“Don’t say that.” Her voice was forceful, even as her heart was breaking.
Shouts reverberated up the staircase. A man’s voice, loud and commanding, calling for Lord Tristan. Then Tristan’s reply and a waterfall of booted feet tramping down the stairs.
Isabella gathered her composure. “We should go. It sounds like the entire household is descending, but you may go ahead of me if you wish.”
She smiled to take the sting from her words, which she had meant kindly.
“Nay, ye have yer brother ahead of ye. I will stay at the back.”
He pulled on his cloak, his own cloak, which had been repaired and freshly laundered. Isabella took a final moment to appreciate the beauty of him, from his russet curls to his broad shoulders and confident stance. She had hoped for poignancy this morn, but ’twas hard to think of anything other than the clanging of the bell.
She rose up on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his cheek.
Beyond her chamber door, she spied the last of a group of uniformed guards hurrying around a bend in the staircase. Thekeep rang with noise, despite the earliness of the hour. But although the air was fraught with a nervous excitement, she sensed no immediate threat. She straightened her robe, briefly considered returning to her own chamber for something more suitable, then pressed on into the throng.
At the bottom of the stairs, she found a chattering huddle of men-at-arms and servants, none of whom paid her much attention. The big double doors stood open to the outside, even though the November morn blew cold and damp. Isabella was compelled to pass through the marbled entrance hall and out onto the terrace.
Here was the sense of threat.
She paused, one hand going to the neck of her robe. Now she wished Hamish had stayed by her side, so that she could hold his hand and take comfort from his touch.
The Wolvesley fountain shot foaming jets of water high into the bleak sky, just as it always had. But to the left of the fountain lay a crumpled figure in a scarlet cloak.
Even from this distance, it was unmistakably Lord Gaunt.
And he was unmistakably dead.
Blood pooled around him, the same color as his cloak. He gazed upwards, never to rake his eyes lasciviously over Isabella again.
She took a trembling breath.
Fully dressed and with his sword at his hip, Tristan strode over to the body. He crouched beside it and then nodded to the group of waiting men.
“Dead.”
His proclamation, unsurprising as it was, unleashed a torrent of emotion. Isabella came to understand that the soldiers amassed around Tristan did not all serve Wolvesley. Many wore the blood-red colors of Lord Gaunt. And they were angry. She heard the scrape of swords being unsheathed, and before muchtime had passed, a line of Tristan’s men faced an equal line of men sworn to Gaunt.
With her brother at the center.
Isabella opened her mouth but no sound came out. From the corner of her eye she saw her father, stately and tall, descending the steps to join his son. She wanted to shout, to tell him to take care, but at that moment she was more an observer of the scene than a participant, and she could neither move nor speak. Then Mirrie was at her side, with her arm about her shoulders, and Isabella could breathe again.
“Oh, Isabella,” her sister-in-law murmured.
Isabella clutched at the blue sleeve of Mirrie’s robe. “I am worried for Tristan.”
Mirrie said nothing, just held her tighter. Hamish was on the steps, above her father. Isabella wished he had his sword and could swell Tristan’s ranks.
Tristan was talking now, his voice too low for them to properly hear what he said. He took a step closer to the man who appeared to be the leader of Gaunt’s troops and stood unflinching even as that man pointed his sword directly at his chest.
“He did not put on his mail shirt,” Mirrie said in a strangled voice.
Tristan raised up his own sword, then slowly and deliberately sheathed it.
As one, the men behind him did the same.
Gaunt’s men still wielded their sharp swords, but the Wolvesley army were momentarily defenseless.
“What is he about?” Isabella half wanted to close her eyes. The chill wind tugged at her robe but anxiety made her almost feverishly warm.
