“I am here to punish you for what you did to Lyssa du Bose,” he said, completely overlooking any term of respect to Colchester’s station. To him, he was the enemy and did not warrant any respect. “You beat the woman because she resisted your advances and for your actions, you will pay the price. Get your sword, Colchester. Prepare to defend yourself.”
Jago was mildly tipsy from all of the wine he’d been drinking, so Garret’s words didn’t register right away. He had a look of confusion about him. But when that confusion faded, his eyes widened dramatically.
“Defend myself?” he repeated. Then, he actually laughed. It was a sharp, nasty sound that filled the night air. “I will not lift a finger against you, de Moray. Clearly, you have lost your mind to come here and say such things to me. But I have much to say to you. Lady Lyssa belongs to me.”
Garret’s jaw ticked. “She belongs to me.”
Jago scowled. “You fool,” he hissed. “Do you truly think you can compete with me? I can give her everything in the world she desires – wealth, station, prestige. But you – a mere knight – what do you intend to give her? Poverty and a lifetime of cheap food and inadequate comfort? I know your type – honorable, but stupid. You cannot give her what I can!”
Garret took a step towards Jago but Rickard put up his hands, shoving his brother back. The message was clear; back away. Angered, Garret balled a fist and slugged his brother in the jaw, sending the man reeling, as he marched up on Jago and grabbed the man around the neck.
“All I have to do is squeeze,” he growled as Jago yelped. “But before I do, I want you to know why I have come. The first time I saw you try to murder someone, I should have killed you but I did not. Do you remember long ago in The Levant when you tried to kill a Muslim prisoner? Think hard, Colchester. Someone sailed an arrow into your hand on that night so you clearly should recall it.”
Jago was turning shades of red, evident even beneath the dark sky, as Garret held him by the neck. But the words registered; he had a scar on his hand and sometimes it hurt to move his fingers, always a reminder of that arrow on that night long ago. He knew the incident but he was shocked to realize that de Moray knew of it, too.
“How…?” he gasped, trying to speak. “How would you know that?”
“Because I put that arrow there.”
Now, Jago began to fight him, struggling to breathe, anger and fear filling him. “You – you did that?” he breathed. “You… bastard! I should… kill you for it!”
Garret’s jaw ticked faintly, unmoved by the man’s struggle. “Nay,” he muttered. “But I should have killed you on that night. It was a foolish whim of mercy I shall not have a second time. This time, I will kill you and I will smear your guts out all over the ground as a warning to any man who dares to cross me or someone I love. Do you understand me?”
Jago couldn’t reply because of the grip around his neck. He was starting to black out. But his torture was cut short when Garret was blindsided by Rickard, who rushed at him and tackled him, breaking his hold on Colchester and allowing the man to run back towards the manse.
It deteriorated from there. Gart and Rhys charged forward, with Gart breaking up the scuffle between Garret and his brother while Rhys, who was very fast for a big man, grabbed Jago before he could disappear into the manse. When Rickard saw that Rhys had hold of Colchester, he broke away from his brother and charged Rhys, preparing to beat the man away.
“Let him go, du Bois!” he boomed. “Unhand the duke!”
Rhys didn’t respond to Rickard’s order; only a nod from Garret caused him to let go, and Rickard grabbed Colchester and pulled the man back towards the house and away from the menacing knights.
“Go back to Westminster, Garret,” Rickard commanded. “Get your men out of here. Go back now and we shall forget this ever happened.”
“Nay!” Jago screamed from behind him. As Rickard tried to manhandle the duke back into the manse, Jago would not be silenced. “I will not forget that you tried to kill me! Now, you shall feel my wrath, de Moray!”
That was what Garret had been waiting for. His challenge had been met. Unsheathing the broadsword at his side, he swung the blade in a very skilled, very controlled fashion.
“I am ready,” he said steadily. “Let us see if you can fight a man since the only enemy you seem to prefer is a woman.”
Jago was frightened and furious, a bad combination. He eyed Garret and his knights, stepping back towards the manse with his hand around his neck as Rickard kept himself between his liege and his angry brother. But in that fear and fury lingered a rational mind that understood the situation for what it was. Cleary, he could not compete against de Moray. He knew that.
But he knew someone who could.
“I shall not fight you,” Jago said, a rather smug expression on his face now. “I do not need to. I have a champion that shall fight you quite adequately. And he shall win.”
He meant Rickard. Garret had been ready and willing to fight Jago until that very moment when he realized that Jago intended to pit brother against brother. As Colchester’s champion, that was precisely Rickard’s role and as Garret stared at his brother, it truly hadn’t occurred to him that Jago wouldn’t fight him. He thought the man would be stupid enough, and angry enough, to accept his challenge.
But Jago hadn’t risen to the bait.
Garret looked at his brother, trying very hard not to appear as stunned as he felt. Instead, he turned his attention back to Jago, hoping he could lure the man out from behind Rickard’s paid sword. He didn’t want to fight his brother; God help him, he didn’t. But deep down, he supposed he knew that this had always been a possibility but he believed that Jago’s pride wouldn’t let another man fight his battle for him.
He’d been wrong.
“It is a coward who hides behind other men,” he said, hoping to insult the man enough to cause him to personally fight back. “But, then again, you have always been a coward, Colchester. A vile, dirty coward. In The Levant, do you know what the men called you? Alfaar. It means The Rat. You were known as a rat to your men and you are still a rat, a dirty rodent with no redeeming qualities. I should have killed you when I sailed that arrow into your hand.”
Jago wasn’t used to being insulted like this and he wasn’t good at holding his temper. “Any opportunity to kill me was imagined,” he snarled. “You are a common knight among common men, and you are still common. You believe that you are some great warrior when the truth is that you have nothing. Your family is mediocre, your bloodlines bereft with poverty.”
“And least my mother wasn’t a French whore.”
That drew Jago out. “Filth!” he hissed. “How dare you speak to me that way!”
Garret could see that he was getting through to the man. “I would wager to say that de Nantes wasn’t even your father. It could have been any number of nasty French bastards but your mother was an opportunist for telling Henry that his brother, Geoffrey of Nantes, was your father. We all know the story and we all laugh at it. Still… you do not look like a member of the royal family to me. You look like a beggar’s son.”
Enraged, Jago charged towards Garret but Rickard held him back. Garret snapped at his brother.
“Why do you hold him?” he demanded. “If he wants to fight me, let him come. You have no right to hold him back, Rickard. You will not interfere.”
Rickard looked at his brother with a pained expression. “Be still, Garret,” he hissed, turning to Colchester. “My lord, go inside. Go inside and remain there. Let me deal with my brother.”
“Rickard,” Garret said, his voice low and steady. “Do not make this between you and me.”
Rickard could hear the hazard in his tone. He turned to look at Garret. “Do you not understand, Garret?” he asked. “The moment you came to challenge Colchester, it became between you and me. As Colchester’s champion, you gave me no other choice.”
Garret knew his brother was only doing his duty but he was pained to realize that
Rickard was choosing his duty over blood. “Is that what you will do? Fight me because he pays you to?”
“I am sworn to him.”
“You have been my brother longer than you have been sworn to him.”
Rickard’s frustration boiled over. Garret was trying to provoke a fight. More than that, he was trying to force Rickard to forget his oath. He was trying to make a fool out of him. Leaving Colchester, Rickard marched on his brother, getting in the man’s face.
“Can you not let me have a position that is as good as something you have?” he hissed. “You are the great one, Garret, the great knight of Richard, so great that the king made you the Captain of the Royal Guard at Westminster. And what am I? I do not have half your skill. Everyone knows that. I am your older brother but I have spent my life listening to praise for you. You are the one father is proud of; he has never been proud of me. You are the one everyone admires and looks up to. So I took a position with a duke, an unscrupulous duke at that, in the hopes of having some measure of achievement that was as good as yours. And now you try to take that away from me?”
Garret felt as if he’d been struck. “Rickard…,” he began, stopped, and then started again. “You are my older brother. When father dies, you shall inherit everything. I will inherit nothing. You have a beautiful wife, a child on the way… did you ever stop to think it was I who was always trying to live up to you?”
Some of Rickard’s anger subsided at Garret’s brutally honest words. “I will never achieve half of your greatness,” he said, pain in his voice. “What you are asking me to do now… you are asking me to relinquish my honor by refusing to protect a man I swore an oath to.”
“Nay, I am not.”
“Aye, you are. That is exactly what you are doing. Do you really want me to step aside and let you kill Colchester? Because that makes me look like a coward. Would you truly do that to me?”
Garret couldn’t believe what he was hearing, but in the same breath, he understood what Rickard was saying perfectly. God, it hurt his heart to hear that.
“I would never try to make you look cowardly, Rickard,” he breathed. “I am sorry if you feel that way. But I must punish Colchester for what he did to Lyssa. If I walk away, I will be the coward. I will not be worthy of being called a man.”
“Then we have a problem.”
“It would seem so.”
“Will you really fight me? You know I am not the warrior that you are.”
It was so painful to hear Rickard admit that. In fact, the whole situation was turning hugely painful. Rickard had to fight for Colchester or be dishonored, and Garret had to fight his brother because it was a matter of honor for him, as well. Someone had to back down. But no one would.
They were at a stalemate.
“Aye, I will really fight you,” Garret finally said. “But before you lift a sword against me, remember that you were not so loyal to Colchester when you came to Westminster yesterday morning to tell us that he had allied himself with the prince.”
Rickard knew that was true. “That was in a private forum, with only a few men to know,” he said. Then, his gaze moved to the mass of men that Garret had brought with him. “But now… there is an audience to see what I will do. Will I stand against you and do my duty? Or will I fold and allow you to shame me?”
Garret understood. “Then this is about public perception.”
Rickard shrugged. “A man’s reputation is something that can be seen by all, especially in something such as this.”
“Then I put you in this position.”
“Not deliberately, no. But we find ourselves in this position nonetheless.”
Garret understood about the pride of a man, and especially the pride of his brother now that Rickard had confessed his feelings of inadequacy against his mighty brother. No, he wouldn’t take that away from Rickard. But there were things he needed to know.
“Then I will tell you what is going to happen,” he said. “I am going to fight you and I am going to disable you. Then, I am going to kill Colchester. If you believe that will dishonor you, then I am terribly sorry. I truly am. My heart is full of sorrow for this moment. But I must do as I must.”
Rickard seemed to sink a little, his shoulders slumping as he became aware that Garret had no intention of backing down. He knew he couldn’t beat him in a fight but, much like Garret, he had little choice. It was damnable, foolish honor and damnable, foolish pride for them both. There was no other choice.
It had come down to this.
“Then I will meet you in the bailey,” he said, feeling more fear than he cared to admit. “I must gather my weapon.”
“Then go,” Garret said, his mood depressed as the reality of the situation settled. “But there is one thing.”
“What?”
“Gavin his here. He wants to know what has become of his sister.”
Rickard’s gaze traveled to the knights in the darkness, catching sight of Gavin standing with the group. “She was part of Colchester’s carnage but I believe she will survive,” he said. “You will tell him that.”
“I will.”
“And, Garret?”
“What is it?”
“Be… kind. I should like to see my child when he is born.”
Garret almost lost his composure then but he fought it, holding as steady as he could. “Where is your wife?”
“In our chamber. I told her to remain there.”
“That is good. She should not see this.”
Rickard couldn’t bring himself to respond. He turned for the manse, ignoring Jago as the man pounced on him and tried to tell him how to coldly murder his brother. He shut down to any and all advice from a man who wanted to see his brother dead. In fact, perhaps this battle between them was for the better, because of it was Jago fighting against Garret, then Garret would be facing an opponent who truly wanted to kill him.
Rickard did not. All he wanted to do was survive.
He wanted his brother to survive, too.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
At the garden gate that opened into the bailey, Grace stood with her ladies, wondering why there was an army in the yard of The Wix that wasn’t the Colchester army. In fact, there were men she’d never seen before, all of them backed up against the walls, waiting, anticipating. Confused, Grace peered around the gate to see a very large knight in conversation with Sir Rickard as well as her husband.
But it wasn’t just any conversation.
Having just come down from the upper floors with her women, including Lady Juliana on a makeshift stretcher carried between two servants, they had come down into confusion and commotion in the bailey. Her women didn’t know who the army was and the servants couldn’t seem to tell her anything, either, so she sent one of her women to hunt down a Colchester soldier to find out what was going on. It didn’t take long for Lady Cecily to return.
“What is happening?” Grace demanded as Cecily came scurrying back to her.
Cecily was winded from having run, but also from her general excitement of the situation. “It seems that Sir Garret de Moray has come to challenge the duke, my lady,” she said, apprehension in her voice. “He is trying to fight him!”
Grace realized that was the identity of the big knight – de Moray! Remaining tucked back behind the gate for the most part, using the walls as a shield, Grace could hear her husband’s agitated voice but not his words. Having been told of the attraction between Sir Rickard’s brother and Lady Lyssa by Rose, she was somewhat informed of the situation but she had to admit she was quite surprised to see de Moray. No man challenged her husband and lived to tell the tale.
But de Moray was doing just that.
There was something inherently pleasing in that realization.
“So the lover has come to challenge my husband?” she muttered with some astonishment. “Rose? Did you hear?”
Rose was standing several feet behind her, holding Juliana’s hand. She hadn’t heard Cecily’s report. But when she heard
her name spoken, she gently released Juliana’s hand and made her way to Grace’s side.
“You called, my lady?” she said, but as soon as the words left her lips, she caught sight of Garret in the bailey. “God’s Bones! What is Garret doing here?”
Grace couldn’t seem to take her eyes of the big knight. “Cecily says that the soldiers say he has come to fight my husband,” she said. “Could it really be true?”
Rose was immediately distressed. “But he cannot,” she gasped. “The duke is beyond reproach!”
Grace knew that. Jago had known it, too, which was why he was able to commit so many heinous acts. He knew there would be no one to punish him. But as she looked at Garret, calm in the face of her husband’s ranting, her heart swelled with gratitude. Finally, a man strong enough to stand up to her husband in a world where the ranks of the nobility were sheltered from such things.
“He must have come because of your niece,” she said. “He must be here to take his revenge for my husband having touched her.”
Rose was horrified at the mere suggestion. In fact, it brought her right down to the worse-case scenario. “Or revenge for her death,” she whispered, struggling to swallow away that fear. “Please, God… do not let her be dead.”
Grace knew that Rose was worried for her niece and she reached out to take the woman’s hand comfortingly. “We cannot worry about that now, I fear,” she said. “We must make haste to the stables and leave this place.”
Rose looked at all of the men in the bailey. “But the army is blocking the gate. We cannot get to it.”
“They will move out of the way.”
“But the duke will see us!”
Grace’s dark eyes glimmered as she watched the activity in the distance between her husband and Garret de Moray. Whatever was happening seemed to be quite intense and her delight in the situation grew. The outcome she supported in this situation had nothing to do with her husband triumphing. It had everything to do with him failing. If she could help in any way, she would.
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