his first in command a curious look and then smiled at him. He smiled at them all. Then he left to go speak to the king.
*
“I was afraidNicholas would be hurt or killed,” Kes told Elia in the library. The women sat in the chairs with warm mead spiked with Scottish whisky in their hands. “I couldn’t even see him there were so many man…”
“The king knows how fearsome Nicky is. And still those men were not enough.”
Kes was quiet for a time, thinking about it all and how Nicholas had gone wild over her and killed seven men where they stood.
She wasn’t against what he had had to do. He was the kind of man needed in the fifteenth century. If he wasn’t a well-abled warrior, she would have been dead twice now.