He didn’t look at her. His focus was entirely on Aeron as the man stood several feet away and gaped at him.
“You,” Kevin boomed at Aeron. “What in the hell are you doing here?”
Aeron could hear death in Kevin’s voice– his own. The man looked as if he’d just single-handedly attended a battle with a thousand bloodthirsty warriors and was the only one who had emerged alive. The smell of death radiated off of him like smoke from a fire. Now that there wasn’t a closed portcullis between them, Aeron wasn’t so brave.
He began to move away from Kevin.
“Where I go and what I do does not concern you,” he said. “What areyoudoing here?”
Still, Kevin didn’t look at Juliandra. He was watching Aeron, tracking every move the man made.
“That is none of your affair,” he said. “Get out of this place or you will regret it.”
Aeron stiffened. “I will not,” he said. “You have no power here,Saesneg.”
“Move any closer to my wife and I will snap your neck.”
He’d noticed that Aeron was moving in Juliandra’s direction. As Aeron froze with uncertainty, Megsy suddenly appeared in the doorway that led to the kitchens.
“He tried to kill her!” the little maid wept. “He put his hands on her throat and tried to kill her! Help us, m’lord!”
Kevin took his focus from Aeron long enough to look at the maid. Juliandra was a few feet from her and she scurried over to the old woman, putting her arms around her. As Megsy sobbed and clutched her mistress, Kevin could see just how frightened the woman was. He finally dared to look at Juliandra, who was trying hard not to weep. He could see red welts around her neck and chest.
“Is this true?” he asked Juliandra calmly. “Did he try to kill you?”
She looked at him and when their eyes met, Kevin felt as if he’d been hit in the gut. She was pale, her eyes red-rimmed, and it was difficult for him not to slip back into the oblivion of guilt and self-pity.
Not now.
He needed his focus.
“Well?” he said when she didn’t answer fast enough. “Tell me. Did he try to kill you?”
Juliandra’s gaze moved from Kevin to Aeron and back again. “Aye,” she said, looking away. “But I struck him first.”
Kevin didn’t care if she struck him first. All he needed to know was that Aeron had touched his wife.
The man had sealed his own death warrant.
In an instant, Kevin was charging across the hall at Aeron, who screamed like a woman when he saw the man move against him. He began to run as Juliandra and Megsy fled the chamber, terrified that Aeron might try to use Juliandra as a hostage again. But Kevin managed to grab Aeron before he could get through the door after the women and he yanked the man backwards, planting a ham-sized fist in Aeron’s face.
Aeron went flying.
The battle was bloody and brutal from the outset. Since Aeron was unarmed, Kevin wouldn’t draw his sword against the man, so it was hand-to-hand fighting that tore up the hall even worse than it already was. While Kevin used his fists, Aeron used chairs and anything else he could get his hands on, smashing them onto Kevin to try and stop his charge.
But Kevin was like a runaway bull.
Juliandra had been threatened and that was the only thing on his mind, fueling his rage against a man who had made her life miserable for so many years. He’d already decided that he was going to beat him to death, and once he cornered him and Aeron threw a stool at his head, he grabbed Aeron by the arm and pummeled his face. Teeth and blood sprayed onto the floor and, at one point, Kevin hit Aeron so hard that the man went skidding onto the floor and ended up half-under the feasting table.
That was where the tides of the fight turned.
Underneath the feasting table was half of the broken pike with the pointed end. Aeron was dazed, but he saw the pike tip just about the time Kevin was bearing down on him, preparing to deliver the death blow. In a panic, Aeron grabbed the remains of the pole, which were about three feet in length, and when Kevinyanked on his legs and pulled him out from beneath the table, Aeron lifted the pike and rammed it straight into Kevin’s left thigh.
The pike plunged deep and Kevin faltered. It gave Aeron enough time to stagger to his feet and use the earthenware pitcher on the table as a club, slamming it against the side of Kevin’s head. He was wearing his helm, which prevented him from being knocked out, but it sent him staggering over to the edge of the hall where the main entry was. Trying to clear his vision, Kevin could see Sean, Alexander, and William standing there. Having heard the sounds of a fight out in the bailey, they’d come inside to investigate.
And they were armed.
“Nay!” Kevin roared. “This is my fight!”
