Jocelyn’s screams echoed savagely about them. She came running toward her husband, Mary close behind her. Ivo was still kneeling, staring blankly down at his brother’s body. Briar touched his shoulder, gently, and he looked up at her.
“He was going to kill you,” he said fiercely.
“I know, Ivo.”
“He was evil.”
“He was.”
“But he was still my brother.”
She wanted to hold him, to comfort him, but what could she say that he did not already know? Miles had hated him, aye, but Ivo had still hoped that one day matters might be as he longed for them to be. But now Miles was gone. The dream was over.
Mayhap, in a way, Miles had beaten Ivo. But it was not a victory Briar begrudged him.
“Odo!” It was a wail of sheer anguish. Briar froze, goose bumps rising on her skin. Odo was lying still and pale upon the ground, his wife bent over him. Mary, standing nearby, wept silently.
“Briar,” she whispered, “oh, Briar...”
Briar went to her sisters.
“I am very sorry.”
Briar spoke softly to Jocelyn, but she was gazing down at Odo. They had carried the big man into the dwelling and laid him upon the bed. Though his face was pale and drawn, he appeared peaceful and, strangely, he looked more how he had used to look, before his illness.
Ivo had led Mary outside to Sweyn, and the rest of Radulf’s men. This morning when Ivo had returned to Lord Radulf’s house, and discovered Briar missing, he had been like a madman. When he had finally found where she had gone, from the groom in the stables, he had ridden off alone to find her. It had taken some little time for Sweyn and the others to track him down.
Jocelyn sighed. “If only I had not gone to get food. I only meant to be a moment, but then there was no mead, and Odo likes his mead, so we went farther afield. I never planned to leave him alone so long. I never dreamed he would be in danger.”
“He saved me,” Briar said, and nodded as her sister turned to her in wonder. “He tried to stop Miles twice, and he spoke. Jocelyn, it was the strangest thing...”
Jocelyn wiped the tears from her cheeks. “He was a hero, then, in the end.”
“Aye, he was.”
Jocelyn took a breath and straightened her shoulders, as if she had set herself a very difficult task. “I have something to tell you, Briar. Please, do not judge me. I should have told you long ago, but I did not know until it was too late, and then I could not bear to speak of it. I hoped you would forget, that you would put it behind you. But you were always so stubborn.”
Briar took her sister’s agitated hands, leaning closer. “What are you talking about? Forget what?”
“About Anna.”
Jocelyn was staring at her so intently, trying to tell her something, but Briar did not know what it was. It had been a long and exhausting day, and her mind was less than sharp.
“What about Anna?”
“ ‘Twas Odo who killed her.”
The words ran through her head like a runaway horse, making no sense at first, only a lot of noise. “Nay,” she whispered, half inclined to laugh.
But Jocelyn looked white-faced and furious, her blue eyes blazing. “Aye! She always took the men she wanted, Briar. You discovered that, did you not? And when she decided she wanted my Odo, then she took him too. She had him in such a state, he was besotted with her, crazed for her, the way he used to look at her...” She gulped. “He really thought she would be his forever. Only she preferred Radulf—I think Radulf was the only man she ever truly loved. The others were puppets to play, strings to pull. When Radulf came to York, she told Odo she did not want him anymore. That it was over. He begged and wept. He told me so. He had so little dignity left, Briar. And she laughed in his face.”
Briar sat down, her legs too weak to hold her. Odo and Anna? Jocelyn’s Odo, whom she had loved with all her heart and who had loved her? How terrible, that Anna had destroyed them, too, with her greedy grasp.
And Jocelyn had suffered all this time, alone.
“I did not know, at first,” Jocelyn said, her blue eyes blurring with tears and time. “I didn’t know what he had done. When the messenger came to say she had died I was glad, glad! I thought ‘twas Radulf’s doing, but I didn’t care. We were finally free of her, and that was all that mattered to me. And then I turned to Odo and he had such a look on his face. Guilt and pain, Briar, and remorse. He gave a great cry and fell to the ground.
“For a long time I thought he would die, too. It was my punishment, I told myself, for celebrating Anna’s murder, and I prayed for forgiveness and nursed my husband like a good wife. I realized then that I couldn’t let it happen. I couldn’t allow Anna to have my Odo in death as well as life.”
