Matilda was three feet away. Her back was pressed against the cold stone, both hands flat against the masonry. She was looking at him. Not at the body on the floor. At him.
"The shoulder," she said. Her voice was a low, urgent rasp.
"Manageable." He crossed the distance to her.
He took her face in his hands, checking her the way he checked everything, methodically and without the luxury of feeling until the accounting was complete. No cuts. A dark bruise was already forming at her shoulder where she'd hit the wall. Her eyes were clear, focused, and present. "Are ye hurt?"
"Me shoulder. It's nae bad, I'm all right." She held his gaze, her fingers reaching up to touch his arms. "Yer shoulder…"
"I've had worse."
"That's nae an answer."
"I ken."
He pressed his forehead to hers. Just for a moment. The smoke was thinning around them and there was work still waiting, and the passage was no place to stand, but he allowed himself one moment of the specific overwhelming relief at finding her safe.
She put her hands on his arms and held on, her grip fierce and certain.
"Come," he said.
He took her hand and led her out of the passage, back into the light.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The courtyard had been transformed into a landscape of containment.
The crowd had contracted toward the center, islanders and visitors pressed together in the open space away from the walls.
Ivar's men held the perimeter. The remaining mercenaries were disarmed, three of them forced to their knees in the flickering torchlight. Torvald stood at the dais with the document case, speaking to Henry with the measured precision of a man delivering a final statement.
Two guards came forward when they saw Ivar emerge. He directed them to the passage for Callum’s body, his voice level and his face a mask of iron.
He felt the blood from his shoulder soaking into his tunic. It wasn't dangerous, he’d bled more from training, but it was visible. He registered the throb and set it aside.
Callum's body was brought into the Great Hall.
The elders were already there. Drawn by Torvald's men, gathered at the long table with the grim gravity of men who had watched a crisis resolve. The royal observers came in behind them, Henry first, his eyes fixed on the document case.
Henry looked at the body. He looked at the documents. He looked at Ivar, at the blood on the shoulder, at Matilda standing unyielding beside him. He saw a hall full of people who had just been attacked in their own keep by the man his own reports had failed to account for.
Iva knew he was a careful man. He recalibrated with professional precision.
"The evidence presented," Henry said, his English sharp and deliberate in the quiet hall, "is consistent and verifiable. The seals are authenticated."
He looked at the papers spread before him. "The payment orders, the written instructions, the chain of command, all of it points clearly tae a coordinated campaign orchestrated by Laird Callum MacDougall against the governance of Mull and the terms of the Lairds' Pact."
He paused, letting the weight of the verdict settle. "Taenight's events confirm that this campaign was ongoing and active."
The hall was very quiet.
"Mull acted in defense," Henry said. "Nae in rebellion. That will be me report tae the Crown." He looked at Ivar with professional directness. "The laird's loyalty to the Pact is affirmed. The governance of Mull stands."
Bronn let out a slow, heavy breath. Aldric looked at the table and then away, his face etched with the expression of a man revising a lifetime of opinions.
"Thank ye," Ivar said. Simply.
No warmth, no performance. Just acknowledgment.