“What?” Sean strained against the grip of the men leading him forward. “I’ve done no such thing.”
Another soldier paused in front of him. With a deep scowl he looked Sean up and down then punched him in the face. The men on either side held him fast. They laughed and then the soldier punched him again. Sean yanked against the viselike grip the two men had of him. The man punched him again. And again.
Sean awoke on the ground, his bloodied face in the sand. The feet of several soldiers surrounding him. For a moment he feigned he was still asleep. A kick to his side was followed by a bucket of sea water poured over his head.
“Get up!” It was the man in leather now standing in front of him. His hands fisted at his hips, his feet in a wide stance. The Norman lord.
Sean’s face stung where the salt water mixed in with his blood. His arms tied behind him now, the two soldiers yanked him to standing. He searched for Ivan among the crowd that had formed around them but could not find him.
The scowl on the lord’s face spoke of the rage within. He was lord here. There was no reason to hold back. His word was law. A Norman lord who could condemn Sean to death right here on the word of that scoundrel, Ivan. Sean had no defense. No way of disproving whatever lie Ivan had made up about him.
“My lord—”
“Silence!” The powerful lord shook with his fury. “You dare not speak in your defense. We have an eye witness against you. Hesawyou slaughter my soldiers—my son.” The man’s voice broke.
Sean’s heart pounded as if trying to break free of his chest. His breathing heaved as if he’d run miles. A hooded man with a massive chest came to stand beside Sean. Two gloved hands gripped a massive two-handed sword. The beheading sword.
Sweat poured from Sean, mixing with the sand and dirt as it dripped down his face. Memories swam through his mind. The dark green of his homeland. The smell of honeysuckle in the spring. The taste of roasted duck. He’d wasted his time.
The soldiers behind shoved him down, forcing him to his knees.
He wished he’d not spent so much of his life pining over Brighit.
“My son was killed by your butchery—then branded like an animal.” The lord’s mouth twisted with the angry words.
He should have listened to Brighit. They were not meant to be together. He could have been married to another, perhaps with children by now.
“I found him bleeding to death—” The lord struck Sean across the side of the face with a leather strap.
Blood pooled in his mouth and Sean spit it out. What he felt for Thomasina was so different than what he’d felt for Brighit.
“—My son was a valiant soldier. He’d fought with honor—”
Sean again saw the Norman soldier with the scarred face. He’d had the scars of battle. The hooded man readied his feet, twitching his fingers as he gripped and re-gripped the hilt of his sword.
“—He didn’t deserve to be hacked down by the likes of you.”
Sean closed his eyes in silent prayer to a God he wasn’t certain would listen. He swallowed, stiffened his shoulders, and then said, “Nae. Yer son, William, did not deserve to die like that.”
His breath lay trapped in his chest as he waited for the lord to respond. Thomasina’s face came to him, filling the void in the silence. The way she’d looked right before he kissed her, when he’d taken her into his arms, when he was about to make love to her.
“What do you know of my William?” the man’s voice boomed.
Sean opened one eye, the other stuck shut, struggling to see the man through the blood and sweat dripping down his face. “I ken he was a soldier. I ken he’d always fought hard. I ken he was a man I’d raise no hand against if not in battle.”
The lord’s face suffused with color. His eyes nearly bugged out of his head as he struggled. Struggled with the pain, the loss, and the revelation that Sean may not be his killer.
“My lord, I didna kill yer son. I swear it.” Sean’s voice quiet, his heart throbbed in his throat.
The lord ducked down close, his face mere inches from Sean’s. “Why. Should. I. Believe. You?”
“I am a warrior. I wouldneverhack down a soldier.”
“The little man said he saw you.”
“The little man is a liar. I’d venture a guess that he is the one who provoked the massacre.”
“How do you know that?”
